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Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. April 7, 2016, 10:50 AM GMT / Updated April 7, 2016, 10:50 AM GMT / Source: Reuters By Reuters Alphabet is expanding its testing of self-driving cars to the Phoenix, Arizona metro area, the company said on Thursday, making it the fourth U.S. city to serve as a proving ground for the autonomous vehicles. The company's Google unit has conducted driverless vehicle testing for six years in Mountain View, California, where it is based, and expanded testing to Austin, Texas last summer. In February, Kirkland, Washington, which is home to significant wet weather, was added as a testing site. Test drivers use a Lexus SUV, built as a self-driving car, to map the area prior to a journey without a driver in control, in Phoenix, Arizona April 5, 2016 in a photo provided by Google. REUTERS/Google/Handout via Reuters REUTERS Major automakers, and technology companies led by Google, are racing to develop and sell vehicles that can drive themselves, but they have complained that safety rules are impeding testing and ultimate deployment of such vehicles. Most of Google's 1.5 million miles of autonomous vehicle testing has taken place in California. But it has publicly sparred with the state since December when California proposed rules requiring a steering wheel, brake pedals and a licensed driver in all robot test vehicles on the road. "Arizona is known as a place where research and development is welcome, innovation can thrive, and companies can set up roots," said Jennifer Haroon, head of business operations for the Google Self-Driving Car project. "The Phoenix area has distinct desert conditions, which will help us better understand how our sensors and cars handle extreme temperatures and dust in the air." Google said its test drivers recently began driving four Lexus RX450h SUVs around the Phoenix area to create a detailed map of streets, lane markers, traffic signals and curb heights. A Google self-driving car struck a municipal bus in Mountain View in a minor crash on Feb. 14. Google has said it bears "some responsibility" for the incident, the first crash that appears to be fault of the self-driving vehicle. The company said it made changes to its software after the crash to avoid future incidents. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in January it is working on new guidance on self-driving vehicles to states and automakers that they hope to release by July. NHTSA will hold the first of two public hearings on the planned self-driving guidance on Friday in Washington. In February, NHTSA said the artificial intelligence system piloting a self-driving Google car could be considered the driver under federal law, a major step toward winning approval for autonomous vehicles on the roads. Read More: Will Google's Robot Cars Have Wireless Chargers? |
While it sleeps. . . Electrolytic Rust Removal © Frank Ford 2005; Photos by FF I bought this little plane at a garage sale, and it sure is orange with rust! Thanks to the Internet, I've been reading about this cool way to eat rust using simple household gear. All I have to do is mix up some baking soda in water in a plastic container, and connect the negative lead from my regular car battery charger to the rusty item and the positive lead to a piece of steel. Immersing both items in the solution, making sure they don't actually touch, I simply turn on the juice, and bubbles come streaming off as the rust is eaten away: I can retrieve the plane body in a few minutes after the rusty areas have all turned black: And, after just a quick wipe with a towel, the rust is simply gone: What a simple and effective technique! My old Unisaw lives in a shed most of the year, and recently I noticed a bit of rust forming on the table surface: Just for fun, I thought I'd try using the electrolytic technique on it. I brought out my battery charger and mixed up my baking soda solution, dunked a small hand dowel in the liquid, and laid the wet towel over some of the rusty area: Then, on top of the towel, I laid a steel sheet, making sure it didn't touch the table directly, and connected up my battery charger with the negative lead on the table, positive on the steel strip: I used a nonmetallic weight to press the sheet down relatively flat: Just as with the plane body, it made short work of the rust: Those white spots are just little foamy areas of the electrolyte that formed as I lifted off the towel. A quick wipe to clean the black gunk off: And, would you look a that? The rust was simply erased: Back to Machining Index |
Buy Photo Glenn Alan Bates, 57, of Saline schemed to steal money from the VA retail store — or canteen — he managed in Ann Arbor, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison. (Photo: Steve Perez / The Detroit News)Buy Photo A former federal employee admitted embezzling about $150,000 from a Veterans Affairs retail store and blowing the cash on strippers, prostitutes and gambling sprees, the Justice Department said Tuesday. Glenn Alan Bates, 57, of Saline schemed to steal money from a VA retail store — or canteen — he managed in Ann Arbor, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison. Bates, who was released on $10,000 unsecured bond Tuesday, told investigators he spent some of the cash on a stripper named "Ashley" at an Ohio strip club, according to court records. He said he often spent $500 a night on lap dances — and more. "After visiting the club numerous times, Glenn Alan Bates convinced Ashley to come to his hotel room for sex, for which he paid her," VA Special Agent Frederick Lane wrote in a court filing. The hotel trysts were frequent and non-exclusive. Bates said he also met with other strippers and prostitutes, according to court records. "Glenn Alan Bates stated he became addicted to the sexual encounters and he stole cash from the canteen to pay for this addiction," Lane wrote. Bates was an assistant coach for the varsity baseball team, varsity girls' basketball team and varsity football statistician, according to the Saline Post. The Post said Bates was no longer involved with the schools "effective immediately." According to court records, Bates told investigators he spent part of the money at casinos in Indianapolis and Battle Creek. Bates and his court-appointed lawyer, Stacey Studnicki, could not be reached for comment Tuesday. The investigation dates to May 2013 after an audit discovered more than $478,000 missing from the retail store. The store is part of the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System on Fuller Road. The retail stores are operated by the Veterans Canteen Service, a VA branch catering to veterans who receive military health care benefits. The canteens sell food, clothing and electronics. The VA's Office of Inspector General launched an investigation that focused on cash missing from the sale of commemorative military hats, vending machines and retail sales. Bates managed the store from May 2006 to March 2013. He told investigators he stole about $150,000, according to court records. Bates was hired to manage the VA canteen despite an extensive criminal record, The Detroit News has learned. He served 18 months in federal prison in the late 1970s after being charged with stealing a car, according to the U.S. Pretrial Services Agency. He also was charged with felony arson in 1992 and sentenced to probation. During his arraignment in Detroit Tuesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Anthony Patti asked Bates about his current job. "You're currently employed at Wal-Mart?" Patti asked. "That's correct," Bates said. "And what do you do there?" the magistrate asked. "I work overnight," Bates said. "Overnight supervisor." Read or Share this story: http://detne.ws/1Icwqhe |
As Glenn Greenwald ably demonstrates this morning, ABC News (and Brian Ross specifically) was instrumental in convincing the American public that the Anthrax sent after 9/11 came from Saddam Hussein (based on the false claim that it contained bentonite, which ABC said was "a trademark of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s biological weapons program.") We now know that the Anthrax was sent by a scientist who worked for the US government, and that alone should be enough to trigger a congressional investigation. But the fact that he was actually involved in the investigation himself should be sending off red flags everwhere, and the bottom line is — ABC has some ‘splainin to do. They claimed at the time that they had four sources from within the government who confirmed the phony bentonite story. They got played. Now they’re refusing to reveal who lied to them. They’re not protecting "sources," they’re protecting people within the US government who used them to float misinformation that led the public to believe war was necessary, and then hide behind "journalistic privilege." Brian Ross. He’s the new Judy Miller. |
By Rick Reeno BoxingScene.com has been advised that former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (49-2-1, 32KOs) will fight Germany's Dominik Britsch (32-2-1, 11KOs) on December 10th in the city of Monterrey, Mexico. The fight was originally targeted for December 3rd, but Zanfer Promotions - who are promoting the event - secured a better venue, which had an opening for the 10th of that month. Some fans might be familiar with Britsch's name. He was the scheduled first defense opponent for WBO super middleweight champion Gilberto Ramirez, as part of the HBO pay-per-view undercard to Terence Crawford vs. Viktor Postol back in July. The fight fell apart when Ramirez withdrew with a serious hand injury. According to Chavez's attorney, Guadalupe Valencia, the fight with Britsch has been agreed upon for a catch-weight of 169-pounds, which is one pound north of the super middleweight limit. Chavez's last two outings took place above 170-pounds. Julio's younger Omar Chavez will be featured on the undercard, and undefeated prospect Alejandro Luna is also slated to see action on the card. Chavez Jr. has been out of the ring since last July when he won a ten round decision over Marcos Reyes. During that win, he suffered a hand injury which required surgery and kept him out for the remainder of 2015. Then he was being position for an April fight with WBC 168-pound champion Badou Jack, but Chavez injured his heel in training camp. Once he healed up, he resumed his relationship with former trainer Freddie Roach at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood. During a sparring session he reinjured his hand and had to wait a few weeks to start using it again. He's been training for the last few weeks with his uncle, Rodolfo Chavez, in Culiacan, Mexico. |
The iPhone 5 has been out for nearly two months now. But judging by the overall app landscape, you'd hardly know it has been seven weeks (or eight, if you start counting at the date of the announcement) since the iPhone 5 made its debut. While some apps have been updated to take advantage of the iPhone 5's larger screen, many more have not. What's the holdup? That's the question we've found ourselves asking here at the Ars Orbiting HQ. Whether we use the iPhone 5 because it's directly connected to our jobs (ahem) or because it's what works best in our personal lives, we've all run into apps that are clearly still formatted for the smaller iPhone 4/4S screen, with black bars at the top and bottom. And these aren't little, no-name apps either—there are some major companies, firms with wildly popular applications, that have yet to update their apps for the iPhone 5. [Editor's Note: most of the applications have received other maintenance updates, and several of them new features. But no iPhone 5 screen support. This is not a list of "dead" apps.] Who are we talking about? There are a couple of software giants: Google—which mysteriously has updated its Gmail and Chrome apps, but not Latitude, Translate, or Voice—and Microsoft, with its Bing app. There are also the airlines, like American Airlines, FlyDelta, and jetBlue, which have yet to update their apps for the larger screen, or Amtrak for train enthusiasts like our Deputy Editor Nate Anderson. And then there are the news organizations: BBC News, NPR News, ESPN Scorecenter, Zite, and News.me (though we're not holding our breath for that last one). And the ones that help us get things done every day, like Peapod, American Express, Zipcar, GrubHub, TaxiMagic, Uber, eTrade, and Withings. Some major communications apps have yet to be updated, like Skype and AIM. Gamers don't appear to be particularly high on the update priority list either. Scramble, Matching, Plants vs. Zombies, the original AngryBirds, FruitNinja, Civ Revolution, Tetris, Battleship, Catapult King, Fieldrunners, Fieldrunners 2, Modern War, Crime City, and Kingdom Age were all named by Ars staffers as apps that don't have iPhone 5 versions yet. And there are plenty more where those came from. But why? No one is required to issue an update just for our edification—that's the whole benefit to iOS 6 being able to run apps made for iPhone 4/4S on an iPhone 5's screen. But the time it has taken for these (and other) apps to see an update for Apple's latest iPhone is beginning to drag out, and it makes it seem like app makers don't care as much about the iPhone as they once did—at least from an end-user's point of view. One thing we do know is that Apple's review process doesn't appear to be holding things back: we're told by several developers that the wait time on the iOS App Store is roughly a week or less right now. Those six to seven other weeks are still unaccounted for. But there are a number of other theories floating around about the holdup. One developer speculated that companies might be holding onto their iPhone 5-formatted apps for a planned feature update sometime in the future—that is, maybe Google is planning to add some mind-blowing new features to its Voice app, and it will update the app for the iPhone 5 when that release is finally out. Another developer suggested that some app makers might be fearful of making their existing app ratings and reviews invisible by issuing a brand new update for iPhone 5. Apple's App Store reviews system now makes a point of only showing you reviews for the most current version of the app as a default, so if a particular app has some phenomenal reviews for an older version, the developer may be hesitant to start "anew" with a fresh slate. This plays into the next reason speculated by some of our developer sources: "laziness and a lack of pride." Could it be that some of these app makers just don't feel the need to rush to get their apps up-to-speed on the latest iPhone, and they don't care enough about their work to want to do so quickly? That frame of mind undoubtedly plagues many of the thousands of apps on the App Store, though we would be disappointed to learn that the companies behind some of the bigger apps feel that way about their end-user experiences. Feeling a little stale Whatever reason companies have for holding off on updating their apps for the iPhone 5, the end result is that the App Store is beginning to feel a bit stale for longtime and new users alike. Imagine being one of the 5 million people who bought an iPhone 5 over its launch weekend in September and being brand new to the platform: how would you feel if half the apps you tried to download weren't made with your device in mind? Even though it's not directly Apple's fault, it is Apple's problem. After all, Apple benefits from the perception that it has the hottest mobile platform on both the developer and the user side. Without more current updates for the most recent devices, it looks from the outside like iOS as a platform is slowing down. Where is the enthusiasm to get things up to date? I reached out to Apple for comment on this phenomenon but received no response by publication time. To be fair, there are plenty of developers who have updated their apps to be more friendly to the iPhone 5's elongated screen. Facebook, Alien Blue, Kindle, Nest, Instagram, Instapaper, Tripit, The Weather Channel, Pandora, Spotify, Chase… all these apps and more have been updated to take advantage of the larger screen, and their users have noticed. So to you developers who are dragging your feet, where's the love for the iPhone 5? |
Women may be less likely to pursue careers in science and math because they have more career choices, not because they have less ability, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Although the gender gap in mathematics has narrowed in recent decades, with more females enrolling and performing well in math classes, females are still less likely to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) than their male peers. Researchers tend to agree that differences in math ability can’t account for the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields. So what does? Developmental psychologist Ming-Te Wang and his colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh and University of Michigan wondered whether differences in overall patterns of math and verbal ability might play a role. The researchers examined data from 1490 college-bound US students drawn from a national longitudinal study. The students were surveyed in 12th grade and again when they were 33 years old. The survey included data on several factors, including participants’ SAT scores, various aspects of their motivational beliefs and values, and their occupations at age 33. Looking at students who showed high math abilities, Wang and colleagues found that those students who also had high verbal abilities — a group that contained more women than men — were less likely to have chosen a STEM occupation than those who had moderate verbal abilities. Further analyses suggest that gender differences in career choice could be explained, at least in part, by differences in students’ combinations of abilities. According to Wang, this study identifies a critical link in the debate about the dearth of women in STEM fields. “Our study shows that it’s not lack of ability or differences in ability that orients females to pursue non-STEM careers, it’s the greater likelihood that females with high math ability also have high verbal ability,” notes Wang. “Because they’re good at both, they can consider a wide range of occupations.” Notably, those participants who reported feeling more able and successful at math were more likely to end up in a STEM-related job, and this was particularly true for students who had high math and moderate verbal abilities. Thus, math may play a more integral role in these individuals’ sense of identity, drawing them toward STEM occupations. Considerable funds have been put into designing and testing a wide variety of intervention programs to increase female participation in math-intensive careers. According to Wang, these new findings suggest that “educators and policy makers may consider shifting the focus from trying to strengthen girls’ STEM-related abilities to trying to tap the potential of these girls who are equally skilled in both math and verbal domains.” In addition to Wang, co-authors include Jacquelynne Eccles and Sarah Kenny of the University of Michigan. |
Girl Power 3 Sunny Beach Results Women’s kickboxing tournament Girl Power 3 Sunny Beach was held on Friday June 23 at Platinum Casino and Hotel. The event produced by the Bigger’s Better Boxing and the World Kickboxing Network aired live on European sports network SFR Sport 5. Eight international contenders battled out in a one-night featherweight contest. The contender had to collect three victorious during one evening in the format of the knockout tournament. Irem Akin of Turkey came out victorious earning a prestigious WKN belt. In the quarter-final Akin scored a decision against Marina Spasic of Serbia. In the semi-final she faced off Lucie Mudrochova of Czech, similarly winning by points. The latter, advancing to the bout, defeated Zorka Stojanovic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the championship round the Turkish fighter squared off against the representative of the country-host Iliana Gelebova. On the way to the final Bulgarian eliminated Russian Alina Mayorova and French Marion Montanari. Akin comfortably defeated Gelebova, consequently taking all. The list of officials on the night included famed American referee Steve Smoger, Klaus Hagemann of Germany and Bruno Wartelle of France. The ring announcer was Jean-Philippe Lustyk of France. Complete Girl Power 3 Sunny Beach results can be found below. Quarter-final bout Irem Akin (Turkey) def. Marina Spasic (Serbia) Quarter-final bout Lucie Mudrochova (Czech) def. Zorka Stojanovic (Bosnia and Herzegovina) Quarter-final bout Iliana Gelebova (Bulgaria) def. Alina Mayorova (Russia) Quarter-final bout Marion Montanari (France) def. Ashley Gilson (Belgium) Semi-final bout Irem Akin (Turkey) def. Lucie Mudrochova (Czech) Semi-final bout Iliana Gelebova (Bulgaria) def. Marion Montanari (France) Final bout Irem Akin (Turkey) def. Iliana Gelebova (Bulgaria) |
American football player Trindon Jerard Holliday (born April 27, 1986) is an American football wide receiver and return specialist who is currently a free agent . He was drafted by the Houston Texans in the sixth round of the 2010 NFL draft. He played college football at LSU. At 5'5", Holliday is one of the shortest players in NFL history.[1] He has also played for the Denver Broncos, New York Giants, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, San Francisco 49ers, and Oakland Raiders. High school career [ edit ] Holliday went both ways at Northeast High. Because of his short stature, Holliday did not start on the football team until his junior year. In his first season starting, he rushed for 1,870 yards and scored 26 touchdowns. In his senior year, Holliday put up even better statistics by rushing for 2,210 yards, scoring 34 touchdowns, and averaging 27.6 yards per punt return.[2] Holliday was also a track runner in high school. In 2005, Holliday posted the nation’s fastest indoor time in the 55 and 60-meter dashes. He led his team into the 2A state title by winning the 100 meters and 200 meters and was second in the long jump.[3] Holliday was a four-time state champion in the 200 meters and a three-time 100 meters champion. College track career [ edit ] Holliday at LSU. Holliday was a top-ranked American sprinter competing for the LSU Tigers track and field team and is regarded as one of the fastest players in football.[2] He demonstrated his sprinting ability in the 100-meter dash at the 2007 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, where he recorded 10.07 seconds in the final – ahead of Walter Dix and second only to Tyson Gay.[4] This qualified him for the 2007 World Championships in Athletics but he opted to not compete, preferring to begin the football season with the LSU Tigers.[5] He continued to race, however, and reached the semi-finals in the 100 m at the 2008 United States Olympic Trials the following year.[6] In his first year at LSU in 2007, he broke Xavier Carter's school record and became the Southeastern Conference 100 m champion. At the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championship later that year he set a personal record in the semifinals and finished runner-up in the final to Walter Dix. The following year, he took third in the 100 m NCAA final and anchored the 4×100-meter relay team to victory in 38.42 seconds – the fastest collegiate time that year.[5][7] Track and Field News has Holliday recorded at 6.19 over 55 meters indoors in 2005, leading the nation.[8] Personal records [ edit ] Professional career [ edit ] Pre-draft measurables Ht Wt 40-yard dash 10-yd split 20-yd split 20-ss 3-cone Vert jump Broad BP 5 ft 5 1⁄ 4 in (1.66 m) 166 lb (75 kg) 4.34 s 1.50 s 2.47 s 4.48 s 6.54 s 42 in (1.07 m) 9 ft 8 in (2.95 m) 10 reps All values from NFL Combine 2010 NFL Draft [ edit ] Leading up to the 2010 NFL Scouting Combine, Trindon Holliday had hoped to break Chris Johnson's record mark of 4.24 in the 40-yard dash.[10] Holliday had self-reported running times as fast as 4.21,[10] which seemed plausible given his extensive track background, and the fastest 100 m dash time of any football player in NCAA history.[2][11] At the combine, reports of Holliday's 40-yard dash time ranged from between 4.18 seconds and 4.34 seconds. Adam Schefter, an ESPN reporter on hand at the event, had reported on Twitter that NFL scouts had clocked Holliday in as low as 4.21 during the workout.[12] However, the NFL Network broadcast team record Holliday's two tries at unofficial times of 4.27 and 4.32,[13] respectively, and ultimately published it as 4.34 seconds officially.[14] Houston Texans [ edit ] Holliday was drafted by the Houston Texans in the 6th round of the 2010 draft. Despite his speed, Holliday struggled on kickoff returns in the preseason. He was placed on IR because of a fracture in his thumb. On September 3, 2011, he was cut and then placed on the practice squad. On October 5, his practice squad contract was terminated and he was later added to the active roster, but was waived on October 25. He was later resigned and in Week 1 of the 2012 preseason versus the Carolina Panthers, he returned a kickoff return for a touchdown. The next week versus the San Francisco 49ers, he returned a punt for a touchdown. In the final preseason game versus the Minnesota Vikings, Holliday recorded his third touchdown in four games; this touchdown was a 76-yard punt return. Following the 2012 preseason, Holliday made the Houston Texans 53-man roster and was the starting punt and kick returner. Holliday was waived from the Texans on October 10, 2012, in a move to bolster an injury-depleted defense. Part of the reason Holliday was released was due to his fumbling problems. Trindon fumbled the ball 6 times in 2012, however losing only one of them.[15] Denver Broncos [ edit ] On October 11, 2012, Holliday was claimed off of waivers by the Denver Broncos.[16] On October 15, in his first game as a Bronco, Holliday fumbled and lost the ball on a punt return in the first quarter of the game. He returned a kickoff 105 yards for a touchdown against the Cincinnati Bengals on November 4, 2012, breaking the Broncos record for the longest play. On November 11, 2012, he returned a Carolina Panthers punt for 76 yards. The play was ruled a touchdown despite his fumbling of the ball on the 1 yard line.[17] In 2012, Holliday's teams went undefeated during the regular season. He started the season with the Texans who were 5-0 when they cut him. He was then acquired by the Broncos who finished the regular season 13-3 with an 11-game win streak.[18] On January 12, 2013, Holliday returned a punt in the first quarter of the game versus the Baltimore Ravens for a 90-yard touchdown, the longest punt return in postseason history.[19] During the third quarter of that game, he returned a kickoff for a 104-yard touchdown. He became the first player in NFL history with a punt return touchdown and a kick return touchdown in the same postseason game. He had 256 total punt and kick return yards but the Broncos lost, 38-35 in double overtime.[20] In the 2013 season, Holliday returned a punt 81 yards for a touchdown in week 2 against the New York Giants. He also returned a kick-off 105 yards for a touchdown in week 4 against the Philadelphia Eagles. As of 2017 's NFL off-season, Trindon Holliday held at least 11 Broncos franchise records, including: Kick Ret Yds: playoff game (158 on 2013-01-12 BAL) Yds/KR: career (29.05), playoffs (28.67), playoff game (52.67 on 2013-01-12 BAL) Kick Ret TDs: career (2; with Goldie Sellers), playoff career/season/game (1 on 2013-01-12 BAL) Punt Returns: game (8 on 2012-11-11 @CAR; with Rick Upchurch) Punt Ret Yds: playoff game (90 on 2013-01-12 BAL) Yds/PR: playoff game (30 on 2013-01-12 BAL) Punt Ret TDs: playoff career/season/game (1 on 2013-01-12 BAL) Total Return Yds: playoff game (248 on 2013-01-12 BAL) Total Return TDs: career (4), playoff career/season/game (2 on 2013-01-12 BAL, also NFL record) New York Giants [ edit ] On March 17, 2014, Holliday signed a one-year contract with the New York Giants.[21][22] He was released on October 6, 2014.[23] Tampa Bay Buccaneers [ edit ] Holliday signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on October 21, 2014. He was waived/injured on October 31, 2014. San Francisco 49ers [ edit ] On December 26, 2014, the San Francisco 49ers signed Holliday.[24] He was released on April 30, 2015.[25] Oakland Raiders [ edit ] On June 3, 2015, the Oakland Raiders signed Holliday. He was expected to compete with T. J. Carrie for the No. 1 returner job for the Raiders.[26] On September 1, 2015, he was released by the Raiders.[27] Issues with size [ edit ] Holliday returns a kickoff in the second half against South Carolina on September 22, 2007. At 5'5" (1.65 m), Holliday is the shortest player to play in the NFL in the last 25 years. Holliday had a difficult time getting started in football. His mother held him out of football until 7th grade, because she was afraid he would be injured. After several years of performing at a high level, his high school coaches finally let him start as a running back during his junior year. In his senior year he accumulated over 2,000 yards and over 30 touchdowns, leading Northeast High to back-to-back State Semi-Final appearances. Fearing that college recruiters would not believe Holliday's actual running times, his high school coaches added to his recorded times before sending them in.[citation needed] Despite his speed records, several schools, including Duke and Louisiana-Lafayette, rejected Holliday due to his small size. Holliday was never scheduled to appear at LSU's camp. So David Masterson, Holliday's high school coach, took Holliday along also. After initial workouts, Holliday ran the 40 in 4.28 seconds wearing high top basketball shoes. The time was so outrageous that the LSU coaches began arguing if they had started their stopwatches on time. "They asked me if Trindon could run it again," Masterson said. "He didn't even get in a track stance. He ran the second 40 in 4.27. He's one of those little freaks of nature." Despite this, LSU coach Les Miles still considered canceling Holliday's scholarship offer until holdover offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher convinced Miles that Holliday could play at a college level.[28] |
The GTX 780 may have launched over a year ago at this point, but the Asus Poseidon is such a unique design it’s worth revisiting the architecture. The overwhelming majority of video cards are air-cooled; water cooling is reserved for die-hard enthusiasts or AMD’s R9 295X2. Asus has taken the water-cooling concept and done something unique — it’s built a GPU that can be cooled with air or water, depending on your preferences. Typically, these two methods don’t mix — you can buy a GPU with a high-end air solution or a handful of pre-built GPUs with waterblocks attached, but an air-cooled GPU with water pipes? That’s something new and different. Card design How did Asus hit its design targets? By simplifying the cooling loop. Most cooler blocks use a series of channels cut into the metal of the heatsink — the water flows directly through the channels, over the top of the components, and cools the entire card. Asus’ design is simpler — water enters at one end, flows around the copper heatsink, and then exits as shown below. This is going to have an impact on the total performance of the design, but shouldn’t prevent the water-cooled variant from outperforming the air-cooled variant. Water cooling may come with its share of headaches, but liquid absorbs heat far more efficiently than air does. If you’ve used a high-end GPU recently, you may have noticed that the card sometimes produces an audible whine. This is caused by the power circuitry on the card itself and it can impact both AMD and Nvidia cards. Asus claims that by using high-grade power components, it has eliminated the whine — and from what we can tell, that’s true. The distinctive electronic sound, typically only audible at full load, never puts in an appearance on the Poseidon family. Next page: The GPU, and overclockability |
When Anthem Entertainment announced they’d officially acquired Global Force Wrestling (GFW) earlier this week, many people asked what it was they were acquiring. It was an easy joke, yes, but GFW didn’t have much in the way of tangible assets. What they did have, however, was a name that wasn’t a double entendre and that wrestling fans didn’t often say with LOL in front of it. So, according to a story just published in The Tennessean, the newspaper which covers TNA’s headquarters city of Nashville, from here forward Anthem’s wrestling company will be known as GFW. Their weekly show on Pop TV, Fight Network and other outlets will keep the title Impact. Obviously, Anthem also acquired Jeff Jarrett, and this announcement confirms he remains in charge of all creative aspects of what is now GFW. We’ll surely be hearing more about this as Anthem and GFW use this as a fresh start for their branding, and attempt to build off recent ratings increase and the social media success touted in The Tennessean article to grow on across the world with new initiatives like a new on-demand streaming app they plan to make the centerpiece of their video strategy. Like the name change, Cagesiders? |
Brad Friedman Byon 3/31/2011, 3:55pm PT Tony Pierce, filling in for Andrew Malcolm (columnist and Laura Bush's former press secretary) at Los Angeles Times' "Top of the Ticket" blog picks up (with attribution, gracias) on our scoop earlier this week about the 100% unverifiable, yet highly hackable Diebold touch-screen e-voting machines out of Van Wert County, Ohio, now for sale, on the cheap, at eBay... 100+ Diebold voting machines, known for how easily they can be hacked, available now on EBay You really can get anything on EBay, even electronic voting machines proved to be easy to corrupt for purposes of voting fraud. Brad Friedman of the Brad Blog first noticed that "more than 10" AccuVote-TS voting machines, built by Diebold, were being sold on the online auction site for the buy-it-now price of $1,200 (plus $50 shipping and handling). The machines are used and don't come with user's manuals, power supplies, batteries or memory cards, which may explain their discounted price. However, for those who wish to rig elections, machines like these are priceless. Friedman was contacted by the seller, who told him that he had more than 100 of the electronic voting machines that were originally used in Van Wert County, Ohio. AccuVote-TS voting machines were also used in New Jersey, when a professor at Princeton demonstrated how easy the Diebold machines were to manipulate for nefarious means. Pierce offers more information in his piece on that landmark Princeton hack from September 2006 and the hackability of these systems in general. Long time readers of The BRAD BLOG likely recall the Princeton hack came about when VelvetRevolution.us (as co-founded by The BRAD BLOG) gave the Diebold touch-screen system to computer scientists there for the --- at the time --- highly secretive, first-of-its-kind examination, after we'd received the machine from a source of ours. We originally broke the story of that hack exclusively both here at The BRAD BLOG and in a slightly shorter version at Salon. The alarming hack --- which demonstrated how a virus could be inserted into one of these systems and invisibly flip the results of an entire election --- received a great deal of attention from the mainstream media at the time, and was even covered in a live video demonstration on Fox "News". (See that video at right.) Though the Princeton hack was on a Diebold AccuVote TS (with no so-called "Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail" printer) versus the TSX model (with VVPAT) being sold now on eBay, the many ways available to game them in order to flip election results with very little possibility of detection are essentially the same... We're delighted to see "our hometown paper", the LATimes, pick up the Diebold/eBay story, since they haven't, um, exactly led the way in coverage of e-voting concerns over the years, despite the importance of California to the nation as a whole when it comes to setting standards and security procedures for these systems. Unverifiable, oft-failed, easily manipulated touch-screen e-voting systems identical or similar to the ones now for sale on eBay are still, incredibly, used by some 20 to 30% of the nation's voters, even after everything we've learned about them --- and the thousands of pages we devoted to those warnings here --- over the years. The BRAD BLOG has contacted the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), as well as CA Sec. of State Debra Bowen and former OH Sec. of State Jennifer Brunner (who both commissioned landmark independent studies of these same Diebold touch-screen systems and strongly recommended against their use in any election based on those findings) for comment on this matter. We're curious if they are as concerned about the availability of these machines to the general public as we are, since we can think of a number of ways in which they could potentially be used nefariously in advance of the 2012 elections. While we've been promised a response from the EAC (though have yet to receive it), we have not yet heard back from either Bowen or Brunner. If we receive response from any of them, of course, we will update as appropriate. |
Researchers have discovered flaws in products from some of the world’s biggest security firms that could potentially expose hundreds of thousands of users to attack. The flaws all revolve around incorrect implementation of code hooking, according to researchers at data protection firm enSilo. Code hooking is a technique that enables the monitoring and/or changing of the behavior of operating system functions. It is widely used in the antivirus industry to enable products to monitor for suspicious activity, but also has uses in virtualisation, performance monitoring, and more. The code hooking issues discovered by enSilo cover 15 different products. Companies affected include: AVG, Kaspersky, McAfee, Symantec, Trend Micro, BitDefender, Citrix XenDesktop, Webroot, AVAST, Emsisoft, and Vera. The research began after enSilo found a code hooking flaw in an AVG product. AVG issued a patch for that flaw in March this year. More worryingly, the company also said the flaw was discovered in three different hooking engines, including Microsoft Detours, which is considered the most popular commercial hooking agent on the market. This means there are potentially thousands more products and hundreds of thousands of users affected by the flaw, enSilo said. Microsoft has said it plans to patch the issue in August. enSilo’s co-founder and CTO Udi Yavo and Tommer Bitton, co-founder and VP of research, said that won’t be an easy task. “In most cases fixing this issue will require recompilation of each product individually which makes patching extremely hard.” Exploiting the flaw could result in attackers being able to inject code into any process running on the system, Yavo and Bitton wrote in a blog post . “Most of these vulnerabilities allow an attacker to easily bypass the operating system and third-party exploit mitigations,” they said. “This means an attacker may be able to easily leverage and exploit these vulnerabilities that would otherwise be very difficult, or even impossible, to weaponize. The worst vulnerabilities would allow the attacker to stay undetected on the victim’s machine or to inject code into any process in the system.” “Companies using affected software should get patches from the vendors, if available, and demand patches if they aren’t yet available. Customers using software from the affected vendors should contact their vendors and demand that the software be patched,” the blog added. The duo plan to present their findings at the upcoming Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas. Eric Klonowski, senior advanced threat research analyst at Webroot, said in a statement that Webroot had fully patched this vulnerability. “enSilo contacted us about this vulnerability during the last week of December, and our team had it corrected the following week. As security is our top priority, all Webroot customers received this update from the cloud immediately after release.” Kaspersky also confirmed that it had patched the flaw. A spokesperson told InfoSecurity Magazine: "The vulnerability, disclosed by enSilo, was addressed in a software update in September 2015, and our specialists have no evidence that this vulnerability was exploited in the wild. We would like to thank enSilo for reporting this vulnerability to us in a responsible manner." Symantec and Avast both confirmed to InfoSecurity Magazine that they had fixed the issue. BitDefender has also said its products have been patched against this vulnerability. Trend Micro said it has been working with the researchers to investigate the issue. "Upon Trend Micro’s technical review, this issue was found to potentially affect only one of our consumer-focused products. No business or enterprise class products are known to be affected at this time," the company said in a statement. Trend Micro added that it should have a patch out before the Black Hat conference and that, "there is no evidence that suggests that the proof of concept exploits reported to us were ever used publicly." Photo © Gil C/Shutterstock.com |
Being the youngest person in the room could feel like a major handicap for aspiring business moguls. Finding a mentor to guide you through uncertain territory can instill confidence, but, ultimately, your growth as a leader will come from within. Here are a few key tips to boosting your success, from entrepreneurs who made this year's list. Take pride in your work. “Whether it’s my personal life or my professional life, I’m driven by an innate desire to be the best I can be,” says Emily Motayed, cofounder of Havenly. Persist through low times. Lendinghome cofounder Matthew Humphrey says that “taking the good with the bad and always pushing through” adversity is a normal part of any entrepreneur’s day. Put in the work. “The more time you put into something, the better you are,” says Andy “Reginald” Dinh, founder of Team Solomid. “Passion is 100% necessary in order to be at the top.” |
There was something bothering me about Scootaloo, but I couldn't work out what. I'd missed out the cream underbelly collaring on the Wonderbolts costume. Normally I don't edit comics if I can help it (unlike George Lucas...) but this one irritated me enough to warrant it.I'm sure everypony saw that one coming...Anyway, predictability aside, I am very pleased with this cause the entire thing is drawn completely from scratch. Absolutely 100% trace free (except for the clouds which are by * MisterAibo and can be found here and here .) Original sketches below.While there is a certain resemblance to a well known scene in a certain sci-fi film. I am well aware that it does not match exactly (so there is no need to point out the inconsistencies).MLP © Hasbro |
Google has been known to break whatever market they step into, offering great products and services while undercutting competing prices. An example is their Google Fiber initiative, which brings Gigabit speeds to select markets for insanely affordable prices. Before that, they took on the cloud storage commerce with Google Drive. The list goes on, but today we are focusing on their latest major side gig – Project Fi. Google’s Project Fi is the Search Giant’s attempt at testing the carrier waters. They have become an MVNO to a couple carriers and also harness the power of WiFi networks to offer a very unique type of cellphone service. It’s pricing system is also very distinctive, but we will jump into all those details later in the review. When project Fi launched, we were a bit hesitant about certain aspects of this new wireless service provider. But we won’t simply discard it! I took it upon myself to request an invite, buy a Nexus 6 and sign up for the service. I have been using it for a couple months now and am ready to give you the full rundown. Is Project Fi all Google hyped it out to be? Let’s find out! A bit about Project Fi As already stated above, Project Fi is not really its own carrier – it’s an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator). This simply means that it doesn’t operate on its own towers. The interesting part is that Google’s wireless services are special in multiple other ways. Project Fi piggybacks off both T-Mobile and Sprint networks. The device will simply choose whichever is stronger and faster at the time. Likely the most interesting aspect is that Project Fi also harnesses the power of WiFi networks in order to bring you a more affordable price point. When connected to WiFi, calls, messages and data (of course) are routed through the internet, instead of using the network towers, which would cost Google extra cash. In order to further entice users to stick to WiFi networks, Google can determine which public WiFi hot spots are reliable and require no action to connect to them. Your device will do this automatically. But don’t freak out just yet – you can definitely turn off WiFi if you prefer. By the way, running this type of hybrid network is no easy task, and Google needs full control over the devices that operate under this MVNO. The best way to do this is by using Nexus devices, which means only the Nexus 6 is compatible with the service right now. The good news is that support for upcoming Nexus smartphones is more than likely in the works. Pricing While I usually wait until the end of a post to talk about pricing, I feel this time around we should make an exception. Pricing is especially an important part of Project Fi’s offerings. Thanks to the way the service can offload some of the weight to WiFi networks, Google can often save a lot of money by not using actual cellular towers and paying fees to the carriers. Thanks to this system, Google is able to charge $20 for the base services, which include unlimited texting and calling within the USA (affordable rates for calling other countries). Moving beyond the basic needs, the user has to pay for the data he uses, which is priced at $10 per gigabyte. And Google means it when they say this is the price; data is always this price, and customers will be charged only for what they use. You can choose an approximate amount of data, and Google will charge you accordingly, but they won’t take any money they don’t deserve. Let’s say you usually go through about 2 GB, but one month you took it easy and ended up using only 500 MB. Google will only charge you $5 for data and return the rest of the money (except for the base $20, of course) as credit towards your next bill. They don’t return the cash, which is why you should always calculate your data usage as closely as possible. The only discrepancy with pricing is that $10 for a single gigabyte can definitely get expensive if you are a heavier user, which is why I will stress that Project Fi may not necessarily be for everyone. This service is great for those who spend a lot of time using WiFi. If you are a data hog, try looking elsewhere. International services To be honest, this is the sole reason why I personally decided to switch to Project Fi. I happen to travel very often, especially since I live near the Mexican border. But this is not only good for those who are close to a neighboring country. In fact, all Project Fi users get international data roaming in over 120 countries at no extra charges! All Google charges for is the data you used while in these countries, which happens to be priced equally to domestic internet usage – $10 per GB. International texting is included and calls cost 20 cents a minute while using cellular networks. Fees are reduced while on WiFi. I can’t tell you how great it feels not having to worry about data roaming fees outside the USA. Data roaming can get very expensive with other carriers, and I have heard of plenty of horror stories about people paying hundreds just for sharing selfies on social networks. This could be the answer to many a traveler’s prayer. In fact, I would consider getting a Project Fi SIM card only for when traveling. After all, you could just pause or cancel service whenever you want. My personal experience with Project Fi Switching to Project Fi definitely has its learning curve. This is because this unconventional MVNO is designed to be a powerful cloud tool. Those who already had a Google Voice account can continue using their same number. In addition, using Hangouts will allow you to synchronize all calls and SMS messages. You can call and text people through data using Hangouts on your smartphones, tablets, computers and other smart devices. This is convenient, but it can be quite confusing for those of us who like keeping our communication tools separate. Not to mention, regular text messaging apps have more features, which is why Google currently recommends you use their Messenger app, instead. Get past the software technicalities and you will find the service is pretty darn good for the price. Remember you are pretty much using two of the best four carriers in the USA, which warrants a pretty stable signal most of the time. I rarely step out of 4G LTE coverage in San Diego. Sure, the network is not at the same level as my daily driver (Verizon), but I can totally live off this coverage without making any remarkable sacrifices. Also keep in mind that Project Fi only costs a fraction of the premium price I pay for Verizon’s network. Calls, messages and data worked very well over Project Fi, and I never encountered any issues or distorted calls, even while switching in and out of WiFi and carrier networks. Coverage in Mexico was also flawless, and I do happen to use my phone there about 30% of the time. Billing is simple and I have honestly never paid so little for wireless services before. My monthly bill averages at about $20 to $30! Of course, I am a special type of user, though. I spend most of my time at home, where I am always using WiFi. It’s obvious I am not a heavy data user, and so this pay-for-what-you-use model works perfectly for me. Google did a good job making the transition between networks seamless. I never got cut off when switching from WiFi to cellular towers. The service is solid, guys. And if you have good T-Mobile and/or Sprint reception, you will be doing just fine with your data speeds. The Project Fi app The Project Fi application is available straight from the Google Play Store. It is pretty straight forward, really. There are three tabs that let you manage your service in every way. These are labeled as “Account”, “Billing” and “Support”. The Account tab is where you will be looking for things most of the time. It tells you how much data you have used, as well as your available allotment. Scroll down and you can also manage your plan. It’s possible to add more GBs, limit service & calls outside the USA, cancel your plan or pause the service. The Account tab also has shortcuts for updating your payment method, accessing your voice mail, setting up call forwarding editing alerts and more. The Billing tab offers details on scheduled payments and past statements. It’s pretty straight forward and only serves as your book keeping tool. And of course, the Support tab can help you get in touch with Google, as well as the Project Fi community on Google+. Overall, I think the app is great. Google is known for its online service and this is something that shows in this application. They are offering you everything they can right off the bat, so you can avoid having to call them as often. It’s all in there, in a very well-organized and sleek manner. I rarely ever use it, but that is actually a good thing. And when I do get to play around with it I am in and out in a jiffy. Conclusion I know I have said this already, but I must stress that Project Fi is not for everyone! It can get pricey if you use a lot of data and are not within WiFi range all the time. And even if you figure you will end up spending the very same amount of money with another carrier, it might still be smarter to go elsewhere, as there are many benefits to going with a traditional service provider. For starters, smartphone selection is abysmal at this point. Going with Project Fi entails having to live with the Nexus 6 (at least until more devices are added to the list, and they will more than likely also have to be Nexus phones). Don’t get me wrong, the 5.96-inch device is awesome, but it is definitely not for everyone. Its size can certainly intimidate many a small-handed user. Furthermore, there are a bunch of other phones you may want to take a look at! I am personally loving the LG G4 right now, and really wish I could take it over to Project Fi, but alas. But the benefit is not only more smartphone availability; certain carriers can offer deals and add-ons that you won’t find on Project Fi. Let’s take T-Mobile as an example, as I believe it is the closest competitor to Project Fi, at least among the largest 4 carriers in the USA. Magenta’s lowest plan costs $50. Sure, it may be only 1 GB of 4G LTE, but data continues to be unlimited after that. T-Mobile also has all the Uncarrier offerings, which include free music streaming (depending on the app), international texting and 2G data roaming with no fees, full service in Mexico and Canada (also with no roaming fees), data rollover, device installment plans and even an early upgrade program (JUMP). Project Fi is, for all intents and purposes, mostly for the casual user… or for those who spend most of their time on a WiFi network. For these customers, it will do more than a fine job. I can honestly say it’s possible for me to currently drop my Verizon plan altogether, and that is saying a lot. Interested? Go over to Project Fi’s website and ask for an invite! And don’t forget to hit the comments and tell us what you think of Project Fi. Are any of you using it? Are you considering switching to Google’s wireless services? And more importantly, can you live |
The numbers or analytics revolution that has transformed sports like baseball or basketball has undoubtedly reached our beautiful game as well. Most of the top teams in England employ entire analytics departments and the Bundesliga is certainly embracing this aspect of the game, be that data-driven scouting, expected goals and other stat-based models or new and exciting methods like Impect and Packing. One of the people who has been at the forefront of this big data revolution is Daniel Stenz. The 36-year-old founder of Evaluation Sports has an impressive resume, rising from the ranks of a video analyst at 1. Fc Köln to now being the technical director at the Chinese club Shandong Luneng Taishan FC that is coached by everybody’s favorite Felix Magath. Daniel has kindly agreed to an exclusive interview that details his journey from Cologne to China with pit stops in Berlin, Vancouver and Budapest, Hungary. Join us for the ride! ***** Bundesliga Fanatic: Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule (the Chinese Super League is 17 games into its season!) to answer our questions. Here we go! From what I’ve read, you started out as a bit of an outsider in the footballing world, studying Robotics then Sports Economy before landing a video analyst job in Cologne? How did that come about and was that when you got into football\stats? Did you always have an analytical view? How did you make the seemingly big jump from video analyst to Chief scout? What are some of the things you learned? Daniel Stenz: Indeed, I started kind of from the outside but I think at the time I started back in the days everyone was kind of an outsider as the job description of an analyst wasn’t really there. There was no tracking in league games or a real video feed for match analysis. After I finished my apprenticeship I spent some time in Mayrhofen, Austria to think about the next step as I knew I wanted to work in sports. My choice became Sports-economy and luckily I was accepted by a leading University (Rhein-Ahr-Campus) to do so. Shortly began I started an internship at FC Köln and by accident I got into analysis as I could operate a camera from the snowboarding times in Austria. From there it was quite a difficult road to work my way up from internship to full time. I spent countless nights working on analysis and had times were I slept in the car at the Geissbockheim (Trainingground of FC Cologne) to hand over the analysis before I drove back to Remagen to University. I got paid 80 Euros a month but needed several times that amount for fuel only. At that point being paid or even make a living from this job was unthinkable. And I think that it wouldn’t have been possible any other way to come to where I am now. I think I have a quite good analytical view of life and always wanted to know how things work, so that helped me a lot. I am eager to learn every day, which was also a big part of the decision to explore different markets in the world. Adopting to a new country teaches you a lot about yourself. In Cologne my main influence was Frank Schaefer from whom I learned a lot about the game, but even more on how to be a good contributing part of a team. Frank still is someone that I think can lead any team and form a unit that is willing to do everything necessary to help each other. He created a great atmosphere. The other person was Boris Notzon who founded the SportsLab and was ahead of the game at that time. He became a good friend over the years. For me the areas of Analysis and Scouting are very close, as you have to be able to evaluate your team first to assess the potential strengthening of your team. So this was a natural evolution in my opinion. Bundesliga Fanatic: Union Berlin and Uwe Neuhaus was the next step where you stayed for 5 years. How was your role different here? As chief scout who were some of the players you succeeded and\or failed to sign? (I saw Simon Terodde, but not sure if that was your decision.) It seems like the club struggled to get out of mid-table, was that one of the reasons for leaving. If not, was the 5 years just time to move on for bigger challenges? Daniel Stenz: The move to Union Berlin was initiated through a player (Michael Parensen) that went from Cologne to Berlin. He knew what I was doing in Cologne and told Uwe Neuhaus about me, so he invited me to Berlin. Union Berlin is a very special club that I instantly fell in love with. At the time I arrived the club was just promoted to the 2. Bundesliga and was in the middle of upgrading the stadium and the facilities with enormous help from the fans. One of my first and strongest memories was seeing a family on Sunday coming to paint the fences. That really touched me and I think that the relationship between club and fans is a very special one. The club management around Presidents Dirk Zingler, Jörg Hinze and Dirk Thieme are doing a fantastic job in Berlin and I still follow the club very closely (I stayed a member as well). Leaving Union Berlin after almost 5 years was one of the toughest decisions I have had to make so far, but it was necessary for my development. I learned a lot in Berlin as we never had big budgets for anything so we had to come up with our own solutions. Oscar Kosche who was responsible for the finances at the club was a very tough person to negotiate with, but he is one of the pillars of the success of the club and prepared me for any future negotiations (Thanks, Oscar! ). We established a structure of a pretty detailed scouting and every player had to go through an evaluation process and before the final decision was made every key member of the club had to make a statement. From sports to marketing everyone was involved by that way and so it always was a decision by many. In the case of Simon Terodde it helped a lot that he was a player of Frank Schaefer in Cologne so I knew a lot about him. A player we sort of missed out was Harry Kane who was offered on a loan but our restrictions at that time our thinking was that we don’t want to loan players without an option to buy. Working with Uwe Neuhaus was great and he helped me a lot to develop by giving me more and more responsibility as we were a very small team and had to do lots ourselves. Uwe can lead teams (as he currently shows in Dresden again) and create a very good atmosphere on and off the pitch. It felt like family and was a very good time but also very exhausting as the club did grow very fast in every aspect. I was the youngest head of scouting in a professional league at that time and I had the feeling that it is necessary to see and learn different things to become as good as possible in my job. It was clear that although I had offers in Germany I needed to go abroad to gain experience, so I chose Vancouver. Bundesliga Fanatic: Vancouver Whitecaps – How did that one come about? Also, the salary cap in soccer is an idea I’m fascinated by (maybe because I follow the NBA too closely) and I wonder if you think it could ever work in Europe? I saw Steve Nash train with the Whitecaps and have heard a few stories about his soccer skills\family history, so here is a fun question: how good could he have been if he chose football over basketball? And last, I see that both of your managers in Vancouver were 37-38, while the previous ones were all 50+, do you think that age mattered in coaching? Do you find it easier to explain your ideas to younger managers? Daniel Stenz: Vancouver came up when I met the new coach of the team, Carl Robinson, in London. He just took over the team and had heard of me and my work. Vancouver really wanted me and after my wife gave her blessing, we decided to go for it. North-American sports are renowned for having and turning more academic substance into practical use and I wanted to learn more. And of course Vancouver is not the worst place to live and traveling the States for almost 3 years was a good experience. Two of the other owners of the Whitecaps are both IT People and were really committed to my approach of using new technologies to improve the performance in every aspect of the game. They didn’t want to spend big money on stars but rather find talent to develop into a working structure. Steve Nash is one of the owners of the Whitecaps and he trained a few times with us. Steve is a great athlete and I am sure he would have had a great career in football as well (his brother Martin was a soccer player). Beside that Steve is fantastic person that also invites you for a beer sometimes. Before we started, the Whitecaps never made the playoffs and we managed to play the two most successful seasons in club history with winning the Cup and making the playoffs twice. The way the MLS is designed though is that you are kind of punished for success, as they want to create a parity in the league as soccer (how they call it) is still a developing sport behind football, basketball, hockey and baseball. Working in this league with great success was amazing and accomplished kind of the goal I set myself for this mission. From an economical view, the MLS is super interesting and it lined up a lot with my academical education in Sports Economy. The age difference of Carl Robinson and Uwe Neuhaus didn’t affect anything. The Whitecaps job was Carls first one and he is still developing as a coach. Uwe was a very experienced coach that was very curious on new things. I would even say that Uwe was definitely more open to new methods than Carl. Bundesliga Fanatic: On to Hungary then, and of course I’m fascinated by this brief spell as a Hungarian. You and the national team parted ways rather quickly. The articles I’ve read talked about tactical differences and downplayed it as a trial period. Could you elaborate on those? Similar to the Cologne days, who were some of the most\least receptive players to what you had to say? Stock has gone from savior and EURO 2016 hero to almost losing his job (losing to Andorra), where would you rank him from the coaches you worked with (Magath, Daum, Neuhaus, Robinson etc). Are there any other juicy stories you’d like to share about the Hungarian team, or living in Hungary? Daniel Stenz: After the decision was made to not stay with the ‘Caps I first wanted to have a little break after the exhausting 10 years in the industry but had some talks with an EPL team. Through Christofer Clemens of the German National Team I was introduced to the option of working for the Hungarian National Team. I saw how Pál Dárdai developed this team before and in the Euros (there is a reason he is successful at Hertha as well) and as I never have worked for a national team I wanted to give that a try despite I was made aware of the many fluctuations in the functional team after Pál Dárdai left. Unfortunately, it turned out to not work on a personal level for me as well. As a person with an analytical view on things I am a big fan of straight decisions so moving on from Hungary was a logical consequence, although the environment that Mr Csányi and Mr Nagy created around the National Team is absolutely fantastic. Working alongside Andy Möller and Holger Gehrke as well was a great experience, but I was even more impressed by the Hungarian people that I met. I am sure that Zoltán Szélesi for example will have a great coaching career ahead of him. It was really a great honor to work for the national team of a country like Hungary and I wish nothing but the best for the team to get back to success in the near future. Bundesliga Fanatic: Felix Magath is a bit of a cult hero (in the Bundesliga as well) at our blog. What’s it like working with him? How is your job different from previous jobs? The Chinese Super League appears to be an excellent venue for many players, but there are some restrictions in terms of signing foreigners: do you think the league will compete with the big Euro leagues in terms of quality of play? Given thatyou’re one of very few people uniquely qualified to answer this question: how does the CSL compare to the Bundesliga, MLS, etc? Daniel Stenz: The move to China was something that was up for discussion for a while. Beside the talks with England before joining the National Team I spoke at a few conferences around the world and by this got introduced to the Chinese market. Everyone is talking about the Chinese football at the moment, but if you just stop thinking about the crazy fees that were spent in the past, the league is (similar to MLS) super interesting. The government around President Xi is very forward-thinking and by implementing new rules the market becomes more and more protected to the big spending on short time success. The Government saw that for a country like China the way needs to be to develop talent. We have 1,4 Billion people in China. If the education is done properly, there must be talent to develop (you have to find that first of course). Shandong Luneng Taishan FC, the club that I work for now, also saw that coming and decided to be an early adopter. They saw what I did over the last years regarding player development, scouting and roster management and wanted me to join them to add some more depth into what they were doing. My goal was always to work my way up through different departments and cultures to be able to take more responsibility from job to job and this was the perfect fit. Felix Magath did a fantastic job with the team from when he took over. You can see the change of the playing style and the fitness was improved significantly. Beside that I got to know Felix Magath as a very dedicated and polite person that wants to develop the club to further success. My responsibility at the moment is to implement structures in Scouting and performance Analysis to help providing the best environment for the coach to keep improving the team. It’s a bit different to being an analyst in the coaching staff as now the structural development replaced the work from game to game. The CSL is a young league and China is a very different market so it is not always that easy to combine the immediate success with a strategical planning but I am very confident that we are on the right path. (Daniel, third from the left at the prestigious MIT Sloan conference with Statsbomb founder Ted Knutson, second from the right) Note: you can watch their discussion here: Bundesliga Fanatic: Obviously, the emergence of DATA and statistical analysis has started a revolution in many sports, though football is seemingly years behind NBA\baseball etc. I strongly agree with the opinion that you seem to share (Data is there to ask (better) questions), but why is it taking longer? Ted and the Statsbomb guys talk a lot about data people needing to do better in terms of explaining, but also coaches\players\management being more receptive towards it. Do you share that sentiment, or if not, what are some of the bigger obstacles to overcome and how should we go about it? Aside from off-ball tracking data, are there any big dark spots (unknowns) in analytics? We’ve progressed from shot counting to possession to TSRs and XGs. Where do you see analytics in soccer moving next? Daniel Stenz: First of all, I think we need to talk about knowledge management. When I entered the football industry I could just about throw out everything that I learned in industry and university as it still is a micro cosmos of its own. In every small business, you do knowledge management to maintain knowledge in the business to prevent a loss if employees leaving. In football that’s still very different. Slowly people realize (not all …) that it is not healthy to give too much power to just one person, because you get in trouble if that person leaves. In my opinion, the times where the coach solely dictates the culture of a club or federation are over. The coach should be chosen based on the culture that the club or federation created. Therefore, a combined position of Coach and Sporting director is very difficult nowadays in my opinion. By implanting a strong corporate identity, you don’t have to change everything with a new coach arriving. A player or a workflow should always represent the club’s philosophy and strategy and shouldn’t be replaced too quick. If you for example have to replace players or a coach too quick then I would say that your strategy in first place might not have been the best. The problem with data analysis is a bit more complex. First of all, you have to make sure that the numbers you have are right. I’ve seen so much bad quality out there and it has become a very big market so a lot of companies want a piece of the pie. Fortunately, I worked for small clubs with low budgets so I had to do a lot of things myself. That helped a lot in understanding the datamining processes. After you have good numbers it comes down to understanding what they mean. You mentioned possession which is a good example. Johan Cruyff said that you need to have the ball to score a goal and if you don’t have the ball you cant score. Those are very true words, which made the industry assume in the beginning that possession affects the outcome of the match. That’s a wrong assumption if you don’t look a bit deeper to where exactly that possession is and some other factors around it. Ted Knutson and the guys from Statsbomb do a great job by investigating that deeper. It’s science and it’s developing. But saying that leads to the next problem. Some coaches (especially former players in my opinion) see a conflict between the art of traditional coaching and the science of it. That almost appeared to me as talking in two languages which made analysts become translators. You have to understand coaching and team dynamics on the one hand and understand the science on the other. Both fields are very complex which let the analyst become some kind of hybrid. I don’t think you can become a good analyst just by coming from university as you need to feel how a team works. It helped me a lot being in the locker rooms and on the bench for so many years to get a feeling on what works or what does not. There is a new generation of coaches (Julian Nagelsmann, etc) who learned more about the science while being educated to coach. The federations (especially Germany) also do a good job by implementing science more and more in coaches’ education. Here is an example on what the English FA is doing in coaches education. The other big problem in my opinion is the role of the analyst nowadays. The analyst is normally hired by the coach as part of the coaching staff. That makes totally sense for improving the team by performance/video analysis and opposition scouting. But what about the analysis on team performance from the club’s perspective? If the analyst finds negative aspects of performance it will be quite difficult to communicate that to more than just the coach as he is his boss. That’s a very delicate situation and leads to conflicts of interest sooner than later. Some clubs saw that and do a kind of analysis on a deeper level. FC Midtjylland with Rasmus Ankersen for example. I think that’s the logical step as you do business analysis in a normal company as well. Bundesliga Fanatic: Do you still have time to follow the Bundesliga? Where would you rank it among the big 5 leagues and what are some of your thoughts about the directions (50+1 rule falling soon, exploring Asia and the US in terms of marketing, “Bayernliga”) it’s taking? Daniel Stenz: Of course, I follow the 1+2 Bundesliga closely. I still have many contacts there and exchange thoughts a lot with Boris Notzon (FCK) Sven Mislintat (BVB) an Marcel Daum (Eintracht Frankfurt) for example. Especially, Union Berlin is a club I follow almost every game. I think the 50+1 rule helped Germany a lot over the last years to grow more fundamental without big money coming in. But opening the markets will be a necessary evolution of the industry and one should not be misled by negative examples. Football became a massive business and you can’t just ignore that. Uli Hoeness said in an interview a short while ago that every coach hates to go to China in preseason but it’s a necessary thing to do if you want to compete on a high level. The more important question is how you use that money. Going back to the MLS or China, now I think people realize that even if you buy one very good expensive player you still have to fill the other spots. And if you spend that much money on a player you also need to spend on the staff surrounding that player. From Physios to analysts. Which brings me to the next topic…. Bundesliga Fanatic: Finally, can you give some advice for young people who are trying to get into football analytics: what are 3 things they should be doing? Daniel Stenz:It is a very tough business to get involved in like I said in the beginning. You sacrifice a lot beside your job and you can’t expect to become rich doing it. Analysts became quite fashionable over the last years but no one really wants to pay for them. The first 2 years of my job I lived with my mom and she had to give some money for me to make a living out of it. But you cannot do it for the money. It means to work a lot of hours when others don’t. I missed so many things on a weekend as you have to work. In nights after the matches you do the debrief of the game just to finish next morning with opposition report. Nowadays things are a bit more easy as you have technology to help and maybe a few people. In general, you should accept that if you go down this route you have to sacrifice a lot in the beginning. Almost every person that is successful in our job right now did long internships and then slowly grew. I also would recommend to visit conferences (the ones that I speak on are on www.evaluation-sports.com ) to listen to what’s going on and to network. The industry is a lot about networking. Finally, you never should stop to be curious and never stop to build your own opinion. This job changed from just cutting videos to a way more complex task. For me it helped to challenge myself and step out of my comfort zone. Bundesliga Fanatic: Daniel, thank you so much for sharing your time and observations with us. It’s been a delight! We wish you all the best in China and beyond! |
Vice President Biden claimed in an interview with NBC News that Bill Clinton’s sexual misconduct “shouldn’t matter” because he’s already “paid a price” – though he hammered Donald Trump as a “sexual predator.” The vice president tried to draw a distinction between the similar allegations against Clinton and Trump that have dominated the campaign in recent days. Trump at the last debate invoked the claims of women who have accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault, but within days was battling new allegations from women who accused him of groping and forcing himself on them. Biden, speaking with “Meet the Press,” was asked whether the former president’s conduct matters. “No, it shouldn't matter,” Biden said. “Look, I can't make any excuse for Bill Clinton's conduct. I wouldn't attempt to make any excuses for the conduct. But he paid a price for it. He paid a price. He was impeached. And he … expressed his deep sorrow and acknowledged what he did.” Biden then made a sharp turn to discuss the Republican presidential nominee. “This guy, as I said, has acknowledged that he has been a sexual predator. He's acknowledged that he's abused his power. And … as I said, the textbook definition of what constitutes sexual assault,” he said. Trump has denied the allegations against him. In a blistering speech in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Thursday, he said the campaign has “substantial evidence” to dispute the latest “orchestrated” allegations and will release them at the appropriate time. “These vicious claims about me of inappropriate conduct with women are totally and absolutely false. These claims are all fiction, entirely fabricated and are outright lies,” he said. He singled out the accusers as “horrible, horrible liars.” |
Asian markets had a solid start on Thursday, following a strong lead in US markets where the S&P500 closed almost 2% higher. Japanese equities were trading almost unanimously higher on Thursday morning, with the weaker yen helping out exporters' stocks and investors embracing risk as China's volatile equity markets closed for the rest of the week. Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index rallied 1.72% to 18,406.08 points within the first hour of trade, with almost all 225 stocks on the index trading with gains, while Tokyo's broader Topix gauge jumped 2.02% to 1,495.52 points. China's markets were closed on Thursday for Victory Day, and are set to open again on Monday. Korea's benchmark Kospi index jumped 0.42% to 1,923.29 points this morning in Seoul. The benchmark Australian S&P/ASX 200 index shed early gains to trade 0.79% lower at 5,061.30 points in Sydney, as retailers traded with sharp losses ahead of July retail data and bank reversed early gains to trade lower. New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index was up 0.29% at 5,606.68 points this afternoon in Wellington. |
History is replete with disquieting figures, it is often difficult to know whether they deserve our support or mistrust. Julian Assange seems increasingly to be one of these figures. When I started writing about whistleblowers a few years ago, there was genuine sympathy for whistleblowers across international public opinion, and one sensed a common feeling of indignation at the repression whistleblowers suffered. But during the last few months, something seems to have changed. There now seems to be a real mistrust – if not outright hostility – with regard to Assange. The same cannot be said for Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning: they each continue to receive widespread support from journalists, academics, and various advocates for human rights and freedom of the press. But what little support remains for Assange is now much more distanced and qualified. Indeed, I get the impression that a kind of “WikiLeaks bashing” has taken hold: journalists, academics, and intellectuals have not only begun to distance themselves from Assange; they now question, attack, and discredit him on the slightest pretext. This shift in Assange’s reputation has been punctuated by several important moments. But nothing seems to have been more damaging for his reputation than the 2016 US presidential election campaign. Assange’s well-known dislike of Hillary Clinton, combined with Wikileaks’ publication of leaked emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), has lead to the perception that Assange is becoming increasingly neoconservative, that he is moving away from progressive politics and democratic struggles, and moving closer to the political circles around Donald Trump and even authoritarian regimes such as Russia. Wikileaks is an institution based on generalizable principles... it is precisely these principles that we need in politics today. One can, of course, disagree with one or many of Assange’s actions or choices. But what we mustn’t overlook is the fact that important historical figures, like Assange, always embody or represent certain principles or values that transcend the particular actions of the historical figure itself. Wikileaks is an institution based on generalizable principles. And I argue it is precisely these principles that we need in politics today. It would be a major strategic error for progressives to distance themselves from Wikileaks. This is because Wikileak’s principles are in direct opposition to the reactionary sentiments and impulses fueling today’s populist backlash and the entire political system that made Donald Trump’s electoral victory possible. In other words, it’s a fundamental political error to casually associate Wikileaks with neoconservatism or reactionary populism. No affinity between these two worlds is possible; the political ideals brought to life by Wikileaks are a crucial form of resistance to Trumpism and the larger political culture in which Trumpism thrives. 1. Wikileaks is based on the value of knowledge. The organization functions almost like a group of historians of the present. Its institutional mission is to reveal the secret activities of political leaders and, in the process, show the public how states actually function and what they actually do. From this point of view, Assange inaugurated a new culture of truth, a politics of the archive and of knowledge, that is diametrically opposed to the logic of opinion, fake news, and the echo-chamber ideology of contemporary populism. 2. Wikileaks is anti-authoritarian. Its struggle for transparency is dedicated to opening the black box of government so that the public may no longer live in ignorance of the logics that guide the governments they routinely elect or live under. This opposition to all forms of authoritarianism places Wikileaks in a long and vigilant democratic tradition that opposes the centralized powers of the strong state. 3. Wikileaks is firmly committed to fighting censorship and the feelings of alienation a culture of censorship produces. And it is precisely this kind of culture of alienation that gives rise to reactionary populism in the first place. Today’s reactionary populism is largely anchored in a not unreasonable mistrust of the media, and the disproportionate power the media exerts over the selection and circulation of information. Wikileaks has consistently attacked the power that traditional media gate-keepers exert over the kinds of information or stories journalists are allowed to pursue and publish. Assange’s statements about the publication of the Panama Papers are a perfect example of this. Wikileaks is an advocate of total transparency. Wikileaks’ standard practice is to publish everything: they prefer to release the raw information they receive and let the public conduct their own analyses and come up with their own interpretations. Their opposition to media censorship and their refusal to see the public as merely passive spectators aligns with their belief in a vibrant public space, and this conviction has given rise to practices that concretely combat the widespread feeling of alienation that is too often channeled in populist directions. 4. Wikileaks nurtures an ethic of unconditionality. Julian Assange has been relentlessly criticized for publishing leaked DNC emails during the 2016 US presidential election, and then for weakening Hillary Clinton’s chances of electoral success. But shouldn’t we turn this criticism around? Our democracy is in decline today precisely because of our repeated tendency to suspend and defer democratic principles in the interest of achieving short-term practical objectives (such as in the “War on Terror”). Doesn’t this suspension of democratic principles ultimately damage democracy by undermining its basic unconditional character? And isn’t this tendency to play fast and loose with democratic principles eroding our faith in the rule of law? Assange and Wikileaks publish the documents they receive when they receive them – no matter where they come from or what the short-term political fallout may be. This ethic of unconditionality is especially important today for reviving our faith in the democratic ideal. 5. Wikileaks believes in a non-submissive culture. The culture of leaking and anonymous denunciation encourages people to distance themselves from the institutions to which they belong, to question their institutional identification, and to maintain an attitude of perpetual institutional skepticism so that they may denounce any potential wrongdoings or crimes. This culture of non-submissiveness, of non-allegiance, is in radical opposition to authoritarian forms of government and forms of nationalistic identification. 6. Lastly, Wikileaks amounts to a practical critique of all of forms of nationalism, insofar as its concrete practice actively promotes an international conception of politics and belonging. Wikileaks assembles people from all over the world who are fighting for a shared ideal that extends beyond national boundaries and affiliations. Wikileaks, in other words, is a project that transcends the idea of nations, and it works to dissolves the nationalistic basis at the root of all conservatisms. But more importantly, Assange is one of those rare contemporary political figures to adopt a truly global perception of the world. In all my public discussions with Assange, I was always struck by his ability to take a global perspective on the world, and his consistent capacity to think that whatever is happening in Great Britain is no more important than events in South Africa, Ecuador, Yemen, or Russia. Someone once told me that if Snowden enjoys greater sympathy than Assange in Western Europe or the United States, it’s because Snowden’s leaks involved predominantly white Westerners, while much of the information WikiLeaks publishes involves Yemenites, Afghans, or Iraqis. I think there is much truth to this. These systems of power and ideologies can only be fought by new practices and new subjectivities created within new political systems. Populism, nationalism, conservatism, and authoritarianism can’t be fought with ready-made speeches. These systems of power and ideologies can only be fought by new practices and new subjectivities created within new political systems. The rise of contemporary reactionary populism isn’t an accident or an aberration, nor is it simply a case of manipulated public opinion: it is the product of our dominant political and media systems. Yet we are somehow expected to critique Trump, and the culture of populism that produced Trump, from within the confines of the very system that made him possible. This is the singular impasse facing progressive politics today, and this is precisely why we should be cautious about our critiques of Wikileaks. We need to defend and support Wikileaks’ project today more than ever. The principles upon which Wikileaks is based are the very same principles that are needed today to create a new political culture: principles of transparency, anti-authoritarianism, internationalism, non-submission, and unconditionality. Of course, the lives of political actors, much like our own lives, are always complicated. But the principles through which Wikileaks acts inscribe the organization in a long history of struggle committed to enlarging the democratic horizon. At a moment in history when the CIA has explicit plans to terminate Wikileaks, both Julian Assange and Wikileaks deserve support from progressives. If progressives want to defeat populism, they should stand with WikiLeaks. Thanks for the translation go to Matthew MacLellan. |
LONDON -- When it was suggested he has not been his normal self, physically or emotionally, for the last six months, Novak Djokovic bristled. "What makes you say that?" he replied, indignantly. The question came straight off the bat at his pre-tournament news conference Friday afternoon at the O2 Arena. The four-time defending champion, who kicks off his World Tour Finals Sunday against Dominic Thiem, perhaps felt he should be afforded more respect. Djokovic had been getting used to arriving in -- and leaving -- London as world No. 1; he has finished the year on top of the rankings for four of the last five seasons. He had led Andy Murray by more than 8,000 points after beating the Scot in the French Open final in June, completing not just a career Grand Slam but holding all four major titles at the same time with his 12th overall. His form dramatically tailed off, though. There were shock early exits at Wimbledon and the Rio Olympics, before a US Open final defeat to Stan Wawrinka in New York -- where he had looked out of sorts the whole fortnight, and greatly benefited from three walkovers. After missing Beijing, where he had won 29 straight matches, a semifinal defeat in Shanghai and a quarterfinal exit at the Paris Masters ensured Murray overtook him in the rankings by reaching the final at Bercy last weekend. The mitigating circumstances for his slump? A mixture of injuries, "personal problems" as he admitted at Flushing Meadows, and a natural drop off after Roland Garros. "I'm my normal self every day," Djokovic continued Friday. "First of all, I was talking about having certain ups and downs that everybody has. Not [being] myself emotionally or physically the last few months is too rough of a statement. "I thought I had a good couple of months, maybe not up to the standards of 12 to 15 months before that. In sport you can't always expect to win. Let me play you a song and make you smile :) 🎶🎵London here I come! A video posted by Novak Djokovic (@djokernole) on Nov 10, 2016 at 12:01am PST "The high standard of results and success I've had the last couple of years probably has taken its toll. I didn't get to recover I guess as fast after the French open, to be ready to compete on the highest level after that. "I had to dig deep and take some time to reflect on everything because it was an incredible achievement. It took a little bit of time to get back on track. "I played well at the US Open I thought, made the finals, winning Toronto. The injury took me off from the Olympic Games but all in all a very good year that I'm proud of. I'm here in London to try to crown this year with the best possible result." Djokovic's latest run at the summit finally came to an end Monday after 122 weeks -- only Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl and Roger Federer have enjoyed longer consecutive streaks at No. 1. It took an incredible run from Murray to reel him in, with victories at Queen's Club, Wimbledon, the China Open, Shanghai, Vienna and Paris taking the Scot's title count to a personal-best eight for the season. "I have only words of praise for what he [Murray] has achieved in the last year or so," added Djokovic. "Starting with the clay court season, he was very consistent. "He had the best one of his life, playing three finals of three big events and winning one in Rome. He won every event he played on grass including a Grand Slam, and then the Olympics -- he's had an incredible run. "Definitely well deserved No. 1 at this point. He's been the best player of the last six months without a doubt. Whether or not he can sustain it is not a question for me. "The qualities he possesses as a player, his determination to the sport, there's a good chance that he can still play in this level for some time." Novak Djokovic spoke to the media at the O2 Arena Friday. JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images On paper, the Serb should not have too much trouble making the semifinals here -- he is a combined 23-0 against the other three players in his group, Milos Raonic, Gael Monfils and Thiem. Djokovic can reclaim top spot if he goes one better than Murray in London, while there are several other permutations that could see either man crowned year-end No. 1, making for what could be a thrilling finale to the season. But he insists he doesn't need any extra motivation. "Even after 10-plus years at a professional level, I still feel I have a lot of gas in my tank," said Djokovic. "I feel like I still have a lot more years ahead of me. I feel great joy when I compete, when I play. "The power of passion towards the sport is the No. 1 thing that drives me to play, to enjoy to play. This is the game. if you don't enjoy the game, your time on court, everything else becomes two or three, five times more difficult than it is or should be. "You do have days when you're feeling maybe less determined to play. Some days you feel it more, but as long as the days that are when you're waking up and feel more positive are there making the majority of those days, then things are going well. That's the case with me. "Practice days make probably 80 percent of our season. That's where you really need to get that inspiration and drive going on a daily basis, so you can maintain that level of determination and competition at the highest levels, at tournaments like this. Fortunately for me at this stage I don't have that problem, "I have plenty of motivation -- it starts from within. My mindset is very positive towards this sport, this life that I have. I have great support of my family, my wife. It's important. Otherwise the things would not be as smooth. As long as it's like that, I'll be around." |
WHEN LEBRON JAMES walks onto the court for tipoff against the Detroit Pistons, he might as well tug up his shorts, bend his knees and get in his defensive stance right away. James may not know it, and the millions watching may not know it either, but there's almost no chance he'll retrieve the ball on the opening jump. That's because just a few feet away, crouching at the center circle, stands jump-ball wunderkind Andre Drummond. The 22-year-old, despite standing shorter than a large portion of his jump-ball adversaries, has won 69.4 percent of jump-balls since he has been in the league. That's an astounding figure that ranks as the best career rate among all active players and tops for every sub-7-footer on record, according to tracking by analytics site Nylon Calculus. Only 7-3 Arvydas Sabonis, 7-1 Shaquille O'Neal and 7-3 Zydrunas Ilgauskas have been more successful at winning the ball out of the air since this data became available in 1998. This particular skill isn't just about height. If it were, Yao Ming wouldn't have a 43.2 career win rate. And it's not just about having limbs for days either, or else Anthony Davis would check in higher than 39.5 percent. What Drummond has, and others near-300 pounders lack, is freakish athleticism that allows him to reach towering heights faster than anybody. But that's only the beginning of it. More to the point: What Drummond has worked to develop -- including terrific reaction time and elite neuroprocessing -- might be the most mechanically perfect body in the NBA. And the science proves it. A SIMPLE QUESTION is posed to Eric Leidersdorf, the lead biomechanist at the sports science lab P3 Peak Performance: How would you define athleticism in a single 140-character tweet? The bearded Stanford-grad pauses as he sits at his desk in Santa Barbara, California. He launches into a lengthy monologue filled with scientific jargon, as if he were a modern-day Sir Isaac Newton. Phrases such as "kinematic quality," "force generation capabilities" and "eccentric workloads" pour from his mouth. After nearly a minute of expert technical explanation, Leidersdorf stops himself and begins to laugh. "Or honestly, just be like Andre Drummond." More than 100 NBA big men have walked through the doors at P3 -- a former disco dance hall nestled about a football field away from the shores of Santa Barbara -- to get tested for their biomechanics and to optimize their movement patterns. None of them, according to P3's scientists, walked out of there having checked more boxes on their assessment than Drummond. "He checks off all the same boxes that the perimeter players do," says Dr. Marcus Elliott, the founder and lead scientist at P3. "That's super rare for a big man. You almost never have a guy that big who's comparable to a 200-pound guy. There's usually a give back." Stan Van Gundy, Drummond's head coach and the Pistons' president of basketball operations, had to see it for himself. As Drummond spent six weeks at P3 this past summer to train and get ready for his upcoming contract season, Van Gundy flew out and received a first-hand overview about what P3 was all about and what its technology had to say about his star player. It was a pivotal summer for Drummond. The playoffs were within reach and so was an All-Star bid. Real dollars were at stake too. If Drummond stayed healthy and honed his craft, he would be in line for a potential max contract in the summer of 2016. Van Gundy read the charts that detailed Drummond's performance data. And what he learned was jaw-dropping. "He checks off all the same boxes that the perimeter players do. That's super rare for a big man. There's usually a give back." Dr. Marcus Elliott, a lead scientist at P3 It's not just that Drummond has a high vertical (30 inches) and generates more force in the vertical plane when he jumps than 90 percent of all P3 athletes. It's not just that he moves laterally better than 87 percent of all NBA players tested -- guards included. It's not just that his second jump is lightning-quick and it rises four inches higher than his positional mean. The baffling thing? He does all of these things and more. "Drummond has what we call a big jump vocabulary, meaning he can jump in a whole lot of different ways really well," Elliott says. "We get some athletes who are amazing jumpers that are in a really limited setting. If things are set up just right for them, they're freaks. Drummond will go off two legs, he'll go off his right leg, left leg, right leg on an angle, left leg on an angle, all those things, he does it exceptionally well." Ask Drummond what stands out the most about his time at P3 and he immediately points to the stimulus-response test -- when a P3 staffer holds two tennis balls, one in each hand, extended out to his sides like a uppercase "T." The task for the athlete, who is facing the staffer a couple feet away, is to slide one meter laterally in the direction of the ball once it is dropped. But the athlete doesn't know which ball will be dropped. This task measures reaction time, force generated and speed -- three critical barometers for an NBA athlete like Drummond. Simply put: When reacting to a visual stimulus, Drummond generates more force in the lateral plane, which helps to power his way through traffic than any other big man tested at P3. And he does it quicker than 91 percent of big men tested. Andre Drummond -- on the move! Despite his 6-foot-11, 280-pound frame, Drummond is almost 14 percent faster moving one meter laterally, than the average NBA big man. The numbers confirmed Drummond's sneaky suspicion: He's quicker than he is large. "When I play, there are things throughout the game that I notice, especially rebounding," Drummond says. "Not too many guys my size react as quickly." COACHES EVERYWHERE WOULD like you to believe that rebounding is all about oft-cliched intangibles such as heart, effort and grit. How did that guy get that rebound? He just wanted it more. The hard truth is that most of rebounding, at least at the highest level, can be explained by pure biomechanics. "Rebounding is something that just comes very naturally to him," Van Gundy says. "He's quick and he's long and he can make multiple jumps. That's a gift he has, and I don't mean that to demean his effort at all, because obviously you have to make an effort to get those. But it's not like he's sitting around, focusing really hard, like, 'I have to get 15 rebounds.'" Van Gundy, who coached Shaq in Miami and Dwight Howard in Orlando, continues to marvel at Drummond's ability to clean the glass. "The thing that struck me is there would be games where you weren't particularly impressed with either his effort or his production, so it didn't seem like, 'Wow, he's everywhere.' Then you pick up the stat sheet and you see he has 15 rebounds. Working at peak efficiency The orientation of Drummond's hips and trunk differs by just 5.9 degrees as he moves laterally -- almost 10 degrees less than your typical NBA athlete, regardless of position. This ability to control his center-of-mass allows him to react efficiently, and not waste movement (or time) with extraneous mechanics. Even at just 22 years old, Drummond's rebounding numbers are unmatched. This season, Drummond pulled down a league-leading 24.5 percent of all available rebounds while on the floor. He tallied a league-high 66 double-doubles this season, the most since, you guessed it, Howard notched exactly 66 double-doubles in 2010-11. Indeed, it's hard not to draw comparisons to Howard. The numbers don't lie. In the past two decades, only one player has matched Drummond's points and rebounding totals in his first four seasons in the league.That player? Again, Dwight David Howard. It's a name that has followed Drummond his whole career. "I used to hear it a lot, but now it's just like, I'm my own player," Drummond says. "I can't be compared to anybody else." THE HOWARD-DRUMMOND comparisons don't stop there. Pull up Howard's résumé and you'll find remarkable durability in the first half of his career; Howard played every game of his first four seasons in the NBA, the only center to ever do that, according to Basketball-Reference.com. Andre Drummond's closest NBA comp through his first four seasons? None other than Dwight Howard, who spent five seasons with Stan Van Gundy in Orlando. Getty Images Drummond has missed only one game due to injury in the past three seasons, a rarity for big men in today's NBA. Van Gundy and the P3 staffers hope to keep it that way. The hard part -- keeping his body in sync and movements symmetrical -- is an ongoing process, requiring yearly check-ups in Santa Barbara to prevent the snowball effect. "Our key is to not just make him more athletic or a better mover, but to keep his systems all go," Elliott says. "If he has a small injury and he develops a compensation pattern, it's not going to get by us. And it's not because our naked eyes are going to see it; our technology is going to see it." Big men like Drummond are naturally more susceptible to injury simply because tiny abnormalities on long limbs can manifest into larger problems. Think about a standard pencil being harder to snap than one a yard long. Drummond's clean bill of health isn't pure luck, though randomness is very much a part of it. Drummond's left-to-right discrepancies are virtually nil, meaning one side isn't consistently out-working the other, a red flag for breakdowns. During all double-leg testing, according to P3 reports provided to ESPN.com, Drummond's asymmetry values fell well within their norms. The scariest, most common compensation pattern for big men is something called valgus, in which the knees clash together when they load to jump. Drummond, again, passes this test with flying colors. "He can be as good as his ability to learn basketball," Elliott says. "He's got nothing holding him back to him being the best big man in the NBA, period. If we can keep him healthy, that's the situation." Well, there's one thing holding him back. DRUMMOND MAY BE the best player at kicking off the game, but when it comes to finishing games, he's often sitting on the bench. Why? The free throws. Drummond is a physical marvel, but his Achilles heel, hitting free throws at a reasonable clip, has kept him off the floor in clutch situations. In Game 1 of the Pistons' playoffs series with the Cavs, Van Gundy subbed Drummond out for Aaron Baynes with 2 minutes, 58 seconds left in the game. And with good reason. Drummond just wrapped up with the worst free-throw shooting season in NBA history, at 35.5 percent. The Pistons don't track free throws made in practice, but Drummond says he shoots them "really good" outside of games. Van Gundy estimates his practice conversion rate at 65 percent. What if Drummond hit 50%? Drummond's FT% Proj. Detroit wins 35.5% 43.8 40% 44.3 50% 45.6 60% 46.8 70% 48.1 75.7% 48.8 The Pistons, with the instruction of famed shooting coach Dave Hopla, are trying to keep it simple for Drummond. As of now, Drummond says, he has not given thought to shooting free throws underhanded. Just three dribbles, pause and up -- just as it has been all season. Van Gundy understands all the mechanics in the world may not solve Drummond's free-throw woes. "For me, it was hitting a baseball," Van Gundy says. "I really struggled hitting a baseball when I was younger. And we all know when you hit that ball, there are two things: There's a physical component obviously -- there's something wrong I need to do better to hit the baseball better. But then, because you haven't had success, it becomes a very big mental component too." Van Gundy admits he never did hit a baseball consistently, but he hasn't resigned himself to the same fate for Drummond. "I've had Shaq, Dwight and now Andre," Van Gundy says. "It's a hard thing made even harder by the fact that these guys are great athletes who are used to having incredible success, and then there's one thing that they just don't do well, and I think it seeps into their mindset." Van Gundy emphasizes that Drummond practices his free throws ad nauseum, and the notion that he just needs to practice more is "crazy." Practice doesn't make perfect, in this case. "With these guys, look, they put in the effort to fix it," Van Gundy says. "It's just hard, for whatever reason, to translate from the practice floor to the game. Look, you're standing there by yourself, with the game stopped and everybody's watching. Let's say a guy misses a jump shot, the play goes to the other end, and everyone's focused on what's happening there. But Andre's standing there at the free-throw line, all everybody's talking about who's watching the game is his FT shooting. It's hard. It's really hard." "I mean, here's this guy out there leading the league in rebounding and all he's hearing about is his free-throw shooting," Van Gundy says. Beyond Shaq and Howard, bad free-throw shooters are commonplace among NBA greats. You don't even have to look that far in Pistons history to find one. Four-time defensive player of the year Ben Wallace won a championship for Detroit during a season in which he made less than 50 percent of his free throws. Wilt Chamberlain won a championship and earned an MVP award missing more than half his free throws in 1966-67. "He's young and he's got a lot to learn, but he has gotten better," Van Gundy says. "We all, me in particular, want it quicker and all at once, so but that's not usually the way it comes. It usually comes incrementally." Drummond turns 23 years old this August and, before that, the plan is to spend the summer at P3 once again. The status as the NBA's best big man is there for the taking. Drummond just has to go up and get it. It just might take longer than he's used to. |
This post is about an idea I had around 1997, when I was 16 years old and a freshman computer-science major at Cornell. Back then, I was extremely impressed by a research project called CLEVER, which one of my professors, Jon Kleinberg, had led while working at IBM Almaden. The idea was to use the link structure of the web itself to rank which web pages were most important, and therefore which ones should be returned first in a search query. Specifically, Kleinberg defined “hubs” as pages that linked to lots of “authorities,” and “authorities” as pages that were linked to by lots of “hubs.” At first glance, this definition seems hopelessly circular, but Kleinberg observed that one can break the circularity by just treating the World Wide Web as a giant directed graph, and doing some linear algebra on its adjacency matrix. Equivalently, you can imagine an iterative process where each web page starts out with the same hub/authority “starting credits,” but then in each round, the pages distribute their credits among their neighbors, so that the most popular pages get more credits, which they can then, in turn, distribute to their neighbors by linking to them. I was also impressed by a similar research project called PageRank, which was proposed later by two guys at Stanford named Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Brin and Page dispensed with Kleinberg’s bipartite hubs-and-authorities structure in favor of a more uniform structure, and made some other changes, but otherwise their idea was very similar. At the time, of course, I didn’t know that CLEVER was going to languish at IBM, while PageRank (renamed Google) was going to expand to roughly the size of the entire world’s economy. In any case, the question I asked myself about CLEVER/PageRank was not the one that, maybe in retrospect, I should have asked: namely, “how can I leverage the fact that I know the importance of this idea before most people do, in order to make millions of dollars?” Instead I asked myself: “what other ‘vicious circles’ in science and philosophy could one unravel using the same linear-algebra trick that CLEVER and PageRank exploit?” After all, CLEVER and PageRank were both founded on what looked like a hopelessly circular intuition: “a web page is important if other important web pages link to it.” Yet they both managed to use math to defeat the circularity. All you had to do was find an “importance equilibrium,” in which your assignment of “importance” to each web page was stable under a certain linear map. And such an equilibrium could be shown to exist—indeed, to exist uniquely. Searching for other circular notions to elucidate using linear algebra, I hit on morality. Philosophers from Socrates on, I was vaguely aware, had struggled to define what makes a person “moral” or “virtuous,” without tacitly presupposing the answer. Well, it seemed to me that, as a first attempt, one could do a lot worse than the following: A moral person is someone who cooperates with other moral people, and who refuses to cooperate with immoral people. Obviously one can quibble with this definition on numerous grounds: for example, what exactly does it mean to “cooperate,” and which other people are relevant here? If you don’t donate money to starving children in Africa, have you implicitly “refused to cooperate” with them? What’s the relative importance of cooperating with good people and withholding cooperation with bad people, of kindness and justice? Is there a duty not to cooperate with bad people, or merely the lack of a duty to cooperate with them? Should we consider intent, or only outcomes? Surely we shouldn’t hold someone accountable for sheltering a burglar, if they didn’t know about the burgling? Also, should we compute your “total morality” by simply summing over your interactions with everyone else in your community? If so, then can a career’s worth of lifesaving surgeries numerically overwhelm the badness of murdering a single child? For now, I want you to set all of these important questions aside, and just focus on the fact that the definition doesn’t even seem to work on its own terms, because of circularity. How can we possibly know which people are moral (and hence worthy of our cooperation), and which ones immoral (and hence unworthy), without presupposing the very thing that we seek to define? Ah, I thought—this is precisely where linear algebra can come to the rescue! Just like in CLEVER or PageRank, we can begin by giving everyone in the community an equal number of “morality starting credits.” Then we can apply an iterative update rule, where each person A can gain morality credits by cooperating with each other person B, and A gains more credits the more credits B has already. We apply the rule over and over, until the number of morality credits per person converges to an equilibrium. (Or, of course, we can shortcut the process by simply finding the principal eigenvector of the “cooperation matrix,” using whatever algorithm we like.) We then have our objective measure of morality for each individual, solving a 2400-year-old open problem in philosophy. The next step, I figured, would be to hack together some code that computed this “eigenmorality” metric, and then see what happened when I ran the code to measure the morality of each participant in a simulated society. What would happen? Would the results conform to my pre-theoretic intuitions about what sort of behavior was moral and what wasn’t? If not, then would watching the simulation give me new ideas about how to improve the morality metric? Or would it be my intuitions themselves that would change? Unfortunately, I never got around to the “coding it up” part—there’s a reason why I became a theorist! The eigenmorality idea went onto my back burner, where it stayed for the next 16 years: 16 years in which our world descended ever further into darkness, lacking a principled way to quantify morality. But finally, this year, just two separate things have happened on the eigenmorality front, and that’s why I’m blogging about it now. Eigenjesus and Eigenmoses The first thing that’s happened is that Tyler Singer-Clark, my superb former undergraduate advisee, did code up eigenmorality metrics and test them out on a simulated society, for his MIT senior thesis project. You can read Tyler’s 12-page report here—it’s a fun, enjoyable, thought-provoking first research paper, one that I wholeheartedly recommend. Or, if you’d like to experiment yourself with the Python code, you can download it here from github. (Of course, all opinions expressed in this post are mine alone, not necessarily Tyler’s.) Briefly, Tyler examined what eigenmorality has to say in the setting of an Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma (IPD) tournament. The Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma is the famous game in which two players meet repeatedly, and in each turn can either “Cooperate” or “Defect.” The absolute best thing, from your perspective, is if you defect while your partner cooperates. But you’re also pretty happy if you both cooperate. You’re less happy if you both defect, while the worst (from your standpoint) is if you cooperate while your partner defects. At each turn, when contemplating what to do, you have the entire previous history of your interaction with this partner available to you. And thus, for example, you can decide to “punish” your partner for past defections, “reward” her for past cooperations, or “try to take advantage” by unilaterally defecting and seeing what happens. At each turn, the game has some small constant probability of ending—so you know approximately how many times you’ll meet this partner in the future, but you don’t know exactly when the last turn will be. Your score, in the game, is then the sum-total of your score over all turns and all partners (where each player meets each other player once). In the late 1970s, as recounted in his classic work The Evolution of Cooperation, Robert Axelrod invited people all over the world to submit computer programs for playing this game, which were then pit against each other in the world’s first serious IPD tournament. And, in a tale that’s been retold in hundreds of popular books, while many people submitted complicated programs that used machine learning, etc. to try to suss out their opponents, the program that won—hands-down, repeatedly—was TIT_FOR_TAT, a few lines of code submitted by the psychologist Anatol Rapaport to implement an ancient moral maxim. TIT_FOR_TAT starts out by cooperating; thereafter, it simply does whatever its opponent did in the last move, swiftly rewarding every cooperation and punishing every defection, and ignoring the entire previous history. In the decades since Axelrod, running Iterated Prisoners’ Dilemma tournaments has become a minor industry, with countless variations explored (for example, “evolutionary” versions, and versions allowing side-communication between the players), countless new strategies invented, and countless papers published. To make a long story short, TIT_FOR_TAT continues to do quite well across a wide range of environments, but depending on the mix of players present, other strategies can sometimes beat TIT_FOR_TAT. (As one example, if there’s a sizable minority of colluding players, who recognize each other by cooperating and defecting in a prearranged sequence, then those players can destroy TIT_FOR_TAT and other “simple” strategies, by cooperating with one another while defecting against everyone else.) Anyway, Tyler sets up and runs a fairly standard IPD tournament, with a mix of strategies that includes TIT_FOR_TAT, TIT_FOR_TWO_TATS, other TIT_FOR_TAT variations, PAVLOV, FRIEDMAN, EATHERLY, CHAMPION (see the paper for details), and degenerate strategies like always defecting, always cooperating, and playing randomly. However, Tyler then asks an unusual question about the IPD tournament: namely, purely on the basis of the cooperate/defect sequences, which players should we judge to have acted morally toward their partners? It might be objected that the players didn’t “know” they were going to be graded on morality: as far as they knew, they were just trying to maximize their individual utilities. The trouble with that objection is that the players didn’t “know” they were trying to maximize their utilities either! The players are bots, which do whatever their code tells them to do. So in some sense, utility—no less than morality—is “merely an interpretation” that we impose on the raw cooperate/defect sequences! There’s nothing to stop us from imposing some other interpretation (say, one that explicitly tries to measure morality) and seeing what happens. In an attempt to measure the players’ morality, Tyler uses the eigenmorality idea from before. The extent to which player A “cooperates” with player B is simply measured by the percentage of times A cooperates. (One acknowledged limitation of this work is that, when two players both defect, there’s no attempt to take into account “who started it,” and to judge the aggressor more harshly than the retaliator—or to incorporate time in any other way.) This then gives us a “cooperation matrix,” whose (i,j) entry records the total amount of niceness that player i displayed to player j. Diagonalizing that matrix, and taking its largest eigenvector, then gives us our morality scores. Now, there’s a very interesting ambiguity in what I said above. Namely, should we define the “niceness scores” to lie in [0,1] (so that the lowest, meanest possible score is 0), or in [-1,1] (so that it’s possible to have negative niceness)? This might sound like a triviality, but in our setting, it’s precisely the mathematical reflection of one of the philosophical conundrums I mentioned earlier. The conundrum can be stated as follows: is your morality a monotone function of your niceness? We all agree, presumably, that it’s better to be nice to Gandhi than to be nice to Hitler. But do you have a positive obligation to be not-nice to Hitler: to make him suffer because he made others suffer? Or, OK, how about not Hitler, but someone who’s somewhat bad? Consider, for example, a woman who falls in love with, and marries, an unrepentant armed robber (with full knowledge of who he is, and with other options available to her). Is the woman morally praiseworthy for loving her husband despite his bad behavior? Or is she blameworthy because, by rewarding his behavior with her love, she helps to enable it? To capture two possible extremes of opinion about such questions, Tyler and I defined two different morality metrics, which we called … wait for it … eigenmoses and eigenjesus. Eigenmoses has the niceness scores in [-1,1], which means that you’re actively rewarded for punishing evildoers: that is, for defecting against those who defect against many moral players. Eigenjesus, by contrast, has the niceness scores in [0,1], which means that you always do at least as well by “turning the other cheek” and cooperating. (Though note that, even with eigenjesus, you get more morality credits by cooperating with moral players than by cooperating with immoral ones.) This is probably a good place to mention a second limitation of Tyler’s current study. Namely, with the current system, there’s no direct way for a player to find out how its partner has been behaving toward third parties. The only information that A gets about the goodness or evilness of player B, comes from A and B’s direct interaction. Ideally, one would like to design bots that take into account, not only the other bots’ behavior toward them, but the other bots’ behavior toward each other. So for example, even if someone is unfailingly nice to you, if that person is an asshole to everyone else, then the eigenmoses moral code would demand that you return the person’s cooperation with icy defection. Conversely, even if Gandhi is mean and hateful to you, you would still be morally obliged (interestingly, on both the eigenmoses and eigenjesus codes) to be nice to him, because of the amount of good he does for everyone else. Anyway, you can read Tyler’s paper if you want to see the results of computing the eigenmoses and eigenjesus scores for a diverse population of bots. Briefly, the results accord pretty well with intuition. When we look at eigenjesus scores, the all-cooperate bot comes out on top and the all-defect bot on the bottom (as is mathematically necessary), with TIT_FOR_TAT somewhere in the middle, and generous versions of TIT_FOR_TAT higher up. When we look at eigenmoses, by contrast, TIT_FOR_TWO_TATS comes out on top, with TIT_FOR_TAT in sixth place, and the all-cooperate bot scoring below the median. Interestingly, once again, the all-defect bot gets the lowest score (though in this case, it wasn’t mathematically necessary). Even though the measures acquit themselves well in this particular tournament, it’s admittedly easy to construct scenarios where the prescriptions of eigenjesus and eigenmoses alike violently diverge from most people’s moral intuitions. We’ve already touched on a few such scenarios above (for example, are you really morally obligated to lick the boots of someone who kicks you, just because that person is a saint to everyone other than you?). Another type of scenario involves minorities. Imagine, for instance, that 98% of the players are unfailingly nice to each other, but unfailingly cruel to the remaining 2% (who they can recognize, let’s say, by their long noses or darker skin—some trivial feature like that). Meanwhile, the put-upon 2% return the favor by being nice to each other and mean to the 98%. Who, in this scenario, is moral, and who’s immoral? The mathematical verdict of both eigenmoses and eigenjesus is unequivocal: the 98% are almost perfectly good, while the 2% are almost perfectly evil. After all, the 98% are nice to almost everyone, while the 2% are mean to those who are nice to almost everyone, and nice only to a tiny minority who are mean to almost everyone. Of course, for much of human history, this is precisely how morality worked, in many people’s minds. But I dare say it’s a result that would make moderns uncomfortable. In summary, it seems clear to me that neither eigenmoses nor eigenjesus correctly captures our intuitions about morality, any more than Φ captures our intuitions about consciousness. But as they say, I think there’s plenty of scope here for further research: for coming up with new mathematical measures that sharpen our intuitive judgments about morality, and (if we like) testing those measures out using IPD tournaments. It also seems to me that there’s something fundamentally right about the eigenvector idea: all else being equal, we’d like to say, being nice to others is good, except that aiding and abetting evildoers is not good, and the way we can recognize the evildoers in our midst is that they’re not nice to others—except that, if the people who someone isn’t nice to are themselves evildoers, then the person might again be good, and so on. The only way to cut off the infinite regress, it seems, is to demand some sort of “reflective equilibrium” in our moral judgments, and that’s precisely what eigenmorality tries to capture. On the other hand, no such idea can ever make moral debate obsolete—if for no other reason than that we still need to decide which specific eigenmorality metric to use, and that choice is itself a moral judgment. Scooped by Plato Which brings me, finally, to the second new thing that’s happened this year on the eigenmorality front. Namely, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein—who’s far and away my favorite contemporary novelist—published a charming new book entitled Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away. Here she imagines that Plato has reappeared in present-day America (she doesn’t bother to explain how), where he’s taught himself English and the basics of modern science, learned how to use the Internet, and otherwise gotten himself up to speed. The book recounts Plato’s dialogues with various modern interlocutors, as he volunteers to have his brain scanned, guest-writes a relationship advice column, participates in a panel discussion on child-rearing, and gets interviewed on cable news by “Roy McCoy” (a thinly veiled Bill O’Reilly). Often, Goldstein has Plato answer the moderns’ questions using direct quotes from the Timaeus, the Gorgias, the Meno, etc., which makes her Plato into a very intelligent sort of chatbot. This is a genre that’s not often seriously attempted, and that I’d love to read more of (possible subjects: Shakespeare, Galileo, Jefferson, Lincoln, Einstein, Turing…). Anyway, my favorite episode in the book is the first, eponymous one, where Plato visits the Googleplex in Mountain View. While eating lunch in one of the many free cafeterias, Plato is cornered by a somewhat self-important, dreadlocked coder named Marcus, who tries to convince Plato that Google PageRank has finally solved the problem agonized over in the Republic, of how to define justice. By using the Internet, we can simply crowd-source the answer, Marcus declares: get millions of people to render moral judgments on every conceivable question, and also moral judgments on each other’s judgments. Then declare those judgments the most morally reliable, that are judged the most reliable by the people who are themselves the most morally reliable. The circularity, as usual, is broken by taking the principal eigenvector of the graph of moral judgments (Goldstein doesn’t have Marcus put it that way, but it’s what she means). Not surprisingly, Plato is skeptical. Through Socratic questioning—the method he learned from the horse’s mouth—Plato manages to make Marcus realize that, in the very act of choosing which of several variants of PageRank to use in our crowd-sourced justice engine, we’ll implicitly be making moral choices already. And therefore, we can’t use PageRank, or anything like it, as the ultimate ground of morality. Whereas I imagined that the raw data for an “eigenmorality” metric would consist of numerical measures of how nice people had been to each other, Goldstein imagines the raw data to consist of abstract moral judgments, and of judgments about judgments. Also, whereas the output of my kind of metric would be a measure of the “goodness” of each individual person, the outputs of hers would presumably be verdicts about general moral and political questions. But, much like with CLEVER versus PageRank, it’s obvious that the ideas are similar—and that I should credit Goldstein with independently discovering my nerdy 16-year-old vision, in order to put it in the mouth of a nerdy character in her story. As I said before, I agree with Goldstein’s Plato that eigenmorality can’t serve as the ultimate ground of morality. But that’s a bit like saying that Google rank can’t serve as the ultimate ground of importance, because even just to design and evaluate their ranking algorithms, Google’s engineers must have some prior notion of “importance” to serve as a standard. That’s true, of course, but it omits to mention that Google rank is still useful—useful enough to have changed civilization in the space of a few years. Goldstein’s book has the wonderful property that even the ideas she gives to her secondary characters, the ones who serve as foils to Plato, are sometimes interesting enough to deserve book-length treatments of their own, and crowd-sourced morality strikes me as a perfect example. In the two previous comment threads, we got into a discussion of anthropogenic climate change, and of my own preferred way to address it and related threats to our civilization’s survival, which is simply to tax every economic activity at a rate commensurate with the environmental damage that it does, and use the funds collected for cleanup, mitigation, and research into alternatives. (Obviously, such ideas are nonstarters in the current political climate of the US, but I’m not talking here about what’s feasible, only about what’s necessary.) As several commenters pointed out, my view raises an obvious question: who is to decide how much “damage” each activity causes, and thus how much it should be taxed? Of course, this is merely a special case of the more general question: who is to decide on any question of public policy whatsoever? For the past few centuries, our main method for answering such questions—in those parts of the world where a king or dictator or Politburo doesn’t decree the answer—has been representative democracy. Democracy is, arguably, the best decision-making method that our sorry species has ever managed to put into practice, at least outside the hard sciences. But in my view, representative democracy is now failing spectacularly at possibly the single most important problem it’s ever faced: namely, that of leaving our descendants a livable planet. Even though, by and large, reasonable people mostly agree about what needs to be done—weaning ourselves off fossil fuels (especially the dirtier ones), switching to solar, wind, and nuclear, planting forests and stopping deforestation, etc.—after decades of debate we’re still taking only limping, token steps toward those goals, and in many cases we’re moving rapidly in the opposite direction. Those who, for financial, theological, or ideological reasons, deny the very existence of a problem, have proved that despite being a minority, they can push hard enough on the levers of democracy to prevent anything meaningful from happening. So what’s the solution? To put the world under the thumb of an environmentalist dictator? Absolutely not. In all of history, I don’t think any dictatorial system has ever shown itself robust against takeover by murderous tyrants (people who probably aren’t too keen on alternative energy either). The problem, I think, is epistemological. Within physics and chemistry and climatology, the people who think anthropogenic climate change exists and is a serious problem have won the argument—but the news of their intellectual victory hasn’t yet spread to the opinion page of the Wall Street Journal, or cable news, or the US Congress, or the minds of enough people to tip the scales of history. Because our domination of the earth’s climate and biosphere is new and unfamiliar; because the evidence for rapid climate change is complicated and statistical; because the worst effects are still remote from us in time, space, or both; because the sacrifices needed to address the problem are real—for all of these reasons, the deniers have learned that they can subvert the Popperian process by which bad explanations are discarded and good explanations win. If you just repeat debunked ideas through a loud enough megaphone, it turns out, many onlookers won’t be able to tell the difference between you and the people who have genuine knowledge—or they will eventually, but not until it’s too late. If you have a few million dollars, you can even set up your own parody of the scientific process: your own phony experts, in their own phony think tanks, with their own phony publications, giving each other legitimacy by citing each other. (Of course, all this is a problem for many fields, not just climate change. Climate is special only because there, the future of life on earth might literally hinge on our ability to get epistemology right.) Yet for all that, I’m an optimist—sort of. For it seems to me that the Internet has given us new tools with which to try to fix our collective epistemology, without giving up on a democratic society. Google, Wikipedia, Quora, and so forth have already improved our situation, if only by a little. We could improve it a lot more. Consider, for example, the following attempted definitions: A trustworthy source of information is one that’s considered trustworthy by many sources who are themselves trustworthy (on the same topic or on closely related topics). The current scientific consensus, on any given issue, is what the trustworthy sources consider to be the consensus. A good decision-maker is someone who’s considered to be a good decision-maker by many other good decision-makers. At first glance, the above definitions sound ludicrously circular—even Orwellian—but we now know that all that’s needed to unravel the circularity is a principal eigenvector computation on the matrix of trust. And the computation of such an eigenvector need be no more “Orwellian” than … well, Google. If enough people want it, then we have the tools today to put flesh on these definitions, to give them agency: to build a crowd-sourced deliberative democracy, one that “usually just works” in much the same way Google usually just works. Now, would those with axes to grind try to subvert such a system the instant it went online? Certainly. For example, I assume that millions of people would rate Conservapedia as a more trustworthy source than Wikipedia—and would rate other people who had done so as, themselves, trustworthy sources, while rating as untrustworthy anyone who called Conservapedia untrustworthy. So there would arise a parallel world of trust and consensus and “expertise,” mutually-reinforcing yet nearly disjoint from the world of the real. But here’s the thing: anyone would be able to see, with the click of a mouse, the extent to which this parallel world had diverged from the real one. They’d see that there was a huge, central connected component in the trust graph—including almost all of the Nobel laureates, physicists from the US nuclear weapons labs, military planners, actuaries, other hardheaded people—who all accepted the reality of humans warming the planet, and only tiny, isolated tendrils of trust reaching from that component into the component of Rush Limbaugh and James Inhofe. The deniers and their think-tanks would be exposed to the sun; they’d lose their thin cover of legitimacy. It should go without saying that the same would happen to various charlatans on the left, and should go without saying that I’d cheer that outcome as well. Some will object: but people who believe in pseudosciences—whether creationists or anti-vaxxers or climate change deniers—already know they’re in a minority! And far from being worried about it, they treat it as a badge of honor. They think they’re Galileo, that their belief in spite of a scientific consensus makes them heroes, while those in the giant central component of the trust graph are merely slavish followers. I admit all this. But the point of an eigentrust system wouldn’t be to convince everyone. As long as I’m fantasizing, the point would be that, once people’s individual decisions did give rise to a giant connected trust component, the recommendations of that component could acquire the force of law. The formation of the giant component would be the signal that there’s now enough of a consensus to warrant action, despite the continuing existence of a vocal dissenting minority—that the minority has, in effect, withdrawn itself from the main conversation and retreated into a different discourse. Conversely, it’s essential to note, if there were a dissenting minority, but that minority had strong trunks of topic-relevant trust pointing toward it from the main component (for example, because the minority contained a large fraction of the experts in the relevant field), then the minority’s objections might be enough to veto action, even if it was numerically small. This is still democracy; it’s just democracy enhanced by linear algebra. Other people will object that, while we should use the Internet to improve the democratic process, the idea we’re looking for is not eigentrust or eigenmorality but rather prediction markets. Such markets would allow us to, as my friend Robin Hanson advocates, “vote on values but bet on beliefs.” For example, a country could vote for the conditional policy that, if business-as-usual is predicted to cause sea levels to rise at least 4 meters by the year 2200, then an aggressive emissions reduction plan will be triggered, but not otherwise. But as for the prediction itself, that would be left to a futures market: a place where, unlike with voting, there’s a serious penalty for being wrong, namely losing your shirt. If the futures market assigned the prediction at least such-and-such a probability, then the policy tied to that prediction would become law. I actually like the idea of prediction markets—I have ever since I heard about them—but I consider them limited in scope. My example above, involving the year 2200, gives a hint as to why. Prediction markets are great whenever our disagreements are over something that will be settled one way or the other, to everyone’s assent, in the near future (e.g., who will win the World Cup, or next year’s GDP). But most of our important disagreements aren’t like that: they’re over which direction society should move in, which issues to care about, which statistical indicators are even the right ones to measure a country’s health. Now, those broader questions can sometimes be settled empirically, in a sense: they can be settled by the overwhelming judgment of history, as the slavery, women’s suffrage, and fascism debates were. But that kind of empirical confirmation typically takes way too long to set up a decent betting market around it. And for the non-bettable questions, a carefully-crafted eigendemocracy really is the best system I can think of. Again, I think Rebecca Goldstein’s Plato is completely right that such a system, were it implemented, couldn’t possibly solve the philosophical problem of finding the “ultimate ground of justice,” just like Google can’t provide us with the “ultimate ground of importance.” If nothing else, we’d still need to decide which of the many possible eigentrust metrics to use, and we couldn’t use eigentrust for that without risking an infinite regress. But just like Google, whatever its flaws, works well enough for you to use it dozens of times per day, so a crowd-sourced eigendemocracy might—just might—work well enough to save civilization. Update (6/20): If you haven’t been following, there’s an excellent discussion in the comments, with, as I’d hoped, many commenters raising strong and pertinent objections to the eigenmorality and eigendemocracy concepts, while also proposing possible fixes. Let me now mention what I think are the most important problems with eigenmorality and eigendemocracy respectively—both of them things that had occurred to me also, but that the commenters have brought out very clearly and explicitly. With eigenmorality, perhaps the most glaring problem is that, as I mentioned before, there’s no notion of time-ordering, or of “who started it,” in the definition that Tyler and I were using. As Luca Trevisan aptly points out in the comments, this has the consequence that eigenmorality, as it stands, is completely unable to distinguish between a crime syndicate that’s hated by the majority because of its crimes, and an equally-large ethnic minority that’s hated by the majority solely because it’s different, and that therefore hates the majority. However, unlike with mathematical theories of consciousness—where I used counterexamples to try to show that no mathematical definition of a certain kind could possibly capture our intuitions about consciousness—here the problem strikes me as much more circumscribed and bounded. It’s far from obvious to me that we can’t easily improve the definition of eigenmorality so that it does agree with most people’s moral intuition, whenever intuition renders a clear verdict, at least in the limited setting of Iterated Prisoners’ Dilemma tournaments. Let’s see, in particular, how to solve the problem that Luca stressed. As a first pass, we could do so as follows: A moral agent is one who only initiates defection against agents who it has good reason to believe are immoral (where, as usual, linear algebra is used to unravel the definition’s apparent circularity). Notice that I’ve added two elements to the setup: not only time but also knowledge. If you shun someone solely because you don’t like how they look, then we’d like to say that reflects poorly on you, even if (unbeknownst to you) it turns out that the person really is an asshole. Now, several more clauses would need to be added to the above definition to flesh it out: for example, if you’ve initiated defection against an immoral person, but then the person stops being immoral, at what point do you have a moral duty to “forgive and forget”? Also, just like with the eigenmoses/eigenjesus distinction, do you have a positive duty to initiate defection against an agent who you learn is immoral, or merely no duty not to do so? OK, so after we handle the above issues, will there still be examples that our time-sensitive, knowledge-sensitive eigenmorality definition gets badly, egregiously wrong? Maybe—I don’t know! Please let me know in the comments. Moving on to eigendemocracy, here I think the biggest problem is one pointed out by commenter Rahul. Namely, an essential aspect of how Google is able to work so well is that people have reasons for linking to webpages other than boosting those pages’ Google rank. In other words, Google takes a link structure that already exists, independently of its ranking algorithm, and that (as the economists would put it) encodes people’s “revealed preferences,” and exploits that structure for its own purposes. Of course, now that Google is the main way many of us navigate the web, increasing Google rank has become a major reason for linking to a webpage, and an entire SEO industry has arisen to try to game the rankings. But Google still isn’t the only reason for linking, so the link structure still contains real information. By contrast, consider an eigendemocracy, with a giant network encoding who trusts whom on what subject. If the only reason why this trust network existed was to help make political decisions, then gaming the system would probably be rampant: people could simply decide first which political outcome they wanted, then choose the “experts” such that claiming to “trust” them would do the most for their favored outcome. It follows that this system can only improve on ordinary democracy if the trust network has some other purpose, so that the participants have an actual incentive to reveal the truth about who they trust. So, how would an eigendemocracy suss out the truth about who trusts whom on which subject? I don’t have a very good answer to this, and am open to suggestions. The best idea so far is to use Facebook for this purpose, but I don’t know exactly how. Update (6/22): Many commenters, both here and on Hacker News, interpreted me to be saying something obviously stupid: namely, that any belief identified as “the consensus” by an eigenvector analysis is therefore the morally right one. They then energetically knocked down this strawman, with the standard examples (Hitler, slavery, discrimination against gays). Admittedly, I probably contributed to this confusion by my ill-advised decision to discuss eigenmorality and eigendemocracy in the same blog post—solely because of their mathematical similarity, and the ease with which thinking about one leads to thinking about the other. But the two are different, as are my claims about them. For the record: Eigenmorality: Within the stylized setting of an Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma tournament, with side-channels allowing agents to learn who are doing what to each other, I believe it ought to be possible, by looking at who initiated rounds of defection and forgiveness, and then doing an eigenvector analysis on the result, to identify the “moral” and “immoral” agents in a way that more-or-less accords with our moral intuitions. Even if true, of course, this wouldn’t have any obvious moral implications for hot-button issues such as abortion, gun control, or climate change, which it’s far from obvious how to encode in terms of IPD tournaments. Within the stylized setting of an Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma tournament, with side-channels allowing agents to learn who are doing what to each other, I believe it ought to be possible, by looking at who rounds of defection and forgiveness, and then doing an eigenvector analysis on the result, to identify the “moral” and “immoral” agents in a way that more-or-less accords with our moral intuitions. Even if true, of course, this wouldn’t have any obvious moral implications for hot-button issues such as abortion, gun control, or climate change, which it’s far from obvious how to encode in terms of IPD tournaments. Eigendemocracy: By doing an eigenvector analysis, to identify who people implicitly acknowledge as the “experts” within each field, I believe that it might be possible to produce results that, on average, in practice, and in contemporary society, are better and more rational than those produced by ordinary majority-voting. Obviously, there’s no guarantee whatsoever that the results of eigendemocracy would be morally acceptable ones: if the public acknowledges as “experts” people who believe evil things (as in Nazi Germany), then eigendemocracy will produce evil results. But democracy itself suffers from a precisely analogous problem. The situation that interests me is one that’s been with us since the time of ancient Athens: one where there is a consensus among the experts about the wisest course of action, and there’s also an implicit consensus among the public that those experts are indeed the experts, but the democratic system is somehow “unable to complete the modus ponens,” because of manipulation by powerful interests and the sway of demagogues. In such cases, it seems possible to me that an eigendemocracy could improve on the results of ordinary democracy—perhaps dramatically so—while still avoiding the evils of dictatorship. Crucially, in neither of the above bullet points, nor in their combination, is there any hint of a belief that “the will of the majority always defines what’s morally right” (if anything, there’s a belief in the opposite). Update (7/4): While this isn’t really a surprise—I’d astonished if it weren’t the case—I’ve now learned that several people, besides me and Rebecca Goldstein, have previously written about the ideas of eigentrust and eigendemocracy. Perhaps more surprising is that one of the earlier groups—consisting of Sep Kamvar, Mario Schlosser, and Hector Garcia-Molina from Stanford—literally called the idea “EigenTrust,” when they published about it in 2003. (Note that Garcia-Molina, in a likely non-coincidence, was Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s PhD adviser.) Kamvar et al.’s intended application for EigenTrust was to determine which nodes are trustworthy in a peer-to-peer file-sharing network, rather than (say) to reinvent democracy, or to address conundrums of epistemology and ethics that have been with us since Plato. But while the scope might be more modest, the core idea is the same. (Hat tip to commenter Babak.) As for enhancing democracy using linear algebra, it turns out that that too has already been discussed: see for example this presentation by Rob Spekkens of the Perimeter Institute, which Michael Nielsen pointed me to. (In yet another small-world phenomenon, Rob’s main interest is in quantum foundations, and in that context I’ve known him for a decade! But his interest in eigendemocracy was news to me.) If you’re wondering whether anything in this post was original … well, so far, I haven’t learned of prior work specifically about eigenmorality (e.g., in Iterated Prisoners Dilemma tournaments), much less about eigenmoses and eigenjesus. |
The bipartisan Surveillance State Repeal Act, if passed, would repeal dragnet surveillance of Americans’ personal communications, overhaul the federal domestic surveillance program, and provide protections for whistleblowers. House lawmakers Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) are co-sponsoring bill H.R.1466, which was introduced on Tuesday and would repeal the 2001 Patriot Act, limit powers of the FISA Amendments Act, and prohibit retaliation against federal national security whistleblowers, according to The Hill. “The Patriot Act contains many provisions that violate the Fourth Amendment and have led to a dramatic expansion of our domestic surveillance state,” said Rep. Massie in a statement. "Our Founding Fathers fought and died to stop the kind of warrantless spying and searches that the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act authorize. It is long past time to repeal the Patriot Act and reassert the constitutional rights of all Americans.” As it looks right now, this is HUGE!!!! If this is what it appears to be, we have to fight like animals for it! - http://t.co/nHoXtd0MGB — Wade Biery (@WadeBiery) March 24, 2015 Specifically, the bill would revoke all the powers of the Patriot Act, and instruct the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General to destroy any information collected under the FISA Amendments Act concerning any US person not under investigation. It would repeal provisions of the FISA Amendments Act to ensure surveillance of email data only occurs with a valid warrant based on probable cause. The bill would also prohibit the government from mandating that manufacturers build mechanisms allowing the government to bypass encryption in order to conduct surveillance. READ MORE:‘You are surveillance target’ – Snowden to IT specialists Additionally, the bill would protect a federal whistleblower’s efforts to expose mismanagement, waste, fraud, abuse, or criminal behavior. It would also make retaliation against anyone interfering with those efforts – such as threatening them with punishment or termination – illegal. “Really, what we need are new whistleblower protections so that the next Edward Snowden doesn’t have to go to Russia or Hong Kong or whatever the case may be just for disclosing this,” Massie said. There have been previous attempts to limit dragnet surveillance under the Patriot Act since former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden leaked information regarding the programs in 2013, but the Senate bill introduced in 2013 never reached the floor for a vote. “The warrantless collection of millions of personal communications from innocent Americans is a direct violation of our constitutional right to privacy,” said Rep. Pocan in a statement. READ MORE:DARPA launches new-tech program to protect online privacy “Revelations about the NSA’s programs reveal the extraordinary extent to which the program has invaded Americans’ privacy. I reject the notion that we must sacrifice liberty for security – we can live in a secure nation which also upholds a strong commitment to civil liberties. This legislation ends the NSA’s dragnet surveillance practices, while putting provisions in place to protect the privacy of American citizens through real and lasting change.” Portions of the Patriot Act are due for renewal on June 1. |
Donald Trump speaks during a rally at The Palladium in Carmel, Ind., on May 2. | AP Photo Poll: World-weary Trump backers turn inward When it comes to the rest of the world, the majority of Donald Trump’s supporters are ready to shut it out for the next four years, if the results from the latest Pew Research Center study released Thursday are any reliable indication. From economic involvement to concerns about refugees infiltrated by terrorists, the presumptive Republican nominee’s backers appear to be taking their candidate’s message to heart. Story Continued Below About four in 10 Americans (41 percent) said the United States does “too much” to help the world solve its problems. Among Trump supporters, that share jumped to 54 percent. While a slim plurality of Americans (49 percent to 44 percent) said they think that U.S. involvement in the global economy is a bad thing, rather than one that creates new markets and fosters growth, 65 percent of those backing Trump were negative on that count. The survey was taken in the middle of April, before the primaries that would ultimately crown Trump the party's presumptive nominee. Even so, those supporting the Manhattan real estate magnate were vocal in expressing their candidate's message to the extreme. Just 49 percent and 46 percent of Ted Cruz and John Kasich voters, respectively, called U.S. economic involvement around the world a bad thing. More than eight in 10 Republican or Republican-leaning voters who support Trump (85 percent) ranked the refugee crisis as a major threat to the U.S., compared to 74 percent of Republicans, 55 percent of independents and 40 percent of Democrats. Nearly eight in 10 Trump supporters (78 percent) said they oppose increasing aid to foreign countries, while strong majorities backing Trump also indicated opposition to importing goods from developing countries as well as increasing U.S. companies’ investment in developing countries. And while a majority of Trump’s supporters (64 percent) said that U.S. participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a good thing, more than eight in 10 Cruz and Kasich supporters responded with less skepticism about the alliance. The lack of enthusiasm for global involvement is not reflected in widespread support for military action against the Islamic State. Majorities of all voters, regardless of party or preferred candidate, said they approve of the campaign in Iraq and Syria. And about seven in 10 Trump supporters said they support sending ground troops to the fight, roughly the same proportion as Cruz and Kasich voters. Pew conducted the survey via landlines and cellphones from April 12 to 19, polling a random sample of 2,008 adults nationwide with an overall margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. The sample included Republicans, Democrats, independents and supporters of individual candidates. Among the 303 voters registered or leaning toward the Republican Party who also support Trump, the margin of error is plus or minus 6.4 percentage points. |
(Getty Images) Mark Zuckerberg has cleared hurdle after hurdle in building Facebook (ticker: FB) from a small social media network into a global empire. From monetizing his platform to figuring out mobile growth to turning acquisitions into gold, Zuckerberg has checked off every box and made Facebook shareholders much richer in the progress. Now we get to see what he can do with a gigantic set of goggles. When Oculus founder Palmer Luckey hand-delivered the first Rift virtual reality set to Alaska this weekend, it was a ceremonial step forward for Facebook. The company – which has grown to $330 billion on the power of social media – is trying to expand its business into the world of hardware – via the nearly untested waters of virtual reality, no less. Some investors are frothing at the mouth over the possibilities of this brand-new field, but can the Oculus Rift really push FB shares higher going forward? And if not, does Facebook still have a lucrative future without it? What is the Oculus Rift? The Oculus Rift is the world's first true home virtual reality kit. While Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) and Samsung Electronics offer gear that allows you virtual reality capabilities via your smartphone, the Rift is the real, dedicated deal, and has one purpose only: an immersive virtual reality experience. All you need is $599, a high-end PC and a love for video gaming. Yes, at its launch, the Oculus Rift essentially is a video game console. "At launch, there are over 75 games available for Oculus Rift along with countless simulators and virtual reality exploration apps, with hundreds more titles confirmed and in development," says Forbes technology contributor Brad Moon. But many others merely see gaming as the beginning. "For now, Oculus Rift may be getting shipped out to aggressive, couch-bound gamers nationwide, but investors see its potential in the sports world for extra practice reps, or medical field for training, or in hospitals for treating neurological disorders," says Nicolas Martell, co-founder of daily financial newsletter MarketSnacks. Zuckerberg himself sees the Rift as "a new communication platform," stressing that users one day will be able to share "not just moments with your friends online, but entire experiences and adventures." An early entry into gaming merely puts Oculus on the map. "Facebook's support is likely to be what eventually kicks VR and Oculus Rift into mainstream adoption," Moon says. "Facebook has the deep pockets to market the Oculus Rift, further cementing its lead, but more importantly it is the epicenter for what could be the killer app for VR: social media." What will the Oculus Rift do for Facebook stock? Analysts project a $30 billion market for virtual reality by 2020. What this means for Facebook is very much up for debate, but one thing's for certain – we won't find out this year. Facebook itself admitted as much, with CFO Dave Wehner saying earlier this year, "It's early to be talking about large volume, so at this point I don't think we're giving a lot of color around supply chain and that sort of thing. It's not going to be material to our financials this year." Still, plenty of pundits believe success will be found down the road, even if it's not right around the corner. "Oculus Rift will likely be more of a 2017-18 event in terms of having a significant impact on Facebook's revenue because it isn't fully cooked yet," says Rob Enderle, technology analyst for Enderle Group. "It ships with one camera and an Xbox controller but needs two cameras and VR controllers that won't show up until later this year for a full experience. Then there will be months of working through and refining the content and accessories that are needed. "But once fully cooked, this device should transform both gaming and social interaction over a distance and likely change the way we do a number of things, like distance learning and telemedicine," Enderle says. Martell sees the long game, too. "Don't expect virtual reality to make a real impact on Facebook's next earnings report," he says. "Zuckerberg isn't betting on the Oculus brand or the Rift headset – he's focused on VR as a platform with a variety of applications as diverse as the random comments in your Facebook news feed." However, hype doesn't always mean results. The technological landscape is littered with as many failures as successes. Even virtual reality itself has had a few chances, but never caught on. Charles Sizemore, portfolio manager on Covestor and chief investment officer at Sizemore Capital Management, a registered investment advisor in Dallas, is among those who think virtual reality will stall again. "Gamers might embrace it, but I don't see a lot of people watching movies on their couch wearing a face mask," he says. "A lot of the consumer innovations of recent years – 3D television, curved screens, etc. -- have failed to make much of a splash. I expect this to be mostly a niche product." But even if Oculus does sink, don't count Facebook out as dead money. Facebook is great, goggles or not. Facebook is sitting near its all-time high following a 40 percent run over the past year, and has expanded its reach to more than 1 billion people on a hunk of rock that has just 3.3 billion Internet users. How much more can we expect Facebook to grow? Plenty more, apparently. "Facebook's stock has skyrocketed as its mobile platform has proved to be far more lucrative than expected (80 percent of its advertising revenue now comes from mobile)," says JJ Feldman, portfolio manager at Miracle Mile Advisors. "Even if Oculus fails to capture the gaming population, Facebook's stock should not suffer as the mobile expansion of Facebook's platform will outweigh the failed headset. In addition to that, Oculus' purchase price of $2 billion only accounts for about 0.6 percent of FB's market cap. "Looking forward, Facebook has a rosy outlook," Feldman says. "Analysts expect that the company's revenue will double in the next two years as better ad targeting capabilities and a rising contribution from Instagram will boost the company's top line." Yale Bock, a portfolio manager on Covestor and president of Y H & C, a registered investment advisor in Las Vegas, says Facebook has "attractive mobile assets in Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus," but notes a few challenges, including monetizing those assets in the future. Valuation is an issue, too. "Right now, the price seems to be pretty prohibitive," he says. "The stock is fully priced, to say the least, so a buyer really has to believe in exponential growth of these emerging platforms." Even a true Oculus bear thinks Facebook is chock full of upside. "Facebook is the lone standout success story in social media," Sizemore says. "None of the other social media platforms have managed to monetize their user base like Facebook has. And the closest thing Facebook has to a true rival – Twitter (TWTR) – is still something of a niche player. Given that Facebook is only starting to find ways to monetize Instagram, the company should have a lot of healthy growth in front of it." |
Image: Sarah Jamie Lewis/Twitter Sites on the so-called dark web are designed to protect the anonymity of both their visitors and owners. But plenty of administrators make mistakes in setting them up, sometimes leading to the server's real IP address being leaked, or they might leave identifying metadata in files uploaded to the site. Now, a researcher has developed a custom tool for automatically scanning Tor hidden services for a slew of vulnerabilities and issues, meaning anyone, from dark web drug lords to people hosting whistleblowing platforms, can make sure that their site really is protected. "I want anonymity tools to be the best; there are people whose lives depend on them," Sarah Jamie Lewis, the independent security researcher who came up with the tool, told Motherboard in an encrypted chat. "OnionScan," as the program is called, checks sites for problems that may unmask servers or identify their owners. That might be an open server status page, which allows anyone to see what other sites are being hosted by the same person. Or there might be metadata in images on the site, revealing GPS coordinates of where they were taken. The first version of OnionScan will be released this weekend, Lewis said. "While doing some research earlier this year I kept coming across the same issues in hidden services—exposed Apache status pages, images not stripped of exif data, pages revealing information about the tools used to build it with, etc. The goal is [to] provide an easy way of testing these things to drive up the security bar," Lewis added. It works "pretty much the same as any web security scanner, just tailored for deanonymization vectors," she continued. OnionScan is not subtle, however. "It is worth noting that the software is noisy; it needs to make a number of requests to download images and files," Lewis said. "It sticks out like a sore thumb in logs." Lewis started her research with dark web markets, assuming that they would have developed some cool security features. "They have a huge economic incentive to be innovative in this space—assuming they aren't trying to scam people," she added. Indeed, the marketplace AlphaBay has made it mandatory for vendors to use two-factor authentication. "However, what I also found was many, many sites failing basic security practices like the above. So many that I started to write a tool to help me catalogue them—and this is where the tool came from," Lewis said. "If so may of those sites are failing themselves and their users, I am willing to bet so are anonymous political blogs and other users who desperately need the anonymity." Other researchers have previously reported pretty serious problems with how hidden services have been configured. UK-based Thomas White discovered the IP address of the now-defunct Kiss Marketplace, as well as that of a dark web fraud market. In June of last year, White claimed to have gathered information on more than 500 sites, and the IP addresses of eight. In future updates, Lewis' tool will also pull other potentially identifying data, such as PGP keys and comparing the different software used to generate them. |
New Delhi: Former Indian cricketer Sourav Ganguly is likely to replace Duncan Fletcher as the next coach of the Indian cricket team, according to reports. As per a report published in a leading English newspaper, an unindentified insider from Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB), Ganguly is believed to have had an informal word with new BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya about his keenness to replace Duncan Fletcher, whose term as India coach ended after the World Cup. "Sourav's achievements as a cricketer and his tactical acumen present a strong case. But he has to apply for the job. They had a discussion but Dalmiya didn't give him any assurance," the insider said. Those who are keen on taking up the job will have to apply, make a presentation and then sit for an interview. A panel of BCCI office bearers and former India captains are going to conduct the interviews. Rahul Dravid's name is also in contention for the post. The decision is expected to be taken within a fortnight. The BCCI Working Committee will discuss and debate the above options at its April 26 meeting. |
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey (R) vetoed a bipartisan bill last month that would have protected student journalists from being punished for criticizing their schools. Despite passing both the Senate and House of Representatives with bipartisan support, Ducey sided with SB 1384’s few detractors in his veto statement, according to The Arizona Republic, expressing concerns “that this bill could create unintended consequences, especially on high school campuses where adult supervision and mentoring is most important.” "It is the responsibility of us, as capable adults, to have some say over what students can say." [RELATED: Student reporter fed to wolves for challenging anti-white prof] With exceptions for content that would violate the law, such as libel or incitement to violence, the bill would have prohibited public schools, including colleges and universities, from restricting or influencing the content of student publications, even when those publications are funded in whole or in part by the institution. Moreover, administrators would be forbidden from restricting the distribution of such media, as well as from imposing disciplinary measures on a student or student media advisor in retribution for critical content. Republican state Senator Kimberly Yee, who sponsored the legislation, explained that it was intended to circumvent the 1988 Supreme Court ruling in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, which deemed student publications to be “limited public forums” that are subject to censorship by the schools that sponsor them. North Dakota passed a similar law in 2015, inspiring state lawmakers in Missouri and Nebraska to introduce their own versions last year. [RELATED: Missouri lawmaker introduces bill to protect student journalists] While the bill was being debated, The Daily Courier reports that several lawmakers objected on the grounds that school officials need to exercise a certain amount of control over student journalists, particularly at the high school level. “It is the responsibility of us, as capable adults, to have some say over what students can say and at what level they can criticize governments, schools, principals absolutely free of any of the good sense that should accompany those kinds,” argued Republican state Rep. Jay Lawrence. “At the high school level they are not capable of absolutism, absolute total free speech, without adult supervision.” Noting that student publications are generally taxpayer-supported to some extent, Rep. David Stringer agreed that “school authorities need to have some control over the content of what goes into a student newspaper.” Democratic Rep. Ken Clark scoffed at such concerns, however, saying, “I don’t believe you can fully teach students who are trying to learn how to be responsible journalists unless you respect the First Amendment.” [RELATED: Nebraska state legislator proposes bill to protect student journalists] Despite ultimately passing with strong bipartisan support, though, Gov. Ducey chose to veto the legislation on May 24, spending the first two paragraphs of his veto statement proclaiming his “strong” support for free speech and the free press before closing with a vague allusion to “unintended consequences” he fears would arise from allowing those freedoms to high school students. “The ability exists under the current protections and the current law for student journalists to do investigations, to learn the craft, to express their First Amendment abilities and there are a lot of avenues to do that,” a spokesperson for Ducey’s office later elaborated. Yee, however, told Campus Reform that she was motivated to introduce the bill partly by her own experience of censorship as a student journalist, indicating that the veto has not deterred her from pursuing similar legislation in the future. "While I am disappointed that SB 1384 did not become law this session, I will always stand with our student journalists in defense of their First Amendment rights. It was my honor to advocate on their behalf in 1992 as a censored student journalist and even more so today, 25 years later,” she stated. “I am thankful for the Arizona Senate's unanimous, bipartisan support for the bill and the House's overwhelming support. I am grateful for the many Arizonans and student journalists across the country who voiced their support along the way.” Among those supporters was the Student Press Law Center, whose executive director, Frank LoMonte, was fiercely critical of Ducey’s veto. “Someone needs to ask the governor, 'Do you really believe that students should be forbidden from criticizing their schools or advocating for a better quality education?'” LoMonte told the Republic. “That's what's the bill aims to protect and that's the kind of speech that schools have habitually censored.” Campus Reform reached out to Governor Ducey’s office in regard to the veto, but received no comment on the action. Ducey has been in office since 2015, and is up for re-election this upcoming cycle. Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @shannadnelson |
Some people may look down on gifts consisting mostly of sweets, but this one was actually perfect for me. Exactly what I wanted! I had it in my notes that I keep taking care of everyone around me, not for myself enough - and I just want something to brighten my day... And the sun surely came out when I opened the box! I was really hungry when I got home with the box from the post office, but I was more curious about what was inside so I didn't even eat before opening it. There were a number of smaller gifts inside the box, and a sweet greeting card. Each separate gift had a little note on it saying something about the gift itself... Perfect! I need to take note on how to do it myself, next year... After a shot of the pile of gifts that emerged, I started opening them one by one. I found a number of treats from Scotland - both edible and non-edible, and I tried them out right away. THANK YOU SANTA! You did wonderfully, I got exactly what I wanted, and you actually inspired me to send a little thank-you gift towards you as well... It will take time, though... |
NFL teams have played 768 regular-season games over the past three seasons. Quarterbacks have made 1,536 starts, and in all but 30 cases, they logged at least 15 "action plays" -- defined as plays other than handoffs, spike plays and kneel-downs. 2010-12 Total Starts With 90+ Total QBR* Those quarterbacks' cumulative Total QBR score was 53.1. They produced single-game scores in the 90s in 163 starts or 10.7 percent of the time, and they went 154-9 in those games, with some of the defeats coming against each other. These were special performances, and if you look at the charts at right and below, you'll notice the very best quarterbacks -- Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, etc. -- accounting for a sizable chunk of them. You'll also notice all but one of these quarterbacks playing at least 32 games over the past three seasons. Russell Wilson is the exception. He has only 16 starts over the past three seasons, but he has nonetheless accounted for five of these 90-plus games, including four of them in his nine most recent regular-seasons starts. Wilson and Manning have reached this exalted standard in a league-high 31.3 percent of their starts during the time period in question. This shouldn't come as a surprise to those following along here on the NFC West blog. We've followed Wilson closely from the beginning and have seen him methodically answer questions about his height, his readiness to start as a rookie and his ability to throw from the pocket. Most of us have seen enough to expect great things from him in the future. 2010-12 Pct. Starts With 90+ Total QBR* Not everyone is so sure. Here at ESPN.com, Jeff Chadiha suggested expectations for Wilson were unrealistic, a position we considered Tuesday. More recently, Chris Sprow raised concerns for Seattle and other teams ranked highly in our Future Power Rankings package. The concerns seem overrated to me in light of the evidence. Take another look at the names in the charts. Every player listed except for Joe Flacco and Matthew Stafford has achieved Pro Bowl status. Wilson is the least experienced of the group by a wide margin, but that makes his inclusion all the more impressive. Opponents could, I suppose, suddenly expose Wilson as a fraud, but they were having a tougher time stopping him as the 2012 season progressed. His development far outpaced opponents' ability to deal with him. That will not always be the case to the same degree, but Wilson so far hasn't met a challenge he could not overcome, and decisively at that. I wouldn't want to bet against him. |
MEXICO CITY — It might have been any other day in El Salvador, but as the hours ticked into evening it became notable not for what happened, but for what didn’t. An entire day had passed without a single murder in one of the world’s most violent places. There was no particular reason the count was zero on Wednesday, Howard Cotto, the director of the National Civil Police, told local reporters the next day. Indeed, the police had registered 99 murders in the first 10 days of 2017 — an average of almost 10 a day. Gang violence in El Salvador, an impoverished Central American country of 6.5 million, has given it one of the highest murder rates of any nation that is not at war. Youth gangs battle one another over extortion rackets that extend to the smallest of businesses, and no one seems to be immune from the bloodshed, which is also exacting a toll on the police. Mr. Cotto noted that violence began to decline last year, which ended with 5,278 murders. Although the average was more than 14 a day, it was still 20 percent fewer than in 2015. |
Introducing the latest Dragon Rebound: The Dark Half It’s time for a brand new rebound book! We are giving the Dragon Rebound treatment to The Dark Half. What started out as a prank, has now evolved into the next book in the custom-bound series of 1st edition novels by Stephen King. For those who don’t know, some members of thedarktower.org decided to “punk” me by making up an elaborate April Fools day joke in which they created a fake announcement for a new release of The Dark Half. The perpetrators of this hoax went to a great deal of trouble creating digital mockups, and other embellishments, then packaged it all up as a parody of the work I do. I was flattered. I was ruffled. I was impressed! I liked the concepts so much, that I decided to make their ideas a reality, with a few tweaks and touches from the DRE team. So thank you Simon and Jerome!! For those unfamiliar with these books, we work with a bookbinder and other artisans, to rebind an original 1st edition page block, and we incorporate elements of the story into the design of the binding. It is our way of honoring the work of Stephen King, and creating an edition that collectors, and fans can cherish. Quarter Leather Binding The book is presented in two binding states. Both are quarter bound in leather, with one version bound in black leather, and another in white. Half of the run is white, and half black. When ordering, you can select your preferred color (while supplies last.) The front panels and spine are foil stamped. Slate Covered Box We have sourced this incredible Quartzite slate material from Italy, and it will be used to cover the custom box which will house this beautifully bound book. Made to look like George Stark’s gravestone, it is the perfect covering material for this edition. It ain’t cheap, but hey, we want the best for our rebound books! Lars Hokanson We have been working with Jake Hokanson, the son of the late Lars Hokanson. Lars was the artist who created the bird engravings which appeared in the 1st edition of The Dark Half. We were so fortunate to have connected with Jake, and he was very helpful in providing us with this artwork. As a way to remember Lars, and pay tribute to his work, the birds that are stamped on the cover of the book, are the very same birds that were created by the artist! Unique Floating Feathers Endpapers This Floating Feathers pattern is silkscreened in India on a navy cotton base paper. It has a beautiful texture and feels just wonderful to the touch. Engraved Wood Block Bonus ALL orders received will ship with this limited edition promotional item. This is a laser engraved solid wood block, cut to the shape of a gravestone, and expertly engraved. We are only making enough of these for the orders received, and will not be making more. Limited Edition Letterpress Print Bonus Included with ALL orders is this special limited edition print of the bird engravings by Lars Hokanson. This is letterpress printed on a beautiful 300 gsm Somerset Velvet cotton paper, with a deckled lower edge. Each print is numbered by hand. Bangor Public Library Donation A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this rebound edition will be donated to The Bangor Public Library. The vision of the Library is to contribute to the prosperity and growth of the city of Bangor by fostering the spirit of exploration, the joy of reading, the pursuit of knowledge, and the preservation of its community’s history. Rebound Run Up until the Rebound IT, these custom bound books were known primarily to a small group of collectors. When we announced the IT book, it generated a lot of publicity, and a whole lot more people discovered Dragon Rebound. Ever since the beginning, there have always been folks who missed out for one reason or another. Now there are just more people missing out. With a limited run of only 26 copies, demand is far greater than supply, resulting in a bunch of folks who are disappointed that they missed out. But that’s how it goes with limited runs like this. You just can’t make everyone happy. The Wait List that we maintain now has over 250 names on it! We could never satisfy all of these interested parties. But there’s a way to satisfy twenty-six more of them. When I created the first rebound book, one of my main motivations was the joy it brought to the people who bought a copy. That motivation has not changed, and if I can make a few more folks happy campers, then why not. For that reason, this rebound edition of The Dark Half will be made in an expanded quantity of 52 books. For some of you who have been on the wait list for a long time, and have desperately wanted one of these books, you will now have a chance to purchase a copy. If you are on the wait list, and you are one of the next twenty-six people on the list in the order in which you requested to be added, you will receive an email asking if you would like to purchase a copy. If you decline, we will continue to go up the list. The books will be lettered A-Z on the first twenty-six, and AA, BB, CC, etc. on the remaining twenty-six. Current rebound owners will have first color choice, and the remaining colors will be available on a first come, first served basis. This custom-bound edition of The Dark Half by Stephen King uses the page block from an original Viking trade first edition hardback. The book is hand-sewn and bound in quarter leather with a white and black foil stamped cover and spine. The front and back boards are covered in black and white European cloth. Half of the books are bound in black leather and half in white leather. Endpapers are silkscreened in India on a navy cotton base paper. The book is housed in a custom handmade cigar-style box covered in black Quartzite slate from Italy, and lined with black velvet. These editions are first offered to owners of the previous custom-bound book, who have right of first refusal on new titles. If a previous owner declines to purchase the new book, or one should become available for some reason, then we contact people on the wait list in the order in which the submission was received. We are currently not taking any new Wait List submissions. $1,150 SOLD OUT |
Norquist's tax pledge has long been a litmus test for any conservative. | JAY WESTCOTT/POLITICO GOP rookies buck Norquist Grover’s grip may be loosening. A small but increasingly vocal group of freshman Republicans are publicly rejecting the idea they are beholden to Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform pledge for their entire congressional careers. Story Continued Below One such member, Scott Rigell of Virginia, has openly rejected the pledge, explaining on his website that it would prevent Congress in some cases from eliminating corporate loopholes or government subsidies because those changes would have to be revenue-neutral. The math, he said, just doesn’t make sense. And Reid Ribble (R-Wis.) told the Los Angeles Times he wouldn’t be signing the pledge again — or any pledge for that matter — not because he wants to raise taxes but because he wants to close certain loopholes to help pay down the deficit. Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) scoffed at the idea the pledge was some sort of blood oath. A number of other offices of freshman members told POLITICO their bosses had sworn oaths to do what was best for their districts, not Americans for Tax Reform. “I signed that thing in the desert of Afghanistan,” West said in an interview. “I got home and they wanted me to sign again during my campaign, and I wouldn’t, and Grover started yelling at my campaign manager. Grover is a nice guy, but I think he’s a little misguided.” “I don’t care if he has my name on his website, it’s meaningless,” West added. “I think my voting record speaks for itself.” The tax pledge has long been a litmus test for any conservative who wants to be taken seriously in a Republican primary. That some newcomers are repudiating it lends support to critics who argue the document is more valuable as a campaign tool than a guidepost for governing. Norquist insists he’s not bothered by any hedging on the part of the freshmen. “I don’t lie awake at night thinking any of these characters are going to vote for a tax increase,” Norquist said. “The leadership is not going to bring it up. All but six Republicans in the House have signed the pledge and they have a 25-vote margin. It’s a moot point.” But the slip in devotion, however slight, is notable considering how strong a hold the pledge has had over the GOP. A handful of other freshman members privately told POLITICO they had been struggling with their ATR pledge signatures, as they felt it had become clear the pledge was a hindrance to certain tax reforms they’d like to see happen. Some members aren’t backing off the pledge, but when asked about it, their offices didn’t glow with praise for Norquist. Rep. Robert Dold (R-Ill.) pledged only “to do what’s best for his constituents back home,” said spokeswoman Stefani Zimmerman. And a spokesman for Rep. Trey Gowdy, one of the most conservative House freshmen, emphasized that, first and foremost, Gowdy has “taken an oath to uphold the Constitution,” though the congressman isn’t backing away from the pledge. Make no mistake, these members are all opposed to tax increases. But many don’t seem to take much stock in the fact that Norquist has their signatures on a piece of paper. |
Introducing: Alternate Playstyles! You can now choose to play as Lucario without the Aura system! This version of Lucario will have consistent power regardless of his percent and stock deficits, making him a more consistent character! Have a lead? You've still got your strength! Marth gets the treatment as well! Prefer Lucina's lack of a tipper mechanic? Now you can play Marth this way in SSB Crusade! Hit the opponent in close? It's still powerful! This version of Marth has hits powered between the normal mid-blade and tipper strengths, with knockback angles following normal mid-blade angles. One exception, his down air, will be a meteor when playing as Spread Marth. Try out this alt for a more beginner-friendly and consistent experience! You can even play as a solo Ice Climber! When played alone, the Climber will have increased damage output, combo potential (especially off throws), and kill power, making your Climber a formidable foe even without their teammate! Prefer to play as Nana? We've got you covered, check out the names on the HUD! Nana and Popo will play almost identically, with the only difference being Nana's lighter weight. We've also buffed the solo Climber's special moves to help stand a fighting chance alone. Neutral Special for example has reduced ending lag, allowing a faster rate of fire and a projectile that can be combo'd off of! Down Special will not be escapable once an opponent is caught, and the final hit of the blizzard will pull them inward for a combo followup! Wondering how you will recover without your partner to Belay? The bird has got your back in this new Solo Climber exclusive Up Special! What new forms would you like to see in v0.9.1? Let us know! _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ UPDATE We have noticed some confusion lately as to the nature of alternate playstyles, what qualifies, what does not, and the difference between them and character alternates. To clarify, an alternate playstyle is a change to the programming and mechanics of a character to alter the way that character plays, without creating a new character or moveset or any new sprites. New sprites and movesets are required for alternate Characters such as Evil Ryu and Pichu, and as such they involve the same workload as entirely new characters. Alternate playstyles have a fraction of that workload involved, expanding the replay value and variety of the game without delaying its release. What qualifies as an alternate playstyle: - Changed mechanics (Lucario without aura) - Changed playstyle (Marth without tippers) - Minor moveset changes (Smash 4 B moves, Crusade B moves, Melee A moves) What does not qualify: - Entirely new characters based on the same core character (Paper Mario, Mega Man X) - Completely new movesets (Including A moves and B moves) Have an idea for an alternate? Let us know in the comments below! _________________ Perfect Hell SSBC Head Character Balancer SSBC Programmer SSBC Back Room Founder SSF2 Back Room Member Competitive discussion is what I do Crusade Movesets: _________________SSF2 Back Room MemberCrusade Movesets: projectcrusade.forumotion.com/t1613-pending-moveset-topic#45702 Last edited by Perfect Hell on Thu Mar 17, 2016 10:42 am; edited 2 times in total |
You know the Tesla Model S, the $70,000 (and-up) electric car that "nobody can afford"? Well, evidently, more than a few people can afford it. In fact, in the first quarter of this year, more people bought a Tesla Model S than bought any of the similarly priced gasoline-powered cars from the top three German luxury brands, according to data from LMC Automotive. About 4,750 buyers bought a Model S while just over 3,000 people bought Mercedes' top-level sedan. Take a look inside a Tesla Model S and check out what makes it special. This is not a perfect comparison, of course. Actual selling prices for the Mercedes S-class sedan start toward the upper end of the Tesla Model S price range, according the the auto pricing Web site TrueCar.com, while prices for the other cars are at the lower end. And nobody gets a $7,500 federal tax credit for a buying an S-class or an A8. Also, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi each sell a full range of cars and SUVs while Tesla buyers have only one model to choose from. The blog GreenCarReports.com first noted the comparison. Related: In defense of Tesla's price tag Still, let's face it, Tesla (TSLA)'s one model is doing pretty well, especially for a start-up automaker with a limited dealer network. Last week was a particularly stellar one. On Wednesday, Tesla announced a profit that exceeded Wall Street estimates. It also raised its Model S sales estimates for this year from 20,000 to 21,000. Then on Thursday Consumer Reports came out and called the Model S the best car that it had ever tested. (Its overall performance was "off the charts," according to the magazine's head of auto testing, but it only earned 99 out of a possible 100 points because it can't be driven extremely long distances without recharging.) Despite some early stumbles -- such as a squabble with the New York Times over its new "super charger" network and push back from traditional car dealers over its sales strategy -- Tesla seems to humming along, at least for now. |
The "Orange Is the New Black" streamer told the CRTC that Canadian content is already doing well online, making new regulatory obligations unnecessary. TORONTO – Netflix has told Canada's TV watchdog not to tax the U.S. video streaming giant as it does business here, despite industry calls for Netflix Canada to subsidize local content production. "The imposition of a 'Netflix tax' or 'OTT Tax' may make it more difficult for Netflix to offer access to this content at the same affordable rate," Corie Wright, director of global public policy at Netflix, told the CRTC in an 11-page submission filed on June 27, 2014. Wright told the TV regulator, which is holding upcoming public hearings on the future of Canadian broadcasting, that Netflix already licenses Canadian programming for its Netflix Canada service, which launched here in 2010. So slapping a tax on Netflix Canada "might translate into an increase in price without … a commensurate benefit for Canadian content, its producers, or Canadian consumers," the Netflix submission argued. The CRTC in the past has ruled it will not regulate Netflix Canada or force the U.S. video streaming giant and other foreign digital platforms to subsidize homegrown Canadian TV series. But that hasn't stopped calls from local players for Netflix Canada, iTunes Canada and other so-called “over-the-top” (OTT) U.S. digital platforms to be compelled to subsidize indigenous TV production. Netflix's Wright told the CRTC that "Canadian content is thriving online," making new regulatory obligations for Netflix Canada unnecessary. |
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you’re probably very aware of all the new and old music festivals that have become all the rage. So, we decided to compile the top reasons that we KNOW make you music festival obsessed. Feel free to let us know if we missed any of the key reasons, but we’re pretty sure we’re spot on. 1. You and your friends have perfected the sport of purchasing a ticket at early bird prices. You even feel comfortable spending hundreds of dollars without knowing what the lineup is. It pretty much works like this; you get all your friends together with multiple laptops going per person, opening as many ticket links as possible to ensure you get a ticket..or two..or five. 2. And as a result, you’re forever on some sort of a payment plan. When you’re spending hundreds of dollars every week because you can’t miss the newest and greatest festival or even the festival you’ve already attended year after year, you have no other options. Food, gas for your car, vacations, clothes (unless it’s for said festival), it all goes on the back burner. 3. You even have a savings account dedicated to ticket and travel related expenses. Instead of putting some of your paycheck into a separate savings account, you know, for practical items such as paying off your student loans, your electric bill, or rent, you take $200 out of your checks each month to pay off your festival debt. 4. Your iPhone is full of lists of things you’ll need for the upcoming festival. Don’t forget your ticket, of course. 5. You’re always waiting for the lineups to release, but when they do, you’re upset because the ONE artist you wanted to see isn’t on it. It’s okay though, you take comfort in the fact that you’ll see them at a show or festival the month after. 6. Your Facebook timeline is a one giant advertisement for music festivals and local shows. 7. You dream of going to Tomorrowland in Belgium. One day. 8. OK, it’s the night before the festival and you’re not able to sleep, despite knowing you need every last bit of energy to last through the weekend. 9. You have a shrine dedicated to the water bottle your favorite DJ threw into the crowd. Ever since Diplo brought you up on stage to Express Yourself, it’s been true love. 10. When your favorite DJs have back-to-back sets across the festival grounds. 11. You have a box in your room dedicated to old tickets, flyers, wristbands, and any other piece of the festival you were able to get your hands on. 12. You wear your festival wristbands year-round to cling on to the memories of the best weekend ever. You might even be in a contest with your friends to see who can keep the wristband on the longest. And if you take your wristbands off days after the festival comes to an end, you might as well stop reading this because only a true fan would wear their wristbands weeks and months after the festival. BONUS: When the festival is over and it’s time to leave. No explanation necessary. |
Nur Islam, 22, was filmed setting himself on fire after getting annoyed at waiting too long at a bank (Picture: 9 News) A disgruntled customer set himself on fire after waiting too long at a bank. Nur Islam, 22, was caught on camera calmly entering the Commonwelath Bank in Springvale and then pouring petrol from a 20-litre container in the doorway. Footage shows him bending down and igniting the fuel using a lighter from his pocket, which then sparks a large fire which engulfs his entire body. Thick black smoke fills up in the bank as the fire continues to spread causing customers to flee. Sorry, this video isn't available any more. The fire, which happened on November 18 last year, destroyed $2.5 million building and injured 33 people, including children. Islam, who spent four months in hospital with burns to 60% of his body, appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court today and admitted to lighting the fire but said he ‘did not intend to hurt anyone’. Advertisement Advertisement He told the court he was ‘angry at being kept waiting’. MORE: Toys ‘R’ Us files for bankruptcy ahead of Christmas It happened on November 18 last year (Picture: 9 News) Islam pleaded not guilty to 33 of the charges of intentionally causing injury and serious injury. He faces 108 charges in total including arson and property damage by fire. His lawyer, Barnaby Johnson, said the footage showed Islam pouring petrol onto the floor, stepping in the centre of the puddle and appearing to have ‘deliberately lit himself’. Mr Johnson added: ‘He suffered the most significant and catastrophic injuries as a result of this incident.’ The customer allegedly walked to a nearby service station and bought 11.33 litres of fuel for $14.71.(Picture: 9 News) It is believed Islam, from Myanmar, had wanted to withdraw $442 from his account but became angry because he had to wait a long time. So he allegedly walked to a nearby service station and bought 11.33 litres of fuel for $14.71. He then returned to the bank, poured the petrol in a trail from the ATMs into the bank’s interior before using a cigarette lighter to ignite the fuel, police claim. Islam is due to appear at the County Court of Victoria for a first directions hearing tomorrow. MORE: Shocking and unprecedented scenes as students have night out in Portsmouth MORE: Sex and sleep are more powerful than money when it comes to happiness |
Thank you for supporting the journalism that our community needs! For unlimited access to the best local, national, and international news and much more, try an All Access Digital subscription: We hope you have enjoyed your trial! To continue reading, we recommend our Read Now Pay Later membership. Simply add a form of payment and pay only 27¢ per article. *Introductory pricing schedule for 12 month: $0.99/month plus tax for first 3 months, $5.99/month for months 4 - 6, $10.99/month for months 7 - 9, $13.99/month for months 10 - 12. Standard All Access Digital rate of $16.99/month begins after first year. *Introductory pricing schedule for 12 month: $0.99/month plus tax for first 3 months, $5.99/month for months 4 - 6, $10.99/month for months 7 - 9, $13.99/month for months 10 - 12. Standard All Access Digital rate of $16.99/month begins after first year. *Introductory pricing schedule for 12 month: $0.99/month plus tax for first 3 months, $5.99/month for months 4 - 6, $10.99/month for months 7 - 9, $13.99/month for months 10 - 12. Standard All Access Digital rate of $16.99/month begins after first year. *Introductory pricing schedule for 12 month: $0.99/month plus tax for first 3 months, $5.99/month for months 4 - 6, $10.99/month for months 7 - 9, $13.99/month for months 10 - 12. Standard All Access Digital rate of $16.99/month begins after first year. Thank you for supporting the journalism that our community needs! For unlimited access to the best local, national, and international news and much more, try an All Access Digital subscription: We hope you have enjoyed your trial! To continue reading, we recommend our Read Now Pay Later membership. Simply add a form of payment and pay only 27¢ per article. Thank you for supporting the journalism that our community needs! For unlimited access to the best local, national, and international news and much more, try an All Access Digital subscription: We hope you have enjoyed your trial! To continue reading, we recommend our Read Now Pay Later membership. Simply add a form of payment and pay only 27¢ per article. Roe will have a heavy hand in the daily operations of the Authority, which is in the early stages of a system-wide overhaul to health delivery. The contentious change has so far been marred by the release of information in confusing bits and pieces and almost-weekly protests and rallies. “What’s really exciting about this job is there’s a tremendous opportunity to redefine how we’re delivering care,” says Roe, during his first interview since the Free Press learned he would take on the role, effective Sept. 5. That being said, Dr. Bruce Roe is visibly pleased by the opportunity to be the Authority’s next top doctor, this after two years at the helm of St. Boniface Hospital. The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority’s new chief medical officer admits he’ll have a “tremendous amount of catch up” to do when he steps into his new role, less than a month before the first round of emergency room and urgent care closures. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 4/8/2017 (570 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 4/8/2017 (570 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority’s new chief medical officer admits he’ll have a "tremendous amount of catch up" to do when he steps into his new role, less than a month before the first round of emergency room and urgent care closures. That being said, Dr. Bruce Roe is visibly pleased by the opportunity to be the Authority’s next top doctor, this after two years at the helm of St. Boniface Hospital. "What’s really exciting about this job is there’s a tremendous opportunity to redefine how we’re delivering care," says Roe, during his first interview since the Free Press learned he would take on the role, effective Sept. 5. Roe will have a heavy hand in the daily operations of the Authority, which is in the early stages of a system-wide overhaul to health delivery. The contentious change has so far been marred by the release of information in confusing bits and pieces and almost-weekly protests and rallies. Since the initial announcement in April, union heads have been unrelenting in their demand for specifics about staffing changes. Still, they know very little. Two lactation consultants from Health Sciences Centre are being axed, as well as two clinical nurse specialists who work in the trauma and burn units, but for the most part unions are left with the evergreen promise that the WRHA will endeavour to make sure everyone who has a job now will still have one. Part of the confusion for staff and the public comes from the by-election media blackout, a WRHA spokeswoman interjects to clarify. "We lost a significant amount of momentum," she says. So, how does Roe intend to help regain it? "I can’t really comment too much about the communicational strategy because I haven’t been directly involved in it," he says, "but I recognize that you can design a strategy… and the living out of it doesn’t necessarily follow that strategy." The trick for the WRHA moving forward, Roe says, is going to be about connecting "disjointed stories and really trying to bring things together as more of a whole." Confusion about what changes have to do with trying to curb costs and what changes have to do with consolidation plans persist. The provincial government has ordered the WRHA to cut annual costs by $83 million, of which the Authority says $21 million will come from consolidation efforts. Bt the WRHA's attempts to pitch consolidation as separate from cuts doesn't seem to be minimizing concerns, as evidenced by ongoing protests bolstered by a lack of information. "What’s included in the plan is bold, it will cause disruptions," Roe says. "We are changing the roles of hospitals, we are changing where care is delivered for many types of patients and that, by definition, is disrupting the way we’ve always done things." Roe knows plenty about the WRHA’s status quo. Originally from Saskatchewan, Roe trained as an internal medicine resident in Winnipeg then spent five years studying and working in endocrinology in San Francisco before returning to Winnipeg in 1999. He's been at St. Boniface ever since, working his way up the leadership ranks. During that time, he's watched the health care budget balloon — not just in Winnipeg, but across the country and around the world. Want to get a head start on your day? Get the day’s breaking stories, weather forecast, and more sent straight to your inbox every morning. Frankly, he says, echoing Manitoba's health minister, it just isn't sustainable. Trying to make it sustainable is "what's exciting," he says, although he acknowledges he cannot promise it will be a "100 per cent smooth" transition. Despite his new workload, Roe intends to keep his clinic at St. Boniface open one day a week. "For me, it's an important part of my connection with patients, with health care delivery," he says, "it really is grounding." jane.gerster@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @Jane_Gerster |
(WSVN/CNN) - Two South Florida men have quite a story to tell after they snagged a massive, 15-foot python in the Everglades on Saturday. RELATED: VIDEO: Python attacks, takes down gator | Proposal to pay python hunters Nicholas Banos and trapping partner Leonardo Sanchez were driving in their car, keeping their eyes on the lookout, when they made the phenomenal find. "I saw a little gloss, and I saw a big square, brown patch and automatically, I knew what it was," said Sanchez. "He goes, ‘Python, python!’ The second I get out of the car, and I look over it's this big python stretched there where the trees meet the water. When we jumped at it, he goes and grabs it by the tail. The second he starts to grab it, the snake starts to beeline into the trees, so he tells me, ‘Go for the head, go for the head.’ I'm trying to get into the trees because it's all over the place," said Banos. As they wrestled for their catch, their struggle was just beginning. "I started to try to pull it, so it wouldn't go into the water, and the snake just turns straight around and beelines toward my face. That's when he came in, and he jumped from behind and grabbed it by the head, and he even got nipped a couple times," said Banos. Minutes later, they were finally able to get the snake into a massive bag and throw it in the back of their van. The men are part of the ongoing python challenge to help protect the Everglades. Twenty-five people were selected and commissioned by the South Florida Water Management District to kill the invasive Burmese pythons over a 60-day period. The goal of the challenge is to get rid of as many pythons as they can. "We don't hunt for sport. We're not hunting to kill. We hunt to remove. Catch and remove. But having to kill it was a little rough for us. We've never really had to do that before. It was satisfying, but it was also a feeling of a little bit of heartbreak," said Banos. In case you're wondering, the python weighed-in at 144 pounds. Courtesy WSVN via CNN Newsource |
The ENDANGERED SAFARI project contains all of the large African mammals along with juicy info like animal size, family, population trend, range, and IUCN threatened species status. The static version, above, is an artsy layout that makes a great print, but to really dig into the data, including individual animal range maps, you will have to jump on a computer (it’s not built for mobile) and play with the interactive below by hovering over each animal: Note: this interactive looks great on a BIG screen. For optimal viewing, download the Tableau file, open it with the free Tableau Reader and enter presentation mode. Doing this will also allow you to switch between animals almost instantaneously. Inspiration Pouring over an old beat-up field guide I found on a dusty shelf in a Kenyan library was the primary inspiration for this work – but it has deep roots. I grew up with ZooBooks, a magazine that featured a different animal in each short issue. Descriptions of animal behavior combined with great pictures and diagrams fascinated me and was one of my earliest introductions to infographics. Fast-forward 20+ years and I am living in Kenya, within driving distance of some of the most incredible wildlife the world has to offer. I’ve had the great fortune to be able to travel to many Kenya Wildlife Service National Parks and reserves and have been, like most, stunned by the animals. Both the diversity and density of species in many of these parks are amazing, and saddening when I learned that even now the animals are not near the levels where they naturally should be. The whole safari experience evokes a feeling similar to the one I got when I first saw Haruo Takino’s Noah’s Ark; an awestruck wonder at the magnificence of life. Design The interactive is packed with a ton of information so that, just like I used to spend hours reading and re-reading ZooBooks, you can really settle in and enjoy it for a while. Dimensions used include color (threatened species status), size (animal’s actual relative size), direction facing (population increasing/stable or decreasing), and placement (animal classification).While not as obvious, animals are positioned close to their relatives. So carnivores are on top, above monkeys and apes, who are above all of the food. Key large animals (elephant, rhino, giraffe, and cape buffalo) anchor each of the corners. Within each of the sections, related animals are also grouped. The lesser kudu is next to the greater kudu, all of colobus monkeys are together, zebras keep each other company, etc. Here’s a classification network diagram that explodes the piece out so you can see specific relationships: Data Provenance The list of African mammals, taxonomic group, and endangered status are from version 2014.3 of The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Map spatial data is also from IUCN, learn more at www.iucnredlist.org. 2016 Update I have been delighted that Endangered Safari has received so much attention across its first year in the wild. It was named a Tableau Public Viz of the Week and selected for the 2015 Kantar Information is Beautiful awards interactive longlist. The associated video, Are gazelles endangered?, won the inaugural Science Data Stories video contest: Info We Trust is a data adventure exploring how to better humanize information. To learn more read the opening post here. The creator, RJ Andrews, is an engineer and proud Northeastern University and MIT graduate. Please reach out through facebook, twitter @infowetrust, or the contact page. Prints are available here. |
The recent BRICS meeting in Xiamen formed the setting for what appeared to be a rapprochement between its two key members, India and China. It was preceded by a rather sudden diplomatic resolution to the recent Doklam (Donglang) crisis which saw Indian and Chinese troops step back from possible confrontation. This was widely viewed to have been agreed at the initiative of the Chinese, eager to secure the attendance of Narendra Modi at the immediately following BRICS meeting. Although the BRICS concept is long past its pomp, it is clear that China still values it as a diplomatic forum, either for what is discussed and agreed while it takes place, or for the appearance that emerges of the Chinese engaged in a multilateral forum in which they take centre stage. Indeed, China has long been the real engine behind the BRICS, given that both Brazil and Russia (B and R respectively) were dependent on the China driven commodity boom and South Africa (the S) is there to make up numbers. The real quandary, however, was always India. Without India, the "BRCS" would be harder to pronounce but perhaps a little easier to understand. Conceived by Goldman Sachs as a Powerpoint acronym to describe high growth emerging markets, there was always something slightly ad hoc about the arrangement, a useful thumb sketch perhaps, shorthand for time-poor, knowledge-light bankers and investment managers to add a patina of granularity to their boom dependent punts. In reality an almost endless, debt fuelled Chinese investment cascade fuelled what many mistook for a commodity super-cycle that flattered Russia and Brazil, and made India seem like the tortoise to China's hare. All about the growth The key problem with the BRICS was always that there is little that unites them all aside from a once shared propensity for high rates of growth. This is fine if all you seek are outlets for investment capital, but rather begs an assessment of–in each case–what that growth implies. A recent explainer by Michael Pettis makes the obvious, but seemingly not widely understood, point that 'GDP does not distinguish between activity that increases a country's wealth and activity that doesn't'. And in making this point he obliges readers to move beyond simplistic "GDPism" towards making judgements about the quality of investments in each case. Rising GDP, in other words, needn't always been good news. It might in fact be disguising some very bad news indeed. Here also is where China and India diverge. For all the fanfare laid on for the BRICS in Xiamen, the association has always been fundamentally driven by the development trajectories of those two Asian supergiants; China and India. Brazil and Russia, being primarily commodity suppliers, ride the international consequences of growth in those other two giants, but aside from that have little to contribute. In recent years China has driven the global economy with its rapid investment and export focussed growth while India has grown more slowly and organically. The upshot is that China has huge amounts of infrastructure and an economy that must now service enormous amounts of debt. The staggering GDP growth figures they have achieved over many years have yet to register the consequences of all that investment and if much of it generates little or no return, the consequent write-downs will weigh down on China's GDP figures for years to come. Some estimate coming write-downs in excess of 35% of GDP, which according to Pettis' formula would mean China's economy is actually much smaller than its reported GDP. India, on the other hand, registered a growth rate higher than China last year, and while India's economy is much smaller than China's right now, in contrast to China it has a great deal of catch up growth ahead of it, and–again unlike China–has a government with an appetite for structural reform as a key driver for future growth, rather than debt-fuelled investment and exports. What would Goldman Sachs say now? Setting aside China's effort to build the BRICS into a cooperative forum, the same formula that generated the BRICS concept would produce a wildly different set of results today. China, with its enormous debts, closed capital markets, asset bubbles and increasing communist party interference in the economy would look like an entirely different kind of investment prospect than India, with its greater growth potential, favorable demographics, open and pluralist society and reform minded government. Indeed, apart from both being large economies it's hard to imagine anyone putting the two economies in the same category anymore. All of which provides a useful contrast between the original concept of the BRICS as a meaningful investment destination premised largely on impressive growth rates, and its more recent emergence as a forum for the projection of influence. Because if the BRICS were originally premised on GDP growth, then as long China's GDP growth becomes increasingly dependent on self-defeating credit expansion, India looks the better bet. Furthermore, given the emphasis China placed on securing the attendance of Narendra Modi at Xiamen, it appears China might already understand this quite well. |
Director's Cut features conversations with music video directors about their creations. The men and women behind the camera are often overlooked in today's YouTube era, so we aim to highlight their hard work here while showcasing the best videos currently linking around the Internet. A little behind-the-scenes dirt couldn't hurt, too. Odd Future singer Frank Ocean's "Novacane" is an unlikely hit about feeling spiritually numbed by excess and normalization and drugs. The song's video, directed by 29-year-old Nabil Elderkin, replicates this disconnection as it shows Ocean in a spooky room while apparitions of girls and (um) pandas surround him. In it, Ocean looks appropriately zonked, his face warped by a vaseline-like gel and Elderkin's subtle effects. It's the type of comedown video that'll make you think twice about wanting to get so high in the first place. Photographer and director Elderkin has helmed clips for Kanye West ("Welcome to Heartbreak", "Paranoid"), Nas and Damian Marley ("Patience"), Common ("The Game"), and more, his stark style marked by dark and rich cinematography. Raised in Australia, the currently L.A.-based director filmed "Novacane" in three hours at his producer's house in March, before the track started climbing up the Billboard charts. Watch all of his videos at his site, and check out "Novacane" and our Q&A with Elderkin below: Frank Ocean: "Novacane" [Director: Nabil Elderkin] Embedded content is unavailable. Pitchfork: How did you originally come in contact with Frank? Nabil Elderkin: I met him at John Legend's place about a year and a half ago, and he said he'd send me his music. The first song I heard was "Lovecrimes", and I thought it was different, fresh, and kind of creepy. I really liked it. He said, "['Novacane'] is the one we need to do. I don't really have any money right now, but let's make something." The budget was super-duper low, but I don't really care about budgets. As long as I'm not being rushed, it's all good. I thought it would be really cool to do something simple and trippy, like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but not so extreme. Pitchfork: The video cuts off before the end of the song, was that a way to work around the budget? NE: No, no. To me, videos don't always have to be the length of the song. I like the idea of people thinking, "What was that?" [laughs] The fun fact about that slap at the end is we did it about five times. It was about getting the angle right because you aren't supposed to see it coming. The first couple times, he'd do a little eye-twitch. That girl really slapped him hard. But he was cool about it-- he sucked it up. Pitchfork: What about those images of tigers and pandas near the end of the video? NE: This was Frank's exact note: "Can we put some kind of Asian-rain-forest stuff in there?" I basically scoured the Internet for footage I could chop up and put in. It works because it brings you outside the room and into his head. Pitchfork: What's the deal with that gel he's rubbing on his face? NE: It's supposed to be Topicaine, which is a topical Novocaine, but it wasn't actual Topicaine. [laughs] I'm not sure what it was, exactly. Frank was like, "I got this stuff." And I said, "As long as it's kind of wet and sticks to your face, it'll work." Pause. Pitchfork: Have you ever had any sort of experience with numbness like that? NE: Oh definitely. I had my wisdom teeth taken out when I was 17. I only remember about the first three minutes... but it was an awesome three minutes. |
Nine Myanmar police officers have been killed in coordinated attacks by armed men on posts in Rakhine state along the border with Bangladesh, authorities say, setting off a military operation that has killed at least eight people. The attacks hit three border posts before dawn on Monday near Maungdaw, in the western state of Rakhine, simmering with tensions between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, who are forced to live in dire conditions. "Altogether nine police were killed, four others were injured and one is still missing," Tin Maung Swe, a senior official within Rakhine's state government, told AFP news agency. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Tin Maung Swe blamed the "insurgent" group known as Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO). READ MORE: Myanmar bans officials from saying 'Rohingya' The RSO was a small Rohingya armed group active in the 1980s and 1990s but has not been heard from in nearly two decades. In the military operation that followed, eight people were killed as government forces pursued the attackers and searched homes for stolen weapons. The vast majority of residents in the area are Rohingya, a stateless Muslim minority reviled as foreign illegal immigrants by many among Myanmar's Buddhist majority. The attacks prompted neighbouring Bangladesh to increase patrols and stopped crossings through the Teknaf land port. Fears of fresh unrest The unrest has stoked fears of a repeat of 2012, when sectarian violence which ripped through Rakhine left more than 100 people dead and displaced tens of thousands. Police in the capital Naypyidaw confirmed the attack and said a number of weapons were seized by the attackers. Rakhine has been effectively split on religious grounds since bouts of communal violence tore through the state in 2012, killing scores and forcing tens of thousands to flee. The Muslim Rohingya are largely confined to camps and face restrictions which rights groups have compared to apartheid. Several complex ethnic conflicts are rumbling across Myanmar's borderlands, hampering efforts to build the economy after the end of junta rule. But compared with the country's civil war-ravaged eastern and northern border states, Rakhine has not boasted a significant rebel military presence. Despite their plight, the Rohingya do not have a known armed faction fighting for them. In May attackers stormed a security post at a camp for Rohingya refugees in southern Bangladesh, just across the border from Maungdaw. A Bangladeshi camp commander was shot dead and the attackers made off with weapons. Police at the time said the Rohingya themselves could be suspects. In recent years Bangladeshi police have also alleged that Rohingya refugees are involved in criminal activities including human trafficking. Any rise in violence in Rakhine will be a major concern for the new civilian-led government of Aung San Suu Kyi. She has asked former Kofi Annan, the former UN chief, to head a commission entrusted with the task of healing religious divisions in Rakhine. The move was largely welcomed by Rohingya community leaders but angered Buddhist nationalists. Anti-Muslim sentiment still runs high in the region, fanned by Buddhist nationalists who revile the Rohingya and are viscerally opposed to any move to grant them citizenship. They insist the roughly one-million strong group are intruders from Bangladesh, even though many can trace their ancestry in Myanmar back generations. |
This is a part of an ongoing series following a campaign going on in central Illinois called Room for Doubt. For more background, check out the first article in the series, Is There Room for Doubt? A week or so ago, I previewed the Room for Doubt program, making some predictions about what it would entail. This past Sunday (September 13) was the inaugural day of the campaign, and having watched one local church’s live broadcast, I realized that I had presumed a bit too much about how the program would be implemented in the twenty churches currently participating. As it turns out, my error gave me a more interesting opportunity to do some comparisons of how churches are presenting the message. Traditions Make a Difference Out of the twenty churches, I decided to look at three churches to get an idea of how they handled the messages. (These were minorly limited by what churches put their services out as podcasts afterward.) I went with three churches of somewhat different traditions, although not as disparate as I would’ve liked: a United Methodist church, a Southern Baptist church, and a non-denominational evangelical church.* (You can check out the sermons for yourself if you’re feeling masochistic, but – to paraphrase an excellent podcast – I’ve listened to them so you don’t have to.) Listening to and/or watching the various sermons from these churches made one thing clear: Pastors had a fair amount of leeway in how they handled the messages. (This leads me to believe that the core of the curriculum as prepared by Lincoln Christian University will be implemented in small groups, which wouldn’t be exceptionally surprising if that content is primarily apologetic in nature.) For instance, the minister of each church (whose surnames I’m including below for ease of reference) chose a different passage of the Bible and set forth a different message, even though the message was essentially supposed to be the same (this week’s title was “The Upside of Doubt”): The UMC minister ( Bjorklund ) chose the parable of the sower, and the message focused more on why people might not come to believe in the gospel, with an interesting point of emphasis that it would be better to have more devout Christians than simply more Christians. ) chose the parable of the sower, and the message focused more on why people might not come to believe in the gospel, with an interesting point of emphasis that it would be better to have more devout Christians than simply more Christians. The Baptist minister ( Johnson ) chose Jude 17-23 , which is only about doubt in that it says, “Be merciful to those who doubt.” (The same book, just a few verses earlier, also promises hellfire on those who try to divide the church or lead Christians astray. So, you know, just the type of thing you’d expect to hear in a Southern Baptist church.) ) chose The non-denominational minster (Kent) chose Luke 7:18-23, which is about John the Baptist having doubts about who Jesus really was. This message did much more to state that doubt is innocuous and healthy, and honestly, this message is like what I expected. (Unsurprisingly, this church has a much closer connection to the university and has ties to the same Restoration tradition as well.) As I expected, these messages were mostly inwardly focused, intended for churchgoers rather than the skeptics outside, but it’s also only the first week. Physician, Heal Thyself For all the widespread support, I found it strange that there seemed to be little agreement on what stance to take on doubt. Johnson explicitly said that it wasn’t okay to doubt but that doubts needed to be addressed regardless, while Kent brought up Mother Teresa’s “dark night of the soul” as evidence that doubts might just be something that always persists to some degree. There was some agreement about doubt being a matter of having unanswered questions rather than being about unbelief or skepticism, and in fact, Kent rather boldly contrasted doubt with unbelief by characterizing the latter not just as skepticism but as denial in the face of evidence. (The irony here does not escape me.) But without going into their individual messages point by point, I thought that there were some interesting places of convergence that both gave away the shared skeleton they were working from (at least between Johnson and Kent). Near the end of his message, Johnson mentioned an acronym that I felt compelled to write down: F ind the root of your doubt ind the root of your doubt A sk God for help sk God for help I dentify a course of treatment dentify a course of treatment T ake care of your spiritual health ake care of your spiritual health Hold your remaining questions in tension Kent mentioned some of these same points as well, and a quick search of just the first point led to a “preview site” for a pilot of the series at a church in Indianapolis, which includes these points that I didn’t hear directly in any of the three local messages I heard: 2. What Causes Us to Doubt? Doubt can infect us through our emotions—our faith slips when our feelings turn sour. Doubt can develop because of our will—we choose to disbelieve and disobey. Leaving aside the substance of these points, which are deeply disingenuous and perhaps even offensive to nonbelievers, look at the words being used: Virus. Infect. Course of treatment. Spiritual health. And even the least pathologizing of these messages – Pastor Kent’s message – included little quips to “booster shots” for the congregation, which were essentially statements of encouragement to bolster one’s faith. Look, I don’t expect to see eye to eye with these pastors on the issue of doubt. My initial thesis was that there might be room for a little doubt, a few questions either of little significance or of weak fervor, but not much. In this room, the ceiling is very low. But this isn’t being framed as just innocent questioning gone awry; skeptics are being characterized as “infected,” as spiritually “sick,” as people in need of “treatment.” I get a lot of grief from some of my fellow atheists for pushing back against ideas like religious belief or theism being called a mental illness, but here is a great example of a similar impulse like the one that makes dealing with genuine mental illness so hard in evangelical circles: the idea that unbelief is a disease of the soul or the will. And even setting aside questions about the existence of the soul, it is a profoundly confused and harmful idea. Paging Dr. Mill Perhaps the most exasperating thing about all of this pathologizing of unbelief is that I genuinely think that Pastor Kent got something very right in his treatment of why doubts can be positive (and I love to give credit where it’s due). In his message, he quotes this passage from Os Guinness: [I]f ours is an examined faith, we should be unafraid to doubt. If doubt is eventually justified, we were believing what clearly was not worth believing. But if doubt is answered, our faith has grown stronger still. It knows God more certainly and it can enjoy God more deeply. If this sounds familiar to you, it may be that Guinness has essentially taken John Stuart Mill’s argument for the free expression of ideas in the second chapter of On Liberty and applied it to religious faith: If faith is true, then it should come out stronger for having faced a challenge; if not, then it should be abandoned. And of course, the latter is precisely what we have done when we leave religion. This is a stark contrast to what Johnson says in wrapping up his message from Jude: A false teacher has nothing good to look forward to, only separation from God because they stand opposed to all that God desires to do. They stand opposed to the very way of God. Every false teacher, every false religion, every ounce of teaching that causes more questions, that focuses on us, that does not focus on Christ, is, as Jude put it, a danger to God’s way of things. So how can we, gathered here this morning, even consider that there is room for doubt in this room? Friend, the only answer to that question is, the only room that is there is for doubt exists because we have the truth that you need; that there are answers that you require; that we as a church, me as a pastor, that our Sunday School teachers want to impact your life with the truthfulness of God’s Word that you don’t continue to live with that doubt. How can these positions even be reconciled? This is not the liberty that Mill conceived of; it is a false liberty, the short leash of threats about one’s eternal salvation or damnation. Sure, you can ask questions, but you’d better find – and accept – the answers pretty damned fast. If these three messages this week are any indication, then it sounds like more confusion is being sown than seeds of truth. Given this fractured message, I suspect that the next weeks will bring more of the same: information filtered through the biases of the traditions being represented. I hope not to update each week on this, but if there are as many complications the next Sunday…well, I won’t make any promises. *Full disclosure: First Christian is the last church I attended as a Christian and is in fact where I had my “deconversion experience.” |
Activists protesting outside FCC headquarters in Washington, DC, on May 15, 2014. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images Consumer advocates everywhere are demanding that the Federal Communication Commission continue down its current path for shelving net neutrality and allowing a two-tiered internet. That is, if cable company-created front groups and other industry-funded organizations are to be believed. The controversy, at the moment, rests on a legal distinction. A federal lawsuit filed by Verizon has forced the FCC into a corner by creating a standard under which effective net-neutrality rules—which ensure all internet traffic is treated equally—can only be reached, according to most analysts, by classifying the internet as a "common carrier," or in other words, a public utility. Such a distinction would allow the FCC to demand that internet service providers, like Comcast or Verizon, are not allowed to create internet slow lanes and fast lanes. To the surprise of probably no one, ISPs are enraged at the prospect of being classified as a utility and are fighting back. But the attacks are not fully transparent. Many of the organizations protesting a move toward classifying ISPs as a utility, which is the only likely option for enacting net neutrality, are funded by the ISP lobby. Take this opinion column by former Republican Senator John Sununu and former Democratic Congressman Harold Ford in the San Francisco Chronicle. The pair argues that reclassification would lead to "chronic underinvestment" in broadband services while threatening job loss. The disclaimer running under their byline says they are honorary co-chairs of Broadband for America, which the paper describes as "a coalition of 300 internet consumer advocates, content providers, and engineers." A disclosure obtained by VICE from the National Cable and Telecom Association (NCTA), a trade group for ISPs, shows that the bulk of Broadband for America's recent $3.5 million budget is funded through a $2 million donation from NCTA. Last month, Broadband for America wrote a letter to the FCC bluntly demanding that the agency “categorically reject” any effort toward designating broadband as a public utility. It wasn't signed by any internet consumer advocates, as the Sununu-Ford letter suggests. The signatures on the letter reads like a who's who of ISP industry presidents and CEOs, including AT&T's Randall Stephenson, Cox Communications' Patrick Esser, NCTA president (and former FCC commissioner) Michael Powell, Verizon's Lowell McAdam, and Comcast's Brian Roberts. Notably, Broadband for America's most recent tax filing shows that it retained the DCI Group, an infamous lobbying firm that specializes in creating fake citizen groups on behalf of corporate campaigns. Another group leading the charge is the American Consumer Institute. The organization recently filed a letter with the FCC opposing reclassification, and argues that ISPs should be left alone. "The fact is that the broadband market is competitive and becoming more so," wrote ACI, which claims that consumers currently enjoy "increased choice." In January, ACI called the Verizon lawsuit that struck down the original FCC net-neutrality guidelines, "a victory for consumers." Why would a self-professed consumer advocacy group not only oppose moving toward net neutrality but claim that America's broadband market—one of the slowest, most expensive in the industrialized world with fewer than three choices in many parts of the country—is so great? Perhaps because ACI, like Broadband for America, is financed by an ISP lobby group. Annual tax returns show that a foundation controlled by lobbyists from the cell phone industry, called MyWireless.org, has contributed to ACI since 2010. Other cable-funded allies have helped spread doubt about net neutrality. "If broadband providers want to start charging Netflix and Google for hogging all the bandwidth, that is their right as the owners of those networks," said Jim Lakely of the Heartland Institute, who called net neutrality regulations "a solution in search of a problem." Leaked documents from the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank famous for shilling on behalf of corporate donors, show major funds from Comcast, AT&T, and Time Warner Cable. The push for reclassifying broadband as a utility may be an uphill battle. As VICE first reported, the FCC is led by a former cable-industry lobbyist, and many of his chief staffers are also former Comcast attorneys. Several new FCC staffers previously lobbied the agency against net neutrality in the past. Still, the public is beginning to mobilize around the issue. Advocacy organizations focused on promoting a free and fair Internet, including Free Press, Color of Change, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, Demand Progress, and others, are using the FCC comment period, in which the agency is soliciting outside feedback about the rule-making, as an opportunity to organize the public. Last Sunday, John Oliver rallied viewers of his HBO show, Last Week Tonight, to submit comments to the FCC in support of net neutrality. The response has overwhelmed the agency with thousands of comments. Lee Fang, a San Francisco–based journalist, is an Investigative Fellow at The Nation Institute and co-founder of Republic Report. |
For two years, Anne Frank, her family and other Jews hid in a cramped clutch of rooms tucked into the back of a canal house in Amsterdam. Anne, who died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945 but lived on through her famous diary, described in poignant detail what life was like hiding from the German secret police during the Nazi occupation. "Not being able to go outside upsets me more than I can say, and I'm terrified our hiding place will be discovered and that we'll be shot," Anne wrote in her diary. Now, 50 years after the opening of the Anne Frank House museum, which has more than 1 million visitors every year, the museum is launching an online virtual tour of what life was like at the back of 263 Prinsengracht in Amsterdam. The tour captures in graphic detail photographs on the wall, the print on the bedspreads and tiny kitchen in the cramped space where eight people lived in daily fear of being caught. A tip-off from an informant, led to the arrest of Anne, her sister, parents and the others living in the house in August of 1944. |
Catching prospect Max Pentecost has had a tough time staying on the field since the Toronto Blue Jays selected him in the first round of the 2014 draft. The 24-year-old has already undergone three surgeries on his right shoulder and missed the entire 2015 season as a result. Now Pentecost is back healthy, and he’s made a huge impression on his manager at single-A Dunedin, especially with his work at catcher. “When he’s behind the plate he’s a definite difference-maker, not in just that game but for an organization,” Dunedin manager John Schneider said on Sportsnet 590 The FAN’s Baseball Central Wednesday. “We’re talking about a premium defensive spot, he can catch, he can throw, he can block. He’s got all the qualities you want in a catcher. And then we all know he can hit.” Watch 40 in 40: Greatest Blue Jays Watch “40 in 40: Greatest Blue Jays” on Sunday, Aug. 27 at 4:00 p.m. ET following the Blue Jays-Twins game on Sportsnet. Pentecost has enjoyed a solid season in the minors, posting a .776 OPS with nine home runs in 71 games with Dunedin. Defensively, he hasn’t committed an error and has thrown out 47 per cent (7-of-15) of opposing base stealers in 19 contests at catcher. While Pentecost has seen time at first base and designated hitter for Dunedin in 2017, he’s most comfortable catching, and the Blue Jays are going to continue giving him opportunities at backstop. “You look at the overall goal, you want him to catch four or five days a week next year and he’s on track to do that and hopefully he can stay healthy for a year because if he does he’s a big-time difference-maker,” Schneider said. Listen to Schneider’s full segment below: |
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales responded definitively to a Change.org petition from holistic healing supporters to “allow for true scientific discourse” on the online encyclopedia. The petitioners say the representation of holistic healing on Wikipedia is biased, and they have not been allowed to amend the information. The petition, which has over 7,790 supporters, states: The Brief Newsletter Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. View Sample Sign Up Now “Wikipedia is widely used and trusted. Unfortunately, much of the information related to holistic approaches to healing is biased, misleading, out-of-date, or just plain wrong. For five years, repeated efforts to correct this misinformation have been blocked and the Wikipedia organization has not addressed these issues. As a result, people who are interested in the benefits of Energy Medicine, Energy Psychology, and specific approaches such as the Emotional Freedom Techniques, Thought Field Therapy and the Tapas Acupressure Technique, turn to your pages, trust what they read, and do not pursue getting help from these approaches which research has, in fact, proven to be of great benefit to many.” Wales responded to the petition on Sunday, and was unapologetic for the way holistic medicine is covered on Wikipedia, saying it will only publish evidence rooted in science. He responds: No, you have to be kidding me. Every single person who signed this petition needs to go back to check their premises and think harder about what it means to be honest, factual, truthful. Wikipedia’s policies around this kind of thing are exactly spot-on and correct. If you can get your work published in respectable scientific journals – that is to say, if you can produce evidence through replicable scientific experiments, then Wikipedia will cover it appropriately. What we won’t do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of “true scientific discourse”. It isn’t. Now perhaps he’ll tell us how he really feels. Contact us at editors@time.com. |
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