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breaking... Wednesday, May 27, 2009 WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has blocked Israel's request for advanced U.S.-origin attack helicopters. "During the recent war, Israel made considerable use of the Longbow, and there were high civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip," a source close to the administration said. The sources said Israel has sought to purchase up to six new AH-64Ds in an effort to bolster conventional and counter-insurgency capabilities. They said Israel wants to replenish its fleet after the loss of two Apache helicopters in the 2006 war with Hizbullah. Also In This Edition The Israel Air Force has also requested U.S. permission to integrate the Spike extended-range anti-tank missile into the AH-64D, Middle East Newsline reported. Spike ER, developed by the state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, has a range of eight kilometers and was installed on the Eurocopter Tiger and AgustaWestland A129 helicopters. The sources said the deployment of Spike would require integration into the Longbow's millimeter-wave fire control and acquisition system. They said this would require permission from both Boeing and the U.S. government. Israel's Defense Ministry and air force have discussed procurement of additional Longbows with the U.S. firm Boeing. But the sources said the Longbow as well as other defense requests have been shelved by the administration amid its review of the potential use of American weapons platforms by Israel. During his visit to the United States, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also sought to win approval from the Defense Department for the installation of Israeli-origin electronic warfare systems in the Joint Strike Fighter. Netanyahu was said to have met Defense Secretary Robert Gates in a review of Israeli defense programs with the United States. Defense Minister Ehud Barak was scheduled to meet Gates in Washington in early June. COMMENT LETTER TO THE EDITOR Comments I sincerely hope that Obama does not shut out our greatest information source in the middle east. To not support Israel is to slap the Jewish state in the face in the time when the threat is the greatest. Willis Durbin 9:01 a.m. / Wednesday, June 3, 2009 About Us l Contact Us l Geostrategy-Direct.com l East-Asia-Intel.com Copyright © 2009 East West Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

The CPP was initially proposed by the EPA in 2014 and President Obama revealed a final version of the plan in 2015. But the the CPP, which stipulated that power companies had until 2030 to reduce their carbon emissions by 32 percent relative to 2005 levels, never really got a chance to have an impact. Soon after it was introduced, a number of states challenged the legality of the plan and 29 went so far as to petition the Supreme Court to halt its implementation until a court could review it. In a five to four vote, the Supreme Court justices granted that stay. The case, brought forth by over a dozen states, has remained in limbo at the DC Circuit US Court of Appeals while the Trump administration has considered what to do. In March, the president signed an executive order directing agencies to review regulations that might impede the coal industry, which included the CPP. Today's announcement from Pruitt is an expected result of that order. The Trump administration has presented opposition to environmental regulations from the very start. It has specifically targeted regulations enacted by the Obama administration, cut funding for climate-focused programs and withdrawn the US from the Paris climate change agreement. Dissolving the CPP is just the latest in a series of moves aimed at rolling back environmental protections in favor of boosting struggling fossil fuel industries. As of now, the EPA hasn't said whether it will replace the CPP with some watered down version, but Reuters reports that the agency said it would be releasing an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to solicit ideas for a possible replacement.

http://jamesdjulia.com/item/2684-391/ In the aftermath of WWI the newly-united Poland had a military equipped with a mishmash of leftover light machine guns, from Chauchats to MG 08/15s. They wanted to adopt a new standardized weapon, and trials in the 1920s found the FN BAR to be the best option. Unlike the American military BAR, the FN version adopted by the Poles used a light bipod and a pistol grip for better handling. It was chambered in 8mm Mauser, which was the standard Polish cartridge. The purchase agreement with FN was to buy 10,000 guns outright and also a license for domestic Polish production at F.B. Radom. However, the deal went quite sour when it urned out that FN actually didn't have the technical package to supply to the Poles, since they had not actually tooled up to make the guns, instead importing them from Colt in the US. The Polish military wound up reverse-engineering the Colt/FN guns to allow domestic production, and the incident put such a rift between FN and the Polish military that they would develop the Vis 35 "Radom" pistol in-house rather than license the FN High Power several years later. http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

Howard Watts, a volunteer for the Nevada Coalition Against the Death Penalty, right, is shown during a screening of "The Exonerated" at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center, 401 S. Maryland Parkway, in Las Vegas on Monday, March 7, 2016. Bill Hughes/Las Vegas Review-Journal An audience watches a screening of "The Exonerated," sponsored by the Nevada Coalition Against the Death Penalty, at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center, 401 S. Maryland Parkway, in Las Vegas on Monday, March 7, 2016. Bill Hughes/Las Vegas Review-Journal Howard Watts, a volunteer for the Nevada Coalition Against the Death Penalty, speaks before a screening of "The Exonerated" at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center, 401 S. Maryland Parkway, in Las Vegas on Monday, March 7, 2016. Bill Hughes/Las Vegas Review-Journal An audience watches a screening of "The Exonerated," sponsored by the Nevada Coalition Against the Death Penalty, at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center, 401 S. Maryland Parkway, in Las Vegas on Monday, March 7, 2016. Bill Hughes/Las Vegas Review-Journal In a dark room at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada, people watched in silence as the film “The Exonerated” depicted stories of those sentenced to death while innocent. Some stirred in their seats at uncomfortable moments. Some sniffled and wiped back tears during rough spots. But for the most part, the audience remained quiet as it took in the message of the movie. This wasn’t a random film club convening over a movie. Members of the Nevada Coalition Against the Death Penalty sponsored the movie night as one component of their efforts to educate the public about the flaws behind capital punishment. “We are trying to have more events like this,” said Howard Watts III, a volunteer for the organization. “We want to take action and end (the death penalty) in this state.” Nancy Hart, president of the Nevada Coalition Against the Death Penalty, noted the organization has been around since 2001 trying to educate the public about the subject. The group is made up of volunteers, who work to make the best of limited resources. Part of that is putting on events to draw in more members. “I think film screenings is a good way of doing that,” Hart said. “It’s an effective way to convey a message and it’s also more engaging than a straight presentation.” Hart said the coalition has attracted a variety of people from activists to religious communities. Watts, who has volunteered with the organization for almost a year, was one of those pulled into the cause. He said there are many reasons why he began to work to abolish the death penalty. “For me, it comes from learning how many errors there are in the criminal justice system,” Watts noted. “There is always the risk of executing someone who is innocent. It’s not worth that risk.” “The Exonerated” talks about six cases of people wrongfully sentenced to death and later found to be innocent — some decades after being imprisoned. Though it was dramatized, the film used transcripts of actual court documents and interviews to tell the stories of the exonerated inmates. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 156 people have been exonerated since the death penalty was reinstated in the ’70s. During the event, Watts went over the reasons the organization is fighting to abolish the death penalty, such as the cost factors. In Clark County, it costs about $200,000 more to seek the death penalty than other cases, according to the organization. Watts argued the organization is also against capital punishment because the process of executing someone — and the years of waiting on death row through the appeals process — goes against the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Hart said it was the human rights aspect as well as the question of its constitutionality that made her passionate about advocating for its demise. But she has seen various aspects draw people into the organization. Many of the advocates also point out the racial disparities they see in the system. According to the organization, Nevada has the highest number of death row inmates per capita in the country. Currently, 80 inmates are on death row. “About 40 percent of inmates on death row are African-American despite Nevada being 9 percent African-American,” Watts said. The organization is working on a two-pronged approach to ending the death penalty in Nevada. The first starts with movie nights and panel discussions like the one they put on Monday. “We have to educate the public,” Watts said. Hart said with more and more news coverage of the death penalty — from states abolishing it to news reports on botched executions — the past decade has been a good time to discuss it. “I think more people are becoming more receptive,” she said. The second aspect is working with lawmakers from both parties to talk about the moral and financial costs of the death penalty, hoping to appeal to them in some way. Hart said they haven’t introduced a bill to repeal the death penalty. “I think we are still educating lawmakers on the subject,” she said. “But I think we have some lawmakers who are open to discussing it.” Watts said during the past legislative session, lawmakers approved the construction of a new execution chamber since the current one isn’t compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. “We would love to have the governor announce a moratorium,” Watts said — the governor of Pennsylvania announced a moratorium on the death penalty in 2015. “But since (Gov. Brian Sandoval) wants to build a new execution chamber, I don’t see that happening.” Contact reporter Michael Lyle at mlyle@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5201. Follow @mjlyle on Twitter.

Obama’s foreign policy may seem less aggressive than George W. Bush’s, but in practice it is just as destructive. For more than two years, Senator John McCain has been pressing for robust military intervention in Syria. Though Obama has avoided getting the U.S. as involved as McCain wants, what passes for Obama’s policy toward Syria—calling for Assad to go in 2011, setting and resetting red lines, insisting on supporting and arming the rebels—has the same effect as rushing in head first. Bush took America into two wars, costing billions of dollars and thousands of lives, with few gains. Today, Iraq is free of Saddam Hussein, but has drifted squarely into Iran’s geopolitical orbit. Al Qaeda is nearly non-existent in Afghanistan, but the Taliban is almost as strong as in 2001 and is positioned to take over after the U.S. has left. Obama has avoided any new land wars, although he attempted to postpone the end of the Iraq War and adopted the Bush Administration’s “surge” tactic in Afghanistan. A Reason-Rupe poll published last week found Americans have evenly split opinions on Barack Obama and George W. Bush’s foreign policies. Thirty-two percent considered Obama’s foreign policy better than Bush’s, 32 percent considered Obama’s foreign policy worse than Bush’s and 32 percent said they were about the same. While pressing for military intervention earlier this month, Obama claimed that alleged chemical weapons use by Syria's Assad regime represented a violation of international law that would put U.S. troops at risk in the future. Not only do the relevant international treaties and covenants governing chemical weapons not cover the kind of use that occurred in Syria, the U.S. itself often acts in contravention to such international legal standards. Seeking at least the perception of international approval for U.S. action is nothing new. President Bush justified the Iraq invasion by pointing to U.N. Security Council resolutions that demanded Saddam Hussein relinquish his weapons of mass destruction. It turns out that Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, but feared Iraq’s neighbors learning he didn’t. He simply didn’t believe the U.S. would invade Iraq over the matter. George W. Bush argued against an interventionist foreign policy in the 2000 elections. After the September 11 attacks, his administration took a decidedly and openly aggressive posture toward any country it believed could threaten U.S. national security by providing weaponry or otherwise supporting terrorist groups intent on attacking the U.S. In hindsight, it should not have been difficult for Hussein to predict that his intransigence toward U.N. inspectors would lead to a U.S. invasion. Bush’s foreign policy, at least, had an ethos. “You’re with us or against us” may be a horrifyingly simplistic principle around which to build foreign policy, but at least it is a principle other foreign policy actors can try to build an understanding on. Less than a year after the U.S. invaded Iraq over alleged weapons of mass destruction, Libya’s Colonel Ghadafi agreed to relinquish his. Ghadafi was able to look at the Bush Administration’s words and actions and make a calculated decision on what he should do next. In the end, of course, Ghadafi’s WMD gesture and attempt to reintegrate Libya with the rest of the world wasn’t enough to prevent him from being a target of regime change. The 2011 Western intervention in Libya wasn’t driven by the U.S., but by its European allies, primarily France, whose president at the time, Nicolas Sarkozy, had a long, complicated relationship with Ghadafi. President Obama didn’t go to Congress to authorize U.S. action in Libya nor did he seek its approval or support after the fact. The president also did not articulate the U.S. national security interests in a Libyan intervention. The Europeans believed Ghadafi was going to commit mass slaughter in Benghazi so they pressed the U.S. to help them help Libyan rebel forces. Two years later, the situation is very different. In Syria’s civil war, the casualties may have already surpassed 100,000 dead. The conflict has created two million refugees. Although where Libya had no powerful allies, Syria has Russia (and Iran) in its corner. Yet on Obama’s rhetoric alone, it would be hard to tell the difference between Libya and Syria, or even Egypt. In each case, in the wake of mass protests Obama called for the country’s ruler to go. As described in Vali Nasr’s Dispensable Nation, Obama’s decision to call for Egypt’s Mubarak to step down was informed, not by a reading of the situation on the ground, but by a desire to attach himself to an historic moment. Nasr, in fact, writes that almost every foreign policy decision made by President Obama has been dominated by domestic political considerations. In the run up to intervention in Syria, Obama and members of his cabinet actually pointed to Iran, an ally of Syria’s, as a reason to act. In their minds, allowing Syria to possess chemical weapons would send a message to Iran that its nuclear program would be tolerated as well. That argument completely ignored that Iran has a new president who appears at least to be paying lip service to the idea of peacefully resolving the dispute over the country’s nuclear program. A spokesperson for the State Department responded by essentially ignoring the gesture of the new Iranian president and declaring that “the ball is in their court” in terms of the nuclear issue. Iran has to resolve the West’s concerns about its nuclear program before the U.S. will be a “willing partner.” The Obama Administration appeared intent on military intervention is Syria. When John Kerry proposed that Syria surrender its chemical weapons in order to avoid U.S. military action, it was an off-hand comment at a press conference meant rhetorically. The State Department tried to walk back the Secretary of State’s comments, but it was too late. Russia jumped on the opportunity presented to avoid its ally being bombed by the U.S. (a situation which would put Russia in a position of having to consider whether to retaliate and how). Now, Joe Biden is in Iowa campaigning for 2016 by pointing out how Obama was able to avoid a military intervention he himself got the ball rolling on. But, the fact that a diplomatic solution arose from an unscripted remark by Kerry indicates the Obama Administration wasn’t serious about trying the diplomatic route before. As he was finally stepping back from the precipice of war, President Obama even repudiated his own red line. The world set it, he said, not him, even as world opinion was largely against U.S. intervention in Syria. Obama’s foreign policy again appeared to be driven not by objectives set by the president, but those set by others. France wanted to bomb Syria, or wanted the U.S. to bomb Syria. Saudi Arabia, a regional opponent of Iran’s, wanted the U.S. to bomb Syria, an ally of Iran’s. Israel, a threatened neighbor, wanted the U.S. to bomb Syria. What President Obama wanted remains unclear. As he meanders away from the Syria conflict, Obama’s foreign policy appears as interventionist and aimless as ever, managing at the same time to avoid engagement with other countries in the region while meddling in their affairs with no apparent purpose.

The Funny 115 - The Third One #101. Phillip! Shouting gibberish! Caramoan - episode 5 I know this will shock you, but Survivor has not always been the most culturally sensitive show on TV. "What??" you might say, in outrage, "Are you saying that one of the whitest shows on TV isn't always sensitive to people from different ethnic groups? Are you saying that the casting probably should have been a little more diverse over the years, rather than having fourteen white people and then one token black girl and one token young black basketball coach? Are you saying that they shouldn't have done a season where they divided the players up by race, and then Jeff seemed openly surprised that people from different Asian countries might have different cultures?" "Are you telling me they shouldn't have done a season called "South Pacific" (which isn't a real place, by the way), and that the only culture they came up with for "South Pacific" was that people in that part of the world apparently have a lot... of... coconuts?" Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. Survivor is one of the whitest shows on TV. They don't even try to hide it. And what's worse, sometimes the Survivor fan base is even more horrible about it than the show is. Remember Vecepia, the first black winner of an American reality show? These morons immediately put her into the Reality TV Hall of Shame And of course we can't forget that magical moment when a Survivor podcast I am not going to name spent a large portion of their Worlds Apart cast assessment making fun of Will Sims' wife, and the fact that she had a super sassy ethnic black name. So yes, it is no stretch to say that Survivor (and Survivor fans) have not always been all that sensitive to the minorities in their fan base. And this isn't really a new problem with the show, either. You'd think this is something that would have maybe started around the time of, oh, I don't know, maybe around the time they divided the players up by skin color (Cook Islands, season thirteen.) But if you know your history, you will know this is something that was causing controversy all the way back in the first season. People who were there in 2000 and who have good memories will probably remember that one of the criticisms of the first season went something along the lines of "So wait, you only cast one black guy on the show? And he's the only player out there who has like six different kids with like five different mothers ? Seriously?? That is the one token black guy in the cast?? The guy who bangs out illegitimate babies left and right and who hangs out with strippers named Bubbles and Champagne?" "Where the white women at?" There is no way around it. Survivor is, and will always be, one of the whitest shows on TV. And some of the hashtags they use on the show are just terrible. But if you want an example of one of the whitest men on the face of the Earth (Jeff Probst) not "getting" black culture, in a way that is embarassing even by Jeff Probst standards(!), well, you've come to the right place. We now come to the very awkward #101 moment on the countdown. This one is horrible. Get ready to cringe. It's episode five of Survivor: Caramoan Today the players will be competing for a barbecue lunch This is the challenge where you have to hold a net up in the air, and the other players try to throw coconuts into it The name of this challenge is "A Tribute to South Pacific." Note: It was not designed by a Make-A-Wish kid. Throwing coconuts. We so have our finger on the pulse of what brown people are doing these days. The four holders take their turns, and grab on to their ropes. It is The Specialist and the Frotteurist for Bikal Against I Don't Know and I Don't Care for Gota Seriously. I literally don't know who this person is. Why is that sexy net trying to break up my marriage? So the challenge starts. Ready! Go! Make big moves! The four net holders try to keep their nets in the air for as long as they can YOU HAVE TO THROW COCONUT! YOU HAVE TO THROW COCONUT! And now comes the fun part. The four coconut throwers (aka South Pacificers) come up to the line, and they try to shoot coconuts into the nets Eddie hits a shot Brenda hits a shot Reynolds shoots a coconut like he's my fucking grandmother Meanwhile Probst is just yammering away in that way that he thinks is so important to every Survivor challenge "DID YOU GUYS KNOW THAT BEES AND DOGS CAN SMELL FEAR?" And now we come to the part that proves that Probst is essentially The Whitest Man Alive (tm) With apologies to Astronaut Dan Phillip is on net duty during the challenge, and he discovers a neat little trick he can do to distract the Gota coconut throwers. Basically, he just yells at them Phillip screams and distracts Eddie, who misses the shot Well that worked. That worked really well. So now Phillip just screams at everyone right before they throw their coconut. It works every... single... time. Basically, Phillip has figured out a way to outsmart the challenge. The Sherri Slayer But it is the thing he yells to distract Sherri that is going to become the focus of this entry. I like pie. It is warm and yummy. Okay, so here comes Sherri up for the first time. She lines up to throw her coconut. Phillip gets ready to pounce She aims... "Kunta Kinte!" Fail Now, most people probably know what "Kunta Kinte" means. Or, rather, WHO it means. At least, I hope you do. If you don't, you are probably not going to enjoy this entry. Although, don't feel bad if you don't know who he is, because this entry isn't about you, it is about Probst. Kunta Kinte is this guy Kunta Kinte was the main character in Alex Haley's landmark 1976 novel, Roots: The Saga of an American Family. He was an African slave who was kidnapped, and taken to America, and who was later forced to change his name to Toby. He was also the main character in the 1977 television miniseries Roots, which was watched by something like eleventy billion people, and to this day is still the second most watched finale of any series in American television history. Basically, Roots is one of those shows that pretty much everyone on the face of the earth has watched at one point or another (either the original or the 2016 remake.) In fact, in a lot of American schools these days, the book is actually required reading. In other words, Kunta Kinte was a really big deal. He was also supposedly based on a real person. Anyone who is even slightly aware of the portrayals of African-Americans in the media throughout American history would know who Phillip is talking about when he screams out "Kunta Kinte!" Well, everyone, that is, except for one guy. "Kunta Kinte!" "Phillip! Hollering some sort of war cry!" Yes, it's that point in the entry when we now get to play the game of "How fucking white is Jeff Probst?" "The most revered ancestor of my people!" "Phillip! Shouting out gibberish!" "Earl Cole!" "Phillip! Shouting some kind of English tea!" This wasn't originally one of the entries I had planned for the Funny 115. In fact, I didn't really even write it down in my notes when I was watching Caramoan. Like a lot of people, I was so bored by most of Caramoan that I basically zoned out for about half of the season. But I have to give credit to a friend of mine named Kodi Ross, who pushed for this entry for a long time because of how ridiculously funny it is that Jeff Probst (a famed television producer) wouldn't know the biggest character from arguably the biggest TV miniseries in history. Especially when Survivor is already not especially well known for being all that culturally sensitive or all that nice to its black contestants. In fact Kodi and I are both amazed that they actually kept this clip in the episode at all, since it doesn't make Probst look especially good, and you know how much power he has over the way the show is presented these days. "Rosa Parks!" "Phillip! Telling us how far apart you are supposed to plant corn!" "Barack Obama!" "Phillip! Impersonating a chicken from Ireland!" Does Jeff Probst know who Kunta Kinte is? Or was this just a rare brain fart for a guy who is usually concerned about the way that he comes off on TV? "Martin Luther King!" "Phillip, naming some sort of a chess strategy." In the end, we will never know. All we do know is that you'd think Probst would be aware of the history of African slavery, since it was such a big move. And you know how he is about about jacking off over big moves. Okay, I'm done. Sorry, that one probably crossed the line. Let the record show that the author of this page loved Roots, and I love LeVar Burton, and that I thought Probst not knowing who Kunta Kinte is was funny as hell. And if the rest of the Funny 115 now turns into a contest of "What is the whitest thing Jeff Probst could possibly say?", so much the better. This is why I love to write these things. "Beyoncé!" "Phillip! Yelling out some kind of a Pokemon!" P.S. By the way, I love the irony that we finally got a player to be the spokesperson for black history on Survivor, and it winds up being this guy. PINK UNDIES ARE WAY BETTER THAN WHITE UNDIES, I WILL STAB YOU IN THE HEAD! PINK UNDIES ARE WAY BETTER THAN WHITE UNDIES, I WILL STAB YOU IN THE HEAD! P.P.S. Since this entry turned into "let's make fun of Jeff Probst," how about this quote from a reader of mine named Mark Kalzer: Hey Mario, make sure to include Probst's quote about how he literally ignores everyone else whenever Phillip is talking. He basically treats Phillip as if he's the class clown, except usually the teacher despises the class clown. Instead imagine the class clown is also the teacher's favourite, and not at all funny. Here is the actual quote Probst once gave in an interview: "Any time Phillip says anything, anything at all, I’m interested. When he ups the stakes and declares something important or assigns a Stealth R Us name to another tribe mate, I immediately begin to zone out all other distractions." Translation? "Everyone else shut up. Phillip is giving people nicknames." P.P.P.S. Okay fine, I can't resist.

Paradox and Haemimont Games have announced that their sci-fi city builder 'Surviving Mars' [Steam, Paradox Store] will release in Spring 2018. They've also released more information about the game. You can read a previous dev diary here, where they go into more depth about various resources and energy production. They're trying a different approach to many games, with each resource being different in terms of acquisition, production and/or purpose. They say it will have a steeper learning curve than other city builders, but hopefully they're not making it too difficult. Surviving Mars will have certain survival elements to it, since it's not just a standard city builder. Resources will be scarce and they will deplete, making it a constant problem you will face to keep your colony alive. This means expanding will require scanning for resources, but if you find none you will be able to salvage buildings and vehicles to stay alive a bit longer. In terms of the actual resources needed, the basics are: Metals, Concrete, Rare Metals and Food. Once you progress a bit, you will then also need Polymers, Electronics, Machine Parts and Fuel. On top of that, resources aren't city-wide, they're positional, so not only do you need to ensure production, you need to get them to the right place too. You also have the energy grid to deal with which includes Power, Oxygen, Water. They also have another dev diary up, which focuses on the habitats you will build for keeping your people alive. This one was also occompanied by a preview video: The actual domes you build will vary in size and house various buildings your colonists need, like living quarters, research labs, certain factories and service buildings. They're also expensive to build, making the setup of each one vital to ensuring your very survival. Each dome will be able to have a special Spire building, which will help towards a certain specialization. What is interesting, is that you're not just battling the elements, you're also dealing with colonists needs directly like Health, Sanity, Comfort and Morale. They can die, they will have mental breakdowns and it's your job to keep them happy, healthy and productive members of Mars. Colonists can even have special traits, like being a Hypochondriac or a particularly hardened Survivor. I'm pretty optimistic about this one! I like what I'm seeing and hearing, I just hope the challenge doesn't feel too overwhelming. I'm incredibly pleased it will have Linux support that's for sure. What do you think about what they've shown off and talked about so far?

Scientists in Norway have caused a stir with their announcement this week of giant craters in the Barents Sea, which they believe were formed by exploding natural gas. The scientists have even suggested the phenomenon could explain the mysterious Bermuda Triangle—a highly controversial concept. Researchers at the Arctic University of Norway have described craters off the coast of the country that are up to a half mile (0.8 kilometer) wide and 150 feet (45 meters) deep. They appear to have been caused by the explosive release of methane, also known as natural gas, that was trapped in the sediment below. Such sudden releases of gas could potentially pose a danger to ships, the scientists note. It might also explain reports of missing ships and planes in the Bermuda Triangle, a region of ocean bounded by Miami, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. That's an idea that experts, including Russian scientist Igor Yeltsov, have bandied about in the last few decades. As National Geographic reported in the October publication "Strange But True," "methane can escape into the air, making the atmosphere highly turbulent and perhaps causing aircraft to crash." Is the Bermuda Triangle Even Real? Fear over lost ships and planes in the Bermuda Triangle began about 60 years ago, after five U.S. Navy planes that took off from Florida vanished without a trace. Historians started looking at the records, and found that 300 ships and many other planes were lost in the area throughout the 20th century. Christopher Columbus had even recorded bizarre compass bearings around the triangle on his 1492 voyage. There have been a number of conspiracy theories about the Bermuda Triangle, but many experts remain unconvinced it even exists. "The region is highly traveled and has been a busy crossroads since the early days of European exploration," John Reilly, a historian with the U.S. Naval Historical Foundation, previously told National Geographic. "To say quite a few ships and airplanes have gone down there is like saying there are an awful lot of car accidents on the New Jersey Turnpike—surprise, surprise." In other words, those vessels lost in the area were more likely downed due to bad weather and chance mishaps than more exotic explanations like gas hydrates, skeptics say. Putting it bluntly, a 1976 NOVA episode on the topic concluded: “Science does not have to answer questions about the Triangle because those questions are not valid in the first place." (Read more from skeptics.) Watch: Probe the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. What Are Gas Hydrates? Although their risk to shipping and airplanes is currently speculative, gas hydrates are definitely real. An odorless gas found naturally, and caused by decomposition of organic material, methane becomes solid under the pressure of the ocean and can get locked into ice-like crystals called hydrates. The ice-like deposits can break off and even explode violently. Releasing the pressure suddenly can be a danger to oil workers, who call the results "burps of death." Lab tests have suggested such burps could interfere with ship buoyancy or airplane engines, but the possible effects remain unclear in the real world, where many factors might be at play.

Reactive (Dataflow) Programming in Java and Clojure with Quasar and Pulsar By Ron February 20, 2014 Reactive programming is a programming paradigm that helps programmers process data that flows into the system or is computed by the system asynchronously. Reactive programming achieves this through constructs that organize concurrency into a simple, understandable form. But before we go on to show how reactive programming is used, it’s important to clarify what problem it solves. To do that, we need to better define two concepts that can sometimes be used interchangeably: parallelism and concurrency. When contrasting the two, parallelism is usually defined as using multiple processing cores (in parallel, of course) to expedite a computation (say, like inverting a matrix). Parallelism is an implementation detail of an algorithm used to solve a problem. It is achieved by splitting the data into small bits and feeding them to as many processors as we have available. When talking about parallelism (sometimes better described as data parallelism), the various software and hardware threads cooperate to solve the problem at hand. Clojure’s reducers and Java 8’s streams provide transparent parallelism as an implementation detail of various data-manipulation operations. Concurrency, on the other hand, is not a feature of the algorithm used to solve a problem but one of the problem itself (say, like routing all the tweets flowing concurrently into Twitter). Concurrency concerns itself with managing many concurrenct computations, each processing data that can arrive at any time. When dealing with concurrent computations, it is often beneficial to use multiple processing cores as well, only in that case, the various software and hardware threads compete with each other over system resources rather than cooperate. So, to sum up, parallelism: implementation detail, cooperation; concurrency: nature of the domain, competition. Unlike data parallelism, which can often be completely hidden away from the programmer, concurrency requires the programmer to adopt particular programming paradigms that are required to tackle the problem. Reactive Programming (sometimes also called dataflow programming) is one such paradigm. In this blog post we’ll explore how JVM lightweight threads, combined with reactive constructs, let us work with asynchronous data using Quasar and its Clojure API, Pulsar. Reactive programming can be used either in a traditional, imperative style, or in a functional style. We’ll try both and show how each has its strengths and weaknesses. The main idea behind reactive programming is explicitly modeling the flow of data through the application in such a way that separates the code from concerns about when its input data arrives. This way, various pieces of data arrive asynchronously, some concurrently, and the code that processes them is oblivious to when they were produced. Quasar’s reactive constructs achive their simplicity and performance first and foremost through the use of fibers, which are true lightweight threads. Fibers are similar to regular Java threads (managed directly by the OS kernel), only they incur very little RAM and performance overhead, so much so that you needn’t think twice before launching a new fiber. Fibers are so lightweight that you can easily have hundreds of thousands of them, or even millions, running concurrently in a single JVM instance. While the code here will make use of fibers, it’s important to note that all of Quasar’s reactive constructs work equally well when used on plain Java threads (that’s because fibers and threads are both abstracted by Quasar into a single abstraction called strands). To make the Java code more concise, we’ll use Java 8 lambdas (supported by the current dev version of Quasar, 0.5.0-SNAPSHOT), but they work equally well with the familiar Java anonymous classes. Also, the code examples below require Quasar/Pulsar 0.5.0 (the development version), but the same effects could be achieved equally well with the 0.4.0 release, albeit with a slightly less convenient API. DelayedVals and Promises The first reactive construct used by Quasar is the DelayedVal . A DelayedVal is a constant value that is computed (once) by the program (or is an input to it), at an unknown time. The DelayedVal is set once at any point in the program’s lifetime, but when you want to use it, you need not concern yourself with whether the value has been set yet or not. If it has not been set, the strand (fiber or thread) trying to read it will block until the value is available (if it sounds like a future, that’s because it is; DelayedVal implements the Future interface). Here’s a Java example using fibers and DelayedVals: DelayedVal < Integer > x = new DelayedVal <>(); DelayedVal < Integer > y = new DelayedVal <>(); new Fiber ( () -> { System . out . println ( "x + y = " + ( x . get () + y . get ())); }). start (); new Fiber ( () -> { Strand . sleep ( 1000 ); x . set ( 5 ); }). start (); new Fiber ( () -> { Strand . sleep ( 400 ); y . set ( 10 ); }). start (); Running this code will print x + y = 15. Note how the first fiber simply reads x and y , even though their values are set by two different fibers at two different times. Because we’re using fibers, blocking until the DelayVal is set bears no noticeable overhead at all. DelayedVals are very similar to Clojure promises, so in Pulsar, DelayedVals are defined with the co.paralleluniverse.pulsar.core/promise function, which follows the same API as clojure.core/promise , only it supports fibers as well as threads. Here’s an example in Clojure: ( use 'co.paralleluniverse.pulsar.core ) ( let [ v1 ( promise ) v2 ( promise ) v3 ( promise ) v4 ( promise ) f1 ( spawn-fiber # ( deliver v2 ( + @ v1 1 ))) t1 ( spawn-thread # ( deliver v3 ( + @ v1 @ v2 ))) f2 ( spawn-fiber # ( deliver v4 ( + @ v3 @ v2 )))] ( sleep 50 ) ( deliver v1 1 ) @ v4 ) ; => 5 Notice how this Clojure example uses fibers as well as regular threads. But Pulsar’s promises have one additional, handy, feature. If you pass an optional function to promise , a new fiber running that function will be spawned, and the promise will receive the value returned from the function. Here’s an example: ( use 'co.paralleluniverse.pulsar.core ) ( let [ v0 ( promise ) v1 ( promise ) v2 ( promise # ( + @ v1 1 )) v3 ( promise # ( + @ v1 @ v2 )) v4 ( promise # ( * ( + @ v3 @ v2 ) @ v0 ))] ( sleep 50 ) ( deliver v1 1 ) ( deliver v0 2 ) @ v4 ) ; => 10 A similar feature has been added to the Java API in the current dev version: DelayedVal < Integer > x = new DelayedVal <>(); DelayedVal < Integer > y = new DelayedVal <>(); DelayedVal < Integer > z = new DelayedVal <>(() -> x . get () + y . get ()); new Fiber ( () -> { System . out . println ( "x + y = " + z . get ()); }). start (); new Fiber ( () -> { Strand . sleep ( 1000 ); x . set ( 5 ); }). start (); new Fiber ( () -> { Strand . sleep ( 400 ); y . set ( 10 ); }). start (); Channels, Topics and Tickers Because they can only represent constant values, DelayedVals/promises can only get us so far. We also need the ability to represent values that change over time (I hope Rich Hickey forgives me in using the word “value” in a non-rigorous manner). Quasar channels (modelled after Go channels) can be used to represent a sequence of changing values, with each message sent to the channel corresponding to an update event. But Quasar’s channels are not enough by themselves, as they are usually read by a single consumer, while we’d like to publish the changing value to any interested party. To do that, we’ll use topics. Topics are a special kind of channel that replicates values written to it and sends them to any number of subscribed channels. Subscribers can join and leave the topic at any time. Let’s look at an example that uses both topics and DelayedVals: DelayedVal < Integer > x = new DelayedVal <>(); Topic < Integer > t = new Topic <>(); Fiber f1 = new Fiber (() -> { Channel < Integer > c = t . subscribe ( Channels . newChannel ( 0 )); // a regular channel with no internal buffer for ( Integer m ; ( m = c . receive ()) != null ;) System . out . println ( "=> " + ( m + x . get ())); }). start (); Fiber f2 = new Fiber (() -> { try { IntChannel c = t . subscribe ( Channels . newIntChannel ( 3 )); // a primitive int channel with a buffer of size 3 for (;;) System . out . println ( "-> " + ( x . get () * c . receiveInt ())); } catch ( ReceivePort . EOFException e ) { } }). start (); // some time in the future, we'll set x new Fiber ( () -> { Strand . sleep ( 1000 ); x . set ( 5 ); }). start (); // also, t changes from time to time new Fiber ( () -> { for ( int i = 0 ; i < 10 ; i ++) { Strand . sleep ( 100 ); t . send ( ThreadLocalRandom . current (). nextInt ( 100 )); } t . close (); }). start (); f1 . join (); f2 . join (); Just for fun, the first fiber subscribes a regular generic channel to the topic, while the second subscribes a primitive int channel. Here’s the exact same example in Clojure (remember, we’re still using the imperative style): ( use 'co.paralleluniverse.pulsar.core ) ( import 'co.paralleluniverse.strands.channels.ReceivePort$EOFException ) ( let [ x ( promise ) t ( topic ) f1 ( spawn-fiber ( fn [] ( let [ c ( subscribe! t ( channel 0 ))] ( loop [] ( when-let [ m ( rcv c )] ( println "=>" ( + m @ x )) ( recur )))))) f2 ( spawn-fiber ( fn [] ( let [ c ( subscribe! t ( int-channel 3 ))] ( try ( loop [] ( println "->" ( * @ x ( rcv-int c ))) ( recur )) ( catch ReceivePort$EOFException e )))))] ( spawn-fiber ( fn [] ( sleep 1000 ) ( deliver x 5 ))) ( spawn-fiber ( fn [] ( dotimes [ i 10 ] ( sleep 100 ) ( snd t ( rand-int 100 ))) ( close! t ))) ( join [ f1 f2 ])) There is one problem with topics, though: as channels may have a limited internal buffer (or even no buffer at all) and their default behavior is to block the producer when the buffer is full, a single slow subscriber might slow down the entire topic (which ensures that all subscribers receive all messages). In fact, the topic’s throughput is determined by that of its slowest subscriber. Sometimes, this behavior is not what we want. We’d rather have slow consumers miss a few updates than slow down everyone else. That’s why we have ticker channels. A ticker-channel is a channel with a bounded buffer that employs a policy that replaces the oldest value in the buffer with the newly added value if the buffer is full (basically, it’s a circular buffer). A ticker channel may have multiple consumers, each maintaining their own position in the buffer. All consumers will then see the channel’s values in the order they are sent to the channel, but a slow consumer might miss some of them. Let’s look at a Clojure example (Java code is similar): ( let [ t ( channel 10 :displace ) x ( promise ) f1 ( spawn-fiber ( fn [] ( let [ c ( ticker-consumer t )] ( loop [] ( when-let [ m ( rcv c )] ( println "=>" ( + m @ x )) ( recur )))))) f2 ( spawn-fiber ( fn [] ( let [ c ( ticker-consumer t )] ( loop [] ( when-let [ m ( rcv c )] ( println "->" ( + m @ x )) ( sleep 500 ) ; slow consumer ( recur ))))))] ( spawn-fiber ( fn [] ( sleep 1000 ) ( deliver x 5 ))) ( spawn-fiber ( fn [] ( dotimes [ i 100 ] ( sleep 100 ) ( snd t ( rand-int 100 ))) ( close! t ))) ( join [ f1 f2 ])) The second fiber takes its time, and sleeps for 500ms between channel reads. Nevertheless, the producer and the first channel move along at full speed. The result is that the second fiber simply processes fewer values. Propagating errors Before we move on to the functional style, let’s take a look at a slightly more complex example. Suppose we have a stream of floating-point values flowing into the system, and we’d like to emit their sliding-window running average. We also don’t care if some of the values are lost to the average computation because we want an approximate average, but we don’t want a slow computation to slow down the flow, so we’ll use a ticker channel. Here’s the complete Java example (Clojure code would be similar): final int PORT = 1234 ; DoubleChannel t = Channels . newDoubleChannel ( 100 , Channels . OverflowPolicy . DISPLACE ); // This fiber reads values off a socket and sends them to the ticker channel, t new Fiber ( () -> { try ( FiberServerSocketChannel socket = FiberServerSocketChannel . open (). bind ( new InetSocketAddress ( PORT )); FiberSocketChannel ch = socket . accept ()) { ByteBuffer buf = ByteBuffer . allocateDirect ( 100 ); for (;;) { buf . clear (); int n = ch . read ( buf ); // blocks the fiber (but not the OS thread) assert n == 8 ; // we assume the message is sent in a single packet buf . flip (); t . send ( buf . getDouble ()); } } catch ( Exception e ) { t . close ( e ); // propagate exception to consumers } }). start (); Channel < Double > avg = Channels . newChannel ( 10 ); // This fiber computes a sliding-window running average, and publishes the results to channel avg final int WINDOW_SIZE = 10 ; new Fiber ( () -> { try { DoubleReceivePort c = Channels . newTickerConsumerFor ( t ); // primitive int channel with a buffer of size 3 double [] window = new double [ WINDOW_SIZE ]; long i = 0 ; for (;;) { window [( int ) ( i ++ % WINDOW_SIZE )] = c . receiveDouble (); double sum = 0.0 ; for ( double x : window ) sum += x ; double m = sum / ( Math . min ( WINDOW_SIZE , i )); avg . send ( m ); } } catch ( ReceivePort . EOFException e ) { avg . close (); } catch ( ProducerException e ) { avg . close ( e . getCause ()); // propagate exception to consumers } }). start (); // This fiber prints out the running average new Fiber ( () -> { try { for (;;) { Double x = avg . receive (); if ( x == null ) break ; System . out . println ( "==> " + x ); } } catch ( ProducerException e ) { System . out . println ( "Producer error: " + e . getCause (). getClass (). getName () + "(" + e . getCause (). getMessage () + ")" ); } }). start (); // This fiber prints out the raw values new Fiber ( () -> { try { ReceivePort < Double > c = Channels . newTickerConsumerFor ( t ); for (;;) { Double x = c . receive (); if ( x == null ) break ; System . out . println ( "-> " + x ); } } catch ( ProducerException e ) { System . out . println ( "Producer error: " + e . getCause (). getClass (). getName () + "(" + e . getCause (). getMessage () + ")" ); } }). start (); First, notice how the first fiber uses the familiar Java NIO API, except that the blocking reads simply block the fiber rather than the OS thread (this is accomplished by using asynchronous IO under the covers). Also, note how any IO exception is propagated down the sequence of channels with channel.close(exception) . This “close-with-exception” operation (added in 0.5.0) lets us cleanly detect and report errors. If you want to automate recovery from errors, you might want to consider using Quasar actors, which add powerful fault-tolerance capabilities (actors can read and write to channels just like any fiber can). The average-computing fiber transforms the value stream from one channel and writes them to another. This is a common-enough pattern that we’ve added a simpler API for that (also, just for fun, lets use the new Java 8 stream API to calculate the average). The fiber could also be written like this (propagating errors and closing the output channel are handled for us): Channels . fiberTransform ( Channels . newTickerConsumerFor ( t ), avg , ( DoubleReceivePort in , SendPort < Double > out ) -> { try { double [] window = new double [ WINDOW_SIZE ]; long i = 0 ; for (;;) { window [( int ) ( i ++ % WINDOW_SIZE )] = in . receiveDouble (); out . send ( Arrays . stream ( window ). average (). getAsDouble ()); } } catch ( ReceivePort . EOFException e ) { } }); Again, we used both primitive ( double ) channels and generic (auto-boxing) channels – the two can be used interchangeably. This example, like all previous ones, could have used plain threads insead of fibers (simply changing new Fiber to new Thread everywhere would do the trick), but while threads place a significant burden on the system which might become a serious bottleneck, fibers consume less resources and suffer a much lower scheduling latency than kernel threads. This imperative-reactive style, based on channels and lightweight threads, is also called Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP). That name describes the same thing but focuses on how it’s coded rather than on what it tries to achieve, namely that the code does not care when values are produced, and is thus separated from complex concurrency concerns. This is the essence of reactive programming. Functional Reactive Programming The previous example may have hinted to the fact that applying transformations to “reactive values” is very common. Functional Reactive Programming, or FRP, takes functional programming’s use of operators (higher-order functions) to transform data and applies it to the reactive programming model. Here’s a simple Java example using the map operator: Topic < Integer > t = new Topic <>(); new Fiber ( () -> { for ( int i = 0 ; i < 10 ; i ++) { Strand . sleep ( 100 ); t . send ( ThreadLocalRandom . current (). nextInt ( 100 )); } t . close (); }). start (); new Fiber ( () -> { ReceivePort < Integer > c = t . subscribe ( Channels . newChannel ( 0 )); for ( Integer m ; ( m = c . receive ()) != null ;) System . out . println ( "-> " + m ); }). start (); new Fiber ( () -> { ReceivePort < String > c = Channels . map ( t . subscribe ( Channels . newChannel ( 0 )), ( Integer x ) -> "my number is: " + x ); // transform the channel for ( String m ; ( m = c . receive ()) != null ;) System . out . println ( "=> " + m ); }). start (); While the first fiber consumes the values as they are published by the topic, the second transforms the integer channel into a string channel using map . Now let’s look at a more complex Clojure example: ( use 'co.paralleluniverse.pulsar.core ) ( require ' [ co.paralleluniverse.pulsar.rx :as rx ]) ( let [ numbers ( topic ) letters ( topic ) f ( spawn-fiber ; consumer ( fn [] ( let [ c ( ->> ( rx/zip ( ->> ( subscribe! letters ( channel 0 )) ( rx/mapcat # ( repeat 3 % ))) ( ->> ( subscribe! numbers ( channel 0 )) ( rx/filter odd? ) ( rx/mapcat # ( list % ( * 10 % ) ( * 100 % ))))) ( rx/map ( fn [[ c n ]] ( str "letter: " c " number: " n ))))] ( loop [] ( when-let [ m ( rcv c )] ( println "=> " m ) ( recur ))))))] ; spawn two producers ( spawn-fiber ( fn [] ( doseq [ x ( seq "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuwvxyz" )] ( sleep 50 ) ( snd letters x )) ( close! letters ))) ( spawn-fiber ( fn [] ( doseq [ x ( range 1000 )] ( sleep 70 ) ( snd numbers x )) ( close! numbers ))) ( join [ f ])) Let’s see what’s going on here. The two producer fibers emit a sequence of numbers and the letters of the alphabet on two different topics, at different rates. The consumer subscribes to both topics, and transforms each. It repeats each letter three times, and turns each odd number (it filters out the even ones) into a sequence of three numbers (the original number, the number multiplied by 10, and the number multiplied by 100). Then it zips the two channels together into a channel of vectors, each containing a letter and a number. Finally, it maps those vectors into a string. The consumer doesn’t care that the values are produced at different rates. It treats the topic channels as a kind of changing quantities that it can transform without regard to concurrency concerns at all. In a sense, it treats asynchronous streams of data as values to manipulate. Java 8’s lambdas makes writing functional-style code a viable option. For example, while writing the functional channel transformations in the last example in Java prior to version 8 would have been messy, here is what it looks like Java 8: // with import static co.paralleluniverse.strands.channels.Channels.* new Fiber ( () -> { ReceivePort < String > c = zip ( transform ( numbers . subscribe ( newChannel ( 0 ))) . filter ( x -> x % 2 != 0 ) . flatmap ( x -> toReceivePort ( Arrays . asList ( x , x * 10 , x * 100 ))), transform ( letters . subscribe ( newChannel ( 0 ))) . flatmap ( x -> toReceivePort ( Collections . nCopies ( 3 , x ))), ( num , letter ) -> "letter: " + letter + " number: " + num ); for ( String m ; ( m = c . receive ()) != null ;) System . out . println ( "-> " + m ); }). start (); Functional reactive programming often makes manipulation and composition of asynchronous data simple and clear. However, FRP relies on functional operators that at times may be cumbersome, and sometimes, if the right operator is missing, writing your own might be hard without knowing the details of how concurrency is treated, especially if the operator has internal state. An example of a transformation with internal state is the running average we showed earlier. Another may be one that simply polls every fifth value: Channel < Integer > polled = newChannel ( 0 ); Channels . fiberTransform ( numbers . subscribe ( newChannel ( 0 )), polled , ( ReceivePort < Integer > in , SendPort < Integer > out ) -> { long i = 0 ; for (;;) { Integer v = in . receive (); if ( v == null ) break ; if ( i ++ % 5 == 0 ) out . send ( v ); } }); Or even emits a ticker channel’s values more slowly: Channel < Integer > polled = newChannel ( 0 ); Channels . fiberTransform ( Channels . newTickerConsumerFor ( t ), polled , ( ReceivePort < Integer > in , SendPort < Integer > out ) -> { Integer v ; while (( v = in . receive ()) != null ) { out . send ( v ); Strand . sleep ( 500 ); } }); Performing these transformations with FRP alone requires either just the right kind of pre-built operator, or the use of a cumbersome state monad. But if imperative RP is available to us, we can use it to complement the functional style. There are certainly times when the functional style is clearer, and times when the imperative style is much simpler. Imperative code can also be used to write new functional stateful operators. Sometimes people are forced to use the functional style to avoid blocking, but because lightweight threads make blocking cheap, we can choose the right tool for the job. Reactive UI Most UI toolkits, like Android or even OpenGL (well, not strictly a UI toolkit), require that all updates to the rendered graphics occur in a special UI thread. You’d think that we can’t directly use imperative reactive programming as we’ve done so far on the UI thread because we’re not allowed to block the UI thread. While we can’t directly read DelayedVals or channels on the UI thread, we can actually do something better: we can schedule fibers to execute on the UI thread. Those fibers can block or sleep all they want without blocking the UI thread underneath (this capability was added in the latest Quasar release, but it was buggy, and has since been fixed). While Android support for Quasar is planned (probably in version 0.7.0), Quasar does not support Android just yet. So to demonstrate reactive UI, we’ll use Swing: public static void main ( String [] args ) throws Exception { // first, let's create the Swing UI: final JFrame frame = new JFrame ( "Reactive Window" ); // a window frame . setDefaultCloseOperation ( JFrame . EXIT_ON_CLOSE ); final JPanel panel = new JPanel (); frame . getContentPane (). add ( panel ); final JLabel label1 = new JLabel (); // label 1 final JLabel label2 = new JLabel (); // label 2 label1 . setFont ( label2 . getFont (). deriveFont ( 100.0f )); // large font label2 . setFont ( label2 . getFont (). deriveFont ( 100.0f )); SwingUtilities . invokeLater ( new Runnable () { @Override public void run () { frame . setMinimumSize ( new Dimension ( 600 , 300 )); panel . add ( label1 ); panel . add ( label2 ); frame . pack (); frame . setVisible ( true ); } }); // Now we get to the reactive stuff: Channel < Integer > t = Channels . newChannel ( 1 , Channels . OverflowPolicy . DISPLACE ); DelayedVal < String > x = new DelayedVal <>(); // publish lots of numbers: new Fiber (() -> { for ( int i = 0 ; i < 100000 ; i ++) { Strand . sleep ( 10 ); t . send ( i ); } }). start (); // We'll make x available only 5 seconds from now: new Fiber (() -> { Strand . sleep ( 5 , TimeUnit . SECONDS ); x . set ( "!!!" ); }). start (); // Now let's create a fiber scheduler that runs fibers on the UI thread FiberScheduler UIScheduler = new FiberExecutorScheduler ( "UI-fiber-scheduler" , new Executor () { @Override public void execute ( Runnable command ) { EventQueue . invokeLater ( command ); } }); // set text for the first label new Fiber ( UIScheduler , () -> { ReceivePort < Integer > c = Channels . newTickerConsumerFor ( t ); Integer num ; while (( num = c . receive ()) != null ) { assert EventQueue . isDispatchThread (); // see, we really are on the UI thread! label1 . setText ( "foo: " + num ); Strand . sleep ( 100 ); // ... yet we can sleep } }). start (); new Fiber ( UIScheduler , () -> { ReceivePort < Integer > c = Channels . newTickerConsumerFor ( t ); Integer num ; while (( num = c . receive ()) != null ) { // we block until x is available (in 5 seconds), even though we're on the UI thread label2 . setText ( "bar: " + num + x . get ()); Strand . sleep ( 500 ); // update the second label more slowly } }). start (); } Here’s a screenshot (taken after 5 seconds, once the second label’s text was ready): The two UI fibers loop, block and sleep without affecting the responsiveness of the UI at all (and yes, we could also perform length fiber-blocking IO in those UI fibers). Such is the power of lightweight threads combined with reactive programming! Other JVM Reactive Programming Libraries Netflix’s RxJava, based on .Net’s Reactive Extensions is a functional (only) reactive programming library using “observables” as the core construct. It has a large selection of functional operators and specicialized APIs for various JVM languages. rxjava-quasar is a (yet unreleased) integration module for RxJava and Quasar. It provides dead-simple conversions from Quasar channels to Observables and vice-versa, as well as a scheduler that runs the functional operators inside Quasar fibers. core.async is a Clojure-only reactive programming library modelled after Go channels, which supports both functional and imperative styles. It has several limitations due to the fact that its fiber-like construct, the “go block”, is not a true lightweight thread. On the other hand it is able to run not only on the JVM, but also in the browser using Clojure’s JavaScript implementation, ClojureScript. Also, it’s a very nice API. Pulsar provides the core.async API, as well (all the important stuff is there, and we’ll support the whole thing soon). Pulsar’s core.async implementation is fully interchangeable with Pulsar’s “native” API, has better performance than the original implementation, removes the mentioned limitations (for example, the !< and !!< operations, and in fact all single-bang/double-bang operators, are interchangeable), and interoperates with any JVM language making use of Quasar. Conclusion We’ve seen how reactive programming helps tackle concurrency by isolating the computations from any concerns of when their input data arrives, and how both functional and imperative code can make use of reactive programming. We’ve also shown examples of the reactive constructs provided by Quasar and Pulsar, and how they can be used. Whether you use reactive programming in the imperative or the functional style (or, my personal preference, a combination of both), I hope you appreciate how it helps process asynchronous data and distribute it throught the application in clear, simple flows. This was just a taste of Quasar’s capabilities. Quasar and Pulsar also have a rich and very Erlang-like distributed actor system; Quasar fibers provide extremely scalable blocking IO operations, useful in themselves even without reactive programming; Comsat uses Quasar fibers and fiber-blocking IO to scale JVM web applications, while keeping the same familiar, standard APIs. The next version of Quasar/Pulsar, 0.5.0 will be released in time for the general availability of Java 8 about a month from today, but you could start using the latest realease or the development version right away. So go browse the Quasar and Pulsar documentation, and feel free to fork their GitHub repos right now: https://github.com/puniverse/quasar , https://github.com/puniverse/pulsar Join our mailing list Sign up to receive news and updates.

SCP-2441 SCP-2441 Item #: SCP-2441 Object Class: Safe Special Containment Procedures: SCP-2441 is to be kept in a standard Safe Containment Locker at Site-██. SCP-2441 is to be kept within a standard Safe containment locker, whose combination is to be changed every two days by Dr. Chidlow. Access to SCP-2441 is prohibited except with the express permission of Dr. Chidlow. Any personnel subjected to SCP-2441's anomalous effect are to be administered Class-C amnestics if progression has not advanced to stage 2. Instances of SCP-2441-1 are to be terminated. Description: SCP-2441 is analog wall clock of standard make and model whose hands appear to be stopped at eight o' clock. However, microscopic analysis of the hands shows the minute and second hand to be constantly approaching the twelve, and the hour hand approaching the eight. Each clock hand moves at a rate of one-half the distance remaining to an eight o' clock reading per hour. Anomalous properties manifest when a live human attempts to read SCP-2441's face with the intention of knowing the current time. The affected individual will undergo an instantaneous mental restructuring pertaining to their ability to perceive time; specifically, the grouping of minutes into hours will become a completely alien concept. No other thought processes appear to be directly affected, and no physical changes have been observed in the brains of affected subjects. Research is ongoing. The progression of SCP-2441's anomalous effect occurs in three stages. Stage 1: Subjects will begin to denote the passage of time solely by counting the number of minutes passed after first affected by SCP-2441 with flawless accuracy. When questioned on the topic, all subjects unanimously argue this method to be easier and more precise. Stage 2: Anywhere from twenty to thirty hours following initial exposure, affected individuals begin to display limited probability-altering capabilities and are reclassified as an instance of SCP-2441-1. Any undesirable event (from the perspective of SCP-2441-1) that can be anticipated is subject to 'postponement'- random occurrences in the vicinity of the future event that cause its occurrence to be set back by variable lengths of time. At this stage, subjects do not appear to initiate or influence these events consciously. From this point onward, the relative length of each postponement event increases gradually until stage 3. Stage 3: Approximately forty-two hours after initial exposure, instances of SCP-2441-1 gain limited reality-bending capabilities. When confronted with an undesirable task or occurrence, instances of SCP-2441-1 alter reality to 'postpone' it. Ten to twelve hours after the development of reality-bending abilities, instances of SCP-2441-1 are able to repeatedly 'postpone' events for an indefinite amount of time. +Test logs -Test logs Test Log 2441-1 Subject: D-1852 Supervising Researcher: Dr. Chidlow Procedure: D-1852 is fitted with a shock collar set to deliver a non-lethal electrical shock once every thirty minutes. Time since initial exposure: 24 hours. Results: D-1852 was administered two shocks over the course of one hour. The collar failed to deliver the third shock at the appropriate time; fifteen seconds after replacement, the collar briefly activated twice due to a circuitry malfunction. Test Log 2441-2 Subject: D-1852 Supervising Researcher: Dr. Chidlow Procedure: Prior to test, D-1852 is told that the upcoming test is a meeting with Foundation superiors to discuss release from custody with an indeterminate period of probation. D-1852 is fitted with a new shock collar set to deliver a shock every twenty seconds. Time since initial exposure: thirty-three hours. Results: After one shock, the collar ceased functioning. While transporting a replacement collar from storage to the testing chamber, Junior Researcher ████ tripped and fell on top of it, rendering the collar inoperable. D-1852 terminated shortly afterwards via gunshot. Test Log 2441-3 Subjects: D-5524, D-1242 Supervising Researcher: Dr. Chidlow Procedure: Prior to exposure, D-5524 is given a slow-acting toxin in their morning meal designed to induce the development of brain aneurysms over the course of 72 hours. Testing chamber is equipped with a standard folding chair. D-5524 is instructed to sit, and they comply. D-1242 is given a pistol loaded with rubber bullets, and both are told that it is loaded with standard rounds. D-1242 is instructed to point the gun at D-5524. Time since initial exposure: 70 hours. Note: By this point, D-5524 appears to have a near-complete understanding of the abilities imparted by exposure to SCP-2441. Results: See Audio Log 2441-1. AUDIO LOG 2441-1 - - - BEGIN LOG - - - (D-1242 points the gun towards D-5524's head.) D-5524: I wouldn't do that. D-1242: Shut up. D-5524: Go ahead, pal. Try. D-1242: You know what? I'd fuckin' love to, man. They said if you try to move out of that chair, I get to blow your head off. D-5524: Really? So if I move, you'll shoot me in the head? D-1242: Yep, so you better st- D-5524: Okay. (D-5524 stands up, and D-1242 cries out and drops the gun. D-1242 cradles their right hand in their left.) (Note: Postmortem examination revealed a torn ligament in the right index finger of D-1242.) D-1242: My fuckin' hand! D-5524: Looks like you pulled somethin' there, champ. D-1242: What the fuck did you do? D-5524: I didn't do anything. You just have to stretch more before using those fingers, bud. D-1242: What the fuck did you do, man?! D-5524: Your breathing. D-1242: …what? D-5524: Your. Breathing. D-5524: It's aggravating. D-1242: The fuck you on about, man? D-5524: Stop it. D-1242: Stop what? Wh… (D-1242 clutches their throat, apparently unable to breathe. D-5524 faces the camera.) D-5524: This is, uh, quite a facility you got here, folks. To my understanding, you built it to hold oddities like me— well, me now— in check. (D-1242 collapses.) I'm not sure how powerful the shit kept in here is, but I'd guess that it's strong enough to warrant needing a pretty good power source. (D-5524 glances at the floor of the testing chamber, then looks back at the camera.) D-5524: Something nuclear, maybe. D-5524: Anyway. Come to think of it, it's kinda… chilly in here. Hm. It would be great if you guys turned up the temperature. D-5524: Actually, you know what would be awesome? If the cooling systems were just turned off. All of them. D-5524: I don't think that the next reactor coolant cycle is really necess- (D-5524 pauses, then their knees buckle. Postmortem examination confirms the cause of death to be the rupturing of one of five developing brain aneurysms.) (A diagnostic check of Site-██'s nuclear reactor core revealed a minor flaw in one of the cooling vents. It was promptly repaired.) Further testing on the long-term progression of SCP-2441's effect is halted indefinitely. -Dr. Chidlow Retrieval log 2441: Reports of localized temporal oddities were received from a small neighborhood in ██████, Germany. After capturing numerous instances of SCP-2441-1, Foundation intelligence ascertained the █████████ family to be a shared acquaintance with them all, and initiated standard procedure for containment of an inadvertent reality bender. Prior to retrieval, Foundation intelligence initiated contact via email with Mrs. █████████ on █/██/██ under the guise of a fictitious financial aid service. A visit from a 'representative' was arranged for the manufactured purpose of conducting a house survey. On █/█/██, Agent ██████ posed as the 'representative' and entered the household. All occupants were administered tranquilizer and retrieved. During retreival, Agent ██████ was affected by SCP-2441, and was interviewed shortly before being given class-C amnestics. INTERVIEW LOG 2441-1 Interviewed: Agent ██████ Interviewer: Dr. Chidlow - - - BEGIN LOG - - - Agent ██████: …know that- Dr. Chidlow: Wait until I turn on the recording device, please. Agent ██████: My bad. Dr. Chidlow: All right. Go ahead. (Agent ██████ clears his throat.) Agent ██████: So, I didn't know what it was, first off. The briefing told me to handle this like one of them was an unconscious reality bender- keep it light, be friendly all around, you know. Don't give 'em a reason to want to will you off of this plane of existence. Agent ██████: I walked up to the house, rang the doorbell, and Mrs. ███████████ answered the door. She let me in and we made small talk in the foyer. Agent ██████: While she was showing me around, I looked up at the scip and something in my head… shifted. I can't put it into words, exactly. It was like there was a big cube or something in my mind, and someone rotated it ninety degrees. Dr. Chidlow: Most afflicted subjects don't seem to notice the change unless it's pointed out. Were you aware of the mental restructuring as soon as it occurred? Agent ██████: I was, but I think I get how you could miss it. It felt so… so seamless, like I had been thinking that way my entire life. Every memory I had of someone referring to a sixty-minute length of time seemed— still seems— fake. Agent ██████: I'd be willing to bet that the only reason I noticed it was because I was briefed on the effect. Dr. Chidlow: That will be all. Proceed to the room out that door to be administered amn- - - - END LOG - - - SCP-2441 was retrieved from the household of the █████████ family, at the time consisting of an infant, an eight year old, a wife, and an absent husband. Upon retrieval, Mrs. █████████ was found to be contaminated by SCP-2441, which was hanging above the dining room table. A post-it note was found on the back, reading: Be home by eight my ASS. I set the curfew in this household, not you, ██████. Mrs. █████████ identified it as her husband's handwriting. According to Mrs. █████████, Mr. █████████ had not been in the household for 130,727 minutes (approximately three months).

Hajime Isayama has had years to mull over an ending for Attack on Titan, but it looks like the artist is just now pinning down how he’d like the series to bow out. The Kodansha manga is still an ongoing series at the moment, but the Survey Corps will one day be asked to disband. And, now, Isayama is teasing just how he plans to wrap the series. Recently, the Attack on Titan creator sat down with Bessatsu Shonen to talk about his manga. It was during Isayama’s interview that he revealed he’s moving towards Attack on Titan’s end. UP NEXT: Attack On Titan Creator Reveals Eren's Feelings Towards Mikasa “Although I’m progressing towards the ending that had been set before, my approach towards the ending itself has changed from the original plans,” Isayama said. “I feel responsible towards the reader. I originally wanted to illustrate something similar to the film The Mist." Expanding on his comment about The Mist, the artist said he was intrigued by how the film ultimately turns on its lead character’s beliefs. “By the middle of the film, the story of The Mist is at the typical level of a B-list movie. But at its conclusion, it used the main character’s deep, intrinsic beliefs of what’s right to corrupt the main character himself, leading him to act in contrary ways. What the audience believed to be correct is also flipped upside-down. In the beginning, I spent a while analyzing how to imitate this style for Shingeki no Kyojin.” However, as time has passed, Isayama is now looking to a new movie to help him approach Attack on Titan’s end. Instead of The Mist, the artist wants to mirror a Marvel movie instead. “At first I explored emulating The Mist, but now you could say that I’m moving in a more peaceful direction, similar to Guardians of the Galaxy,” Isayama explained. “I’m not talking about whether Shingeki no Kyojin will have a good or bad ending - I only speak of my own attitude as the creator, as well as differences in my methods of ensuring that the readers enjoy the series.” In the past, Isayama has talked about how he plans to Attack on Titan. The artist already has one ending in mind which his editor has previously admitted to knowing, but the creator’s mind can be changed. After all, Isayama has been persuaded to keep characters such as Sasha alive when asked to. So, who knows? Attack on Titan may very well end with Eren Jeager challenging his Titan foes to a dance-off in some final climatic skirmish. UP NEXT: Attack On Titan Cafe Serves Sweet Treats But No Humans You can read the synopsis for Attack on Titan season two below: Eren Jaeger swore to wipe out every last Titan, but in a battle for his life he wound up becoming the thing he hates most. With his new powers, he fights for humanity's freedom facing the monsters that threaten his home. After a bittersweet victory against the Female Titan, Eren finds no time to rest—a horde of Titans is approaching Wall Rose and the battle for humanity continues! If you are not familiar with Attack on Titan, then you should know the popular anime is renowned for its intense action and gritty story lines. The anime follows a boy named Eren Yeager in an alternate world overrun by massive creatures known as Titans. These mindless beasts have all but wiped out humanity, and mankind is left to cower in fear behind massive walls. When their sanctum is infiltrated by a slew of Titans, Eren and his friends Armin and Mikasa join the military to help eradicate the blood-thirty monsters. But, as they grow older, they learn that the beasts are not what they appear as long-held government conspiracies make themselves known. [HT] Fuku-Shuu

Guy Bentley Bitcoin continues to break new boundaries as Kenyan start-up BitPesa, announced it will be going head-to-head with money transfer services such as Western Union by using the virtual currency Bitcoin to cut transaction costs for remittances. Established providers such as Western Union deduct between $10 (£6) to $17 (£10) from a wire transfer of $200 (£122) from the US to Kenya, and the money can take as long as five days to clear. BitPesa, by contrast is planning to charge three percent on overseas transfers and claims the money will arrive the same day. A wire transfer of $200 using BitPesa would cost just six dollars. Chief executive officer, Elizabeth Rossiello, said in an interview: There are no other market entrants trying to solve the problem of the very high cost of remittances in Africa. Kenyans working abroad send around $1.2bn (£736m) worth of remittances back to Kenya, providing an invaluable source of revenue to friends and relatives while boosting the wider economy. The new service plans to begin on a trial basis in March after gaining regulatory approval. The company hopes to gain one per cent market share within a year, handling 6,500 transactions a month. Yesterday Bitcoin broke through the $1000 barrier for the first time as the popularity of the virtual currency appears to show no sign of waning.

It was a scene where the legendary white rabbit that haunted New Orleans in the mid-'90s -- who some thought may be the actual Easter bunny - would have shown up. The eighth annual NOLA Bunarchy, a charity bar hop in the Marigny, gathered participants who put on their finest floppy ears and tails the day before Easter to raise funds for the Hail Mary Animal Rescue, an organization that helps bring awareness to and place animals that have been impounded and surrendered in the Lafourche Parish Animal Shelter and other shelters in southeast Louisiana. The hop, organized by Dan Sheridan of NOOMOON, traditionally raises funds for animal welfare groups. Past beneficiaries include LA/SPCA, Nola's Ark, Animal Rescue of New Orleans, and Used Dogs, among others. ***** To reach Sue Strachan, send an email to socialscene@nola.com or call 504.450.5904. Find her on Twitter and Instagram as @suestrachan504, with the hashtag #nolasocialscene. Visit her on Facebook. And, come back to NOLA.com/society for more New Orleans area event and party news and photos.

Media and popular culture might portray religion and science as being at odds, but new research from Rice University suggests just the opposite. Findings from the recently completed study "Religious Understandings of Science (RUS)" reveal that despite many misconceptions regarding the intersection of science and religion, nearly 70 percent of evangelical Christians do not view the two as being in conflict with each other. The research was presented by Rice sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund today in Washington, D.C., during the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference, Perceptions: Science and Religious Communities. Ecklund, the principal investigator and researcher for the RUS project, is the Autrey Professor of Sociology and director of Rice's Religion and Public Life Program. Ecklund noted that evangelicals are of interest in this study because they constitute approximately 26 percent of the population in the U.S. and are often considered the most hostile toward science. "We really wanted to determine if this claim was based in any truth," Ecklund said. "Although many politicians and the media at large portray evangelicals as distrustful of science, we found that this is more myth than reality." Other key findings: Nearly half of evangelicals (48 percent) view science and religion as complementary to one another; 21 percent view them as entirely independent of one another. Overall, 38 percent of Americans view religion and science as complementary, and 35 percent of Americans view science and religion as entirely independent. In the U.S., 76 percent of scientists in the general population identify with a religious tradition. Only 15 percent of Americans and 14 percent of evangelicals agree that modern science does more harm than good. Jews (42 percent), Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus (52 percent as a group) and the nonreligious (47 percent) are more interested in new scientific discoveries than evangelicals (22 percent) are. Ecklund plans to write a book about the survey findings with Chris Scheitle, a sociology professor at the West Virginia University. She hopes the research will shed light on how religious groups understand science and vice versa, in addition to providing outreach and translation to individuals who might have difficulties with some aspects of science. RUS is the largest study of American views on religion and science. It includes a nationally representative survey of more than 10,000 Americans and more than 300 in-depth interviews with Christians, Jews and Muslims; more than 140 of the latter three groups are evangelical Christians The study also included extensive observations of 23 religious centers in Houston and Chicago. The research is being provided to the AAAS Dialogue on Science Ethics and Religion program to help foster communication between religious groups and scientists. More information about the study is available at http://www. elainehowardecklund. com/ research/ . ### For more information or to view a copy of the presentation, visit http://www. elainehowardecklund. com/ research/ . Related materials: Photo available for download at http://bit. ly/ 19f5Yq4 Photo credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University Website for Elaine Howard Ecklund: http://www. elainehowardecklund. com/ Related research: Misconceptions of science and religion found in new study: http://bit. ly/ 1gYIZ02 Grant from John Templeton Foundation to support Rice U. religion and science study: http://bit. ly/ 1L3vsat Follow Rice News and Media Relations on Twitter @RiceUNews. This news release can be found online at news.rice.edu. Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,920 undergraduates and 2,567 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just over 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is highly ranked for best quality of life by the Princeton Review and for best value among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance.

As you visit the website of the NGO World Vision India, you are welcomed with full page photographs of underprivileged kids smiling, one wearing a school uniform and other having a plate full of food in his hand. Both these images include a passionate message to sponsor a kid for making his life better. Plus there are options of crowdfunding various survival needs of the poor kids and grown ups alike, programs to rescue a child, fight HIV and AIDS, sending kids to school and more. While all these paint a very rosy picture of an organisation making it look like the one which genuinely cares about making the lives of those struggling everyday to survive in the harsh realities of the world easier, the Rajasthan government came under attack online after people were irked at the fact that the government choose to sign an MOU with World Vision. The critics of this alleged, under all this compassion and save the children message, Wold Vision has a hidden evangelist agenda mainly funded by various church groups from around the world. Before we go into this aspect of World vision lets look at some of the reactions critical of the government’s move: #WorldVision‘s explicit aim is to convert the world to Christianity. Discriminates in hiring. @VasundharaBJP turns over children to them. https://t.co/O4uOcCVGjY — Sankrant Sanu सानु (@sankrant) November 29, 2016 Does @RajeVasundhara NOT know what world vision does??? Are there NO Indian organisations left? #Shame https://t.co/BieDWt6c16 — Shefali Vaidya (@ShefVaidya) November 29, 2016 The MOU was specifically signed between the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) department of the State Government’s Women and Child Development Ministry and World Vision India in order to curb severe acute malnutrition among kids. Before going ahead, lets look at the exact role the NGO is expected to fulfill. The NGO is expected to assign a nutrition expert to every 5-10 Anganwadi centers who will provide support to the existing Anganwadi helpers, furthermore the NGO will provide infrastructure like salter scales, bathroom scales and IEC materials. Looking at the support required to be provided, as putout by Shefali Vaidya, it does’t seem to look like a job which an Indian NGO would not have been able to do. - Advertisement - - Article resumes - Finally coming to the NGO itself. This is how the NGO describes itself at various places: “World Vision India is a Christian grassroots humanitarian organisation” [https://www.worldvision.in/About_Us] “Our faith in Jesus is central to who we are” [https://www.worldvision.org/our-work/faith-in-action] “We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.” [https://www.worldvision.org/statement-of-faith] “We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.“ “We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful man, regeneration of the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.” “World Vision works in partnership with local churches” [http://www.wvi.org/faqs] “Educational activities based on Christian values may occasionally be included in World Vision projects” [http://www.wvi.org/faqs] “Our commitment is that when World Vision leaves communities, there will be thriving, engaged churches for sustained spiritual and physical transformation.” [https://www.worldvision.org/our-work/faith-in-action#1470869887604-2b2a7064-3ed2] On its website (https://www.worldvision.org/our-work/faith-in-action), World Vision suggests donating $18 to provide one Bible that would help “Share the story of Jesus and the glory of God’s work.” It suggests donating $20 or more on a monthly basis to “Help Christian Commitment“ “World Vision is an expression of the Church in mission on behalf of the poor and oppressed.” (https://web.archive.org/web/20120601000000/http://www.worldvision.org.sg/st_ourchristainfaith.php) “World Vision shares the Church’s commitment to disciple followers of Jesus Christ who bear witness to the Gospel by life, deed, word and sign, with the goal of encouraging people to respond to the Gospel” (https://web.archive.org/web/20120601000000/http://www.worldvision.org.sg/st_ourchristainfaith.php) The controversies in world vision global include, sending funds intended for developmental works in Gaza to Hamas, grass root level corruption and more. The extent of influence Christian organisations have on World Vision can be gauged by the fact that back in 2014 they came out with a policy to hire Gay-Christians in same-sex marriages and just two days later retracted ‘under immense financial pressure and criticism from gatekeepers on the evangelical right” as reported here. Coming to India, World Vision’s Chennai office received the maximum amount of foreign funding among all NGO’s amounting to about 239 crores in 2015. Plus coming to it having an Evangelist agenda, as written here in this Huffpost article, the writer an evangelist student then, who once sponsored a kid in India so that he/she could go to a ‘Christian school’ and talks about the influence religion has in its functioning. While there haven’t been outright incidents of the organisation engaging in outright proselytizing, they also categorically deny about engaging in the same. But looking at above instances the fact that there would be a Christian influence on the Rajasthan kids which in the long run might resemble mental conversion to a different set of ideas might not be very inaccurate. The matter becomes complicated even further when one finds out that a BJP government which is dubbed as having conservative views when it comes to such issues is openly collaborating with NGO even when its own central government is cracking down on foreign backed NGO’s having dubious funding. Share This Post and Support:

The first post in this series focused on the locking objects to the pixel grid. This time around I’ll be focusing on issues related to side by side sprite rendering. When working on 2D games in Unity using sprites, you may notice strange spaces or gaps between sprites. These are most notable when sprites are placed beside one another. This issue may not be noticeable immedately, but becomes most apparent at certain resolutions or when moving the camera as shown below. This is quite easy to fix by using sprite packing software, which Unity 5 includes out of the box. The Unity sprite packer combines all sprites together into a single atlas, which can improve performance. Another side effect is that it duplicates the outer pixels of each sprite and adds them as padding in the packed atlas, solving the gap issue. Enabling sprite packing is quite simple. First make sure the sprite packer is enabled by clicking on Edit > Project Settings > Editor in the toolbar and setting the sprite packer mode to “Always Enabled.” Next, click on a sprite or sprite sheet in the project window, which will open the import settings in the inspector, and add a packing tag. In my case I just used the tag “Tiles”, but you can use whatever you want. Sprites with identical packing tags will be added to the same atlas. You can view the atlas that Unity has created by clicking on Window > Sprite Packer in the toolbar. If there’s nothing there, just click the pack button in the upper-left corner. Unity doesn’t create the atlas until you manually click pack, or you run the game. Unity will regenerate atlases whenever play is pressed, or the game is built. With an atlas created by setting a packing tag, the gaps between sprites are now gone as shown below. The gaps may still be shown in the game window when editing, but they will disappear when in playing the game. It seems that Unity only uses atlases in play mode. I’ve found that the Unity sprite packer works perfectly fine for all my needs. If you have any further questions please feel free to message me on Twitter @RyanNielson or comment below.

When over a 120 primo muscle cars show up at a drag strip, fun things are going to happen. Especially when any one of these rides could get big money rolling across the auction block at Barrett-Jackson or Mecum. But instead of static displays with the owners obsessively polishing the fenders and using Q-tips to clean off excessive wax build-up on the door jams, we’ve come to a place were the owners are doing high-gear burnouts, getting sideways, and flogging their muscle cars for every last ounce of horsepower. Where is this mythical place you ask? Well, this is annual Pure Stock Muscle Car Drag Race (PSMCDR) held every September at the Mid-Michigan Motorplex in Stanton, Michigan. If you’ve never heard of PSMCDR, well shame on you. This event has been happening for over 20 years and brings together the largest assortment of muscle cars from the 1950s all the way up to 1979. And not just any muscle cars, we’re talking about rarities and oddities along with the usual cast of bad Mopar dudes like Six Pack Bees, Hemi ’Cudas, and Max Wedge Belvederes. If you’re afraid of getting dead bugs on your grille, stone chips on the lower quarters, and caked-on tire rubber from doing burnouts on your Redlines or Goodyear Polyglas GTs, then park your muscle car in the pits and watch from stands. Just remember, you’re missing out on participating in one of the coolest racing events ever. It doesn’t matter if your Mopar runs 14s or high 11s, the Pure Drags is one of the last remaining grassroots racing venues that you can have fun, even if your win light doesn’t come on. If you’re looking for a safe and cool event to race your prized Mopar, the Pure Stock Drags is where it’s at. The basic rules are simple. Any car built from 1955 to 1979 in the United States or Canada with a minimum warranty of 12 months and 12,000 miles is allowed. This eliminates factory lightweight Super Stock package cars like 1965 A990 B-Bodies, 1968 Hemi Barracudas, Darts, and Ford T-Bolts. Also, cars must be factory equipped with a minimum of four-barrel carburetion, dual exhaust, and other factory-installed equipment that promotes a high-performance intent and image. Cars are paired-up based on time trial e.t.’s and compete in a best-of-three heads-up shootout. You see, simple and fun. There are also safety considerations the event organizers and track put in place. Drivers must wear long pants, cars running 13.99 and quicker must have an approved Snell 2005 helmet and seatbelts, batteries must be secured, and radiators must have an overflow catch can of at least 16 ounces. Also, all accessory belts must be in place and tight to operate the water pump, alternator, and power steering. That said, if you want to play, don’t think you can show up with a pair of disguised aftermarket aluminum heads painted Hemi orange on your 440 Magnum. The Pure Stock tech guys are very savvy and have seen it all. The competitors also police each other to keep the spirit of “stock.” You know some of these motors have breathed-on induction and are super blueprinted, but show up with a 500 cubic-inch stroker engine, and the PSMCDR organizers will show you the gate. You must run the stock intake, carb, cylinder heads, block, and other items for the year, make model, claimed. The camshaft must be stock lift but there’s some leeway with the duration. The compression ratios and blueprint specs are very similar to the NHRA Stock Eliminator guidelines. Don’t forget, you’re also limited to a street tire that cannot exceed a 60-Series width. Drag Radials are not allowed, even if “DOT approved” is stamped on the sidewall. There’s also the 11.50 ET rule that basically says if you run an 11.49 or faster, you’re out of the show. PSMCDR folks feel that by capping the e.t., it’ll prevent cubic dollar competitors from ruining the true nature of the event. As always, there was a great assortment of cool Mopars wreaking havoc on the Brand X competitors at the 2017 event. So check out our coverage and see Street Hemis, Max Wedges, 440 Six Packs, and high-winding 340s do what they were intended for: destroy the competitor in the next lane. If you’re looking to get off the lawn chair at the cruise nights and do something fun with your Mopar, next year’s Pure Stock Muscle Car Drag Race is scheduled for September 14 and 15 at the Mid-Michigan Motorplex.

Now, the British Postal Museum & Archive (BPMA) wants to open the Mail Rail to the masses. The organization's plan is to open a new museum near Mount Pleasant station and convert a section of the line into a ride. It will, inevitably, mean making some changes to the railway as it stands today. But before any renovations are made, the BPMA wants to preserve the space with a digital archive. Rather than simply taking some photos though, or moving the best artifacts into glass cabinets, the organization opted for a technology called LIDAR. Similar to radar or sonar, this process involves firing a laser in every direction and measuring the time it takes to reflect off other objects. All of these recordings then create a "point cloud," which specialist companies can use to create 3D models. It's also the same technology that self-driving cars use to detect and analyze their surroundings. Hiring the experts To record such an unusual site, BPMA enlisted ScanLab Projects. Based in London's Bethnal Green, the company has used LIDAR to document a raft of spectacular places, including the D-Day landing beaches in Normandy, France; a shipping gallery in London's Science Museum; and parts of the Arctic Ocean near Svalbard, Norway. After capturing each location with the laser scanner, ScanLab goes over them again with a DSLR camera. Back in the office, the team then flattens the 3D model into 2D panoramas and lines them up with the DSLR photos. The images from the laser scanner contain depth information, meaning the colors captured by the DSLR can later be applied to the 3D model. "Conceptually, this removes the need to take a photograph and choose the angle when you're at the location," ScanLab co-founder William Trossell says. "You can come back into our office and spend months, or years finding exactly the right perspective." If any space deserves such meticulous treatment, it's the Mail Rail. While it was operational, the carriages would carry up to 4 million letters along 23 miles of track every day. It was the first driverless, electrified railway and the only purpose-built underground mail transit system in the world. The line was originally called the "Post Office Underground Railway" and it launched in 1927, but the initial tunneling work was actually completed a decade earlier. Its structural integrity proved useful in World War I when it was used to protect art pieces from The National Portrait Gallery, the Tate and the British Museum during German bombing raids. In World War II, the network also doubled as dormitories for post office staff. Most importantly, the Mail Rail has been left untouched since its closure. A few engineers still work on the line to check for water damage and other structural problems, but otherwise nothing has been moved. Royal Mail never planned to close the Mail Rail down completely, so on the last "official" day in 2003, staff simply downed their tools and left. They unknowingly created a near-perfect time capsule, a snapshot in history. ScanLab spent five days mapping the railway with two separate scanning teams. Even now, the BPMA isn't sure how it'll use the data inside the new museum. VR is one option, but the team is also considering mobile apps. Visitors could hold their phones up at the walls, for instance, and see the original space like a rift in the fabric of time. Parts could also be used as projections during the ride, or as an alternative experience for visitors with disabilities. "For people with claustrophobia, or people that aren't comfortable with enclosed spaces, it's not going to be a pleasant experience on the ride," a BPMA spokesperson said. "However, we want them to be able to experience it, so applications like this are some of the options we're now exploring to try and bring that experience to them." LIDAR data can be used for many different purposes. A surveyor might be interested in the raw geographical information -- just a spreadsheet with the numbers the LIDAR spat out. An architect, however, could request a top-down plan of a building. "We can take the roof off the structure and then pull the first floor away from the second floor -- almost architecturally dissect the building," Trossell adds. "Then it becomes a good tool for investigative processes, where you're trying to forensically re-examine a crime scene, or work out where the light sockets are because you need to know where to put the new ones." Other LIDAR and 3D visualization companies are doing similar work; Digital Surveys, for instance, mapped a ship called the Northern Wave vessel to help engineers design new upgrades; Historic Scotland and the Glasgow School of Art are scanning 10 historic landmarks, including five World Heritage Sites in Scotland, for preservation purposes. Taking a trip in VR LIDAR visualizations are rarely used in VR experiences though. That's hardly a surprise, given VR is an emerging technology and major players such as Oculus VR, Sony and Valve have yet to release consumer hardware. But ScanLab has been pressing forward and exploring how its model could be adapted for virtual reality. In its spacious design studio in London's Bethnal Green, the company has rigged up an Oculus Rift DK2 headset with plastic prongs and white balls attached on top. Six cameras on the ceiling track their whereabouts and replicate the users' movement inside the Mail Rail visualization. The experience differs from typical VR demos because it shows an exact reproduction of a real-world location, rather than a level from a video game. The idea is that users will be drawn to the Mail Rail's nooks and crannies and everyday objects knowing that, over a decade ago, real people were interacting with them. Walking through the model from the same perspective as an employee should, in theory, help people to visualize what it must've been like down there, especially during the two World Wars.

“We felt the resources were simply endless,” he added. Now, Mr. Donnart said, “I can see a new kind of professional conscience, a personal sense of responsibility, which is what we’re pushing for. It’s important to show the world we’re not pirates.” One of the key challenges facing the industry is to minimize the number of immature or unwanted fish that are netted along with the commercially valuable ones and usually go to waste or are turned into fish meal for salmon farms. To cut back on rejects, the Breton fisheries have developed several designs for nets and techniques for sorting at sea, working in tandem with scientists at the French Research Institute for Marine Exploitation, Ifremer. One new trawl net design has a sorting grille at the bottom of the net that allows small fish to escape; another has a square mesh that catches langoustine but allows hake to get away. According to Nolwenn Gace-Rimaud, Pêcheurs de Bretagne project manager, the introduction of improved trawl nets by Brittany fishing fleets has spared the catch of 14 million unwanted hake annually and 70 million undersized langoustine. That earned the region’s fisheries a champions award from the Seafood Choices Alliance, a private international group, at the International Boston Seafood show in 2008. Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. The organization has also taken on the coordination of measures to tackle the overfishing of specific species and fishing grounds — for example, a two-month annual moratorium in February and March on cod-fishing in E.U. waters and a two-day-a-week ban on sardine fishing in the spawning season, from April to September. A breach of the rules can result in confiscation of the catch, but that rarely happens, because peer pressure and collective surveillance act as strong deterrents, Ms. Gace-Rimaud said. For the fishermen, respecting these limitations on their activity “was a real sacrifice, at first,” said Jacques Pichon, the organization’s director. But the protection and rebuilding of fish stocks would be “fruitful in the long run,” he said. “We are already seeing results.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story On the marketing front, Pêcheurs de Bretagne is developing a sustainable fisheries labeling system. It is also active in the debate on changing the E.U. fisheries policy, where it argues for collectively managed quotas, opposing a proposal by the European Commission in July to introduce individual, purchasable, transferable fishing rights for boat owners, starting in 2014. “Individual quotas are dangerous,” said Isabelle Thomas, vice president of the Brittany Region Council responsible for marine affairs and coastal protection. “They would make collective regulation impossible.” The result, she said in a telephone interview, would be the sale of fishing rights at speculative prices, and a loss of jobs in the region. A fundamental objective of the collective approach is to maintain a varied fishing fleet, resisting economic pressures for a smaller fleet of larger boats and industrial-scale catches, Ms. Thomas said. With industrial fishing, “the resource is ruled by the market, disregarding the fishing industry’s social responsibility,” she said. Still, Pêcheurs de Bretagne, by virtue of the combined size of its membership, is itself a large commercial organization, noted François Chartier, ocean campaigner for Greenpeace France. He urged it to give equal opportunity to the small boats “to remain ethical.” The small boats “are more sustainable in the long run,” he said, because they “fish more selectively.”

Story highlights PETA: This is the first lawsuit seeking constitutional protection against slavery for non-humans The complaint alleges that five killer whales are SeaWorld slaves SeaWorld calls the lawsuit a baseless publicity stunt Can killer whales sue SeaWorld for enslavement? A lawsuit filed Wednesday by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and other "next friends" of five SeaWorld killer whales takes that novel legal approach. The 20-page complaint asks the U.S. District Court in Southern California to declare that the five whales -- Tilikum, Katina, Corky, Kasatka, and Ulises -- are being held in slavery or involuntary servitude in violation of the 13th Amendment. A PETA statement said the lawsuit is the first of its kind in contending that constitutional protections against slavery are not limited to humans. "Plaintiffs were forcibly taken from their families and natural habitats, are held captive at SeaWorld San Diego and SeaWorld Orlando, denied everything that is natural to them, subjected to artificial insemination or sperm collection to breed performers for defendants' shows, and forced to perform, all for defendants' profit," the lawsuit says, arguing that those conditions amount to enslavement and/or forced servitude. JUST WATCHED PETA: SeaWorld enslaves killer whales Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH PETA: SeaWorld enslaves killer whales 02:03 A SeaWorld statement called the lawsuit a baseless publicity stunt by PETA, which is known for provocative advertisements and public demonstrations on behalf of animal rights. At the heart of the lawsuit is the question of whether a non-human entity can sue for a violation of constitutional rights. The 13th Amendment outlaws slavery and "involuntary servitude" in the United States without any specific mention that it applies only to people. "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction," says the amendment's first section. In its statement, PETA called the lawsuit "the first ever seeking to apply the Thirteenth Amendment to non-human animals." The lawsuit seeks an order for the release of the whales "from bondage" and a permanent order against holding them in slavery, as well as appointment of a legal guardian to carry out the transfer of the whales to a suitable habitat. In addition, it seeks attorneys' fees and costs. The "next friends" joining PETA in representing the killer whales are three marine mammal experts, including Ric O'Barry, who was featured in the Academy Award-winning documentary "The Cove" about dolphin-hunting in Japan, and two former Sea World trainers. Their lawsuit contends killer whales -- Orcinus orca, the largest species of the dolphin family -- "possess sophisticated learning, problem solving, and communicative abilities," as well as "distinctive cultural traits." In a statement responding to the lawsuit, SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment said the court case challenges "the public's right to enjoy and learn more about marine mammals." "This effort to extend the Thirteenth Amendment's solemn protections beyond human beings is baseless and in many ways offensive," the statement says. SeaWorld is "among the world's most respected zoological institutions," it continues, adding that SeaWorld parks "are fully accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and the Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums" with legal permission to display marine mammals. "PETA has once again showed that it prefers publicity stunts to the hard work of caring for, rescuing and helping animals," the SeaWorld statement said. State and federal courts have traditionally understood laws dealing with animal ownership and cruelty as applying only to human actions, meaning the animals themselves could neither be prosecuted nor act as plaintiffs or defendants. That would include litigation and legislation involving hunting and breeding of animals and plants, as well as zoo and circus displays.

A man in an Afghan uniform turned his weapon on American trainers working with him in the eastern province of Paktika, killing three of them, while an attacker with a grenade killed an Italian soldier in the west, officials have said. An argument between the Afghan soldier and his trainers appeared to have led to Saturday's shooting on an Afghan National Army base in Paktika's Kher Qot district, according to a statement from the provincial governor's office. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but NATO officials have said that most insider attacks stem from personal grudges and cultural misunderstandings rather than Taliban plots. The international military coalition in Afghanistan said two American service members and one US civilian died. It had initially identified them as three US military personnel. The foreigners returned fire and killed the Afghan soldier, who had no known connection to the insurgency, according to the local governor's statement. The deaths of the International Security Assistance Force on Saturday in the district of Khair Kot came on the same day that one Italian soldier was killed and three others were wounded when a grenade was thrown into their armoured vehicle. An Italian soldier was killed and three were wounded in Farah city on Saturday morning when an 11-year old child threw a grenade at a NATO convoy in the western province of Farah, a Taliban spokesman said. 'Guardian angel' troops The Italian defence ministry and military said the attack happened as the convoy was returning to base. The four deaths on Saturday bring to 16 the number of international troops killed in Afghanistan this month, and come two days after seven Georgian soldiers were killed in a suicide car-bomb attack in the southern province of Helmand. Scores of foreign soldiers have been killed in insider attacks, breeding fierce mistrust and threatening to derail the process of training Afghan forces to take over security duties ahead of NATO's withdrawal next year. The threat has become so serious that foreign soldiers working with Afghan forces are regularly watched over by so-called "guardian angel" troops to provide protection from their supposed allies. The Taliban launched their annual spring offensive at the end of April, marking a crucial period for Afghanistan as local security forces take the lead in offensives against the insurgents. The militants said multiple suicide bombings and insider attacks by Afghan soldiers on NATO-led troops would be used to inflict maximum casualties. There are now about 100,000 international troops in Afghanistan, including 66,000 from the United States. Most of them are due to leave this winter. The remaining smaller force is expected to be mostly American advisers. However, Guido Westerwelle, the German Foreign Minister said on Saturday during a surprise visit to Kabul that the German government was thinking about leaving behind 600-800 troops after 2014. "The departure of our troops from Afghanistan will happen as planned but at the same time we will not forget about Afghanistan in the years after 2014,'' Westerwelle said. "We will engage with them in a different way.''

If passed, President Mauricio Macri's pension reform will play an important part in cutting Argentina's fiscal deficit with expected savings of 100 billion pesos ($5.6 billion) ADVERTISING Read more Buenos Aires (AFP) A trade union-organized march in Buenos Aires descended into violence Thursday, with thousands of protesters clashing with police as they demanded lawmakers reject a controversial pension reform plan. Military police used water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets against demonstrators, who threw stones and burned barricades made of rubbish outside the doors of Argentina's congress. Meanwhile inside, the unrest forced the postponement of the vote, as opposition legislators cried out for the debate to be suspended. "We cannot sit in session with this violence," said Elisa Carrio, National Deputy for Buenos Aires and leader of the social liberal Civic Coalition ARI party. If passed, President Mauricio Macri's reform will play an important part in cutting Argentina's fiscal deficit, with expected savings of 100 billion pesos ($5.6 billion). The opposition however argues it would negatively impact some 17 million retirees -- as it would change the formula used to calculate benefits, adjusting payments quarterly taking only the official inflation index into account. Since 2009, retirees have received automatic increases every six months. Marcos Pena, Cabinet Chief, later insisted during a press conference that the reform "is a good law." © 2017 AFP

September 15, 2016 Are Energy-Based GANs any more energy-based than normal GANs? EDIT: The post had a mistake, pretty crucial one, kindly pointed out by George Tucker, so the has changed from what it was in the original. I have falsely claimed that a variant of the general GAN algorithm is pathological, this turns out not to be the case. Sorry for the mistake. For our latest reading group I chose to read a paper fresh out of Yann LeCun's lab, it's really just a few days old: Junbo Zhao, Michael Mathieu and Yann LeCun (2016) Energy-based Generative Adversarial Network When I saw the title of the paper and skimmed through the abstract I got pretty excited: finally a paper that takes an energy-based view of GANs rather than "two players playing a game against each other and we're looking for the Nash equilibrium" view. I do think that thinking about energies is the most promising way to understand how and why GANs work and also why they mostly don't work. As I was reading the paper, my excitement has disappeared somewhat. Instead of a nice theoretical framework I was hoping to see, the authors' choices looked a bit arbitrary to me, loosely motivated by intuition. In this post I'm trying to explain how I think about energy-based GANs (EBGANs). I'm only really going to touch on very big-picture details instead of covering all details of the paper. Summary of this note I introduce a unifying framework to think about GAN-type methods. This includes the original GAN and energy-based EBGANs as special case I show different special cases of this general algorithm, using least-squares importance estimation and hinge-loss I finally cast the EBGAN objective in this framework in this framework, the choices the authors made look rather arbitrary, I don't see why this particular algorithm should do well, and I find it hard to predict the behaviour of the algorithm compared to regular GANs A unifying view on GAN-type algorithms Here is a unifying framework I use to think about some GAN-style algorithms in general. We have some generative model $Q$, which we can sample from easily. We want to fit this to data sampled from $P$. I think about GANs as an inner loop and outer loop (even though this is not how they're often implemented): inner loop: we train a discrepancy function $s(x)$ to - generally speaking - assign high values to fake data $x\sim Q$, and low values to real data $x\sim P$. We do this using a loss function $\mathcal{L}(s;P,Q)$, or just $\mathcal{L}(s)$ for short. This loss usually takes the following separable form: $$ \mathcal{L}(s;P,Q) = \mathbb{E}_{x\sim P}\ell_1(s(x)) + \mathbb{E}_{x\sim Q}\ell_2(s(x)), $$ where $\ell_1$ and $\ell_2$ are scalar penalties applied on the value of $s$ over real and fake examples respectively (we'll see concrete examples below). Let's call the optimal discrepancy function for the current $Q$ $$ s^{\ast} := \operatorname{argmin}_s \mathcal{L}(s,P,Q) $$ where I omit the dependence of $s^{\ast}$ on $Q$ and $P$ in the interest of brevity. outer loop: we take a gradient step to update the generator $Q$ by trying to decrease the average value of the optimal discrepancy function for generated samples $\mathbb{E}_{x\sim Q} s^{\ast}(x)$. In some variants we instead minimise a monotonic function, $f$ of the discrepancy $\mathbb{E}_{x\sim Q} f(s^{\ast}(x))$. Intuitively, this class of algorithms make sense: each iteration we improve $Q$ by decreasing the discrepancy between $P$ and $Q$. We can identify different variants of GAN as a special case of this unifying framework by picking the right discriminator loss $\mathcal{L}(s)$ and nonlinearity $f$. Original GAN: Logistic regression In the original GAN we train the discrepancy function $s$ by logistic regression. In the original GAN the discriminator $D$ is a classifier, and $s$ is its un-normalised output before the final logistic sigmoid is applied: $$ D(x) = \frac{1}{1 + e^{-s(x)}} $$ The training criterion for $s$ becomes the following: \begin{align} \mathcal{L}(s) &= \mathbb{E}_{x \sim P} \log D(x) + \mathbb{E}_{x \sim Q} \log (1 - D(x)) \\ &= \mathbb{E}_{x \sim P} \operatorname{softminus}(s(x)) - \mathbb{E}_{x \sim Q} \operatorname{softplus}(s(x)) \end{align} These two penalty terms are shown in the figure below: The way to interpret this graph is as follows: $s$ maps our data $x$ onto a scalar, a point on the x-axis. The green curve is the penalty that we incur for fake data: it decreases as $s(x)$ increases, thus pushes $s$ upwards. For real data, the we incur the blue penalty, which pushes pushes $s$ towards lower values. Therefore, the optimal discrepancy function will have the propery we want: it takes lower values for real data, and higher values for fake data. But we can be even more precise. We know that the optimal discrepancy function for logistic regression is actually the logarithmic probability ratio: $$ s^{\ast}(x) = \left( \operatorname{argmin}_s \mathcal{L}(s) \right)(x) = \log\frac{Q(x)}{P(x)} $$ So as we train the discriminator, $s$ is getting closer to this log-ratio. Here is where energies come in. Usually, by energy of a distribution we mean the negative logarithm of it's probability density function $E_P = -\log P$. Using this definition we can say that the discrepancy function in GANs actually learns the difference of energies: $$ s^{\ast} = \log Q - \log P = E_{P} - E_{Q} $$ This is also why it makes sense to minimise the expected discrepancy function $\mathbb{E}_{x \sim Q} s(x)$ when the generator $Q$ is updated: it amounts to minimising $\operatorname{KL}[Q\\|P]$ as I wrote in an earlier post. Similarly, if we choose nonlinearity $f = \operatorname{softplus}$ in the outer loop, we recover the GAN variant which minimizes Jensen-Shannon-divergence, while choosing $f = \operatorname{softminus}$ recovers the version the authors use in the original paper and in DCGAN. This also means that GANs using logistic regression are actually kind of an energy-based method already However, let's now see what happens if we mess around with the discriminator loss $\mathcal{L}$. The Bayes-optimal $s^{\ast}$ will not always end up as nice as the difference of energies. Let me give you another super-fun example, least-squares importance estimation (Kanamori et al, 2009) Least-squares importance estimation Let's consider the following penalty for $s$ in the inner loop: $$ \mathcal{L}(s) = \mathbb{E}_{x \sim P} s^2(x) - 2 \mathbb{E}_{x \sim Q} s(x) \ $$ These penalties are illustrated in the figure below: For real data ($x\sim P$) $s$ is anchored to values around $0$ by a quadratic penalty. For fake data, $s$ is pushed up higher (to the right). So again, the intuition holds: $s$ is trained to assign higher values to fake data than to real data, only this time we're using different penalties. It can be shown that if we train $s$ using this penalty, the Bayes-optimal discrepancy function becomes $$ s^{\ast}(x) = \frac{Q(x)}{P(x)}, $$ the same as logistic regression but without the logarithm, and this turns out to be a very important difference. For the very simple and intuitive derivation I highly recommend reading (Kanamori et al, 2009). here is the part where I had a mistake before, thanks again to George Tucker for pointing it out If you plug that $s^{\ast}$ into the outer loop minimisation, we get the following formula: $$ \mathbb{E}_{x\sim Q} \frac{Q(x)}{P(x)} = \int Q^{2}(x) P(x) dx $$ This is similar to the definition of the Rényi $\alpha$-divergence I wrote about last week, except for a missing logarithm. If you choose a nonlinearity $f(x) = x^{\alpha - 2}$, you can recover Rényi divergences for different alpha. The problem is that our minibatch Monte Carlo estimate of the Rényi divergence is going to be biased (for the same reason it is biased in the variational bound case). Rényi divergences behave differently depending on the choice of $\alpha$ so we should expect that these GAN variants would also differ considerably. See also f-GANs which also use GAN-type algorithms to minimise f-divergences. EBGANs: "Energy Based" GAN This brings us to the proposed EBGANs. If you've read the paper, try to ignore the autoencoder aspect for now, I'm going to jump right through equations (1) and (3). What they call $D$ or sometimes the energy, takes the role of our discrepancy function $s$. Substituting $s$ into Eqn. (1) the loss function for training $s$ becomes: $$ \mathcal{L}(s) = \mathbb{E}_{x \sim P} s(x) - \mathbb{E}_{x \sim Q} (m - s(x))_{+} $$ The associated penalties are shown in the figure below: Note that by construction, the authors also restrict $s$ to take non-negative values, so I only show that part of the plot here. The penalty for fake samples (green line) decreases linearly until it hits threshold $m$. So for fake samples $s$ is encouraged to grow, but once you reach the threshold the loss function doesn't care anymore. Simultaneously, the blue penalty encourages $s$ to take lower values when evaluated on real data. So once again, intuitively it makes sense, the discrepancy function will take higher values for fake data and lower values for real data. Great. But that's basically all I can say. We have no idea, really, what the optimal discrepancy function $s^{\ast}$ would end up looking like. We don't know if it's still as cleanly related to energies $E_P$ or $E_Q$ as it in the logistic regression case - most likely not. The only correct mathematical characterisation of $s^{}(x)$ I could come up with is this: $$ s^{}(x) = \text{¯\_(ツ)_/¯}(x) $$ So while the paper claims to bridge the gap between GANs and energy-based methods, I actually feel like it's less energy-based than vanilla GANs. The authors interpret $s$ (again, they call it $D$) as an energy function itself, but I don't think it's necessarily an energy function of any meaningful distribution involved. It is related somehow to $P$ and $Q$, and therefore to $E_P$ and $E_Q$, but that dependence is almost certainly nonlinear, and not nearly as clear as in the logistic regression case. In this sense I actually think normal GANs are slightly more energy-based than Energy-Based GANs. But what about all the auto-encoder stuff? The energy-based view of EBGANs is partly motivated by the fact that $D$ is calculated in a special way: it's the mean-squared-reconstruction-error of an autoencoder. As far as I'm concerned, $D$ is just a function that takes a datapoint $x$ and outputs a scalar. I don't see why restricting the architecture would suddenly justify calling $D$ an energy in this case. True, if the autoencoder in $D$ was trained to perform reconstruction on data sampled from $P$ then, indeed, we could make connections between the reconstruction error and the energy $E_P$. But here, $D$ is trained using a different loss function in $Eqn. (1)$ so any connection that applies when trained on $P$ only is likely not valid anymore. The authors certainly don't provide a proof or formula for what they think the connection between $D$ and $E_P$ or $E_Q$ is. Summary There's a lot of hype around GANs these days, and some people feel a lot of it is mostly fluff. I think there are elements of GAN research that, when understood correctly, can become very useful tools in probabilistic modelling. Interpreting GANs in an energy-based or information-theoretic framework is one of those directions. I had high hopes for this paper, based on its title and a brief skim, but when you consider the details, I don't think it lives up to its title. It does not discuss the implications of choosing different training objectives on the behaviour of the algorithm, other than providing intuition. As we have seen, intuition alone is not enough to predict how the algorithm would work, and a lot depends on the fine details. You have to give credit where credit is due, the paper also has very extensive experiments, in an exhaustive grid-search they ran orders of magnitude more experiments than I have ever done with GANs. And the results to look good, even if they aren't leaps and bounds better than other GAN samples you see these days. Fineprint: I review papers I read, and from time to time these reviews come out negative. It seems like this is that time of the year again... It's the second negative-toned review this week. I also noticed it's the second time I publish a negative review on joint work by Matthieu and LeCun (sorry guys). I hope you believe that this is correlation rather than diret causation: I'm not on a personal campaign to attack any particular people's work here, and I'm publishing these critical reviews because I hope they will usefully contribute to people's understanding of state-of-the-art machine learning.

A 17-year-old alleged rape victim is being held in juvenile detention to ensure she'll testify at her alleged rapist's trial, which was rescheduled after she previously failed to appear. The unidentified girl did not show up at a preliminary hearing for Frank William Rackley or at his Feb. 28 trial, causing prosecutors to re-file the case and set an April 23 trial date. "The last thing we ever want to do is put a victim or a witness in custody, but when you have serious crimes of violence and a multiple offenses, you have to balance the protection of the community here," Sacramento County Assistant District Attorney Albert Locher told ABCNews.com. A judge signed off on the teen, who is reportedly in the state's foster system and has a history of running away, being held on a material witness warrant on March 14. She appeared before a judge on March 27 and has been in custody ever since, the Sacramento Bee reported. "I think it's outrageous that the DA's office wants to put a rape victim - a juvenile rape victim - in custody, as if she were the criminal, in a case where she is the victim," the girl's attorney, Lisa M. Franco, told the newspaper. Rackley's DNA was found on the girl after a rape examination, prosecutors said, according to The Associated Press. Rackley has a criminal history in the area dating back to 1992. He has a previous arrest for rape. However, those charges were dropped, according to court documents. Locher said the girl's testimony was imperative and cited the potential public safety issue if Rackley is let go on the charges. Material witness warrants are subject to judicial review every 10 days. The girl's next hearing will be Friday, April 6.

Winter has set in on the #NoDAPL encampment in North Dakota. Photo from Sacred Stone Camp The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is preparing to welcome as many as 2,000 veterans to the #NoDAPL encampment amid a time of uncertainty in North Dakota. With their determination to act as human shields, the participants in Veterans Stand For Standing Rock are re-focusing national attention on the brutalities suffered at the hands of the state. Hundreds of people who are opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline have been arrested and have suffered injuries as authorities remain intent on clearing them from land just north of the reservation. But in a return to social media, Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier is already pushing back on the mission. His office is suggesting that the veterans who are coming to Oceti Sakowin Seven Council Fires ) and the other #NoDAPL camps might be engaging in "unlawful" activities "Veterans within the state of North Dakota, we really question that -- as to where their cause truly is because we all took the oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States," Raymond Morell said in a video released by Kirchmeier's office on Thursday. Morton County Sheriff's Department on YouTube: Veteran Speaks Out The Veterans Stand For Standing Rock group began organizing the large deployment before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that it was closing public land to Oceti Sakowin, the largest #NoDAPL site. The December 5 deadline opens up hundreds and perhaps even thousands to prosecution and persecution by county and state authorities. Gov. Jack Dalrymple (R), who has never visited the camps, quickly asserted authority at the site and signed an "emergency" evacuation order on Monday. But with thousands of veterans on their way to Standing Rock, he is denying suggestions that authorities will prevent food, supplies and people from getting there. "We are not going to be stopping people,” Dalrymple said at a press conference on Wednesday after questions were raised about the state's intentions. “It would be a huge mistake from a humanitarian standpoint.” Still, the tribe and the residents of the camps are worried about threats posed by the state, giving recent events. Chairman Dave Archambault II issued a proclamation on Wednesday that supports the continued presence of Oceti Sakowin on public land. "This week is the anniversary of the Sand Creek Massacre," Archambault said, referring to the November 29, 1864, incident in which hundreds of peaceful women, children and elderly were killed at the hands of a state militia in Colorado. "It’s time for the United States to end its legacy of abuses against Native Americans. We call on the United Nations and President Barack Obama to take immediate action to prohibit North Dakota from engaging in its retaliatory actions and practices." "Gov. Darlymple had a chance today to condemn the violence and unlawful acts of state and local governments, but failed to do so," Archambault added. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard on YouTube: Rep. Tulsi Gabbard Calls For Immediate Halt to Dakota Access Pipeline Some veterans have already started making their way to North Dakota for the December 4-7 mission. The event is organized by veterans Michael Wood Jr. and Wesley Clark Jr., and the official spokesperson is veteran Loreal Black Shawl, who is Oglala Sioux and Northern Arapaho. A contingent from the Navajo Nation will be among those joining the more than 2,000 veterans who have signed up. The Dine' Warriors for Standing Rock are scheduled to fly out of of New Mexico on Saturday, according to organizer Duane "Chili" Yazzie , who serves as president of the Shiprock Chapter on the reservation. With authorities in North Dakota still blocking roads north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, the veterans are planning to meet on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota before they head to the front lines. Organizers are establishing an assembly area in Eagle Butte, the headquarters of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) has confirmed that she will be joining the effort. She spoke on the floor of the House on Thursday morning in opposition to the controversial project that spurred the #NoDAPL movement. "The Dakota Access Pipeline is a threat to the great balance of life," said Gabbard, who served in the war in Iraq and remains on active duty. Join the Conversation Related Stories

I just read this story over at The Consumerist, and I’m floored. Apparently a man picking up HIV medication at a Philadelphia CVS was called a “Fucking AIDS freak” by a CVS employee. I’ve had my own experience with bad mannered customer service, but this is really astonishing. Although, I am from Philadelphia and can attest that my city is, generally, a city with a bad attitude, especially in the areas surrounding downtown. My advice to J, the person who wrote to The Consumerist, is to escalate the complaint. Companies rely on their customers. Customer service is paramount to all businesses, and if something like this got public, CVS would be badly damaged. So I say continue, don’t let it drop, write letters and emails to the CEO, and more importantly, to news organizations. The more light that is shed on this situation, the more likely it is to never happen again. You can find the entire post after the jump: Here’s J’s full email, for those of you who want a more detailed story: In what has been one of the most horrifying experiences of my entire life, I have had a dreadful recent encounter at my local CVS. Ironically one of the other worst customer-service related mishaps I’ve ever had was at a CVS as well, though not the same one… I was in my local CVS in Philadelphia getting my partner’s prescription filled. We are a gay male couple and my partner is HIV+. The medication, Atripla, is HIV related. We are both currently on a medicaid-related health insurance plan, a situation that is new to us and directly related to his current health issues. I had in hand a coupon from the local paper that awarded me a $20 gift card if I transferred a prescription to CVS. I had actually used the coupon the day before for another prescription, as it says you can do use it multiple times (just not on the same day.) On this particular day they were having a very hard time getting through to the other pharmacy to put the transfer through. The staff was also particularly snide and unpleasant; more so than usual, at any rate. After the fiasco of getting the actual transfer put through, when the young man attempted to ring me up and process my coupon, something went wrong in the computer. Another employee came by to try and figure things out, and they determined that the coupon was not acceptable for those with Medicaid. I got a little agitated because they weren’t being particularly polite about it, and I tried to explain that I wasn’t specifically on Medicaid proper, but on a related plan. I also pointed out that I had just used the same coupon the day before. They then called over another young man who was apparently a manager. His actual position in the store is still up for debate; he appeared to be a front-of-store manager who was doing some work in the pharmacy area. He walked into the situation with an extremely aggressive attitude. He wouldn’t allow me to actually SAY anything or discuss the situation with him, and it was clear he was taking an “I know what I’m talking about, I know what you’re up to, and I’m going to nip this in the bud” kind of stance with the whole thing. I was getting impatient, embarassed and frustrated. The whole of the staff back there were just glaring at me, and I was extremely perturbed. My inclination in these situations, which seem to happen more frequently these days, is to try and be rational and direct without being rude. I said to this young man “You know what? I don’t think you’re handling this very well or being very polite, and I’d like to speak to someone else about this.” His response was “Whatever, somebody needs to come deal with this because I’m about to go off…” “You’re about to ‘Go off?’, I asked him (probably exacerbating the situation, I admit.) “Do you really think that’s the best thing to say to a paying customer?” And at this point, with his back turned to me, the young man muttered “Fucking AIDS freak.” I have to be honest with you: I’m 30 years old, and in all of my adult life – with all of the bigotry and hatred I have encountered in various forms and situations – this was the absolute most shocking and flabbergasting thing that has ever happened to me. It was one of those situations where I was so stunned and slack-jawed that I had no real faculties to handle the situation. It’s the kind of anger that silences you while your body tenses up and you try to control the shaking that’s coming from the inside out. By this point a woman, the manager of the pharmacy, had approached me and asked – stone faced – if she could help. I told her that if her employees felt comfortable speaking to customers they way they just did, and in her presence, that I didn’t think she COULD help because obviously they felt doing so was okay. I asked her to void my prescription transfer and I left. When I got home I immediately called a different CVS location and asked for a number to call to file a complaint. I called a local “headquarters” number and left a complaint on a voicemail for a district manager. I also called the general 800 number for CVS and left a complain with the customer service person. I was told the general manager of the store, Anthony, was on vacation until Monday. On Monday, Anthony did call me back. Our conversation was brief and typical of what I expected. I was told that he would investigate the situation, and that if what I described did, in fact, happen, it would be dealt with. But that basically he couldn’t promise anything other than that if I ever came into the store again and something similar happened, I should ask to speak to him directly. I can tell you now that nothing really came of the situation. The young man still works at that CVS, and I have done my best to simply not go there anymore. As it is located only 2 bocks from my apartment, and is the only 24-hour estalishment in the area, I do still go occasionally, hating myself every step of the way. I don’t know what I expected CVS to do. I suppose – and I say this laughingly – an apologetic gift card might have been nice. But the real point is, is there any real resolution to a situation like this? Other than having the guy on video or audio tape, he’s obviously going to deny that it happened, and his co-worker chums – presuming they heard what he said (as that one part is probably the only “fireable” part of his lousy customer service) – didn’t seem the types inclined to get involved. There’s no real great way to wrap up this report. I guess the great lesson is, people can still be complete douchebags, and sometimes there’s nothing you can do about it.

Delhi Cabinet on Thursday approved the plan to procure 110 new ambulances under the state government’s “Home to Hospital Care” scheme. This facility, according to the government sources, will be provided by “Centralized Accident & Trauma Services (CATS).” CATS had come into being in 1991 with a view to provide emergency services such as responding to patients in distress and transporting them to hospitals in timeliness manner. The procurement of 110 new ambulances is likely to help CATS a great deal A statement by the state government said that of the 110 new ambulances, 100 would be armed with basic life support facilities while the remaining 10 will be known as advanced life support ambulances. Delhi currently has 155 ambulances but CATS have struggled to respond to emergency situations effectively due to paucity of required resources. Under the new scheme, says the government statement, the shortages in human resources will be adequately taken care of. A Delhiite will be able to avail the services of new home to hospital facility by dialing 102.

Corporation’s political editor has faced abuse over her coverage of Jeremy Corbyn, with petition securing more than 35,000 signatures A campaign to sack BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg over her coverage of Jeremy Corbyn has been accused of misogyny and sexism. More than 35,000 people have signed a petition posted on campaigning website 38 Degrees claiming Kuenssberg is biased against Labour, most recently in her coverage of last week’s local and regional elections. BBC fears government will win battle to impose board members Read more However, many of the comments by those sharing the petition on Twitter have used offensive and sexist language, with further abuse in more private Facebook postings. Former Independent on Sunday political editor Jane Merrick said Kuenssberg’s questioning of what the results meant for Corbyn was justified and the petition was ridiculous, but that the BBC’s first female political editor faced an extra layer of sexist criticism. “She has been called a whore and a bitch on Twitter,” said Merrick. “Nick Robinson used to be accused of Tory bias but he never experienced this level of nastiness. “Of course, not all Corbyn supporters are sexist, far from it, but there is a core of hard-left misogyny that comes out against women when Corbyn is under pressure – such as the abuse against Stella Creasy and Jess Phillips. Jeremy Corbyn said back in September he wanted a ‘kinder politics’ so he should condemn these vile attacks against a respected and experienced journalist.” Why that chart demonstrating Jeremy Corbyn's election success is misleading Read more On Sunday, Labour MP Phillips tweeted: Jess Phillips MP (@jessphillips) I have to say, I think attack on @bbclaurak is underlined with institutional sexism by people who dont even know they are perpetrators It is the second time Kuenssberg has been targeted by campaigners. Earlier this year another petition called for both her and Andrew Neil to be sacked over the on-air resignation of Stephen Doughty. The National Union of Journalists reiterated its position that calls for journalists to be sacked for their reporting were farcical. “This was a legitimate story any journalist would have wanted to run on their show ... You cannot run witch hunts against journalists just because you don’t like the news they report. In the same way we supported journalists – at the BBC and elsewhere – who were attacked on social media by people from both sides of the argument on independence during the Scottish referendum, we will not tolerate people who try to suppress legitimate news coverage.” The author of the petition, who originally set it up following what he described as a “tirade” against Corbyn by Kuenssberg in January, said the petition was not about her gender. “I have been accused of sexist trolling on Twitter,” he wrote in the updated post. “I would like to reassure everyone that I am a passionate advocate for equality in all areas, not just gender equality. “This petition has precisely zero to do with Kuenssberg’s gender. Regardless of the gender you identify with, there is no excuse for biased reporting and misrepresentation of facts when you represent an organisation that has been famed for its impartiality and balanced approach.”

Nobody likes typos; right now, Spain's Economy Ministry must particularly hate them. Four days after publishing the 2014 public debt forecast, Spanish officials have determined a typo mistakenly increased the country's debt figures by €10 billion -- the equivalent of about $13.6 billion "It is an erratum," an economy ministry spokeswoman told the Agence France-Presse. She explained the agency's math was spot on, but a typo had confused the last two digits. The new, lower, revised figures drop Spain's public debt from 99.8 percent of its total economic output to 98.9 percent, the outlet notes. In 2011, Spain's public debt was 68.5 percent of GDP, which, the Telegraph writes, "soared" to 85.9 percent in 2012. For the first half of 2013, it has risen still more, to 92.2 percent. Spain isn't the only government to have dealt with pesky, costly typos. In July, Virginia's Prince William County lost $5 million after a city budget official calculated projected revenues using the wrong numbers.

There are growing calls for the government to ramp up the pressure on Australia as more details emerge about New Zealanders being detained on Christmas Island. Photo: AAP There have been suggestions up to 75 New Zealanders and Pacific Islanders are being held on Christmas Island but Australian authorities refuse to discuss numbers. Radio New Zealand News has been told more and more New Zealanders have been arriving, including about 20 in the past few days. Prime Minister John Key said he wanted Australia to provide better information about the treatment of people it was deporting to New Zealand. Mr Key said he had heard anecdotal accounts but had no idea how many people might be there, and Australia should provide more information. Photo: RNZ / Alexander Robertson Under new rules introduced late last year, anyone who is not an Australian citizen and has served more than a year in prison in their lifetime is liable for deportation. Political parties here say the New Zealand and Australian governments have been happy to talk up the trans-Tasman relationship when it suited them, but this situation undermined all the rhetoric. Labour's Foreign Affairs spokesperson David Shearer said the situation was simply unacceptable. "Australia is dumping on New Zealand some of the laws that they've put in for other reasons, to satisfy their domestic constituency and we're, in a sense, carrying the brunt of it." He said the Government should have much greater detail about the number of New Zealanders who are now there. 'They should know exactly what the situation is and they should be making representations to the Australian government right now, and they should be pretty forceful ones, quite frankly. "Because if an Australian was in the same situation in New Zealand they would get Rolls Royce treatment compared to what New Zealanders are getting in Australia." Photo: Supplied/The Green Party Green Party global affairs spokesperson Kennedy Graham agreed the government must act. "I'm not sure exactly what they have said privately to Australia, publicly all the Prime Minister seems to have done is scratch his head and say he had no idea. "Well fair enough, now that we have an idea we need to turn it around very quickly in terms of new policy." Labour's David Shearer said three Australian politicians, both government and opposition, appeared before the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade select committee this week, and were given a blunt message to take back to their own parliament. "This is a situation which is festering. We don't want it to get any worse, we don't want it to affect our relationship - get in and nip this in the bud before it becomes an issue because it will become an issue." Mr Graham said the application of the new rules to New Zealanders was appalling. "It would never be tolerated by Australia here. It displays a contempt, I think, Australia seems to have if not for New Zealand then some New Zealanders in Australia." Photo: RNZ / Diego Opatowski Peter Dunne, the leader of government support partner United Future , said these actions struck at the heart of the two countries' relationship. "We're supposed to be family, kith and kin - all that sort of thing - and yet we're seeing our people treated the same way as other overstayers or other people about to be deported, and at the same time both governments go out of their way to talk about our special relationships. He said because of that relationship, New Zealanders should get different treatment. "Where we have a free flow of people between our country, where a lot of New Zealanders will go back and forward to Australia many times in their working careers. "And it just seems to me that treating the people in New Zealand who are about to be deported to this country the same way as a whole lot of other people is, I think, a little bit unfair." Mr Key said he was also worried Australia intended to deport people who had committed very minor offences, and he intended raising the issue with new Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. "There are people that are potentially going to be deported to New Zealand now, under the new rules Australia are implementing, that are at a very low threshold of criminal activity but [have] no community of interest with New Zealand."

Conan O’Brien’s late-night show has booked a return stand at the Apollo Theatre as part of TBS’ alliance with the New York Comedy Festival. Conan will originate from the legendary Harlem venue the week of November 7-12, coinciding with the 14th annual yukfest. TBS said today that it will activate fan experiences throughout the festival, create a variety of digital and linear content and explore development opportunities with the next fresh voices in the comedy space. “The New York Comedy Festival gives us an incredible chance to support the best and brightest in comedy, as well as showcase the growing chorus of original voices at TBS,” said Michael Engleman, EVP Entertainment Marketing & Brand Innovation for TBS and TNT. “The festival is simply a great place to create and celebrate fandom and the perfect environment to provide our collective fans with a more immersive connection to our brands.” This will mark Conan‘s second residency at the Apollo, having taped from the storied hall from October 31-November 4 last year. O’Brien will mark the show’s seventh anniversary during this year’s run. Conan has doubled as a veritable travelogue during the past two years, taping shows in Cuba, Armenia, Qatar, South Korea and most recently Berlin. Last week, O’Brien announced that he is taking the show to Mexico City to shoot an episode in a rented studio with an all-Mexican staff, crew, guests and studio audience. He’s calling it Conan Without Borders: Made in Mexico. The special will air March 1 on TBS.

Important note: Webshim is not compatible with upcoming jQuery 3.x and I do not plan to work on a new major version. I will still fix critical bugs in the future though. Webshim is a polyfill library that enables you to reliably use HTML5 features across browsers, even if native support is lacking. The project is hosted on GitHub, and is available for use under the MIT software license. You can report bugs and discuss features on the GitHub issues page. Downloads & Dependencies (Right-click, and use "Save As") Download Webshim depends on jQuery. Introduction There are many appealing HTML5 features such as form validation, geolocation, mediaelements and UI widgets which ease the burden of writing rich web applications. Webshim is a polyfill solution. It adds these features in a way that is transparent to the end user and developer. It enables coding against the browser standards rather than learning and maintaining abstractions. It results in less code that is simpler and easier to maintain. Webshim is also more than a polyfill, it has become a UI component and widget library. Webshim enables a developer to also enhance HTML5 capable browsers with more highly customizable, extensible and flexible UI components and widgets. Its capability based loading system enables webshim to only load those files, which are needed for the specific browser/device and only when it is needed (deferred loading), to reduce especially the initial network payload. Installation Take the 'js-webshim' folder and add it to your project. (You will find a minified and a dev folder there. Put the whole folder, not only the polyfiller.js file into your project!) Here is an example showing how to include dependencies and load webshims: <script src="js/jquery.js"></script> <script src="js-webshim/minified/polyfiller.js"></script> <script> //webshim.setOptions('basePath', '/js-webshim/minified/shims/'); //request the features you need: webshim.polyfill('es5 mediaelement forms'); $(function(){ // use all implemented API-features on DOM-ready }); </script> Configuration The polyfill method accepts an optional whitespace-separated feature list. Call it as soon as possible (before DOM ready.) webshim.polyfill( "canvas geolocation" ); canvas details es5 filereader (implements FileReader, XHR2 (CORS/FormData), FormData, and an input[type="file"] picker) forms (form validation and form features: fieldset[disabled], <input form="idref" />, placeholder...) forms-ext (input wigets) geolocation matchMedia (includes matchMedia and matchMedia.addListener polyfill) mediaelement picture (responsive images: picture andsrcset) promise url (window.URL) usermedia (navigator.getUserMedia) sticky ( position : sticky ) : ) track (subtitles, catptions and textTrack API) xhr2 (an alias for filereader) setOptions should always be called before the polyfill method. The available options for webshim.setOptions : extendNative Webshims lib will automatically extend DOM-Objects with polyfilled methods and will additionally generate a jQuery plugin with this method name. If extendNative is set to false, webshims lib won't touch any DOM-Objects and will only implement jQuery plugins. Setting this option to false might improve DOM performance. default: false Webshims lib will automatically extend DOM-Objects with polyfilled methods and will additionally generate a jQuery plugin with this method name. If extendNative is set to false, webshims lib won't touch any DOM-Objects and will only implement jQuery plugins. Setting this option to false might improve DOM performance. default: false basePath The path to your shims folder. This is computed dynamically. More information. Example: webshim.setOptions('basePath', '/yourFolderTo/shims/'); default: computed path to shims folder The path to your shims folder. This is computed dynamically. More information. Example: default: computed path to shims folder waitReady Setting this to true delays jQuery's ready-event until all polyfilled features are ready. This option should be set to false, if webshims lib polyfiller.js is loaded asynchronously. This option can also be set to false, if a website is using only HTML5 markup APIs (pure HTML or $.attr) and doesn't use any DOM-/JS-APIs on DOM-ready. If this feature is set to false, scripted access to polyfilled APIs have to be added inside of a webshim.ready callback. default: true Setting this to true delays jQuery's ready-event until all polyfilled features are ready. This option should be set to false, if webshims lib polyfiller.js is loaded asynchronously. This option can also be set to false, if a website is using only HTML5 markup APIs (pure HTML or $.attr) and doesn't use any DOM-/JS-APIs on DOM-ready. If this feature is set to false, scripted access to polyfilled APIs have to be added inside of a callback. default: true loadStyles If loadStyles is set false webshims won't load any default styles. In this case a site has to provide all styles for the used widgets. A developer also can copy all used webshim styles into his own stylesheet and minimize requests/only use needed styles for used widgets. See also Customizing styles and UI default: true If is set webshims won't load any default styles. In this case a site has to provide all styles for the used widgets. A developer also can copy all used webshim styles into his own stylesheet and minimize requests/only use needed styles for used widgets. See also Customizing styles and UI default: true debug Setting debug to true enables debug informations to be printed in the developer console. Note the polyfiller.js in the dev folder has more debug informations and pretty printed code. default: undefined Setting to true enables debug informations to be printed in the developer console. Note the polyfiller.js in the dev folder has more debug informations and pretty printed code. default: undefined enhanceAuto If set to true configuration values with the keyword ' auto ' are treated as true, if this is false the keyword ' auto ' is treated as false . default: dynamically computed (mainly false for Smartphone devices and IE8 otherwise true: window.Audio && (!window.matchMedia \|\| matchMedia('(min-device-width: 721px)').matches) ) // enhanceAuto will be false for devices smaller than 720px (i.e. Smartphones or for devices smaller than 1024px and with touchevents (i.e.: Tablets) webshim.setOptions('enhanceAuto', !(matchMedia('(max-device-width: 720px)').matches \|\| matchMedia('(max-device-width: 1024px)').matches && Modernizr.touchevents) ); webshim.setOptions({ 'forms-ext': { replaceUI: 'auto' }, 'mediaelement', { replaceUI: 'auto' } }); //webshims will implement those features in all browsers/devices // but will only enhance capable browsers on desktop with custom styleable mediaelement controls and form widgets webshim.polyfill('forms forms-ext mediaelement'); setOptions can also take a single options parameter: webshim.setOptions({ extendNative: true }); Feature specific options are nested options with the feature name as their key. webshim.setOptions({ // configure generally option extendNative: true, // configure canvas-shim canvas: { type: 'flash' // use flashcanvas instead of excanvas as polyfill }, // configure forms-shim forms: { lazyCustomMessages: true // implement customValidationMessages } }); Fire When Ready Not every feature is ready immediately in all browsers; some shims might take time to load before you can use them. You can use one of jQuery's ready methods to delay working with elements until the DOM and any necessary shims are ready. $(function(){ // work with DOM + all implemented features }); $(document).ready(function(){ // work with DOM + all features }); If you want to use a feature as soon as possible or you have set the waitReady option to false , you can use webshim.ready and pass the feature name(s) and a callback function: webshim.ready('geolocation es5', function(){ // work with geolocation and es5 }); Note that this callback function may be called before the DOM is ready. If you want to use a feature after DOM-Ready, simply pass the string 'DOM': webshim.ready('DOM canvas', function(){ // work with canvas in the document }); DOM Abstractions Due to the fact that we cannot extend accessors of elements in all browsers, we always use jQuery as an extension-wrapper. Accessing DOM properties/attribute IDLs : if the feature allows accessing a specific attribute or property, always use jQuery's built-in $.prop (in case of IDL attributes/properties) or $.attr / $.removeAttr (in case of content attributes) methods: // instead of accessing a property directly (e.g. this.validity), // use $.fn.prop $(this).prop('validity'); // or: //$.prop(this, 'validity'); //setting a property $('video').prop('currentTime', 200); // or: //$.prop(videoElement, 'currentTime', 200); calling a DOM method : While DOM properties have to be accessed through jQuery's $.prop/$.attr methods, DOM methods can be accesed using $.prop and executed in the context of the DOM element. // "this" refers to a DOM element, not a jQuery object var fn = $.prop(this, 'checkValidity'); fn.apply(this); To make this more easier Webshims lib also generates a jQuery plugin which wraps the featured method, so you can use jQuery too: $(this).checkValidity(); $(this).callProp('checkValidity'); // $(this).callProp('play'); The jQuerified method can also take some arguments, if specified by the spec. $('video').addTextTrack('subtitles', 'just a test', 'en'); $('video').callProp('addTextTrack', ['subtitles', 'just a test', 'en']); If you pass a list of nodes and the method doesn't return anything, the method will be called on each element in this list, otherwise it will be called on the first element. In case a developer wants to make method calling "feel 100% native", the general option extendNative can be set to true . webshim.setOptions('extendNative', true); webshim.polyfill('forms'); // ... this.checkValidity() // or use $(this).callProp('checkValidity') $('video').get(0).addTextTrack('subtitles', 'just a test', 'en'); binding to events : Always use jQuery's on method to register your event listeners. addEventListener or inline event handler won't work in polyfilled browsers. Most events in the HTML5 specification are so-called simple events. Simple events do not bubble. Due to the fact that developers really like event delegation and jQuery cannot distinguish between the event phases (capturing/propagation), we use event capturing in the native implementation and $.fn.trigger in the shim. This means that some HTML5 events go down the DOM tree in capable browsers and go up the tree in polyfilled browsers. This can create differences if you are calling event.stopPropagation(); or return false; in your event handler. If you only want to prevent the default, don't use return false; , use event.preventDefault(); instead. manipulation methods/dynamically adding HTML5 content : To insert/copy new HTML5 content dynamically, use .htmlPolyfill() , .appendPolyfill() , .prependPolyfill() , .afterPolyfill() , .beforePolyfill() , .replaceWithPolyfill() and .clonePolyfill() : // three different examples $('form').appendPolyfill('<fieldset><input type="date" /></fieldset>'); $('#canvas-box').htmlPolyfill('<canvas></canvas>'); $('datalist#list select').prependPolyfill('<option value="new suggestion item" />'); See also dynamic HTML5 description. no shadowdom: Webshims lib sometimes has to add additional DOM elements to mimic the UI of HTML5 elements. This can sometimes create differences, between polyfilled and non polyfilled browsers. Webshims lib gives you a method called 'getShadowElement' to access the shadowelement from the native element and a method called 'getNativeElement' to access the native element from the shadowelement. If the element has no shadowelement the element itself is returned. // get the UI component element of input[type="date"] $('input[type="date"]').getShadowElement(); Another problem can be, that some styles of your website may conflict with webshims styles. This normally happens if a tagname selector without a specific class or attribute is used as last selector part: /* do not use / fieldset > div { / some styles / } / instead write something like this: / .form-row { / some styles / } Some styles like float or display: none/block are not reflected by the shadowdom, it is a good approach to do this on a wrapper element or to also add those styles to the generated UI components yourself: <!-- instead of --> <div class="form-field"> <label for="date" style="display: none;">Birthdate</label> <input type="date" id="date" style="display: none;" /> </div> <!-- do this: --> <div class="form-field" style="display: none;"> <label for="date">Birthdate</label> <input type="date" id="date" /> </div> <!-- or instead of: --> <div class="mediaplayer"> <video src="file.mp4" controls style="margin: 0 10px 5px 0; float: left"> </video> </div> <!-- do this: --> <div class="mediaplayer" style="margin: 0 10px 5px 0; float: left"> <video src="file.mp4" controls></video> </div> This could be also fixed by adding those styles to the polyfilled component: / do not use / video { margin: 0 10px 5px 0; float: left; } / do something like this: / video, .polyfill-video { margin: 0 10px 5px 0; float: left; } / or better / .video-wrapper { margin: 0 10px 5px 0; float: left; } re-rendering shadowelements: On dynamic websites shadowelements dimensions and/or positions sometimes need to be updated, this can be achieved by triggering the updateshadowdom . $(document).trigger('updateshadowdom'); The updateshadowdom event is automatically and lazily triggered on window.resize/emchange events. HTML5 shiv and innershiv IE8- isn't capable of rendering HTML5 elements. Webshims lib in combination with Modernizr or HTML5shiv automatically fixes this issue and adds WAI-ARIA landmarks to enable accessibility of HTML5. Dynamically adding HTML5 markup Additionally it implements the following manipulation methods to allow dynamic creation of HTML5 elements: .updatePolyfill() , .htmlPolyfill() , .appendPolyfill() , .prependPolyfill() , .afterPolyfill() , .beforePolyfill() .replaceWithPolyfill() , .appendPolyfillTo() , .prependPolyfillTo() , .insertPolyfillAfter() , .insertPolyfillBefore() , .replacePolyfillAll() var html = '<section><form action="#">' + '<input type="text" placeholder="name" name="test" required/>' + '<input type="date" required="required" name="test2" />' + '<input type="submit" />' + '</form></section>'; $('#Shiv-dynamic-html5-test').htmlPolyfill(html); If a plugin, script or framework is used, which uses a "normal" JS/jQuery manipulation method instead of the corresponding webshims enhanced manipulation method to generate new HTML5 content (i.e.: .html() instead of .htmlPolyfill() ), the method .updatePolyfill() can be used to polyfill the dynamic content: $('#my-dynamic-container').load('ajax/test.html', function(){ $(this).updatePolyfill(); }); jQuery mobile example //set waitReady to false webshim.setOptions('waitReady', false); // call webshim.polyfill() before domready webshim.polyfill(); // bind to the pageinit event after domready... $(document).on('pageinit', function(e){ // ...and call updatePolyfill on the changed element container $(e.target).updatePolyfill(); }); For jQuery Mobile see also webshims and jQ mobile ES5 The es5 feature uses the ES5 shim by Kris Kowal (all object methods, which can't be used cross-browser are removed.). The script implements the following methods: Object : keys : keys Array : isArray : isArray Array.prototype : forEach, map, filter, every, some, reduce, reduceRight, indexOf, lastIndexOf : forEach, map, filter, every, some, reduce, reduceRight, indexOf, lastIndexOf Date : now : now Date.prototype : toISOString, toJSON : toISOString, toJSON Function.prototype : bind : bind String.prototype: trim Note: All methods added to the prototype object are visible inside of a for in loop, while native implementations aren't enumerable. (use hasOwnProperty) webshim.ready('es5', function(){ [1, 2, 3].forEach(function(){ // do stuff }); }); Abstractions Webshims Lib adds the following methods: webshim.objectCreate , webshim.defineProperty , webshim.defineProperties , webshim.getOwnPropertyDescriptor and corresponding support flags: webshim.support.objectAccessor (true in all modern Browsers including IE9, getters and setters can be used on all objects) and webshim.support.advancedObjectProperties (true in FF4, IE9, Chrome 10..., the full ES5 specification of defineProperty is implemented (including writeable, enumerable and configurable). webshim.objectCreate(proto [, propertiesObject, options ]) webshim.objectCreate works very similar to Object.create If propertiesObject is defined, the method goes through this object and sets writeable, enumerable and configurable to true, if the corresponding property is undefined. After this, it will pass proto and propertiesObject to Object.create (if defined) or will use Crockfords begetObject -Method on the proto -object and then calls webshim.defineProperties with the returned object and the propertiesObject . If you pass the options parameter and the Object already has a Options-property. The options-property on the object will be deeply extended otherwise an new options-property will be created. If the object has a method called _create , it will call this method with options as first argument. After this, the created object will be returned. var carProto = { options: { foo: 'bar', baz: 'boom' }, wheels: 4, drive: function(){ this.isDriving = true; } }; var myCar = Object.create(carProto, { _create: { value: function(){ this.drive(); } }, jumps: { value: function(){ //implements jumping } }, {baz: 'jo'} ); // myCar will look like this: { // own property: options: { foo: 'bar', baz: 'jo' }, // prototype: wheels: 4, // prototype drive: function(){ this.isDriving = true; }, // own property: _create: function(){ this.drive(); }, // own property: jumps: function(){ //implements jumping }, // own property: isDriving: true } webshim.defineProperties (object, props) webshim.defineProperties works similar to Object.defineProperties It will go through the props properties and will set writeable, enumerable and configurable to true, if they are undefined. After this either Object.defineProperties will be invoked or legacy code is used. Forms The forms (constraint validation without number, date etc.) and forms-ext (number, date, range etc.) features of the webshim lib are implementing support for the constraint validation API, some input widgets and the placeholder-attribute. The forms feature also implements an easy and cross browser way to control the validation UI (error message and styling the validation bubble). Implemented/fixed in forms : 1. You need to wrap the datalist options in a select element (datalist > select > option)! 2. multiple is only implemented for type=email (also works in conjunction with pattern). Implementation for [type="file"][multiple] or [accept] see filereader! Implemented/fixed in forms-ext : types : datetime-local, time, date, number, month, range : datetime-local, time, date, number, month, range content attributes and properties (IDL attributes) : step, max, min : step, max, min properties/IDLs : valueAsNumber, valueAsDate, labels : valueAsNumber, valueAsDate, labels methods: stepUp/stepDown forms Options A typical configuration would look like this: webshim.setOptions("forms", { lazyCustomMessages: true, replaceValidationUI: true, customDatalist: "auto", list: { "filter": "^" } }); webshim.polyfill('forms'); customMessages boolean If set to true, Webshims will implement a DOM-Property called customValidationMessage, which can be changed through the webshim.validityMessages-Array. default: false boolean If set to true, Webshims will implement a DOM-Property called customValidationMessage, which can be changed through the webshim.validityMessages-Array. default: false lazyCustomMessages boolean Similar to customMessages , but the data is lazily loaded after window.onload or as soon as the user starts to interact with a form for better performance. The customValidationMessage property is therefore not available on DOM-Ready. default: false boolean Similar to , but the data is lazily loaded after window.onload or as soon as the user starts to interact with a form for better performance. The customValidationMessage property is therefore not available on DOM-Ready. default: false replaceValidationUI boolean Replaces the browser validation UI with a custom styleable UI. default: false boolean Replaces the browser validation UI with a custom styleable UI. default: false iVal mixed object Adds and configures a user friendly form validation UI. default: webshim.setOptions("forms", { iVal: { "sel": ".ws-validate", "handleBubble": "hide", "recheckDelay": 400, "fieldWrapper": ":not(span):not(label):not(em):not(strong):not(p)", "events": "focusout change", "errorClass": "user-error", "errorWrapperClass": "ws-invalid", "successWrapperClass": "ws-success", "errorBoxClass": "ws-errorbox", "errorMessageClass": "ws-errormessage", "fx": "slide", "submitCheck": false } }); mixed object Adds and configures a user friendly form validation UI. default: addValidators boolean Should Webshims implement some new custom validators. custom validity example default: false boolean Should Webshims implement some new custom validators. custom validity example default: false customDatalist boolean\|String 'auto' Allows to use custom styleable datalist elements in all browsers. If the string 'auto' is used, input widgets are only replaced in desktop browser or incapable browsers. default: false boolean\|String 'auto' Allows to use custom styleable datalist elements in all browsers. If the string 'auto' is used, input widgets are only replaced in desktop browser or incapable browsers. default: false list mixed object Options object for the datalist/[list] feature (can be also controlled using data-list markup). default: webshim.setOptions("forms", { list: { "filter": "", "multiple": false, "focus": false, "highlight": false, "valueCompletion": false, "inlineValue": false, "noHtmlEscape": false, "popover": { "constrainWidth": true } } }); forms-ext Options replaceUI boolean\|mixed object\|String 'auto' If set to true the UI of all input widgets (number, time, month, date, range) are replaced in all browsers (also in browser, which have implemented these types). This is useful, if you want to style the UI in all browsers. If the string 'auto' is used, input widgets are only replaced in desktop browser or incapable browsers. default: false boolean\|mixed object\|String 'auto' If set to true the UI of all input widgets (number, time, month, date, range) are replaced in all browsers (also in browser, which have implemented these types). This is useful, if you want to style the UI in all browsers. If the string 'auto' is used, input widgets are only replaced in desktop browser or incapable browsers. default: false types string A white space separated string. Possible values are 'datetime-local range date time number month color' . If one of the listed input types is not supported, Webshim will load the forms-ext API and UI package and implement all types. default: date time range number string A white space separated string. Possible values are . If one of the listed input types is not supported, Webshim will load the forms-ext API and UI package and implement all types. default: date time range number widgets object widgets is a general options object for all input widgets. example widgets with different themes, example widgets with different configurations webshim.setOptions("forms-ext", { "widgets": { "startView": 0, "minView": 0, "inlinePicker": false, "size": 1, "splitInput": false, "yearSelect": false, "monthSelect": false, "daySelect": false, "noChangeDismiss": false, "openOnFocus": false, "buttonOnly": false, "classes": "", "popover": { //popover options }, "calculateWidth": true, "animate": true, "toFixed": 0, "onlyFixFloat": false } }); object widgets is a general options object for all input widgets. example widgets with different themes, example widgets with different configurations date object Overrides widgets option object, can be also configured through data-date attribute (datepicker Configurator) object Overrides widgets option object, can be also configured through data-date attribute (datepicker Configurator) month object Overrides widgets option object, can be also configured through data-month attribute (monthpicker Configurator) object Overrides widgets option object, can be also configured through data-month attribute (monthpicker Configurator) number object Overrides widgets option object, can be also configured through data-number attribute (number/spinbutton Configurator) object Overrides widgets option object, can be also configured through data-number attribute (number/spinbutton Configurator) time object Overrides widgets option object, can be also configured through data-time attribute (timepicker Configurator) object Overrides widgets option object, can be also configured through data-time attribute (timepicker Configurator) range object Overrides widgets option object, can be also configured through data-range attribute (slider/range Configurator) object Overrides widgets option object, can be also configured through data-range attribute (slider/range Configurator) color object Overrides widgets option object, can be also configured through data-color attribute (colorpicker Configurator) object Overrides widgets option object, can be also configured through data-color attribute (colorpicker Configurator) datetime-local object Overrides widgets option object, can be also configured through data-color attribute (datetimepicker Configurator) A typical configuration would look like this: //configure forms features webshim.setOptions("forms", { lazyCustomMessages: true, replaceValidationUI: true, customDatalist: "auto", list: { "filter": "^" } }); //configure forms-ext features webshim.setOptions("forms-ext", { replaceUI: "auto", types: "date range number", date: { startView: 2, openOnFocus: true, classes: "show-week" }, number: { calculateWidth: false }, range: { classes: "show-activevaluetooltip" } }); //load forms and forms-ext features webshim.polyfill('forms forms-ext'); Extensions event: firstinvalid : firstinvalid is a simple, bubbling event, which is triggered on the first invalid form element. Preventing the default of firstinvalid will automatically prevent the default behavior of all current invalid elements. : is a simple, bubbling event, which is triggered on the first invalid form element. Preventing the default of firstinvalid will automatically prevent the default behavior of all current invalid elements. event: lastinvalid : lastinvalid is an extended, bubbling, (but) uncancelable event, which is triggered on the last invalid form element. The property invalidlist is a jQuery-collection of all current invalid elements. : is an extended, bubbling, (but) uncancelable event, which is triggered on the last invalid form element. The property is a jQuery-collection of all current invalid elements. event: changedvalid/changedinvalid : Event is triggered, if the value of the element was changed and is marked as valid/invalid (see also: .form-ui-valid/.form-ui-invalid). : Event is triggered, if the value of the element was changed and is marked as valid/invalid (see also: .form-ui-valid/.form-ui-invalid). event: datalistselect : Event is triggered on each input[list] for each option, in case the callback returns a string this is used to construct the datalist polyfill : Event is triggered on each input[list] for each option, in case the callback returns a string this is used to construct the datalist polyfill event: getoptioncontent : Event is triggered on the input element, for each option of a datalist. The return value (must be a string) is used to build each list item. Good to enhance list items (For example to add images or more complex HTML) : Event is triggered on the input element, for each option of a datalist. The return value (must be a string) is used to build each list item. Good to enhance list items (For example to add images or more complex HTML) event: datalistcreated : Event is triggered on the input element, after the list was created. : Event is triggered on the input element, after the list was created. selectors for CSS/JS: .ws-validate (.ws-invalid/.ws-success) : The class 'ws-validate' on a form element will implement UX improved Instant Validation for this form. The classes .ws-invalid (similiar to :user-error) and .ws-success will mark either "touched" invalid element wrappers or valid and "filled" element wrappers. example : The class 'ws-validate' on a form element will implement UX improved Instant Validation for this form. The classes .ws-invalid (similiar to :user-error) and .ws-success will mark either "touched" invalid element wrappers or valid and "filled" element wrappers. example selectors for CSS/JS: .user-success/.user-error : which work similar to :-moz-ui-valid/:-moz-ui-invalid or :user-error : which work similar to :-moz-ui-valid/:-moz-ui-invalid or :user-error selectors for CSS/JS: .placeholder-visible : which work similar to :-moz-placeholder, :-ms-input-placeholder and ::-webkit-input-placeholder : which work similar to :-moz-placeholder, :-ms-input-placeholder and ::-webkit-input-placeholder $().getErrorMessage : very similar to the standard validationMessage, but gives more control over the validationMessage. : very similar to the standard validationMessage, but gives more control over the validationMessage. attribute: data-errormessage or -x-moz-errormessage : Attribute with text, which is used be custom validityAlert/customValidationMessage to show a custom error message for the field. : Attribute with text, which is used be custom validityAlert/customValidationMessage to show a custom error message for the field. helper method: webshim.validityAlert.showFor: takes a DOM-Object/Selector/jQuery-Object and shows the invalid message for this element. (simply look into the prototype i.e. console.log(webshim.validityAlert) to make changes) Canvas the canvas feature implements one jQuery method .getContext() . var ctx = $('#my-canvas').getContext('2d'); ctx.clearRect(10, 10, 100, 100); ctx.fillStyle = "rgb(200,0,0)"; ctx.fillRect(10, 10, 55, 50); ctx.fillStyle = "rgba(0, 0, 200, 0.5)"; ctx.fillRect(30, 30, 55, 50); Webshim Lib can implement excanvas or FlashCanvas/FlashCanvas Pro: // always run configuration before calling webshim.polyfill(); window.FlashCanvasOptions = { disableContextMenu: true }; webshim.setOptions('canvas', { type: 'flashpro' // excanvas \| flash \| flashpro }); //start polyfilling forms webshim.polyfill('forms'); Webshim will implement a bridge between the native/polyfilled drawImage canvas API and the polyfilled mediaelement API. To get this work in IE8 the 'flashpro' option type for the canvas feature has to be used. Options for the canvas feature type string Enumeration with value flash or flashpro or excanvas Media Audio, video and source The mediaelement feature implements the audio, video and source elements including their API and enables playing mp4, mp3, flv, fla etc. media files and playing rtmp streams in incapable browsers. Implemented/fixed elements, attributes, properties, methods, events elements : video, audio, source : video, audio, source attributes and IDL/properties : controls, loop, autoplay, src, media, type, muted : controls, loop, autoplay, src, media, type, muted properties/IDLs : paused, ended, muted, volume, currentTime, duration, buffered 1 , currentSrc, readyState, networkState, videoHeight, videoWidth, seeking, defaultMuted : paused, ended, muted, volume, currentTime, duration, buffered , currentSrc, readyState, networkState, videoHeight, videoWidth, seeking, defaultMuted methods : play, pause, load (mediaLoad 3 ), canPlayType 4 : play, pause, load (mediaLoad ), canPlayType events: loadedmetadata, play, pause, playing, canplay, ended, waiting, timeupdate, progress, emptied, volumechange, durationchange, seeking, seeked 1.buffered is a little bit buggy with youtube videos. 2.videoHeight/videoWidth not supported with youtube videos. 3. mediaLoad is the jQuery plugin method, which corresponds to the native load method (Webshims lib does not override jQuery's own load-method), ( $('video')[0].load() === $('video:first').mediaLoad() ). 4. canPlayType returns "maybe" if native player can't play, but Flash can and is installed. (i.e.: $('video').canPlayType('video/flv') might return "mabe") Options for the mediaelement feature replaceUI boolean\|string If set to true, all audio and video elements inside a container with the class mediaplayer get custom styleable controls. If set to the string 'auto', only desktop browsers (except IE8) will get those extra styleable controls. boolean\|string If set to true, all audio and video elements inside a container with the class get custom styleable controls. If set to the string 'auto', only desktop browsers (except IE8) will get those extra styleable controls. preferFlash boolean If set to true the mediaelements will be replaced by flash, if flash is available. Otherwise, only if mediaelements aren't supported or the current audio/video container/codec isn't supported by the browser. default: false boolean If set to true the mediaelements will be replaced by flash, if flash is available. Otherwise, only if mediaelements aren't supported or the current audio/video container/codec isn't supported by the browser. default: false vars Flashvars Object configuration for Jarisplayer. This general configuration can be changed via a data-vars attribute too. Flashvars Object configuration for Jarisplayer. This general configuration can be changed via a data-vars attribute too. changeSWF function Callback function to modify the flashvars object for Jarisplayer. Playing HLS / RTMP Streams <video poster="poster.jpg" controls=""> <!-- Mac OS / iOS HLS Streaming --> <source src="http://server.com/path/file.m3u8" type="application/x-mpegURL" /> <!-- rtmp streaming: using the data-server attribute --> <source data-server="rtmp://server.com/path/" src="file.mp4" type="video/rtmp" /> <!-- rtmp streaming: using an identifier (i.e.: mp4:) --> <source src="rtmp://server.com/path/identifier:file.mp4" type="video/rtmp" /> </video> Loading youtube videos with different Qualities Video quality can be suggested by using the vq parameter. Possible values are: small, medium, large, hd720, hd1080, highres <video poster="poster.jpg" controls="" src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siOHh0uzcuY&vq=large"> </video> Using customstyleable controls <style> /* add basic styles / .mediaplayer { position: relative; height: 0; width: 100%; padding-bottom: 56.25%; / 16/9 / } .mediaplayer video, .mediaplayer .polyfill-video { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; height: 100%; width: 100%; } </style> <script> webshim.setOptions('mediaelement', {replaceUI: 'auto'}); webshim.polyfill('mediaelement'); </script> <div class="mediaplayer"> <video poster="poster.jpg" src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siOHh0uzcuY&vq=large"> </video> </div> Webshim will implement a bridge between the native/polyfilled canvas.drawImage API and the polyfilled mediaelement API (flash). <script> webshim.setOptions({ canvas: { type: 'flashpro' }, mediaelement: { replaceUI: 'auto' } }); webshim.polyfill('mediaelement canvas'); </script> <script> $(function(){ var context, $video; function initCanvas() { var $canvas = document.getElementsByTagName("canvas")[0]; $video = $("video"); context = $canvas.getContext("2d"); $video.on("timeupdate", paintFrame); } function paintFrame(e) { context.drawImage($video[0], 0, 0); //timeupdate is dispatched every 250ms, let's paint the frame more often, //but only if a real timeupdate was dispatched if(e){ setTimeout(paintFrame, 65); setTimeout(paintFrame, 130); setTimeout(paintFrame, 195); } } initCanvas(); }); </script> <div class="mediaplayer ratio-16-9"> <video controls preload="none" poster="sintel-trailer.jpg"> <source src="sintel-trailer.mp4" type="video/mp4" /> </video> </div> <canvas style="border: 1px solid black;" height="280" width="500"></canvas> Here you can find more information about customizing controls and extending the mediaplayer's behavior. Examples/Demos Track Element Support The track feature implements the track element width a WebVTT parser and the corresponding DOM- and JS-APIs. Implemented/fixed elements, attributes, properties, methods, events 1. Use additional [] to bind events to Array-like objects ( $([ $('video').prop('textTracks') ]).on('addtrack', function(e){console.log('track was added');}); ) 2. Use $.prop to get activeCues property. (i.e.: $.prop(track, 'activeCues'); ). Options for the track feature override (false): Overrides native track implementation. If set to 'auto', the track implementation will be overridden only in desktop browsers. (Good to use with mediaelement's replaceUI option). In case you have to deal with some cross-browser issues with native implementation. (false): Overrides native track implementation. If set to 'auto', the track implementation will be overridden only in desktop browsers. (Good to use with mediaelement's replaceUI option). In case you have to deal with some cross-browser issues with native implementation. positionDisplay (true): Positions the cue display via JavaScript. Examples Geolocation The geolocation -feature implements the navigator.geolocation API. The following methods are available: navigator.getCurrentPosition: successCallback, errorCallback and options ({timeout: number}) are supported navigator.watchPosition: in shim identical to getCurrentPosition, except it returns an useless ID navigator.clearWatch: is noop in shim The shim uses the geolocation information provided by http://freegeoip.net and/or googles API-Loader Options for geolocation confirmText string confirm text for requesting access to geo data. webshim.setOptions('geolocation', { confirmText: '{location} wants to know your position. It is Ok to press Ok.' }); navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function(pos){ alert("Thx, you are @ latitude: "+ pos.coords.latitude +"/longitude: " + pos.coords.longitude); }); Details & Summary The HTML5 details element is an interactive element. If the open attribute is set the details are shown, if not the details are hidden. click to toggle visibility Here are the details of this element: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore mag Dynamically creating a details element (always use htmlPolyfill, afterPolyfill, beforePolyfill etc.): $('details:first').afterPolyfill('<details open="open"><p>Here is some text</p></details>'); The openness of a details element can be also scripted. Simply change the open IDL-attribute: // set the open attribute of the first details element ... // ... to its opposite value $('details:first').prop('open', !$('details').prop('open') ); Options for the details feature text string The summary text which is generated if no summary element is found as first child of the details element. default: Details string The summary text which is generated if no summary element is found as first child of the details element. default: Details animate boolean If set to true, the visibility toggle of details will be animated. default: false webshim.setOptions('details', {animate: true}); Constraints of the details polyfill The polyfill currently only allows other elements as direct children of the details. Simple text is not allowed as direct child of details. The details and summary element can be considered as experimental . It is not clear wether and if yes, how a developer can style the summary element. Safari nightly (6) and Chrome 12 are currently the only browsers supporting this element. Note: Please read Bruce Lawson's blog post. . It is not clear wether and if yes, how a developer can style the summary element. Safari nightly (6) and Chrome 12 are currently the only browsers supporting this element. Note: Please read Bruce Lawson's blog post. We currently haven't coded unit tests for this feature FileReader/FormData/CORS The filereader feature enables accessing and reading a file from an input[type="file"]. Additionally it can be processed over AJAX to a server. Due to its obtrusive nature an input has to have an additional class with the name ws-filereader : Implemented/fixed elements, attributes, properties, methods, events 1. [accept], [multiple] and the .files property is only polyfilled on input elements with the additional class 'ws-filereader' 2. For full support of all features Flash or Silverliegt should be installed. But webshim falls back to other technologies (i.e.: iframe solutions), if those aren't installed. Therefore for full CORS support a crossdomain.xml has to be on the server! 3. FormData shim can currently only handle one file per AJAX request! An example of how to read a file as a base64 string from a form control: <!-- add ws-filereader class to all shimable type="file" inputs --> <input type="file" class="ws-filereader" id="user-photo" multiple="" accept="image/" /> //load the filereader webshim.polyfill('filereader'); //on DOM ready filereader is shimmed $(function(){ $('#user-photo').on('change', function (evt) { var reader, file; reader = new FileReader(); reader.onload = function (evt) { var fileData = evt.target.result; // fileData is the base64 encoded image }; //use $.prop to access files property file = $(this).prop('files')[0]; reader.readAsDataURL(file); }); }); To get the file transferred to a server the FormData constructor in conjunction with AJAX can be used: $('form[data-action].ajax-form').on('submit', function(){ //FormData is similar to $.serializeArray, but can handle type="file" in AJAX var data = new FormData(this); $.ajax({ url: $form.data('action'), success: function(data){ //success }, error: function(){ //error }, data: data, processData: false, contentType: false, type: 'POST' }); e.preventDefault(); }); For the code above to fully work it is important, that everything is either in the same origin or a crossdomain.xml is on the server. A featured example including php code can be found in the filereader directory. In case webshim is not served from the same domain (for exmaple using a CDN) a crossdomain.xml like the following should be reachable on your server root: <?xml version="1.0"?> <!DOCTYPE cross-domain-policy SYSTEM "http://www.macromedia.com/xml/dtds/cross-domain-policy.dtd"> <cross-domain-policy> <allow-access-from domain="" secure="false" /> </cross-domain-policy> In case you don't have full access to your server's root to do so, you can host Moxie.min.swf (Flash) on your server and tell webshim to load them from there: webshim.setOptions('filereader', { swfpath: '/assests/Moxie.min.swf' }); The filereader feature is also lazy loaded by webhsim's form feature as soon as an element matching the input.ws-filereader selector is used. Additionally the forms features enables custom styleable [type=file] elements if it finds a wrapper with the class ws-custom-file : <script> //filereader is lazyLoaded no need to call feature webshim.polyfill('forms'); </script> <div class="ws-custom-file"> <!-- add ws-filereader class to all shimable type="file" inputs --> <input type="file" class="ws-filereader" id="user-photo" multiple="" accept="image/" /> <!-- button and .ws-file-value for custom filepicker UI --> <button type="button">Browse</button> <span class="ws-file-value">...</span> </div> The filereader feature is based on code from https://github.com/moxiecode/moxie. matchMedia The matchMedia feature is a polyfill of matchMedia. It includes also a polyfill for matchMedia('(max-width: 480px').addListener . This feature is based on code from https://github.com/paulirish/matchMedia.js. usermedia The usermedia feature is a polyfill of navigator.getUserMedia. It includes also a polyfill for URL and the srcObj property. A demo with code example of getUserMedia polyfill. url The url feature is a polyfill of WHATWG URL Spec. It also includes the searchParams object. The URL object has the following properties: href origin protocol username password host hostname port pathname search searchParams append(name, value) delete(name) get(name) getAll(name) has(name) set(name, value) hash Usage var link = new URL('http://afarkas.github.io/webshim/demos/index.html?param1=value1'); link.protocol; // returns 'http:' link.searchParams.get('param1'); // returns 'value1' link.searchParams.append('param2', 'value2'); link.href // returns 'http://afarkas.github.io/webshim/demos/index.html?param1=value1¶m2=value2' This feature is based on code from https://github.com/inexorabletash/polyfill/blob/master/url.js. Promise The promise feature is a polyfill of ES6 Promises. For instructions on using promises and details of the API, read JavaScript Promises at HTML5Rocks. This feature is based on code from https://github.com/paulmillr/es6-shim. Responsive Images A strict polyfill of the picture element draft specification from the Responsive Images Community Group, including the srcset and sizes attributes. webshim.polyfill('picture'): This feature is based on code from https://github.com/aFarkas/respimage/. Complete documentation is available there. sticky (position: sticky) The sticky feature is a polyfill for the CSS position value sticky (position sticky demo). Descriptive/Markup Usage Simply add the class ws-sticky to all elements, which should become sticky and define either a top or bottom value: <section> <header class="ws-sticky"> <!-- ... --> </header> <!-- ... --> <footer class="ws-sticky"> <!-- ... --> </footer> </section> Sticky and responsive webdesign. The sticky position can be also used in conjunction with mediaqueries. Simply add a data-stickymedia attribute with your mediaquery to your element: <section> <header class="ws-sticky" data-stickymedia="(max-width: 480px)"> <!-- ... --> </header> <!-- ... --> </section> JS Usage Often you don't want to add the class 'ws-sticky' directly into your HTML, in this case you can use the JS-API. Simply trigger the event 'wssticky' on all elements, which should become sticky: $('table.long-table > thead') .addClass('ws-sticky') .trigger('wssticky') ; Example with mediaqueries: $('table.long-table > thead') .addClass('ws-sticky') .data('stickymedia', '(max-width: 480px)') .trigger('wssticky') ; The stickyness of an element, can also be removed or updated with the JS API: //use destroysticky to remove sticky $('dl.list-view > dt') .removeClass('ws-sticky') .trigger('destroysticky') ; //use updatesticky to remove sticky $('dl.list-view > dt').trigger('updatesticky'); Webshim sticky implementation supports sticky in conjunction with either top or bottom properties and on most elements including table headers (thead) and table footer (tfoot). It also implements "local" sticky areas, where the parent element of the 'sticky element' has set the overflow value to 'auto/scroll'. Known restrictions: Don't set the margin-left and margin-right value of the sticky element to 'auto' The left and the right value of the sticky element has to be 'auto'. Webshim's opinionated enhancement cross browser development strategy Webshim has evolved form a general polyfill library to a sophisticated UI component / UI widget library which makes it easy to create scalable, responsive and highly adaptable websites and webapps. While webshim polyfills older browsers and automatically fixes a lot of bugs, it enables the developer to also enhance even modern browsers with highly customizable widgets (datepicker, form validation, slider, autosuggest, custom stylable controls for video/audio). Webshim is opinionated, that a developer should always solve a problem the HTML5 way. For example most datepickers have a direct configuration option to disable certain days to be picked from the control. This is not possible with current implementations of input[type="date"] , but it is possible to use the HTML 5 form validation API to constrain the user input to certain days. Therefore webshim offers a way to constrain the user input and those constraints are used to decide whether certain days should be disabled in the pickercontrol. This way a developer can switch between polyfilled/enhanced and native widgets. While the appearance might be different the base functionality will work in all browsers. But if a certain feature is barley possible with HTML5 or a developer needs full control in all browsers/devices, he can always switch to a enhance all strategy. Webshim automatically scales your enhancements Webshim might in total load a bunch of files to implement or enhance features. This might look crazy at first glance. But due to the fact that webshim uses conditionally and deferred loading techniques, it turns out, that these techniques help to build large and fast responding websites and webapps. Webshim often initially loads only few (often only one file) and small files depending on the capabilities of the device and the requested features and then delays loading a bunch of other files either as soon as they are needed or after onload also depending on the capabilities of the device. Webshim's mobile strategy Often a developer might choose not to "enhance" a widget on smartphones and use built-in UI widgets, to create fast responding websites. In case a developer switches to Webshim's custom UI widgets, he gets fully responsive, font-size scalable and touch-optimized widgets. Tip: Enlarge touch target size of UI widgets by using the font-size scalability: /* enlarge mediacontrols by factor 1.5 from 16px to 24px / .touchevents .mediaplayer { font-size: 24px; } / enlarge rangeslider, datepicker by factor ~1.5 from 13px to 19px / .touchevents .ws-popover, .touchevents .ws-range { font-size: 19px; } @media (pointer:coarse), (-moz-touch-enabled), (-webkit-touch-enabled), (touch-enabled) { .mediaplayer { font-size: 24px; } .ws-popover, .ws-range { font-size: 19px; } } Webshim and accessibility All UI components of webshim are fully accessible and conform to WCAG 2.0 (Level A and AA) and are therefore also Section 508-compliant. Webshim not only adds some WAI-ARIA roles, but also conforms to the ARIA Best Practices and tests all widgets with real screenreaders. Typical project setup and JS optimizations (requirejs, concatination of JS files) While most scripts only use one JS file to include the whole behavior, Webshims is using the polyfiller.js file, a polyfiller named AMD module, as an entry point and loads conditionally other resources. This means webshims needs to know, where those resources are. The code inside of the polyfiller.js automatically detects the path to the script it is run from and assumes, that the shims folder is in the same directory. This means, you have to make sure, that either the shims folder is placed parallel to the code of the polyfiller.js or to configure the path using the basePath option. Configuring the path manually //configure path manually webshim.setOptions('basePath', '/yourFolderTo/shims/'); //polyfill webshim.polyfill('forms mediaelement'); Optimizing into the same folder The following example, shows a very simple setup where the shims folder is parallel to the normal polyfiller.js file and the optimized js file (i.e.: app.min.js): +-- projectfolder \|-- index.html +-- scripts +-- vendor \|-- jquery.js +-- shims \|-- main.js \|-- require.js \|-- app.min.js (optimized code, which also includes the polyfiller.js code) \|-- polyfiller.js Optimizing into a different folder A better way is to output the concatenated and compressed code into a different directory for deployment. For a webshims project this means beside an optimization task (concat and minify) often another simple task to copy the shims folder parallel to the optimized script package: \|-- projectfolder \|-- index.html +-- bower_components \|-- jquery +-- js-webshim +-- dev \|-- polyfiller.js \|-- shims \|-- minified +-- scripts +-- vendor \|-- main.js (requires polyfiller.js from the dev* folder) \|-- require.js +-- optimized-scripts (folder with optimized scripts) \|-- app.min.js (optimized code, which also includes the polyfiller.js code) \|-- shims (copied shims folder from the minified folder) Customizing Webshim Customizing styles and UI Webshim offers a lot of different config options to change the behavior of widgets and controls. The pre-defined styles loaded by webshim are just an offer. A developer is appealed to enhance/change those styles. Even all animation are done with CSS and can be changed. Webshim pre-defined selectors are sometime overqualified to minimize conflicts with existing page styles. There are two different main strategies to customize webshim widget's styles. In case you only want to make small changes, you can simply override the styles with your own modification. But in case you either want to have full control or need to make more changes, it is wise to set loadStyles to false and write you own styles. In case you are setting loadStyles to false you can either start from scratch or grab/copy the default styles from webshim included in the dev folder. webshim.setOptions('loadStyles', false); Some widget's also use inline styles to calculate the position or the dimension of the widget. This can be turned off depending on the widget settings. (Pro Tip: This can also improve performance, especially in old IE8 or some mobile browsers.): webshim.setOptions({ loadStyles: false, 'forms-ext': { widgets: { calculateWidth: false } }, track: { positionDisplay: false } }); In case you have made some nice changes and want to share those with the community, feel free to add those to the themes-directory and do start a pr . Writing a New Polyfill A Pollyfill is always split into at least two parts. First the test and loader definition, and then the implementation. Assume there is a new method magicMethod on the window object that we want to polyfill if the browser doesn't provide it. An implementation would look like this: webshim.addPolyfill('magicMethod', { test: function(){ return ('magicMethod' in window); } }); // loads magicMethod.js from shim-folder if test returns false Create a file called magicMethod with your polyfill code and place it in the shim folder: window.magicMethod = function(){ // your polyfill implementation }; If your implementation has dependencies on other polyfills/modules, you can add a dependencies property to make sure they're loaded too: webshim.addPolyfill('magicMethod', { test: function(){ return ('magicMethod' in window); }, d: ['es5'] // d = dependencies }); // load magicMethod.js and its dependencies if test returns false If your shim has dependencies, you have to register your implementation code with webshim.register : webshim.register('magicMethod', function($, webshims, window, document, undefined, options){ // now you can use es5-feature feature window.magicMethod = function(){ // your polyfill implementation }; }); In case of a DOM extension, webshims lib comes with some useful extension-methods. webshim.addPolyfill('mediaelement', { test: function(){ return ('canPlayType' in document.createElement('video')); }, d: ['dom-support'], methodNames: ['play'] // pause, load }); // load mediaelement.js and DOM extension features from shim folder // if test returns false and always create a jQuery plugin called play, // which tries to invoke native or polyfilled play // listen to 'play' events in the capturing phase // can use event delegation with jQuery's bind method webshim.capturingEvents(['play']); Now put a mediaelement.js inside of your shim folder and start implementing some features. The dom-support feature of Webshims lib comes with some very useful implementation helpers. Here are two of them: webshim.defineNodeNamesProperty (nodeNames, property, descriptor) (nodeNames, property, descriptor) webshim.defineNodeNamesBooleanProperty (nodeNames, property, descriptor)

Early next year the government will introduce legislation featuring new information disclosure requirements for Internet providers, the installation of mandated surveillance technologies, and creation of new police powers. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, the chief proponent of the new law, , has defended the plans, stating that opponents are putting “the rights of child pornographers and organized crime ahead of the rights of law-abiding citizens.” Toews’ stance in the face of widespread criticism from the privacy community and opposition parties is likely to be accompanied by a series of shaky justifications for the legislation. Canada's Minister of Public Safety, Vic Toews. Conservatives often pitch themselves as the party of less government, but the Harper government's new "lawful access" legislation will legalize police Big Brother-style snooping on citizens' Internet use, without a warrant. . ( Adrian Wyld / THE CANADIAN PRESS ) For example, the bill will mandate the disclosure of Internet provider customer information without court oversight — that is, without a warrant. Under current privacy laws, providers may voluntarily disclose customer information but are not required to do so. Toews has argued that the mandated information is akin to “phone book data” that is typically publicly available without restriction. Yet the legislation extends far beyond phone book information by requiring the disclosure of eleven different items including customer name, address, phone number, email address, Internet protocol address, and a series of device identification numbers. Many Canadian courts have recognized the privacy interests associated with this data. In fact, it isn’t only Canadian courts, privacy commissioners, and civil liberties groups that believe striking the right balance on the issue necessitates requiring a warrant. Former Conservative Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day stated in 2007 that “we have not and we will not be proposing legislation to grant police the power to get information from Internet companies without a warrant. That’s never been a proposal. It may make some investigations more difficult, but our expectation is rights to our privacy are such that we do not plan, nor will we have in place, something that would allow the police to get that information.” Article Continued Below Toews will also claim the changes are necessary to ensure that Canadian law enforcement has the tools it needs to combat online crime threats. While everyone agrees that the law must stay up-to-date with emerging technologies, neither the government nor law enforcement has provided credible evidence demonstrating how the current law has impeded active investigations. One of the only attempts at providing evidence came in 2009 from Toews’ predecessor, former Conservative Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan. Van Loan pointed to a 2009 kidnapping case in Vancouver as evidence of the need for legislative change, describing witnessing an emergency situation in which Vancouver police waited 36 hours to get the information they needed in order to obtain a warrant for customer name and address information. That sounds like a credible case, but according to documents obtained under access to information, no Internet provider records were actually sought during the investigation. While Toews will focus on the need to address online threats, he will likely avoid admitting that lawful access will come at an enormous cost. Some smaller Internet providers have warned that they may be forced to shut down if faced with requirements to install costly surveillance technologies with no ability to recoup the investment. “Lawful access,” as the law is sometimes dubbed (it legalizes police activity not now legal), would not only lead to lost jobs at the affected companies, but the loss of competition could lead to higher Internet costs for all Canadians at the very time Industry Minister Christian Paradis has promised “globally competitive prices for consumers.” Canadians deserve better than deceptive claims and divisive name-calling. They deserve real judicial oversight before their personal information is disclosed and, given the costs (financial and otherwise), they deserve a full accounting on why lawful access is needed. Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He can be reached at or online at www.michaelgeist.ca. .

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Magnus Zetterlund(b.1980) is one of Scandinavia’s foremost mandolinists with an innovative approach to traditional music and beyond. This insightful playing shines best throughout the work with his bands Nordic, Primus Motor and Malin Foxdal Trio. He is also in demand as an accompanist and in recent years has made albums, concerts and TV appearances with Esbjörn Hazelius, Tomas Ledin, Sofia Karlsson, Quilty, Rostam Mirlashari, Dan Viktor, The Tarantula Waltz and Kersti Ståbi. An important aspect of these collaborations is the fact that Magnus also plays guitars, cittern and harmonica. In 2014 he received a gold record award for his work with Tomas Ledin´s Swedish Grammy award winning record ”Höga Kusten”. As a performing musician Magnus has also worked with Riksteatern, Cirkus Cirkör, Västanå Teater, Clowns without borders and Gävle Folkteater. In 2007 Magnus became the first Swedish mandolinist to graduate from higher education when he completed his studies at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. Today he teaches mandolin and guitar students at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. External Links Official Web Site YouTube Channel Facebook

More than 70 per cent of rural citizens have adopted the methods of e-wallets followed by Unified Payment Interface (UPI) payment option, the Electronics and IT Ministry said today. (PTI) More than 70 per cent of rural citizens have adopted the methods of e-wallets followed by Unified Payment Interface (UPI) payment option, the Electronics and IT Ministry said today. “An overview of the current data available with the Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY) shows that more than 70 per cent rural citizens have adopted the methods of e-wallets, 16 per cent opted for Unified Payment Interface (UPI),” the ministry said in a release. Rest of the people looked at Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), Adhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS) & Cards or Point of Sale(PoS). Similarly, more than 85 per cent of the merchants have adopted the e-Wallet system and 13 per cent have opted for UPI, the statement said. “The speed and scale at which digital transformation in taking place in India is paving the way for a digitally empowered, participative and inclusive society,” MeitY Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said. You may also like to watch this video: Under its Digital Payments awareness and training programme, the Ministry said that Common Service Centre (CSC) network, which provides government service in rural area, has enrolled over 25 lakh rural citizens for digital payments. “Achieving the 25 lakh mark in such a short time is an indication of the pace at which digital adoption is gaining momentum among rural citizens,” Sundararajan said. Over 55,000 merchants have started offering digital payment options to rural customers across various districts and blocks in India,” the statement said. The DigiDhan Abhiyan aims to reach over 1 crore rural citizens through this massive outreach programme. The campaign aims to cover 2 lakh Common Service Centres (CSC) in rural and semi-urban areas and also reach out to 2.5 lakh Gram panchayats across the country. The centres will cover one member from each household and will cater to 40 households in a catchment area.

Image caption Some Saudis believe foreigners are benefitting at their expense A social media campaign demanding better pay in Saudi Arabia has gained a massive following among citizens of the Gulf kingdom, many of whom are facing an increasing struggle to meet their daily living costs. Supporters of the campaign on Twitter - which uses the Arabic hashtag #our_salary_does_not_meet_our_needs - have been very active over the past two months. More than 17 million tweets carrying the hashtag were posted in the campaign's first two weeks in July, which led to it becoming the 16th most popular hashtag in any language. However, the campaign has also attracted criticism, with some Saudis seeing it as misguided and others unhappy with the country's problems being aired in public. Kingdom in flux A prince meets an actress for 500,000 [dollars] and the people are chanting 'Our salary does not meet our needs', suffering from a housing crisis and asking 'How can a Saudi own a house?' The country is lost Tweet by osamh alotaibi The campaign, which seeks to persuade King Abdullah to issue a decree increasing salaries, has highlighted the problem of poverty in Saudi Arabia and the concentration of its massive oil wealth in the hands of a few. With the population having grown from seven million in the 1970s to almost 30 million in 2012, there are more and more young, educated citizens who have high expectations. Supporters of the campaign have criticised what they see as misplaced government spending - a charge characterised by a widely circulated cartoon on Twitter depicting the fruits of a palm tree benefiting the rest of the world at the expense of Saudi citizens. And some people resent a government pledge of financial aid to Egypt after the country's military ousted President Mohammed Morsi in July. A picture circulated on Twitter underlined the point. It showed a Saudi couple with a baby living in squalor in a caravan, with the caption: "Saudi Arabia gives Egypt $5 billion. Don't they deserve it more?" 'Royal excesses' Many Saudis have used the campaign to vent their frustrations at the perceived excesses of some members of the royal family. Twitter users with the hashtag #our_salary_does_not_meet_our_needs expressed outrage at reports that an unnamed prince had donated $500,000 to a charity in return for 15 minutes with the American actress Kristen Stewart. Before you shake your behind on the street happily wearing green on National Day, remember that you were tweeting with the hashtag 'Our salary does not meet our needs'. Tweet by Firas al-Tamimi Campaigners have also complained about a lack of affordable housing, a problem noted by an IMF report published in July that also pointed out the challenge of providing suitable employment for the increasing number of young Saudis expected to enter the workplace over the next decade. Some Twitter users see Saudi Arabia's National Day on 23 September as an opportunity to highlight their concerns. One of them asked: "What National Day, when my nation is drowning in debt, all the princes are in Switzerland and we're paying bills? It's the fault of those who allow them to play with our money and our petrol." 'Front for sedition' Such public airing of social grievances is frowned upon in a society which prefers to keep its flaws out of the spotlight, with some believing that the campaign tarnishes the country's image. The Cabinet Secretary General, Abdul Rahman al-Sadhan, condemned the Twitter campaign as "a front for sedition… led by people angry that the kingdom is living in peace and stability amid the struggles that some countries are facing". Meanwhile, commentator Abdul Rahman Al Farhan wrote in the Saudi daily al-Bilad that Twitter users' demands for higher pay failed to take into account underlying issues that are making it difficult for many Saudis to afford their living costs. He suggested that health insurance for all and the proper allocation of housing allowances would mean that "all calls for increases in salaries would dissolve into a vast sea of satisfaction and contentment". BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. For more reports from BBC Monitoring, click here. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.

Best eLearning Resources of 2014 We can’t believe 2014 is over. The past year has been fantastic for eLearning Brothers, and we hope you have had a great year too! If you happened to meet with us personally at an eLearning Conferences this year, you know that we released tons of great eLearning products in 2014: eLearning Stock eLearning Course Starters Lectora 12 Templates Captivate 8 Templates Storyline 2 Templates Improvements/updates to our eLearning Templates Another great part of 2014 was all the great eLearning resources, tips, and tutorials. Here’s a collection of the popular posts and blogs from the past year. Best eLearning Tips Best of Free Templates Without a great team of eLearning developers, we couldn’t have done so many awesome blogs. And thanks to you, for reading our blogs in 2014. We look forward to providing many more great eLearning resources next year. Have a Happy New Year in 2015 from all of us!

Signup to receive a daily roundup of the top LGBT+ news stories from around the world Pranksters from the Chick-Fil-A Foundation have exchanged a fake coupon for a meal on the condition that they renounced their homosexuality. The stunt, posted on YouTube, finds two men handing over a coupon to a slightly confused server at Chick-Fil-A that promises anyone who gives up their homosexuality a free chicken sandwich. The company has been under-fire for months after its chief executive, Dan Cathy said that the company was “guilty as charged”, when asked about its perceived opposition to equal marriage. The company, which is the second largest chicken fast food firm in the US, has donated millions of dollars to anti-gay groups including the Family Research Council, Exodus International and Focus on the Family. In 2011, Mr Cathy rebutted accusations of being anti-gay, saying he and the company had “no agenda against anyone”. But last year, he affirmed that Chick-Fil-A is opposed to equal marriage. He said: “We are very much supportive of the family – the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that. “We operate as a family business … our restaurants are typically led by families; some are single. We want to do anything we possibly can to strengthen families. We are very much committed to that.”

Over the past three decades, the wage gap between workers with college degrees and those without has nearly doubled. In 1980, college graduates earned 38 percent more than non-college workers. By 2011, the ratio had risen to 73 percent. At the same time, workers have become increasingly spatially segregated by education. Cities which had a large share of college graduates in 1980 increasingly attracted larger shares of college educated workers from 1980 to 2000, while less educated cities in 1980 gained few college grads. The increasingly highly educated cities also experienced higher wage growth for both low- and high-skill workers and substantially larger increases in housing costs. The increase in spatial sorting of college and non-college workers into very different cities calls into question whether the large increases in wage inequality over the past three decades truly represents a similar increase in inequality in economic well-being. Since college graduates are paying much higher housing costs than lower skill workers, it is possible that these high local prices dilute the real amount of consumption college workers’ received from their high wages. For example, in 2013 the median studio in San Francisco sold for $863,000, while the median 4 bedroom house could be purchased in Las Vegas for only $220,100. On the other hand, college workers chose to live in expensive cities. They were free to locate in the more affordable locations elected by high school graduates, but instead decided to pay the higher local prices. In exchange for high housing prices, high skill cities not only offer inhabitants access to high wage labor markets, but also offer an array of more desirable amenities. Indeed, cities which increased their shares of college graduates from 1980 to 2000 also gained more restaurants and bars per capita, improved their air quality, and lowered their crime rates. If the economic value of living in a high amenity city more than compensates college graduates for the high housing prices, the growth in wage inequality wound understate the increase in economic well-being inequality. In a recent paper in the American Economic Review, Stanford University economist Rebecca Diamond disentangles these forces and estimates how increased geographic segregation has contributed to inequality. How has increased geographic segregation contributed to inequality? Causes of Increased Skill Segregation across Cities The geographic divergence of skill across cities beginning in the 1980s was initially sparked by labor demands of different industries located across different cities. Due to a number of broad changes in the labor market from 1980 to 2000, including adoption of computer technologies and increased export competition from China, many industries changed their demands for college graduate labor relative to their demand for non-college grads. Cities which were historical geographic hubs of industries that shifted their labor demand away from non-college workers towards college grads were the cities which experienced the largest increases in their shares of college graduates from 1980 to 2000. While the primary driver of the increased skill segregation was due to changes in the labor demands of industries located in different cities, Diamond finds that cities which attracted a higher share of college graduates also became more desirable places to live. Increases in a city’s share of college graduates causes increases in the quality and variety of the local retail market including increases in the density of clothing stores, bar, restaurants, and movie theaters. College share increases also lead to declines in property crime rates and pollution levels, as well as increases in school quality. Cities which attracted a higher share of college graduates also became more desirable places to live. To build intuition for these effects, consider the cities of Detroit and Boston. The economic downturn in Detroit has been largely attributed to a decline of auto manufacturing. However Detroit has experienced a huge economic downturn that goes beyond the loss of high-paying automotive industry jobs. The public school system in Detroit has worsened, and the city is now seeing its lowest scores ever recorded in the 21-year history of the national math proficiency test. Strikingly, Detroit’s school system was once lauded as a model for the nation in urban education. This was more than 100 years ago when the manufacturing industry was booming. Boston, on the other hand, illustrates a success story. Driven by racial tensions spurred by integration in the mid 1970s, the quality of Boston public schools began to severely decline. As Boston developed into a hub for biomedical innovation, this trend began to turn around. In 2006, the Boston public school district won the Broad Prize, which honors the urban school district that demonstrates the greatest performance and improvement in student achievement. The prosperity of Boston and decline of Detroit go beyond jobs and wages, directly impacting the amenities and quality-of-life in these areas. The combination of high wages and amenities in these increasingly high skill cities made them very desirable places to live for college and non-college workers, leading to sharp increases in housing prices. The housing price increases mitigate the in-migration of low-skill workers much more than the high skill. While both college and non-college workers prefer cities with high wages, low housing costs, and high levels of amenities, college grads were more willing to pay for high quality amenities. This is not surprising, as lower skill workers earn less, and thus value an additional dollar of savings more. Economic Well-being Inequality: The Importance of Considering Amenities In theory, the increased concentration of college workers in high cost, high amenity cities could either increase or mitigate rising wage inequality. On the one hand, college graduates pay higher housing prices which lowers the real value of their high wages, and lowers inequality. On the other hand, college workers gain access to better city amenities, which raises inequality. Diamond’s estimates show that the additional benefits college graduates gained from having access to a variety of desirable local amenities actually outweighs the negative effects of high housing costs. The 50 percent increase in the wage gap between high school and college graduates from 1980 to 2000 actually understates the true increases in economic inequality due to changes in wages, housing costs, and local amenities by at least 30%. These dynamics can be thought of as a nationwide “gentrification effect.” The initial changes in local firms’ labor demand for college and non-college workers created the spark to increase the college share in these high skill cities. This spark was then amplified as the presence of college workers within the city made it a more desirable place to live, but also a more expensive place. Lower skill workers are unable to afford the high prices required to gain access to the best cities, forcing them to relocate to more affordable, lower amenity areas. Policy Implications of Spatial Sorting by Skills These dynamics of spatial skill sorting inform policy in a number of ways. First, from the perspective of a local government, policies which attract college graduates to live in a city have large spillovers on creating desirable amenities, which further attracts additional college graduates. Policies that could achieve this include offering tax incentive to firms employing high skill workers, or funding amenities valued by college graduates (such as policies targeting reductions in crime or improvements in the quality of local schools). While the policies which attract college graduates to a city may improve local economic conditions and quality-of-life within the city, they also have the potential to drive away the less educated and lower income inhabitants. The high skill city is surely a high functioning city, but the lower income and less educated residents, who may be those in need of the most help, are unlikely to get the bulk of its benefits. These types of policies force the local policy maker to decide whether he or she wants to improve the city at the possible expense of less skilled inhabitants’ economic well-being. It is not clear what the optimal allocation of college graduates across cities should be. This relates to the broader point that, from the federal government’s perspective, it is not clear what the optimal allocation of college graduates across cities should be. A local government may desire to attract college graduates, but this comes at the cost of another city losing college educated residents. For the federal government to implement socially optimal polices which incentivize college graduates to locate in certain types of cities, the government would need to know what type of cities gain the most from additional college workers. Unfortunately, we do not know much about this. Despite our lack of knowledge, the US federal government spends at least $15 billion per year on spatially targeted development activities. Generally, these programs target “underperforming” geographic areas in order to help improve economic conditions. Of course a key way to improve the share of college graduates across all cities is to implement policies that incentivize more students to attend and graduate from college. These policies likely are best funded by the federal government, as opposed to state and local governments. When local governments subsidize higher education they pay the full cost of the subsidy, but face the risk that another city or state will receive the benefits if the college student migrates away to another local area after graduation.

This item is currently Out of Stock Usually restocked within 1-3 weeks. Add to your wishlist to stay posted! Add to Wishlist Features Folding bipod Folding butt stock Retractable butt stock Adjustable cheek piece 1010-1230mm6800g350-380FPSBolt-action, SafetyAdjustable23rds (6mm BB)Gun, Magazine, Scope & MountNylon Fiber, Aluminum AlloyARES FPS Range: 350-380 About S&T S&T is a group of Airsoft enthusiasts that produces rifles and parts based on the trends in the Airsoft industry. Their mission is to supply a wide range of quality products with the most competitive pricing for dealers and consumers alike. S&T was founded in 2009 with their HQ office located in Hong Kong, a subsidiary office in Japan, as well as Airsoft / Airgun manufacturing facilities in China. About 6mmProShop Established in 2011, 6mmProShop Inc. is a USA based manufacturer and distributor with a mission to bring law enforcement training, Airsoft sporting events, and military simulation to the next level. 6mmProShop features exclusive licensed products, unique innovations, and distribution rights of many exciting products from Japan, Europe, South America and Asia. With headquarters located in the USA, 6mmProShop offers unmatched product support, inventory availability for resellers, and world-wide exclusive products!

European Ministers decide to invest in space to boost Europe’s competitiveness and growth Apart from the 20 ESA Member States and Canada, several observers were also present at the Ministerial Council: Eight out of the 9 EU Member States that are not yet Member States of ESA (Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, the Slovak Republic and Malta); the European Commission, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), the European Science Foundation, the European Defence Agency (EDA), the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA), the European GNSS Agency (GSA) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Ministers from ESA’s 20 member states and Canada today allocated €10 billion for ESA’s space activities and programmes for the years to come. Ministers secured investments for the detailed definition studies of the new launcher Ariane 6 and the continuation of the development of Ariane 5 ME adapted, with the goal to develop as many commonalities as possible between the two launchers. These activities are funded for two years with a decision on the continuation of both launchers to be taken in 2014. Ministers focused the investments on fields with high growth potential or with a direct and immediate impact on the economy such as telecommunications and meteorology. They approved ESA’s level of resources for 2013-17, the proposals for the domain of Earth Observation and confirmed Europe’s commitment to the exploitation of the International Space Station (ISS). Proposal for Ariane 6 Ministers gave the green light for Europe to provide the service module of NASA’s new Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) as an in-kind contribution for ISS operations for 2017–20. This decision is strategically important for Europe as it will enable a cooperation between ESA and NASA on the future human space transportation system. Ministers of ESA Member States approved a Political Declaration towards the European Space Agency that best serves Europe. In doing so, Ministers have initiated a process able to define how ESA can adapt its operations to take benefit of both, its intergovernmental framework and the EU competence in space. They have also stated their willingness to ensure coordination and coherence between the process initiated on the ESA side and the one initiated on the EU side. This Political Declaration was also supported by Ministers from 7 of the EU member States not yet members of ESA present at the meeting. Ministers decided to hold the next Council at ministerial level in spring 2014. Loading... ESA Ministerial Council Press Conference replay Access the video Adopted Resolutions Ministers adopted the following four Resolutions: First, “On the role of ESA in sustaining competitiveness and growth” political and programmatic highlights of the Council; Second, “Level of Resources for the Agency’s Mandatory activities 2013–2017” which cover the science programme and basic activities; Third, the renewal of the contribution of ESA Member States to the running costs of the Guiana Space Centre, Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana; and Fourth, the “Political Declaration towards the European Space Agency that best serves Europe.” The last Resolution initiates a process for the further evolution of ESA. The objective is to capitalise on the competences and the achievements of ESA while taking full benefit of EU policies. The process will ensure the continued success of ESA as the research and development space agency for Europe, Member States and the EU. The Resolutions will be made available on ESA’s website. Programme proposals in detail A dedicated website for the Council Meeting at Ministerial Level 2012 outlines in more detail the various proposals that were submitted to Ministers: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Ministerial_Council_2012/

Lee Jae-yong, heir apparent and de facto chief of global electronics giant Samsung, was jailed Friday for five years. A South Korean court found him guilty of corruption in a case linked to disgraced former President Park Geun-hye. Lee was accused of making $36 million of illegal payments to a charitable foundation controlled by Park’s close friend Choi Soon-sil. In return, he was alleged to have received political favors that included the ability to restructure Samsung’s obscure shareholding structure and help the Lee family maintain control. Lee denied all charges, and his lawyer said that he will appeal against the ruling. The court ruling is seen as a high-profile slap to the chaebols, or multi-disciplinary conglomerates, that dominate Korean business and have long maintained cozy relationships with government. The Lee family is also related to the founders of CJ Group, the foods-to-entertainment conglomerate that controls Korea’s largest film and TV businesses CJ Entertainment and CJ E&M, as well as dominant cinema operator CJ-CGV. As president, Park instituted a blacklist of entertainment talent who were not to receive government funding. She also leaned on CJ to make patriotic movies such as “Roaring Currents” and “Ode to My Father.”

A Richard Nixon mask is a mask with the likeness of Richard Nixon. These were commercially available and quite popular in the waning days of the Nixon Administration. They are generally made out of vinyl by the Cesar mask company from France and are sold worldwide. The most famous Nixon mask was the big nose Cesar Nixon comical mask made by Cesar in the 1970s. Later other companies made similar versions made from latex rubber or similar flexible castable compounds. One of the notable features of most Richard Nixon masks is the classically caricatured nose. Many of the different versions of the Nixon mask have a wide grinning smile as well. Although the masks were widely believed to be only a fad that would presumably die down as the public attention on Watergate waned (and once Nixon left office), the masks managed to outlive their presumed fad status by becoming popular during events such as Halloween and adult masquerade parties. The Richard Nixon mask remains popular today, worn both for humorous effect, and in protest marches and similar "public displays of disaffection". According to Harper's magazine's October 2002 "Harper's Index," Nixon masks were the best-selling political mask for the previous five years for top U.S. costume wholesaler Morris Costumes.[1] The masks sparked a commercial demand for masks resembling other famous people, most notably Presidents of the United States. Masks of other presidents have often been most popular either in the term of the current president or immediately preceding term. In popular culture [ edit ]

ANKARA, Turkey — Two bomb explosions targeting a peace rally in Turkey’s capital Ankara on Saturday killed 86 people and injured almost 200 others, Turkey’s Interior Ministry said. The explosions occurred minutes apart near Ankara’s main train station as people were gathering for the rally, organized by the country’s public sector workers’ trade union and other civic society groups. The rally aimed to call for an end to the renewed violence between Kurdish rebels and Turkish security forces. It was not clear if the attacks, which came weeks before Turkey’s Nov. 1 elections, were suicide bombings. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up An Associated Press photographer at the scene reported seeing several bodies that were covered with flags and banners that demonstrators had brought with them for the rally. Police later cordoned off the area. Television footage from Turkey’s Dogan news agency showed a line of protesters fanned out on the street near the train station, chanting and performing a traditional dance with their hands locked, when a large explosion hit behind them. The video also showed several people lying injured on the streets or being taken into ambulances. An Interior Ministry statement condemned the attack which it said “targets Turkey’s democracy and peace.” Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called an emergency security meeting to discuss the attack. His office said he was suspending his election campaign programs for the next three days. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cut short his program in Istanbul to return to the capital. “There was a massacre in the middle of Ankara,” said Lami Ozgen, head of the Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions, or KESK. “Two bombs exploded in very short intervals.” There was no immediate responsibility claim. A government official said authorities were investigating the blast. “The toll is severe,” said Selahattin Demirtas, leader of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish party, whose members attended the rally. “There are dozens of dead and hundreds of injuries. Some of our friends are in serious condition.” In July, a suicide bombing blamed on the Islamic State group killed 33 people in a town near Turkey’s border with Syria. A leftist militant group has also carried out suicide bombings in Turkey.

"It's like you’re free, but you’re in a prison at the same time," 22-year-old Peter Arellano told BuzzFeed News of living under a gang injunction. Dania Maxwell for BuzzFeed News Peter Arellano sits for a portrait inside his home in Echo Park in Los Angeles, California. Unlike a lot of 22-year-olds, Peter Arellano used to spend a lot of time worrying about how to avoid being seen publicly with his father, or his friends. There are hundreds of others just like him, facing arrest if they're seen with the wrong people in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of Echo Park in Los Angeles. Such is life under a gang injunction, a civil court order that can place sweeping everyday restrictions — such as not being able to carry a marker pen or drink in public — on alleged gang members within designated areas. “It’s like you’re free, but you’re in a prison at the same time,” said Arellano, who's been given a brief respite from the injunction while a court rules on a motion in his case. “It limits who I can hang out with and, yeah, that includes the people I love.” Proponents say the restrictions, pioneered in the 1980s when gang killings in Los Angeles were at a record high, reduce crime by hampering the movements of gang members on their own turf. But civil rights groups have argued for years that the injunctions sweep up youth who aren’t actually in gangs, allowing authorities to impose parole-like conditions on them without first going through the criminal court process. "The city uses gang injunctions to place restrictions on people that are similar to parole or probation, but without requiring prosecutors to first prove that a person has actually committed any crime,” said Peter Bibring, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Southern California who is litigating Arellano’s case. “Gang injunctions tend to go through without anybody really representing the gang, and in very few instances does anybody argue whether the injunction should be entered at all.” But opponents have so far been unable to strike down the injunctions in court, even as the restrictions proliferate in cities across the US, especially in California. “If you bring a lawsuit against something people first think of as a tool to stop gangs, you’re already at a disadvantage,” said Olu K. Orange, director of the University of Southern California’s Dornsife Trial Advocacy Program. “Public perception does affect cases like these to a large degree.” Now groups like the the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have started attacking certain provisions of the injunctions, such as curfews, as being unconstitutional, an argument that tends to find more public sympathy. “At some point, they might have been a good tool for law enforcement to help the community, but the cops just got these and went nuts.” Orange has had success with the strategy. He won a lawsuit against Los Angeles in 2016 for imposing curfews in gang injunctions that had been declared unconstitutional by California courts. The settlement resulted in a $30 million investment in job training and apprenticeships, as well as an expedited process for getting removed from a gang injunction. At the time, Orange said the curfew imposed by 26 gang injunctions had turned LA “into a Jim Crow-era ‘Sundown Town,’ forcing several thousand black and brown residents indoors on a nightly basis.” “As soon as the g-word [gang] is used, discrimination becomes OK,” Orange said. “Unfortunately, many aspects of gang injunctions, broken down piece by piece, are unconstitutional and have unfairly been brought to bear primarily on low-income communities of color.” Arellano was subject to an injunction that was initially secured for six gangs, with individual people added later. But without a chance to fight it in court, attorneys argue their clients were robbed of their due process rights. If the ACLU prevails and Los Angeles is forced to give people a court hearing before they’re added to a gang injunction, it would deal a major blow to the city because it doesn’t have the resources, Orange said. “At some point, they might have been a good tool for law enforcement to help the community, but the cops just got these and went nuts,” he said. Dania Maxwell for BuzzFeed News Peter Arellano closes his home's front gate before leaving for work on Feb. 9, 2017. Arellano grew up in Echo Park, before hair salons offering $10 cuts and tiny family-owned restaurants gave way to the craft roastery Blue Bottle Coffee and hip alcohol-serving arcades. In a corner of his bedroom, he has a glass cabinet filled with monster figurines that he carefully paints in his spare time — a hobby he picked up in high school. Many people in his neighborhood are gang members, including his father, who is also subject to the injunction. For almost a year, he couldn’t be seen with his father, who has been behind bars since April 2016, when he was charged with attempted murder and assault with a firearm. Arellano, who insists he's not in a gang, was accused of using a gun to intimidate someone who wanted to leave the Echo Park gang in 2013, but prosecutors ultimately didn't have enough evidence to bring a case. The next year, in 2014, Arellano was charged with vandalism. Prosecutors weren’t able to pin a gang enhancement on him, but he pleaded no contest to vandalism and performed community service. Then, in 2015, Arellano was served with the injunction when two people he was with were arrested, one for vandalism, the other for a weapons possession violation for carrying a box cutter. Until November, when city officials agreed not to enforce the injunction while a court ruled on a motion in his case, Arellano missed neighborhood parties and concerts. “It sucks, it feels like your life is limited,” Arellano said. “You can’t do what regular people do, you can’t drink with friends, go to the lake, be a part of the community.” Dania Maxwell for BuzzFeed News Left: Morning commuters wait for the bus while diners eat at Dinette on Sunset Boulevard, the main drag in the Echo Park neighborhood. Right: People run and walk alongside Echo Park Lake. The LAPD and city attorney’s office declined to comment on pending litigation. But in federal court documents responding to the ACLU’s complaint, city attorneys said “due process does not require the city to provide a hearing before service of the judgement permanent injunction.” In June 2013, then–LA City Attorney Carmen Trutanich also argued that the Echo Park injunction would curb gang-related graffiti, assaults, and homicides. “This injunction will be an important tool in curbing the escalating criminal activity of these six rival gangs and bringing peace to our neighborhoods,” Trutanich told the court. The restraining order complaint accused the six gangs of terrorizing residents, including “innocent young male Hispanics,” and threatening people with violence if they report crimes. The Los Angeles city attorney’s office has a process for removing people from a gang injunction, but it can be long and arduous, said Josh Green, criminal justice program manager and staff attorney with the Urban Peace Institute. Of the 9,400 Angelenos subject to gang injunctions — a majority of whom were not listed in the original version — less than 50 have managed to get themselves removed, Green said. “In some cases, it took two years, and this included a client who had never been arrested for anything,” Green told BuzzFeed News. “The truth is, it was taking so long, it was very hard to get people to believe the process had any legitimacy.” The freedoms people lose — the ability to spend time with family in public and First Amendment rights — are so important that any provisions on the back end will never be enough, he added. “The fact that it’s so easy to get on the injunction and so difficult to get off an injunction demonstrates that we’re not really considering the consequences in the communities where these injunctions exist,” Green said. “What we’ve seen is the benefit to the community is really low, the burden on the individual is actually significant, and it’s very difficult for a person to find their way out from underneath the burden.” BuzzFeed News Gang injunctions occupy an odd legal space in that they start out as a civil proceeding but turn into a criminal matter once provisions are violated, which could lead to fines, jail time, or even a conviction on someone’s record, said Ana Muñiz, an assistant professor of criminology at the University of California, Irvine. “It's a Trojan horse,” Muñiz said. “It’s like being on probation or parole without being convicted of a crime.” Ultimately, Muñiz argues, gang injunctions aren't about reducing crime rates, but about gentrifying communities. In Echo Park, the injunction was imposed in a historically Latino area at a time of declining crime rates as an influx of white residents moved in. “That’s why they put in the Echo Park injunction,” Muñiz said. “They’re not actually a long-term crime reduction tool. That has never been what they’ve achieved.” Research shows that some injunctions result in about a 10% reduction in certain crimes for six months to one year after they're implemented, Muñiz said. In an article published in Social Problems, Muñiz argued that Los Angeles's first gang injunction in 1987 targeted the Playboy Gangster Crips because the neighborhood was undergoing a demographic shift. “Despite the sanitization of race in gang injunction policy, fear of black men and stereotypes about black families were central to the rationale of the injunction,” Muñiz wrote. “The injunction was meticulously designed to control the movement of black youth by criminalizing activities and behavior that are unremarkable and legal in other jurisdictions.” Dania Maxwell for BuzzFeed News People walk along Sunset Boulevard, the main drag in the Echo Park. But for some residents in gang-afflicted neighborhoods, the injunctions have brought real change. “As a resident, it made a huge difference on my corner, at least,” said Katherine Pinney, a resident of the Los Angeles community of Highland Park, which is covered by three gang injunctions. “Gangs are still a problem, but at least they’re not congregating.” The combination of community-based policing, neighborhood watch, and businesses feeling brave enough to call the police also helped make a difference, she added. “You still have graffiti, but the speed with which things get cleaned up is very fast,” Pinney said. “The injunction added some bite, so the community could actually do something to improve it.” A study that looked at eight years’ worth of data from four law enforcement jurisdictions in Los Angeles County found that violent crime rates dropped between 5% and 10% per quarter during the first year of a gang injunction. Yolanda Nogueira, past president of the chamber of commerce in Highland Park, remembers how the main thoroughfare, York Boulevard, was before the gang injunctions. Local gangs gathered on street corners and fleeced business owners by demanding a fee for “protection.” But all that has changed, bringing with it an influx of investment. Small businesses offering custom-made donuts, horchata lattes, and craft beers have replaced former pool halls, Mexican bakeries, and aging bars. “They helped slightly because [gang members] were afraid to congregate,” Nogueira said of the injunctions. “You didn’t see them in bars, corners, or walking down the street, but they were still there. It’s been cleared up, and a lot of them moved because of gentrification because they were renters.”

By Jun Ji-hye Kim Kwan-jin A top presidential security aide is expected to visit Washington this month to coordinate a new approach aimed at resuming talks with North Korea. "We are working on preparing National Security Office (NSO) chief Kim Kwan-jin's visit," Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Min Kyung-wook said at a briefing Sunday. Sources say that the visit will likely take place around the Sept. 6-10 Chuseok holiday. Min said that Kim will pay a visit to the White House and meet his counterpart National Security Adviser Susan Rice. The two are expected to discuss softening the May 24, 2010 sanctions against North Korea as well as the communist state's nuclear program. The so-called May 24 Measures, imposed by former President Lee Myung-bak after the North torpedoed the South Korean frigate, Cheonan, in March 2010, froze nearly all government-level interactions and aid for Pyongyang. Since the incident, visiting North Korea has been strictly forbidden and only a few civic groups have been allowed to visit and provide humanitarian aid. The former defense minister was appointed NSO chief in June. This will be his first overseas visit in his new capacity. Kim is also expected to fine-tune the new target date for the eventual takeover of the wartime operational control (OPCON) of South Korean troops from the United States. The OPCON transfer is scheduled for 2015 but Seoul has been asking for a delay with reports speculating that foreign and defense chiefs of the two allies will meet in October for a final round of talks. Kim's visit is being planned at a time when the Stalinist state is showing signs of accepting Seoul's offer for high-level talks. The government offered to hold high-level talks on Aug. 19 at the truce village of Panmunjeom, but Pyongyang did not respond, but did voice fierce opposition to Ulchi-Freedom Guardian (UFG), a joint military exercise by South Korean and US military forces. Now the drill has finished, the reclusive state recently began referring to the talks on its propaganda website. "The South is saying that it will discuss anything that the North is interested in. If that is not a lie, the South will have to be open to discussing our proposals," according to the website. North Korea watchers see that the reference is interpreted as a strategic move by the North to find a more favorable position before accepting the offer. Meanwhile, other top officials are scheduled to visit the U.S. Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se is planning to visit in September to attend the United Nations general assembly; North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong is also scheduled to attend. Defense Minister Han Min-koo will also visit to participate in the Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) between the two countries. Follow Jun Ji-hye on Twitter @TheKopJihye

In April 2015, provided nothing changes, I will be starting my tenth year of Pauper play. Considering that I started in what was the third 16 week season of the Pauper Deck Challenge, which means sometime around now Pauper began. Over this span I have formed quite a few opinions on the most common format. While I’ve (likely) written more words on the subject than anyone else, I have never discussed why I approach the format the way I do and the exact nature of that angle. I am going to attempt to remedy that today. This is going to be a challenge for me if only because I’m not the best at communicating every nuance of my thought, but here we go. Exploring the Metagame If you ever find yourself on a visit to my page on Facebook you are more than likely to find a post (or two or several) tracking the recent Pauper metagame. For every event posted, for over a year now, I’ve been tracking archetypes and records. Since October 2013 I’ve been keeping this data in a spreadsheet and doing all sorts of fun things to see exactly what decks are doing well. Even though I am an English major by trade it is this math that has helped me to better see the format. This endeavor started as a way to try and understand the impact of Cloudpost and Temporal Fissure. I felt that these cards, in the wake of the Storm and Infect bans, were hurting the format. I started tallying all available Daily Events and posting the results. After those cards were banned I never really stopped. I started to see trends in non-Delver decks (Delver remained at or near the top for the entire duration of my tracking) and would eventually see metagame cycles. Delver was a constant and after the advent of Gray Merchant of Asphodel, so was Mono-Black Control. White Weenie and Stompy were constantly present while Esper based Combo was routinely the best performing deck given a small sample size. Affinity would dominate then disappear and Tron would experience similar feast and famine cycles without ever reach the machine’s apex. Izzet Blitz performs at a rather consistent rate for a deck so loaded with variance. With this information at my fingertips I can predict the directions the metagame will take and find the right cards to run in flexible slots. In Pauper this can be a huge advantage. Knowing that White Weenie is leaning towards running Kor Sanctifiers main makes removal like Journey to Nowhere worse. What this really comes down to is respecting Pauper as a format. Some treat Pauper as a place where any deck is viable while others don’t care and just run a stack of commons. In the past there were those who saw the format as a personal gold farm. It is none of these. Rather Pauper is an eternal format, like Modern and Legacy. It has an entrenched set of decks and occasionally certain strategies make inroads. The metagame experiences cycles and is not static. The dynamic nature of the format means that niche decks could experience wild success in one week while being completely absent the next. The data I collect is limited- it only reflects reported results of decks that accumulate at least one win. However this is the best data available and does reflect the successful archetypes and strategies. Months of data is far better than some anecdotes. And honestly, I love watching the trends. Since the return of the Daily Events a few weeks ago there have been some major changes. Most notable Delver of Secrets based aggro-tempo decks have been usurped from their throne. While MBC has taken Delver’s place, that deck is not the unassailable monolith as was Delver for those months. The hope is that this metagame remains dynamic, which in turn makes this tracking of greater import. Watching the information is one way I approach Pauper. Pillars of Pauper In my opinion there are certain cards available in Pauper that are just plain old better than other options. These cards are so strong that they warrant being the centerpiece of plans of attack. While this model is not perfect it does help me to see how different decks operate and ways to exploit not only these cards, but their weaknesses as well. Let’s take a trip around the color pie. White While it may seem odd, white is currently built around Kor Skyfisher. The Zendikar all-star fills many roles in Pauper. First it has the right size to block the various 2/2s running around while also being an evasive beater. More important it allows decks to reuse enter-the-battlefield abilities. In Pauper this is huge since all the best creatures tend to come with something extra tacked on. Odd as it may seem the best Kor Skyfisher deck is White Weenie which features only Loyal Cathar as a card that sings a synergy song with the Skyfisher. This, in some way, speaks to the power of Kor Skyfisher as a singular card. Kor Skyfisher decks also try to gain utility from their cards at every point of the game, making early turns resemble those coming later in the match. Kor Skyfisher decks tend to be disrupted by removal. Their value comes from reusing certain effects and if the permanents to which those effects are attached no longer exist, well, then Skyfisher just becomes a creature with flying. It will be interesting to see if Invasive Species can assume a similar anchoring decks. While similar, the Magic 2015 common is larger, these cards are only worth building around if their support are made appreciably stronger by their inclusion. Kor Skyfisher is the largest possible for its cost while Invasive Species is simply on par. Blue There are many contenders for the best blue card. Delver of Secrets is an illusion - it only succeeds because elements exist to keep later threats down. Spellstutter Sprite is a better choice but requires too many other cards to function optimally (similar to Kor Skyfisher). Spire Golem is the next logical choice yet its power stems from its ability to work well with the actual pillar here: Counterspell. Blue decks are built around being reactive and Counterspell is the best tool for this as it answers everything. Period. Counterspell warps decks around it by forcing a reliance on blue mana. It also requires its host to play a game where it can always leave UU up. This helps to make cards like Delver, Spellstutter Sprite, and Spire Golem powerful inclusions - they allow Counterspell to operate optimally. The Izzet Control deck from last year also operated on the same metric, only it also liked leaving up red mana. Taking advantage of this reliance on reaction is the best way to combat Counterpsell decks. Establishing an early threat or overloading a wall of permission can leave a deck built around the instant without a great answer. Often resolving a single major threat can be enough to undo all the work of a blue mage. The other way is to pack your own counters, which when combined with the “strong” threat axiom helps us to understand why Delver was so popular before- it could fight Delver. Black People are going to expect me to say Corrupt or Gray Merchant of Asphodel. They’re wrong. The best card to build around in black is Chittering Rats. Chittering Rats, once it hits the table, sets an opponent behind. The fact that it fuels devotion and helps to end the game through Gray Merchant of Asphodel is just gravy. Unearth, the card, is nearly omnipresent in black decks because it means more Chittering Rats can enter the battlefield in a given game. Chittering Rats also plays well with so many other cards in the format by virtue of being a creature (see Kor Skyfisher or Okiba-Gang Shinobi) that it warrants a position as a corner stone. Taking out Chittering Rats means drawing enough cards to not care about the agonizing loss of one in hand. Gaining card advantage, in anyway, can mitigate a chain of Chittering Rats. Once they are on the battlefield they don’t really do much unless they die. This makes white removal or other effects that exile them especially strong in context. Red It’s Lightning Bolt. Lightning Bolt is so strong that even decks that don’t run it can be Lightning Bolt decks (I’m looking at you Affinity). Lightning Bolt does a ton of work by either ending games or it clearing out blockers. The decks that are headlined by Lightning Bolt tend to either beatdown like Goblins and Izzet Blitz or seek to go over the top like Burn. Lightning Bolt decks are not so easily countered. Those that feature creatures require cheap removal and other ways to keep life totals high. Fighting actual Burn decks necessitates the inclusion of dedicated lifegain, which, while useful in the former situation is rarely enough to win the game. There is a certain beauty to the simplest card in this list has the simplest entry. Green Green is similar to white in that its pillar is on the outside looking in currently. Rancor fuels beatdown decks but requires some specific circumstances. Fallen from a pedestal after the neutering of Infect, green creature decks are limited to Stompy and Hexproof. This is odd as Stompy tends to be one of the better performing aggressive decks. The problem may reside in the abundance of Mono-Black Control at the moment as that deck is incredibly well positioned at beating up on unprepared Stompy pilots. You see Rancor decks need their creatures to stay in play and removal, especially that which can hit multiple creatures, helps to keep the battlefield empty. Firebolt and Chainer’s Edict are fine answers but a card like Disfigure can be a backbreaker. Some of Rancor’s power stems from its ability to raise itself from the dead and without that the card is merely okay. There are other cards that approach the status of pillar - the core of Esper Combo, the Urza Tron - but these five to me are the reasons to build decks. When I sit down and approach the format I have to ask myself not only which card will I be playing (if any) but also how am I going to beat these cards when I face them. Power I’m not beyond brewing up something new. When I do I want to make sure I am doing so for a reason. If I stray from a pillar I want to do so for something powerful. Using Arbor Elf and Voyaging Satyr with Wild Growth and Utopia Sprawl to power out threats? Powerful Building a deck around Tortured Existence to reuse Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Mulldrifter? Absurdly strong. There are plenty of abstractly potent cards that don’t see play at the moment. Finding them, in conjunction with the metagame data available and seeing if they can attack a pillar- that is how I brew. So this is how I think about Pauper. It is a format like any other. It has its best cards and strong decks. Not only that but there is a significant amount of untouched space for new decks to emerge and combat the status quo. These are my angles of attack. What are yours?

Mark Wilson/Getty Images Former National Security Agency chief Michael Hayden told a rather alarming story about the iPhone at a recent conference in Washington, according to Der Spiegel: He and his wife were in an Apple store in Virginia, Hayden, the former head of the United States National Security Agency (NSA), said at a conference in Washington recently. A salesman approached and raved about the iPhone, saying that there were already "400,000 apps" for the device. Hayden, amused, turned to his wife and quietly asked: "This kid doesn't know who I am, does he? Four-hundred-thousand apps means 400,000 possibilities for attacks." By "attacks," Hayden meant covert data-gathering by the NSA. In other words, the spy chief immediately recognized the expansion of iPhone apps as an opportunity to gain more information about millions of users around the world. And he wasn't joking. Der Spiegel's report shows that the NSA has been accessing a ton of smartphone, according to a purported secret presentation leaked by Edward Snowden. The agency reportedly has special task forces focusing on smartphone operating systems — specifically Apple's iOS, Android, and BlackBerry — as well as departments responsible for customized surveillance operations against high-interest targets. Der Spiegel notes that, unlike the PRISM program and other leaks, the cracking of smartphone security was entirely without the help of private providers. Recent reporting shows the NSA has a history of coercing providers, either legally through the courts or through monetary compensation. This coercion also extends to smaller software or app providers. On the other hand, what Hayden didn't note that each new app is also an opportunity to hide from the NSA. Apps like What's App and Skype used to give the NSA trouble, but they've since folded into the Agency's deck. On the flip side, Silent Circle's messaging service is still outside the NSA's loop, and so is encrypted search engine DuckDuckGo, as far as we know. The fact is, as quickly as services like Lavabit close, new ones open. The purported NSA presentation also shows screengrabs from Apple's iconic 1984 commercial followed by pictures of Steve Jobs, saying "Who knew in 1984 ... that [Steve Jobs] would be Big Brother ... and the zombies would be paying customers?"

Mysterious Ubisoft title Fighter Within is now a little less mysterious; a trigger-happy website post suggests it’s a Kinect-based fighter for Xbox One. The title was outed last week when a couple of domain registrations turned up, but at the time, the website held only a “coming soon” message. Fusible had the bright idea of checking for a Google Cache snapshot, and although no images were retained, the service did cough up the text pasted below. The PR blurb suggests the title is an Xbox One exclusive using Kinect, with online multiplayer and some element of strategy or tactics, as players will be able to collect, choose and position power ups. We’re expecting Fighter Within to be unveiled at gamescom this week; Ubisoft has promised at least one next-gen reveal. At this point in time it seems pertinent to remember Fighters Uncaged, an AMA Studios-developed Kinect title which Ubisoft published in 2010; it’s too much to hope that theres no connection with the poorly-received title, whence comes the header image used on this article.

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