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Queens Park Rangers were confronted by angry supporters at the end of another dismal display that saw them lose a record 10th Premier League game in a row. As Richard Dunne trudged off, he was met by a handful of visiting fans who had darted across an empty terrace. Clint Hill joined the remonstrations before Joey Barton and Glenn Hoddle became involved, attempting to defuse the situation. The reason for the anger was plain to see after QPR broke a record set by Bolton 19 years ago. For Bolton, their nine-game run of defeats ended ultimately in relegation. It is difficult to see how Harry Redknapp’s team will not meet the same fate. This victory for Burnley could prove hugely significant when the last ball is kicked in May. QPR’s problems stemmed from a back line that played as though they had just been introduced in the car park prior to kick-off. For Burnley’s first goal, scored by Scott Arfield and “not Lionel Messi” as Redknapp put it, three players had the chance to stop him but were not able to do so. For their second, described as “horrendous” and “shocking” by Redknapp; neither Steven Caulker nor Dunne were alert enough to halt Danny Ings’s run. Arfield had not scored since the opening weekend defeat to Chelsea but here, his running was too forceful; first for Barton, whose effort to stop him was slight, then Mauricio Isla and finally Dunne who was nutmegged before the Scot calmly placed his finish to Robert Green’s right corner. “If it’s Alexis Sanchez, the goal gets shown a thousand times,” Sean Dyche, the Burnley manager, said. “We might get 50. But we’re happy to go under the radar.” QPR were better in attack, though the recall of Adel Taarabt — who had a public falling-out with Redknapp this season after his manager accused him of being overweight — highlighted their lack of options. Charlie Austin saw an effort from Isla’s cut back crack off a post before the visitors equalised when Eduardo Vargas’s pass found its way to Austin and the striker tumbled under a careless challenge. Austin rammed the penalty kick beyond Tom Heaton and the subsequent celebration against his former club reflected just how important this goal may have been. Yet Ings scored what proved to be the match winner shortly after when he speculated on Ashley Barnes’s bouncing pass. With Caulker hesitating and Dunne not quick enough to react to partner’s mistake, Ings capitalised by twisting past the pair and converting with his left foot. The margin of defeat could have been greater for QPR with Barnes having a goal disallowed when perhaps, it should not have been; before Michael Keane misjudged two headed opportunities late in the second half.
Studiologic has announced a new version of its Sledge synthesizer, the Sledge Black Edition. The Sledge Black Edition is based on the Sledge 2.0 synth, but trades that synth’s iconic yellow for a more muted black color scheme. The Black Edition also features a semi-weighted keyboard with aftertouch, with black and grey keys. Studiologic says the Sledge Black Edition is now in production and will be ready to ship this week. See the Studiologic site for more info. Specifications Keyboard 61 keys semi weighted + Aftertouch Controls 35 pots 3 “chicken head” rotary switches (position) 1 rotary encoder with push function Master volume control Display 2×16 digits backlit LCD Wheels High quality Pitch & Mod Wheels Sounds Up to 999 sounds Fast selection via numeric keypad MODULATION LFO1, LFO 2 Fast LFOs per voice Adjustable speed and depth Wheel (extra modulation routing for Mod wheel) LFO shape: saw-tooth, rectangular, triangle, sine, sample & hold, ramp Destination: OSC 1, OSC 2, OSC 3, PWM / Wave / FM, Volume, Filter Cutoff Adjustable speed and depth FILTER & AMPLIFIER Multi mode filter per voice Slope: 24/12 db Type: lowpass, highpass, bandpass Resonance up to self-oscillation and beyond Adjustable key track and drive Filter envelope ADSR with amount control Amplifier envelope ADSR with velocity control SOUND GENERATOR 24 Voices polyphony Monophonic mode with single or multiple trigger 3 Oscillators per voice OSC1, OS2, OSC3 Range from 64’ to 1’ with semitone and detune controls Shapes: saw-tooth, square, triangle, sine, pulse (with pulse width modulation) OSC 1 with 66 original PPG Wavetable + Sample Player (60 Mb internal memory) Frequency modulation Modulation of sine and triangle Oscillator hard sync (OSC 2 to OSC 3) Noise generator White and pink noise Mixer Volume and ON/OFF switch for each oscillator Auto dual mode Split or layer mode Programmable split point for each program ARPEGGIATOR Powerful arpeggiator Latch mode Syncable to MIDI clock Direction up, down, alternate Range up to 10 octaves EFFECTS (2 SIMULTANEOUS EFFECTS) Effect 1 Chorus / Phaser / Flanger Effect 2 Reverb / Delay / Reverb + Delay CONNECTIONS Outputs Stereo line Headphones Inputs Expression pedal (stereo jack) Hold pedal (mono jack) MIDI In/Out USB MIDI In/Out Firmware upgrade Samples loading (required Spectre)
LONDON (Reuters) - BP Plc will compensate all those affected by an oil spill from one of its wells in the Gulf of Mexico, its Chief Executive said, accepting the disaster could hit plans to open new areas off the U.S. coast to drilling. Birds fly over oil on the water near Breton Sound Island, on the southern most tip of the Chandeleur Islands in the Gulf of Mexico, south of Louisiana, April 29, 2010. REUTERS/Sean Gardner/Greenpeace/Handout “We are taking full responsibility for the spill and we will clean it up and where people can present legitimate claims for damages we will honour them. We are going to be very, very aggressive in all of that,” Tony Hayward told Reuters in an interview on Friday. The massive spill, which started when an oil rig caught fire and sank last week, washed up to wildlife refuges and seafood grounds on the Louisiana coast on Friday. The cost to the fishing industry in Louisiana could be $2.5 billion while the impact on tourism along Florida’s Paradise coast could be $3 billion, Neil McMahon, analyst at investment firm Bernstein, said in a research note on Friday. The spill could also hit President Barack Obama’s plans to open some offshore areas of the U.S. where oil exploration is currently barred, to drilling, Hayward said. “There may be an industry issue around what may or may not be opened,” he said. However the CEO hopes an effective response to the spill, including a flotilla of around 80 vessels and several aircraft, would reassure people about the risks from drilling. “It would be bizarre to say it shouldn’t influence the debate. How the debate will come out, I think ultimately will be judged by the success we have in dealing with this incident”. Regulations on drilling safety will also come under scrutiny, Hayward predicted. “Rightly, there will be a reaction. Whenever you have something of this significance, it’s right that regulators should look very hard at what they can do to further ensure that something like this never happens again,” he said. He said possible changes could relate to testing of equipment like the blow-out preventer on the ocean floor which failed to operate correctly and shut off the flow of oil, although he added it would be impossible to say how testing could be improved until the cause of the accident was known. Failures of blow-out preventers are extremely rare and the equipment is regularly tested. The scale of the disaster could also lead to changes in the rules on who is allowed to operate licences in the deeper waters of the Gulf of Mexico, analysts said. The government could limit operating licences to larger companies, like BP, which have the deep pockets and operational capability to mount large cleanup operations.
SEATTLE (Reuters) - The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is investigating whether tiny fiber-like formations, known as dendrites, inside lithium-ion batteries could have played a role in battery failures on two Boeing Co (BA.N) 787 Dreamliners last month. The burnt auxiliary power unit battery, removed from an All Nippon Airways' (ANA) Boeing Co 787 Dreamliner plane which made an emergency landing on January 16, 2013 in Takamatsu, is inspected by the manufacturer at the headquarters of GS Yuasa Corp in Kyoto, western Japan, in this handout photo taken on January 26, 2013 and released by the Japan Transport Safety Board (JTSB) February 5, 2013. REUTERS/Japan Transport Safety Board/Handout Dendrites - just one of several possible causes under investigation by the agency - accumulate as a battery is charged and discharged, and can cause short circuits, according to battery experts. “As part of our continuing investigation, we are looking at whether dendrites may or may not have been a factor,” Kelly Nantel, director of public affairs for the NTSB, told Reuters in an email. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the NTSB was looking into dendrites, suggesting that investigators were looking at the tiny deposits as a major element in the probe. Nantel said the NTSB has not ruled out any potential causes and that dendrites are “one of many things we are looking at” in determining what caused a battery aboard a parked Japan Airlines (9201.T) 787 to catch fire in Boston on January 7. “We are still considering several potential causes for the short circuiting” in the sixth of eight cells in the battery on the JAL plane, Nantel said. NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman said last week that a short circuit in the lithium-ion battery had caused the fire. JAPAN PROBE The Japan Transport Safety Board (JTSB) is investigating a second 787 battery incident that prompted an All Nippon Airways (9202.T) plane to make an emergency landing in western Japan on January 16. That battery showed signs of overheating. Air safety regulators worldwide later grounded all 787s until the cause and a solution are found. Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The planemaker completed what it called an uneventful test flight of a 787 on Saturday, its first since the lightweight, carbon-composite aircraft was grounded. Nantel said other factors under investigation include the state of charge of each cell and the method and delivery of that charge, contamination, electrode folds, wrinkles and pinches, “and the assembly of the cells and battery.” The NTSB is also looking at “the total design of the battery, including the physical separation of the cells, their electrical interconnections, and their thermal isolation from each other,” she added. Shares in GS Yuasa Corp (6674.T), a Japanese firm that makes batteries for the 787, slipped 0.3 percent to 329 yen in Tokyo on Tuesday, underperforming a 2.4 percent gain on the benchmark Nikkei .N225.
At a time when protests have erup­ted across the coun­try over a grow­ing in­equal­ity of wealth and Con­gress is con­sid­er­ing meas­ures to im­pose a sur­tax on those earn­ing more than $1 mil­lion an­nu­ally, the pub­lic seems to be in a pop­u­list mood — one that’s tempered by skep­ti­cism about Wash­ing­ton’s abil­ity to do any­thing about the grim eco­nomy. A new sur­vey shows that Amer­ic­ans over­whelm­ingly sup­port the self-styled Oc­cupy Wall Street protests that not only have dis­rup­ted life in Lower Man­hat­tan but also in Wash­ing­ton and cit­ies and towns across the U.S. and in oth­er na­tions. Some 59 per­cent of adults either com­pletely agree or mostly agree with the pro­test­ers, while 31 per­cent mostly dis­agree or com­pletely dis­agree; 10 per­cent of those sur­veyed didn’t know or re­fused to an­swer. What’s more, many people are pay­ing at­ten­tion to the ral­lies. Al­most two-thirds of re­spond­ents — 65 per­cent — said they’ve heard “a lot” or “some” about the ral­lies, while 35 per­cent have said they’ve heard or seen “not too much” or “noth­ing at all” about the demon­stra­tions. The res­ults ap­pear in the latest edi­tion of the United Tech­no­lo­gies/Na­tion­al Journ­al Con­gres­sion­al Con­nec­tion Poll. When it comes to the ques­tion of how to pay for the Demo­crat­ic jobs bill, most re­spond­ents were more than will­ing to place a spe­cial bur­den on the wealthy. Those sur­veyed were asked about a pos­sible 5 per­cent sur­tax on those earn­ing more than $1 mil­lion an­nu­ally. The idea got con­sid­er­able dis­cus­sion earli­er this fall when Con­gress con­sidered Pres­id­ent Obama’s jobs pack­age. Sen­ate Re­pub­lic­ans united against the bill and were joined by some Demo­crats, mak­ing it im­possible for the meas­ure to pass in a cham­ber where 60-vote ma­jor­it­ies have be­come the norm be­cause of fili­bus­ter­ing. Still, a whop­ping 68 per­cent of adults sup­port the Demo­crat­ic sur­tax to pay for the cost of their jobs plan. Only 27 per­cent op­posed the tax, while 5 per­cent didn’t know. Men and wo­men split al­most identic­ally on the is­sue, and black non-His­pan­ics were more sup­port­ive of the sur­tax than white non-His­pan­ics, with 84 per­cent sup­port­ing the idea. Con­gres­sion­al Demo­crats and Obama can also take com­fort from Amer­ic­ans’ re­ac­tion to Sen­ate Re­pub­lic­ans block­ing the nom­in­a­tion of Richard Cordray, the former Ohio at­tor­ney gen­er­al, to head the Con­sumer Fin­an­cial Pro­tec­tion Bur­eau, an agency cre­ated in the wake of the fin­an­cial crisis to look out for the in­terest of cit­izens. More than 40 Re­pub­lic­ans — enough for a fili­buster — have signed a let­ter vow­ing to block his ap­point­ment un­less changes are made to the bur­eau that the GOP feels, in its cur­rent con­struct, is in­hib­it­ing fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions and lend­ing that could spur the eco­nomy. A ma­jor­ity of those sur­veyed said that the Sen­ate should con­firm Cordray, and 39 per­cent said that it should not con­firm him, while 15 per­cent either didn’t know or re­fused to say. Per­haps not sur­pris­ingly, 70 per­cent of Re­pub­lic­an re­spond­ents said that Cordray should not be con­firmed, while 75 per­cent of Demo­crats said that he should be. In­de­pend­ents broke 43 per­cent to 40 per­cent in fa­vor of con­firm­a­tion. The United Tech­no­lo­gies/Na­tion­al Journ­al Con­gres­sion­al Con­nec­tion Poll is con­duc­ted by Prin­ceton Sur­vey Re­search As­so­ci­ates In­ter­na­tion­al, which sur­veyed 1,007 adults by land­line and cell phone on Oct. 13-16. It has a mar­gin of er­ror of plus or minus 3.7 per­cent­age points. Look­ing at Wash­ing­ton and the abil­ity of law­makers to do any­thing about an eco­nomy be­set by high un­em­ploy­ment, more than half of adults said the main reas­on that un­em­ploy­ment has re­mained high is that “there have been good ideas, but fight­ing between Demo­crats and Re­pub­lic­ans has blocked needed gov­ern­ment ac­tion.” Only 16 per­cent said that the main reas­on was that “neither Demo­crats nor Re­pub­lic­ans have come up with any good ideas to re­duce un­em­ploy­ment so far.” A slightly high­er per­cent­age of re­spond­ents — 21 per­cent — saw the prob­lem as be­ing more about gov­ern­ment ef­fic­acy. They said the main reas­on for such high un­em­ploy­ment is that “there is not much Wash­ing­ton lead­ers can do to re­duce un­em­ploy­ment through policy or le­gis­la­tion.” Throughout the fall, the United Tech­no­lo­gies/Na­tion­al Journ­al Con­gres­sion­al Con­nec­tion Poll has re­vealed an elect­or­ate that’s ex­tremely crit­ic­al of Con­gress and wary of em­bra­cing any par­tic­u­lar policy pre­scrip­tion for get­ting the Amer­ic­an eco­nomy grow­ing more briskly. The mil­lion­aire’s sur­tax has cut through the clut­ter. Al­though it may not be sur­pris­ing that 90 per­cent of Demo­crats sup­port this Demo­crat­ic pro­pos­al, it’s not­able that 71 per­cent of in­de­pend­ents do and even 37 per­cent of Re­pub­lic­ans like this kind of a tax in­crease.
HOUSTON, Texas — Texans are facing what may become the worst flooding event in the state’s history as Tropical Storm Harvey continues to dump record levels of rainfall on the central and upper Gulf Coast region. Houston emergency management officials have run out of boats and other rescue equipment used to respond to people trapped in their flooded homes. Houston 911 officials are adding additional staff to handle the overwhelming number of calls being received. UPDATES BELOW: All times are Central Daylight Time UPDATE 8:00 a.m.: U.S. Coast Guard video shows rescue of Houston-area man from rooftop in flooded subdivision. UPDATE 7:45 a.m.: An insurance group says that the damage from Harvey could match Hurricane Katrina. From Reuters: WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (Reuters) – Flood damage in Texas from Hurricane Harvey may equal that from 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, said an insurance research group on Sunday. As heavy rain pounded Houston and Texas’s coastal counties, the Insurance Information Institute said it was still too soon to make precise estimates of the damage to homes and businesses. “It could be a flood loss like Katrina because of the amount of water that’s coming in … not as much wind as it will be water,” said institute spokeswoman Loretta Worters. Hurricane Katrina resulted in more than $15 billion in flood insurance losses in Louisiana and Mississippi that were paid by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), a federal program that is the only source of flood insurance for most Americans. Read the rest of the story here. Final update for Sunday night: “Texas Men Rush into Flood Waters to Save Baby” THIS IS REAL AMERICA Texas Men Rush Into Flood Waters to Save Baby from Overturned Truck https://t.co/9Z54GuEQR1 via @people #HoustonStrong — Leah USA MADE (@LeahR77) August 28, 2017 UPDATE 7:15 p.m.: Tornado warnings continue across the Houston area. Tornado Warning including Sugar Land TX, Mission Bend TX, Pecan Grove TX until 7:45 PM CDT pic.twitter.com/DPVE6f113a — NWS Houston (@NWSHouston) August 28, 2017 Williamson County Sheriff Robert Chody sent manpower and resources to help Houston emergency response crews. He said his deputies are determined to “make an impact 4Texans!” Keeping u in the loop, our boat crew about 30 minutes from launching and helping in rescue efforts in Houston. Old pic pic.twitter.com/bTf27J4wbb — Sheriff Robert Chody (@SheriffChody) August 28, 2017 More Good News Updates: Houston media honor work of first responders: Cajun Navy Heads to Texas: “#Houston Hang on. The CAJUN NAVY is already activated and on the way.”https://t.co/J62KpUODPg pic.twitter.com/q4n7HuO9Pq — KPLC (@KPLC7News) August 27, 2017 Dogs Rescued: A rescue worker carries two dogs to safety after evacuating their family from floodwaters in Houston, Texas. pic.twitter.com/dhoi5P7Ukq — Fox News (@FoxNews) August 27, 2017 Update 7:05 p.m.: Texas A&M Forest Serves officials tweeted map of Harvey response resources. UPDATE 7 p.m.: National Weather Service reported at 7 p.m. that Tropical Storm Harvey is continuing to move back to the Texas Gulf Coast. At this time, “Harvey” is moving southeast on a heading of 130 degrees at 3 miles per hour. The poorly defined center is now located about 10 miles northeast of Victoria. Maximum sustained winds remain at 40 mph. The barometric pressure has increased to 29.53 inches. The storm is expected to meander back to the coast over the next two days. Forecasters predict the storm will re-enter the Gulf of Mexico on Monday or Monday night. “Harvey” could possibly re-organize and strengthen once it moves back into the hot waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricane to tropical force-winds have been pounding parts of Texas since Friday afternoon. UPDATE 6:35 p.m.: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers just announced they are releasing water from two of Houston’s major water retention areas. Water has been building in the resevoirs at a rate of about 4 inches per hour. It appears officials are attempting to take advantage of the current lull in the rain to gradually release water. The Houston Chronicle reported: Col. Lars N. Zetterstrom with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced late Sunday afternoon that rising levels in the Addicks and Barker reservoirs will force authorities to release water from both dams. Based on the corps data, the rising waters will place residents and their home in dangerous situations. UPDATE 6:25 p.m.: Houston emergency management officials said “We’re not out of the woods yet,” as rainfall rates decrease across the 1,800 square footprint of Houston and Harris County. The Harris County Flood Warning System shows rain has nearly stopped, at least for the last hour, all across the county. The highest rainfall is currently being recorded in far west Harris County where less than one inch fell in the last hour. President Donald Trump to visit Houston on Tuesday: President Donald Trump announced he will travel to Texas to observe the damage and help coordinate rescue and recovery efforts as Houston continues to pelt the Texas coastal bend with rain. “We are coordinating logistics with state and local officials, and once details are finalized, we will let you know,” White House officials stated. “We continue to keep all of those affected in our thoughts and prayers.” U.S. Coast Guard helicopters begin to survey the devastating floods in Houston: #USCG Video: Coast Guard assess the aftermath of damage caused by #HurricaneHarvey during their search and rescue operations. pic.twitter.com/23eSED1ka5 — USCG Heartland (@USCGHeartland) August 27, 2017 UPDATE 6:00 p.m.: Law enforcement agencies around the state of Texas did what they could to send help to Houston. Williamson County Sheriff Robert Chody sent help from central Texas. And their off to Houston! Prayers for safety to our folks. Mark my words, WilCo will make a difference in Houston. pic.twitter.com/EKDJgp2pPw — Sheriff Robert Chody (@SheriffChody) August 27, 2017 Fireants form an island and float to dry land in Houston: Fire ants form a protective island as they float out the #Houston flood pic.twitter.com/UBORwAzA4R — Omar Villafranca (@OmarVillafranca) August 27, 2017 UPDATE 5:50 p.m.: Rockport’s iconic “Big Tree,” a 1000-year-old oak tree located just north of Rockport in Goose Island State Park survived yet another direct hit from a hurricane. While the ancient tree has been struggling in recent years from the Texas drought, she stood strong against the 110 mph winds of Category 4 Hurricane Harvey. UPDATE 5:45 p.m.: Traffic jam in Houston. The City of Dallas has received a formal request by the State to house up to 5,000 Gulf Coast victims of Hurricane Harvey. The city is preparing the Dallas Convention Center and are working to have it ready to take in people on Tuesday morning, August 29. Dallas has been asked by the State of Texas to open @KBHCCDallas to host Gulf Coast evacuees. https://t.co/aBcLlPKJku — City of Dallas (@CityOfDallas) August 27, 2017 UPDATE 5:25 p.m.: Texas Governor Greg Abbott requested Defense Secretary James Mattis to set up a Texas National Guard Dual Stats Command to provide a single commander for both federal and state authorities to respond to the devastation of Hurricane Harvey. “It is imperative that we give our military and first responders on the ground the most efficient method of execution when responding to the urgent needs of Texans,” Governor Abbot said in a statement obtained by Breitbart Texas. “The Dual Status Command will ensure that the Texas National Guard is overseeing all response efforts in a way that most closely coordinates with federal troops and military efforts to ensure the needs of the victims of Hurricane Harvey are being met as swiftly and effectively as possible. I thank Secretary Mattis for his cooperation and immediate response to our request and continue to assure the people of this state that Texas is doing everything possible to aid in your time of need.” Abbott deployed more than 3,000 Texas National Guard members and 2,000 Texas Department of Public Safety troopers. UPDATE 5:20 p.m.: Centerpoint Energy reports more than 80,000 customers without power in the Houston area. Centerpoint reporting over 80K customers without power: https://t.co/TYd389GIJq pic.twitter.com/LyjekLMzIp — ABC13 Houston (@abc13houston) August 27, 2017 Good News Update: Ten people who were on their roofs near Braes Bayou were rescued by good Houstonians with a high truck. #BREAKING – @8thWonderBrew is using a high truck to help rescue people near Brays Bayou. We’re told they found 10 people on roofs. #ABC13 pic.twitter.com/03kDBKBbh7 — Steve Campion (@SteveABC13) August 27, 2017 “Monster Truck to the Rescue!” MONSTER TRUCK RESCUE: About to load up to rescue some people. #HurricaneHarvey @abc13houston pic.twitter.com/IZrSm7uwue — Foti Kallergis (@FotiABC13) August 27, 2017 UPDATE 4:55 p.m.: Twitter user posted before and after pictures of the bayou leading into downtown Houston. A similar comparison from the Texas Tribune: The left is Memorial Parkway on Saturday. The right is Memorial Parkway Sunday morning. #Harvey #HoustonFlood https://t.co/88qQ8fcKZ4 pic.twitter.com/RKevt6b92A — Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) August 27, 2017 Meanwhile, “Harvey” continues to mess with Texas: National Weather Service Houston reports that widespread rain totals in the Houston area as of 3 p.m. was over a foot of rain. Latest radar estimate at 3 pm shows widespread rain totals over 1 foot thus far. Still more rain to come in next several days! #houwx #txwx pic.twitter.com/Kvzk0PNnGh — NWS Houston (@NWSHouston) August 27, 2017 Latest update from NHC shows little change of Tropical Storm #Harvey‘s location or strength in the past 3 hours #houwx #glswx #bcswx #txwx pic.twitter.com/zdNftTAghI — NWS Houston (@NWSHouston) August 27, 2017 UPDATE 4:50 p.m.: Earlier on Sunday, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez warned Houstonians against driving the wrong way on freeways, even if they are blocked by water. Please do not drive the opposite way on the freeway. Our @HCSOTexas team just on-viewed this major accident. Too many are doing it. #Harvey pic.twitter.com/r9VZIPiOWH — Ed Gonzalez (@SheriffEd_HCSO) August 27, 2017 UPDATE 4:35 p.m.: Relief may be coming to the Houston area as the latest radar images show rain bands from Tropical Storm Harvey beginning to move north. The southeast parts of the county which experienced up to 25 inches of rain in the past 24 hours are coming into the clear. This should allow floods to begin draining. The Harris County Flood Management System reports most rain gauges showing less trace amounts to just over 1 inch of rain in the past most parts of southeast Harris County report zero to .2 inches of rain in the past hour. Harris County’s far west side is reporting the heaviest rainfall at this time with about 1 to 1.5 inches of rain. UPDATE 4:15 p.m.: “It is brutal out here,” rescue workers told KPRC NBC2 in Houston. “With darkness approaching, we are going to have to shut down these rescues soon.” On its first day in Houston, the flooding caused from #Harvey-related storms has surpassed that of Tropical Storm Allison in 2001. KPRC’s Justin Stapleton tweeted, “TS Allison has been dethroned.” Thru 2:00 p.m. Sunday afternoon, the rainfall has made August the wettest month on record. UPDATE 4:12 p.m.: Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez jumps in the water with @HCSOTexas rescue teams to help retrieve a man who had been in eight feet of water since 2 a.m. Chief T and I in water with @HCSOTexas team assisting with rescue. He’d been stuck in 8′ water since 2am. He was relieved. pic.twitter.com/eQ7pAMrCJx — Ed Gonzalez (@SheriffEd_HCSO) August 27, 2017 UPDATE 4:10 p.m.: The Houston Office of Emergency Management reported at around 4 p.m. Sunday that Houston 911 received over 56,000 calls from 10 p.m. Saturday, to 1:00 p.m. Sunday. From 10pm Sat to 1pm Sun., Houston 911 received over 56,000 calls. During an average day, they usually handle about 8,000. #harvey — Houston OEM (@HoustonOEM) August 27, 2017 Latest radar estimate at 3 pm shows widespread rain totals over 1 foot thus far. Still more rain to come in next several days! #houwx #txwx pic.twitter.com/Kvzk0PNnGh — NWS Houston (@NWSHouston) August 27, 2017 UPDATE 4:05 p.m.: The finger pointing begins as Fox News Channel’s Britt Hume and the Washington Post as why Houston wasn’t evacuated. Good question –>Harvey is causing ‘epic catastrophic flooding’ in Houston. Why wasn’t the city evacuated? https://t.co/gMug7ZCi82 — Brit Hume (@brithume) August 27, 2017 Harris County Judge Ed Emmitt addressed this issue in an exclusive interview with Breitbart Texas early Sunday morning. “We knew this was coming,” Emmett said. “Unfortunately, we are now experiencing exactly what we predicted.” “Because this is a rain event, we don’t know where or when particular areas will flood,” Judge Emmett explained. “Right now, our focus is on southeast Harris County. That is where we are moving our resources.” “We have 4.7 million people spread over 1,800 square miles,” he concluded. “It would be impossible to know where or who to evacuate in advance. We have to be reactive.” UPDATE 4.00 p.m.: On Sunday afternoon, Harris County Emergency Management officials open George R. Brown Convention Center to serve as a shelter for evacuees. .@GRBCC has officially been opened as a shelter for the City of Houston #Harvey — Downtown Houston (@DowntownHouston) August 27, 2017 Other shelters can be found here. UPDATE 3:55 p.m.: Sprint waives fees for text messages and phone calls through Sept. 1 to help people keep in touch, according to text message received by Breitbart Texas on Sunday afternoon. UPDATE 3:40 p.m.: Texans don’t wait for federal assistance — 15-year-old Houstonian responds with his personal boat to help rescue people in Meyerland (SW Houston). 15 yr old Declan and friends have been picking people up in Meyerland since late morning @HoustonChron #houstonflood pic.twitter.com/fOh8lwXBzm — Mark Mulligan (@mrkmully) August 27, 2017 UPDATE 3:25 p.m.: Houston Transtar traffic management officials ask Houstonians to remain off the roadways unless absolutely necessary to move: Flooded roadways and highways can be seen on the network of traffic cameras maintained by the agency. Although a list of road lanes affected by the flooding can also be found, authorities are asking people to stay where they are. A link to statewide road conditions is also on the homepage of the website. UPDATE 3:30 p.m.: Houston’s downtown floods threaten Harris County Courthouse Annex and Jail. Flood waters submerge cars in Texas Medical Center. Right outside the hospital where I work in the Texas Medical Center. #HurricaneHarvey #HoustonFlood pic.twitter.com/gUiUOu3HmO — Monica (@LifeLibertyPax) August 27, 2017 Meteorologist Jacob DeFlitch shows the extent of flooding in Houston’s downtown area. Right outside the hospital where I work in the Texas Medical Center. #HurricaneHarvey #HoustonFlood pic.twitter.com/gUiUOu3HmO — Monica (@LifeLibertyPax) August 27, 2017 UPDATE 3:20 p.m.: National Weather Service officials now predict record setting rainfall totals in excess of 50 inches in “Harvey’s” wake. “The breadth and intensity of this rainfall are beyond anything experienced before. Catastrophic flooding is now underway and expected to continue for days.” The FAA advised drone pilots to refrain from flying in the storm’s aftermath. “Allow 1st responders to work,” officials Tweeted. UPDATE 3:15 p.m.: Texas National Guard in action — Neighbors helping neighbors. ABC13’s Joe Gleason visits flooded home in the Houston area: EMERGENCY CONTACT NUMBERS: RT to save a life. 911 isn’t answering in Houston, they are at capacity. #houstonflood #HurricaneHarvey pic.twitter.com/FpP26qlOa5 — Paige G’bria (@PaigeGbria) August 27, 2017 UPDATE 3:10 p.m.: Tired of waiting for help, Houstonians find ways to get themselves, and their pets, out of harm’s way. People tell me they’ve waited long enough for help, so they are walking several blocks w/ their pets to get out. #houstonflood @fox26houston pic.twitter.com/Xp5FOFhkvd — Sally MacDonald (@SallyMacFox26) August 27, 2017 Fox 26’s Mike Iscovitz reports Highway 288, on Houston’s south side, is completely flooded. HPD rescued someone trapped on top of that car in the middle of 610. Yes, that tiny speck is a person. #hurricaneharvey pic.twitter.com/gHUL4qen0y — ABC13 Houston (@abc13houston) August 27, 2017 UPDATE 3:05 p.m.: Climate activists blame global warming and climate change for Hurricane Harvey and the Houston floods, Breitbart Texas reported. Twitter user @NashvilleResist wonders how long it will take for Al Gore to comment on the matter. UPDATE 3:00 p.m.: Current radar shows center of Tropical Storm Harvey remains stationary over Cuero, Texas: 24 Hour Rainfall Totals from Harris County Flood Warning System as of 3 p.m. on Sunday. UPDATE 2:55 p.m.: A report late Sunday morning from the National Weather Service shows an accumulation of nearly 30 inches of rain in a 60-hour period: …TEXAS… DAYTON 0.2 E 27.45 SANTA FE 0.7 S 27.42 SOUTH HOUSTON 4.0 SSW 24.54 LA MARQUE 1.8 E 24.53 LEAGUE CITY 2 W 22.08 BACLIFF 21.62 PEARLAND 3 NNE 20.84 BERRY BAYOU AT NEVADA AVENUE 19.52 BEAMER DITCH AT HUGHES ROAD 19.28 LA GRANGE 10.2 NW 18.89 HORSEPEN CREEK AT BAY AREA BOULEVAR 18.56 CIRCLE D-KC ESTATES 3.6 ESE 18.02 SUGAR LAND 1.0 W 17.97 CLEAR CREEK AT BAY AREA BLVD 17.84 MAGNOLIA 2.8 S 17.80 PASADENA 2 NW 17.72 WALLER 3.0 WSW 17.57 HOUSTON 1.4 NE 17.22 GOOSE CREEK AT BAKER ROAD 16.56 CLEVELAND 3.6 S 16.43 NEW ULM 5.1 S 16.14 PECAN GROVE 1 NNW 15.80 SMITHVILLE 15.77 ALVIN 3 SW 15.16 AUSTWELL 6 SSE 15.10 UPDATE 2:50 p.m.: Does anyone know if this family was ever rescued? .@GalvCoTX Family needs help at 1510 Pinecrest, Dickinson, TX. pic.twitter.com/y86ohQHbWX — KHOU 11 News Houston (@KHOU) August 27, 2017 UPDATE 2:45 p.m: The Texas National Guard is responding to their neighbors in need and Governo Abbott deploys over 1,000 Guardsmen and equipment. Thanks to the Texas National Guard for their help to rescue flooded Texans. #HurricaneHarvey pic.twitter.com/lhpJtAne10 — Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) August 27, 2017 Governor Greg Abbott expressed his “tremendous support” provided by President Trump and his staff. Thank you for the tremendous support you and your staff have provided Texas. Together we will overcome this challenge. #HurricaneHarvery https://t.co/MYtT7vMvnx — Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) August 27, 2017 UPDATE 2:40 p.m.: Fifteen people rescued from Dickinson nursing home: UPDATE 2:35 p.m.: “It’s already the biggest storm in Texas history,” Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, a Houstonian, said during an interview on KPRC. “I do believe the state, and we’ve gotten great assistance from the federal government… I believe we were as well prepared as we could be. It is still difficult to handle the magnitude of this.” “We are looking at weeks and months,” Patrick said. “We are going to need a lot of labor to rebuild.” A video on Twitter shows a Houston man bringing his own boat to flooded areas to attempt to rescue those stranded by the record floods. UPDATE 2:30 p.m.: KPRC anchor Bill Balleza, reporting from his home because of flooding, said: “This is the worst thing I have ever seen.” Harris County Judge Ed Emmett reported the 911 emergency dispatch system and rescue teams are inundated with calls for rescues, Breitbart Texas reported. The judge, who heads up the county’s emergency response services said boats and high-water vehicles are desperately needed. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has deployed Texas National Guardsmen to help rescue flood victims: Thanks to the Texas National Guard for their help to rescue flooded Texans. #HurricaneHarvey pic.twitter.com/lhpJtAne10 — Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) August 27, 2017 UPDATE 2:25 p.m.: The National Weather Service says up to 50 inches of rain may fall in the Houston area over the next few days. This event is unprecedented & all impacts are unknown & beyond anything experienced. Follow orders from officials to ensure safety. #Harvey pic.twitter.com/IjpWLey1h8 — NWS (@NWS) August 27, 2017 UPDATE 2:20 p.m.: Caution, graphic language in video. A video published on Sunday shows one of many tornadoes that touched down in the Houston area during storms caused by the remnants of Hurricane Harvey: UPDATE 2:15 p.m.: Houston’s Hobby Airport and George Bush Intercontinental Airport are closed until further notice. Flooding of the inbound and outbound runways of Hobby Airport went completely underwater. All commercial flight operations have been stopped until further notice. IB/OB roads are closed due to flooding. — Houston Bush Airport (@iah) August 27, 2017 All commercial operations at Hobby Airport have ceased until further notice. No flights in/out and roadways in/out are closed. — Hobby Airport (@HobbyAirport) August 27, 2017 The arrivals section of HOU is closed due to high water. Terminals are accessible via the departsure area. #HurricaneHarvey #fly2houston — Hobby Airport (@HobbyAirport) August 27, 2017 Airfield is closed due to standing water on runways. No inbound/outbound flights. Please check flight status before coming to HOU #HOUWX — Hobby Airport (@HobbyAirport) August 27, 2017 UPDATE 2:10 p.m.: Video shows KHOU reporter @BrandiKHOU flagging down a rescue truck as an 18-wheeler is trapped in rapidly rising water on the freeway: Incredible, watch as @BrandiKHOU flags down a rescue boat on-air, saving this truck driver’s life https://t.co/EVvNbdt13k pic.twitter.com/3mYi9McniB — Hayley Jones (@meetmissjoness) August 27, 2017 KHOU had its own flooding problems as its station and studio became part of Houston’s Buffalo Bayou, Breitbart Texas reported. Huffington Post reporter Tweeted a photo of a totally submerged car on Interstate 10 on Houston’s east side: Flooding I-10E outside Houston. That’s a car. pic.twitter.com/a7Rh7qCJrb — Roque Planas (@RoqPlanas) August 27, 2017 UPDATE 2:00 p.m.: Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced a mobile hospital is being dispatched to the Houston area. Transportation and communication equipment is being dispatched to Houston and the devastated areas along the Texas coast, including Rockport. UPDATE 1:55 p.m.: Houstonians are in desperate need of help. Emergency crews are inundated with calls for service and rescue equipment has been maxed out. The people of Houston are desperate for help right now. pic.twitter.com/UHBng9PJwb — Trey Yingst (@TreyYingst) August 27, 2017 UPDATE 1:45 p.m.: Ben Taub Trauma Center surrounded by flood waters: Pic from Ben Taub hospital in #Houston. They are surrounded by water… God please help keep them safe ❤ pic.twitter.com/QcZS9CjOrG — PolitiDiva™ (@realPolitiDiva) August 27, 2017 UPDATE: 1:30 p.m.: The National Weather Service (NWS) is predicting that up to 50 inches of rain will fall in the Houston/Galveston area over the next few days. “Harvey is expected to produce additional rainfall accumulations of 15 to 25 inches through Friday over the middle and upper Texas coast, including the Houston/Galveston metropolitan area,” NWS officials posted in the 10 a.m. advisory Sunday morning. “Isolated storm totals may reach 50 inches in this region. “Harvey” continues to retain its tropical storm ranking as it holds nearly stationary near Cuero, Texas. Sustained winds are reported to be 40 mph. The storm is moving toward the Texas coast at about 2 mph. UPDATE: 12:10 p.m.: Harris County Sheriff’s Office calls for more rescue equipment: As of this morning, TX Task Force 1 had difficulty getting to us. So, we are calling on residents to volunteer. Call 713-881-3100. #harvey — HCSOTexas (@HCSOTexas) August 27, 2017 Coast Guard rescue teams rescue a crew from a sinking boat: WATCH: Coast Guard rescues people from sinking boat as Tropical Storm Harvey slams Texas https://t.co/hieURLiVGo pic.twitter.com/YtuR6OBu2j — The Hill (@thehill) August 27, 2017 Large sinkhole opens in Rosenberg, Texas, as flood waters continue to devastate south Texas: Large sinkhole opens up in Rosenberg, Texas, southwest of Houston, amid historic flooding from #Harvey https://t.co/IkseYOVklN pic.twitter.com/6QRakK4xaH — ABC News (@ABC) August 27, 2017 UPDATE: 11:30 a.m.: Houston man claims hawk would not leave his car during Hurricane Harvey storms. WATCH: A man in Houston claims a hawk would not leave his taxi cab as Hurricane Harvey barreled toward Texas Friday morning. pic.twitter.com/j2nZbarkvZ — NBC News (@NBCNews) August 26, 2017 UPDATE 11:15 a.m.: Houston Ship Channel officials report the largest port on the Gulf of Mexico is closed for at least 24 hours. UPDATE: 11:00 a.m.: Houston emergency management officials said the 911 emergency dispatch system is overwhelmed with calls as the city experiences an “unprecedented rain event.” Flood victims have taken to social media to cry for help as they are unable to reach officials via telephone. 911 services at capacity. If u can shelter in place do so, a few inches in your home is not imminent danger. Only call if in imminent danger — City of Houston (@HoustonTX) August 27, 2017 KHOU’s Jason Miles reported the body of an unknown man has been found at a Walmart parking lot in La Marque, Texas. It is not known how he died. The area reportedly had been flooded and the man died grasping the rail of a shopping cart corral. Sad to report man died in this Walmart parking lot in La Marque. Body beyond that truck. He’s grasping shopping cart corral #khou11 #harvey pic.twitter.com/qcKoGG6DuI — Jason Miles (@JMilesKHOU) August 27, 2017 Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner told reporters the city’s 911 system has received more than 2,500 calls for service during the flood event thus far. Most of those calls have not been for life-threatening emergencies. “All of the 911 call centers are experiencing EXTREMELY high call volume,” Houston Office of Emergency Management officials said in a statement obtained by Breitbart Texas. “DO NOT contact 911 to check the status of the weather, flooded roads, road closures, power outages, or other non-emergency inquiries. These calls are delaying help to true emergencies.” Because of the overwhelming number of calls and long 911 wait times, flood victims took to social media to ask for help. We Still Waiting On A Rescue At 11711 WoodShadow Dr. Houston, Tx 77013A Woman And “5” Kids Needs Help https://t.co/W1AdLexDiv — C H A R L E S (@iAmLilPopHTX) August 27, 2017 KHOU CBS 11 Tweeted to Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez and the Houston Fire Department about a baby girl on a ventilator who was in need of rescue. “Please help this baby @SheriffEd_HCSO @cohoustonfire.” Breitbart Texas reported Friday night that President Trump signed an emergency disaster declaration for Texas as Hurricane Harvey made landfall Friday night in Rockport, Texas. “At the request of the Governor of Texas, I have signed the Disaster Proclamation, which unleashes the full force of government help!” President Trump Tweeted Friday night. His signature opens the door for federal resources and manpower to come to the assistance of Texas as officials begin the work of recovering from the storm while devastating rains and winds continue. At the request of the Governor of Texas, I have signed the Disaster Proclamation, which unleashes the full force of government help! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 26, 2017 Follow complete coverage of Hurricane Harvey and Houston Floods on Breitbart Texas. Lana Shadwick is a writer and legal analyst for Breitbart Texas. She has served as a prosecutor and associate judge in Texas. Follow her on GAB @lanashadwick and on Twitter @LanaShadwick2. Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX, Gab, and Facebook.
That advice is useful the night I first drink ayahuasca. It’s just after dusk, and the air is growing heavy with the calls of cicadas, frogs, and monkeys. I’m seated on a mat in a big room, joined by Cairuna, his wife, and two adult nieces, along with Witte and his translator. As the shaman-in-training, Witte begins the ceremony by reciting some prayers. He wears a white Shipibo gown painted with black tessellations, and finishes each blessing with a swig from a bottle of perfumed alcohol that he spits into the air in a spray that occasionally lands on our heads. Before long, Cairuna calls each of us to kneel in front of him and offers a small bowl of ayahuasca. The concoction tastes something like decaying tree bark and dirt. “We’re going to be calm and present, and we’re going to listen to what the ayahuasca has to tell us. We’re all going to be fine,” Cairuna says reassuringly. Then he starts to sing icaros, ceremonial songs he’s told me to focus on as the ayahuasca takes hold—they’ll act as a reference point should the experience turn overwhelming. I fidget uncertainly. After 20 minutes, I wonder if we got a bad batch. And then I realize that I’m seeing Cairuna’s songs: an indigo line quivers in front of me in sync with the pace and pitch of his singing. I watch, fascinated, and fixate on what I see and hear. Another 20 minutes later, I can’t open my mouth to speak, nor can I stand. I close my eyes to dull the panic and see fragments of memories as if on old film reels, which I watch for nearly an hour. Most of them involve events I haven’t thought of in years. When I open my eyes, I see a bear walk into the room on its hind legs and sit next to me. I know there is no bear, yet I perceive the heat radiating off its body. Focusing on Cairuna’s singing, I try to relax. The bear leaves and I feel somewhat victorious, though I don’t know why. While ayahuasca can ravage a person physically—my skull and stomach feel like they’re filled with wet sand—it has the opposite effect on consciousness. After the ceremony, the mind feels light. My thoughts are oddly lucid and I find myself calmer than I’ve been in months. I can see why aya­huasca appears so effective in treating mood disorders like anxiety and depression, illnesses in which one’s flaws, trials, and disillusions often seem magnified and cripplingly heavy. Lately, mainstream scientists have been inching toward a similar conclusion—by taking a closer look at the therapeutic potential of hallucinogenic drugs, they are discovering what shamans like Cairuna have known for generations. Though research of this kind was largely discontinued in the wake of Timothy Leary’s LSD experiments at Harvard in the 1960s, several major universities are now trying to unravel the mysteries of hallucinogens. Roland Griffiths, a professor in the departments of psychiatry and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University—and one of the first to resume work on these drugs—published a study five years ago that demonstrated how effective they are at improving how a person feels. “That first study blew me away,” he says. “Nearly all the participants reported significant positive changes in attitude and behavior, and those changes were also observed by the participants’ friends, family, and colleagues. It was remarkable.”
As I promised , my delayed review of Voigtlander Nokton Classic 40mm f1.4 M used on Sony Alpha A7. First I’m going to explain some “mysterious” (lots of questions in the internet!) aspects of this lens. Why 40mm? So, first of all – why such weird focal length like 40mm, while there are tons of great M-mount 35mm and 50mm lenses? 🙂 I’ve always had problems with “standard” and “wide-standard” focal lengths. Honestly, 50mm feels too narrow. It’s great for neutral upper-body or full-body portraits and shooting in open-door environments, but definitely limiting in interiors and for situational portraits. In theory, it was supposed to be a “neutral” focal length, similar to human perception of perspective, but is a bit narrower. So why so many 50mm lens and they are considered standard? Historical reasons and optics – they are extremely easy to produce and correct any kinds of optical problems (distortion, aberration, coma etc.) and require less optical elements than other kinds of lenses to achieve great results. On the other hand, 35mm usually catches too much environment and photos get a bit too “busy”, while it’s still not true wide angle lens for amazing city or landscape shots. 40mm feels just right as a standard lens. Lots of people recommend against 40mm on rangefinders, as Leica and similar don’t have any framings for 40mm. But on digital full frame mirrorless with great performing EVF? No problem! Still, this is just personal preference. You must decide on your own if you agree, or maybe prefer something different. 🙂 My advice on picking focal lengths is always – spend a week and take many photos in different scenarios using cheap zoom kit lens. Later check the EXIF data and check what kinds of focal lengths you used for the photos you enjoy the most. What does it mean that this lens is “classic”? There is lots of bs in the internet about “classic” lens design. Some people imply that it means that lens is “soft in highlights”. Obviously this makes no sense, as sharpness is not a function of brightness – either lens is soft or sharp. It can mean transmittance problems wrongly interpreted, but what’s the truth? Classic design usually means design of lenses relating to historical designs of earlier XX century. Lenses were designed this way before introduction of complex coating and many low-dispersion / aspherical elements. Therefore, they have relatively lower number of elements – as without modern multi-coating and according to Fresnel law on every contact point between glass and air there was light transmission loss and light got partially reflected. Lack of proper lens coating resulted not only in poor transmission (less light getting to film / camera sensor) and lower contrast, but also in flares and various other artifacts coming from light bouncing inside the camera. Therefore number of optical elements and optical groups was kept a bit lower. With lower number of optical elements it is impossible to fix all lens problems – like coma, aberration, dispersion or even sharpness. “Classic” lenses were also used with rangefinders that had quite large close-focusing range (usually 1m). All this disadvantages had a good side effect – lenses designed this way were much smaller. And while Voigtlander Nokton Classic bases on “classic” lens design, it has modern optical element coating, a bit higher number of optical elements and keeps very small size and weight while fixing some of those issues. What’s the deal with Single / Multi Coating? I mentioned the effect of lens coating in previous section. For unknown reason, Voigtlander decided to release both truly “classic” version with single, simple coating and multi-coated version. Some websites try to explain it that a) single coating is cheaper b) some contrast and tranmission loss is not that bad when shooting on B&W film c) flaring can be desired effect. I understand this reasoning, but if you shoot anything in color, stick to the multi-coated version – no need to lose any light! Lens handling Lens handles amazingly well on Sony A7. With EVF and monitor it’s really easy to focus even at f/1.4 (although takes a couple of days of practicing). Aperture ring and focus ring work super smooth. Size is amazing (so small!) even with adapter – advantage of M-Mount – lenses for M-mount were designed to have small distance to film. Some people mention problems on Sony A7/A7R/A7S with purple coloring on the corners on wider-angle Voigtlander lenses due to grazing angle between light and sensor – fortunately that’s not the case with Nokton 40mm 1.4. Only disadvantage is that sometimes while eye at EVF i “lose” the focus tab and cannot locate it. Maybe it takes some time to get used to it? In general, it is very enjoyable and “classic” experience, and it’s fun just to walk around with camera with Nokton 40mm on. Image quality I’m not a pixel-peeper and won’t analyze all micro-aspects on crop images or measure. Just conclusions from every day shooting. The lens I have (remember that every lens copy can differ!) is very sharp – has quite decent sharpness even at f/1.4 (although it is extremely easy with only slight movement to lose focus…). Performance is just amazing at night – great lens for wide-opened f/1.4 night photos – you don’t have to pump ISO or fight with long shutter speed – just enjoy photography. 🙂 Bokeh is a bit busy, gets “swirly” and squashed, sometimes can be distracting – but I like it this way. Depends on personal preferences. At f/1.4 with 40mm it can almost melt down the backgrounds. Some people complain about purple fringing (spectrochromatism) of bokeh – something I wrote about in my post about Bokeh scatter DoF . I didn’t notice it on almost any of my pictures, on one I removed it with one click in Lightroom – definitely not that bad. There is definitely some light fall-off at f/1.4 and f/2.0, but I never mind those kind of artifacts. Distortion is negligible in regular shooting – even architecture. General contrast and micro-contrast is nice and there is this “3D” look to many photos. I really don’t understand complaints and see big difference compared to “modern” designed lenses – but I never used latest Summicron/Summilux so maybe I haven’t seen everything. 😉 Color definition is very neutral – no visible problematic coloring. Performance is a bit worse in corners – still quite sharp, but some visible coma (squashing of image in plane perpendicular to radius). Unfortunately, even with Multi-Coating, there is some flaring at night from very bright light sources. Fortunately I didn’t notice any ghosting that often comes with it. Disadvantages So far I have one, biggest problem with this lens – close focus range of 0.7m. It rules out many tricks with perspective on close-ups, any kind of even semi-macro photography (photos of food while at restaurant). While at f/1.4 you could have amazingly shallow DoF and wide bokeh, that’s not the case here, as you cannot set focus closer… It can even be problematic for half-portraits. Big limitation and pity, otherwise the lens would be perfect for me – but on the other hand such focus range contributes to smaller lens size. As always – you cannot have only advantages (quality, size&weight, aperture and in this case close-focus range). Some Leica M-lenses have focus range of 1m – I don’t imagine shooting with such lenses… Recommendations Do I recommend this lens? Oh yes! Definitely great buy for any classic photography lover. You can use it on your film rangefinder (especially if you own Voigtlander Bessa) and on most of digital mirrorless camera. Great image quality, super pleasant handling, acceptable price – if you like 40mm and fast primes, then it’s your only option. 🙂
Les Hinton, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal since 2007, who oversaw Mr. Murdoch's British newspaper subsidiary when voice mail hacking by journalists was rampant, and Rebekah Brooks, who has run the British papers since 2009 and become the target of unrelenting public outrage, both resigned in the latest blow to the News Corporation and its besieged chairman. Many former staffers of News Corp have been arrested in England. The FBI has begun an investigation into whether News Corp staffers hacked or tapped the phones of 911 victims. - Advertisement - There are major questions in England about whether News Corp staffers bribed police and other officials. This is a federal crime-- if a US citizen or his representatives engages in bribery in another country. - Advertisement - That raises some interesting questions based on the Supreme Court's recent Citizens United decision. If a corporation is rife with corruption. If numerous top officials in the company are suspected of participation in criminal activity, can the company be charged with crimes. If so, can it be tried and convicted. If so, and it is found guilty, can punishments set for individuals be applied to the company? If the sentence for a human would be death or incarceration, would that mean shutting down or stopping the company from doing any of its usual business for the duration of the sentence? Of course, preventing a company from doing any business would be like a death penalty. - Advertisement - That raises the question of whether it is possible to treat a company like a person in terms of justice. We k now that companies can pursue to positive rights of personhood, but if they can not be held accountable when it comes to crimes, perhaps the supreme court should be required to take a look at its past decisions on the rights of corporate personhood. Perhaps it is time that corporations lose those rights... or that the state of personhood for corporations also include the liabilities, particularly those of facing punishment. If there was ever a criminal corporation, then News Corp appears to be one, and we might throw in Haliburton and KBR and Monsanto as well. It is time for America to re-assess corporate personhood. The events at News Corp Are raising some very thorny questions. Two of the top people at News Corp have resigned. The NY Times reports
Italian riot police have clashed with refugees occupying a square in Rome, using water cannon to douse their possessions. The refugees fought back, launching objects at officers, and trying to hit them with sticks. Police said they intervened because of reports that protesters planned to use gas canisters and Molotov cocktails, and officers claim they were hit by bottles, rocks and pepper spray. Eviction About 100 people occupied the square in defiance of an order to leave an office building in which about they, and about 700 others, had been squatting for 5 years. As the riot police advanced, they displayed banners saying “We are refugees, not terrorists”. #refugees disrupt traffic in Rome central station and shout “Italia, vergogna!” (Italy, shame on you) #Curtatonepic.twitter.com/jNO5If3MQc — Sabika Shah Povia (@sabikasp) August 24, 2017 Most of the squatters were Eritrean and had been granted asylum. However, the authorities claim that many of them had refused to accept the accommodation offered to them by the city. Italy and the migration crisis Italy’s on the frontline of the European migration crisis. The Italian Interior Ministry says over 600,000 migrants have arrived there by boat since 2013. Back in June, Italy’s Prime Minister accused other European countries of “looking the other way” as Italy battled with the problem.
WASHINGTON/BEIRUT (Reuters) - The United States and its Arab allies bombed militant groups in Syria for the first time on Tuesday, killing scores of Islamic State fighters, members of a separate al Qaeda-linked group and opening a new front amid shifting Middle East alliances. The attacks encountered no objection, and even signs of tacit approval, from President Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian government, which said Washington had warned Damascus in advance. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates participated in or supported the strikes against Islamic State targets, U.S. Central Command said. The countries are hostile to Assad but now fear the fighters who emerged from the rebellion they backed in Syria’s 3-year-old civil war. U.S. President Barack Obama said in a televised statement that the breadth of the coalition, including the five Arab states, showed the United States was not alone in its second campaign of air strikes. Since Aug. 8, U.S. air strikes have hit militant targets in Iraq, where Washington supports the government, but had held back from a military engagement in Syria, where it is at odds with Assad. The White House said some of the strikes in Syria had targeted an al Qaeda affiliate known as the Khorasan group, which it said had been plotting an imminent attack either in the United States or in Europe. “Once again, it must be clear to anyone who would plot against America and do Americans harm that we will not tolerate safe havens for terrorists who threaten our people,” Obama said before leaving the White House for the United Nations. In New York, Obama planned more talks to enlarge the alliance against extremist groups that emerged and gained power while trying to topple Assad. In a reversal, Turkey indicated Tuesday it would provide military or logistical backing. “We will give the necessary support to the operation,” President Tayyip Erdogan told Turkish broadcaster NTV. The NATO ally, which is alarmed by Islamic State but also worried about Kurdish fighters and opposed to any action that might help Assad, had refused a military role in the coalition while 46 of its citizens were held by the group in Iraq. Turkey is home to a major U.S. base in Incirlik, which officials said has not been used so far in the strikes in Iraq or Syria. Warplanes and ship-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles struck dozens of targets including fighters, training compounds, headquarters and command and control facilities, storage sites, a finance center, trucks and armed vehicles, CENTCOM said. “I can tell you that last night’s strikes were only the beginning,” said Rear Admiral John Kirby, a U.S. Defense Department spokesman. He called the overnight attacks “very successful” but gave few other details. The U.S.-led coalition launched 16 airstrikes on Islamic State across Syria, CENTCOM said in a statement later on Tuesday. Washington also said U.S. forces had acted alone to launch eight strikes in northeastern Syria on what they called the Khorasan group. Militants on social media mourned Khorasan’s reputed leader, Mohsin al-Fadhli, a former associate of al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden. U.S. officials have not confirmed his death. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war in Syria, said at least 70 Islamic State fighters were killed in strikes that hit at least 50 targets in the provinces of Raqqa, Deir al-Zor and Hasakah. It said at least 50 fighters and eight civilians were killed in strikes on the Khorasan group, which was thought to operate in Syria with the Nusra Front, another al Qaeda offshoot that opposes Islamic State. The air attacks fulfill Obama’s pledge to strike in Syria against Islamic State, a Sunni Muslim group that has seized swathes of Syria and Iraq, slaughtering prisoners and ordering Shi’ites and non-Muslims to convert or die. It remains to be seen how effective air strikes can be in Syria, where Washington lacks a strong ally to fight the group on the ground. The militants vowed reprisals, and an allied group is threatening to kill a French hostage captured in Algeria. In Washington, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI said they had alerted law enforcement agencies to a threat from Syrian-based al Qaeda operatives “nearing the execution phase for an attack in Europe or the homeland.” ‘COMMON ENEMY’ In a sign of how Islamic State’s rise has blurred conflict lines, the Pentagon said the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, had told Syria’s envoy in advance but there was no communication between the countries’ armed forces. Syrian state media reported that a senior Iraqi envoy briefed Assad on the next steps and the Syrian leader said he supported any international effort to fight terrorism. Only a year ago, Washington was on the verge of bombing the Syrian government over the use of chemical weapons, before Obama canceled the strikes at the last minute. Tightly controlled Syrian state TV interviewed an analyst who said the air strikes did not amount to an act of aggression because the government had been notified. “This does not mean we are part of the joint operations room, and we are not part of the alliance. But there is a common enemy,” said the analyst, Ali al-Ahmad. Syria’s closest ally, Iran, responded cautiously. President Hassan Rouhani said in New York that without a U.N. mandate or a request from the Assad government, military strikes had no legal standing. Rouhani, however, neither condemned nor endorsed the action. Officials from both countries later said the United States also told Iran in advance of the air strikes. Residents of Raqqa, Islamic State’s de facto capital in eastern Syria, said by telephone that people were fleeing for the countryside after the bombs fell overnight. Islamic State vowed revenge against the United States. “These attacks will be answered,” a fighter told Reuters by Skype from Syria, blaming Saudi Arabia’s ruling family for allowing the strikes to take place. Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally, the world’s top oil exporter and birthplace of Islam, has funneled cash and arms to Sunni Muslim rebels fighting Assad but has also opposed Islamist militants within the insurgency. Its air force participated in the bombing strikes, a rare foreign sortie for the kingdom that showed how much was at stake. “Today we face a very dangerous situation where terrorist cells have turned into armies ... that extend to all of Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal Al Saud told the Saudi Press Agency. Islamic State fighters, who have proclaimed a caliphate ruling over all Muslims, shook the Middle East by sweeping through northern Iraq in June. They alarmed the West in recent weeks by killing two American journalists and a British aid worker, raising fears they could attack Western countries. The presence of Arab allies in the attacks was crucial for the credibility of the U.S.-led campaign. With the backing of Jordan and the Gulf monarchies, Washington has the support of Sunni states hostile to Assad, a member of a Shi’ite-derived sect. PITCHED BATTLES The Syrian civil war began with “Arab Spring” democracy protests in 2011 but has descended into a sectarian conflict that has killed 200,000 people, displaced millions and drawn in proxy forces backed by countries across the region. Islamic State fighters, equipped with U.S. weapons seized in Iraq, are among the most powerful opponents of Assad. They are also battling rival Sunni groups in Syria, the Shi’ite-led government of Iraq and Kurdish forces on both sides of the border. In recent days, they have captured villages from Kurds near Syria’s Turkish border, sending nearly 140,000 refugees across the frontier since last week. The Western-backed Syrian opposition and Syrian Kurdish groups, which are fighting both Assad and Islamic State, welcomed the air strikes and said they needed more support. “There is an exodus out of Raqqa as we speak,” a resident said by phone. “It started in the early hours of the day after the strikes. People are fleeing towards the countryside.” The city’s two-story main administrative building had been hit by four rockets, which were so precise that nearby buildings were not damaged, said the resident, named Abo Mohammed. He said hundreds of fighters, who had been visible in the streets controlling traffic and security, had now vanished. None of Washington’s traditional Western allies has so far joined the campaign in Syria. Britain, which joined the United States in war in Iraq and Afghanistan last decade, said it was still considering its options. France has struck Islamic State in Iraq but not in Syria, citing legal constraints. Assad’s ally Russia, whose ties with Washington are at their lowest since the end of the Cold War, said any strikes in Syria were illegal without Assad’s permission or a U.N. Security Council resolution, which Moscow would have the right to veto.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) speaks to reporters on Nov. 18 at Trump Tower in New York, where President-elect Donald Trump lives and has an office. (Andrew Gombert/European Pressphoto Agency) President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general probably wouldn’t have been the tech industry’s first choice. Sen. Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama, is on the opposite side of several issues that are close to Silicon Valley’s heart and related to the Justice Department. Here are some key areas where tech giants could clash with Sessions if his nomination is successful. Encryption When Apple and DOJ faced off over an encrypted iPhone used by one of the shooters in a mass killing in San Bernardino, Calif., the tech industry rallied around Apple. But Sessions came out strong on the government’s side. “Coming from a law enforcement background, I believe this is a more serious issue than Tim Cook understands,” Sessions told Bloomberg News in February. “In a criminal case, or could be a life-and-death terrorist case, accessing a phone means the case is over,” he added. The tech industry and civil society “have really come together to fight mandates for encryption back doors” — and there’s no reason to think that will change if Sessions is attorney general, said Robyn Greene, policy council and government affairs lead at New America's Open Technology Institute. Email privacy Reforming the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to require the government to get a warrant to search the contents of your inbox is something Congress (and the public) generally supports — even if they haven’t managed to get it done yet. But earlier this year, Sessions proposed an amendment to an ECPA reform bill that alarmed some privacy advocates. The amendment would have required phone and Internet service providers to hand over data with no judicial process if a government representative says it’s an emergency — amounting to a significant expansion of power for local, state and federal law enforcement. The tech industry at large says it wants ECPA reform that provides greater Fourth Amendment, or search-and-seizure, protections for its users. Many tech giants — including Google, Apple and Microsoft — are part of the Digital Due Process coalition, a group pushing to update the law to that effect. Basically, the tech industry has been arguing for more protections, not fewer. The amendment Sessions proposed suggests that he’s not on the same page as Silicon Valley and may advocate for similar exceptions as attorney general, Greene said. But she is optimistic about the ECPA reform's chances going forward, especially after a package without an emergency amendment like Sessions's unanimously passed the House earlier this year. “It’s not clear how much a possible Sessions-led Department of Justice could stop it — at the end of the day, it's the president that has to sign the bill,” Greene said. Immigration Sessions is a longtime proponent of more limits on immigration. In October, he suggested that the United States may want to do away with the H-1B visa program, which allows companies to recruit foreign workers if they can’t fill positions domestically. That puts him at odds with the tech industry, which generally wants to expand that program. In fact, a group backed by Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg called FWD.us supports immigration reform — including more H-1B visas. In 2014, an ad campaign from the group rattled Sessions so much that he lashed out at Zuckerberg during a speech on the Senate floor. Although immigration isn’t a primary part of DOJ’s portfolio, the agency can go after companies it alleges have committed visa fraud — and has in the past. Sessions has pushed for DOJ to do more on that front, signing onto a letter last year that urged the agency to investigate H-1B practices at utility company Southern California Edison. “As the chief law enforcement officer of the country, Sessions would have incredible power to delve into things he thinks are important — and we know he's been outspoken about this,” said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum.
Some Downtown business owners said Tuesday they worry a shooting on the Fourth of July is part of a pattern of violence that scares off... Some Downtown business owners said Tuesday they worry a shooting on the Fourth of July is part of a pattern of violence that scares off potential customers, but Pittsburgh officials sought to counter those fears, casting it as an isolated incident. “It’s very sporadic, but I feel like the public learning about shootings in this area certainly deters families from coming down here, and that’s a concern for our business,” said Kevin Segal, general manager of Proper Brick Oven & Tap Room. Four people were wounded shortly after the city’s fireworks display ended about 10:30 p.m. near Seventh Street and Liberty Avenue near the Wood Street T Station — about two blocks from Segal’s restaurant. He said it’s a scary situation. A woman was shot in the head and was in critical but stable condition, police said. A man, a boy and a 15-year-old girl were shot in the leg. No arrests had been made as of Tuesday night. Business owners complained about the more common occurrence of large groups of young people congregating near the Wood Street T station. They said the kids are, for the most part, harmless. “There’s no concern for safety,” said Jess Rodabaugh, a manager at Pittsburgh Popcorn on Liberty Avenue. “They’re just children being annoying.” Police Chief Cameron McLay, at a news conference, said large Downtown events present unique security challenges. “I was at the shooting scene last night, and a number of my officers said ‘Chief, this pattern has been going on for years. What are we going to do?’ ” McLay said. “We will get large groups of young kids from all over the city who use public transit to come Downtown,” he said. “We know from prior experience that these young groups will sometimes have conflicts with one another. Sometimes, there will be gang associations, and we will predictably have fights.” McLay said, “We’re always debriefing what we did, looking at what worked and what didn’t, and we’re going to retool how we did this.” Fraternal Order of Police Fort Pitt Lodge No. 1 President Bob Swartzwelder said the city has gotten to the point where there are not enough officers to staff large events. “These are events that cannot properly be staffed while you’re still trying to staff the regular city streets. It’s an absolute staffing fiasco,” Swartzwelder said. McClay would not say how many officers were working Downtown at the time, but he said there were officers on hand “both to manage the crowd and to patrol the central business district.” Mayor Bill Peduto lamented that a police presence is no longer a deterrent, despite a quick response. “(Officers) were there within moments of the shooting itself. They were able to respond and stop a major fight that was occurring earlier,” he said. “At the same time, it’s not that it will be a deterrent to stopping incidents that can happen. Most likely this was a targeted event. It wasn’t a random shooting.” Assistant Chief Thomas Stangrecki said it does not appear the victims were involved in arguments before the gunfire, though he noted that officers reported a juvenile with what appeared to be a firearm in his waistband. The boy took off and tossed the object — later found to be a pellet gun — in a planter on Liberty Avenue. McLay said police are aware of a “common theme” that often accompanies large Downtown events in which young people from all over the city attend and use public transportation — often the Wood Street station — to get home. He described the difficulty for officers responding to such a chaotic scene: “Large groups — 50, 100 or more — of kids running around the central business district. They would fight with one another for a few moments, officers would show up, the kids all begin to flee,” he said. Peduto said that phenomenon is not new. “I think if you go back all the way to the 1980s, you’ll see that there were incidents that occurred,” he said. “The difference is in the 1980s, kids didn’t have guns.” In 2010, fights broke out near the Wood Street station during the city’s Light Up Night celebration. The fights happened during the search for a shooter who opened fire on a man near Seventh and Smithfield streets. Officers and police dogs broke up the fights, and one man was bitten by a dog. Four juveniles were ultimately charged with disorderly conduct. Several fights broke out near the same station during Light Up Night festivities in 2011, and in 2012 a woman was shot in the buttocks near Market Square during Light Up Night. Other incidents have centered around the Wood Street station. On May 30, 2015, a group of white men assaulted Kevin Lockett, a black man, as he got off the train among throngs of people leaving last year’s Kenny Chesney concert. In December, Port Authority officers struggled with a teenager observed tampering with escalator equipment at the station. Other teens jumped in, and the scuffle ended with two arrests. Swartzwelder said the police bureau has dwindled to a size capable of handling only the basic service calls it receives. “Requests for special events permits are multiplying daily — when you add events, you need to add personnel,” he said. Peduto said he’d leave such a decision up to McLay and his command staff but noted that if police officials think more officers are needed to patrol that specific area, “We’ll find a way.” Tribune-Review staff writer Bob Bauder contributed to this report. Megan Guza and Michael Walton are Tribune-Review staff writers.
The owner of the Graywood Hotel, a single-room occupancy hotel damaged by a June 2016 blaze that displaced more than 50 people, has put the building up for sale amidst extensive renovations. The commercial leases in the building are now terminated, while advocates for the residential tenants are working to ensure they exercise their right to return. “We just don’t have the bandwidth to put it back together,” said Dipak Patel, who owns the property at 3300-3308 Mission Street near 29th Street. Patel purchased the building in 2004 some for some $1.5 million, and is now asking $3.5 million. “We’ve put the building in better shape than [it was when] we took it,” said Patel, explaining that it had been about 50 percent remodeled right before the fire. “I’m usually reinvesting in SROs and remodeling them but this is a much larger project because of the fire.” The building is currently without a roof, and the interior is has been gutted to the studs. Patel said that the building’s water damage has been “cleaned up,” and that some of the building’s layout has been changed, but “the envelope of the building will be there,” he said. Continuing the extensive renovation, Patel said, will be up to the buyer. Immediately after the fire, Ben Amyes, emergency services coordinator for the city’s Human Services Agency, had estimated reconstruction would take anywhere from six months to a year. Concerns over the state of the building, Patel said, led him to offer a month-to-month lease to the owners of the 3300 Club, a bar that has operated in the building for 60 years. In the end, those negotiations fell through, and the bar’s lease was terminated. A taqueria that was in the building prior to the fire had already moved on. “Our hope was to come back into that location because we had been there for 60 years,” said Theresa Keane, whose family owns the 3300 Club, upon learning that the lease would not be renewed and that she would need to find a new location to reopen. “The fact that nothing has been done to that building, they gutted the inside, but the fact they haven’t done anything made me think they weren’t trying to rebuild.” Keane said she will likely look for another location to reopen. In the meantime, she said, her bartenders have found shifts elsewhere and her “customers are still wandering around, a bit lost.” Keane’s father opened the family business in 1956, and it operated year-round, closing only on election days and for her father’s funeral. “My entire life, that’s been what our family has done,” she said. Still, she sympathizes more with her displaced neighbors. “We lost a business, that sucks, they lost their homes.” Residential tenants in rent-controlled units have, under San Francisco law, a right to return to buildings they were displaced from by disaster, at their pre-displacement rent. That right is retained even after renovation or sale of the building, said Tommi Avicolli Mecca of the Housing Rights Committee. And tenant advocates are getting ready to defend that right. “As soon as we found out that this building was for sale, it automatically raised a red flag for us and for our community partners, because this is going along with the trend of this neighborhood, which is super gentrification and a huge amount of displacement from the neighborhood,” said Diana Martinez of the Mission SRO Collaborative, an organization that advocates for SRO tenants and serves as a link for them to the Department of Building Inspection. According to Karoleen Feng, Director of Community Real Estate at the Mission Economic Development Agency, “there is always potential for displacement for any property that is purchased for speculation.” The agency may try to acquire the property, whose current listing describes it as a potential “cash cow” for a private buyer, as permanently affordable housing instead. “MEDA stands behind all the tenants and their rights to return,” Feng said. “MEDA is interested in securing any properties along Mission Street and anchoring those properties as affordable housing for the neighborhood.” Low-rent SRO rooms in particular are under significant market pressure to be converted into more profitable ventures. Despite regulations restricting conversions to tourist rentals, 11,000 SRO units have been removed from San Francisco’s housing market in about 40 years, prompting the Board of Supervisors to ban SRO rentals for periods shorter than 32 days. But Martinez is more concerned with the SRO units being rented for high market-rate rents after renovations if the tenants are not able to return. “I assume that if they’re going on the same path that the Graywood was on before the fire, they will be renting their units as market-rate as opposed to low-income, because they were already doing that before the fire,” Martinez said. A startup called Negev, which has a history of turning SRO hotels into more expensive housing, managed the property before the fire. The three-story building has 28 residential units, six of which are licensed for tourist use, and two commercial spaces. Before the fire struck, Patel was in the process of remodeling the hotel rooms, had done work to the hotel’s hallways and heating system, and had installed sprinklers which ultimately saved the building from more damage, he said. “We spent about $10,000 a room before fire, so about $200,000 total, and we did electrical upgrades,” he said. “Whatever happens to the building, it will be a 100 percent upgrade.” But it can take a long time for tenants to return to a building after a fire – often, so long that they don’t exercise their right to return because they have been forced to find new permanent housing. The 58 tenants displaced from the Graywood Hotel are currently housed under the city’s subsidized rent program, which covers their rents for up to 24 months, and most have a year and a half left – depending on when they signed their leases – under that program, said Amyes, of the Human Services Agency.
Hey everyone ! I started working on a multiplayer mode for Song of the Myrne and What Lies Beneath this weekend (basically because I was sick and unable to work on quests or anything that needs a functional brain^^). Here's a little summary on the things I posted on the french version of the blog. First of all, keep in mind that the multiplayer will work a little differently than the solo of the game, but it doesn't affect the singleplayer at all. So the controls, hotbar, interface, etc will stay unchanged on the solo. It will be local split-screen multiplayer The gameplay will be similar to the one of my other game, Myrne 6312 . You will be able to play up to four players in split-screen. You will not be able to control your character with the mouse because that would be totally unbalanced if one player can do that and the others can't. So there will not be interractions like crafting, inventory, levels up,... The multiplayer will definitely be turned toward action. Class based Your class will affect which skills you have (probably 2 per class) and your stuff. I think you will still be able to choose your weapon but your stats will depend on your class. Here's the first classes I'll be working on. I'll probably add more later. Knight, mage, thief and archer The hotbar will be shorter and locked (you can't change the items in it, they will depend on your class) Game modes ? To begin, I'll only add basic Deathmatch. But I'll probably want to add more modes later. Some mini-scenarii in coop would be super awesome too. Here's the first map I created. Available in SotM and WLB The multiplayer mode will be available in Song of the Myrne once I'll finish it. But also on What Lies Beneath , for no extra charge of course. It will also be playable on the demo of Song of the Myrne but with some limitations: less maps, no advanced classes, etc... Any release date ? As usual, when it's done ;) It's a lot of work but I'm making good progress and I should come up with a playable version soon. I don't want to give any date but maybe in one month or two. Don't trust me on this !
With all the drama surrounding Anthony Pettis ahead of his title shot against Benson Henderson at UFC 164 in August, his injured knee -- the one that kept him fighting Jose Aldo four weeks earlier, and ultimately served as the reason he ended up fighting Henderson -- was sort of lost in the shuffle. Turns out the small tear in his meniscus was the least of his worries, anyway. The newly crowned 155-pound champion Pettis, who appeared on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani, revealed that he fought Henderson while nursing a separated shoulder. "You know what, my knee was fine, but I actually separated my shoulder two weeks before the [Henderson] fight," Pettis said. "So, going into the fight I had a separated right shoulder. My jitz coach [Daniel Wanderley] rolled a little too hard and he slammed me on my shoulder, and I separated my shoulder two weeks before the fight. "The last two weeks before the camp all I could do was roll really light. I couldn’t spar. For me it was just a mental thing. I’ve been through that before. It sucks that it happened two before the fight, but I wasn’t backing out of that one." Pettis, who finished Henderson with a stunning (if unexpected) first round armbar, said he wasn’t in a lot of pain on fight night, yet the shoulder gave him problems leading up. For instance, he said he had trouble sleeping on his right side because he couldn’t get comfortable with the injury. Asked if he ever considered pulling out of the fight, which was in his hometown of Milwaukee, Pettis said that never crossed his mind. "No, not at all," he said. "I just told me coach I’m going to settle down the last two weeks. I mean, I had a super-long training camp. From February until August I was training and getting ready for title fights. So I was 100 percent ready, but things happen. Every fighter can tell you, you never go into a fight 100 percent healthy." Pettis injured his other knee during the Henderson bout when he absorbed a low kick just below the left knee -- a shot he called a "pretty effective kick that I might have to add to my arsenal." Similar to his right knee, the injury -- which is a type-two sprain of his PCL and LCL -- won’t require surgery, nor affect his Dec. 14 title defense against Josh Thomson at UFC on FOX 9 in Sacramento. Though he hasn’t been able to kick or wrestle yet, he says he’s been doing a lot of boxing with Duke Roufus and company. "Hopefully, in two weeks I should be back and able to spar," he said. "As long as I keep my rehab on point, I should be fine."
MPs will get a chance Thursday to grill senior government officials about the disastrous rollout of the Phoenix payroll system that has left 80,000 federal public servants in Canada with pay problems, after Liberal members of the government operations committee green-lighted further study of the beleaguered program. Opposition parties demanded the meeting Monday after hearing from thousands of constituents with pay problems, "while Minister [Judy] Foote and her Liberal colleagues continue to display a lack of concern for the issue." "While the Liberals continue to dodge this serious issue, both opposition parties will work together to find a solution to this problem," Conservative procurement critic Steven Blaney said in a statement. Four Liberal members came forward late Monday to endorse the opposition motion, paving the way for department officials, federal employees and union representatives to be hauled in front of their committee to get at the source of the problem. "While we understand that the government is working hard to address the issues with the system, we feel that it is important for committee members to get a fuller understanding of the situation," MPs Yasmin Ratansi, David Graham, Raj Grewal and Nick Whalen said in a letter to committee clerk Leif-Erik Aune. With the Liberal backing, the committee clerk announced the meeting will be held Thursday on Parliament Hill at 2 p.m. ET. An emergency meeting can only be called if four members put their request in writing to the clerk, which would then force a session within five days. There are only three opposition members on this committee, meaning at least one Liberal MP had to back the call for action. Conservatives spearheaded new pay system Ratansi, the Liberal vice-chair of the committee, told CBC News that she's "not amused with anybody playing politics with the lives of ordinary Canadians." She said the opposition parties are simply "grandstanding" and that bringing MPs back to Ottawa would be a waste of taxpayers' money when the deputy minister has been providing daily briefings on efforts to fix the payroll system. Despite her criticism, Ratansi said she is signing off on an emergency meeting to call the opposition's bluff. "I think it is important that we put it to rest, this is not a political game. I want a solution, I don't want people to suffer." She said an examination of Phoenix will reveal it is the Conservatives who rubber stamped a "buggy" system in 2015 after internal warnings. Liberal vice-chair of the government operations and estimates committee, Yasmin Ratansi, sent a letter to the clerk in support of an emergency meeting to study the Phoenix payroll system. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press) "Obviously, it's an extremely serious issue. Public servants should never be going weeks or perhaps months without pay ... it's unconscionable. everyone agrees on that," Tom Lukiwski, the Conservative chair of the government operations committee, told CBC News. "Ultimately, [Phoenix] will be the best way forward. There's just so many kinks." He said questions need to be answered by Foote, the minister of public services and procurement, but he said he wasn't sure whether reconvening his committee at this time is the best forum. In an interview with CBC News, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also blamed the former Harper government for problems with Phoenix. Treasury Board President Scott Brison has also said that the Conservatives allowed the system to deteriorate. Phoenix was initiated by Stephen Harper's Conservatives and was rolled out in phases under Trudeau's watch earlier this year amid warnings from the largest union representing federal public servants that there would be problems. The Public Service Alliance of Canada said thousands of its members experienced problems during the first phase of the rollout, which began in late February, and in April the union urged the Liberals not to move ahead with the next phase. The government said at the time that only 300 employees had made formal complaints about the system and that "almost all" of the technical issues had been resolved. Trudeau must take responsibility: NDP The Harper government centralized pay centre operations in Miramichi, N.B., after it shut down the long-gun registry, a move that would have left thousands of public servants in that city without work. It also cut the number of compensation advisers dramatically from about 2,700 serving 300,000 employees to 442 now working in Miramichi, with the hope that Phoenix would streamline the number of employees needed to complete this work. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the government is, for the moment, focused on restoring proper pay, not holding people to account. 1:11 "The Conservatives were wrong to imagine that the federal government could effectively replace its payroll systems with off-the-shelf software from IBM operated by a single pay centre, relocated to Miramichi for political reasons," NDP procurement critic Erin Weir said Monday. "The Liberals were wrong to implement Phoenix this year even after employees at Miramichi warned that the system was not ready." The NDP said the prime minister has shirked responsibility by shifting the blame to the previous government. "After dismissing concerns raised about Phoenix from federal employees, their unions and the NDP for months, the prime minister must now take responsibility for the decisions his government made," Weir said. The previous Conservative government centralized pay operations in Miramichi, N.B., after it shut down the long-gun registry. (CBC) Marie Lemay, deputy minister for public services and procurement, told reporters last week that the government grossly underestimated the time and training needed to move to the new system and clear out old cases, outstripping the capacity to respond. The government will now hire temporary compensation adviser specialists and make technical enhancements to the system. About 720 public servants — largely new hires and students — have contacted the government about not receiving pay. Another 1,100 have not received parental, long-term disability or severance payments, while more than 80,000 employees entitled to supplementary pay for extra duties, overtime or pay adjustments have had problems. The Minister of Public Services and Procurement, Judy Foote, addresses the growing list of problems with the government's Phoenix pay system. 10:58 Phoenix falling CBC News has been collecting stories from civil servants, part-time employees and student workers who have been hit by the Phoenix payroll system problems. Here are some of their stories: Want to share your own story? Email us
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Nice attack: Motorcyclist 'tried to open lorry door' A Frenchman who was caught on video trying to stop the lorry attack in Nice a week ago has given an interview, dispelling assumptions that he must have been among the dozens who died. The man who gave his name as Franck, told the newspaper Nice-Matin how he climbed onto the step below the cab and punched the driver through a window. The driver picked up a pistol and tried to shoot Franck, but could not fire it. Eventually, Franck was hit over the head with the pistol and he fell off. Nice-Matin said Franck had huge bruises on his back, a broken rib and a left hand swollen from the punches he threw. At least 84 people, many of them children, were killed when the lorry ploughed into a large crowd watching a night-time fireworks display on the seafront Promenade des Anglais on Bastille Day. The driver, a Tunisian resident in Nice called Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, also fired at people with his pistol before being shot dead by three policemen. Image copyright Reuters Image caption The driver, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, was eventually shot dead inside the lorry by police Grainy mobile phone video shows a man on a scooter driving alongside the moving lorry. He dumps the scooter, continues on foot and makes it onto the running board next to the driver's window. The man then falls off and appears to end up under the wheels of the lorry. It was widely thought that he was among the dead until Nice-Matin published the interview with Franck, a local airport worker in his late 40s, on Thursday. "In my mind I had images of bodies flying everywhere. I immediately understood what was happening," he told the newspaper. Clinging on to the lorry's left door, Franck punched Lahouaiej-Bouhlel with his left hand through the open window. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Makeshift memorials have been set up along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice "I hit and hit and hit him again with all my strength," he said. "I hit him in the face but he said nothing, he did not flinch. He had his gun in his hand and pointed it in my face. He pulled the trigger but it did not work." In the end, Lahouaiej-Bouhlel hit him on the head with the pistol and he fell off. Franck said that at the time he was "clear-headed and ready to die". A cyclist also tried to climb into the cab shortly before Franck. Alexandre Migues told Nice-Matin on Sunday that he clung onto the door handle and tried to open it several times, but was forced to let go when Lahouaiej-Bouhlel picked up the pistol and pointed it at him. Although he was disappointed that they did not stop Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, Mr Migues said videos of the incident showed he and Franck succeeded in slowing down the lorry and giving people more time to flee.
City of Columbus files suit against drug companies, claiming damages from opioid epidemic Copyright by WCMH - All rights reserved Video COLUMBUS (WCMH) -- The city of Columbus has filed a lawsuit against 25 drug companies, calling the opioid addiction epidemic "the result of a well-developed marketing scheme...to sell opioids for the treatment of chronic pain." The lawsuit filed by Columbus in federal court Friday names the three major drug distributors including suburban Columbus-based Cardinal Health and five drug manufacturers. The lawsuit claims Columbus "has suffered significant harm and damages, including, but not limited to, the breakdown of families, increased health insurance costs, increased police and fire usage, increased usage of the criminal justice system and other significant harms. Columbus also is faced with a significant addiction problem it must abate and remedy." Cincinnati, Dayton, Toledo and the state of Ohio have filed similar lawsuits. Several companies sent NBC4 statement in response to the lawsuit's announcement Friday night. William Foster, spokesperson for Janssen Pharmaceuticals: Responsibly used opioid-based pain medicines give doctors and patients important choices to help manage the debilitating effects of chronic pain. At the same time, we recognize opioid abuse and addiction is a serious public health issue that must be addressed. We believe the allegations in lawsuits against our company are both legally and factually unfounded. Janssen has acted in the best interests of patients and physicians with regard to its opioid pain medicines, which are FDA-approved and carry FDA-mandated warnings about possible risks on every product label. According to independent surveillance data, Janssen opioid pain medicines consistently have some of the lowest rates of abuse among these medications, and since 2008 the volume of Janssen opioid products always has amounted to less than one percent of the total prescriptions written per year for opioid medications, including generics. Addressing opioid abuse will require collaboration among many stakeholders and we will continue to work with federal, state and local officials to support solutions. Denise Bradley, spokesperson for SVP Corporation Reputation: Teva is committed to the appropriate use of opioid medicines, and we recognize the critical public health issues impacting communities across the U.S. as a result of illegal drug use as well as the misuse and abuse of opioids that are available legally by prescription. To that end, we take a multi-faceted approach to this complex issue; we work to educate communities and healthcare providers on appropriate medicine use and prescribing, we comply closely with all relevant federal and state regulations regarding these medicines, and, through our R&D pipeline, we are developing non-opioid treatments that have the potential to bring relief to patients in chronic pain. Teva offers extensive resources for prescribers, patients and pharmacists regarding the responsible pain management and prevention of prescription drug abuse. Teva also collaborates closely with other stakeholders, including providers and prescribers, regulators, public health officials and patient advocates, to understand how to prevent prescription drug abuse without sacrificing patients' needed access to pain medicine. A spokeswoman with Cardinal Health also released this statement: As a longstanding and involved member of the Columbus community, we are disappointed that the City chose to file this copycat lawsuit. While we do not believe litigation is the solution to this problem, we will defend ourselves vigorously against this baseless lawsuit. The people of Cardinal Health care deeply about opioid abuse and addiction. We believe there is an urgent need to work towards real and meaningful solutions, right now! We are actively engaged in solving this complex public health crisis and saving lives. This is why we launched our new Opioid Action Program last month, which augments our already substantial efforts to combat opioid abuse, including the significant investment in state-of-the-art controls to effectively combat the diversion of pain medications from legitimate uses. Thousands of Cardinal Health employees are passionately committed to helping make their city a better place to live and they voluntarily give of their time and resources to this community every single day. Columbus City Council President and Columbus City Attorney-Elect Zach Klein released this statement: Today, the City of Columbus filed a lawsuit in federal court against opioid manufacturers, distributors, and certain key opinion leaders regarding their involvement and participation in creating our current opioid epidemic. It is true that we attempted to work with certain named defendants to resolve this matter independent of litigation, but we didn't have a willing partner. We have a duty to the citizens of our city, as well as those children, families, and friends who are negatively affected by the promotion of opioids. Our goal is, and will always will be, fighting to help those families and kids whose lives are impacted.
WITH DISCUSSIONS ON the possibility of a united Ireland being reignited due to the border row going on in the Brexit negotiations, less than half of people have said they want to see it happening. Any deal that would separate the customs union and single market status of Northern Ireland from the UK is fiercely opposed by the DUP, which vetoed proposals on no “regulatory divergence” between Ireland and Northern Ireland earlier this week before an agreement was finally made on Friday. Commenting on that deal, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that “there is no question of us exploiting Brexit as a means of moving to a united Ireland without consent”. Although still incredibly far away from being close to a reality, a poll for RTE’s Claire Byrne Live by Amarách Research shows that a united Ireland isn’t a topic that enjoys a broad consensus among Irish people. Asking 1,000 Irish adults last Monday the question “do you want a united Ireland?”, here were the responses: Yes – 49% No – 29% Don’t know – 22% It is interesting to note that the numbers of those who would support a united Ireland has risen in the last year. When the same pollsters asked the question in December 2016, just 46% of people said they wanted a united Ireland, while 32% said they didn’t. As this audit of TDs last year from TheJournal.ie shows, over half of those who responded want to see a border poll in their lifetimes. Now-Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said at the time he believes there will be a united Ireland in his lifetime. “I know that now this is not the time for a border poll. It would be unsuccessful and divisive and could undermine relations between the two communities in the north. We need to achieve a unity of purpose first of all,” he told us.
President Donald Trump is complaining that a deadline he set for himself for various policy plans is unfair. Trump’s first 100 days in office ends April 29, and critics have pointed out that he has yet to achieve many key goals. The president responded to such criticism on Friday by calling the benchmark a “ridiculous standard,” even though he personally touted the deadline for months. No matter how much I accomplish during the ridiculous standard of the first 100 days, & it has been a lot (including S.C.), media will kill! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2017 Shortly before the election, he laid out his plan for his first 100 days, including two of his biggest campaign promises: building a wall along the Mexican border and repealing the Affordable Care Act. He has yet to fulfill either commitment. Then, days after the election, Trump released a video detailing many more accomplishments he’d hoped to make by the time his first 100 days were up. The video included promises to pull the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, crack down on illegal immigration and get rid of regulations on coal mining― all of which he did. In a separate announcement made in the wake of reports of Russian election meddling, Trump also promised to release a report on cybersecurity within 90 days of taking office. That report never materialized.
Search Gallery Not Sure on the Ground FabledCreative 49 Mosquito in Amber - Hard Enamel Pin FabledCreative 34 Dinosaur Skull - Albertosaurus FabledCreative 57 Spaceship - Hard Enamel Pin FabledCreative 81 Dinosaur Skull - Dilophosaurus FabledCreative 152 Minimalist - Total Lunar Eclipse FabledCreative 178 The Mountain King Slumbers FabledCreative 141 The Dwarf Planets of The Solar System FabledCreative 124 Dinosaur Skull - Gallimimus FabledCreative 30 Bottle - Mana Potion FabledCreative 232 A Wolf in Sheeps Clothing FabledCreative 132 Dinosaur Skull - Dracorex FabledCreative 147 Minimalist - Total Solar Eclipse FabledCreative 295 Bottle - Health Restorative FabledCreative 174 The Planets of The Solar System FabledCreative 171 Dinosaur Skull - Brachiosaurus FabledCreative 113 Curiosity Killed the Cat FabledCreative 267 Follow the White Rabbit FabledCreative 182 Nuka Cola Quantum - Fallout 4 FabledCreative 136 Nuka Cola Quartz - Fallout 4 FabledCreative 79 Nuka Cola Classic - Fallout 4 FabledCreative 143 Tetris FabledCreative 360 Ghost in the Shell - Major FabledCreative 268 Fallout - Three Dog FabledCreative 280
Image courtesy of Sega Most discussion about video games is about what everyone's playing right now, even at Waypoint. But ever since Waypoint launched last year, we've been looking for a reason to revisit some our favorite games, especially the forgotten gems others might have overlooked. Those feelings provided the motivation behind our new Video Game Book Club*, where we'll play a game over the course of a month and record podcasts discussing it. This month it's Sega's Binary Domain. * So, uh, we don't have a name for this new idea yet. Can you help us in the forums? After playing Nier: Automata, everyone at Waypoint was ready for another dive into philosophies of the sci-fi mind. Binary Domain, a quirky action game about humanity's relationship with artificial intelligence, fits the bill. (Did you know that you can also play the game by yelling voice commands at a Kinect?) Here's how it works. We'll play the game over the course of a month. On May 17, the episode discussing the first half of the game drops, the second episode on May 31. According to How Long to Beat, Binary Domain takes a little under 10 hours. The idea with Waypoint's Currently Unnamed Video Game Book Club is that we're picking games accessible for most people. Though Binary Domain was not ported to Xbox One or PlayStation 4, nor is it backwards compatible, there is a decent PC version available on Steam, and console copies aren't expensive on Amazon or GameStop. If nothing else, there are Let's Play videos on YouTube. Obviously, everyone playing along is a big part of this. There will be threads on the forum, and we'll be soliciting questions to drive the upcoming podcasts. Who's ready to shoot up some robots and feel sad about it?
Calamity: Despite repeated reassurances that ObamaCare website glitches were fixed, officials are frantically trying to repair massive problems that, by their own admission, could crush ObamaCare and the insurance industry. Throughout December, administration officials said that they'd all but fixed the start-up problems with the ObamaCare exchange site, pointing to the sharp increase in enrollment that month as evidence. And as to those "back end" problems that sent erroneous information to insurers, they claimed to have cut the error rate to less than 1% by early December. But hidden from view, administration officials were in a state of panic. A procurement document posted on a federal website, but little noticed by the press, depicts an administration desperate to immediately replace CGI, the key contractor behind Healthcare.gov, with Accenture. The need was so immediate, the document says, that the usual competitive bidding process had to be dispensed with. Why the urgency? It turns out that after three years, CGI still hadn't built the "financial management platform" needed to track eligibility and enrollment, account for subsidy payments, and produce accurate "risk adjustment" forecasts. As a result, the document says, "the entire healthcare reform program is jeopardized." Failure to get this platform built in time, it said, could result in "erroneous payments to providers and insurers." And that, in turn, "could seriously put (health plans) at financial risk, potentially leading to their default." In addition, the inability to forecast risk adjustment payments — a critical feature of ObamaCare — would put "the entire health insurance industry at risk." The officials' words, not ours. Worse, they have only until mid-March — 31 business days from now — to get this "core functionality" built. Yet even when announcing the contract switch earlier this month, the administration tried to downplay the situation, saying it had brought Accenture on mainly "to prepare for next year's open enrollment period." Add to this ObamaCare's other monumental problems — its inability to sign up young people, the ongoing massive security risks at the website, the low payment rates among alleged enrollees — and you have a recipe for total disaster. It may be too much to ask President Obama to put a stop to this madness. But at the very least, he owes the public a full accounting of the risks the health industry now faces thanks to his administration's incompetence.
The mother of the 4-year-old boy who slipped into the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo on Saturday – which led to the animal being shot dead – has hit back against online critics who are criticizing her parenting. Michelle Gregg defended herself in a now-deleted Facebook post, writing: “God protected my child until the authorities were able to get to him. My son is safe and was able to walk away with a concussion and a few scrapes… no broken bones or internal injuries.” Gregg continued, “As a society we are quick to judge how a parent could take their eyes off of their child and if anyone knows me I keep a tight watch on my kids. Accidents happen…” Social media users slammed Gregg for allegedly not paying close enough attention to her son, writing that she was responsible for the death of Harambe, the 17-year-old, 450-pound male Western Lowland gorilla. #harambe was killed because of the stupid and their irresponsible parenting…their picture should be made public. — Liberate Illinois (@liberateIL) May 29, 2016 Gregg was not the only one to face negative commentary online after the incident – which was captured on video. The zoo released a statement, Saturday, from park director Thane Maynard saying, “We are heartbroken about losing Harambe, but a child’s life was in danger and a quick decision had to be made by our Dangerous Animal Response Team.” The zoo said that Harambe was violently dragging and throwing the little boy. Maynard explained that tranquilizing Harambe was not an option because “tranquilizers do not take effect for several minutes and the child was in imminent danger. On top of that, the impact from the dart could agitate the animal and cause the situation to get much worse.” Get push notifications with news, features and more. Many have questioned why an alternative solution was not used. “The little boy, once he fell, I don’t think the gorilla even knew that he was in there until he heard him splashing in the water,” onlooker Brittany Nicely told ABC News, continuing, “The gorilla rushed the boy, but did not hit the boy. He almost was guarding the boy, was protecting him… The gorilla was not, in my eyes being harmful.” Harambe Source: Cincinnati Zoo/Twitter Animal lovers took to social media to issue their opinions, with one user writing, “An endangered animal should not have had to pay with its life because of a lack of supervision #CincinnatiZoo #Harambe.” Rare gorilla #Harambe murdered by @CincinnatiZoo bc kid got in enclosure. Zoo & bad parents shld be held responsible pic.twitter.com/uIQE7L38Ux — BrettMDecker 🇺🇸 (@BrettMDecker) May 29, 2016 In response, Jack Hanna, the director emeritus of Ohio’s Columbus Zoo, told Good Morning America of Harambe, “I’ve seen him take a green coconut, which you can’t bust open with a sledgehammer and squish it like this. You’re dealing with either human life or animal life here. So what is the decision? I think it’s very simple to figure that out.” Hanna continued, “I can tell you now, that there’s no doubt in my mind the child would not be here today if they hadn’t made that decision.” The Snuggle Is Real: Bears Acting Like Humans – It’s as Glorious as It Sounds Animal activists have started an online petition called “Justice for Harambe.” If the petition reaches 150,000 signatures, it will be sent to the Cincinnati Zoo, Hamilton County Child Protection Services and Cincinnati Police Department to encourage action against Gregg.
I think this woman needs to watch more foreign movies. She’s got a bruise on her arm that looks vaguely like a man’s face, and of course she immediately jumps to the conclusion that out of eleventy-whatever guys with beards and long hair, her bruise looks like — wait for it — Jesus. Never mind that nobody actually knows what Jesus looked like compared to other long-haired, bearded guys. Never mind that AFAIK there’s no mention in the Bible of Jesus actually having long hair or a beard at all. I guess every guy with a beard is Jesus, just like every woman in a scarf is his mother. But I think what we have here is a another case of mistaken identity. Her bruise clearly looks like Gerard Depardieu portraying Cyrano de Bergerac. Wait a minute! Does that mean Jesus looks … French? I wonder how that’ll play on Fox News! Advertisements
CLEVELAND, Ohio – A version of the controversial stop-and-frisk police tactic -- deemed unconstitutional by a federal judge -- could come to Cleveland if one city councilman gets his way. But Ward 2 City Councilman Zack Reed said the key is to insert one word. "It's not stop and frisk," he said. "It's stop, question and frisk." To combat what Reed calls "out-of-control" gun violence in Cleveland neighborhoods, he called on the city's police department to institute a policy allowing officers to target "hot-spot" neighborhoods, stop and question people in a high-crime area they deem suspicious, and pat them down if officers' suspicions still hold. If that practice is combined with increased foot patrols and neighborhood cameras, Reed said he expects the city's crime rate would plummet. "I believe the police should have every tool in their tool box to get that illegal gun out of your hands," he said. Reed said city officials, including Mayor Frank Jackson, Safety Director Michael McGrath and police Chief Calvin Williams, would have to meet with counterparts in New York City to create a policy within the boundaries of the U.S. Constitution that would work for Cleveland. WKYC reports Jackson called Reed's proposals "armchair police-chiefing." In New York, police were permitted to stop suspects based on suspicions about their behavior and appearances. As the Washington Post reported last year, police could detain and question pedestrians, and potentially search them, if they had a "reasonable suspicion" the pedestrian "committed, is committing, or is about to commit a felony or a Penal Law misdemeanor." The New York City Public Advocate's office reported 532,911 stops were conducted in 2012, down from 685,724 in 2011, the Washington Post reported. The vast majority of those stops were of black or Hispanic people. A federal court banned the tactic in August 2013, saying it was applied in a discriminatory fashion against minorities. The Washington Post, in reporting on the ruling, wrote Shira Scheindlin, a U.S. District Court judge for the Southern District of New York, ruled the "stop-and-frisk" policy violates the Fourteenth Amendment's promise of equal protection, as black and Hispanic people are subject to stops and searches at a higher rate than whites. Reed, who is black, acknowledged that many high-crime neighborhoods "have certain demographics," but said how stop, question and frisk is implemented and where it's implemented are two issues. "I'm tired of seeing African American males get killed in senseless incidents of gun violence," he said. In late January, New York's new Mayor Bill de Blasio, who campaigned on a promise to "end the era of stop-and-frisk policing," announced a deal to drop the city's appeal of the ruling. The NYPD is studying years of data to determine if the decline in stop-and-frisk is having an impact on crime, CBS New York reported in June. Overall, crime in the city is down, but there has been an uptick of shootings in certain neighborhoods. Police Commissioner Bill Bratton told CBS New York in June the department will have a better idea about any connection after the analysis is completed in several weeks. "Stop, question, and frisk by our officers is down dramatically," Bratton told CBS New York. "Our arrest numbers are staying as they have been so it's a bit of a contradiction." Bratton has previously said he didn't believe there was a link between the drop in stops and an increase in shootings, according to CBS New York. Overall, stop-and-frisk numbers dropped last year from 533,000 to 194,000.
Representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood are visiting Washington D.C. this week, but they will not be meeting with President Obama, or any other administration officials, according to reports. “Have you decided to cut all ties with this organization?” asked a reporter during the White House press briefing today. “No,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest replied, adding that there had been “no change” in the administration’s policy with respect to the Muslim Brotherhood. Earnest offered no explanation why the administration chose not to meet with the Muslim Brotherhood representatives, describing them as “foreign interlocutors.” He reminded reporters that Obama met with representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood earlier this year, adding that it was up to the White House to choose the appropriate time for such visits. “We have obviously met with the Muslim Brotherhood in the past, as recently as early this year, but on this visit, no one from the administration will be meeting them.” Earnest concluded.
When I was first seriously considering becoming Orthodox, how the Orthodox understood church authority was an important area to map out. In discussing the matter with Catholics that I knew, they often objected that Orthodox ecclesiology falls prey to the same problems as Protestantism. There was no locus of authority in the offices of the church, but the source of normativity was ultimately to reside in the judgment of the people. The cardinal example of this was the rejection of the council of Florence. Upon returning, delegates found that the overwhelming majority would not accept the terms of the union and choose death and slavery to theological compromise. This is true as far as it goes. The signatories were rebuked and the majority did not accept the decree of union. But a little more study brings to light the fact that not all of the Orthodox representatives signed. Mark of Ephesus did not. Other signatories’ assent borders on simony. The Pope provided all kinds of gifts and provisions for those he thought could be won over. For Mark, there was nothing. Mark’s decision was therefore free and clear. Lest it be thought that Mark’s refusal to sign is insignificant, the Pope upon learning that Mark refused to sign, exclaimed, “Then nothing has been accomplished.” And Mark’s rejection was before the majority rejection. The second line of evidence that is proffered is that for the Orthodox an ecumenical council is either known to be such or becomes such when it has been accepted by the “whole church.” There is no shortage of Catholic apologetic materials that go down this path. (I suspect they do because they rely on pop-Orthodox works or some distinctly Russian theological works.) The position usually isn’t stated very clearly. Usually it begins with a claim regarding what the sufficient conditions are for a council to be ecumenical, which is a metaphysical claim and then slides into a claim regarding how one can know that a council is ecumenical. This is apparent for example in the above cited source. I take the metaphysical claim to be the more significant. So the idea is that a council can only be ecumenical if the “whole church” assents to it. This is obviously problematic since no council could ever meet such conditions where every professing Christian agreed. There is no council that I know of, even the Apostolic council in Acts 15 that didn’t result in some measure of dissent. I think Catholics are right to object to this idea as untenable. But I don’t think it is Orthodox teaching as such either. Something like this idea became popular in Russian philosophical/theological circles through the writings of a Russian of philosophical disposition, Aleksey Stepanovic Khomiakov (1804-1860). The model is usually denoted by the term Sobornost meaning “catholic.” Khomiakov like other Russian religious philosophers of his time was significantly influenced by the German Idealism that was running through Russian academic circles. Consequently, Khomiakov along with even more Idealistic Russian philosophers like Soloviev faced ecclesiastical discipline and denunciation. Protopresbyter Winogradow, one time professor at the Theological Academy of Moscow wrote, “Their whole training was entirely philosophical and generally humanistic, certainly not theological. The strictly theological methods of theological research were foreign and unknown to them. In pre-bolshevic Russia they belonged to the educated circles of Russian society and stood in opposition to the official Church for purely political motives since the official Church was a stern defender of the autocratic-monarchic governing system which was acutely opposed to them.” In Orthodoxer Schau, (Muchen) 1958, p. 16. Archbp. Harkianakis writes, “The danger of Chomiakov’s sobornost theory was immediately detected by his contemporary theologians of the Russian Church, including primarily VF Pernickij, AV, Gorskij and PA Linickij who fiercely attacked him However, since Chomiakov’s spiritual movement, as we have said, was not irrelevant to the political interests of the day, it had a great impact on the Slavophiles. It was natural for the supporters of the sobornost theory, amongst whom, A Ivanov-Platonov and F Smirnov were worthy of mention to join this movement at the same time. B Plank characteristically observed that although the opponents of this theory came from the order of the official theologians of the Russian Church, its supporters were not from theological circles, but from philosophical and liberal intellectual circles.” Archbp. Stylianos Harkianakis, The Infallibility of the Church in Orthodox Theology, Athens, 1965, then St. Andrew’s Orthodox Press, Sydney, 2008, p. 239. Even more to the point, Khomiakov was not permitted by the state and the church to publish his works which is why they were published in French or in English translations. And Khomiakov’s education also helps to show that his view did not represent the theological tradition of Orthodoxy in Russia, let alone anywhere else. “This man, who held a strong pen and vivid imagination and had studied mainly mathematics, found himself entangled in the theological thought and problematics of his time by his own initiative, so to speak. Precisely because he had not studied theology, he dared to deal primarily with strictly ecclesiological themes, in the conviction that theology was merely a ‘charismatic’ matter. This, while he confessed, in his own words that his theological education was at most imperfect, nonetheless he felt compelled to tackle quite thorny problems of ecclesiology.” Archbp. Stylianos Harkianakis, p. 206. Pinpointing some of the problematic matter of Khomiakov, Harkianakis following Romanides, that it was the Idealistic view of the church as an organism to the exclusion of the idea of the church as the bringer of salvation that served to motivate Khomiakov’s erroneous ecclesiological views. (It should be pondered how relevant this is to Cardinal Newman’s theory of doctrinal development.) “Beyond this, however, we should remark that Chomiakov had taken as starting point, a one-sided image of the Church as ‘body” and ‘organism’ and not the notion of the Church as centre and instrument of salvation. Harkianakis, p. 239. And Romanides, “Instead of basing their theology of the church on Patristic soteriology and Christology, they adapted themselves to a contemporary German philosophy of social life as an organism and imagined that Russian peasants were the Orthodox par excellance because of something inherent in the national character.” John Romanides, ‘Orthodox Ecclesiology according to Alexis Chomiakov’, in The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 2 (1956): 73. Similar judgments of rejection can be found in the works of say Romanian Orthodox theologian Georg Racovenanu, or Greeks such as J. Karmiris, and Androutsos. Now one might object that the Orthodox are not in a position to know which of these two groups is correctly and normatively representing Orthodox teaching since the Orthodox have no way of putting forth official teaching. Even if we assume that this is true, (it isn’t) the objector will have to pick between two positions since they are not compatible. On the one hand he will have to maintain and then demonstrate that the Orthodox have no way of putting forth official teaching and so there is no way to know which side is correct and normative. But if this route is taken, he will have to abandon the idea that Khomiakov’s views represent the official Orthodox ecclesiology. On the other hand, if he claims that Khomiakov’s views represent the Orthodox teaching he will have to demonstrate and not merely assume as much. (He will also need to show how and where the Orthodox officially put forward theological statements.) And I don’t think they can maintain that his views represent the official teaching of the Orthodox Church. Either way though, Catholic and now Protestant apologists are simply wrong to assume that his view is Orthodox teaching. What I think this the near ubiquity of this objection to Orthodoxy shows is the pervasiveness of superficial study prior to making a choice to convert, one way or the other. I think far too many Orthodox converts who are able don’t do their homework and likewise Catholic and Protestant critics don’t either. The fact that I could discover this material without much effort shows that critics who routinely deploy this argument really haven’t gone beyond the superficial level of study. Moreover, trying to tar Orthodoxy with Protestantism, which is, as the esteemed Louis Bouyer argued, a distinctly Catholic phenomena is entirely out of place. Now what I have not done is spell out in detail what conditions are necessary and sufficient for a council to be ecumenical and normative. That I am largely leaving for another post. But the answers to that question are not in the main that hard to discover and sort out. Take Henry Chadwick’s description of the judgments of 2nd Nicea in 787 for instance. “The question of what constitutes a council as ecumenical rather than merely regional or local had been debated at the sixth session of the second Council of Nicea in 787, where it was urgent to rebut the claims made on behalf of the iconoclast Council of Hiereia in 754 at which the emperor himself had presided. In 787 the answer given was in terms of representation and assent by all the patriarchs of the pentarchy, each giving ratification on behalf of all churches under his jurisdiction.” East and West: The Making of a Rift in the Church, Oxford (2003), p. 143. So an ecumenical council accepted by East and West teaches that what constitutes the ecumenical nature of the council is pentarchial ratification, rather than papal ratification. It would be interesting and useful to see how Catholic theologians attempt to harmonize the decision of 2nd Nicea as to what constitutes an ecumenical council with say Pastor Aeternus or other Catholic dogmatic statements. Is 2nd Nicea not accepted by Rome in this respect? Was 2nd Nicea wrong? And why didn’t they put forward the view as found in Catholic theology regarding the supremacy of the Pope over councils as of divine right?
And even though this is not the first time such "emergency measures" have been put in place, many citizens are angry, and scientists doubt the program could help bring about a permanent solution. The driving restrictions will be valid for all motorists in Mexico City and in 18 municipalities in the neighboring State of Mexico. In response, the city's government is taking one million old and new cars alike off the road each day of the week for the next three months in an effort to reduce the alarming pollution levels. This expansion of the city's Hoy No Circula program — which stipulates that certain vehicles must stay off the road one day a week — has been met with skepticism from a beleaguered public. For the last two weeks Mexico City has been immersed in its worst environmental crisis in the last 14 years. The air was so polluted that President Enrique Peña Nieto had to intervene and ordered emergency measures in an attempt to protect the health of more than 20 million people. Read more For the last two weeks Mexico City has been immersed in its worst environmental crisis in the last 14 years. The air was so polluted that President Enrique Peña Nieto had to intervene and ordered emergency measures in an attempt to protect the health of more than 20 million people. In response, the city's government is taking one million old and new cars alike off the road each day of the week for the next three months in an effort to reduce the alarming pollution levels. This expansion of the city's Hoy No Circula program — which stipulates that certain vehicles must stay off the road one day a week — has been met with skepticism from a beleaguered public. The driving restrictions will be valid for all motorists in Mexico City and in 18 municipalities in the neighboring State of Mexico. And even though this is not the first time such "emergency measures" have been put in place, many citizens are angry, and scientists doubt the program could help bring about a permanent solution. Related: These Mexico City Drivers Are Pretty Pissed Off Over Some New Road Safety Rules On Friday, a poll by the newspaper Reforma found that 63 percent of people living in Mexico City disapproved of the government's approach, and 53 percent think the banning of more vehicles would make no difference on the pollution problem. The prohibition has highlighted the lack of sufficient public transportation in Mexico's capital. The already overcrowded and inefficient metro system, the city's busiest public transport, experienced a 30 percent increase in passengers in just the last week. Critics also said this decision could be seen as government overreach. The toughening up of Hoy No Circula — Spanish for "Today Don't Circulate" — won't be permanent. The city's environmental commission said it will last from April 5 to June 30, around when seasonal rainfall begins. Once the test-period for this measure comes to an end, the commission could decide on making it permanent or returning to the old restrictions, which focus on vehicles eight years or older. Previously, after undergoing emissions testing to determine the amount of pollution they emitted, cars could circulate freely. But if a car gets negative scores, it could be ordered off the road for one or two days a week. In the meantime, the Mexican scientific community largely agreed that the banning of cars is just "a temporary solution with a total lack of scientific basis," the Center of Atmospheric Studies of Mexico's national university (UNAM) said in a statement on Thursday. "What's really behind the problem is the messy urban expansion that affects air quality, ecological reserves, crops, and water resources. In summary, the sustainability and viability of the Mexican megalopolis," the statement said. Related: Mexico City's Smog Problem Isn't Getting Better Because People Hate Public Transit Other scientists have doubts that the government's strategy against road traffic has any actual effect on reducing the pollution. Smog in Mexico City is caused by a combination of vehicle emissions, heavy industrial output, and the city's high-altitude bowl-shaped valley. Doctor Héctor Riveros of the Physics Department at UNAM participated in the environmental commission when the first Hoy No Circula program was implemented in 1992. Since then he predicted that taking cars out of traffic could actually make things worse. "The Hoy No Circula program has never worked, traffic may have diminished a little, but pollution levels have not changed. For example, supposing we get half a million cars off the streets, we would be sending 800,000 people to the public transport system, which pollutes between four and five times more than private cars," Riveros said, referring to the thousands of microbuses and other polluting vehicles that already choke the city's streets. According to the scientist, the only time pollution went down slightly was in the early 2000s, after the Mexican state-owned oil company Pemex improved the quality of the fuel it sells, and when the government made it obligatory for all cars to have a catalytic converter — a device which filters the excessive contaminants coming out of the exaust systems of vehicles. "The only real solution here is to improve the fuel," Riveros said. "If we do that the contaminants in the air would reduce between 30 and 50 percent. But the only real solution is people avoiding having to travel long distances to get to work." Despite this, Mexico City Mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera said on Tuesday his administration will push to make the measure permanent and asked the federal government for a special budget of at least 30 million dollars to improve the public transportation. Until now the only vehicles exempt from these measures are those with federal license plates, and vehicles used by civil protection, health services, public security, and schools. Hybrid and electric cars are allowed on the road every day. Gabriela Gorbea contributed to this report. Follow Alan Hernández and Oscar Balderas on Twitter: @alanpasten and @oscarbalmen
Jenson Button's F1 career could end because of a pay-rise that is scheduled to kick in for 2016. Two British newspapers, the Daily Mail and the Telegraph, are reporting that the 35-year-old's current retainer of $12.5 million would rise to almost $19 million if McLaren takes up the 'option' on his existing deal. "McLaren's driver bill would then be $58 million which could prove too much," wrote the Daily Mail's Jonathan McEvoy from Spa-Francorchamps. The wage bill has reportedly become an issue given McLaren-Honda's dire 2015 season, in which official income will drop due to the prospect of finishing a lowly ninth in the constructors' championship. "They have also failed to bring in a title sponsor since Vodafone pulled out at the end of 2013," McEvoy added. The situation could, however, be good news to McLaren's juniors Kevin Magnussen and Stoffel Vandoorne, of whom the latter won the GP2 support race at Spa. The Belgian is expected to step up to a reserve role for 2016, while McEvoy explained: "Magnussen, who performed respectably in his one season, would cost no more than $1.5 million." And the Telegraph's Daniel Johnson added: "The 22-year-old would also bring sponsorship money from Denmark." (GMM)
Riyad Mahrez has won the PFA Fans' Premier League Player of the Season award, beating the likes of Mesut Ozil and Jamie Vardy. Almost 250,000 votes were cast in the poll, which was held on the Sky Sports website and apps, with Leicester star Mahrez, who also won the PFA Players' Player of the Year award, winning 44 per cent of the vote. Arsenal playmaker Ozil came second with 39 per cent, way ahead of Vardy in third with eight per cent. Rounding out the top six were Harry Kane (four per cent), Dimitri Payet (three per cent) and Sergio Aguero (one per cent). The top six were chosen by our expert panel, which included Sky Sports pundits Paul Merson, Ian Holloway, Peter Beagrie, Mike Riley - general manager of the Professional Game Match Officials, and Malcolm Clarke - chairman of the Football Supporters' Federation. And it is Mahrez who has come out on top thanks to your votes. You can see the results of the vote here...
BOX SCORE It’s an old baseball tradition that when things go bad, the manager holds a team meeting. Things have gone pretty badly for the Phillies lately and on Thursday night the stink got a little too pungent for Pete Mackanin’s olfactory senses. He called his first postgame, air-‘em-out team meeting as Phillies manager. It was impossible to argue with the timing. The Phillies had just suffered an embarrassing 13-2 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays (see Instant Replay). They made four errors, one of which was actually a boneheaded mental error. They were mocked by the crowd of 22,279 when they finally pushed across an unearned run after being down 9-0 in the seventh inning. There was none of the energy, effort and enthusiasm that club president Andy MacPhail has said he wants to see from the rebuilding club and one had to wonder what he was thinking as he stood in his private box and watched the final inning of the disaster on the field. Mackanin was bothered by the lack of effort, too. “Very much so,” he said. “Not a lot of good to look at; a lot of bad to look at.” Aaron Nola, who is the least of the Phillies’ problems, struggled through his second straight poor outing. He was tagged for eight hits, including two homers and a double, and eight runs while failing to get an out in the fourth inning. Prior to his start in Washington on Saturday, Nola had rung up nine straight quality starts — at least six innings and three or fewer earned runs. But in his last two starts, he has been tagged for 15 hits and 10 earned runs in 6 2/3 innings. “He looks out of sync,” Mackanin said. “His breaking ball has been flat. He just looks out of sync. Other than that, we made four errors and not a lot of offense to talk about again. That’s about all I got.” Toronto out-hit the Phillies, 17-5. Former Phillie J.A. Happ returned to town and held his old club to three hits and an unearned run over seven innings. The Jays hit five homers in the game and ended up outscoring the Phillies, 31-7, over the final three games of the home-and-home four-game series. The Blue Jays are clearly a superior club, but they benefitted from an abundance of Phillies’ sloppiness in the series. On Wednesday night, they turned three Phillies’ walks and a hit batsman into four runs. On Thursday night, the Phillies committed four errors. Play like that is the reason the Phillies have lost 20 of their last 26 games to go from seven games over .500 to seven games under .500. All this — and more — prompted Mackanin’s team meeting. OK, it wasn’t an air-‘em-out roof rattler. That's not Mackanin's style. But the manager did want to get some things off his chest and get some guys’ attention. “I didn’t like what I saw tonight,” he said. “We’ve gone from seven over to seven under within about a two-week span. I don’t want to let what we did the first two months get away from us. We’re better than what we’ve played the last two weeks. I don’t want that to slip away. I want the players to regroup and start all over. “I’m not going to tell you what I talked about. It will stay in clubhouse. I just let them know I wasn’t pleased. “It’s hard when you get your rear ends beat day in and day out. We went through this tough stretch. But there’s a choice to be made: You either cave in or you fight your way back. I don’t want to see guys pouting or feeling sorry for themselves. If you want to prove you belong here, you’ve got to fight.” Cody Asche said Mackanin’s message was basically regroup and move forward. Perhaps the tipping point in Mackanin’s calling a team meeting occurred in the eighth inning when centerfielder Odubel Herrera, arguably the team’s best player, lost track of how many outs there were and flipped the ball into the stands, allowing a Jays’ runner to move up two bases. It was one of the lowlights in an inning in which reliever David Hernandez, pressed into mop-up duty because the bullpen has been used so much lately, gave up five hits, including two homers and four runs. “Nobody likes to see that,” Mackanin said of Herrera's blunder. “There’s a few things that I’ve been thinking about and today was the culmination of a lot of those thoughts.” Herrera was not available for comment after the game. Few players were. Mackanin’s meeting delayed his postgame news conference and most of the players were gone by the time the clubhouse opened to reporters. Nola waited around. “It's tough for the team when I can't get out of the fourth inning,” he said. “It's unacceptable on my part.”
A marae is in shock after a beloved horse bolted and was killed by a ute on a Wellington street. The horse was hit at about 6.45am on Wednesday on Adelaide Rd in Berhampore, just south of Duppa St. The brown female horse, named Te Haa, was led out of her paddock at Tapu Te Ranga marae in Island Bay in the early hours of the morning. The rider, a man who also lives at the marae, was leading her back towards Island Bay before the horse died, police inspector Dave Rose said. She died, in the arms of the rider and members of the community, within minutes of being hit. Police had not yet laid any charges, but the horse could have seriously hurt or killed somebody when it ran from the man, Rose said. The driver of the red Hilux which hit the horse was shaken but uninjured, though the ute was damaged substantially in the crash, Rose said. Traffic was diverted while the horse was moved, winched onto the back of a flatbed truck, but has returned to normal. School children stopping to look at the horse's body were moved along by police officers. The rider of the horse stayed with the body until it was put on to the truck. He circled the horse, patting it and straightening its tail, and at one point put his head under the hood covering the horse's bloodied head. When asked questions about the accident he appeared angry and upset. "This is my baby!" he shouted. The horse belonged to Mere Takoko who lived at Tapu Te Ranga marae. She was too upset to speak, but her friend Maraea Rakuraku said everybody was shocked by Te Haa's death. She was a popular horse at the marae, and had lived there about a year, Rakuraku said. "The horse is such an important part of the community here. Many people have interactions and look after her. "People are just walking around in shock. It's so sad, it's awful." The man who let her out on Wednesday morning was allowed to have access to it, but owner Takoko had no knowledge of his actions, Rakuraku said. The man was also in shock. Nobody had managed to discover what he was doing, she said. Berhampore resident Shaynie Jones was walking to the bus stop on Adelaide Rd when she saw the horse galloping towards her. "When I was leaving for work I couldn't believe my eyes because I saw her galloping down the road." "As soon as I saw her galloping she went and the truck drove straight at her," Jones said. "It's an unusual thing, you don't usually have horses running down the road, not being in a rural area." Stuart Campell was at Berhampore BP when the horse galloped past him, nearing a cyclist. "I just been to the gas station and it ran out at the traffic lights … came bounding through and it nearly took a cyclist out at the lights here," Campell said. "I thought then I was still dreaming." He was on his way to work when the horse appeared over the hill, running towards him on the left lane. In that time the horse had run from him towards Island Bay. Police were trying to establish what had prompted the man to go for such an early-morning ride in a busy area. New Zealand Transport Agency rules say people riding or leading animals at night must wear reflective clothing and carry a torch. Horses must be kept to the left of the road, away from traffic. - Comments are closed
While teams like Juventus, Roma, Napoli were racking up points to fight it out for the title, Milan were sliding downhill, drawing and losing to teams they would have annihilated a few years back. Champions in 2010-11, Milan were flirting with the relegation zone as they had slumped to a lowly 13th in the table just 4 points off the dreaded drop zone and a massive 20 points off the table toppers, Juventus. Things were fairly quiet and subdued at the Via Turati in the summer; somewhat a relief after last seasons mass exodus with Filippo Inzaghi, Gennaro Gattuso, Alessandro Nesta et al putting their keys to their San Siro lockers on the table one by one. Milan are in stage two of the rebuilding program that began in the summer of 2012, where they have taken small but promising steps in rebuilding the side into the youthful, talented group that Silvio Berlusconi has envisioned for the next few years. Milan started the season the same way they started the previous one, with a loss against a newly promoted team. That loss triggered the slide that does not appear to be close to halting any time soon. It’s their worst start since the 1981-82 season, when they ended up getting relegated. It is a far cry from the days of Marco Van Basten, Ruud Gullit and manager Fabio Capello when three consecutive Scudettos were won between 1992 and 94. In those three years Milan lost a total of five matches – a number that’s been already matched after 14 games of the 2013-14 season. Inevitably, there is talk of coach Massimiliano Allegri’s job being on the line and Italy striker Mario Balotelli has been portrayed in the media as the “symbol” of Milan’s “crisis” as he has notched as many yellow cards as goals so far this season. But the team’s current woes also seem to have opened up a rift that goes even higher, between owner Silvio Berlusconi’s daughter Barbara, a Milan board member, and CEO Adriano Galliani, who has been the ex-premier’s right-hand man in football for 27 years. Barbara is not happy with how things have been run and wants to alter the approach. The mysterious phone call with her father, Silvio suggests that she has had enough of Uncle Fester. With not only Allegri in the dock, her words seemed to be aimed at Galliani, the man who has overseen AC Milan’s affairs for many years. But Barbara clarified by saying: “I have never asked for the CEO Adriano Galliani to be changed. In the numerous phone conversations with my dad after the Fiorentina defeat I simply called for a change in the business philosophy of AC Milan.” Many reports suggest that the central point of Barbara and Silvio’s chat was: how come some other Italian clubs, Fiorentina and Roma for example, don’t spend any more than the Rossoneri and yet have better performing and more competitive teams? The proprietor is convinced that the club has not spent smartly in the last two transfer windows. The tension between Barbara and Galliani was evident and things were getting heated up as Milan’s performance deteriorated and were falling into an abysmal black hole. After numerous meetings between the coaches and board members, things were expected to change post the recent international break, but that was not the case. Gilardino’s penalty cancelled out Kaka’s goal as Milan somehow managed a draw against a 10 man Genoa at the San Siro leaving the fans absolutely furious. This display proved too much for their supporters as during the last few minutes, the notorious Milan Ultras unfolded a banner which translated “Let’s meet by the exit you unworthy lot”. During the game, home supporters maintained a series of chants against their team, singing “Shame on you”, “We’re waiting for you with sticks”. One fan said afterwards: “These brats don’t know what sacrifice is. Their bank accounts are full while people like us work for them.” The anger was evident. The Ultras stuck to their word and around 300 of them blocked the players’ exit from the San Siro after the game and refused to leave. Cops immediately lined up outside to prevent any sort of violence. Kaka and Christian Abbiati emerged to issue an apology for the alarming run of form. The emotions were high as the fans are not used to seeing such mediocrity. They wanted a change. They wanted to voice their opinion. They wanted answers. The players did respond positively as Milan registered their first away win with a 3-0 victory at Celtic Park. Even after this vital win, the boardroom drama took another nasty turn as Mr. Galliani decided to call it quits, claiming he would stand down post the Milan derby on 22nd December. The man who was responsible for building the greatest club side of all time, Sacchi’s Milan of the late 80’s, using Silvio Berlusconi’s investment capital, due to some political indifference & power struggle would end his relationship with the club; the one he had led with Silvio Berlusconi for the last 27 years. A wounded Galliani said, “I will leave the club either with or without compensation. I understand that there comes a moment where it’s time for change, but not like this. My reputation has been damaged. This should have been treated a bit more delicately.” Things were quite clear. Barbara and Galliani cannot function together. A change was needed but was it the right one? Galliani is known for his shrewdness and his bargaining skills, tempting clubs to sell their valuable assets for an unfathomable price but of late, the man with the Midas touch had somehow become the bad boy at Milan. With the team desperately requiring a defender, Galliani captured another striker in the form of Matri, a player who has never really dazzled the crowd. The biggest question was why was the money not spent on bolstering a weak back-line? With Constant being a liability for some time now, Philippe Mexes can be seen either being reprimanded or losing his man. Better quality is expected from a side that gave us Paolo Maldini and Franco Baresi. Milan have been stressing on the importance of youth but the truth is that this has been nothing but a hoax. With players like Saponara, Niang, Cristante rotting on the bench while Matri, Nocerino stroll on the pitch, it is a clear indication that Milan has no sense of direction. Milan bought a 29 year old striker, Matri as a cover for an injured Pazzini and sent their youth prospect, Petagna on loan to Sampdoria. With Saponara considered as one of the best young talents in Italy, Milan ended up buying a 32 year old playmaker and a crowd favorite, Kaka and to top it off, they bought another player, Birsa as a possible Kaka back up. That pushed Saponara further down the pecking order. Though Kaka has been the only shining light for the Rossoneri and his guidance will certainly help young players to flourish they need their chances too. With Niang “accidently” left out of the Champions league squad it makes you think where Milan are going? With the summer dealings, Galliani has fallen back on his clubs policy and bought veterans which has infuriated the fans. With the club changing its strategy just one season after installing it, it shows how much faith they have in their own players and system. The relentless support Galliani has showered on a coach who has been unable to add anything both tactically and technically has been one of the reasons why the fans want Galliani out. Robinho has been in decent form but has failed to win Allegri’s heart as he has constantly been snubbed for Birsa or Matri. Allegri’s over reliance and faith in Matri has infuriated the Milanisti. Its no surprise that Milan’s 2 away wins came when he finally benched Matri for a 4-3-2-1, with Balotelli upfront and Kaka and Birsa playing behind him. Cristante, who has been dubbed as the future star, has hardly seen the pitch and there are talks of loaning him out in January. With no clear direction, an inability to identify and deal with the glaring issues at the back and in goal, and the continued insistence that Allegri is the right man for the job, Galliani seems to be losing his touch and him leaving the club might just be the way forward. The fans have shown mixed reactions but even his most ardent supporter will agree that over the last few seasons, Milan have suffered quite a bit in the transfer season. Although, he did have his hands tied up with the financial restrictions that still doesn’t change the fact that many deals could have been avoided. The Matri deal might cost Milan over 30 million considering the wages, fees and taxes. They have spent a total of around 28 million Euros on players like Matri, Constant, Acerbi and Salamon. A huge sum on players who don’t really reassure the fans and players you don’t want to see on the pitch against big opponents. Barbara might be right when she questions her father about the club’s ambition and direction. It was rumored that Barbara’s first appointment would be Maldini. She would form her new team and she wants someone who can adapt to the modern style of football administration. But things changed on Saturday as president Silvio Berlusconi, who had remained silent up till now, held a meeting with Galliani and confirmed that Galliani is going nowhere and that Milan will have 2 CEOs – Adriano Galliani will be responsible for the sporting sector, and Barbara Berlusconi with responsibility for other sectors relating to the club’s social activity. This means that Galliani has retained control of the club’s footballing operations, while Barbara had been charged with strengthening its commercial and marketing efforts. How satisfied she will be with that arrangement is unclear; her greatest criticisms of the incumbent had been that he was spending the club’s money poorly by relying too heavily on certain agents (Mino Raiola and Ernesto Bronzetti) and failing to construct a good enough scouting network to unearth cheap, young talents abroad. These two will have to find a way to work together. Barbara has been questioning Milan’s business policy and indirectly pointing a finger at Galliani for this team’s mediocrity. With Galliani going nowhere, it’s pretty certain that Maldini will be sidelined even more. Maldini and Galliani have had some issues since his retirement and since then Maldini has been left out in the cold and locked out of the place he calls home but that discussion is for some other day. As things stand Milan will have 2 heads. The biggest question is can they work together? Will they put their ego aside and pull the club out of this quick sand? With Berlusconi using his power to squash Barbara’s party, she has no option but to work with Galliani. With Berlusconi it has always been about him and not football. It was his presidential gifts that helped Milan reach the skies and now he has used his powers and convinced Galliani to stay. With these two egotistic heads at the helm, there are going to be some differences but let’s hope it does not affect the club adversely.
Astronauts Joe Acaba and Randy Bresnik completed the third of three October spacewalks on Friday, concluding ongoing repairs to the International Space Station’s Canadarm-2 robotic arm. Although the team finished every objective set before them, Acaba coped with a multitude of spacesuit technical difficulties that nearly cut things short. Image Credit: NASA All astronauts’ spacesuits ship with safety gear, including jetpacks and steel tether cables. Together, these prevent an astronaut from straying too far from the International Space Station and becoming lost. Acaba, on the other hand, couldn’t seem to catch a break from faults with said safety equipment. Related: SpaceX previews a futuristic new spacesuit design As he performed the maintenance, the team noticed “wear and tear” on the steel tether cable; more specifically, it seemed to be fraying. Mission Control, worried for Acaba’s safety, told him to stay put where he was while Bresnik retrieved a replacement. After exchanging the faulty tether cable with a new one, Acaba returned to work. Shortly after, another issue presented itself: one of the handles on Acaba’s jetpack appeared stuck in the open position. After trying to finagle the handle into cooperation to no avail, Mission Control realized the danger of the situation and ordered Acaba back to the safety of the International Space Station once the task at hand was complete. Despite the complications, the two-man team completed all tasks for the Canadarm-2 successfully. Each of them re-entered the International Space Station following a seven-hour-long spacewalk, marking Acaba’s third and Bresnik’s fifth. Friday's spacewalk enabled Acaba and Bresnik to replace a fuzzy camera situated near Canadarm-2, and they also performed general maintenance (such as lubricating the arm's joints). NASA shared some of the first views from the new "enhanced high-definition" camera that Acaba installed on Twitter, underscoring how much clearer the footage is after the upgrade: Crisp, new space views! First look from the enhanced HD camera that @AstroAcaba just installed on @Space_Station! https://t.co/ZuxLDtRxxM pic.twitter.com/HjzeVp66qm — NASA (@NASA) October 20, 2017 Related: The United States and Russia will work together to build a Lunar space station Their combined work ensures that Canadarm-2 will be operational for future resupply missions, as the arm frequently assists space capsules in docking with the International Space Station. With a resupply mission planned just a few weeks from now, their timeliness couldn’t have been better. Source: Phys.org, RT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: Tara, I just want to understand—Tara, I just want to understand what you just said. What happened to you on Friday? Where were you? And where were you put? TARA HOUSKA: Yeah, I was arrested for criminal trespass as I was, you know, leaving a peaceful demonstration and getting into my car on a public road. They arrested us and zip-tied us on the side of the road for two hours. We were then thrown into jail— AMY GOODMAN: In North Dakota. TARA HOUSKA: —and put in a dog kennel with— AMY GOODMAN: And what do you mean, a dog kennel? TARA HOUSKA: Yeah, it was, you know, a large chainmail dog kennel, for over six hours, while they didn’t even actually charge us with crimes. After that, I was strip-searched and then thrown into jail and, finally, late, late that evening, was charged with a crime. So, it’s, you know, a situation in which this is happening right now. Native people are being hurt right now. There were people being maced and tased again yesterday. These things are happening. And so, the administration needs to respond. And it needs to say, you know, either no pipeline, which would be ideal—that’s going to be a win for everybody, because clean drinking water is the future, and it’s something that we shouldn’t even be considering putting at risk for an unnecessary and unneeded project—but do an environmental impact statement. If this project is so safe, then do one. You know, the company doesn’t want to do this. It doesn’t want to go through that process, because it knows that this pipeline is unsafe. It knows that it would never meet those standards, and this would never be allowed to happen. AMY GOODMAN: Tara—Tara Houska, you, you’re an attorney. You’re an indigenous leader. You’ve spent a lot of time at the Standing Rock Sioux resistance camp. You were the indigenous adviser for Bernie Sanders. We just played at the top of the show the speech he gave outside the White House demanding that President Obama deny the permit for the Dakota Access pipeline. Your thoughts on where this movement goes now? TARA HOUSKA: Working for Bernie Sanders was a great honor and privilege to be in a role in his campaign and to contribute to that, but also to see grassroots mobilization and the power of the people. Millions and millions of people voted for Senator Sanders. And, you know, again, this is a—you know, the Dakota Access pipeline resistance is millions of people around the world coming together and trying to stop this single project, but also to make a stand about the relationship of people to fossil fuels, about indigenous rights, about all these issues. And so, you know, seeing that and these marches against Donald Trump and the power that’s within organizing and the power that’s within, you know, local elections, there were some successes that happened, aside from just Donald Trump’s election. There were several different women of color and people that have never been in represented office before. You know, we have the power to change the conversation, to change the narrative. You know, our social justice, environmental justice, all these different movements coming together and, you know, realizing that we need to stand together— AMY GOODMAN: Tara— TARA HOUSKA: —and change the conversation, change the narrative. AMY GOODMAN: The head—the head of Energy Transfer Partners, Kelcy Warren, has said he’s 100 percent confident that Trump will support the completion of the Dakota Access pipeline. Warren donated more than $100,000 to Trump’s campaign, while Trump has between, oh, half-a-million and a million dollars invested in Energy Transfer Partners. This is Kelcy Warren speaking on CBS. CBS REPORTER: Once he takes over, January 20th, what are the prospects? KELCY WARREN: Oh, it’s 100 percent. CBS REPORTER: A hundred percent that? KELCY WARREN: That the easement gets granted and the pipeline gets built. CBS REPORTER: Have you spoken to Donald Trump about the pipeline? KELCY WARREN: I’ve never met the man. CBS REPORTER: You’ve never met him? KELCY WARREN: No. CBS REPORTER: But he’s invested in you, and you’re invested in him. KELCY WARREN: Well, I wish him well. AMY GOODMAN: Your response, Tara Houska, to Kelcy Warren? Kelcy Warren, who runs the Cherokee Creek Music Festival in Texas, great fan of Jackson Browne, who apparently is singing a big event Thanksgiving Day weekend in support of the Standing Rock Sioux on the reservation in North Dakota. Kelcy Warren, the CEO of Energy Transfer Partners. TARA HOUSKA: I think this is a—you know, that’s a perfect example of the influx and relationship of Big Oil to our current congressional system, to the government, to our elected offices. I mean, these people have never even met, as he said, yet he knows, because of—you know, Kelcy Warren knows, because of Donald Trump’s attitudes and because of the administration that he plans to bring in—you know, his current energy adviser is someone also directly invested in Dakota Access pipeline—that it’s basically just a green light, that they’re just going to go slam these projects through, and it doesn’t matter if the people, the local people, resist, if the local people say no. In their minds, these projects matter more than the people, these profit margins matter more than human beings. AMY GOODMAN: Tara— TARA HOUSKA: And so, that’s where we have to come together. AMY GOODMAN: Tara Houska, I want to bring in—I want to bring in our other guest today. Tara Houska is with Honor the Earth, has spent a long time now at the Standing Rock Reservation in support of the resistance.
The 17th and 18th centuries, the so-called Age of Reason in Europe, were characterized by a widespread interest in miraculous healing and occultism (magic, kabbalah, and alchemy), and for every Diderot, Goethe, Hume, or Locke there was a mysterious swindler like “Count” Cagliostro or an amateur mystic like the sentimental novelist Julie de Krüdener. Flimflam and ignorance are subjects of The Dark Side of the Enlightenment, a book due out in July by John V. Fleming, emeritus professor of literature at Princeton University. We asked Fleming to pose questions about what’s to be gained today by studying the Age of Reason. Here are four culled from a longer list. 1. The Enlightenment was the great age of serious letter writing. Some French scholars of Freemasonry are working on the nature of epistolary exchange in the Enlightenment and the role that networks of correspondence play in the rapid transmission of new or controversial ideas. From a prominent correspondent writing from his private house or his communal lodge, letters could go out in all directions like radio waves, circles within concentric circles. Then each node might become its own center. The image often used at the time was that of the spider’s web. The “system” could approach the multiplying leverage of today’s chain letters. One fascinating historical project now underway involves the detailed study of epistolary spider webs, taking as an example the correspondence received by the Swiss physiologist and naturalist Albrecht von Haller (1708–1777). This correspondence comprised 14,207 letters sent from 446 posting stations throughout Europe. In what ways does modern electronic communication amplify this Enlightenment system, and in what ways does it undermine it? Can we look forward to editions of the Collected Emails and Selected Tweets of the eminent scholars of our age? 2. In Dialectic of Enlightenment, Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno held that the Enlightenment attempted nothing less than “the disenchantment of the world.” A materialist and empirical sensibility, expressed with scientific and experimental attitudes, called into question all existing mythological systems. The triumph of Reason was remorseless, leaving little still standing of the old poetic universe. The poets themselves were aware of the onslaught. In 1611 John Donne published his “First Anniversary,” which included these famous lines: And new Philosophy calls all in doubt, The Element of fire is quite put out; The Sunne is lost, and th’earth, and no man’s wit Can well direct him where to looke for it. Wordsworth’s disquiet was hardly less acute nearly two centuries later when he wrote in “A Poet’s Epitaph”: Physician art thou? One, all eyes, Philosopher! a fingering slave, One that would peep and botanise Upon his mother’s grave? We are told that this century will belong to the biologists as the last one belonged to the physicists. Burgeoning new fields—molecular biology, neuroscience—promise or threaten to further disenchant and demythologize the inner worlds of our emotional and mental experience. What will be the response of the poets? 3. Immanuel Kant prefaced the first edition of his Critique of Pure Reason (1781) with the following sentence: “Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind.” This observation may account for the widespread enthusiasm, in the elite cultural and intellectual centers of 18th-century Europe, for esotericism, occultism, “mystical” Freemasonry, and certain religious phenomena that, from a current perspective, may seem very strange indeed. Is Kant’s premise correct? Have more than two centuries of dramatic historical change and a huge increment in knowledge and learning answered any of the questions that in Kant’s view “transcend every faculty of the mind?” 4. If for the medieval period the queen of the sciences was theology, the Enlightenment’s scientific queen was alchemy. Some historians of the Enlightenment, perhaps embarrassed by this reality, have chosen to underplay or ignore it. Nonetheless, for most of the 17th and 18th centuries the enthusiasm for alchemy among bankers and archbishops was hardly less intense than among Rosicrucians and mystical Freemasons. If Sir Isaac Newton’s interest in the “Great Art” (alchemy) was eclipsed by his pursuit of biblical numerology, it was nonetheless keen. Modern historians of chemistry have shown that the experimental procedures of the alchemists, though founded in error, greatly advanced the discoveries of chemists. Of course the difference between an alchemist and a chemist, though perhaps greater than that between a hawk and a handsaw, was in linguistic terms no greater than the ossified Arabic article al still retained in the former. Could etymological modernization add yet more dignity to any of the following: alcove, alembic, alfalfa, algebra, algorithm, Al Capone?
Are you one of the growing number of cyclists? The government wants to make it easier and safer to cycle and start a 'cycling revolution.' Julian Worricker takes your calls. Are you one of the growing number of cyclists in the UK? If not, why not? The Government has announced plans to spend over ninety million pounds to make it easier and safer to cycle in England. David Cameron wants to create a "new generation of cyclists" and a "cycling revolution."But there's a long way to go. while over thirty percent of those in the Netherlands cite a bike as their main mode of transport - the figure is just 2.2% for those in the UK. So, will this money make a difference? And what could be done to tempt you onto a bike, or if you're already a regular cyclist, to make you feel safer? Or are you a driver sick of cyclists who already think they rule the road? We want your views. Email youandyours@bbc.co.uk text 84844 or call 03700 100 444. Presenter: Julian Worricker Producer: Joe Kent.
The Agile Architect Part 3 — Fail Fast Chris & Sean Agile Blocked Unblock Follow Following Sep 26, 2016 This is a continuation of The Agile Architect Part 2 — Spend Time with the Teams. As much as we like to think we’re infallible, none of us are. What separates success from failure is the ability to identify problems early and act on them. You’re not always right. Chris recalls: We were three months into a project to overhaul our architecture and we found a big problem. We had to change directions and do significant rework. I remember talking to a junior developer who told me that he thought the approach had problems early on. I pressed him to understand why he didn’t speak up and he said “You’re the architect. I thought you knew something I didn’t” I was furious. Why would this developer knowingly keep problems to himself? Didn’t he know that keeping problems to himself was putting the whole project at risk? When I look back on this moment I’m not proud of what I was feeling. Rather than blaming him, I should have been thinking about how my behaviours were leading him to believe that I couldn’t be questioned. Make it easy to speak truth to power Invite dissent from those you lead. Help them question the architecture and be introspective about it. Architects who are perceived as defensive will discourage critical information sharing. If people aren’t coming to you with problems, seek them out. Practice being approachable. Some great advice from Richard Sheridan: The only response when someone finds a problem is to smile and say “thank you”. Communicate assumptions Assumptions are very useful. They let us make mental leaps and arrive at solutions faster. The only way to find out which assumptions are invalid is by testing them. The people to notice problems first are the people doing the work. Build understanding and communicate your assumptions and people will tell you when these assumptions are invalid. Don’t be afraid to admit your uncertainty A common mistake leaders make is thinking that they have to be infallible. This is reinforced by Hollywood’s fearless leader who saves the day with a bravado of confidence. We may have insecurities, and we way be tempted to try to prove that we can do this job. If an architect is unsure about which direction to go and it is really a 50/50 decision, the team should know. Involve people in decisions Make as few decisions as possible and involve people in the ones that you feel you have to make. Someone is far more likely to question a decision that they helped make. Treat the decisions like an experiment and invite people to find problems. It took time, but eventually people started openly disagreeing with me. When a design didn’t pan out, people began questioning the approach and suggesting alternative solutions. I had to train myself to let go of my ideas and embrace the feedback. Rather than getting defensive when someone questioned me, I learned to be thankful that they were doing me a favor. Continue reading the Agile Architect series with Part 4 — Build Consensus.
Indianapolis airport solar farm is largest of its kind These panels are part of the massive solar farm that sits on 75 acres at the main airport exit off I-70. The installation took more than a year to build. (Photo: Michelle Pemberton, The Indianapolis Star) A 44,000-panel solar farm at Indianapolis International Airport has started soaking up sun rays and delivering usable electricity. Airport and business officials Friday commissioned the $35 million to $40 million installation, which ranks as the largest airport-based solar farm in the country. RELATED: Proposal would allow 'wireless' gambling at Indy airport PHOTOS: First look at Indianapolis Airport's new terminal (November 2008) The airport expects to collect land rent of about $315,000 a year from the privately developed solar farm, which sits on 75 acres at the main airport exit off I-70. It will generate 12.5 megawatts of DCpower, enough to supply the electrical needs of about 1,800 average-sized houses. The solar farm took more than a year to build. Developers have outlined plans to double its size. Indianapolis Power & Light will buy the solar farm's power. The sun-generated power will cost three to four times more than IPL can sell it for, so the utility will subsidize the difference by raising rates to its customers, a utility official said. The increase in electric bills to subsidize the solar farm amounts to several cents a month on the average customer bill, the utility has said. Solar farms also benefit from federal tax credits. The solar farm takes 12 employees to operate and is owned and run by a Taiwanese company, General Energy Solutions, which has U.S. offices in California. Developers were Telamon Corp. and Johnson Melloh Solutions of Indianapolis. The Indianapolis Star is owned by Gannett, parent company of USA TODAY. Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1gyyc0l
A modern smartphone has a trove of incredibly sensitive information—from photos of your children to a list of all your daily activities to the websites you love to visit. The only reason we can entrust this data to smartphones is because they are built to be secure. But a misguided California bill could jeopardize that basic security we’ve come to rely on. A.B. 1681 would require all manufacturers and operating system providers to be able to decrypt smartphones sold in California or risk being fined. By impacting every smartphone user in the state, this bill would affect tens of millions of people who have done nothing wrong. Please sign our petition against this terrible bill. We’ll deliver this petition to lawmakers in the state with your name and address.
Labour's new spin doctor made excuses for the Charlie Hebdo killers As Guardian columnist Seumas Milne is announced head of communications for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party, journalists who now have to deal with him should know how cheaply he values their lives. Just days after the Paris murders at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in January, Milne took to the pages of the Guardian to rehearse for his new role as spin doctor – only this time for the killers. In a column titled ‘Paris is a warning: there is no insulation from our wars’, and sub-headed, ‘The attacks in France are a blowback from intervention in the Arab and Muslim world. What happens there happens here too’, Labour’s new spinner-in-chief gets his deniability in early: “Nothing remotely justifies the murderous assault on Charlie Hebdo’s journalists, still less on the Jewish victims singled out only for their religious and ethnic identity.” Despite this proviso, Milne proceeds to list at length more justifications than had even occurred to the killers. After explaining that the cartoons and jokes in Charlie Hebdo were a ‘repeated pornographic humiliation’ for French Muslims, he casts a wide net: “Of course, the cocktail of causes and motivations for the attacks are complex: from an inheritance of savage colonial brutality in Algeria via poverty, racism, criminality and takfiri jihadist ideology. Everything, in short, except the agency of the killers themselves. (One could argue that the role of religious ideas in the murder of cartoonists for drawing a religious figure is more significant than the Algerian war of independence, which wound down in 1962, but leave that aside for now.) Milne’s apologia hits its stride as he asserts: “But without the war waged by western powers, including France, to bring to heel and reoccupy the Arab and Muslim world, last week’s attacks clearly wouldn’t have taken place.“ Clearly? Given his articles after 9/11, 7/7 and the Woolwich murder of Lee Rigby, the only thing clear is Milne’s consistent victim blaming when it comes to Islamist terrorism. Milne goes on to invoke the authority of the dead killers to make excuses on their behalf, repeating their self-serving propaganda in a liberal newspaper: “Cherif Kouachi insisted the attacks had been carried out in revenge for the ‘children of Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria’. Ahmed Coulibaly said they were a response to France’s attacks on Isis, while claiming the supermarket slaughter was revenge for the deaths of Muslims in Palestine.” He then quickly reassures readers who might be getting the wrong end of the stick that ‘such wanton killings are, of course, entirely counterproductive to the causes they are supposed to promote’. Of course. Poor misguided terrorists. If only you had listened to Seumas! ‘Why does this matter?’ you might ask. ‘Milne has written countless god-awful things. Why is this of particular significance now?’ Well, I think for this reason. Journalists who cover British politics will now presumably deal with Labour’s new head of comms on a regular basis. Due to this professional necessity, they deserve to know what he thinks of them. When Milne says there is a ‘gulf that separates the official view of French state policy at home and abroad and how it is seen by many of the country’s Muslim citizens,’ adding ‘That’s true in Britain too, of course’, he means that his apologia for terror would apply to the murder of British journalists as well. Hacks might have hated Lynton Crosby and Alistair Campbell, but at least they could rely on them to be solid on the right of journalists not to be shot in their workplace. The same cannot be said for Campbell’s successor. In Seumas Milne, journalists will be sitting down to lunch or speaking on the phone with a man of whom they know the following to be true: If a fanatic stormed into their offices tomorrow and stuck a gun in their face – either out of dislike for something they had written or to act out some political grievance – Milne would be willing to say, in public, that this was at least partly their own fault. Happy lunching, comrades. *** Like this article? Support our work: donate here. Adam Barnett is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow MediaWatch on Twitter Sign up for our weekly email by clicking here. URGENT APPEAL: We need to raise £10,000 in the next few weeks to keep holding the right to account. Help us build a better media and back the crowdfunder to keep Left Foot Forward's progressive journalism alive.
After being stopped by a cease and desist letter from Hasbro, it looked like the fan-made My Little Pony fighting game that had gained a lot of attention online might never see the light of day. That is until My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic’s developer, Lauren Faust, stepped in and offered to help the team behind the game bring their project to completion with new, original characters. They formed the development team Mane6 and are back for round two with their all-female roster of hoofed combatants in the newly dubbed Them’s Fightin’ Herds. The project is currently in its final days of seeking funding on Indiegogo and looks like it’s on track to be a success, so I reached out to the team via email to find out more about this unique take on a fighting game. TMS (Chris Isaac): To start off, I believe this is Mane6’s first game. Based on the origins of the game, I’d assume enjoying My Little Pony played a big part in bringing you together for this, but what other elements brought you all together to make a fighting game? Omari Smith (Combat design): The excitement generated by the show itself, and the gigantic artistic canvas generated by its universe and its fandom brought us together initially. The positive response of those who discovered our project and then followed it is what kept us going strong. We felt we had finally found a team of people we could work with and actually complete tasks with quality. Jay Wright (Animation, SFX): Aside from the passion for the creation of a fighting game that was outside what any of us had seen, I’d say the elements of luck and persistence are a huge factor. I dunno how familiar people are with fan projects, but there are probably hundreds of ideas for fan projects starting every day. I would say 99% of them never go beyond the idea phase. It’s exceedingly unlikely that any given fan project will go anywhere at all, let alone stick together for as long as we have. Of the ones that do get past the idea phase, most of them are filled with passion, but are lacking skills. This often means they have to reach out to hopefully find another person that has the skills, the passion and can work with the existing team (for free!). That is another needle in a haystack that can totally stop a project dead if not found. The tiny team we started with, from a random collection of people who happened to see a single post on a single forum at a certain time happened to get along and have the drive and skills that complemented each other and most of the gaps were filled right off the bat. TMS: So this started out as the fan game My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic, but after you got a cease and desist from Hasbro, you evolved the project into Them’s Fightin’ Herds. I’m sure having to revamp a project you spent so much time on was frustrating and difficult, but what advantages came about from being pushed into doing a totally original project? Omari: The advantage of being pushed into something totally original is just that; It’s totally original! We are now allowed to tell and experience a whole new story and cast of characters with the fear of being shut down due to copyright being replaced by the pressure of getting players and spectators invested in a new IP. We have overcome many challenges leading to this point, and taking on another is par for the course. TMS: Since people are just now being introduced into this world, how would you describe the premise and story to newcomers? Why’s everyone fighting? Lauren Faust (Character design): Our story takes place in a world where the dominant species, the “humans,” are ungulates (hoofed mammals). Their entire world and way of life is being threatened by the return of their greatest enemies – Predators, who had been banished to a magical prison realm generations ago. Only one of these ungulates must face the big bad, the leader of the Predators, to keep them all from re-entering their world and basically eating everybody. Initially the game was conceived as other fighting games – an official, formal tournament of hand-to-hand (hoof-to-hoof?) combat would be held to choose the champion. We wanted to change that up a bit because that’s almost all that’s ever done. Each of our characters has been chosen champion of their own species and they each think it is their personal destiny to save the world and keep everyone from being eaten. They are fighting each other for an enchanted key that the final champion will need to lock the big bad and all the predators away once and for all. Whoever beats up the rest of the champions gets the key and gets to face the big bad and save the world. It’s a bit more complex than just fighting for an honor in a tournament, but what has been so interesting to me is that the audience, the people who are supporting the project so far, seems to be hungry for a little more immersive storytelling with a little more depth and complexity behind the characters and their motivations. And I personally love the combo of seriousness and silliness that’s coming out of it. It’s exciting! TMS: I suppose this question would be best suited to your Combat Designer, Omari Smith: an obvious difference between Them’s Fightin’ Herds and most fighters is here the combatants fight on four legs instead of two. It sounds like just an aesthetic change, but it effects a lot. Like I know the centaur version of Motaro hasn’t been fightable in Mortal Kombat since his first appearance because their team found it too much trouble working with the extra legs. So can you describe the challenge that goes into making the game work with four-legged animals instead of humans? Omari: Initially this was a pretty big deal, since the characters standing on all fours are much wider than upright fighters. The engine we worked with in the first game was incredibly outdated. Fighter Maker had a tiny screen space AND a tiny stage to fight in. Wide characters have less room to move horizontally, and cross-ups (jumping over a character and hitting them from behind) were incredibly easy. Over time, we animated the characters in more of a 3/4th view to draw in their horizontal size a bit, and with this new game engine we support much larger stages AND screenspace with a camera that can zoom in and out. The challenge persists, but has been mitigated over the years. I can see why throwing this kind of character shape in a game filled with normal would cause developers problems, but since this is the basis of our design, we have taken many steps towards making it work! (I miss Motaro though…. he was hilarious.) TMS: I know that the team behind Skullgirls let you guys use their fighting game engine, and it shows in the footage you’ve unveiled so far. Stylistically, they look pretty similar. Should players expect similar gameplay in the final product, or are there other franchises you feel share more parallels with your game? Omari: While the games are built on the same engine, the way the game plays and feels will be very different from Skullgirls, especially since our game is being designed as a 4 button 1v1 fighter, where Skullgirls is a 6 button team based fighter that supports up to 3v3. It’s a different approach that comes with a different set of expectations and abilities, since you cannot count on having any allies jumping in to help you in your fight. It’s always difficult describing what games are similar to what we’re building since we aren’t really trying to go for a certain franchise’s style. The games we’re most compared to (aside from Skullgirls) are Blazblue and Melty Blood. TMS: For Lauren: I’m sure people wonder what made you want to get involved in this project. To my knowledge, this is the first video game you’ve worked on. Could you describe the impetus for your involvement, and how this experience differs from your TV work? Lauren: I was following the original game these guys were making. It was one of my FAVORITE fan projects for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and I was eager to see it finished. What I loved so much about it was that they didn’t just do the obvious: cute and violent. It was more than that. The ponies fought IN CHARACTER and they were animated beautifully on top of that. I was as disappointed as anyone when it was stopped, so I offered to give the team some original character designs that they could use without fear of copyright infringement. And this is indeed the first game I’ve worked on. But my part revolves entirely around character development and storytelling. In that sense, the big difference really seems to be the lack of interference (we are our own bosses) and a lack of excessive analysis about what is and isn’t appropriate for kids and, as I said before, an audience that is eager for more subtlety and depth in the story. I’m sure as we move forward I’ll be learning more about the needs and limitations of the “story mode” but I’m looking forward to it. TMS: Another one for Lauren: your past projects have been kid friendly, but also appealed to older audiences (MLP obviously, as well as fans who grew up with The Powerpuff Girls being excited for the series reboot). It seems like you’re bringing that same depth of lore to Them’s Fightin’ Herds, so what’s your take on why your storytelling and characters are able to resonate regardless of demographic? Lauren: I never wanted to talk down to kids. I remember all the shows and movies that had the most lasting impact on me when I was a child, and most of them would not get past educational consultants and marketing teams these days. Of course, when working for a studio you have to make compromises in these respects – it’s their show and their money – but I try to stay away from projects that treat kids as if they are too dumb to understand even slightly complex concepts, and I stay away from projects that put too much of an importance on the characters behaving in the way parents WANT children to behave rather than how actual young human beings behave. I like characters to have flaws and make mistakes, I like there to be meaningful stakes, and I like plots to make you worry, otherwise stories are boring. So I guess that treating children like they are intelligent not only attracts them, but attracts older kids and adults as well. TMS: The style of the game is very cute and friendly, but it sounds like the mechanics are about as complex as any other serious fighters out there. Can you explain what elements are being included for the competitive players? Omari: Usually when a game is this cute, it’s a licensed product that consists of one attack button and items that blow up half the screen. With our game there are 3 attack buttons, and one special button that does something unique for every character. The game can be played with just the regular attack buttons and still be plenty of fun, but using the 4th button and interacting with your character’s unique abilities and managing their unique resource add another layer of power and complexity to your combat. Along with this is a serious fighting game system with launchers, pushblocks, unique movement options depending on character (flight, short hops, double jumps, air dashes etc.) and intense combos that have you playing wall tennis with your opponent’s body in an animation style that entertains spectators with surprisingly hilarious cartoon violence! TMS: Obviously Lauren’s experience with similar work is well-known, but what about the rest of you? Do you guys have any specific backgrounds or prior project work that are lending useful here? Omari: I personally have worked on several Half-Life mod teams and solo projects during independent study in high school, including a fighting game starring the comic characters my friends and I designed as kids. Unfortunately the projects fizzled out, as most of us were too young and inexperienced. However, each project was an important learning experience and solo projects in particular taught me tons of stuff about animation and game design, including how important it is to have LOTS of tenacity to close out on any project! I love to make mistakes and learn from them, since sitting around talking theory very often reaches a point where i just want to JUST DO IT in a real test environment rather than going further into what-if’s. An idea may or may not work in practice, but all of this is beneficial data in my eyes. While none of the games i participated in during high school were ever finished, it still builds a base of knowledge that I hope to grow through further experimentation. Embrace what you don’t yet know, do not fear it! Luke Ellinghaus (Animation): For me, almost all prior experience of making games has been solo work on personal projects over the years since my childhood. They weren’t much, just some mods for existing games here and there, most of which were only ever released to my friends. I love making games so much though to a fault, that admittedly I have even skipped days of non-game-related classes in college to work on any passion projects I had at the time. It’s been an exhilarating and educational experience for me to go from working solo to working on a team! Fran Copado (User interface): Before joining Mane6 I worked on print & editorial design. Not much of a videogame-related skill unless you’re working on the packaging or the manuals, but while I didn’t have any directly related skills on making games, I’ve been playing them for all my life, so I knew instinctively what worked and what didn’t. Always wanted to try interface design, and game interface design in particular, so when (years ago) somebody started assembling a team to work on what then was a very short project to make a fighting game out of cute ponies beating each other up, I immediately jumped on it. A few years later, here we are. I’ve learned so much along the way and I’m expecting to learn even more as the game becomes a reality. Jay: I’ve always been into animation and drawing, and started a internet animation company after getting a multimedia certificate in 2000. I had a habit of understanding systems and picking up software incredibly fast, which helped us take jobs that were slightly outside of our specialties. in 2005 I took a job at an e-learning company as an animator/developer and have been there ever since. The job involves listening to the ideas the clients want to get across to their staff, and figuring out a good way to do it using animation with the tools/time given. Essentially I use animation to solve problems. With the fighting game (both the original project and this one) my greatest strength has not been as an animator, but more as someone who can see art problems a little bit before they arise and try and work out solutions to those problems given the tools we have. Or thinking of something really cool we want to do and figuring out how we might achieve it. It’s like creating a problem ourselves and solving it! This involves knowing what the rest of our team can do and relying on each other to work out a solution that will work. TMS: While the game coming to fruition is contingent upon the successful crowdfunding campaign, you’ve already attracted a lot of fans who want to know more about the characters, or who enjoy sharing fan art. How influential is the fan base proving on the direction of the game, even beyond their part in funding it? Omari: The conversations of fan predictions on the lore and desires for certain bits of game content is super exciting! On the game content side it kind of gives a rough idea of the sort of things that fans would be excited to see, which validates or invalidates certain things we already have planned, but like everything else it’s always going to be tough to gauge the true extent of that desire, so all we can really do is to follow through on whatever direction we take to the best of our abilities. Lauren: Yes, it’s been a fascinating experience to have fan reaction so soon in development. I get to have feedback directly from the audience instead of guesses and theories from studios. It gives you a chance to experiment with ideas that studios might be too afraid to try. Mane6: We’d also like to emphasize the fact that we’re setting our game apart from most of its genre by having cute characters into the cast instead of muscled, oiled-up, oversexualized characters, as well as for being the first (as far as we know) fighting game with a full cast of four-legged characters, all of which are currently female. The crowdfund is [in] its last week of funding as well, and our project depends 100% on the pledgers. No hidden sponsors here, and we’re not using the crowdfund as a means to gauge interest for a publisher by using a nominal sum that’ll be irrelevant in the grand scheme of development, so people wanting to see Them’s Fightin’ Herds and its universe become a reality, as well as seeing more from Lauren Faust’s creative powers in a full, unrestricted-by-networks or executives swing should consider pledging to our campaign, because we most certainly have way more things we’d like to show and do with this new, creator-owned property! You can learn more about the project and contribute in its last days of funding at the Them’s Fightin’ Herds campaign page on Indiegogo. Chris Isaac is a pop culture and fiction writer from Philadelphia whose work has appeared in such places as the Philadelphia Inquirer, and USA TODAY College. If staying up to date on his missteps in video games, stories about pirates, and pictures of a chubby albino ferret interests you, you should follow him on Twitter. —Please make note of The Mary Sue’s general comment policy.— Do you follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?
I had an opportunity prior to the race this weekend at Watkins Glen to participate in an interview with Juan Pablo Montoya. Juan Pablo was born in 1975 in Bogota, Colombia. He now resides in Miami, Florida with his wife, Connie Freydell. They have three children: Sebastian, Paulina and Manuela. He drives the #42 Target Chevrolet for Chip Ganassi Racing. It’s such a beautiful area here in Watkins Glen. Do you get a chance to visit some of the local sights when you’re here? JPM: Aw, No. I come here on Thursday about 3 o’clock and we’re busy with meetings and things. A lot of us bring kids to the track. They have some things for the kids of the drivers to do. Most of them do that, but some don’t like it and they just stay in the trailers and watch TV all day. Is Watkins Glen the kind of track you like coming to? JPM: You know it’s one of those tracks where I know we’re going to finish well. If the car is running good I’ll be in contention and if the car is bad I’ll still end up finishing 5th, 6th, 7th. How do you prepare yourself to run at Watkins Glen? JPM: This is more of my background. This is what I’m used to. Most of us try to muscle the car. If it’s running good the car responds. If it doesn’t you can spin out. This track is fast. You try to get the most out of it. Between all the different series you’ve run, which track is your favorite? JPM: I’d have to say Malaysia. It’s so quick. Japan was fun. It looked like the turns were really quick on TV but not really. You’re like in 2nd gear barely going. Like Sonoma, you’re going around in like 2nd gear just peddling the car. Here (Watkins Glen) you’re on the gas. What are your favorite NASCAR tracks? JPM: This one (Watkins Glen) is one of my favorites. Otherwise Dover and Bristol I like. The high bank tracks I like the best. Do you have any business on the side? JPM: Not really. It’s hard. You have to understand that I started the season on January 6th with the 24 hour race. And I’m not done until the week before Thanksgiving. In the whole year we have two weekends off. Actually this year it was only one week because I did some testing. Every week we do something. For example this week we went to St. Jude Hospital in Memphis. Target has these Target Houses where they help families who have sick children. So when the kids are sick they stay there from between 9 days and 3 years to provide free support for the families. We go there to visit the kids and play with the kids and it’s a lot of fun. Does your wife ever go with you to visit the kids at the Hospital? JPM: Yeah, sometimes. I’ve been going since I was like what, 24? It’s hard sometimes you know. You have one kid then more. It’s hard. You tear up. I know you have your own charity called “Formula Smiles Foundation”. A foundation to help needy Colombian children. Can you tell us a little about that? JPM: It’s to try to get the kids off the street. Get the kids to learn how to play together. If you’re a kid and you have time off we all think of what bad thing we going to do now. I did when I was a kid. So when you get 5 or 6 kids together the bad things escalate. So if you can take those 6 kids with all that energy into sports its good. It’s good we can help about 5,000 kids a year. If you don’t go to school you don’t play. We want them to attend school. In the last year your Ganassi organization has undergone a tremendous amount of changes. Do you think they’ve been successful? JPM: Oh yeah. We’ve run good. Last week I made a big mistakes. We made a lot of mistakes early in the year. Things breaking. In California I had the shifter come off in my hand. The fuel pump broke at Bristol. We ran out of gas in Sonoma. You know what I mean, as a team we’ve had like 8 races where we ran into problems. When you have that many it’s hard to make the Chase. You might get away with two. We’ve put ourselves in a hole. It happens. Our cars are better. Are we where Hendricks is? No, but we have the right people and we’re going in the right direction. Who is the driver you trust the most? JPM: Who I truly respect on the track and who I think we respect each other a lot? I know when we’re racing on the track and we give each other room it’s Tony (Stewart). Tony and I have a real good relationship. I get out of the way for him and he gets out of the way for me. It makes life easy. Do you have a list that you don’t have that same relationship with? JPM: The 41 others (laughs). The hardest guy to pass is your teammate. Really. It’s a pain in the butt. With someone else you don’t mind rubbing him or moving him out of the way. But with your teammate it’s like I know if I move him out of the way I’m gonna hear about it. Speaking of teammates, tell us a little about your teammate Jamie McMurray. JPM: (Laughs) Funny story. We had a chance to play golf at Indy a couple weeks ago. He has a germ phobia. Bad. It creeps him out to just shake hands. Anyways, we were playing in this tournament and some guy was following us around. On the 18th green he asked for an autograph and I said sure. Well, this guy was like 350 pounds. It’s hot, it’s 94 degrees out and he’s sweating bad. I mean bad. So I said to him, do me a favor? Go give Jamie a great big hug. I’ve never seen Jamie so pissed off. To learn more about Juan’s charity, the Formula Smiles Foundation go to: http://www.formulasonrisas.com/2011/ . We wish him all the best with the cause. Thanks for Reading, you can leave your comments below. Feel free to give me a follow on Twitter – @JimLaPlante, as well as the site – @LastWordOnSport. Interested in writing for LastWordOnSports? Find more info at our “Join Our Team” page.
Being publicly-funded gives us a greater chance to continue providing you with high quality content. Please support us! The annual Tremé Creole Gumbo Festival in New Orleans is always a hotly-anticipated event for music-lovers and foodies alike. Having played host to jazz performers such as Pocket Aces Brass Band, The Dirty Dozen, and Rebirth Brass Band in previous years, the 2013 line-up is set to include Hot 8 Brass Band, Glen David Andrews, Robin Barnes, and Baby Boyz Brass Band. Vegan attendees, however, frequently find themselves stuck for dining options, as the meals on offer, like most traditional Southern dishes, are based on meat and dairy – though they can be adapted to suit vegan preferences. Advertisement But now, thanks to PETA‘s work with New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Foundation, this year’s event is to adapt its menu so that each chef will offer a vegan option for the first time in the festival’s history! As if that wasn’t exciting enough, there will also be a vegan gumbo cook-off competition on Saturday, Nov. 9, with a judging panel comprised of New Orleans food writers and celebrity chefs. The grand prize on offer is a $1,000 gift certificate to the Food Network’s online store. The Restaurant Depot and Whole Foods will also donate prizes to each participant. PETA reports that the response to this competition has been overwhelmingly positive to date. Chefs from well-known local restaurants such as Dickie Brennan’s Bourbon House, Lil’Dizzy’s, and Ms.Linda’s have signed up to participate. The festival, which is free of charge, runs from Nov. 9 to 10 in New Orleans’ Louis Armstrong Park, from 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. each day. But if you can’t be there in person – and all this talk of delicious vegan food has got your tummy rumbling – why not try making some Southern-style ‘meat’ loaf, or ‘chicken’ and ‘sausage’ gumbo? Advertisement Advertisement Image Source: Vegan Gumbo Recipe
This article is about a licence paid by television or radio users. For a licence to broadcast, see broadcast licence "TV tax" redirects here. For the proposed funding mechanism for local Canadian TV stations described by opponents as a "TV tax", see fee-for-carriage A television licence or broadcast receiving licence is a payment required in many countries for the reception of television broadcasts, or the possession of a television set where some broadcasts are funded in full or in part by the licence fee paid. The fee is sometimes also required to own a radio or receive radio broadcasts. A TV licence is therefore effectively a hypothecated tax for the purpose of funding public broadcasting, thus allowing public broadcasters to transmit television programmes without, or with only supplemental, funding from radio and television advertisements. However, in some cases the balance between public funding and advertisements is the opposite – the Polish TVP broadcaster receives more funds from advertisements than from its TV tax.[1] Funding of European public broadcasters TV licence Television licence only Television licence and advertising Television licence, advertising and government grants No TV licence Government grants, and advertising Commercial only Government grants only Unknown Contents History Edit The early days of broadcasting presented broadcasters with the problem of how to raise funding for their services. Some countries adopted the advertising model, but many others adopted a compulsory public subscription model, with the subscription coming in the form of a broadcast licence paid by households owning a radio set (and later, a TV set). The UK was the first country to adopt the compulsory public subscription model with the licence fee money going to the BBC, which was formed on 1 January 1927 by Royal charter to produce publicly funded programming yet remain independent from government, both managerially and financially. The licence was originally known as a wireless licence. With the arrival of television some countries created a separate additional television licence, while others simply increased the radio licence fee to cover the additional cost of TV broadcasting, changing the licence's name from "radio licence" to "TV licence" or "receiver licence". Today most countries fund public radio broadcasting from the same licence fee that is used for television, although a few still have separate radio licences, or apply a lower or no fee at all for consumers who only have a radio. Some countries also have different fees for users with colour or monochrome TV. Many give discounts, or charge no fee, for elderly and/or disabled consumers. Faced with the problem of licence fee evasion, some countries choose to fund public broadcasters directly from taxation or via other less avoidable methods such as a co-payment with electricity billing. National public broadcasters in some countries also carry supplemental advertising. The Council of Europe created the European Convention on Transfrontier Television in 1989 that regulates among other things advertising standards, time and the format of breaks, which also has an indirect effect on the usage of licensing. In 1993, this treaty entered into force when it achieved 7 ratifications including 5 member states. It has since been acceded to by 34 countries, as of 2010 .[2] Television licences around the world Edit Countries where the TV licence has been abolished Edit Countries that have never had a television or broadcasting licence Edit Detection of evasion of television licences Edit In many jurisdictions, television licences are enforced. Besides claims of (usually undisclosed) sophisticated technological methods for the detection of operating televisions, detection of illegal television sets can be as simple as the observation of the lights and sounds of an illegally used television in a user's home at night. United Kingdom Edit The BBC states that "television detector vans" are employed by TV Licensing in the UK. Detection is made much easier because nearly all houses have a licence, so only those houses that do not have a licence need to be checked. An effort to compel the BBC to release key information about the television detection vans (and possible handheld equivalents) based on the Freedom of Information Act was rejected.[131] The BBC has stated on record "... detection equipment is complex to deploy as its use is strictly governed by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (British Broadcasting Corporation) Order 2001. RIPA and the Order outline how the relevant investigatory powers are to be used by the BBC and ensure compliance with human rights.[132] Opinions of television licensing systems Edit Advocates argue that one of the main advantages of television fully funded by a licence fee is that programming can be enjoyed without interruptions for advertisements. Television funded by advertising is not truly free of cost to the viewer, since the advertising is used mostly to sell mass-market items, and the cost of mass-market goods includes the cost of TV advertising, such that viewers effectively pay for TV when they purchase those products. Viewers also pay in time lost watching advertising. Europeans tend to watch one hour less TV per day than do North Americans,[133] but in practice may be enjoying the same amount of television but gaining extra leisure time by not watching advertisements. Even the channels in Europe that do carry advertising carry about 25% less advertising per hour than their North American counterparts.[134] Critics of receiver licensing point out that a licence is a regressive form of taxation, because poor people pay more for the service in relation to income.[135] In contrast, the advertisement model implies that costs are covered in proportion to consumption of mass-market goods, particularly luxury goods, so the poorer the viewer, the greater the subsidy. The experience with broadcast deregulation in Europe suggests that demand for commercial-free content is not as high as once thought.[citation needed] The third option, voluntary funding of public television via subscriptions, requires a subscription level higher than the licence fee (because not all people that currently pay the licence would voluntarily pay a subscription) if quality and/or output volume are not to decline. These higher fees would deter even more people from subscribing, leading to further hikes in subscription levels. In time, if public subscription television were subject to encryption to deny access to non-subscribers, the poorest in society would be denied access to the well-funded programmes that public broadcasters produce today in exchange for the relatively lower cost of the licence.[citation needed] In 2004, the UK government's Department for Culture, Media and Sport, as part of its BBC Charter review, asked the public what it thought of various funding alternatives. Fifty-nine percent of respondents agreed with the statement "Advertising would interfere with my enjoyment of programmes", while 31 percent disagreed; 71 percent agreed with the statement "subscription funding would be unfair to those that could not pay", while 16 percent disagreed. An independent study showed that more than two-thirds of people polled thought that, due to TV subscriptions such as satellite television, the licence fee should be dropped. Regardless of this however the Department concluded that the licence fee was "the least worse [sic] option".[136] Another problem, governments use tax money pay for content and content should become public domain but governments give public companies like the British Broadcasting Corporation content monopoly against public (companies copyright content, people can't resale, remix, or reuse content from their tax money).[137] In 2005, the British government described the licence fee system as "the best (and most widely supported) funding model, even though it is not perfect".[138][139] That is, they believe that the disadvantages of having a licence fee are less than the disadvantages of all other methods. In fact, the disadvantages of other methods have led to some countries, especially those in the former Eastern Bloc, to consider the introduction of a TV licence. Both Bulgaria[140] and Serbia[141] have attempted to legislate to introduce a television licence. In Bulgaria, a fee is specified in the broadcasting law, but it has never been implemented in practice. Lithuania[142] and Latvia have also long debated the introduction of a licence fee but so far made little progress on legislating for one. In the case of Latvia, some analysts believe this is partly because the government is unwilling to relinquish the control of Latvijas Televīzija that funding from general taxation gives it.[who?][143] The Czech Republic[144] has increased the proportion of funding that the public broadcaster gets from licence fees, justifying the move with the argument that the existing public service broadcasters cannot compete with commercial broadcasters for advertising revenues. Internet-based broadcast access Edit The development of the global Internet has created the ability for television and radio programming to be easily accessed outside of its country of origin, with little technological investment needed to implement the capability. Prior to the development of the Internet, this would have required specially-acquired satellite relaying and/or local terrestrial rebroadcasting of the international content, at considerable cost to the international viewer. This access can now instead be readily facilitated using off-the-shelf video encoding and streaming equipment, using broadband services within the country of origin. In some cases, no additional technology is needed for international program access via the Internet, if the national broadcaster already has a broadband streaming service established for citizens of their own country. However, countries with TV licensing systems often do not have a way to accommodate international access via the Internet, and instead work to actively block and prevent access because their national licensing rules have not evolved fast enough to adapt to the ever-expanding potential global audience for their material. For example, it is not possible for a resident of the United States to pay for a British TV Licence in order to watch all of the BBC's programming, streamed live over the Internet in its original format. See also Edit
Members of the Maine South boys swimming team believe the school's pool has caused persistent coughing and breathing problems. (Dave Beery / HANDOUT) Members of the Maine South boys swimming team believe the school's pool has caused persistent coughing and breathing problems. One member of last season's Maine South boys swimming team was coughing so much during practice that he thought he was on the verge of coughing up blood. A senior on the Hawks this season had such a difficult time breathing at the pool that he was scared to go to practice. When members of the Maine South boys swimming team told school officials about their persistent coughing and breathing difficulties and linked the health issues to the Maine South pool, it sparked an inquiry and an outside company was brought in to conduct tests. Some of Maine South's swimmers have theorized that chloramines are causing their breathing problems. Mick Nelson, the facilities development director for USA Swimming, agreed with that conclusion after being provided with a list of the symptoms that Hawks swimmers experienced during the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons. "It's breathing air that's poisoned," Nelson said. Since Monday, Jan. 25, the Maine South boys swimming team has practiced in the evening at Maine East or Maine West, depending on the day, after the Blue Demons and Warriors finish practicing. Maine South's home meets also have been relocated. Hawks seniors Zach Clauss and Rob Reinhard said the breathing problems they and their teammates experienced have stopped since Maine South stopped training at its home pool. While it sounds straightforward, Maine Township High School District 207 spokesman Dave Beery said that for at least the last six months the school's pool has been within the acceptable ranges for combined chlorine levels as laid out by the Illinois Department of Public Health. While not a measure of chloramines, the weekly combined chlorine levels test is "an indicator of what the chloramine presence probably is" in the water, Beery said. The boys swimming dual meet between Niles West and Maine South on Friday, Jan. 29, featured freshman, JV and varsity races, but the Hawks only competed in two levels. Each event in the Freshman Division featured Niles West swimmers racing against one another. Maine South's program is not devoid... However, concerns raised by Clauss, Reinhard and parents of the Hawks' swimmers were enough for the Maine South administration to ask, " 'OK, what do we need to look at? What do we need to do differently? What more can we do?' "Maine South principal Shawn Messmer said. The symptoms Philip Wachowski was part of the swimming and water polo teams during each of his four years at Maine South and the 2015 graduate said the air always felt "sick" when he swam in the pool and stood on the pool deck. The air quality, Wachowski added, was far and away the worst he ever experienced near the midway point of his senior season. Several of the Hawks' swimmers had troubling symptoms at that time. Multiple members of the team had a persistent cough that grew progressively worse. The air kind of burned Wachowski's lungs, he said. Jon Ramoska, another senior on the 2014-15 team, said he and others on the team struggled to take a deep breath while they were swimming in the pool and on the pool deck. It was a problem during the school day and at home, too. Congratulations to Jon Arenas, Central Athlete of the Month!Jon will be featured in Suburban Tribune printed editions next week. This program is governed by these rules. Voting results are considered preliminary and are not final until winners are announced at the end of the voting period. Looking... There was a point during the 2014-15 season when Ramoska, Wachowski and their fellow co-captains gathered the team to talk about the breathing issues. "[We] said, 'Guys, don't milk this because it could be serious. Are you guys honestly having problems?' " Ramoska recalled. "The team consensus was, 'Yes, this is bad. We're not faking it. This is pretty legit.' " More than a year later, the breaking point still sticks in Wachowski's mind. It happened when the Hawks were performing a set of underwater dolphin kicks — an exercise where swimmers hold their breath, extend their arms out in front of them and whip their feet in unison to propel themselves the length of the pool. The air quality was particularly poor that day. "Usually, it's a tough set because you've got to hold your breath for an extended amount of time, repeatedly, but it was just so much harder because you'd take a breath and it would just burn so much more," Wachowski said. The underwater dolphin kicks were one of the final sets the Hawks performed in that practice, Wachowski recalled. Maine South coach Don Kura, who every swimmer interviewed for this story praised for his compassion and understanding of the issue, listened to his team. "We all just looked at him and said, 'Coach, we can't do this,' " Wachowski said. "He was like, 'All right, guys.' And he called [practice]." The Hawks didn't practice for one or two days after that, Wachowski added. On days when the Hawks practiced and the conditions were bad, Ramoska said he and some of his teammates had to get out of the water and walk into the school hallway to get some fresh air. When Maine South's swimmers were coughing badly, Kura opened the doors to the pool and turned on the fans. That helped, multiple swimmers said. Kura was asked if the Maine South pool was having issues on Friday, Jan. 29, when Maine South's senior night meet against Niles West was moved to the Wolves' pool, but he declined to comment. The coughing got so bad, Ramoska said, that some swimmers were almost dry heaving. "When it happened to me last year, it was almost to the point of coughing up blood," Ramoska said. "You can kind of taste that little taste in the back of your throat, because you're coughing so much." Ramoska is now a freshman at the University of Alabama. He swims about twice a week for exercise on campus and doesn't have any of the symptoms he experienced a year ago. Similar breathing issues arose again with members of the Maine South boys swimming team this season. It got so bad for Reinhard that he considered quitting the team. Clauss said he never considered quitting, but it put him and others in a difficult position. "We love our team and we love our sport," Clauss said. "No one wants to swim in a dangerous pool." The concerns about the pool, which was built in 1964 and is part of original school building, were brought to the District 207 school board during its meeting on Monday, Feb. 1. "I've swam since I was 7 years old, and the issue has only occurred at Maine South," Reinhard told the board. "The issue, for me, first occurred last year for a week or two. But this year it has been pretty much consistent throughout the entire season." After addressing the school board, Reinhard explained that his breathing problems built up over the course of the season, as the air quality seemed to deteriorate. He too had a consistent cough, and it hurt to breathe. "I was one of the first people to have the issues [this season]," Reinhard said. "It got to the point where I got scared to go to practice, because … you kind of feared the environment you were in." Clauss added that the pool at Maine South also burnt his skin a little bit, making it red. That was more of an inconvenience, he explained, especially when compared to not being able to breathe properly. "It's something that's actually very scary," Clauss said. "To feel like you can't take a deep breath is a little terrifying." The causes Nelson said USA Swimming has been consulted on over 650 similar issues at indoor pools across the country in the last 10 years. The issues Maine South's swimmers have experienced are almost certainly being caused by chloramines, he said. "There's no such thing as a breathing issue, really, without chloramine — unless you have a faulty HVAC system," Nelson said. Most people are not familiar with chloramines but know their smell. Chloramines are present when you walk into a hotel, or a health club, and can locate the pool just by smelling it. That smell is chloramine. Chloramines form when when free chlorine used to disinfect the water "comes into contact with the organic substances that would pose a hazard to swimmers if they were left untreated," Beery said. Chloramines are "a chlorine compound that cannot burn off in the water," according to www.usaswimming.org. "Chloramines are released during evaporation and when the water is agitated," like during a practice or a meet where athletes are swimming furiously. A pool with a significant number of chloramines can be "a very unhealthy environment," Nelson said. They can cause serious breathing problems, including hospitalization. There's a tremendous misconception, however, that chloramines — and the breathing problems they can cause — are an air-quality issue, Nelson explained. The Maine South pool's relatively low ceiling and small size — it has six lanes and nine rows of wooden bleachers that run the length of one side of the pool — aren't an ideal setting for evaporation and air flow, he added, but the root cause is the water. "The end results are bad air, but if you correct the water and do what you need to to give yourself the best water, then the air will take care of itself," Nelson said. "Trying to do all this air stuff — test the air, do this, do that — is kind of like treating the smoke and not putting out the fire." The formation of chloramines can be accelerated by "perspiration, urine, saliva, body oils, lotions, some shampoos or soaps, fertilizers and nitrates and many industrial or household cleaners," according to the USA Swimming website. "The bottom line is every swimmer has to take a shower before they get into the pool," Nelson said. "We need to remove all these crazy, 20-syllable ingredients or chemicals before we put them in the water. Number 2 is a lot of swimmers don't get out and go to the bathroom. They just pee in the pool. That tremendously accelerates the problem. One person peeing in the pool can affect 10,000 gallons for a week." Members of the Hawks boys swimming team didn't shower consistently before practice the last two seasons. They started to when breathing issues became very bad both this season and last. Showering seemed to help correct the problem last year, Wachowski said. Clauss added that, when he was a sophomore, nobody showered before his physical education class did its swimming unit. Wachowski had a similar experience. He was in a life guarding class that took place right before Maine South practiced, and he said a lot of the people wouldn't rinse off before entering the pool. "I don't know when, all of a sudden, we decided that swimming pools are a large bath tub and we stopped showering before we got in them," Nelson said. "Somehow we lost control." Messmer explained that Maine South's students are expected to shower before they enter the pool. The school's physical education teachers instruct them to do so, he said, but it is difficult to enforce. "The ability to police that is limited because we're not going to have adults staring down students in the shower, to make sure they're showering," Messmer said. Maine South has showers in the boys and girls locker rooms, but not on the pool deck. Eliminating peeing in the pool is even harder to do. "We know that's an issue," Messmer said. "It's just disappointing that you've got to remind people not to do that." Maine South is adding signage to try to cut down on, and eliminate, the introduction of unnecessary chemicals into the pool. "One [line] is a simple: 'Please shower before entering the pool,' " Messmer said of the new signs. "We also added to it: 'Body oils and products negatively affect the chemical balance of the pool, and therefore can affect your health.' " Messmer added that the school's freshman and sophomore physical education classes have used the pool regularly during the winter, as cold temperatures and snow often eliminate usable outdoor space. Those physical education sessions can last one week or a couple weeks, he said. "The student population using the pool is constantly changing," Rawn Reinhard, Rob Reinhard's father, told the District 207 school board on Monday, Feb. 1. "There's only a limited number of heavy users, and the pool most of the time is functioning adequately. The problems are intermittent, but they're serious and chronic when they happen. Further, not everybody experiences the same effect from chloramine — and the impact may be cumulative." Last week, Messmer decided the physical education classes would no longer use the Maine South pool on a regular basis. He said the move wasn't prompted by complaints from the students or their teachers about any aspect of the pool. Instead, he said he wanted to get the pool as close to pristine condition as possible so the boys swimming team could return home. Messmer, who has been Maine South's principal since 2010, has only received complaints about the Maine South pool from members of the boys swimming team. "In the fall, when the girls swim, we've not had any issues," he said. "In the spring, during water polo, we've had no complaints or issues." Wachowski said the air quality was definitely better during the water polo season. "It was weird," he said. "The transition, going from swim season to polo, it burned a little bit, but the air would clear up almost." One potential explanation is the water polo players weren't agitating the water as much as the Maine South boys swimmers, who performed long, strenuous sets during practice.
Sir James Chadwick, CH, FRS (20 October 1891 – 24 July 1974) was a British physicist who was awarded the 1935 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the neutron in 1932. In 1941, he wrote the final draft of the MAUD Report, which inspired the U.S. government to begin serious atomic bomb research efforts. He was the head of the British team that worked on the Manhattan Project during the Second World War. He was knighted in Britain in 1945 for his achievements in physics. Chadwick graduated from the Victoria University of Manchester in 1911, where he studied under Ernest Rutherford (known as the "father of nuclear physics").[2] At Manchester, he continued to study under Rutherford until he was awarded his MSc in 1913. The same year, Chadwick was awarded an 1851 Research Fellowship from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. He elected to study beta radiation under Hans Geiger in Berlin. Using Geiger's recently developed Geiger counter, Chadwick was able to demonstrate that beta radiation produced a continuous spectrum, and not discrete lines as had been thought. Still in Germany when the First World War broke out in Europe, he spent the next four years in the Ruhleben internment camp. After the war, Chadwick followed Rutherford to the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, where Chadwick earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree under Rutherford's supervision from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, in June 1921. He was Rutherford's assistant director of research at the Cavendish Laboratory for over a decade at a time when it was one of the world's foremost centres for the study of physics, attracting students like John Cockcroft, Norman Feather, and Mark Oliphant. Chadwick followed his discovery of the neutron by measuring its mass. He anticipated that neutrons would become a major weapon in the fight against cancer. Chadwick left the Cavendish Laboratory in 1935 to become a professor of physics at the University of Liverpool, where he overhauled an antiquated laboratory and, by installing a cyclotron, made it an important centre for the study of nuclear physics. During the Second World War, Chadwick carried out research as part of the Tube Alloys project to build an atomic bomb, while his Manchester lab and environs were harassed by Luftwaffe bombing. When the Quebec Agreement merged his project with the American Manhattan Project, he became part of the British Mission, and worked at the Los Alamos Laboratory and in Washington, D.C. He surprised everyone by earning the almost-complete trust of project director Leslie R. Groves, Jr. For his efforts, Chadwick received a knighthood in the New Year Honours on 1 January 1945. In July 1945, he viewed the Trinity nuclear test. After this, he served as the British scientific advisor to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission. Uncomfortable with the trend toward Big Science, Chadwick became the Master of Gonville and Caius College in 1948. He retired in 1959. Education and early life [ edit ] James Chadwick was born in Bollington, Cheshire, on 20 October 1891, the first child of John Joseph Chadwick, a cotton spinner, and Anne Mary Knowles, a domestic servant. He was named James after his paternal grandfather. In 1895, his parents moved to Manchester, leaving him in the care of his maternal grandparents. He went to Bollington Cross Primary School, and was offered a scholarship to Manchester Grammar School, which his family had to turn down as they could not afford the small fees that still had to be paid. Instead he attended the Central Grammar School for Boys in Manchester, rejoining his parents there. He now had two younger brothers, Harry and Hubert; a sister had died in infancy. At the age of 16, he sat two examinations for university scholarships, and won both of them.[6] Chadwick chose to attend Victoria University of Manchester, which he entered in 1908. He meant to study mathematics, but enrolled in physics by mistake. Like most students, he lived at home, walking the 4 miles (6.4 km) to the university and back each day. At the end of his first year, he was awarded a Heginbottom Scholarship to study physics. The physics department was headed by Ernest Rutherford, who assigned research projects to final-year students, and he instructed Chadwick to devise a means of comparing the amount of radioactive energy of two different sources. The idea was that they could be measured in terms of the activity of 1 gram (0.035 oz) of radium, a unit of measurement which would become known as the curie. Rutherford's suggested approach was unworkable—something Chadwick knew but was afraid to tell Rutherford—so Chadwick pressed on, and eventually devised the required method. The results became Chadwick's first paper, which, co-authored with Rutherford, was published in 1912. He graduated with first class honours in 1911. Having devised a means of measuring gamma radiation, Chadwick proceeded to measure the absorption of gamma rays by various gases and liquids. This time the resulting paper was published under his name alone. He was awarded his Master of Science (MSc) degree in 1912, and was appointed a Beyer Fellow. The following year he was awarded an 1851 Exhibition Scholarship, which allowed him to study and research at a university in continental Europe. He elected to go to the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt in Berlin in 1913, to study beta radiation under Hans Geiger. Using Geiger's recently developed Geiger counter, which provided more accuracy than the earlier photographic techniques, he was able to demonstrate that beta radiation did not produce discrete lines, as has been previously thought, but rather a continuous spectrum with peaks in certain regions. On a visit to Geiger's laboratory, Albert Einstein told Chadwick that: "I can explain either of these things, but I can't explain them both at the same time." The continuous spectrum would remain an unexplained phenomenon for many years. Chadwick was still in Germany at the start of the First World War, and was interned in the Ruhleben internment camp near Berlin, where he was allowed to set up a laboratory in the stables and conduct scientific experiments using improvised materials such as radioactive toothpaste.[15] With the help of Charles Drummond Ellis, he worked on the ionisation of phosphorus, and the photochemical reaction of carbon monoxide and chlorine.[16][17] He was released after the Armistice with Germany came into effect in November 1918, and returned to his parents' home in Manchester, where he wrote up his findings over the previous four years for the 1851 Exhibition commissioners. Rutherford gave Chadwick a part-time teaching position at Manchester, allowing him to continue research. He looked at the nuclear charge of platinum, silver, and copper, and experimentally found that this was the same as the atomic number within an error of less than 1.5 per cent. In April 1919, Rutherford became director of the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, and Chadwick joined him there a few months later. Chadwick was awarded a Clerk-Maxwell studentship in 1920, and enrolled as a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) student at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. The first half of his thesis was his work with atomic numbers. In the second, he looked at the forces inside the nucleus. His degree was awarded in June 1921. In November, he became a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College. Researcher [ edit ] Cambridge [ edit ] Chadwick's Clerk-Maxwell studentship expired in 1923, and he was succeeded by the Russian physicist Pyotr Kapitza. The Chairman of the Advisory Council of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Sir William McCormick arranged for Chadwick to become Rutherford's assistant director of research. In this role, Chadwick helped Rutherford select PhD students. Over the next few years these would include John Cockcroft, Norman Feather and Mark Oliphant, who would become firm friends with Chadwick. As many students had no idea what they wanted to research, Rutherford and Chadwick would suggest topics. Chadwick edited all the papers produced by the laboratory. In 1925, Chadwick met Aileen Stewart-Brown, the daughter of a Liverpool stockbroker. The two were married in August 1925, with Kapitza as Best Man. The couple had twin daughters, Joanna and Judith, who were born in February 1927. In his research, Chadwick continued to probe the nucleus. In 1925, the concept of spin had allowed physicists to explain the Zeeman effect, but it also created unexplained anomalies. At the time it was believed that the nucleus consisted of protons and electrons, so nitrogen's nucleus, for example, with a mass number of 14, was assumed to contain 14 protons and 7 electrons. This gave it the right mass and charge, but the wrong spin. At a conference at Cambridge on beta particles and gamma rays in 1928, Chadwick met Geiger again. Geiger had brought with him a new model of his Geiger counter, which had been improved by his post-doctoral student Walther Müller. Chadwick had not used one since the war, and the new Geiger–Müller counter was potentially a major improvement over the scintillation techniques then in use at Cambridge, which relied on the human eye for observation. The major drawback with it was that it detected alpha, beta and gamma radiation, and radium, which the Cavendish laboratory normally used in its experiments, emitted all three, and was therefore unsuitable for what Chadwick had in mind. However, polonium is an alpha emitter, and Lise Meitner sent Chadwick about 2 millicuries (about 6990500000000000000♠0.5 μg) from Germany. In Germany, Walther Bothe and his student Herbert Becker had used polonium to bombard beryllium with alpha particles, producing an unusual form of radiation. Chadwick had his Australian 1851 Exhibition scholar, Hugh Webster, duplicate their results. To Chadwick, this was evidence of something that he and Rutherford had been hypothesising for years: the neutron, a theoretical nuclear particle with no electric charge. Then in January 1932, Feather drew Chadwick's attention to another surprising result. Frédéric and Irène Joliot-Curie had succeeded in knocking protons from paraffin wax using polonium and beryllium as a source for what they thought was gamma radiation. Rutherford and Chadwick disagreed; protons were too heavy for that. But neutrons would need only a small amount of energy to achieve the same effect. In Rome, Ettore Majorana came to the same conclusion: the Joliot-Curies had discovered the neutron but did not know it. Chadwick dropped all his other responsibilities to concentrate on proving the existence of the neutron, assisted by Feather[29] and frequently working late at night. He devised a simple apparatus that consisted of a cylinder containing a polonium source and beryllium target. The resulting radiation could then be directed at a material such as paraffin wax; the displaced particles, which were protons, would go into a small ionisation chamber where they could be detected with an oscilloscope. Sir Ernest Rutherford's laboratory In February 1932, after only about two weeks of experimentation with neutrons,[15] Chadwick sent a letter to Nature titled "Possible Existence of a Neutron". He communicated his findings in detail in an article sent to Proceedings of the Royal Society A titled "The Existence of a Neutron" in May. His discovery of the neutron was a milestone in understanding the nucleus. Reading Chadwick's paper, Robert Bacher and Edward Condon realised that anomalies in the then-current theory, like the spin of nitrogen, would be resolved if the neutron has a spin of 1/2 and that a nitrogen nucleus consisted of seven protons and seven neutrons. The theoretical physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg considered whether the neutron could be a fundamental nuclear particle like the proton and electron, rather than a proton–electron pair. Heisenberg showed that the neutron was best described as a new nuclear particle, but its exact nature remained unclear. In his 1933 Bakerian Lecture, Chadwick estimated that a neutron had a mass of about 7000100670000000000♠1.0067 u. Since a proton and an electron had a combined mass of 7000100780000000000♠1.0078 u, this implied the neutron as a proton–electron composite had a binding energy of about 6987320435297400000♠2 MeV, which sounded reasonable, although it was hard to understand how a particle with so little binding energy could be stable. Estimating such a small mass difference required challenging precise measurements, however, and several conflicting results were obtained in 1933–4. By bombarding boron with alpha particles, Frédéric and Irène Joliot-Curie obtained a large value for the mass of a neutron, but Ernest Lawrence's team at the University of California produced a small one. Then Maurice Goldhaber, a refugee from Nazi Germany and a graduate student at the Cavendish Laboratory, suggested to Chadwick that deuterons could be photodisintegrated by the 2.6 MeV gamma rays of 208Tl (then known as thorium C"): An accurate value for the mass of the neutron could be determined from this process. Chadwick and Goldhaber tried this and found that it worked. They measured the kinetic energy of the proton produced as 1.05 MeV, leaving the mass of the neutron as the unknown in the equation. Chadwick and Goldhaber calculated that it was either 1.0084 or 1.0090 atomic units, depending on the values used for the masses of the proton and deuteron. (The modern accepted value for the mass of the neutron is 7000100865999999999♠1.00866 u.) The mass of the neutron was too large to be a proton–electron pair. For his discovery of the neutron, Chadwick was awarded the Hughes Medal by the Royal Society in 1932, the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1935, the Copley Medal in 1950 and the Franklin Medal in 1951.[6] His discovery of the neutron made it possible to produce elements heavier than uranium in the laboratory by the capture of slow neutrons followed by beta decay. Unlike the positively charged alpha particles, which are repelled by the electrical forces present in the nuclei of other atoms, neutrons do not need to overcome any Coulomb barrier, and can therefore penetrate and enter the nuclei of even the heaviest elements such as uranium. This inspired Enrico Fermi to investigate the nuclear reactions brought about by collisions of nuclei with slow neutrons, work for which Fermi would receive the Nobel Prize in 1938. Wolfgang Pauli proposed another kind of particle on 4 December 1930 in order to explain the continuous spectrum of beta radiation that Chadwick had reported in 1914. Since not all of the energy of beta radiation could be accounted for, the law of conservation of energy appeared to be violated, but Pauli argued that this could be redressed if another, undiscovered, particle was involved. Pauli also called this particle a neutron, but it was clearly not the same particle as Chadwick's neutron. Fermi renamed it the neutrino, Italian for "little neutron". In 1934, Fermi proposed his theory of beta decay which explained that the electrons emitted from the nucleus were created by the decay of a neutron into a proton, an electron, and a neutrino. The neutrino could account for the missing energy, but a particle with little mass and no electric charge was difficult to observe. Rudolf Peierls and Hans Bethe calculated that neutrinos could easily pass through the Earth, so the chances of detecting them were slim.[51] Frederick Reines and Clyde Cowan would confirm the neutrino on 14 June 1956 by placing a detector within a large antineutrino flux from a nearby nuclear reactor. Liverpool [ edit ] With the onset of the Great Depression in the United Kingdom, the government became more parsimonious with funding for science. At the same time, Lawrence's recent invention, the cyclotron, promised to revolutionise experimental nuclear physics, and Chadwick felt that the Cavendish laboratory would fall behind unless it also acquired one. He therefore chafed under Rutherford, who clung to the belief that good nuclear physics could still be done without large, expensive equipment, and turned down the request for a cyclotron. Chadwick was himself a critic of Big Science in general, and Lawrence in particular, whose approach he considered careless and focused on technology at the expense of science. When Lawrence postulated the existence of a new and hitherto unknown particle that he claimed was a possible source of limitless energy at the Solvay Conference in 1933, Chadwick responded that the results were more likely attributable to contamination of the equipment. While Lawrence rechecked his results at Berkeley only to find that Chadwick was correct, Rutherford and Oliphant conducted an investigation at the Cavendish that found that deuterium fuses to form helium-3, thereby causing the effect that the Lawrence had observed. This was another major discovery, but the Oliphant-Rutherford particle accelerator was an expensive state-of-the-art piece of equipment. In March 1935, Chadwick received an offer of the Lyon Jones Chair of physics at the University of Liverpool, in his wife's home town, to succeed Lionel Wilberforce. The laboratory was so antiquated that it still ran on direct current electricity, but Chadwick seized the opportunity, assuming the chair on 1 October 1935. The university's prestige was soon bolstered by Chadwick's Nobel Prize, which was announced in November 1935. His medal was sold at auction in 2014 for $329,000.[60] Chadwick set about acquiring a cyclotron for Liverpool. He started by spending £700 to refurbish the antiquated laboratories at Liverpool, so some components could be made in-house. He was able to persuade the university to provide £2,000 and obtained a grant for another £2,000 from the Royal Society. To build his cyclotron, Chadwick brought in two young experts, Bernard Kinsey and Harold Walke, who had worked with Lawrence at the University of California. A local cable manufacturer donated the copper conductor for the coils. The cyclotron's 50-ton magnet was manufactured in Trafford Park by Metropolitan-Vickers, which also made the vacuum chamber. The cyclotron was completely installed and running in July 1939. The total cost of £5,184 was more than Chadwick had received from the University and the Royal Society, so Chadwick paid the rest from his 159,917 kr (£8,243) Nobel Prize money. At Liverpool the Medicine and Science faculties worked together closely. Chadwick was automatically a committee member of both faculties, and in 1938 he was appointed to a commission headed by Lord Derby to investigate the arrangements for cancer treatment in Liverpool. Chadwick anticipated that neutrons and radioactive isotopes produced with the 37-inch cyclotron could be used to study biochemical processes, and might become a weapon in the fight against cancer. Second World War [ edit ] Tube Alloys and the MAUD Report [ edit ] In Germany, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann bombarded uranium with neutrons, and noted that barium, a lighter element, was among the products produced. Hitherto, only the same or heavier elements had been produced by the process. In January 1939, Meitner and her nephew Otto Frisch astounded the physics community with a paper that explained this result. They theorised that uranium atoms bombarded with neutrons can break into two roughly equal fragments, a process they called fission. They calculated that this would result in the release of about 200 MeV, implying an energy release orders of magnitude greater than chemical reactions, and Frisch confirmed their theory experimentally. It was soon noted by Hahn that if neutrons were released during fission, then a chain reaction was possible. French scientists, Pierre Joliot, Hans von Halban and Lew Kowarski, soon verified that more than one neutron was indeed emitted per fission. In a paper co-authored with the American physicist John Wheeler, Bohr theorised that fission was more likely to occur in the uranium-235 isotope, which made up only 0.7 percent of natural uranium. Chadwick did not believe that there was any likelihood of another war with Germany in 1939, and took his family for a holiday on a remote lake in northern Sweden. The news of the outbreak of the Second World War therefore came as a shock. Determined not to spend another war in an internment camp, Chadwick made his way to Stockholm as fast as he could, but when he arrived there with his family, he found that all air traffic between Stockholm and London had been suspended. They made their way back to England on a tramp steamer. When he reached Liverpool, Chadwick found Joseph Rotblat, a Polish post-doctoral fellow who had come to work with the cyclotron, was now destitute, as he was cut off from funds from Poland. Chadwick promptly hired Rotblat as a lecturer, despite his poor grasp of English. In October 1939, Chadwick received a letter from Sir Edward Appleton, the Secretary of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, asking for his opinion on the feasibility of an atomic bomb. Chadwick responded cautiously. He did not dismiss the possibility, but carefully went over the many theoretical and practical difficulties involved. Chadwick decided to investigate the properties of uranium oxide further with Rotblat. In March 1940, Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls at the University of Birmingham re-examined the theoretical issues involved in a paper that became known as the Frisch–Peierls memorandum. Instead of looking at uranium metal, they considered what would happen to a sphere of pure uranium-235, and found that not only could a chain reaction occur, but that it might require as little as 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) of uranium-235, and unleash the energy of tons of dynamite. Part of Liverpool devastated by the Blitz A special subcommittee of the Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Warfare (CSSAW), known as the MAUD Committee, was created to investigate the matter further. It was chaired by Sir George Thomson and its original membership included Chadwick, along with Mark Oliphant, John Cockcroft and Philip Moon. While other teams investigated uranium enrichment techniques, Chadwick's team at Liverpool concentrated on determining the nuclear cross section of uranium-235. By April 1941, it had been experimentally confirmed that the critical mass of uranium-235 might be 8 kilograms (18 lb) or less. His research into such matters was complicated by all-but-incessant Luftwaffe bombings of the environs of his Liverpool lab; the windows were blown out so often that they were replaced by cardboard. In July 1941, Chadwick was chosen to write the final draft of the MAUD Report, which, when presented by Vannevar Bush to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in October 1941, inspired the U.S. government to pour millions of dollars into the pursuit of an atomic bomb. When George B. Pegram and Harold Urey visited Britain to see how the project, now known as Tube Alloys, was going, Chadwick was able to tell them: "I wish I could tell you that the bomb is not going to work, but I am 90 per cent sure that it will." In a recent book about the Bomb project, Graham Farmelo wrote that "Chadwick did more than any other scientist to give Churchill the Bomb. ... Chadwick was tested almost to the breaking point." So worried that he could not sleep, Chadwick resorted to sleeping pills, which he continued to take for most of his remaining years. Chadwick later said that he realised that "a nuclear bomb was not only possible—it was inevitable. Sooner or later these ideas could not be peculiar to us. Everybody would think about them before long, and some country would put them into action". Sir Hermann Bondi suggested that it was fortunate that Chadwick, not Rutherford, was the doyen of UK physics at the time, as the latter's prestige might otherwise have overpowered Chadwick's interest in "looking forward" to the Bomb's prospects. Manhattan Project [ edit ] Owing to the danger from aerial bombardment, the Chadwicks sent their twins to Canada as part of a government evacuation scheme. Chadwick was reluctant to move Tube Alloys there, believing that the United Kingdom was a better location for the isotope separation plant. The enormous scope of the effort became more apparent in 1942: even a pilot separation plant would cost over £1 million and strain Britain's resources, to say nothing of a full-scale plant, which was estimated to cost somewhere in the vicinity of £25 million. It would have to be built in America. At the same time that the British became convinced that a joint project was necessary, the progress of the American Manhattan Project was such that British cooperation seemed less essential, although the Americans were still eager to utilise Chadwick's talents. The matter of cooperation had to be taken up at the highest level. In September 1943, the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, and President Roosevelt negotiated the Quebec Agreement, which reinstated cooperation between Britain, the United States and Canada. Chadwick, Oliphant, Peierls and Simon were summoned to the United States by the director of Tube Alloys, Sir Wallace Akers, to work with the Manhattan Project. The Quebec Agreement established a new Combined Policy Committee to direct the joint project. The Americans disliked Akers, so Chadwick was appointed technical advisor to the Combined Policy Committee, and the head of the British Mission. Leaving Rotblat in charge in Liverpool, Chadwick began a tour of the Manhattan Project facilities in November 1943, except for the Hanford Site where plutonium was produced, which he was not allowed to see. He became the only man apart from Groves and his second in command to have access to all the American research and production facilities for the uranium bomb. Observing the work on the K-25 gaseous diffusion facility at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Chadwick realised how wrong he had been about building the plant in wartime Britain. The enormous structure could never have been concealed from the Luftwaffe. In early 1944, he moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico, with his wife and their twins, who now spoke with Canadian accents. For security reasons, he was given the cover name of James Chaffee. Chadwick accepted that the Americans did not need British help, but that it could still be useful in bringing the project to an early and successful conclusion. Working closely with the director of the Manhattan Project, Major General Leslie R. Groves, Jr., he attempted to do everything he could to support the effort. He also endeavoured to place British scientists in as many parts of the project as possible in order to facilitate a post-war British nuclear weapons project to which Chadwick was committed. Requests from Groves via Chadwick for particular scientists tended to be met with an immediate rejection by the company, ministry or university currently employing them, only to be overcome by the overriding priority accorded to Tube Alloys. As a result, the British team was critical to the Project's success. Although he had more knowledge of the project than anyone else from Britain, Chadwick had no access to the Hanford site. Lord Portal was offered a tour of Hanford in 1946. "This was the only plant to which Chadwick had been denied access in wartime, and now he asked Groves if he could accompany Portal. Groves replied that he could, but if he did then 'Portal will not see very much'." For his efforts, Chadwick received a knighthood in the New Year Honours on 1 January 1945.[100] He considered this to be a recognition of the work of the whole Tube Alloys project. By early 1945, Chadwick was spending most of his time in Washington, D.C., and his family relocated from Los Alamos to a house on Washington's Dupont Circle in April 1945. He was present at the meeting of the Combined Policy Committee on 4 July when Field Marshal Sir Henry Maitland Wilson gave Britain's agreement to use the atomic bomb against Japan, and at the Trinity nuclear test on 16 July, when the first atomic bomb was detonated. Inside its pit was a polonium-beryllium modulated neutron initiator, a development of the technique that Chadwick had used to discover the neutron over a decade before. William L. Laurence, the New York Times reporter attached to the Manhattan Project, wrote that "never before in history had any man lived to see his own discovery materialize itself with such telling effect on the destiny of man." Later life [ edit ] Shortly after the war ended, Chadwick was appointed to the Advisory Committee on Atomic Energy (ACAE). He was also appointed as the British scientific advisor to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission. He clashed with fellow ACAE member Patrick Blackett, who disagreed with Chadwick's conviction that Britain needed to acquire its own nuclear weapons; but it was Chadwick's position that was ultimately adopted. He returned to Britain in 1946, to find a country still beset by wartime rationing and shortages. At this time, Sir James Mountford, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Liverpool, wrote in his diary "he had never seen a man 'so physically, mentally and spiritually tired" as Chadwick, for he "had plumbed such depths of moral decision as more fortunate men are never called upon even to peer into ... [and suffered] ... almost insupportable agonies of responsibility arising from his scientific work'." In 1948, Chadwick accepted an offer to become the Master of Gonville and Caius College. The job was prestigious but ill-defined; the Master was the titular head of the College, but authority actually resided in a council of 13 fellows, of whom one was the Master. As Master, Chadwick strove to improve the academic reputation of the college. He increased the number of research fellowships from 31 to 49, and sought to bring talent into the college. This involved controversial decisions, such as hiring in 1951 the Chinese biochemist Tien-chin Tsao and the Hungarian-born economist Peter Bauer. In what became known as the Peasants' Revolt, fellows led by Patrick Hadley voted an old friend of Chadwick's off the council and replaced him with Bauer. More friends of Chadwick's were removed over the following years, and he retired in November 1958. It was during his mastership that Francis Crick, a PhD student at Gonville and Caius College, and James Watson discovered the structure of DNA. Over the years, Chadwick received many honours, including the Medal for Merit from the United States, and the Pour le Mérite from Germany. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1927, and in 1946 he became foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.[112] He was made a Companion of Honour in the New Year Honours on 1 January 1970 for "services to science",[113] and went to Buckingham Palace for the investiture ceremony. He became more frail, and seldom left his flat, although he travelled to Liverpool for celebrations of his eightieth birthday. A lifelong atheist, he saw no reason to adopt religious faith in later life. He died in his sleep on 24 July 1974. His papers are held at the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge, and are accessible to the public.[114] The Chadwick Laboratory at the University of Liverpool is named after him,[115] as is its Sir James Chadwick Chair of Experimental Physics, which was named after him in 1991 as part of celebrations of the centenary of his birth.[116] A crater on the moon is also named after him.[117] The James Chadwick Building, which houses part of the School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Sciences, University of Manchester is named in his honour.[118] He was described by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority official historian Lorna Arnold as "a physicist, a scientist-diplomat, and a good, wise, and humane man." Notes [ edit ] References [ edit ]
This is chapter forty-one of a series originally titled “Getting Started/Moving Forward with Arduino!” by John Boxall – a series of articles on the Arduino universe. The first chapter is here, the complete series is detailed here. [Updated 04/12/2014] In this article we discuss how to use the Microchip MCP23017 16-bit serial expander with I2C serial interface. This 28-pin IC offers sixteen inputs or outputs – and up to eight of the ICs can be used on one I2C bus… offering a maximum of 128 extra I/O ports. A few people may be thinking “Why not just get an Arduino Mega2560?” – a good question. However you may have a distance between the Arduino and the end-point of the I/O pins – so with these ICs you can run just four wires instead of a lot more; save board space with custom designs, and preserve precious digital I/O pins for other uses. Plus I think the I2C bus is underappreciated! So let’s get started… Here is our subject of the article in DIP form: At this point you should also download yourself a copy of data sheet – it will be referred to several times, and very useful for reference and further reading. Furthermore if you are not familiar with Arduino and the I2C bus, please familiarise yourself with the I2C tutorials parts one and two. The MCP23017 can be quite simple or complex to understand, so the goal of this article is to try and make it as simple as possible. After reading this you should have the knowledge and confidence to move forward with using a MCP23017. First, let’s look at the hardware basics of this IC. Consider the pinouts: The sixteen I/O ports are separated into two ‘ports’ – A (on the right) and B (on the left. Pin 9 connects to 5V, 10 to GND, 11 isn’t used, 12 is the I2C bus clock line (Arduino Uno/Duemilanove analogue pin 5, Mega pin 21), and 13 is the I2C bus data line (Arduino Uno/Duemailnove analogue pin 4, Mega pin 20). External pull-up resistors should be used on the I2C bus – in our examples we use 4.7k ohm values. Pin 14 is unused, and we won’t be looking at interrupts, so ignore pins 19 and 20. Pin 18 is the reset pin, which is normally high – therefore you ground it to reset the IC. So connect it to 5V! Finally we have the three hardware address pins 15~17. These are used to determine the I2C bus address for the chip. If you connect them all to GND, the address is 0x20. If you have other devices with that address or need to use multiple MCP23017s, see figure 1-2 on page eight of the data sheet. You can alter the address by connecting a combination of pins 15~17 to 5V (1) or GND (0). For example, if you connect 15~17 all to 5V, the control byte becomes 0100111 in binary, or 0x27 in hexadecimal. Next, here is a basic schematic illustrating how to connect an MCP23017 to a typical Arduino board. It contains the minimum to use the IC, without any sensors or components on the I/O pins: Now to examine how to use the IC in our sketches. As you should know by now most I2C devices have several registers that can be addressed. Each address holds one byte of data that determines various options. So before using we need to set whether each port is an input or an output. First, we’ll examine setting them as outputs. So to set port A to outputs, we use: Wire.beginTransmission(0x20); Wire.write(0x00); // IODIRA register Wire.write(0x00); // set all of port A to outputs Wire.endTransmission(); 1 2 3 4 Wire . beginTransmission ( 0x20 ) ; Wire . write ( 0x00 ) ; // IODIRA register Wire . write ( 0x00 ) ; // set all of port A to outputs Wire . endTransmission ( ) ; Then to set port B to outputs, we use: Wire.beginTransmission(0x20); Wire.write(0x01); // IODIRB register Wire.write(0x00); // set all of port B to outputs Wire.endTransmission(); 1 2 3 4 Wire . beginTransmission ( 0x20 ) ; Wire . write ( 0x01 ) ; // IODIRB register Wire . write ( 0x00 ) ; // set all of port B to outputs Wire . endTransmission ( ) ; So now we are in void loop() or a function of your own creation and want to control some output pins. To control port A, we use: Wire.beginTransmission(0x20); Wire.write(0x12); // address port A Wire.write(??); // value to send Wire.endTransmission(); 1 2 3 4 Wire . beginTransmission ( 0x20 ) ; Wire . write ( 0x12 ) ; // address port A Wire . write ( ? ? ) ; // value to send Wire . endTransmission ( ) ; To control port B, we use: Wire.beginTransmission(0x20); Wire.write(0x13); // address port B Wire.write(??); // value to send Wire.endTransmission(); 1 2 3 4 Wire . beginTransmission ( 0x20 ) ; Wire . write ( 0x13 ) ; // address port B Wire . write ( ? ? ) ; // value to send Wire . endTransmission ( ) ; … replacing ?? with the binary or equivalent hexadecimal or decimal value to send to the register. To calculate the required number, consider each I/O pin from 7 to 0 matches one bit of a binary number – 1 for on, 0 for off. So you can insert a binary number representing the status of each output pin. Or if binary does your head in, convert it to hexadecimal. Or a decimal number. So for example, you want pins 7 and 1 on. In binary that would be 10000010, in hexadecimal that is 0x82, or 130 decimal. (Using decimals is convenient if you want to display values from an incrementing value or function result). If you had some LEDs via resistors connected to the outputs, you would have this as a result of sending 0x82: For example, we want port A to be 11001100 and port B to be 10001000 – so we send the following (note we converted the binary values to decimal): Wire.beginTransmission(0x20); Wire.write(0x12); // address port A Wire.write(204); // value to send Wire.endTransmission(); Wire.beginTransmission(0x20); Wire.write(0x13); // address port B Wire.write(136); // value to send Wire.endTransmission(); 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Wire . beginTransmission ( 0x20 ) ; Wire . write ( 0x12 ) ; // address port A Wire . write ( 204 ) ; // value to send Wire . endTransmission ( ) ; Wire . beginTransmission ( 0x20 ) ; Wire . write ( 0x13 ) ; // address port B Wire . write ( 136 ) ; // value to send Wire . endTransmission ( ) ; … with the results as such (port B on the left, port A on the right): Now let’s put all of this output knowledge into a more detailed example. From a hardware perspective we are using a circuit as described above, with the addition of a 560 ohm resistor followed by an LED thence to ground from on each of the sixteen outputs. Here is the sketch: /* Example 41.1 - Microchip MCP23017 with Arduino http://tronixstuff.com/tutorials > chapter 41 John Boxall | CC by-sa-nc */ // pins 15~17 to GND, I2C bus address is 0x20 #include "Wire.h" void setup() { Wire.begin(); // wake up I2C bus // set I/O pins to outputs Wire.beginTransmission(0x20); Wire.write(0x00); // IODIRA register Wire.write(0x00); // set all of port A to outputs Wire.endTransmission(); Wire.beginTransmission(0x20); Wire.write(0x01); // IODIRB register Wire.write(0x00); // set all of port B to outputs Wire.endTransmission(); } void binaryCount() { for (byte a=0; a<256; a++) { Wire.beginTransmission(0x20); Wire.write(0x12); // GPIOA Wire.write(a); // port A Wire.endTransmission(); Wire.beginTransmission(0x20); Wire.write(0x13); // GPIOB Wire.write(a); // port B Wire.endTransmission(); } } void loop() { binaryCount(); delay(500); } 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 /* Example 41.1 - Microchip MCP23017 with Arduino http://tronixstuff.com/tutorials > chapter 41 John Boxall | CC by-sa-nc */ // pins 15~17 to GND, I2C bus address is 0x20 #include "Wire.h" void setup ( ) { Wire . begin ( ) ; // wake up I2C bus // set I/O pins to outputs Wire . beginTransmission ( 0x20 ) ; Wire . write ( 0x00 ) ; // IODIRA register Wire . write ( 0x00 ) ; // set all of port A to outputs Wire . endTransmission ( ) ; Wire . beginTransmission ( 0x20 ) ; Wire . write ( 0x01 ) ; // IODIRB register Wire . write ( 0x00 ) ; // set all of port B to outputs Wire . endTransmission ( ) ; } void binaryCount ( ) { for ( byte a = 0 ; a < 256 ; a ++ ) { Wire . beginTransmission ( 0x20 ) ; Wire . write ( 0x12 ) ; // GPIOA Wire . write ( a ) ; // port A Wire . endTransmission ( ) ; Wire . beginTransmission ( 0x20 ) ; Wire . write ( 0x13 ) ; // GPIOB Wire . write ( a ) ; // port B Wire . endTransmission ( ) ; } } void loop ( ) { binaryCount ( ) ; delay ( 500 ) ; } And here is the example blinking away: Although that may have seemed like a simple demonstration, it was created show how the outputs can be used. So now you know how to control the I/O pins set as outputs. Note that you can’t source more than 25 mA of current from each pin, so if switching higher current loads use a transistor and an external power supply and so on. Now let’s turn the tables and work on using the I/O pins as digital inputs. The MCP23017 I/O pins default to input mode, so we just need to initiate the I2C bus. Then in the void loop() or other function all we do is set the address of the register to read and receive one byte of data. For our next example, we have our basic sketch as described at the start of this article using four normally-open buttons (once again using the ‘button board‘) which are connected to port B inputs 0~3. Consider the first five lines of void loop() in the following example: /* Example 41.2 - Microchip MCP23017 with Arduino http://tronixstuff.com/tutorials > chapter 41 John Boxall | CC by-sa-nc */ // pins 15~17 to GND, I2C bus address is 0x20 #include "Wire.h" byte inputs=0; void setup() { Serial.begin(9600); Wire.begin(); // wake up I2C bus } void loop() { Wire.beginTransmission(0x20); Wire.write(0x13); // set MCP23017 memory pointer to GPIOB address Wire.endTransmission(); Wire.requestFrom(0x20, 1); // request one byte of data from MCP20317 inputs=Wire.read(); // store the incoming byte into "inputs" if (inputs>0) // if a button was pressed { Serial.println(inputs, BIN); // display the contents of the GPIOB register in binary delay(200); // for debounce } } 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 /* Example 41.2 - Microchip MCP23017 with Arduino http://tronixstuff.com/tutorials > chapter 41 John Boxall | CC by-sa-nc */ // pins 15~17 to GND, I2C bus address is 0x20 #include "Wire.h" byte inputs = 0 ; void setup ( ) { Serial . begin ( 9600 ) ; Wire . begin ( ) ; // wake up I2C bus } void loop ( ) { Wire . beginTransmission ( 0x20 ) ; Wire . write ( 0x13 ) ; // set MCP23017 memory pointer to GPIOB address Wire . endTransmission ( ) ; Wire . requestFrom ( 0x20 , 1 ) ; // request one byte of data from MCP20317 inputs = Wire . read ( ) ; // store the incoming byte into "inputs" if ( inputs > 0 ) // if a button was pressed { Serial . println ( inputs , BIN ) ; // display the contents of the GPIOB register in binary delay ( 200 ) ; // for debounce } } In this example void loop() sends the GPIOB address (0x13) to the IC. Then using Wire.requestFrom() it asks for one byte of data from the IC – the contents of the register at 0x13. This byte is stored in the variable inputs. Finally if inputs is greater than zero (i.e. a button has been pressed) the result is sent to the serial monitor window and displayed in binary. We display it in binary as this represents the state of the inputs 0~7. Here is an example of pressing the buttons 1, 2, 3 then 4 – three times: And as we are reading eight inputs at once – you can detect multiple keypresses. The following is an example of doing just that: As you can see pressing all four buttons returned 1111, or the first and third returned 101. Each combination of highs and lows on the inputs is a unique 8-bit number that can also be interpreted in decimal or hexadecimal. And if you wanted to read all sixteen inputs at once, just request and store two bytes of data instead of one. For our last example – a demonstration of using port A as outputs and port B as inputs. Four LEDs with matching resistors are connected to port A outputs 0~3, with the buttons connected as per example 41.2. Here is the sketch: /* Example 41.3 - Microchip MCP23017 with Arduino http://tronixstuff.wordpress.com/tutorials > chapter 41 John Boxall | CC by-sa-nc */ // pins 15~17 to GND, I2C bus address is 0x20 #include "Wire.h" byte inputs=0; void setup() { Serial.begin(9600); Wire.begin(); // wake up I2C bus Wire.beginTransmission(0x20); Wire.write(0x00); // IODIRA register Wire.write(0x00); // set all of bank A to outputs Wire.endTransmission(); } void loop() { // read the inputs of bank B Wire.beginTransmission(0x20); Wire.write(0x13); Wire.endTransmission(); Wire.requestFrom(0x20, 1); inputs=Wire.read(); // now send the input data to bank A Wire.beginTransmission(0x20); Wire.write(0x12); // GPIOA Wire.write(inputs); // bank A Wire.endTransmission(); delay(200); // for debounce } 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 /* Example 41.3 - Microchip MCP23017 with Arduino http://tronixstuff.wordpress.com/tutorials > chapter 41 John Boxall | CC by-sa-nc */ // pins 15~17 to GND, I2C bus address is 0x20 #include "Wire.h" byte inputs = 0 ; void setup ( ) { Serial . begin ( 9600 ) ; Wire . begin ( ) ; // wake up I2C bus Wire . beginTransmission ( 0x20 ) ; Wire . write ( 0x00 ) ; // IODIRA register Wire . write ( 0x00 ) ; // set all of bank A to outputs Wire . endTransmission ( ) ; } void loop ( ) { // read the inputs of bank B Wire . beginTransmission ( 0x20 ) ; Wire . write ( 0x13 ) ; Wire . endTransmission ( ) ; Wire . requestFrom ( 0x20 , 1 ) ; inputs = Wire . read ( ) ; // now send the input data to bank A Wire . beginTransmission ( 0x20 ) ; Wire . write ( 0x12 ) ; // GPIOA Wire . write ( inputs ) ; // bank A Wire . endTransmission ( ) ; delay ( 200 ) ; // for debounce } By now there shouldn’t be any surprises in the last example – it receives a byte that represents port B, and sends that byte out to port A to turn on the matching outputs and LEDs. For the curious, here it is in action: So there you have it… another way to massively increase the quantity of digital I/O pins on any Arduino system by using the I2C bus. You can get the MCP23017 from Tronixlabs. Have fun and keep checking into tronixstuff.com. Why not follow things on twitter, Google+, subscribe for email updates or RSS using the links on the right-hand column, or join our forum – dedicated to the projects and related items on this website. -32.827423 151.488809