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BOSTON -- Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens loves to run his team's offense through his bigs, but this wasn't necessarily what he had in mind. Early in the second quarter of Game 1 on Sunday, Al Horford plucked a missed layup off the rim and took off sprinting the other way. Washington Wizards swingman Kelly Oubre tried to stop the break as quickly as it started, but Horford dribbled right through him at Washington's free throw line, and the Celtics had numbers as Horford crossed the center stripe. 2017 NBA Opening Night On opening night, the Warriors were stunned in Oakland and the Celtics' high hopes took a tumble. • Irving: Hayward injury among worst • Despite gloom, hopeful signs for C's • Hobbled CP3 sees Houston rally • LeBron shakes ankle woes in opener • Warriors get rings for 2017 title If it weren't sacrilege to compare a Celtics player to Magic Johnson, we might suggest here that Horford showed signs of Showtime when, catching two retreating Wizards on their heels, he zipped the ball across his body to Marcus Smart in the left corner for a 3-pointer. Horford finished one rebound shy of a triple-double in Game 1 against Washington, as he put up 21 points, 10 assists and 9 rebounds in Boston's 123-111 triumph at TD Garden. Horford became the first center since Hakeem Olajuwon in 1995 to finish with at least 20 points and 10 assists in a playoff game. Horford has been nothing short of spectacular this postseason. He's averaging 16.1 points, 8.6 rebounds, 7 assists, 1 steal and 0.6 blocks over 34 minutes per game. He is shooting 62.7 percent from the field and 50 percent from beyond the 3-point arc. The Celtics own a net rating of plus-9.7 points when he's on the floor in the postseason. Ever since he arrived in Boston in July, Horford has maintained that he's still getting comfortable with the Celtics, especially after he spent his first nine NBA seasons with the Atlanta Hawks. When Stevens was informed Monday that Horford said after Game 1 that he has finally found the best way to impact Boston's offense, the coach smiled and pondered the suggestion. "I’m glad we’re still playing then," Stevens quipped. Just how good has Horford been this postseason? Let's start here: Of the 44 players in the playoffs with at least 75 plays finished, Horford ranks No. 1 while averaging 1.27 points per play, according to Synergy Sports data. He's fractions of a point better than San Antonio cyborg Kawhi Leonard (1.268), and the rest of the pack is farther back. Not only does Horford rank as one the postseason's top spot-up shooters, but also he's far and away the best roll man in these playoffs, having shredded the Chicago Bulls while working the pick-and-roll game with teammate Isaiah Thomas. Horford is averaging an absurd 1.667 points per play as the roll man, per Synergy data. For comparison, Horford is comfortably ahead of Los Angeles Clippers center DeAndre Jordan, who finished the playoffs at 1.541 points per play after leading the NBA in roll man points per play with nearly the same mark during the regular season. Synergy also has a metric called "plays + assists," a measure that rewards those who also create offense for teammates. It typically benefits point guards, but because Horford is averaging a team-best seven assists per game this postseason, it further enhances his overall efficiency. Of the 106 players with at least 40 plays + assists in the playoffs, Horford tops the list at 1.681 points per play, per Synergy data. The nearest competitor, Golden State's Draymond Green, is 0.187 points behind. In Game 1 against the Wizards, Al Horford became the first center since Hakeem Olajuwon in 1995 to finish with at least 20 points and 10 assists in a playoff game. Maddie Meyer/Getty Images "There are times throughout the game where I don’t even bring the ball up. We let Al do it," Thomas said. "We know he’s going to make the right play. He has a high basketball IQ. I’ve said it since Day 1: Even if he’s not scoring the ball and even if he’s just out there, he allows everybody to be their best. He spaces the floor. He knows where guys are gonna be on both sides of the floor. He’s a really high-level player." It is not a coincidence that Thomas wiggled his way into MVP conversation in the same season that Horford arrived in Boston. Horford's presence has opened up the floor for Thomas, and Horford's passing skills have helped Thomas emerge as one of the league's truly elite offensive players. There were times throughout the 2016-17 season when screaming pundits, both nationally and locally in Boston, wondered out loud if Horford is worth the four-year, $113 million maximum-salary contract the Celtics signed him to in July. "The Celtics are paying $28 million per year for THIS?" they shouted while noting that Horford averaged just 14 points on 47.3 percent shooting during the regular season. The criticism bothered Horford's teammates, who were adamant that his impact couldn't be measured by his base stat line, especially considering that it didn't speak to his presence on the defensive end. Now Horford is putting up more notable numbers, and the Celtics think people still don't realize what he means to their success. "Al’s had a great playoffs," Stevens said. "He played really well a lot for us all year. We’ve talked a lot about how it doesn’t always get brought up in the stat sheet, and sometimes I think a guy like him, averaging 15 points, is like other guys averaging 25, for what he means to our team. "He’s been great. He’s been really good." Horford has brought playoff experience to a fledgling Boston team that hadn't advanced out of the first round the past two seasons. With nine postseason appearances and 84 playoff games under his belt before this season, Horford was one of the few in Boston's locker room who had experienced success in the postseason. Thomas has been excellent, especially considering the grief he's playing through after the loss of his sister, and Avery Bradley had a monster first round on both ends of the court. But Horford's impact this postseason should not be overlooked, especially given how important he should be against the Wizards the rest of this series. Yes, the guard play on these two teams will be in the spotlight, but Boston's success could ultimately hinge on how well Horford plays. Horford's teammates certainly recognize his impact. "He's seasoned, that's for sure. He brings a lot of veteran leadership," Jae Crowder said. "He's been through a lot. He's just prepared for each game and takes what the game gives him. He doesn't force it. He takes what the defense gives him, and he does it at a very high level. We ride him a lot. We depend on him a lot -- not just in the box score, just his leadership. It's very key for our team." Added Bradley: "That’s Al. He’s the leader of our team. What he’s done is big for us. He’s been here before. He’s a seasoned player and understands what it takes to be consistent, to play hard for one another. A guy who plays the right way all the time is contagious, and I really enjoy playing with him." |
Todd Duffee has been keeping an eye on what’s been going on in the sport, and he’s been seeing the fight bookings that have been going down. The problem is, he’s seeing a lot of names that aren’t his. With an eye on the future, the UFC heavyweight figured he might as well take some action on his own. Duffee (9-2 MMA, 3-1 UFC) today told MMAjunkie Radio he wants to fight former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir (17-9 MMA, 15-9 UFC) sometime this summer. Duffee said the callout has more to do with the bulk of the rest of the top heavyweights already having fights booked than it does with anything personal. “I thought I was gonna get (Matt) Mitrione, but he got (Ben) Rothwell, and they’ve slowly matched up everyone in the top 15, it looks like, except one guy – so I’ve got to call him out,” Duffee said. “It’s not a grudge match – nothing like that. I have a lot of respect for the guy. But he’s No. 11 (in the UFC rankings), and with the new Reebok deal coming in, I’ve definitely got to beat those upper-echelon guys. I’m about to be 30 (years old). I’ve had a lot of time off in my career. I’d like to have a legend fight, and I’m looking at Frank Mir at No. 11.” Mir is No. 10 in the latest USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA heavyweight rankings. Duffee is unranked. But after the UFC’s deal with Reebok starts on July 1, the promotion will institute a uniform bonus payment policy, in lieu of typical sponsors, that will be based on fighters’ rankings. So Duffee understands there’s a financial necessity to climbing the UFC’s rankings, as well – and that comes with beating top-tier fighters. One of the sport’s hot heavyweight rumors revolves around the potential return of Brock Lesnar to the UFC for a trilogy fight against Mir. But Duffee said he doesn’t think that will happen, keeping the door open for Mir to take a booking with him, instead. “I’m just looking to get a fight,” Duffee said. “Everyone’s getting matched up, and I don’t want to get left off. I don’t think Brock’s coming back. … I’m cordial – I think (Mir is) a legend. It’s nothing personal. It’s a business decision for me. “Aren’t you guys kind of tired of watching me fight guys you know the outcome to? Wouldn’t you like to see a challenge for me, maybe? Longer than a minute and a half?” Duffee returned to the UFC in December 2012 after two fights outside the promotion and topped Philip De Fries in a little more than two minutes for a “Knockout of the Night” bonus. At UFC 181 this past December, after two years off dealing with Parsonage Turner Syndrome, he knocked out Anthony Hamilton in 33 seconds. Mir less than a month ago snapped a four-fight losing skid when he knocked out Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva in the main event of UFC Fight Night 61 in Brazil. Duffee said he’d be amenable to a summer fight with Mir, potentially at UFC 189 in Las Vegas on July 11 or UFC on FOX 16 on July 25 in Chicago. For more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site. MMAjunkie Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at noon ET (9 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show, available on SiriusXM channel 92, is hosted by “Gorgeous” George Garcia and producer Brian “Goze” Garcia. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio. |
The conservative assault on Planned Parenthood that began a year ago when the Republican-led House of Representatives tried to cut off any federal aid to the organization has been followed by a slew of similar attacks at the state level. The latest came this week in North Carolina. On Monday night, the Republican-led State Legislature voted to override the recent decision by North Carolina’s Democratic governor, Bev Perdue, to veto a flawed budget that stripped financing for Planned Parenthood. Last year, the Legislature also overrode a budget veto, in the process enacting provisions to disqualify Planned Parenthood for continued government support. Those provisions were blocked on sound constitutional and statutory grounds by a federal judge, who found, as courts consistently have, that a state may not target a particular health provider because it advocates for abortion rights and provides abortions using its own money. To try to get around that ruling, this year’s budget does not refer to Planned Parenthood by name. Instead, it achieves the same bad result by preventing the state’s Health and Human Services Department from contracting with “private providers” of family planning services. Planned Parenthood is the only outfit that fits that category, a ploy unlikely to fool a court. If left to stand, the cut in financing would take away roughly $200,000 from Planned Parenthood clinics in the state. It would not reduce the number of abortions (they are not financed by state money) and could actually increase abortions by making affordable contraception less available. What is certain is that women would be hurt, and Planned Parenthood’s ability to provide birth control, cancer screenings, testing for sexually transmitted diseases and other health services for low-income clients would be badly impaired. Overburdened state-run health offices are not an adequate substitute, but the politicians behind the cut clearly don’t care. |
EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE: 3 P.M. (CT), WEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 2014 Media Advisory: To contact author John R. Blosnich, Ph.D., M.P.H., call Mark Ray at 412-822-3578 or email Mark.ray2@va.gov. To place an electronic embedded link to this study in your story The link for this study will be live at the embargo time: http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?doi=10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2014.724. JAMA Psychiatry Bottom Line: Men and women who have served in the military have a higher prevalence of adverse childhood events (ACEs), suggesting that enlistment may be a way to escape adversity for some. Authors: John R. Blosnich, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the Veterans Affairs Pittsburgh Healthcare System, and colleagues. Background: The prevalence of ACEs among U.S. military members and veterans is largely unknown. ACEs can result in severe adult health consequences such as posttraumatic stress disorder, substance use and attempted suicide. How the Study Was Conducted: Authors compared the prevalence of ACEs among individuals with and without a history of military service using data from a behavioral risk surveillance system, along with telephone interviews, for an analytic sample of more than 60,000 people. ACEs in 11 categories were examined, including living with someone who is mentally ill, alcoholic or incarcerated, as well as witnessing partner violence, being physically abused, touched sexually or forced to have sex. Authors considered military service during the all-volunteer era (since 1973) vs. the draft era. Results: In the sample, 12.7 percent of the individuals reported military service, which was more common among men (24 percent) than women (2 percent). During the all-volunteer-era, men with military service had a higher prevalence of ACEs in all 11 categories than men without military service. For example, men with a history of military service had twice the prevalence of all forms of sexual abuse than their nonmilitary male peers: being touched sexually (11 percent vs. 4.8 percent), being forced to touch another sexually (9.6 percent vs. 4.2 percent) and being forced to have sex (3.7 percent vs. 1.6 percent). During the draft era, the only difference among men was in household drug use, where men with military service had a lower prevalence than men without military service. Fewer differences in ACEs were found among women with and without military service than among men. Women with a history of military service in both eras had similar patterns of elevated odds for physical abuse, household alcohol abuse, exposure to domestic violence and emotional abuse compared with women who had not been in the military. Women who served in the military during the all-volunteer era also were more likely to report being touched sexually. Discussion: “Further research is needed to understand how best to support service members and veterans who may have experienced ACEs.” (JAMA Psychiatry. Published online July 23, 2014. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2014.724. Available pre-embargo to the media at http://media.jamanetwork.com.) Editor’s Note: This work was funded by a variety of sources. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc. # # # For more information, contact JAMA Network Media Relations at 312-464-JAMA (5262) or email mediarelations@jamanetwork.org. |
Through the 2014 NBA Draft on June 26 in New York, New York, Florida Gators center Patric Young kept you up-to-date on his Path to the Draft with exclusive comprehensive blog entries here at OnlyGators.com. He checks in for the 10th and final time from New Orleans, Louisiana, after going undrafted and instead signing a training camp deal with the New Orleans Pelicans. Up until the start of the draft, I was still hearing the same thing regarding my status. I got a lot of good feedback coming out of my workouts and the potential was there for me to go somewhere between the 25th and 40th picks. Obviously, that did not happen. My draft party was held at Latitude 30 in Jacksonville, Florida. About 40 people were there including family, friends, teammates, my AAU coach, physical therapist, some people from church and those that have been there for me throughout my entire journey. The party was in a movie theater-type room, and it was kind of cool to watch the draft in that kind of atmosphere. There was a lot of food and everyone was just chilling out and socializing. During the first few picks as things were starting to kick off, my buddy and I were trying to predict who would go where and having some fun with it. Not going in the first round, I was like, ‘OK, I’ll probably be in these next 10 picks here’ because Philadelphia liked me a lot, Minnesota, Detroit seemed like they really wanted me to be there. I was waiting for the phone call, waiting for the phone to ring, and it just didn’t. When I heard Jarnell Stokes (Tennessee) and Johnny O’Bryant III (LSU) go back-to-back, because they were like No. 35 and 36, I thought there was a good chance I would go in the next pick or next couple of picks. I didn’t hear my phone ring, and they kept going with these international players. I’ve come to realize that a lot of these teams are trying to make room because they know they don’t have to pay these players yet because they’re not coming over here. A lot of teams are trying to make runs at LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony and a lot of these other guys, so free agency definitely affected the draft from what I understand. Late in the second round I left the draft party and did not want to continue watching it, at some point around pick 50, as I figured at that point I would not get a phone call. I went back home and spoke to my agent later that night. He said, “Don’t worry about it. We’re going to take care of everything. We got 10 teams interested in you for Summer League and the fall.” Less than 12 hours later – I didn’t go to bed until 2 or 3 a.m. – he told me the top three teams for me were New Orleans, Detroit and Philadelphia. Those three teams had the best opportunity for me. He was going to work on a guarantee and money deal for training camp. The Pelicans were the first team that offered that and said they wanted to draft me but did not have the opportunity. So, I got some guaranteed money as well as a spot in training camp after Summer League play in Las Vegas, Nevada. It feels good going to a situation with a team that really wanted me but couldn’t get me instead of a team that would get me on the team just to have me on the team and see what I could do. The general manager, Dell Demps, called me and said he’s really excited for me to be here. He wants me to play defense and rebound in Summer League and everything else will work out. I was excited to hear from him, especially with him saying those things. This definitely feels like the best scenario for me right now. Over the last two weeks, I have been hanging out at home in Jacksonville, getting physical therapy for three hours every day and seeing plenty of friends and family. On July 4, I went to the beach and saw fireworks out on the water. Other than that, I really have not been doing too much except the physical therapy. Nothing is bothering me, but I wanted to make sure I was in the best health possible for the start of workouts and stuff. I flew into New Orleans on Sunday. Over the next few days before we leave for Las Vegas, we will be in the facility getting physicals, working out and probably putting some team concepts together for Summer League. It’s like a three-day mini camp mostly with rookies and the players who will be on the Summer League roster on July 11. Thank you all for following along in my journey. I’m never going to forget how supportive and loving you guys were both while I was wearing the orange and blue on the outside and now during this path while I wear it on the inside. Hopefully you all will continue watching me on the next level! Go Gators! PATH TO THE DRAFT – PREVIOUS ENTRIES » PART I: Looking back at career, forward to NBA Draft » PART II: Hiring an agent, graduating, training for the combine » NBA COMBINE: Full Two-Day Results » PART III: Combine Recap: Meetings with the Grizzlies, Pelicans » PART IV: Combine Recap: Meets with the Knicks, Jazz » PART V: Visits with the Suns, Spurs, 76ers » PART VI: Visits with the Bulls, Knicks (and fun) » PART VII: Visits with the Thunder, Jazz, Mavericks » PART VIII: Visits with the Timberwolves, Rockets and Clippers » PART IX: Visits with Boston, Detroit; return to Jacksonville |
Buying Choices I know we're a bit late on the news of this, but for some reason, this one passed us by, originally being released in July. (thanks John P.Shea) The Korg PS range are some of the rarest of instruments, the classic P3100 is one of those holy grail synths, not only is it extremely rare (600 or so made), but also features 48-note polyphony (yeah really, in a 1977 synth!) together with Low pass filter, three resonators and some semi modular patching options. Full Bucket, bless 'em have recreated the PS3100 as the FB-3100 in VST/AU form available from their website. And whats more its free - yes, free. If you want to find out more about the PS-3100 check this excellent article over at GreatSynthesizers.com More Information FullBucket.de More From: FULL BUCKET MUSIC Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. |
Not many clothes can truthfully claim humble beginnings. The clichéd axiom “dress for the job you want” advocates climbing the sartorial ladder to echelons of the socially elite and powerful. Tastemakers historically have taken queues from the aristocracy, presenting their livery as the pinnacle of style toward which all should progress. And then we have workwear. Despite its rather general designation, workwear is the apparel of specifically the field, shop, or construction worker. It is a relatively new term for a style that has been around for over 100 years, when men and women needed practical, utilitarian clothing that could withstand the rigors of manual labor in harsh environments. Over the years, individual pieces of workwear would enjoy the limelight of mainstream popularity. Observe the awesomeness: The sad thing about appropriation is that, when placed out of its setting, an article of clothing can appear awkward and forced. Oftentimes, the earnest adoption of bits and pieces of a “look” comes out contrived. These pictures don’t showcase laborers, farmers, or lumberjacks. There is no “authenticity” in these outfits at all. What, then, of the wholesale wardrobe adoption of a subculture? This, in effect, is the “workwear” trend. Fok, Styleforum’s owner, can go into greater detail and history, but the interest in “heritage brands” making workwear started in the early aughts, hit its stride in 2008, and even ten years later shows no signs of fading away. As recently as three months ago, GQ noted that “construction core” clothing was one of the more noteworthy trends of 2016. Back in workwear’s heyday, an article in the San Francisco Chronicle quoted Kiya Babzani as saying: “You never look stupid in workwear. It’s easier to swallow a whole outfit because it’s classic and simple. Some trends get a little costumey. Not this one.” There is truth to these words; and yet I’d argue that the trend can, in fact, be taken too far. What makes the basics of the workwear “trend” so easy to adopt is that they always look good together. Jeans go great with boots and flannel shirts. There is nothing difficult to master, and the changes in denim and leather over time only make them look better, thus ensuring the longevity of the garment as well as the style. Additionally, workwear as a broad style has been around continuously for so long and adopted by so many other communities (skaters, punks, hiphop artists – to name a few) that these items have ceased having exclusive attachment to the blue collar worker. In fact, you will probably sooner see them on an “digital community expert” or “full-stack developer” than on an actual laborer, the irony of which is not lost on laborers (believe me, I know – I am one). However, it can get a little costumey. How? Workwear is not menswear; you don’t want to look like you dressed up. These clothes look best when they’re a bit disheveled. Think denim with time-worn fades and boots with battle scars. Don’t obsess about the perfect cuff on your jeans. Don’t sweat it if you get a little dirt (or spill a latte) on your henley. And don’t even think about cutting holes in your jeans; you gotta earn those the hard way. No one’s going to believe that those perfectly horizontal rips on the thighs of your jeggings happened on the jobsite, poseur. Why is workwear so enduringly popular? Is it because besides the suit, it’s one of the few looks that has been around for over a century? Perhaps. Perhaps it’s a backlash against fast-fashion, against a closet full of disposables. Or maybe it’s the sentimentality associated with faded pictures of mythical icons of the past. Whatever the reason, it’s a look that is easy to wear. Just put on your clothes, wear ‘em to death, throw them in the wash when they stink, and repeat. That’s it. This slideshow requires JavaScript. |
With the primaries in full swing, it's probably fair to say that politics is the talk of the town. Whilst it's debatable whether politics has any place in the workplace, a recent study from researchers at the University of Michigan, suggests that the political leaning of your boss may have an impact on your career. The study, which examined law firms across America, found that the favored ideology of your manager can influence their views on gender equality at work. “In general, women are much less likely to be promoted, and much more likely to leave their firms. We found that this gender gap gets smaller when male bosses are more liberal, but it gets larger when male bosses are more conservative,” the authors say. Building on diversity The authors built on previous work that explored the role diversity played in the success of organizations. This led them to delve into why it was that some organizations were more diverse than others. The researchers examined the political donations of partners at a number of large American law firms to gage the political leanings of particular firms, before then cross-referencing that with the diversity levels of those organizations. They found that when partners were liberally orientated, they not only were more likely to select female associates, but were also more likely to serve on various diversity committees. Sadly, their conservative peers were found to be much less likely than average to do either of these things. The authors make the contentious statement that conservatives are more likely to favor traditional labor roles, with men in the workplace and women in the home, with this translating into a belief that female employees are more likely to take time away from work to raise children. Liberal managers, by contrast, may be more inclined to believe strongly in the importance of gender equality, and therefore push for policies that support this. “It is important to emphasize that we don’t know the right level of diversity for each office, each organization. Our results should not be interpreted as ‘anti-conservative’ or ‘pro-liberal’,” the researchers say. Unconscious biases Nevertheless, the findings suggest that it may be valuable to understand the political leanings of managers, both in terms of organizations who wish to encourage greater diversity, or even job candidates wishing to join a firm, for they may have unconscious biases that prevent them from hiring on merit. “They are probably not consciously discriminating against women, but their beliefs could influence their willingness to invest in female subordinates,” the authors conclude. “And this could happen on both sides of the spectrum. “You could have conservative managers who don’t promote women enough and you can have liberal managers who promote women more than they otherwise should.” Hopefully being forewarned is to be forearmed. |
5.00 pm. Since we’re now in our sixth hour of live-blogging, I’m going to wrap it up for the time being. But I want to end on a positive note. Everything that happened in this damning report is because of Americans. But the report itself is a function of other Americans determined to push back against evil done in this country’s name. Those Americans have been heroes in exposing this horror from the get-go, and they include many CIA agents who knew full well what this foul program was doing to their and America’s reputation. But they also include the dogged staff of the Select Committee itself. I’m proud to know Dan Jones, who was the key figure in putting this together. He was handed with literally millions of pages of often incomprehensible and weirdly filed documents, and somehow had to pull them all together, night after night, through the early morning hours, in a lonely basement. There were many early mornings when he carried on, not knowing if any of this would ever see the light of day – and, of course, both the CIA and the Obama administration did all they could to stop its release. It’s so easy to dismiss them many people working in government in Washington – but I know and revere many who perform public service with dedication and professionalism. And this report is arguably the most important act of public service in holding our government accountable in modern times. The great achievement of this report, moreover, is its meticulousness. No one can now claim that these torture sessions gave us anything of any worth, while damning this country for decades to come as the worst human rights abuser in the West. They will still claim torture worked – but they will be lying or rather desperately repeating talking points that the CIA’s own documents have now categorically refuted. So the last word goes to Feinstein: All of us owe them our deepest thanks. Even on this darkest of days, they give me hope. 4.59 pm. Ambers notes that this is not an act of interrogation: Over and over, the CIA justified ratcheting up the techniques based not on any intelligence or evidence that the detainees did know more than they were sharing, but instead to increase their own confidence that the detainees had shared everything they knew. In other words, the thinking was: “We’ll enhance his interrogations until it’s not possible that he could withhold actionable information from us.””Our assumption is the objective of this operation is to achieve a high degree of confidence that [AbuZubaydah is not holding back actionable information concerning threats to the United States,” was how Zubaydah’s top interrogator put it in a cable to headquarters. Even though the CIA was telling the executive branch that the prisoner was holding back information and that they needed to rough him up to get it out of him, the operational order for the torture itself said otherwise. If this is the rationale for torture, then every person in interrogation should be tortured. You’ve got to prove they don’t have anything else to tell us. I guess that was the kind of decision made when pondering whether to do the 151st near-drowning, after the 150th. All I want you to do is imagine if you were witnessing this scene in a movie. The interrogators would be Nazis, wouldn’t they? And now they are us. 4.47 pm. So, Mr President, this was an act of patriotism, was it? #TortureReport suggests CIA literally told a detainee they were going to f*ck his mother right there in the prison pic.twitter.com/NjtM14f0N2 — Brian Ries (@moneyries) December 9, 2014 4.42 pm. Tunku Varadjaran believes in covering up war crimes: Who needs enemies when you've to the Senate Intelligence Committee? — Tunku Varadarajan (@tunkuv) December 9, 2014 What a disgraceful piece of McCarthyite, jingoist twaddle. 4.35 pm. It’s fascinating to watch close observers and shrewd reporters on the CIA expressing various levels of shock at these revelations: The CIA carries out clandestine PR campaigns spreading same info it tells judges can't be revealed via FOIA? No way! pic.twitter.com/Rpxg7Kenvw — Charlie Savage (@charlie_savage) December 9, 2014 And here’s Ambers: Remarkably, the black site teams regularly fought back against HQ, which kept demanding intel that didn't exist. (See, for ex, pp. 78-80). — Marc Ambinder (@marcambinder) December 9, 2014 The barbarism was the very opposite from a few bad apples at the bottom of the pile, as they tried to persuade us at Abu Ghraib. The bad apples were at the very top of the chain of command, rotting this country’s reputation and honor from the top down. And those begin with Bush and Cheney and Tenet. They are now wanted men. And they will go abroad again – at their legal peril. And so America becomes a legal sanctuary for war criminals. As long as they are our war criminals. 4.32 pm. A reader writes: For a doctor to participate in torture is a fundamental violation of everything the medical profession teaches. And yet: “CIA interrogators shackled each of these detainees in the standing position for sleep deprivation for extended periods of time until medical personnel assessed that they could not maintain the position.” It’s not the most serious crime detailed in the report, but it reflects profound corruption and perversion of a profession that is supposed to save lives, not guide torturers. These are devastating revelations, though of course not without historical precedent. Thank you for bearing witness to all of this. The participation of American doctors and psychologists in this criminal enterprise has long been one of the more depressing aspects of this dark period. We’ve been covering it on the Dish for a decade now. It gives me utterly no satisfaction to see it was even worse than we feared. 4.30 pm. A useful reminder: There is NO statute of limitations if torture had foreseeable risk of death or serious injury. http://t.co/jtG97ma9Sv pic.twitter.com/PNmq0r7Y2Z — Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) December 9, 2014 4.26 pm. Proof of Hayden’s lies go on and on and on: The torture report ends with ~30 pages of testimony from Michael Hayden side-by-side with proof that what he said was false or misleading. — Trevor Timm (@trevortimm) December 9, 2014 Here’s my question: ho does any media institution justify having this person comment on this report? He has lied so brazenly and so often, anything he says must be treated with instant suspicion. He’s already tried his routine with a supine news source, Newsmax. And he’s got nothing: 4.16 pm. Some righteous words from the very Catholic blogger, Mark Shea, who has long refused to betray his conscience or his faith in turning a blind eye to torture: This is what “conservatives”, including *especially* anti-abortion-but-not-prolife “faithful conservative Catholics” have fought to defend for years. It is a disgusting stain on the American Catholic Church and a scandal which draws both the Faith and the prolife movement into disrepute. Penance is the only proper response to it. 4.12 pm. So they were the worst of the worst, were they? It’s the footnotes that will make you weep and wail. Some of the CIA detainees who never should have been there: pic.twitter.com/N2qTga3UiS — Dan Froomkin (@froomkin) December 9, 2014 For those on the right still defending this legacy, can we at least expect some remorse for the utterly innocent people tortured and even tortured to death? Or are these people incapable of even that? Have they really no decency left at all? 4.01 pm. This could be a moment for some on the right to reflect more broadly on what happened in this country under the torture regime. There is so much to absorb and digest in today’s report – surely enough to warrant even a passionate defender of the program to reconsider and rethink. But no. So far, the response is either to ignore these blockbuster revelations or, well, this from NRO: Defined by selective accounts and distorted by a partisan agenda, this Senate Intelligence Committee report is intelligence birtherism. Conspiring against truth, it sacrifices American patriots and America’s security in an “Oldspeak”-style of purging the record of any truth. Unconcerned by the propaganda victory they’ve given to U.S. enemies (contemplate how ISIS will manipulate this report), or the cost for liaison-intelligence relationships (foreign services will worry that future cooperation will be misrepresented), the Senate Intelligence Committee has shamed itself and the citizens it claims to serve. So a 500-page report, summarizing 6,700 pages of a bigger, classified version, as compiled by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, is as credible as the claims that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. That’s the legacy of William F Buckley Jr. 3.58 pm. More Hayden lies: In December 2008 and January 2009, CIA officers briefed the transition team for President-elect Barack Obama on the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program. CIA Director Hayden prepared a statement that relayed, “despite what you have heard or read in a variety of public fora, these [enhanced interrogation] techniques and this program did work.” The prepared materials included inaccurate information on the operation and management of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program, as well as the same set of examples of the “effectiveness” of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques that the CIA had provided to policymakers over several years. The examples provided were nearly entirely inaccurate. My italics. It’s very very rare for a Senator to call a former CIA chief a liar as Feinstein did today. But that Hayden definitely is – a product of an institution so usually reliant on secrecy to conceal its fabrications that lying to the outside world is close to reflexive. 3.47 pm. One of the early defenses of torturing prisoners was that, when it comes to devout Muslims, they actually welcomed it because it released them from any obligations to protect their brothers. Cliff May tangled with me on this seven years ago. He posited the following idea: We now know that Islamists believe their religion forbids them to cooperate with infidels — until they have reached the limit of their ability to endure the hardships the infidel is inflicting on them. In other words: Imagine an al-Qaeda member who would like to give his interrogators information, who does not want to continue fighting, who would prefer not to see more innocent people slaughtered. He would need his interrogators to press him hard so he can feel that he has met his religious obligations — only then could he cooperate. So torture was actually a mercy for these people! Well we know more about that now: A CIA officer testified that Abu Zubaydah thanked agents for torturing him; no CIA records support this testimony. pic.twitter.com/czavbTwnVT — Alan Yuhas (@AlanYuhas) December 9, 2014 They were making this up out of whole cloth and passing it along to credulous writers at National Review. 3.41 pm. About those professional interrogators: Just a reminder: these thugs are not employed by the Assad regime. They are American “patriots” – as this president has called them. 3.37 pm. More Hayden lies: Hayden gave Senators inaccurate testimony about the interrogation process, threats against detainees’ families, the punching and kicking of detainees, detainee hygiene, denial of medical care, dietary manipulation, the use of waterboarding and its effectiveness, and the injury and death of detainees. Hayden also told the Senate committee he didn’t believe CIA personnel had expressed reservations about the techniques that were used. In reality, one medical staff member said the methods made him “psychologically very uncomfortable” and several staffers were “profoundly affected” to the point of “choking up,” according to the report. But, as we know, the CIA believes it is fully entitled to lie whenever it wants to. And since no one is ever held accountable for those lies, who can blame them? 3.35 pm. A footnote reveals how the White House refused to cooperate in any meaningful way with the Committee: The Committee did not have access to approximately 9,400 CIA documents related to the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program that were withheld by the White House pending a determination and claim of executive privilege. The Committee requested access to these documents over several years, including in writing on January3, 2013, May 22, 2013, and December 19,2013. The Committee received no response from the White House. Obama has done nothing to bring about this vital act of accountability. History will remember and record that as a stain on his presidency and his character. And as a reminder that when he argued for transparency and accountability in government, he was excusing the CIA from that noble aspiration. 3.30 pm. The CIA istelf never regarded its techniques as humane, even as Bush officials were ludicrously arguing as much. When Administration apologists took to the airwaves in 2003, insisting that the treatment of all prisoners was “humane,” CIA seniors were convinced that this meant the White House was abandoning the black sites and torture program! On several occasions in early 2003, CIA General Counsel Scott Muller expressed concern to the National Security Council principals, White House staff, and Department of Justice personnel that the CIA’s program might be inconsistent with public statements from the Administration that the U.S. Government’s treatment of detainees was “humane.”[redacted] CIA General Counsel Muller therefore sought to verify with White House and Department of Justice personnel that a February 7, 2002, Presidential Memorandum requiring the U.S. military to treat detainees humanely did not apply to the CIA. That right there is an admission of war crimes. And proof that the CIA was fully aware of it. 3.20 pm. The NYT has a terrifically useful debunking of all the various plots that we were told were intercepted or prevented through the use of torture. They’re all lies. Money quote from the report on one such lie: Within days of the raid on UBL’s compound, CIA officials represented that CIA detainees provided the ‘tipoff’ information on Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti. A review of CIA records found that the initial intelligence obtained, as well as the information the CIA identified as the most critical — or the most valuable — on Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti, was not related to the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques. But of course the lies were inevitable. Once you have decided to go down the path of torture, it’s essential that you continue to believe it must be useful. It’s psychologically very hard to admit you have been doing unspeakably evil things for no reason at all. And so all torture regimes contain self-serving lies. There are none that are halted half-way through for ineffectiveness, because that would expose those already neck-deep in barbarism to blame, and even legal consequences. And so the usual pattern is to double-down, to keep insisting that every single act of torture saved lives, even as it gave us no serious or reliable intelligence. These are the patterns of authoritarian and totalitarian states where torture reigns. And they are the patterns that George W Bush imported into the very heart of American democracy. 3.17 pm. I’m trying to keep count of the number of bald-faced lies that Michael Hayden told in the documents in this report. The NYT has a beaut: In 2007, for instance, Michael V. Hayden, then the C.I.A. director, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that “all of those involved in the questioning of detainees are carefully chosen and screened for demonstrated professional judgment and maturity.” In fact, the Senate report concludes, no such vetting took place. The interrogation teams included people with “notable derogatory information” in their records, including one with “workplace anger management issues” and another who “had reportedly admitted to sexual assault.” More to come. 3.07 pm. It’s worth noting that the Obama administration continues to refuse to use the word “torture” in dealing with the report. This is despite the president’s casual admission that “we tortured some folks” – a statement of staggering callowness now we can see what was done in our name. Paul Waldman: Today I was on a background call with a group of senior administration officials, and they were asked repeatedly why they seemed so reluctant to use the word “torture,” even after President Obama admitted that “we tortured some folks.” One official replied, “We’re not going to go case by case in a report like this and try to affix a label to each action.” But they do affix a label: “enhanced interrogation techniques,” which they used again and again, accepting the euphemistic label the Bush administration affixed to it. Obama has been a captive of the CIA since he got into office, and a de facto enabler of torture in his refusal to adhere to the Geneva Conventions. But there’s also a reason for his reticence and tone-deafness. If the administration formally concedes the use of torture, Obama will be legally obligated to prosecute it. But they refuse to. I’ll just pose a simple question: is there any organization in the West that could be found responsible for these appalling acts of incompetence, cruelty, torture, murder, sadism, and deception and have no one in that organization resign or be disciplined, let alone be prosecuted? It’s inconceivable. Which means it really is important to see what is in front of our nose: a lawless, unaccountable criminal entity beyond any legal control or scrutiny. The CIA is a threat to this democracy. And a threat to the world. 3.03 pm. Now think for a second of what the reaction would be if a captive American were subjected to the following by a foreign power: CIA used "rectal feeding" on some prisoners, which led to gross medical complications: #TortureReport pic.twitter.com/4EkTcSuKDY — Alejandro Alvarez (@aletweetsnews) December 9, 2014 3.02 pm. Nathan Vardi notes the financial cost of the torture program: In total, the report claims that the CIA’s detention and interrogation program cost “well over $300 million in non-personnel costs.” One individual associated with the CIA program on the ground level told U.S. government investigators that the program had “more money than we could possibly spend we thought, and it turned out to be accurate.” … One person associated with the CIA program told government investigators that payments of more than $1 million were made without any paperwork, in cash, and out of boxes containing hundred dollar bills. “We never counted it. I’m not about to count that kind of money for a receipt,” the unidentified individual is quoted as saying by the report. 2.30 pm. The CIA and Cheney have long defended torture as having clear and positive results. Mike Zenko notes that the CIA as recently as 2013 acknowledged that it had no way of knowing whether the torture was working: [T]here is one CIA acknowledgment that should be as disturbing as anything that is contained within the SSCI study itself. Page 24 of the CIA memo addresses the SSCI’s conclusion that the “CIA never conducted its own comprehensive analysis of the effectiveness of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.” The CIA’s response: “We agree with Conclusion 10 in full. It underpins the most important lesson that we have drawn from The Study: CIA needs to develop the structure, expertise, and methodologies required to more objectively and systematically evaluate the effectiveness of our covert actions. We draw this lesson going forward fully aware of how difficult it can be to measure the impact of a particular action or set of actions on an outcome in a real-world setting.” Therefore, the CIA admitted that—as late as June 2013—it was simply incapable of evaluating the effectiveness of its covert activity. So all those statements by Cheney, Thiessen and every talking head on Fox that torture worked? They were bald-faced bluffs by utter incompetents. They were bullshit. 2.28 pm. The devastation to our alliances is real and just beginning: I know v senior Western intel types who collaborated w/IC on renditions, etc. They are beyond furious today. Gotten hellish emails already. — John Schindler (@20committee) December 9, 2014 2.26 pm. A tweet from a real interrgator, and not some outside contractor goon: 2.25 pm. The shame of Bill Keller: The term "enhanced interrogation" never appeared in the NYT before 2007: http://t.co/VGrROWtV3u pic.twitter.com/eFOzIA5T6j — Derek Willis (@derekwillis) December 9, 2014 2.19 pm. A close look at a torture session: Now you know why Rodriguez destroyed the tapes. Even after a torture victim is so broken that the interrogator only has to snap his fingers to get this shell of a human being to get back on the waterboard, they continued to torture him. Let me state this as plainly as I can: this is Nazi-level criminality and brutality. This is unimaginable sadism. If the people who did this and those who authorized this are allowed to get away with this, and even be praised by presidents for it, then we have left our civilization behind. 2.15 pm. Nothing to see here … https://twitter.com/AdamSerwer/status/542388141496086530 2.11 pm. When will Kethryn Bigelow apologize? The investigation completely rejects the Zero Dark Thirty scenario that torture of the courier led to Osama bin Laden pic.twitter.com/EkAkZ497gP — Farhad Manjoo (@fmanjoo) December 9, 2014 2.07 pm. Flipping through some conservative media today, the crickets are chirping. NRO has close to nothing on the subject – while finding space for posts on Lena Dunham and Swedish immigration policies. Unless you count this tweet: Drudge is leading with Gruber and Dunham. I guess that’s better then defending the utterly indefensible. 2.00 pm. The New York Times today editorializes that the torture report is “a portrait of depravity that is hard to comprehend and even harder to stomach.” This is the same newspaper that refused to use the word “torture” for years out of deference to the Bush administration – even though it was plain as the light of day. So no surprise to find this little nugget about one of its reporters dealing with the CIA on this: 1.47 pm. The international community will now rightly insist that the perpetrators of these war crimes be punished. Here’s the UN Rapporteur on Human Rights, Ben Emerson, today: It is now time to take action. The individuals responsible for the criminal conspiracy revealed in today’s report must be brought to justice, and must face criminal penalties commensurate with the gravity of their crimes. The fact that the policies revealed in this report were authorised at a high level within the US Government provides no excuse whatsoever. Indeed, it reinforces the need for criminal accountability. International law prohibits the granting of immunities to public officials who have engaged in acts of torture. This applies not only to the actual perpetrators but also to those senior officials within the US Government who devised, planned and authorised these crimes. As a matter of international law, the US is legally obliged to bring those responsible to justice. The UN Convention Against Torture and the UN Convention on Enforced Disappearances require States to prosecute acts of torture and enforced disappearance where there is sufficient evidence to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction. States are not free to maintain or permit impunity for these grave crimes. My italics. If the Obama administration refuses to bring these war criminals to justice, it will effectively render moot any international efforts to curtail torture anywhere in the world. It will be arguing that crimes as grave as these need have no legal consequences. That, simply speaking, ends the United States’ participation in the civilized world, and removes any standing for us to criticize any foul despot anywhere who uses torture techniques as hideous as the ones we are now reading about. Is that the legacy Obama wants? That he made the world safe for torturers? At some point, even he will have to acknowledge the gravity of these facts beyond his callow, off-hand admission that “we tortured some folks” but that the torturers were patriots and we shouldn’t get too “self-righteous” about them. Does the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize really want to go down in history as the president who made sure that war criminals are only punished if they are not American? And notice too that the US is legally obliged to prosecute Bush and Cheney as well. Or become a rogue state at the UN and in the Geneva community of democracies. Both Bush and Cheney have celebrated their deployment of torture and taken full responsibility for it in public. It is simply impermissible to allow these men to escape justice. The only alternative is to pardon them. 1.46 pm. Yes, we did this too: We paid off Country █ to the tune of $█ to let us bring more people there and torture them for longer. pic.twitter.com/uAijRIK9FU — Ali Gharib (@Ali_Gharib) December 9, 2014 1.37 pm. The gravity of what is in front of our eyes is beginning to sink in: The narrative of modern American history will be shaped by the documentation provided in CIA report. It is that big. nytimes.com/interactive/20… — Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) December 09, 2014 1.35 pm. The war criminal Jose Rodriguez, whose destruction of the video evidence of torture precipitated this report, knew that what he was doing was illegal on its face, explosive and had to be kept top-secret. Any slip, any leak, any discussion could come back to haunt them: Strongly urge that any speculative language as to the legality of given activities or, more precisely, judgment calls as to their legality vis-à-vis operational guidelines for this activity agreed upon and vetted at the most senior levels of the agency, be refrained from in written traffic (email or cable traffic). Such language is not helpful. 1.33 pm. For many in the CIA, watching these brutal torture sessions was too much: 1.28 pm. As the CIA contends that the torture program was defensible because it worked (even though it plainly didn’t), it’s worth recalling the explicit language of the Geneva Conventions: No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture. The CIA’s self-defense is itself a violation of the Geneva Accords. This country has effectively destroyed those accords and the enormous achievement of Western civilization in constructing them. Obama as definitively as Bush. 1.24 pm. Even now, Obama’s cowardice is gob-smacking: Obama official: White House won’t take sides between CIA, which says interrogations worked, and Senate, which says they didn’t. — Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) December 9, 2014 You mean: they cannot read the report? There are not two sides. The evidence that the interrogations gave us nothing that wasn’t otherwise available is … the CIA’s own assessment. That’s why this report is so conclusive. The CIA itself says the torture didn’t work! And now it claims otherwise. This is a dispute between the CIA and the CIA. 1.18 pm. In most organizations, if someone breaks the rules or commits serious wrongdoing, they are disciplined or corrected. Not in the CIA. No one is ever held to account within that organization, even murderers: By indicating that no one would be held responsible for going too far, the CIA effectively gave the green light for the very worst. This was an agency clearly believing it had the authority to break any law, kill any prisoner, use any torture technique … and would never be subject to legal consequences. When you unleash an agency with that power into the world, and remove all constraints, what did they think would happen? 1.12 pm. The goal in these torture sessions was, as in all torture sessions, to completely “break” a human being. The bizarre notion was that once you had reduced a prisoner to a quivering, incoherent mess, he would somehow give you decent intelligence. Serious commentators – Cliff May comes to mind – actually propagated this idea. But when a democracy based on individual life and liberty practices torture techniques designed to obliterate an individual entirely, it has effectively repealed itself: 1.09 pm. Only totalitarian regimes have a record of doing this: Stress positions are insanely painful even when your limbs are in good condition. But when your limbs are already broken? And no one is going to be punished for this either? 1.05 pm. Yes, some were tortured to death: Footnote 32 says hat Gul Rahman was a case of mistaken identity. And we killed him. Froze him to death. Devastating. — emptywheel (@emptywheel) December 9, 2014 1.01 pm. A victim of the Iran regime’s torture regime tweets: The similarity of what my interrogator in #Iran used to say and this #CIA agent is beyond disturbing. pic.twitter.com/tIcW6eYmmm — Bahman Kalbasi (@BahmanKalbasi) December 9, 2014 12.57 pm. Rubio says we should “thank” those who raped and near-drowned prisoners, subjected them to hypothermia, rectal rehydration, and brutal beatings, and in some cases tortured prisoners to death. Bush believes the people who did these things were “patriots.” This is the moral universe in which some on the right now live. They are less willing to acknowledge the huge errors in this case than the CIA itself. Their defense of torture as something to be celebrated is, strictly speaking, fascist. They are a disgrace to any civilized conservatism. 12.46 pm. A detail from the Telegraph’s live-blog: Some of the most important CIA-led interrogations were carried out by people with no specialist training or expertise, some of whom had histories of violence: • CIA employed people who had “personal and professional problems of a serious nature” – including histories of violence and abusive treatment of others. The report found that that should have called into question their employment, let alone their suitability to participate in the sensitive CIA program. • Two psychologists were employed as outside contractors – neither of them had any experience as an interrogator, nor did either have specialised knowledge of al-Qaeda, a background in counterterrorism, or any relevant cultural or linguistic expertise. They personally conducted some of the most important interrogations. In 2005, they formed a company to expand their work with the CIA. Shortly thereafter, the CIA outsourced virtually all aspects of the program. The CIA paid the company more than $80 million. Again, remember what we were told: that this was a professional program staffed by the very best of the CIA. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was pioneered by two goons paid a fortune to do what no serious interrogator or anyone with a moral sense would ever dream of. These were Cheney’s men – doing what his panicked mind thought would actually work. And the result was crime after crime after crime. Noting the Telegraph’s coverage also highlights the deep and eternal damage done to the US by this foul program. America’s moral standing in the world has been permanently crippled, with all the attendant damage to our national security and alliances. And that’s something we have to understand better: far from improving our safety, Cheney’s war crimes made us – and make us – far less safe, our alliances now crippled, our foes given the biggest propaganda coup they could ever imagine. Bush and Cheney did this to this country. And they remain proud of it. 12.44 pm. This is what “oversight” meant during the Bush-Cheney years: 12.39 pm. McCain is now speaking. He has been rock-solid through most of this. He has two crucial characteristics: he’s a Republican and a victim of torture. Those who will try to argue that this report is mere partisanship need to tell that to McCain’s face. 12.36 pm. Will Dick Cheney defend this? Wow! #TortureReport reveals threats were made to harm CHILDREN of detainees, even abuse their mothers sexually! @ase pic.twitter.com/Oe5AOJPTYu — Trita Parsi (@tparsi) December 9, 2014 These are the tactics of criminals, Jihadists and totalitarian states. They became the tactics of the US under Bush and Cheney. 12.33 pm. DiFi is on a roll: .@SenFeinstein on the floor says they withheld info from then SecState Colin Powell because he would “blow his stack” #Torturereport — Andrea Mitchell (@mitchellreports) December 9, 2014 And it’s worth recalling that Feinstein’s long record has been as a stalwart defender of the CIA, a barely functioning over-seer prone to give the CIA the benefit of every doubt. No one can plausibly call her reflexively anti-CIA. But here she is today, suffused with righteous fury – every ounce of it merited. 12.30 pm. The CIA, unlike Dick Cheney, acknowledges its own errors: When will the GOP talking points actually reflect even the CIA’s own internal assessment of its grotesque failures of competence? 12.28 pm. Torture didn’t get us Osama bin Laden: this report—based on an extensive analysis of the CIA’s own files—says Bin Laden’s courier had long been under surveillance, and more than two dozen sources discussed him. The person who provided the most detailed information, a senior Al Qaeda fundraiser and logistical facilitator named Hassan Ghul, provided it after being captured in 2004—before he was subjected to the “enhanced interrogation techniques.” An CIA officer reported that he “sang like a tweetie bird…opened up right away and was cooperative from the outset.” But after providing that information, the report says he was taken to a different detention site, where he was shaved, stripped, and stood against a wall with his hands raised over his head for two hours at a time. After 59 hours of sleep deprivation, he began experiencing hallucinations and complaining of pain, but gave no further information. While additional details of his interrogation and release were redacted, the report says he eventually wound up in a Pakistani prison, was released and ultimately killed in 2012 by a US drone strike in Pakistan. Nonetheless, the CIA claimed that its techniques led to Bin Laden in hearings and public statements after the raid that killed him. Kathryn Bigelow must feel like a tool now, mustn’t she? She just swallowed these liars’ spin and made a movie out of it. Will she apologize or retract? 12.25 pm. A simple question: Can we just call "rectal exams conducted with excessive force" rape? pic.twitter.com/7smvKCN3pm — Eli Clifton (@EliClifton) December 9, 2014 Yes, I think we can. And take a minute to absorb what we’re talking about. We’re talking about government officials raping prisoners – and nothing will be done to hold them to account. This is what America has become. 12.23 pm. They paid the torturers more than professional interrogators: 12.21 pm. Greenwald on the CIA’s strategic leaks to the media: For all the claims in Washington about how leaking classified information is destructive and criminal, the CIA – consistent with what the Obama administration frequently does – routinely leaked classified information to the media to propagandize about their torture program. Will there be any criminal investigations the way there are when whistleblowers leak information that embarrasses (rather than serves) the government? Yes, that’s a rhetorical question: 12.18 pm. A reader writes: Reading through some of the excerpts this morning, sometimes I literally need to turn away from my computer screen and stop reading. This is simply gruesome. It’s extremely disturbing that there are still a great many people defending this program and these torture techniques as somehow being compatible with American values. These are also the same pieces of shit who criticize Obama for ruining America’s credibility through (fill in the blank.) They’re deeply concerned with how the US is viewed and that the world see their country the same way they do. And yet they can’t see that the rest of the planet looks at this and says, “Are you fucking kidding me!?” I dare anyone to read this passage about the CIA holding a mentally challenged man simply to gain leverage on his family and think that the continued defense of these actions isn’t the greatest threat there is to American credibility: The Krauthammers of the world should crawl back into the dark, greasy caves whence they came. They don’t deserve to be seen or heard ever again. According to Dick Cheney, this kind of thing was “absolutely justified.” 12.15 pm. And the CIA mounted an extensive media-propaganda effort to disseminate the same lies they were feeding to their superiors: The CIA’s Office of Public Affairs and senior CIA officials coordinated to share classified information on the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program to select members of the media to counter public criticism, shape public opinion, and avoid potential congressional action to restrict the CIA’s detention and interrogation authorities and budget. These disclosures occurred when the program was a classified covert action program, and before the CIA had briefed the full Committee membership on the program. Here’s the Deputy Director of the Counterterrorism Center: “we either get out and sell, or we get hammered, which has implications beyond the media. [C]ongress reads it, cuts our authorities, messes up our budget… we either put out our story or we get eaten. [T]here is no middle ground.” Having done the indefensible, they had to mount an enormous effort to keep the program in place – largely by lying to anyone they could find. 12.12 pm. And yes, they tortured at least one prisoner to death: CIA leadership refused to punish officer who literally killed a detainee during torture session. pic.twitter.com/8Jsm9P52nw — Trevor Timm (@trevortimm) December 9, 2014 Yes, the CIA can literally get away with murder. 12.08 pm. Here’s a real bombshell: Bush was first briefed on waterboarding in 2006! And he didn’t like it: [D]espite agency efforts to keep the Bush administration informed about the program, top White House officials repeatedly resisted having the CIA brief cabinet-level figures about the details, and CIA officials were not permitted to brief Bush directly until mid-2006, more than four years after the president signed a broad executive order authorizing the program, according to Senate Democratic aides who briefed reporters ahead of Tuesday’s release. When Bush finally heard the details of the harsh interrogation techniques that were used against CIA detainees, he was “uncomfortable” with some of them and expressed dismay that some detainees were required to remain in stress positions for long amounts of time, to the point that they had no choice but to soil themselves, the aides said. What does it say about our democracy in the last decade that the one person ultimately designated to run the war was utterly oblivious to what was actually going on in such an extraordinarily vital area such as torture? That others were really running the country? That he was a disastrously disengaged and incompetent figure-head? Well, I guess what we suspected is now out there. But who was ultimately responsible for torturing suspects in a manner far far worse than stress positions if the president wasn’t? 11.58 am. More prisoners were waterboarded than we have been led to believe; and the Gestapo technique of inducing hypothermia via ice-cold baths was also practised. Some historical context for that torture technique: The “cold bath” technique – the same as that used against al-Qahtani in Guantanamo – was, according to professor Darius Rejali of Reed College, “pioneered by a member of the French Gestapo by the pseudonym Masuy about 1943. The Belgian resistance referred to it as the Paris method, and the Gestapo authorized its extension from France to at least two places late in the war, Norway and Czechoslovakia. That is where people report experiencing it.” In Norway, we actually have a 1948 court case that weighs whether “enhanced interrogation” using the methods approved by president Bush amounted to torture. The proceedings are fascinating, with specific reference to the hypothermia used in Gitmo, and throughout interrogation centers across the field of conflict. The Nazi defense of the techniques is almost verbatim that of the Bush administration… And in that case, the US occupying power decided that the proper punishment for using this technique should be execution. And indeed the war criminals in that case were put to death. Few things show how steep our moral decline is in these matters that today, leading officials in the American government argue that not only should there be no punishment for these war crimes, but that their very existence should be covered up and the names of those who tortured kept permanently from public view. 11.53 am. So seven of the 39 prisoners given the full torture treatment gave no intelligence at all. How can you justify torturing them by the “saving lives” canard? If no intelligence was gleaned at all, their torture was utterly irrelevant to seeking intelligence. For seven torture victims, it was worthless on its face. 11.50 am. The Dish team is now busy absorbing the report. We’ll be adding our comments as we go further into the report. Please join us and email any insights or nuggets you think are important. |
LIGONIER, PA—Attributing the high levels of attrition to a combination of handling errors and poor oversight, Holy Trinity School kindergarten teacher Alyssa D’Orazio told reporters today that her class is currently burning through hamsters at a rate of six per year, with every indication that the figure will rise. “We blew through two in one week this October,” said D’Orazio, adding that if her students continue to cycle through the rodents at this pace, current classroom pet Lancelot likely will not live to see Thanksgiving break. “Take-homes are now a hard, hard no. But I figure if we reduce out-of-cage playtime and take Rory and Eva off feeding privileges entirely, we might be able to get the average down to a more reasonable number.” D’Orazio added that if Benjamin Szygenda were to be transferred to a different class, it would likely have an “enormously positive” effect on their average hamster’s lifespan. Advertisement |
Fiat-Chrysler's ever-talkative CEO, Sergio Marchionne, dropped his latest off-the-cuff verbal bomb at an event at the automaker's Windsor, Ontario plant. The subject? Chrysler's aging 300, a big sedan that, per Reuters, Marchionne declared could switch from its current rear-drive layout to a front-drive-based architecture shared with the new Pacifica minivan. The 300, which is loosely based on an old Mercedes-Benz platform borrowed during Chrysler's way-back tryst with Daimler, is due for replacement sometime beyond 2019 (delayed from its original date of 2018). Ever since the 300's replacement was announced in Fiat-Chrysler's sweeping five-year plan in 2014—which is quickly becoming the automaker's six-, seven-, and never-year plan—details surrounding the four-door have been elusive. We know that the Dodge Charger, the 300's mechanical twin, would also be replaced around the same time, but reports differ on whether or not it would get a version of Fiat-Chrysler's newest rear-drive platform, the one that underpins the Alfa Romeo Giulia. All of this is to say that Marchionne's front-drive-300 comments in Windsor are really only our latest morsels of at-times conflicting speculation about the next-generation 300/Charger/Challenger. It certainly makes some sense to borrow the Pacifica's front-drive platform to the 300 (and possibly the Dodge Charger), as it would bring greater economies of scale to what is so far a one-model platform, and also lighten the sedan thereby improving its fuel efficiency. But it would also pretty much kill any possibility that the big Chrysler keeps its V8 engine option. Which brings us back to the Giulia's rear-drive platform, which could enable Chrysler to keep the 300's V8 power, and, more importantly, give the Dodge siblings a shot at keeping their image-boosting (and hugely popular) 707-hp Hellcat V8s. Next to issues of image, Fiat-Chrysler faces a few challenges in transitioning its full-size cars to a front-drive platform, namely where to built such vehicles. Today, the rear-drive 300 and its Dodge siblings are assembled at the automaker's aging Brampton, Ontario plant. According to Automotive News, modernizing the Brampton facility could cost $1 billion, a potentially necessary step given that the Windsor plant where the Pacifica is built likely won't have the capacity to also build a sedan. Marchionne did mention that, as soon as the outgoing Dodge Caravan is phased out of production, Windsor would have room for another product, but that most likely will be the full-size, three-row crossover (also built on the Pacifica platform) due in Chrysler showrooms around 2018. At this point, FCA seems unsure how to proceed with the 300 and its related Dodge products—a task no doubt made more difficult by the fact that the market for large sedans is in decline. We wouldn't be surprised to see them fade away altogether. |
"For us the most disappointing thing is the data lost, for not just us, but for the community," said Radovich. Eight months of research vanished in a matter of hours. Officials say once they harvest what they need for testing, the majority of the kalo is donated to area schools and non-profits. "Hopefully somebody is eating it and enjoying it and we hope it nourishes them," Radovich said. According to Radovich, the research plot in Waimanalo is the only certified organic Hawaiian kalo in the state. "We're disappointed. It's not just a face-less entity that they were stealing from. This is actually folks working long and hard with the community to really try to generate some data that is valuable. They're not stealing from nobody, they're impacting people," described Radovich. Radovich believes whoever is responsible is clearly familiar with kalo, because of the amount and way it was harvested, despite all the waste left behind. "They cut the huli and they left most of the huli in the field, so it's clear they have experience with the crop for sure," Radovich described. Radovich says agricultural theft is a major problem, not just at his location, but across the state. |
MIXING 8MM WITH 8 TRACKS. It’s time for another edition of Grindhouse Grooves, showing the latest videos who take their cues from the more dingy side of the cinematic tracks. This time we’ve got Leland Palmer, more naughty puppets and assorted mayhem for your viewing and listening enjoyment. Skoof – Spider Baby (Dir. Skoof) Random images from oddball films and shorts (including ONE GOT FAT) backing a solid pulsating beat is generally a recipe for success, especially if you name your track after Jack Hill’s exploitation classic. Soap and Skin – Sugarbread (Dir. Anja Plaschg) SOAP&SKIN – SUGARBREAD from Soap&Skin on Vimeo. Another case of using vintage film clips of various types to compliment the music, though this one’s less of a catchy beat and more of a brooding, apocalyptic and downright spooky track. Foals – Late Night (Dir. Nabil Elderkin) foals [late night] from nabil elderkin on Vimeo. The very NSFW video for Foals’s track follows four different groups of people and gets darker and more violent by the moment. Public Service Broadcasting – Signal 30 (Dir. Alex Kemp) The use of public domain ephemeral footage and sound isn’t surprising for a band named “Public Service Broadcasting,” but usage of the classic highway scare film SIGNAL 30 with music that sounds like Man… or Astroman? in their prime certainly warrants my attention. Beach House – Wishes (Dir. Eric Wareheim) It makes an odd bit of sense to cast Ray Wise as the singer of an anthem for a pastel-colored bizarro sporting event directed by TIM & ERIC AWESOME SHOW’s Eric Wareheim, as Beach House’s track wouldn’t feel out of place on “Twin Peaks.” Infinity Ink – Infinity (Dir. Dawn Shadforth) Bathed in a crimson strobe light, the video for Infinity Ink’s song would seem club-ready if it didn’t feel so much like a bad drug trip in the best of ways. Metz – Wasted (Dir. Scott Cudmore) Sure, it’s faux-vintage “Awkward Family Photos” given a tweak and a deliberately staticy filter, but combined with the song, this really feels like something best watched in a pot-ridden basement in 1994 for maximum effect. Acid Fascists – Up Against the Wall (Dir. Gregor Fergie) The video for Acid Fascists’s raucus song feels like a Saul Bass credit sequence come to life in animated form as sunglassed driver (based on a character created by Al Frank) is pursued by a skeletal cop and ends up in a world that looks suspiciously like the one in THEY LIVE. Phoenix – Entertainment (Dir. Patrick Daughters) Phoenix uses Korean cinema as a launching point for their tale of several storylines, including a period piece and a gangster-tinged love triangle. Froggy Fresh – Mike’s Mom (Dir. Brett Caldwell) The reveal of James as Michael Myers at the end of the former Krispy Kreme’s “Halloween” was no joke! JAMES IS A KILLER! RUN, YOU GUYS! NO, MONEY MAKER MIKE! DON’T TRY TO AVENGE YOUR MOM’S DEATH! You crazy kids. The Belle Game – Wait Up For You (Dir. Kheaven Lewandowski) Two lovers try to escape from a creepy cult that has other ideas in this impressive little short with a vintage look that doesn’t feel forced. Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Swim and Sleep (Like a Shark) (Dir. Becky and Joe) You can’t go wrong with naughty puppets, even if they’re too busy playing with themselves to notice. David Bowie – The Stars are Out Tonight (Dir. Floria Sigismondi) David Bowie is one of the biggest icons of infusing psychotronia with music, so it’s great to see him come back with a genuinely amazing video, as he and Tilda Swinton play an older couple who become more than a little involved with androgyny and gender role playing that will probably rank as one of the best music videos of the year. Be back when the jukebox has been restocked, – Paul Freitag-Fey PREVIOUSLY: Grindhouse Grooves Vol. 1 Grindhouse Grooves Vol. 2 Grindhouse Grooves Vol. 3 Grindhouse Grooves Vol. 4 Grindhouse Grooves Vol. 5 Grindhouse Grooves Best of 2012 |
Alan Greenspan has seen more than a few dicey days on global markets in his time. So it was telling when the 90-year-old former chairman of the US Federal Reserve described the market chaos sparked by Britain’s leave vote as “the worst period I recall”. “There’s nothing like it, including the crisis – remember 19 October 1987, when the Dow went down by a record amount of 23%? That I thought was the bottom of all potential problems. This has a corrosive effect that will not go away,” Greenspan told the broadcaster CNBC. He is right. Brexit is about so much more than financial market turmoil. As Greenspan, who presided over the Federal Reserve for almost two decades, warned: “This is just the tip of the iceberg.” A referendum many thought should never have been called in the first place has seen a narrow majority decide that the country should break away from the European Union at a time of great economic and political uncertainty. The worry for other EU leaders is that Britain’s Leave vote will spark a domino effect throughout the rest of the continent, where forces of economic nationalism and anti-immigration politicians have already been gaining ground. For the eurozone’s fragile economic recovery, this new phase of uncertainty could dash consumer spending, derail business deals and probably force the European Central Bank into yet more unconventional measures to get cash into the economy and shore up confidence. In Italy, alarm bells are already ringing that the economic consequences of Brexit could bring some of the country’s vulnerable banks even closer to the brink of collapse. Milan’s stock index suffered its biggest one-day drop in history after the UK result was announced. The shock waves could spread further still, says international thinktank the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Its secretary-general, Angel Gurría, warned of “major consequences for the UK itself, the EU and the international community”. In a febrile world, policymakers could be forgiven for not knowing which fire they will be putting out next. In China, relied on in recent times as the main engine of global growth, the pace of expansion has slowed and the economy is still struggling to rebalance. With or without Brexit, China’s difficult transition was always seen as a global risk. Now the fear is that Britain’s departure from the EU will intensify problems for the world’s second-biggest economy, which has invested heavily in the UK in recent years. In Brazil, not so long ago seen as another potential draw for international investors, a credit crunch and the worst recession for eight decades has sparked a wave of bankruptcies. While trade links with the UK are small, the South American country’s currency and stock market were under pressure on Friday on fears that Brexit could knock confidence in emerging economies – especially those like Brazil with hefty current account deficits. The world’s biggest economy, the US, is not immune from any of this either. Markets are already jittery in advance of November’s presidential election, which could potentially result in a change for America so momentous it would rival Brexit for headlines and global soul-searching. Indeed, the parallels were not lost on presidential candidate Donald Trump, who described the UK’s referendum result as a “great” development. The risk that Brexit will worsen the global economic slowdown and cause an extended period of volatility on global markets adds a new uncertainty to the US outlook. With the horizon so clouded, markets have shifted to reflect radically reduced chances of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates again this year. As Greenspan says, the global economy is in “real serious trouble”. In such a world, Brexit brings additional challenges. The UK’s historic decision to split from the European Union risks stoking those global fires and, just as importantly, risks exhausting the energies and capacities of policymakers at a time when they can least afford it. We hoped energy giants would be reformed. How naive we were Not just a good day but a brilliant day to bury bad news. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has spent the past two years studying the much-criticised energy markets and chose to publish its “do-nothing” findings on Friday. It was a deeply suspect decision to pick the same date as the result of the UK’s most serious constitutional question for 40 years, but then the move was fitting in many respects. The “big six” suppliers have always believed the competition authorities had been dragged into a cynical exercise geared to take the political crisis of rising consumer bills off the government’s hands and carry it safely into the long grass of regulation. Equally, consumer groups always feared the CMA was unlikely to crack down on profiteering by the big six, which can mobilise armies of advisers to run rings around regulators such as Ofgem and now the CMA, which has little understanding of the sector. So early expectations 24 months ago that excessive profits would be halted, vertical integration of wholesale and retail interests dismantled, and all domestic energy bills capped have been dashed. In their place the CMA has come up with 30 recommendations, none of which amount to more than tinkering around the edges: temporary price caps for those on prepayment meters and a database to make it easier for rival suppliers to approach existing customers, for example. Even one of its own senior panel members, Martin Cave, found the CMA’s inaction unforgivable and insisted on having his objections noted. He wanted a price cap across the whole sector, given that his colleagues have admitted it is the 70% of loyal, often long-term, customers on standard variable tariffs that are overpaying most. Many of the new breed of independent suppliers expressed their horror at the missed opportunity to properly reform the market but the scale of the CMA’s inaction has been partly obscured by falling commodity prices. Lower bills currently mean consumers are less affected by fuel poverty issues: but just wait till wholesale power costs rise and retail bills go with them. Then public anger will reappear and the CMA’s failure will be laid bare. Tesco has made some good calls, but must play less golf Giraffe restaurants, Harris + Hoole coffee shops and Dobbies garden centres. These were the brands that former Tesco boss Philip Clarke believed could attract shoppers back into the company’s supermarkets. They didn’t, and now Clarke’s replacement Dave Lewis has sold them off. With hindsight, messing around with coffee shops and restaurants showed how far off the mark Tesco was with customers under Clarke, who left in 2014. Tesco’s real problem was that its products were too expensive and not of sufficient quality. The growth in Tesco’s sales in the last two quarters shows that it is fixing this, but there is still a lot of work to do for Britain’s biggest retailer. For example, the revelations that the boss of Tesco Bank spent more than £18,000 on taxis in just eight months, and that Tesco had a £10,000-a-year membership at Wentworth golf club in Surrey, show that the company still needs to make more cutbacks. |
At last night’s Mystic Music Festival in Houston, MiMOSA , the once revered genre bending bass producer, got into a physical altercation with festival security after pouring a bottle of Grey Goose vodka over the veteran performer Downlink. The dispute began when Downlink took the stage to prepare for his set and MiMOSA refused to abandon his performance even though his time slot was up.The incident was detailed by Oscillator Z, who also performed at the festival: After being taken off stage, MiMOSA admitted to the confrontation on twitter, although later deleted the tweet: A deleted tweet from @TigranMimosa to rustle your jimmies some more pic.twitter.com/H4CAqHu2yc — BlogSnob (@BlogSnob) July 27, 2014 Downlink was quick to respond: Wow @TigranMimosa – really dude?! I’ve never in 14 years of djing come across this. Sorry I had to move your ableton rig to set up the decks — Downlink (@downlinkmusic) July 27, 2014 Although Your EDM is not taking sides in this matter, it is important to note that this is not only a story about respecting the elders of the culture, but also a story about respecting your fellow man no matter if they are a performer, fan, promoter, security guard, manager or just a bystander. |
William Hague says Wikileaks founder could only be sent to US if both Britain and Sweden believe human rights would not be breached Britain has assured Ecuador that Julian Assange has a double guarantee that he cannot face extradition from Sweden to the US if he were to face the death penalty or his human rights were to be breached. In a written statement to MPs, the foreign secretary, William Hague, said it was a "matter of regret" that the government of Ecuador had decided to offer asylum to Assange after Britain offered a series of assurances to Quito. Britain is seeking to extradite Assange to Sweden, where he faces allegations of sexual misconduct. The WikiLeaks founder, who sought protection in the Ecuadorean embassy in London in June, has been granted asylum by Quito on the grounds that he could face extradition from Sweden to the US where, it is feared, he could face the death penalty for his role in publishing hundreds of thousands of leaked US government documents. Hague told MPs the double guarantee meant Assange could only be extradited to the US from Sweden if both Britain and Sweden believed he would not face the death penalty and his human rights would not be breached. The foreign secretary said: "Both the United Kingdom and Sweden are signatories to the European convention on human rights and the British government has complete confidence in the independence and fairness of the Swedish judicial system. As we have discussed with the government of Ecuador, the United Kingdom and Sweden robustly implement and adhere to the highest standards of human rights protection. "The suggestion that Mr Assange's human rights would be put at risk by the possibility of onward extradition from Sweden to a third country is also without foundation. Not only would Sweden – as a signatory to the European convention on human rights – be required to refuse extradition in circumstances which would breach his human rights, but the authorities in Sweden would also be legally obliged to seek the United Kingdom's consent before any extradition to a non-EU member state could proceed. "Our consent may only be given in accordance with the international conventions by which the UK is bound, including the European convention on human rights, and also our domestic law. In practice, this means that the United Kingdom could only consent to Mr Assange's onward extradition from Sweden to a third country if satisfied that extradition would be compatible with his human rights, and that there was no prospect of a death sentence being imposed or carried out." The foreign secretary expressed disappointment that Ecuador decided to grant asylum to Assange after officials had explained the guarantees to Quito in detail. "It is a matter of regret that instead of continuing our discussions, the foreign minister of Ecuador announced on 16 August that Ecuador had decided to grant diplomatic asylum to Mr Assange … We wish to continue our dialogue with the government of Ecuador. We believe that our two countries should be able to find a diplomatic solution. We have invited the government of Ecuador to resume, as early as possible, the discussions we have held on this matter to date." In his statement, Hague did not repeat his warning to Ecuador last month that Britain could invoke the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987 to arrest Assange inside the embassy. Hague simply told MPs: "Throughout our exchanges, we have noted that the rights of diplomatic missions conferred by the 1961 Vienna convention on diplomatic relations come with responsibilities. Article 41 of the Vienna convention sets out the obligations of diplomatic missions to respect the laws and regulations of the receiving state – in this case the United Kingdom. These include the duty not to impede the due legal process of that state." |
Scenario 1: Barry is a famous geologist. Charles is a fourteen-year-old juvenile delinquent with a long arrest record and occasional psychotic episodes. Barry flatly asserts to Arthur some counterintuitive statement about rocks, and Arthur judges it 90% probable. Then Charles makes an equally counterintuitive flat assertion about rocks, and Arthur judges it 10% probable. Clearly, Arthur is taking the speaker’s authority into account in deciding whether to believe the speaker’s assertions. Scenario 2: David makes a counterintuitive statement about physics and gives Arthur a detailed explanation of the arguments, including references. Ernie makes an equally counterintuitive statement, but gives an unconvincing argument involving several leaps of faith. Both David and Ernie assert that this is the best explanation they can possibly give (to anyone, not just Arthur). Arthur assigns 90% probability to David’s statement after hearing his explanation, but assigns a 10% probability to Ernie’s statement. It might seem like these two scenarios are roughly symmetrical: both involve taking into account useful evidence, whether strong versus weak authority, or strong versus weak argument. But now suppose that Arthur asks Barry and Charles to make full technical cases, with references; and that Barry and Charles present equally good cases, and Arthur looks up the references and they check out. Then Arthur asks David and Ernie for their credentials, and it turns out that David and Ernie have roughly the same credentials—maybe they’re both clowns, maybe they’re both physicists. Assuming that Arthur is knowledgeable enough to understand all the technical arguments—otherwise they’re just impressive noises—it seems that Arthur should view David as having a great advantage in plausibility over Ernie, while Barry has at best a minor advantage over Charles. Indeed, if the technical arguments are good enough, Barry’s advantage over Charles may not be worth tracking. A good technical argument is one that eliminates reliance on the personal authority of the speaker. Similarly, if we really believe Ernie that the argument he gave is the best argument he could give, which includes all of the inferential steps that Ernie executed, and all of the support that Ernie took into account—citing any authorities that Ernie may have listened to himself—then we can pretty much ignore any information about Ernie’s credentials. Ernie can be a physicist or a clown, it shouldn’t matter. (Again, this assumes we have enough technical ability to process the argument. Otherwise, Ernie is simply uttering mystical syllables, and whether we “believe” these syllables depends a great deal on his authority.) So it seems there’s an asymmetry between argument and authority. If we know authority we are still interested in hearing the arguments; but if we know the arguments fully, we have very little left to learn from authority. Clearly (says the novice) authority and argument are fundamentally different kinds of evidence, a difference unaccountable in the boringly clean methods of Bayesian probability theory.1 For while the strength of the evidences—90% versus 10%—is just the same in both cases, they do not behave similarly when combined. How will we account for this? Here’s half a technical demonstration of how to represent this difference in probability theory. (The rest you can take on my personal authority, or look up in the references.) If P(H|E1) = 90% and P(H|E2) = 9%, what is the probability P(H|E1,E2)? If learning E1 is true leads us to assign 90% probability to H, and learning E2 is true leads us to assign 9% probability to H, then what probability should we assign to H if we learn both E1 and E2? This is simply not something you can calculate in probability theory from the information given. No, the missing information is not the prior probability of H. The events E1 and E2 may not be independent of each other. Suppose that H is “My sidewalk is slippery,” E1 is “My sprinkler is running,” and E2 is “It’s night.” The sidewalk is slippery starting from one minute after the sprinkler starts, until just after the sprinkler finishes, and the sprinkler runs for ten minutes. So if we know the sprinkler is on, the probability is 90% that the sidewalk is slippery. The sprinkler is on during 10% of the nighttime, so if we know that it’s night, the probability of the sidewalk being slippery is 9%. If we know that it’s night and the sprinkler is on—that is, if we know both facts—the probability of the sidewalk being slippery is 90%. We can represent this in a graphical model as follows: Whether or not it’s Night causes the Sprinkler to be on or off, and whether the Sprinkler is on causes the sidewalk to be Slippery or unSlippery. The direction of the arrows is meaningful. Say we had: This would mean that, if I didn’t know anything about the sprinkler, the probability of Nighttime and Slipperiness would be independent of each other. For example, suppose that I roll Die One and Die Two, and add up the showing numbers to get the Sum: If you don’t tell me the sum of the two numbers, and you tell me the first die showed 6, this doesn’t tell me anything about the result of the second die, yet. But if you now also tell me the sum is 7, I know the second die showed 1. Figuring out when various pieces of information are dependent or independent of each other, given various background knowledge, actually turns into a quite technical topic. The books to read are Judea Pearl’s Probabilistic Reasoning in Intelligent Systems: Networks of Plausible Inference and Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference. (If you only have time to read one book, read the first one.) If you know how to read causal graphs, then you look at the dice-roll graph and immediately see: P(Die 1,Die 2) = P(Die 1) ✕ P(Die 2) P(Die 1,Die 2|Sum) ≠ P(Die 1)|Sum) ✕ P(Die 2|Sum) . If you look at the correct sidewalk diagram, you see facts like: P(Slippery|Night) ≠ P(Slippery) P(Slippery|Sprinkler) ≠ P(Slippery) P(Slippery|Night,Sprinkler) = P(Slippery|Sprinkler) . That is, the probability of the sidewalk being Slippery, given knowledge about the Sprinkler and the Night, is the same probability we would assign if we knew only about the Sprinkler. Knowledge of the Sprinkler has made knowledge of the Night irrelevant to inferences about Slipperiness. This is known as screening off , and the criterion that lets us read such conditional independences off causal graphs is known as D-separation. For the case of argument and authority, the causal diagram looks like this: If something is true, then it therefore tends to have arguments in favor of it, and the experts therefore observe these evidences and change their opinions. (In theory!) If we see that an expert believes something, we infer back to the existence of evidence-in-the-abstract (even though we don’t know what that evidence is exactly), and from the existence of this abstract evidence, we infer back to the truth of the proposition. But if we know the value of the Argument node, this D-separates the node “Truth” from the node “Expert Belief” by blocking all paths between them, according to certain technical criteria for “path blocking” that seem pretty obvious in this case. So even without checking the exact probability distribution, we can read off from the graph that: P(truth|argument,expert) = P(truth|argument) . This does not represent a contradiction of ordinary probability theory. It’s just a more compact way of expressing certain probabilistic facts. You could read the same equalities and inequalities off an unadorned probability distribution—but it would be harder to see it by eyeballing. Authority and argument don’t need two different kinds of probability, any more than sprinklers are made out of ontologically different stuff than sunlight. In practice you can never completely eliminate reliance on authority. Good authorities are more likely to know about any counterevidence that exists and should be taken into account; a lesser authority is less likely to know this, which makes their arguments less reliable. This is not a factor you can eliminate merely by hearing the evidence they did take into account. It’s also very hard to reduce arguments to pure math; and otherwise, judging the strength of an inferential step may rely on intuitions you can’t duplicate without the same thirty years of experience. There is an ineradicable legitimacy to assigning slightly higher probability to what E. T. Jaynes tells you about Bayesian probability, than you assign to Eliezer Yudkowsky making the exact same statement. Fifty additional years of experience should not count for literally zero influence. But this slight strength of authority is only ceteris paribus, and can easily be overwhelmed by stronger arguments. I have a minor erratum in one of Jaynes’s books—because algebra trumps authority. |
After several years of Congress’ approval rating slumming in the 20s and the teens, a new CNN/ORC poll places the approval rating for Congress at a record low of 10%. In a healthy democracy, logic would dictate that a legislature shouldn’t have such low approval ratings over the period of multiple election cycles. So why is this happening? Let’s attempt the most apolitical analysis possible of why things are the way they are. Three factors come to mind, and they can all be considered distortions of the “tribe” mentality that normally binds a society. 1. The voters’ myopia. As voters, we see our representative as a member of our tribe. This mess in Washington is not his or her fault. It’s only the other ones who are lousy, or the system that’s lousy. A Gallup study from this past spring found that Americans on the whole gave a 16% approval rating to Congress. But voters, on average, gave their own representative a much more charitable 46% approval rating. Gallup noted: Although Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of the job Congress in general is doing, voters re-elect most members of Congress in every election. This phenomenon is partly explained by the finding that Americans have significantly more positive views of their own representative than they do of Congress overall. Tweaking laws about campaign financing or term limits may well thus be pointless, as long as voters view their own congressmaniac with such a parochial and rose-tinted perspective. 2. The leader’s myopia. Set aside all our usual griping about power and greed and other intoxicants. Leaders have tribes too. They’re just as subject to the persuasion of various caucuses as a seven-year-old in a schoolyard. They can need approval, and they can be bullied—mostly by the people in their immediate, daily physical space. And again, voters tend to forgive this in their own member of Congress more easily than in Congress as a whole. Don’t doubt our elected officials’ patriotism. Members of Congress take office with noble ideals and intentions, and those ideals and intentions typically do not diminish. They simply get rerouted by partisan interests. The representative is convinced that, by responding to the few important people in his or her face all day, he or she is responding to a higher calling. 3. The media’s myopia. Our system is geared less to focus on issues of substance and geared more to covering politics like a horse race. The focus is on announcing today’s winners and losers, which makes compromise and long-term objectives seem less attractive to voters and leaders alike. Government shutdown underway? Let’s survey the public on which party will profit more from this in the short term. Nation under attack by Martians? Let’s ask our team of experts if this is a setback for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential prospects. Democratic governance is a serious business, as the great Pericles reminded his fellow Athenians 24 centuries ago, at the outset of the Peloponnesian War. It requires voters and politicians to offer a thoughtful analysis of long-term social and economic trends. But the media has perhaps become less serious than the voters and the politicians themselves. Finally, if you want the best explanation of how mass media has helped turn the nation into a dysfunctional current reality-TV show, you should read the late Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. That prescient book, written in 1985, seems truer than ever today. Meanwhile, our future looks a bit less amusing. |
Lesley Francis wrote in to ask a question which could have a significant bearing on the world championship in the second half of the year: In Sochi, Lewis Hamilton got a race stewards’ warning for failing to go round a bollard at the end of a run off area during qualifying. Why did he get this as there wasn’t a benefit for him as it was a qualifying lap and if I’m correct, that lap wouldn’t count (as a qualifying lap) because all four tyres had left the track? I noticed that in Canada there was a similar run off area with a bollard at the end of it, did the drivers who missed this bollard during the race also get warnings? Lesley Francis Hamilton was unimpressed with the censure, calling it “bloody ridiculous”. The reprimand is potentially significant as it was the second of two he has earned so far this year. If he collects a third in any of the remaining nine races he will automatically be handed a ten-place grid penalty. Go ad-free for just £1 per month >> Find out more and sign up Hamilton got into trouble in Russia after the rules governing the run-off area at turn two were changed ahead of final practice at Sochi. A polystyrene block was positioned in the run-off area and drivers were told they must pass it on the left-hand side if they also passed the orange kerb at turn two on the left. As Lesley correctly notes, Hamilton wasn’t on a flying lap when he went off the track. But while he did not gain a lap time advantage from failing to respect track limits there was the possibility for him to benefit from running off the circuit and there is a precedent which shows why this rule is in place. During qualifying for the 2011 Korean Grand Prix Sebastian Vettel was urged by his Red Bull team to hurry back to the pits after setting his first lap time in Q3. Vettel bypassed the turn five/six chicane using an escape road to save a few seconds. The stewards investigated Vettel but he escaped a sanction because they determined that he began his final run with 17 seconds to spare and had not gained all that time by leaving the track. However the FIA was keen to avoid encouraging other drivers to do the same, and so the rules were changed for the following season. From 2012 drivers were warned they must not exceed the limits of the track ‘without good reason’ and that cutting the track and saving time in qualifying even when not on a timed lap would not be permitted. This explains why Hamilton received a reprimand. A polystyrene block was used in a similar way in the run-off area at the final chicane on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. However the protocol was slightly different: drivers were told they did not have to go around the block if they touched the orange kerb, but were required to rejoin the track safely. No driver was judged to have infringed there during the race. Small error may mean grid penalty for Hamilton or Sainz Hamilton isn’t the only driver to have collected two reprimands so far this year. Carlos Sainz Jnr has as well, and both are at risk of a ten-place grid penalty if they collect a third. How could that happen? Reprimands can be issued for the slightest infraction. Since the beginning of 2011 a total of 68 reprimands have been issued to drivers for the following 21 reasons: Both drivers will have to be on their guard during the remaining races. Every qualifying session will bring with it the risk of holding up a rival and collecting another reprimand. A minor slip-up in the pits, a hasty return to the track, any of these oversights could prove a race-wrecking mistake. There is one piece of good news for these drivers, however: the change in radio rules at the previous race means their race engineers can give them more information and therefore reduce the chance of them getting into trouble again. Got a question for F1 Fanatic? Send it in via the contact form and we’ll try to answer it Your questions answered |
A woman was charged Wednesday (25 January) in the State Courts with hurting the religious feelings and harassment of her neighbours at an HDB block in Tampines last year. Lee Dji Lin, 63, faces one charge of wounding the religious or racial feelings of Marliah Jonet for throwing a piece of raw pork from a lift to outside the victim’s flat at Blk 247 Tampines Street 21 on 18 June 2016. If convicted, Lee faces a jail term of up to three years, or a fine, or both. The accused also faces two other charges of harassment. One charge alleged that Lee waved a pig-shaped figurine and shouted insults in Malay at one of Marliah’s daughters including “pig, pig, pig, piglet, one by one (your) children die” on 24 April 2016. The other charge alleged that Lee used a bamboo pole attached with a female underwear and swung it towards Marliah’s flat on 14 June 2016. Lee faces a fine of up to $5,000 for one harassment charge, and a jail term of up to six months, or a fine of up to $5,000, or both for the other harassment charge. In July last year, Yahoo Singapore interviewed Marliah about the incidents. According to Marliah, Lee had been harassing her family for six years. Former model Hanis Hussey, Marliah’s sister-in-law, posted a video on YouTube last year allegedly showing Lee being caught in the act. A woman was seen shouting in the direction of Marliah’s ninth-storey flat from a floor below in the video. She also used a water hose to spray water towards Marliah’s laundry poles. CCTV footage showed the woman throwing a plastic bag allegedly containing pork onto the corridor of Marliah’s flat. Marliah had reported the matter to the police and other relevant authorities about the incidents. She said that she had also sent an email to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who then referred her matter to the Tampines town council. Lee was ordered by the court to be remanded for two weeks to undergo psychiatric evaluation. When asked for her response to the court order, the petite and frail-looking Lee claimed that she was innocent. The case will be mentioned again on 8 February. -Additional reporting by Safhras Khan Watch the YouTube video of the alleged incidents below: |
Welcome to Wyoming! Unless, apparently, you want to update science standards about climate change and evolution. Photo by Phil Plait Update, April 21, 2014: It’s official: Science-denying Wyoming legislators have rejected adopting the Next Generation Science Standards (local media in the state have some choice words for those politicians). Sorry, Wyoming schoolchildren, but if you want to learn more about evolution and climate change in class you’re on your own, unless you move to a state with a more enlightened government, or at least one with fewer science deniers making the rules. I’m old enough to remember when the Republican Party stood for good science. And I’ve been paying attention over the years as that stance of the leaders of the party has not only eroded away, but actively reversed itself. I don’t think it’s too big a leap to associate that with the growth in power of the religious right when it comes to topics like evolution and with fossil fuel funding when it comes to climate change. The latest battleground for the GOP attack on science is Wyoming. While many states are adopting new national science education standards—a set of benchmarks outlining students’ science understanding in schools—the Wyoming Legislature has taken steps to specifically prevent the adoption of the new science standards outlined. In a recent budget proposal, an amendment was proposed by state legislator Matt Teeters (R-Lingle), which makes sure the new science standards wouldn’t get adopted: … neither the state board of education nor the department shall expend any amount appropriated under this section for any review or revision of the student content and performance standards for science. This footnote is effective immediately. This amendment simply defunds any attempt to review the science standards, killing any progress in that area. It’s very much worth noting that these new standards include stating as facts such things as evolution and climate change, and that’s precisely why the standards met with resistance in other states. Apparently, in Wyoming, the new science standards are such anathema that the legislators don’t even want those in charge of education to review them. I contacted Rep. Teeters’ office asking for a statement about the amendment but did not receive a response. We’ve seen state legislators fight against science in these exact same circumstances over and over again, and virtually every time it’s because of far-right opposition to exactly these topics (and the Texas State Board of Education threw in other topics like history as well, hoping to improve the legacy of much maligned figures like—and yes, I’m serious—Joseph McCarthy). The Wyoming governor, Republican Matt Mead, is an outspoken supporter of fossil fuels (not surprising, given that Wyoming is the No. 1 coal producing state in the union) and is also on record as denying global warming. He even went so far as to parrot the tired and long-debunked trope about having cold weather when the planet is heating up. Despite recommendations from Wyoming educators to adopt the new science standards, Mead approved the new budget, science-standard-defunding amendment and all. Lisa Hoyos of Climate Parents claims the amendment was created specifically to stop the teaching of climate change.* It’s astonishing to me that so many people are trying so hard to stop reality. Perhaps what’s worse is that I’m getting used to it. I’ve been clear over and again that I have some agreement with some overall Republican ideas (like having a government be no bigger than needed, for example) but the modern GOP establishment has grossly overreached many of its asserted planks and has become a parody of its former self. Republican lawmakers claim they want the government to stop legislating our lives, and then they spend every day legislating our lives. And now they want to legislate reality itself. They can try, but the thing about reality is, it’s real. The planet is heating up, and it will continue to do so whether or not we sign bills into law that force us to stick our heads in the sand. Science itself has many laws, but it doesn’t give a damn about ours. If you live in Wyoming and want to contact your state legislators, the Wyoming government page helpfully tells you how. Correction, May 5, 2014: Lisa Hoyos’ last name was originally misspelled. |
Box today unveiled a new initiative called Box Open Source for sharing its own homegrown open source engineering tools with the larger programming community. The project was announced this afternoon in a company blog post accompanied by a tweet from Box CEO Aaron Levie. In a joint phone interview today, Levie and Box’s principal technical operations developer Benjamin VanEvery said that the tools being shared today have been in development and used by Box engineers for several years now. “All of these are projects that we’ve used internally, and we’re excited to share with people externally,” VanEvery said. “Some include code that we’ve ported over from our main application trunk, and others are projects we knew others would want from day one, and have been built to one day be able to open up to the community.” In unveiling such a program, Box joins the likes of Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Netflix and others in having a codified place for participating in the open source community. These kinds of initiatives have a two-pronged purpose: For-profit entities “give back” by sharing their own nifty projects with others outside the company. The companies stand to benefit, too, as their own tools can potentially receive useful contributions from people outside of their own full-time engineering teams. Box Open Source will have strict standards for maintaining the quality of its projects so that others can count on these tools continuing to work well, VanEvery said. For example, he said, each project on Box Open Source has unit tests included, and Box will reject any pull request that doesn’t include unit tests of its own. “We’ll constantly be running builds,” he said. “Quality is really important.” The Python programming language is strongly represented in the projects debuting on Box Open Source today, with top billing given to Python-oriented projects such as RotUnicode and Flaky. This makes sense, as the Box Open Source launch coincides with the annual PyCon programming conference being held this weekend in Montreal. Levie said that we can expect more rollouts in a variety of languages in the months and years ahead. “This is really kicking off a much broader initiative. It’s the first phase of what we think will be a journey to putting out more of our technology in a range of projects in the open source community.” |
Apple is on the top of the world, says the research team at Loup Ventures, literally the leading global company boasting a close to $770 billion market cap, which is certainly quite an accomplishment. But is the Loup Ventures team correct in calling CEO Elon Musk’s brainchild Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) the Apple of the car universe? True, the electric car giant has a repute as one of the automaker world kings, and a near $55 billion market cap at play. But from the eyes of the Loup team, it’s a story that’s “just getting started.” When considering Tesla’s power, a lot of the exhilaration lies in its brand- much like it does for Apple. “Tesla owners love their Teslas,” argue the analysts, who point out that a Consumer Reports survey finds 91% of Tesla owners are so satisfied they would absolutely stay loyal to the brand. It is the best of the satisfaction rating of all the competitors, which likewise stands next to Apple’s 97% rate of consumer satisfaction for those eager iPhone enthusiasts. Moreover, Loup Ventures cites a “less tangible cool factor” that elevates Tesla above the rest in the arena, highlighting, “Tesla has built a brand around being a different kind of automaker […] all while squarely placing itself in the conversation with BMW as one of the best-engineered cars in the world. Tesla has established itself as an aspirational brand by taking a new approach to the car market.” Every empire needs a visionary to spearhead the dawn of a new era, and much like Steve Jobs trail-blazed for Apple, Elon Musk is another innovator of his time, but one with a superhero mentality wanting “to save the world.” For the Loup Ventures team, “The only question may be if his desire to save humanity ultimately pulls him in too many directions.” Certainly a “wild card” element that could make investors apprehensive around Musk’s ambitious visions, yet the entrepreneur extraordinaire has proved himself capable. As such, the analysts explain, “We think the risk of this is real, but low, as Musk has shown an ability to surround himself with great talent, enabling him to better leverage his own time.” The best description of Musk’s giant is that “Tesla is not a car company,” but rather, “It’s an operating system for sustainable energy that combines a powerful brand, a visionary founder, integrated hardware and software, and a halo effect all with the purpose of transforming a combination of large markets,” the analysts underscore, contending that ultimately “TSLA might be the next AAPL, but Tesla will forge its own path and the world will be better for it.” While Loup is upbeat on Tesla’s road approaching the next ten years, calling the giant “the next Apple,” it looks like the rest of the Street is not so sure. TipRanks analytics exhibit TSLA as a Hold. Based on 18 analysts polled by TipRanks in the last 3 months, 6 rate a Buy on Tesla stock, 6 maintain a Hold, while 6 issue a Sell. The 12-month average price target stands at $276.92, marking a nearly 14% downside from where the stock is currently trading. |
DETROIT -- Quick update following the Detroit Red Wings' practice Saturday at Joe Louis Arena: --Pavel Datsyuk (bruised shoulder) said he is 50-50 for Sunday's game in Minnesota, but added that he thinks he will play. Asked if injury was from Drew Doughty hit last Sunday, he said, "No. It's too much celebrating.'' --Mikael Samuelsson will return to the lineup Sunday, after missing 12 games with a groin strain. --Rookie Petr Mrazek will start in goal. He beat the Blues 5-1 on Feb. 7 in his NHL debut. --Forward Gustav Nyquist was reassigned to the Grand Rapids Griffins. --Johan Franzen had an ultrasound on his hip flexor, said it's strained. He has skated briefly before practice the past two days but won't play Sunday and said he doubts he'll be ready for Tuesday's game in Nashville. --Forwards Darren Helm and Todd Bertuzzi, both out with back injuries, did not skate. Helm hasn't been on the ice in exactly three weeks. Bertuzzi is walking with a cane and is struggling. It's hard to imagine that he will be back anytime soon. --Goaltender Jonas Gustavsson was assigned to Grand Rapids on a conditioning stint. He'll start Sunday for the Griffins. He's been out since Jan. 22. --Coach Mike Babcock said he hadn't decided on his lines, but he used Valtteri Filppula with Henrik Zetterberg and Damien Brunner. He's not happy with Filppula's play and basically said he needs to get it together. |
NEW DELHI/CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu on Tuesday witnessed a huge uproar over the gunning down of 20 alleged red sander smugglers in Andhra Pradesh by the police there. The incident took place at two places in Seshachalam forest area of Chandragiri mandal in Chittoor between 5am and 6am.Twelve of the 20 people who were gunned down were from Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu claimed those 12 Tamils killed were poor labourers from the state who went to Andhra Pradesh for work.Tamil Nadu chief minister O Panneerselvam sought a credible and speedy inquiry into the operation carried out by the " Red Sanders Anti-Smuggling Task Force " of the Andhra Pradesh police.In his letter to his Andhra Pradesh counterpart N Chandrababu Naidu , Panneerselvam wrote: "I am very distressed to learn ... I request you to kindly order a credible and speedy inquiry into the matter so that the facts are established and responsibility fixed for possible human rights violations. In case of any human rights violations, it is essential that action is taken against those who caused the deaths and appropriate compensation is paid to the families of the victims."While it was possible that these people may have been engaged in illegal activities, the occurrence of such high casualties in the operation raised concerns whether the Task Force personnel acted with adequate restraint, Panneerselvam said."Even if the persons had been engaged in illicit tree cutting, efforts could have been made to apprehend them rather than take such drastic action and cause such high casualties," he said.Taking suo motu note of the incident, the National Human Rights Commission has issued a notice to Andhra Praderh government after one of its members observed that it involved "serious violation" of human rights of the individuals and the firing cannot be justified on the ground of self-defence.NHRC member Justice D Murugesan, who is camping in Thiruvananthapuram in connection with the camp sitting of the commission, observed that incident involved a serious violation of human rights of the individuals and the opening of firing cannot be justified on the ground of self defence since it resulted in the loss of lives of 20 people.Human rights activists and a former Andhra Pradesh DGP also criticized the police action saying it was "disproportionate" to the crime.The DMK, BJP, PMK, Congress and CPI claimed that poor labourers from the state were among the victims and asked the Andhra Pradesh government to "pursue lawful means" to check red sanders smuggling.Claiming that they were innocent labourers from Tamil Nadu who were lured with higher wages to forests in neighbouring Chittoor, NDA ally, PMK chief Ramadoss said their being shot down without even an inquiry was unacceptable.Dismissing claims of Andhra Pradesh police that they opened fire in self-defence, he said "it was a plain lie" and demanded a probe by a sitting judge of Supreme Court besides seeking relief to those killed and action against police officials.DMK chief Karunanidhi, in a statement said, governments of both the states should announce relief to the families of the labourers killed in the exchange of fire.Andhra Pradesh Police claimed that six of its personnel were also injured in an attack by the smugglers allegedly armed with sickles, axes and countrymade weapons. They claimed that the task force and forest personnel, during a joint combing operation, spotted over 200 red sanders woodcutters involved in felling trees and they were asked to surrender.Red sanders is a highly-endangered species of tree also called red sandalwood and has a huge demand abroad, specially in China and Japan, and commands a good price. It is grown mainly in Seshachalam hill ranges spread across Kadapa, Chittoor and Kurnool in Rayalaseema region and parts of Nellore district in Andhra Pradesh.(With inputs from PTI) |
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A push by Poland’s eurosceptic government to remove fellow-countryman Donald Tusk from one of the top jobs in the European Union failed to win any public support on Monday as EU foreign ministers met to discuss it in Brussels. European Council President Donald Tusk looks at Armenia's President Serzh Sargsyan after a meeting in Brussels, Belgium February 27, 2017. REUTERS/Yves Herman But Poland, which is also at loggerheads with Brussels over climate change, migration and its treatment of judges and the media, was signaling it would not budge - possibly setting the stage for a showdown at a summit of EU leaders on Thursday. Tusk’s first term expires this May and he enjoys the comfortable backing of most EU states to be reappointed for another 2-1/2 years as president of the European Council, responsible for chairing summits of EU leaders. But Poland, where the head of the ruling party is Tusk’s arch-foe, wants to oust Tusk from the influential post and replace him with another Pole, Jacek Saryusz-Wolski. Many in Brussels dread opening another feud at a time when the bloc faces daunting challenges including handling the pending departure of Britain, facing up to an assertive Russia and getting to grips with new U.S. President Donald Trump. But Poland’s ruling party boss Jaroslaw Kaczynski is implacably opposed to Tusk, holding him “morally responsible” for the death of his twin brother, President Lech Kaczynski, in a plane crash in Russia in 2010, when Tusk was Polish prime minister. Polish and Russian probes blamed pilot error. Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski, in Brussels for talks with his EU peers, said Warsaw was insistent on Saryusz-Wolski, a center-right European Parliament member. “This is our candidate and he is in the game. This is the only Polish candidate right now for the post of the European Council head. There is no other Polish candidate,” he said. Over a Sunday dinner in Brussels, Waszczykowski had sought to persuade his peers from Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, as well as Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The leaders of four ex-communist eastern EU states met in Warsaw last week, but failed to agree on opposing Tusk together. The Czech minister, Lubomir Zaoralek, said on Monday that the easterners had much to lose. “If there were other candidates, it could have a very unpleasant result... I am afraid that this can result in central and eastern Europe losing its representative, and I would consider that a serious mistake,” he said. The fact that the bitter political rivalry between Kaczynski and Tusk has spilled over to Brussels has raised many eyebrows in the European capital. Waszczykowski refused to say if any other country backed Saryusz-Wolski, and the other ministers did not offer any public support. PANDORA’S BOX A soft-spoken centrist, Tusk is widely seen in the EU as a safe pair of hands. The decision on whether to give him a new term is expected this Thursday. While unanimity would have been the preferred option, a majority vote is enough to keep him. Waszczykowski suggested the decision could be delayed, but Zaoralek said that would risk opening a Pandora’s box. No third candidate has emerged so far. “There is a majority for Tusk, and pleasing Kaczynski is not on everyone’s mind in Brussels,” said a senior diplomat from one of the other states that took part in the Sunday dinner. Related Coverage EU centre-right party strips Tusk challenger of vice presidency Another senior diplomat said agreeing to a third candidate to appease Poland, or delaying the decision beyond Thursday would be succumbing to blackmail. “Whatever the cost at this stage, we need to get it over with as soon as possible,” the person said. But some diplomats and officials suggested Poland could decide to pick a fight on Thursday, possibly by broadening the talks to include EU climate policies. EU member states reached an early agreement on reforming the bloc’s carbon market last week despite opposition from Poland, which wants to protect its economically important coal industry. |
Mapping archaeological digs takes plenty of time and a lot of measuring, photographing, drawing and note taking. Now, most of this work can be done with a technique called photogrammetry. Photogrammetry is a method that uses two-dimensional images of an archaeological find to construct a 3D model. You don't need and special glasses or advanced equipment to use make use of this new technique. Together with precise measurements of the excavation, photogrammetry can create a complete detailed map of an archaeological excavation site. "This is still a very new technique," say archaeologists Raymond Sauvage and Fredrik Skoglund of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's University Museum. Photogrammetry is in many ways much more precise than older, more time-consuming methods. Viking graves This method is already being put to use by archaeologists. When a possible Viking grave was found in Skaun in Sør-Trøndelag in 2014, the excavation site was mapped using photogrammetry. The manner in which artefacts are found, how deeply the are buried and where they are placed in relation to each other can provide a lot of information to archaeologists studying a site. Photogrammetry also makes it easier for archaeologists to share their findings with others. The 3D models that are produced can be saved as normal PDF files, which can be sent to colleagues for input. Saving time The two archaeologists are very enthusiastic. A Russian company has developed the program that they're using at the museum. The program is easy to use and gives good results. The development and use of the technique has exploded in recent years. "There's a lot more interest in photogrammetry now. The new program is readily available and inexpensive," says Sauvage. He explains that it provides the kind of quality and detail that you could only dream of a few years ago. Even though the method requires some work, it still saves a lot of time. "In one day, you can get three million measurement points. Before, we were satisfied with 3000," he says. And those 3000 points could take a long time to find. This method can save archaeologists weeks of work with tape measures, sketching paper and cameras. The practical work in the field goes much quicker. "This frees up a lot more time for things like research," Skoglund says. Old finds Similar results have been achieved in the past using laser equipment and early versions of a photogrammetry program. But this has been very expensive, and takes a lot of time and resources. The new program only costs a few hundred euros, meaning that it is much more widely available. With a photogrammetry program, three or four pictures from different angles are enough to make a simple 3D model, although more images will provide a higher quality model. You can use any normal camera. "The more images, the better the quality," Sauvage says. It is also possible to use images of old finds to build a 3D model based on them. For example, you could make a model using photos from previous excavations of Viking graves, and use this to explore how an excavation site changes over time. Shipwreck Marine archaeologist Skoglund has tried this with the Dutch ship "De Grawe Adler" (the Grey Eagle), which sank in 1696 by Strømsholmen in Hustadvika, on the coast of central Norway and was discovered in 1982 when dredging for sand destroyed parts of the ship. "I swam along the whole length of the wreck a few years ago and took pictures," Skoglund says. He did so with out ever considering the possibility of making a 3D model of the wreck. The fact that the photos were taken underwater makes it slightly harder to put them together, but it is by no means impossible. If the results are precise enough, they can be used to monitor the decomposition of the ship. Finds under water tend to be particularly fragile, but decomposition can be difficult to see. You can't just dive down every few years to make sure that everything is OK. With this new method, the decomposition can be measured much more precisely, and appropriate protection measures can be put in place. The future The next step is likely to be able to put on a pair of 3D-glasses and virtually walk into an excavation site, although that may be a few years in coming. There is one challenge, however -- storing measurements digitally in a manner that will be useful for generations to come. Archaeologists working today are behind measurements and notes on excavations that may be used hundreds of years in the future. A paper photo taken 100 years ago is just as good now as it was then, as long as you have it on hand. But nobody knows if a PDF file will be of use in year 2115. But this is a challenge facing all information that is stored digitally. And it's something that we can't overcome. |
AUSTIN, Minn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Hormel Foods Corporation (NYSE:HRL) today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Justin’s, LLC (Justin’s), owner of the Justin’s® brand and a pioneer in nut butter-based snacking. Justin’s markets four successful nut butter-based snack lines – spreads, squeeze packs, peanut butter cups and snack packs. “Justin’s® naturally delicious, high-quality nut butters, nut butter snacks and organic peanut butter cups align perfectly with our goal of complementing our existing brands with new offerings that resonate with younger, on-the-go and more health-conscious consumers,” said Jeffrey M. Ettinger, chairman of the board and chief executive officer at Hormel Foods. “I am pleased to welcome Justin’s into the Hormel Foods family,” said James P. Snee, president and chief operating officer at Hormel Foods. “We are excited to work together with the Justin’s team to bring these great products to even more consumers, leveraging key Hormel Foods resources to drive continued innovation and growth to this on-trend category.” “I look forward to working with the Hormel Foods team, a company that shares our passion for innovation, quality and creating the best possible consumer experience,” said Justin Gold, founder of Justin’s. “My goal has always been to build something truly special and Hormel Foods is the right partner to make this an enduring and far-reaching brand.” Justin’s will continue operating out of their office in Boulder, Colo., as a subsidiary in the company’s Grocery Products segment. Hormel Foods will provide further comment about this deal on the company’s second quarter earnings call on May 18, 2016, at 7:00 a.m. CDT, which can be accessed at hormelfoods.com on the investor’s page. Hormel Foods was advised by HT Capital Advisors. Piper Jaffray & Co. was the exclusive advisor to Justin’s. About Hormel Foods Hormel Foods Corporation, based in Austin, Minn., is a multinational manufacturer and marketer of consumer-branded food and meat products, many of which are among the best known and trusted in the food industry. Hormel Foods, which leverages its extensive expertise, innovation and high competencies in pork and turkey processing and marketing to bring branded, value-added products to the global marketplace, will celebrate its 125th anniversary in 2016. The company is a member of the Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 Index, S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats, and was named one of “The 100 Best Corporate Citizens” by Corporate Responsibility Magazine for the seventh year in a row. Hormel Foods also received a perfect score on the 2016 Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index, was recognized on the 2016 Best for Vets Employers List by Military Times, and was named one of the 2016 Best Companies for Leaders by Chief Executive magazine. The company enjoys a strong reputation among consumers, retail grocers, foodservice and industrial customers for products highly regarded for quality, taste, nutrition, convenience and value. For more information, visit http://www.hormelfoods.com and http://2014csr.hormelfoods.com/. About Justin’s Justin’s makes naturally delicious, high-quality nut butters, nut butter snacks and organic peanut butter cups that deliver great taste, unique texture and convenient nutrition. Established in 2004 in the home kitchen of health enthusiast Justin Gold, Justin’s supports an on-the-go lifestyle and strives to make a difference everywhere, basing its values on four fundamental pillars: Nourish, Nurture, Inspire and Educate. The first brand to market nut butters in single-serve squeeze packs, Justin’s nut butters are finely crafted with a one-of-a-kind grinding process to create an exceptional texture and flavor experience. All seven varieties offer 4-8 grams of protein per serving and are great for snacking anytime of the day. In the confection category, Justin’s Dark, Milk and White Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups are USDA-certified organic and are made with Rainforest Alliance Certified™ cocoa. And now, perfect for dipping, scooping and devouring, Justin’s Snack Packs are available in three delicious nut butter and pretzel combinations, as well as two peanut butter and banana chip combinations (the first of its kind). For more information, please visit Justin’s at Justins.com,Facebook.com/JustinsNutButter and Instagram.com/Justins FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS This news release contains forward-looking information based on management’s current views and assumptions. Actual events may differ materially. Factors that may affect actual results include, but are not limited to: whether and when the required regulatory approvals will be obtained, whether and when the closing conditions will be satisfied, whether and when the transaction will close, whether and when the Company will be able to realize the expected financial results of the transaction, and how customers, competitors, suppliers and employees will react to the transaction. Please refer to the cautionary statement regarding Forward-Looking Statements and Risk Factors that appear on pages 30 - 35 in the company’s Form 10-Q for the quarter ended January 24, 2016, which can be accessed at www.hormelfoods.com under “Investors-SEC Filings.” |
The first smash-hit-sold-out-everywhere game of 2014 is expanding! Mark the date to pick up the third Collector's Pack in Adventure Time Card Wars Princess Bubblegum vs Lumpy Space Princess Collector's Pack. This time, Princess Bubblegum and her NiceLands deck take on Lumpy Space Princess’s totally rad dual-Landscape deck in a royal rumble. First teased in the original two Collector’s Pack sets, and then previewed in the For the Glory! Booster packs, NiceLands are finally playable. This new Landscape type is as fluffy as a little bunny nibbling on some grass. But if you give it an owwie on its widdle foot… boy howdy, do these guys get vicious! NiceLands Creatures are all about using the damage on them to make them better. Most Creatures are looking for a particular sweet spot of damage. Sometimes you will want to heal damage from your Creatures to get them there. But sometimes you might actually damage your own Creatures to get them to that sweet spot. This new deck not only brings a new Landscape to the mix, but a whole new style of play. Lumpy Space Princess’s deck is a Useless Swamps and Blue Plains deck. This is the first time a Collector’s Pack has featured a deck that utilizes more than a single landscape type. The Useless Swamp side of the deck is themed around discarding cards to power up your Creature abilities. Which is never a bad thing for the swampy side, as they thrive when they have built up a sizable discard pile. The Blue Plains side of the deck is themed around replacing Creatures you control. Many of the Creatures in this half of the deck get killer bonuses for replacing Creatures that were already in play. It complements the Useless Swamp desire for a large discard pile as well. Such synergy! Let’s take a peek at some of the new cards we will get to play with in this collector’s pack. For more information, check out the Product Page Pre-Order on the Cryptozoic eStore. To find a local game store near you, check our Store Locator! Card Sneak Peak: They say falling stars are supposed to be lucky…even if it ends poorly for the star. This Falling Star in particular is very lucky to find in your deck as playing him will allow your creatures to attack with absolute impunity on your turn. Ms. Fluff looks really sweet and cuddly from a distance, but I would not recommend making her angry. This card is a great example of how Nicelands creatures use their damage “sweet spots” to ramp up their level of danger. Ms. Fluff and Falling Star together can be a deadly combination. Goat likes to eat things, even your own creatures. Though Goat is a rainbow colored card (meaning he does not need a particular type of landscape to be played), he fits into a Blue Plains landscape perfectly with the new focus on replacing creatures already on your landscapes. Blue Plains has a habit of changing frequently and keeping your opponents off balance. |
In relation to a project on the topic of “Buddhist theology” I was fortunate enough to come across an article by James L. Fredericks, “A Universal Religious Experience?: Comparative Theology as an Alternative to a Theology of Religions” (Horizons 22/1, 1995, 67–87). Fredericks provides a very valuable summary of the background to many of the ideas that inform popular Buddhism in the West today. In reflecting on the developments that continue to come forth, it is important for those involved to be aware not only of the history of Buddhist thought, but also the history of Western religious and philosophical thought, as the latter is often simply taken for granted as if they were simply true. If one is to evaluate the contemporary value of Buddhist teachings, one needs to be self-reflectively aware of the sources of one’s own preconceptions so as to be able to evaluate those as well. Do you actually want to think that way? (This is particularly important for any self-consciously dialogical projects.) Only by understanding the historical context out of which the ideas that currently go unquestioned originated can one gain an additional degree of freedom. In the last year of the eighteenth century, Friedrich Schleiermacher published the first of two influential works, On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers. The second, The Christian Faith [Glaubenslehre], published twenty-two years later, seems to have been of more focused influence within theology per se, but On Religion was intended for a much wider audience, an audience that Fredericks describes as “Berlin’s free-thinkers and bohemians” (71). In this project, Schleiermacher seems to have been more successful than even he might have hoped, since his formulation has structured the representation of Buddhism in our own present day. Schleiermacher’s goal is in complete accord with much of contemporary modernist rhetoric produced by Buddhist “post-traditionalists” who correspond to the “free-thinkers and bohemians” of Schleiermacher’s Berlin. His intent, according to Fredericks, was “to show that Berlin’s free-thinkers and bohemians could despise dogmatism and clericalism without necessarily rejecting religion itself” (71). Against what do contemporary Buddhist post-traditionalists react? What they perceive as the dogmatic character of Buddhist teachings and the structures and authority of Buddhist institutions, i.e., clericalism. What do they hope—and indeed claim—to have discovered/created in its place? That which is “religion itself”—the true essence of the teachings, the original Dharma, whatever—within what is characterized as the decadent and ossified traditionalism of all of the Buddhist tradition before them, except for the pure teachings of Śākyamuni Buddha, or whatever other founding figure they happen to like, and can re-imagine as a radical reformer in the same mold as they claim for themselves. “Post-traditionalists” might object that while the goal may be similar, certainly they have found some novel means for its attainment. The means, however, is no more novel than the goal. Schleiermacher’s great transformation of theology is to shift the very definition of religion from emphases on doctrine and institution (dogma and authority) to experience, “what Schleiermacher in the Speeches called the ‘sense of the Infinite'” (70). Such an experience is preverbal (in the philosophic terminology of the day: prior to the structuring of consciousness by the categories identified by Kant), and therefore ineffable and completely private. “This claim allows Schleiermacher to arrive at two conclusions: (1) this experience is one of sheer immediacy which is only later sundered by thought, and (2) this experience ultimately defies final description and definition and is thus knowable only by direct personal acquaintance” (70). As such it cannot be talked about, except indirectly, and only those who are themselves already acquainted with the experience can appreciate its importance and value: “if the reader should be religiously ungifted, then there is no basis for further discussion” (72). These conceptions are the ground for claims that religion, defined as religious experience, is irreducible to other factors, such as social history or economics, and arises solely from itself (the sui generis claim). Since such a hypothetical experience is preverbal, it is also not subject to evaluation. Being a direct experience of reality just as it is, it is self-authenticating. In other words, there is no way that reasoned, reflective thought can be applied to the claims made on the basis of “religious experience.” And anyone who can claim access to such “religious experience” becomes equally an authoritative teacher. (Nota bene: if in attempting to discuss such matters one says, Yes, I’ve had such experiences, so I can engage you, one has already accepted the fundamental and unarguable basis of the position. The claim is, in Popper’s now quaint but effective epistemological distinction, unfalsifiable.) Fredericks suggests that the claim of a preverbal experience as the basis and true essence of religion is the core of what came to be called Liberal Theology (69, n.2), which served to make this conception of religion as religious experience widely influential throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, right into the present. These ideas permeated not just theology, but were also taken up by philosophers in hermeneutics and philosophy of language, historians of religion, and psychologists of religion (for specifics, see 71). The influence has become so pervasive that this image of religious experience has become “common sense” about what religion really is, and therefore what Buddhism ought to be. While there are other aspects of “post-traditionalist” Buddhist rhetoric, such as the equations made between Buddhism and science, the focus on the irrefutable status of individual, private, preverbal experience remains a strong component. On what grounds for example is the authority of some particular set of teachings rejected? Most frequently by reference to the critic’s own unique experience, an experience that is presumed despite its private status to be of greater relevance to others in the present than the heritage of teachings. In other cases, it may be the critic’s own moral sensibility, which is presented as equally grounded in individual, private experience, now promoted as universally valid, that is offered as the basis for critique. Far from being “post-traditional,” much of what is being promoted as novel is highly traditional—only the tradition that is being uncritically repeated is that of nineteenth century Liberal Theology, and not any form of Buddhism not itself already modernized by adoption of the tenet of “religious experience.” |
If I have any bias, it’s towards having fun. Yeah, I’m hyper-aware of the issues EA UFC had at launch, and I’m aware that the game still has issues (particularly in the ground game). But what MMA game hasn’t had issues? And it’s not like they dropped the title and forgot about it, there’s been plenty of roster updates and gameplay tweaks to shakeup the title. But damn, the ground game really isn’t fun, eh? At the risk of pissing off a bunch of people that worked hard on the game, I suggest you all spend the $13.20 on EA UFC for the Xbone and make it into the game you want it to be. What does that even mean? We here at MiddleEasy have developed a series of stats and rulesets for you and your buddies to get your worth out of this game, and you will. Think about it: what can $14 (EA UFC is $13.99 if you’re a PS+ member) get for you in this day and age? Nothing much. You’re roughly 1/5th to a UFC PPV. You could probably by a six-pack or two bombers of decent beer, maybe a (low quality) voodoo doll. Instead, you should get EA UFC. You can host boxing matches, kickboxing matches, or go right ahead and play the MMA game the way it was intended. But just in case you want to plop down a few clams to have a good time with your friends locally or online, here are our CAF stats for kickboxers and boxers. First off: Keep in mind that when you create a CAF for a kickboxer or boxer, IT HAS TO BE A KICKBOXER OR BOXER. Don’t choose a wrestler then add this stat template. It just doesn’t work. Boxers don’t have elbows to start, kickboxers will. No one wants to get cut open by an elbow because you’re a spaz holding down the bumper and throwing strikes like a madman. Here’s a heavyweight kickboxer template. Kickboxer: Blocking – maxed. We allow one strike in the clinch then you must let go. If you don’t, you are shunned and have to clean the MiddleEasy office litterbox. Kick Speed – maxed Left Leg Power – 63 Right Leg Power – 63 Punch Speed – maxed Left Hand Power – 70 Right Hand Power – 70 Submission and Ground stats shouldn’t be touched, they don’t matter. Body Health – maxed Chin Health – maxed Endurance – maxed Leg Health – maxed Movement – maxed Stamina – maxed You should be a 72 overall when this is done. Boxer: You can clinch when you’re getting beat up, but do it too much and you’ll be shunned. No elbows, no kicks, etc. Blocking – maxed Everything else is left the same. I like to have people turn down kicking speed because Gary’s a dick. That’s all you need to know about that. Punch Speed – maxed. Left Hand Power – 66 Right Hand Power – 70 (inverse these if you’re a southpaw) All sub and ground are left at whatever they’re at. Body Health – maxed Chin Health – maxed Endurance – maxed Leg Health – default Movement – maxed Stamina – maxed This should leave you at 66 overall. If you didn’t want to play EA UFC, or you’re felling that the game is a little flat, go ahead and use these stats and rulesets for a fun time. We like to roleplay as if we’re making $2K to show, 2K to win and fight on Fight Pass about 45 times a year with 4 oz gloves. |
Leaner, greener flying machines for the year 2025 are on the drawing boards of three industry teams under contract to the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate's Environmentally Responsible Aviation Project. Teams from The Boeing Company in Huntington Beach, Calif., Lockheed Martin in Palmdale, Calif., and Northrop Grumman in El Segundo, Calif., have spent the last year studying how to meet NASA goals to develop technology that would allow future aircraft to burn 50 percent less fuel than aircraft that entered service in 1998 (the baseline for the study), with 75 percent fewer harmful emissions; and to shrink the size of geographic areas affected by objectionable airport noise by 83 percent. "The real challenge is we want to accomplish all these things simultaneously," said ERA project manager Fay Collier. "It's never been done before. We looked at some very difficult metrics and tried to push all those metrics down at the same time." So NASA put that challenge to industry -- awarding a little less than $11 million to the three teams to assess what kinds of aircraft designs and technologies could help meet the goals. The companies have just given NASA their results. "We'll be digesting the three studies and we'll be looking into what to do next," said Collier. Boeing's advanced vehicle concept centers around the company's now familiar blended wing body design as seen in the sub-scale remotely piloted X-48, which has been wind tunnel tested at NASA's Langley Research Center and flown at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center. One thing that makes this concept different from current airplanes is the placement of its Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan engines. The engines are on top of the plane's back end, flanked by two vertical tails to shield people on the ground from engine noise. The aircraft also would feature an advanced lightweight, damage tolerant, composite structure; technologies for reducing airframe noise; advanced flight controls; hybrid laminar flow control, which means surfaces designed to reduce drag; and long-span wings which improve fuel efficiency. Lockheed Martin took an entirely different approach. Its engineers proposed a box wing design, in which a front wing mounted on the lower belly of the plane is joined at the tips to an aft wing mounted on top of the plane. The company has studied the box wing concept for three decades, but has been waiting for lightweight composite materials, landing gear technologies, hybrid laminar flow and other tools to make it a viable configuration. Lockheed's proposal combines the unique design with a Rolls Royce Liberty Works Ultra Fan Engine. This engine has a bypass ratio that is approximately five times greater than current engines, pushing the limits of turbofan technology. Northrop Grumman chose to embrace a little of its company's history, going back to the 1930s and '40s, with its advanced vehicle concept. Its design is a flying wing, championed by Northrop founder Jack Northrop, and reminiscent of its B-2 aircraft. Four high-bypass engines, provided by Rolls Royce and embedded in the upper surface of the aerodynamically efficient wing would provide noise shielding. The company's expertise in building planes without the benefit of a stabilizing tail would be transferred to the commercial airline market. The Northrop proposal also incorporates advanced composite materials and engine and swept wing laminar flow control technologies. What the studies revealed is that NASA's goals to reduce fuel consumption, emissions and noise are indeed challenging. The preliminary designs all met the pollution goal of eliminating landing and takeoff emissions of nitrogen oxides by 50 percent. All still have a little way to go to meet the other two challenges. All the designs were very close to a 50-percent fuel burn reduction, but noise reduction capabilities varied. "All of the teams have done really great work during this conceptual design study," say Mark Mangelsdorf, ERA Project chief engineer. "Their results make me excited about how interesting and different the airplanes on the airport ramp could look in 20 years. Another great result of the study is that they have really helped us focus where to invest our research dollars over the next few years," he said. NASA's ERA project officials say they believe all the goals can be met if small gains in noise and fuel consumption reduction can be achieved in addition to those projected in the industry studies. The results shed light on the technology and design hurdles airline manufacturers face in trying to design lean, green flying machines and will help guide NASA's environmentally responsible aviation investment strategy for the second half of its six-year project. |
Yemeni army forces have unveiled four domestically designed and manufactured drones to collect information on the positions and movements of militiamen loyal to resigned president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, as well as Saudi troops, and carry out aerial attacks against them. The sole unveiled combat aircraft, code-named Qasef-1 (Striker-1), has a wingspan of three meters and a hull length of 2.5 meters. The drone has a flight endurance of 120 minutes, and is capable of carrying a payload of 30 kilograms. Another remote-controlled aircraft, dubbed Hudhud-1 (Hoopoe-1), has a flight endurance of 90 minutes, and an operational radius of up to 30 kilometers. It has a wingspan of 1.9 meters and a hull length of 1.5 meters. This photo provided by the media bureau of Yemen’s operations command shows Hudhud-1 (Hoopoe-1) reconnaissance drone. The Raqib (Rival) drone can fly as far as 15 kilometers for 90 minutes. It is used in reconnaissance missions and is capable of either storing information or transferring data via online connections. The Rased (Surveyor) unmanned aerial vehicle, which can perform a variety of functions, including aerial monitoring and observation of the battlefield besides geophysical surveying, has a wingspan of 2.2 meters and a hull length of one meter. The drone has a flight endurance of 120 minutes plus an operational radius of up to 35 kilometers. Earlier this month, Yemeni army forces launched a locally designed and manufactured ballistic missile towards an area deep inside Saudi Arabia in response to Riyadh’s atrocious aerial bombardments against the crisis-stricken Arab country. The media bureau of the operations command in Yemen published a series of photos of the Borkan-2 (Volcano-2) ballistic missile it used to hit a military base on the outskirts of Saudi capital city of Riyadh. This photo provided by the media bureau of Yemen’s operations command shows solid propellant and Scud-type Borkan-2 (Volcano-2) missile. On September 2, 2016, Yemeni forces fired an indigenous Borkan-1 (Volcano-1) missile against a stationary target in the Saudi city of Ta'if, located more than 700 kilometers southeast of Riyadh. The United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, Jamie McGoldrick, says the Saudi campaign has claimed the lives of 10,000 Yemenis and left 40,000 others wounded. McGoldrick told reporters in Sana’a last month that the figure was based on casualty counts given by health facilities and that the actual number might be higher. In a report released on Thursday, Yemen’s Legal Center for Rights and Development, an independent monitoring group, put the civilian death toll in war-torn Arab country at 12,041. The fatalities, it said, comprise 2,568 children and 1,870 women. The rights body said the bombings have also wounded 20,001 civilians, including 2,354 children and 1,960 women, while more than four million others have been displaced. |
Loading ... Loading ... Why is it so hard to believe politicians in Washington wouldn’t be delving into the disgusting realms of pedophilia? The Pizzagate investigation caused quite a controversy in late 2016, but as we embark into 2017, the idea of those in power participating in this gruesome habit is not far-fetched at all. In fact, as we will show, it’s disgustingly common. Pizzagate was preceded by talk a former U.S. president with the surname Clinton had a close relationship with billionaire pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein. As the alleged conspiracy theory goes, Clinton allegedly took numerous flights on the “Lolita Express” (Epstein’s private jet) to “orgy island” (Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean) to engage in sex with underage girls. But no sooner did the controversy begin than it was immediately rejected by the mainstream media, seemingly replaced still unproven statements the Russians had attempted to cyber-hack the presidential election of 2016. The attention span of Americans was then redirected by press conferences, some led by President Obama himself, claiming the consensus of the intelligence community agreed the Russians engaged in cyber-attacks intent on helping Donald Trump become the next president. One could say a pattern has now emerged with how the mainstream media deals with stories it does not want to investigate or have uncovered: Reject, Replace, and Redirect. All of which leads us back to Pizzagate, and the question of whether or not the rich and powerful, politically elite, are engaged in sex with children. While Pizzagate itself may not be a provable idea, to dismiss it like it is impossible is simply irresponsible — especially given the history of people in authority in this country. Are the autocrats somehow morally immune from lewd acts from children? Do they somehow possess moral superiority over the clergy, the military, the police, or teachers? Absolutely not! But if the mainstream media continues to reject, replace, and redirect attention away from the question, Americans will never know the truth. Public servants are to be held to a higher standard. But across all aspects of our society, public servants everywhere have engaged in sex with children. Americans are very familiar with the early 2000’s scandal that plagued the clergy, especially within the Catholic Church. A sickening pattern emerged of discovery, cover-up, and re-assignment of rapist priests within the church. Lawsuits by victims led to millions being paid out by the dioceses, and official apologies from the church. Countless Catholics, so repulsed by the child sex abuse by priests, fled the church to mainly Evangelical houses of worship, having lost all faith in their religious establishment. Teachers are not immune either. Who could forget Mary Kay Letourneau, Debra Lafave and others who all made the perp walk across our television screens having been found guilty of violating the sacred trust of parents who allowed their children to be in their care? Their years of education, status within the community, was not enough to afford them even the slightest measure of protection from prosecution, or public scrutiny. Police officers are no different, often using their badges to abuse teens and children. As The Free Thought Project has extensively reported, officers all across the country have engaged in their pedophilic desires to have sex with children. One “deputy of the year” was charged with raping three girls. Another was accused of having gay sex parties with minor boys. A school resource officer was arrested for having sex with a student, and still another was arrested for raping boys. These officers of the peace were more interested in getting a piece than they were protecting their victims from known pedophiles. Judges aren’t immune either. The chief U.S. district judge in Washington, D.C., Richard W. Roberts, resigned after allegations emerged he’d raped a 16-year-old repeatedly while she was a witness at a trial involving the man who shot Hustler Magazine founder Larry Flynt. Roberts was a civil rights attorney at the time, and was later appointed as a judge by former president Bill Clinton. “The suit claims that Roberts used that access to deceive Mitchell and her parents into trusting him. After gaining their trust, he drove her to a hotel, where he forced her up to a room and raped her, the suit alleges,” according to NBC News. As TFTP reported, Arkansas judge Joseph Boeckmann resigned after it was revealed he’d lessened the sentences of several male defendants in exchange for sex. At least one of the victims was a teenager. It’s not just American politicians either. Last month, authorities seized the largest amount of child pornography in the Norway’s history! A whopping 150 terabytes were confiscated, the equivalent of over 35,000 child-porn DVDs! The investigation quickly led to arrests of, “51 people, all men, are so far involved in the case. 24 of them come from Hordaland and Sogn og Fjordane. 26 come from other areas of Norway, from Southeast to Finnmark in the north. Among the accused offenders, there is also one Swedish national. Two politicians, one Labor politician from Oslo and a former national Progress Party (FrP) politician from Eastern Norway are involved in the case.” So if the clergy, the teachers, the police, and the judges aren’t immune from sex scandals involving minors, why is it the mainstream media seems to treat politicians like some sort of a protected class, shielding them from any real investigative journalism into their deviant sex practices? Think about it. Did any MSM source look into the “Lolita Express,” “Orgy Island,” or interview Clinton about alleged trips taken with a known pedophile? Not a one. Is it because they’re afraid they may end up in a body bag, or somehow lose their jobs in journalism? The former speaker of the house, Dennis Hastert admitted to raping children and was subsequently sentenced to 15 months in jail. Hastert happens to have a long and friendly past with none other than the Podesta family. These are undisputed and admitted facts — yet people ridicule those who actually investigate these claims. The MSM seems perfectly content with letting disgraced congressmen former House Speaker Hastert and Anthony Weiner fill that story role for the moment. Weiner, supposedly engaged in a sexting relationship with an underage teenager from North Carolina. Given the sheer numbers of pedophiles in power, it would be downright irresponsible to assume there are no more politicians hiding their sick habits behind the confines of marble buildings. Will 2017 be the year that some form of Pizzagate gets revealed as truth and not just mere fodder for conspiracy theorists? Only time will tell. For now, alternative media will continue to receive each allegation of sex with children by Washington’s elite as serious as it views badge abuse, and government corruption. But we cannot help but believe the dam is about to break on the scandals along with the MSM’s practice of rejection, replacement, and redirection. It’s time for someone to blow the whistle, for the sake of the children. Before you so easily dismiss it, listen to the following words from Jessa Dillow-Crisp, who recently testified at the Colorado State Capitol, during Human Trafficking Awareness and Advocacy Day, about the horrible experiences that she had in her past. “I was a little girl and was sexually abused by family members. I had to pose for pornographers and was sold to countless men on a daily basis,” she said. To make matters even more hopeless for the woman, she was unable to report the abuse or go to the police because there were a number of police officers who were actually involved in the kidnapping and abuse. “There was gang raping, the police officer who handcuffed me and raped me, told me I would be put in jail if I opened my voice,” she said. “I had somebody very close to me tortured and she eventually died in front of my eyes. This stuff happens and I’m here to tell you the reality of its existence.” Editor’s Note: For more information on this ongoing investigation that you will not receive from the mainstream media, check out the links below: Related Reading: 13 Most Essential Data-Points in #PizzaGate Pedophilia Allegations The Podesta Brothers Revealed to be in Portugal the Day of Madeleine McCann’s Disappearance The Daily Sheeple Shut Down for Pizzagate Podesta Wikileaks Story Trump “Promises,” Pizzagate, and the Establishment’s Dark Secrets Another Pedophile Ring Involving Politicians Was Just Busted Six Case Studies That Point To A Massive Child Pedophilia Ring At The Highest Levels Of Power American Pedophilia: Prerequisite of a Wealthy Elitist This story is much larger than just this pizza joint, regardless of what the corporate media tries to sell, but take a look at the images below, and ask yourself is that seems normal for a place that has child sleep overs, as well as known pedophilic bands that play there after hours. None of the images below are criminal to look at, yet highly suggestive and cannot be simply explained as “out of context,” as the context is quite clear(and the comments beside the images are very important to acknowledge): (All of the links once again work, but they will no doubt continue trying to scrub the Internet of any proof) Comet Ping Pong Instagram Photos: https://i0.wp.com/ambitjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/PizzaGateInstagramJimmyCometyounggirlducttape.png https://i2.wp.com/ambitjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/pizzagatejimmcometgermanbabypleasedonttouch.png https://i2.wp.com/ambitjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/hotard-1.png https://i0.wp.com/ambitjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/chickenlover-scott-cummings.jpg https://i0.wp.com/ambitjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/freezerkillroom.png https://i1.wp.com/ambitjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/creepy-bloody-guy.png https://i0.wp.com/ambitjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/cumpanda.png https://i0.wp.com/ambitjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/cumpanda2.png https://i1.wp.com/ambitjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/pizza-69-sex.png https://i2.wp.com/ambitjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/pizza-in-bed.png http://archive.is/YObkd https://imgur.com/VmC91r1 https://i.sli.mg/hPSDPx.png https://i.sli.mg/RJSVVs.jp Podesta’s Favorite Artist: https://i0.wp.com/ambitjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Biljana-Djurdjevic_Serbia_paintings_artodyssey-6.jpg https://i2.wp.com/ambitjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/ParadiseLostHangingOn.jpg https://i1.wp.com/ambitjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/ParadiseLostFarAwayFromHome.jpg https://i.sli.mg/q3zKdG.png (Shirt reads: “I love infants”) Help Us Be The Change We Wish To See In The World. |
Last week, Iran Air signed a deal with Boeing and the negotiations with Airbus are drawing to an end. Asghar Fakhrieh Kashan, Deputy Minister Roads and Urban Development, has clarified some information in an interview to the Ministry. One of the largest obstacles for Iran to engage with the world, alongside with financing, is the political instability that exists. All possible risks such as re-imposition of sanctions have been evaluated and the possible measures have been agreed. If an aircraft has been manufactured, we will take delivery of it. If an aircraft is in the process of assembling, we will discuss the matter. Iran Air is set to welcome the first Boeing aircraft in 2018 and the last one ten years later. Although Boeing already had thousands of other orders in place prior to Iran Air’s order, the aircraft will be produced in between the production gaps. With a delivery rate of 8 aircraft in 2018 and an average of 10 the other years, Iran Air will have sufficient time prepare the needed infrastructure and labour force. Several media outlets have quoted that 6 of the aircraft ordered from Boeing will be financed by the aircraft manufacturer itself. This does not, however, mean that the American company will finance the aircraft themselves. The persisting American sanctions against Iran prohibit Boeing to do so. Instead, it is in that sense that it gives Boeing the authority to find any suitable financing method for the 6 earmarked aircraft, let it be foreign or American. The transactions must still go through a foreign bank, due to the existing conditions. In 2017, Airbus and ATR will deliver 10-12 aircraft to Iran Air. A reduction from 14 aircraft which was previously reported in May 2016. This could be partially explained by the reduced number of aircraft in the Airbus deal since the Memorial of Understanding signed in January 2016. According to Kashan, Iran Air has secured financing for 5 out of the 80 ordered aircraft. As per aforementioned, Boeing is liable to secure financing for 6 aircraft, the rest is Iran Air’s obligation. Also, 42 out of the 100 aircraft shortly planned to be ordered from Airbus have secured financing, 19 of which Airbus arranged financing for. Furthermore, he announced that Iran has created a group of specialists consisting of officials from Iran’s Vice-Presidency for Science and Technology, President of the Iranian Space Agency and aircraft manufacture companies to lead the negotiations with Airbus to commence the production of spare parts in Iran. Photo: Mohammad Akhlaghi, Tasnim News Agency |
The latest threat report from Kaspersky suggests hard drives may have been spying on us for more than a decade. Infiltrating storage devices is just one component of the Equation Group, a "threat actor that surpasses anything known in terms of complexity and sophistication of techniques." The depressing news is outlined in this blog post by the security company. According to the firm, the Equation Group comprises at least six trojans dating back to 2001. Systems have been infiltrated in over 30 countries, Kaspersky says, and some elements of the group likely remain undiscovered. "Solid links" also tie the Equation Group to Stuxnet and Flame trojans. The Equation Group's capabilities reportedly include reprogramming the firmware of hard drives from every major brand. Once infected, drives can create hidden partitions, store data for future retrieval, prevent data from being deleted, and alter data that's being accessed. At least one of the trojans can potentially snoop passwords associated with full-disk encryption, as well. And, as if that weren't bad enough, it's basically impossible to determine whether a drive has been affected. One of the trojans is designed to compromise machines that aren't connected to the Internet. It hides on USB flash drives, has the same hidden partition mojo, and can report back to the mothership when network conditions allow. Although there's no mention of similar trojans for SSDs, anyone targeting mechanical storage probably isn't ignoring the solid-state alternatives. The entity behind the Equation Group appears to have sufficient resources and expertise to get into whatever it wants. More details are available in this SecureList post and this Q&A document (PDF). |
Well there you have it folks, we told you the Motorola Atrix was coming to Telstra along the Motorola XOOM. Today the announcement was made by Telstra that the Atrix will launch on June 7th and XOOM on May 24th for $840/ea, which is $110 more than the $730 asking price for the Atrix over at MobiCity. The XOOM, which is surprisingly heavy, will be of the 3G and Wi-Fi variants which is always nice. Having played with one a few weeks ago I was very impressed with it, it’s well-built with very little plastic used in comparison to the Gal Tab 10.1v. Telstra have also said the MicroSD card slot will not be utilised until after a Honeycomb update; the same thing is happening in the US. There will also be no hardware update to LTE. Our review will be up in the next week or so. Hit the source link to register your interest in the Motorola XOOM on Telstra. I’ve been using the Atrix as my primary phone for the past month and I hate it with a passion, but that’s not to say you won’t like it, but for $840 I’d be running in the other direction. The best thing about Telstra is you can go into their stores and try the devices out before you actually hand over your hard-earned dollars. Hit the break for a picture of the available plans for each of the devices. Source: Telstra. [Credit: Neerav Bhatt |
Treasurer Joe Hockey said it was "not a good look" and that it did not pass the "sniff test", while Social Services Minister Scott Morrison would not back the Speaker's use of expenses. Speaker Bronwyn Bishop. Credit:Andrew Meares Mrs Bishop has promised to pay back the $5227 cost of hiring the helicopter but has not admitted any wrongdoing. She said she believed the travel was within the rules but she was giving a refund to "avoid any doubt". Mr Burke called for the release of a form – the so-called "Presiding Officers form" - that Mrs Bishop would normally have to have signed before taking a charter flight. "It depends on whether or not she signs it [the form] in its normal form. The normal form would say this is official business and would also say there are serious criminal penalties if this is put in error," he told the Seven Network. |
Seven-year-old Liam Porter has something in common with "Star Wars" hero Luke Skywalker -- a new prosthetic arm. Liam was surprised with the arm by an all-volunteer team that makes 3D-printed prosthetics for kids for free.The space-aged prosthetic is modeled after Imperial Clone Troopers in Star Wars."Liam wants it made clear it is a Clone Trooper not a Storm Trooper arm," Liam's mother, Ryan Porter, told ABC News Clone Troopers are the good guys; it's the Storm Troopers yo have to worry about.The arm took about three months to make and cost about $300. It's lighter and easier to use than his old, traditional prosthesis.Liam, who lives in Augusta, Georgia, was born without the lower part of his left arm.Members of the 501st Georgia Garrison, a group of people that dress up as "Star Wars" troopers, surprised Liam with his new arm at a ceremony at a local movie theater."He was actually speechless, which for him is a rarity," Liam's mom said.In it's first year, E-nable, the network of volunteers that makes the prosthetics, gave away more than 700 arms and hands. |
He has only been in graphic storytelling for three years, but already the Czech-born writer has produced several influential series for the biggest publishers – and his latest is set to reinvent crime noir At 28 years old, Ales Kot is at the forefront of a new generation of writers injecting fresh psychedelic and philosophical blood into American comics. His reality-bending, mind-expanding work, combining contemporary issues with pop cultural references, is a breath of fresh air rattling the windows of the comics establishment. After only three years in the business, the Czech-born writer is currently juggling development of his experimental espionage series Zero for television with writing the successful Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier for Marvel. He recently wrapped up Secret Avengers, which he described as “a combination of James Bond, Breaking Bad, Arrested Development and superheroes”, and he has also published the sci-fi epic The Surface and the hard-hitting deconstructionist Material. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ales Kot: ‘I’m not afraid to throw out months of work if a better idea comes along.’ Photograph: Clayton Cubitt His latest work, launched today, 22 July, is Wolf – a crime noir-horror-fantasy set in present day Los Angeles, where Kot now lives. “It follows a suicidal paranormal investigator around the time he meets a young girl who might be the key to the impending apocalypse,” he says. “It’s about vampires, werewolves, concrete, desert, blood and magic. It’s also about Los Angeles, about California, and the ways we define ourselves. And about myths, racism, the prison-industrial complex, and menstruation.” In the first pages a burning man looks down upon the city while crooning Hellhound on My Trail, evoking the myth of singer songwriter Robert Johnson and his supposed pact with the devil: racial tensions boil close to the surface. Kot, raised in the Czech Republic, rattles off his many influences – Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, James Ellroy, HP Lovecraft, Neil Gaiman, Joan Didion, David Lynch and Joni Mitchell – “I’m a sponge!” The frequent footnotes in Material continue the catalogue, directing readers to works by Henry Giroux, Maggie Nelson and Marilynne Robinson alongside track recommendations and quotes from Jack Kirby and George Orwell. In Zero he took an experimental approach, with different artists for each issue including rising British star Tula Lotay on the final instalment out this month, while Material and Wolf both have long-term creative teams: Will Tempest on the former, Matt Taylor and Lee Loughridge on the latter, with letterer Clayton Cowles and cover artist Tom Muller on both titles. Will Wolf continue his experimental scripting approach? “I have the first 12 issues worked out,” Kot explains. “There’s a few scripts and some synopses that run from one sentence to a page – and a boatload of notes. At the same time, I also like to leave empty spaces for synchronicities and whatever the universe sends my way. I’m not afraid to throw out months of work if a better idea comes along.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest A page from the hard-hitting series Material, which namechecks US citizens killed by police. Photograph: Image Comics On the surface Wolf and Material are very different: one is genre, the other isn’t; one is free-flowing while the other is constructed on a nine-panel grid; one deals with fantasy, the other with reality – and yet, both seem very honest pieces of fiction. There’s a lot of anger in Material, particularly about systematic racism, which Kot attacks by including the names of people recently killed by police. How does Kot balance that anger with the demands of his chosen artform? “I feel the key to being a good writer is listening first, writing second,” he says. “The truth is I don’t know how I balance it all, or if I even do. Most days, I feel like a hot mess, and I have to start from that and make a conscious choice to be kind and honest with myself and with the world. Working with themes of race, racism, militarisation of police, protest, gender … how could I not? I can’t turn a blind eye. An artist has a responsibility to the public. And I have a responsibility to myself and the people who live in this world with me. “I don’t have a white saviour complex - but I want to help dismantle racism and patriarchy. Material (and Wolf as well, to a lesser extent) is my way of staying sane in a world where these patterns and systems are still very alive, and it’s also a part of my way of working towards breaking these patterns and systems apart and building something new and better instead. Speaking of racism being still well and alive, it just sometimes hides under a different name: the prison-industrial complex.” He explains the prison-industrial complex as “a way of containing and limiting the rights of citizens while making money from their misery”, adding, “Our governments regularly deceive us and plan against us. So do most, if not all, of the biggest corporations. And the prison-industrial complex is a crucial part of their agenda. It is a way of capitalising people’s misery, and it’s predominantly racist.” It's about vampires, werewolves, concrete, desert, blood, magic, myths, racism, prison-industrial complex, menstruation Ales Kot The launch of Wolf comes in a tumultuous month for American comics, from the always-fraught onslaught of San Diego Comic-Con announcements to the much-criticised handling of race issues in Strange Fruit #1 and an apology for transphobic tropes in Airboy #2. While many comic creators have chosen to stay silent on such issues, retreating to a defensive stance of “Team Comics”, Kot has been as outspoken as ever. “My honesty gets me in trouble,” Kot allows, “but my take is that if they can’t handle me at my realest, they don’t deserve to have me anyway. Which maybe sounds privileged, but it’s not – I turned down plenty of gigs when I had nothing in my bank account and was very sick, without a home, staying at my friend’s studio, not knowing what to do, or where I would be in a month, or if I would even be alive. Turning down work that does not feel right continues to be crucial for my attainment of the kind of career and life that I want.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest Wolf issue number 1. Photograph: Image Comics “I’m not perfect,” he adds, pointing towards his work for Marvel, “because I have plenty of issues with the current copyright laws and the ridiculous, corrupt ways we allow corporations to extend copyright on their most valued properties. But I’m working that out. I’m figuring out how to change things, both from within and from without. I might not always succeed the way I want to, but I am committed to it.” One of his stands is to refuse to write primary characters of colour. “I did it once, and now I’m doing it with some of my own comics, but when it comes to big companies, I thank them, tell them no, and politely recommend creators of colour who I believe can do a great job. I would like to see more professionals in all fields that can get into similar situation do the same, but it always starts with leading by example.” One consistent theme in Kot’s work is the effort to educate or discuss philosophical and current issues through a fairly radical lens. From talk of holographic universes to the timely interrogation of racism and the prison-industrial complex in Wolf, Does he believe fiction can bring about real world change? “The best fiction, to me, educates and entertains at the same time. It brings awe and it leaves us richer than we were before. Sometimes it feels as if it’s reminding us of something we already knew, but forgot a long time ago, and now, with its help, we are remembering again, he says. “The answer to your last question is yes: fiction helps us change ourselves, and when we change ourselves, the world follows. It doesn’t really have a choice – that’s just physics. “… which is a nice soundbite to end on, except that it isn’t the whole truth, you know? There’s so much more to it: the way a book or a painting resonates through me without my understanding why, seeing people replay ancient myths in real time without even knowing it. There’s a reason why the Nazis burned books. They’re powerful. “As Orwell said, in time of universal deceit – telling truth is a revolutionary act.” |
STANFORD, Calif. - Checking a box next to a racial/ethnic category gives several pieces of information about people - the continent where their ancestors were born, the possible color of their skin and perhaps something about their risk of different diseases. But a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine finds that the checked box also says something about a person's genetic background. This work comes on the heels of several contradictory studies about the genetic basis of race. Some found that race is a social construct with no genetic basis while others suggested that clear genetic differences exist between people of different races. What makes the current study, published in the February issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, more conclusive is its size. The study is by far the largest, consisting of 3,636 people who all identified themselves as either white, African-American, East Asian or Hispanic. Of these, only five individuals had DNA that matched an ethnic group different than the box they checked at the beginning of the study. That's an error rate of 0.14 percent. According to Neil Risch, PhD, a UCSF professor who led the study while he was professor of genetics at Stanford, the findings are particularly surprising given that people in both African-American and Hispanic ethnic groups often have a mixed background. "We might expect these individuals to cross several different genetic clusters," Risch said. This is especially true for Hispanics who are often a mix of Native American, white and African-American ancestry. But that's not what the study found. Instead, each self-identified racial/ethnic group clumped into the same genetic cluster. The people in this research were all part of a study on the genetics of hypertension, recruited at 15 locations within the United States and in Taiwan. This broad distribution is important because it means that the results are representative of racial/ethnic groups throughout the United States rather than a small region that might not reflect the population nationwide. For each person in the study, the researchers examined 326 DNA regions that tend to vary between people. These regions are not necessarily within genes, but are simply genetic signposts on chromosomes that come in a variety of different forms at the same location. Without knowing how the participants had identified themselves, Risch and his team ran the results through a computer program that grouped individuals according to patterns of the 326 signposts. This analysis could have resulted in any number of different clusters, but only four clear groups turned up. And in each case the individuals within those clusters all fell within the same self-identified racial group. "This shows that people's self-identified race/ethnicity is a nearly perfect indicator of their genetic background," Risch said. When the team further analyzed each of the four clusters, they found two distinct sub-groups within the East Asian genetic cluster. These two groups correlated with people who identified themselves as Chinese and Japanese. None of the other genetic groups could be broken down into smaller sub-sections. This suggests that there isn't enough genetic difference to distinguish between people who have ancestry from northern Europe versus southern Europe, for example. Risch admitted that few people in this study were of recent mixed ancestry, who might not fall into such neat genetic categories. This work could influence how medical research is carried out. Often researchers ask study participants to identify their race and ethnicity at the beginning of a clinical trial. The researchers can then follow people of different racial/ethnic groups to see which group is more likely to get a particular disease or respond well to a new treatment. This information can help future doctors know which patients may need additional disease screening or should receive one treatment over another. But recently some researchers have moved to examining genetic differences between participants rather than relying on race and ethnicity. Their reasoning is that genetic differences may be a more precise tool for tracking groups of patients. Risch points out that this genetic analysis is costly. If people fall into the same groups using self-identified race as using genetics, then that could bring down the expanding cost of medical research. ### Other Stanford researchers who participated in this work include Hua Tang, a graduate student now at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and Tom Quertermous, MD, the William G. Irwin Professor in Cardiovascular Medicine. Stanford University Medical Center integrates research, medical education and patient care at its three institutions - Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford. For more information, please visit the Web site of the medical center's Office of Communication & Public Affairs at http://mednews.stanford.edu. |
For the sixth consecutive game, New York Red Bulls U-23s picked up three points in PDL. On Sunday, June 11, the opponent was FA Euro New York - a team the U-23s had beaten 3-0 on June 3 - and the result was a 2-0 win for RBNY. The Red Bulls U-23s had two second-half goals to thank for their win. Top-scorer Brian White bagged his fifth goal in six appearances (assisted by Malcolm Dixon), and Jose Aguinaga added the capper - his third of the season for RBNY in PDL. 'Keeper Ben Lundgaard picked up his third shut-out in six games. And RBNY Academy product Henry Martin made his first appearance of the season for the U-23s, playing the full 90 minutes. The win keeps the unbeaten U-23s at the top of PDL's Mid Atlantic Division, with a perfect 18 points from six games. Next, the team plays Jersey Express on June 14. The match will be played at the Red Bull Training Facility. Kick-off is scheduled for 7:30 pm; admission is free. |
After you die, your body’s atoms will disperse and find new venues, making their way into oceans, trees and other bodies. But according to the laws of quantum mechanics, all of the information about your body’s build and function will prevail. The relations between the atoms, the uncountable particulars that made you you, will remain forever preserved, albeit in unrecognisably scrambled form – lost in practice, but immortal in principle. There is only one apparent exception to this reassuring concept: according to our current physical understanding, information cannot survive an encounter with a black hole. Forty years ago, Stephen Hawking demonstrated that black holes destroy information for good. Whatever falls into a black hole disappears from the rest of the Universe. It eventually reemerges in a wind of particles – ‘Hawking radiation’ – that leaks away from the event horizon, the black hole’s outer physical boundary. In this way, black holes slowly evaporate, but the process erases all knowledge about the black hole’s formation. The radiation merely carries data for the total mass, charge and angular momentum of the matter that collapsed; every other detail about anything that fell into the black hole is irretrievably lost. Hawking’s discovery of black-hole evaporation has presented theoretical physicists with a huge conundrum: general relativity says that black holes must destroy information; quantum mechanics says it cannot happen because information must live on eternally. Both general relativity and quantum mechanics are extremely well-tested theories, and yet they refuse to combine. The clash reveals something much more fundamental than a seemingly exotic quirk about black holes: the information paradox makes it aptly clear that physicists still do not understand the fundamental laws of nature. But Gia Dvali, professor of physics at the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, believes he’s found the solution. ‘Black holes are quantum computers,’ he says. ‘We have an explicit information-processing sequence.’ If he is correct, the paradox is no more, and information truly is immortal. Even more startling, perhaps, is that his concept has practical implications. In the future, we might be able to tap black-hole physics to construct quantum computers of our own. The main reason why recovering information from black holes seems impossible is that they are almost featureless spheroids with essentially no physical attributes on their horizons; they have ‘no hair’, as the late US physicist John Wheeler put it. You cannot store information in something that has no features that could be used to encode it, the standard argument goes. And therein lies the error, Dvali says: ‘All these no-hair theorems are wrong.’ He and his collaborators argue that gravitons – the so-far undiscovered quanta that carry gravity and make up space-time – stretch throughout the black hole and give rise to ‘quantum hair’ which allows storing as well as releasing information. The new research builds on a counter-intuitive feature of quantum theory: quantum effects are not necessarily microscopically small. True, those effects are fragile, and are destroyed quickly in warm and busy environments, such as those typically found on Earth. This is why we don’t normally witness them. This is also the main challenge in building quantum computers, which process information using the quantum states of particles instead of the on-off logic of traditional transistors. But in a cold and isolated place, quantum behaviour can persist over large distances – large enough to span the tens to billions of kilometres of a black-hole horizon. You don’t even need to go to outer space to witness long-range quantum effects. The enormous distances and masses necessary to create black-hole quantum hair might be far beyond our experimental capabilities, but by cooling atoms down to less than one ten-thousandth of a Kelvin (that is, one ten-thousandth of a degree above absolute zero), researchers have condensed up to a billion atoms, spread out over several millimetres, into a single quantum state. That’s huge for collective quantum behaviour. Hawking’s information puzzle would find a natural solution if black holes are, in essence, puddles of condensed gravity Such an atomic collective – known as a Bose-Einstein condensate, named after the Indian physicist Satyendra Bose and Albert Einstein – is currently one of the most promising tools for creating a workable quantum computer. Quantum effects within a Bose-Einstein condensate, like the ability to be in two places at the same time, can stretch through the whole condensate, giving rise to many interlocked states. Enormous information-processing power could become available if researchers succeed in stabilising the condensate and controlling these states. And, not coincidentally, Bose-Einstein condensates might also solve the decades-old puzzle of black-hole information loss. Hawking’s information puzzle would find a natural solution, Dvali notes, if black holes consist of gravitons that have undergone Bose-Einstein condensation – puddles of condensed gravity, in essence. The idea might sound crazy, but for Dvali it’s a perfectly reasonable conclusion, drawn from what physicists have learned about black-hole information in the years since Hawking first posed his riddle. Theorists know how to calculate how much information the black hole must be able to store: the amount is quantified in the black hole’s entropy and proportional to the horizon surface area. They have also found that black holes can redistribute or ‘scramble’ information very quickly. And finally, they know the pace at which information must escape from the black hole in order to avoid conflicts with quantum mechanics. Starting in 2012, Dvali explored these various attributes and discovered, to his surprise, that certain types of Bose-Einstein condensates share their essential properties with black holes. To act like a black hole, the condensate must linger at a transition point – its so-called quantum critical point – where extended fluctuations span through the fluid just before the quantum behaviour collapses. Such a quantum-critical condensate, Dvali calculated, has the same entropy, scrambling capacity and release time as a black hole: it has just the right quantum hair. ‘Somebody can say this is a coincidence, but I consider it extremely strong evidence – mathematical evidence that is – that black holes genuinely are Bose-Einstein condensates,’ he says. Linking black holes with a form of matter that can be created in the lab means that some aspects of Dvali’s idea can be explored experimentally. Immanuel Bloch, professor of physics at the Max-Planck-Institute in Munich, has first-hand experience with Bose-Einstein condensates. He condenses atoms in ‘crystals of light’ – optical lattices created by intersecting multiple laser beams – and then takes snapshots of the condensate using a technique called fluorescence imaging. The resulting pictures beautifully reveal the atoms’ correlated quantum behaviour. Bloch finds Dvali’s idea, which originated in a field entirely different from his, intriguing. ‘I am pretty excited about Gia’s proposal. I think that’s something really new,’ Bloch says. ‘People have seen collapse dynamics with interacting condensates, but nobody has so far investigated the quantum critical point and what happens there. ‘In the BEC [Bose-Einstein condensate] you have macroscopic quantum waves, and this means in the quantum numbers you have a lot of fluctuations. This is why the BEC normally looks like a Swiss cheese,’ he continues. But by applying a magnetic field, Bloch can change the strength by which the atoms interact, thereby coaxing them into an orderly lattice. ‘Now you make the atoms strongly interacting, then you go to the [very orderly] “Mott state”. This is a great state for quantum computing because you have this regular array. And you can address the atoms with lasers and rotate them around and change the spin [to encode and process information].’ ‘Dvali’s idea is competing with a lot of other stuff out on the market. I have more skepticism than faith’ According to Dvali, black-hole physics reveals a better way to store information in a Bose-Einstein condensate by using different quantum states. Black holes are the simplest, most compact, most efficient information storage devices that physicists know of. Using the black holes’ coding protocol therefore should be the best possible method to store information in condensate-based quantum computers. Creating a black-hole-mimic condensate in the lab seems doable to Bloch: ‘[In a black hole,] the interaction strength adjusts itself. We can simulate something like that by tuning the interaction strength to where the condensate is just about to collapse. The fluctuations become bigger and bigger and bigger as you get closer to the quantum critical point. And that could simulate such a system. One could study all the quantum fluctuations and non-equilibrium situations – all that is now possible by observing these condensates in situ, with high spatial resolution.’ Just because realising Dvali’s idea is possible does not necessarily mean it is practical, however. ‘It’s competing with a lot of other stuff out on the market. Right now, I have more skepticism than faith,’ Bloch says. He also points out that efficient information storage is nice, but for quantum computers ‘information capacity is presently not the problem’. The biggest challenge he sees is finding a way to individually manipulate the quantum states that Dvali has identified – data processing, rather than data storage. There are other practical hurdles as well. ‘There are so many things we don’t know, like noise, is it resistant to noise? We don’t know,’ Bloch notes. ‘For me, the much more interesting aspect is the connection to gravitational physics.’ And here the implications go well beyond information storage. Dvali’s is not the only recent research suggesting a connection between gravity and condensed-matter physics, a trend that has opened whole new realms to experimental investigation. In the tradition of Einstein, physicists generally think of curved space-time as the arena for matter and its interactions. But now several independent lines of research suggest that space-time might not be as insubstantial as we thought. Gravity, it seems, can emerge from non-gravitational physics. In the past decades, numerous links between gravity and certain types of fluids have demonstrated that systems with collective quantum behaviour can mimic curved space-time, giving rise to much the same equations as one obtains in Einstein’s theory of general relativity. There is not yet any approach from which general relativity can be derived in full generality by positing that space-time is a condensate. For now, nobody knows whether it is possible at all. Still, the newfound relations allow physicists to study those gravitational systems that can be mimicked with atomic condensates. Simulating gravity with condensates allows physicists to explore regions – such as black-hole horizons – that are not otherwise accessible to experiment. And so, although Hawking radiation has never been observed in real black holes, its analogue has been measured for black holes simulated through Bose-Einstein condensates. Of course, these condensates are not really black holes – they trap sound waves, not light – but they obey some of the same mathematical laws. The condensates do thus, in a sense, perform otherwise complicated, even intractable, physics calculations. ‘We like to speak of “quantum simulations” and try to use these systems to look for interesting phenomena that are hard to calculate on classical computers,’ says Bloch. ‘We are also trying to use this kind of system to test other systems like the black holes, or we looked at the [analogue of the] Higgs particle in two dimensions.’ In a 2012 Nature paper, Bloch and his collaborators reported that their quantum simulation revealed that Higgs-like particles can also exist in two dimensions. The same technique could in principle be used to study Bose-Einstein condensates behaving like black holes. ‘The black hole [no hair] theorems are, sorry, crap’ But using black-hole physics to develop new protocols for quantum computers is one thing. Finding out whether astrophysical black holes really are condensates of gravitons is another thing entirely. ‘I am not interested in the idea if one can’t test it,’ says Stefan Hofmann, a theoretical cosmologist and colleague of Dvali’s in Munich. Hofmann therefore has dedicated significant time to exploring the observational consequences of the idea that black holes are graviton condensates. ‘The black hole [no hair] theorems are, sorry, crap,’ he agrees with Dvali. Hofmann thinks that the quantum hair nearby the black-hole horizon would subtly alter the predictions of general relativity (especially the emission of gravitational waves during formation or collision of black holes), in ways that should be detectable. ‘The dream would be a binary [black hole] merger,’ Hofmann said in a 2015 seminar. His dream has just become true: the LIGO collaboration recently announced the first measurement of gravitational waves emitted from a merging pair of black holes. Hofmann and his collaborators have yet to make quantitative predictions, but due to the macroscopic quantum effects, Dvali’s proposed solution to the information-loss problem might soon become experimentally testable. However, the idea that black holes are quantum-critical condensates of gravitons, truly equivalent to a Bose-Einstein condensate, leaves many questions open. To begin with, Dvali’s calculations cannot explain what actually happens to matter falling into a black hole. And Hofmann admits that it isn’t clear how the object is a ‘black hole’ in the conventional sense, since it can no longer be described within the familiar framework of general relativity. Carlo Rovelli from the University of Marseille thinks that, even in incomplete form, Davli’s idea of black holes as condensates might be scientifically useful. ‘They are using a brutal approximation which might fail to capture aspects, but it might work to some extent, especially in the long wavelength regime. For the low-frequency quantum fluctuations of [space-time] it may not be absurd,’ Rovelli says. He cautions, however, that the condensate model ‘cannot be a complete description of what happens in the black hole’. What is clear, though, is that this research has revealed a previously unrecognised, and quite fruitful, relation. ‘We have a very interesting bridge between quantum information and black-hole physics that was not discussed before,’ Dvali says. If he is right, the implications are conceptually staggering. Information really does live on eternally. In that sense, we are all immortal. And the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy? It’s actually a cosmic quantum computer. |
Dear Whyistheskyblue, You have given me the most perfect suitable fantastic present I could ever wish for. To be honest, after I got shafted I felt a bit sad about this years Secret Santa. Well, you've twisted that feeling a whole 180 degree around to the point I'm overjoyed I participated. I cannot thank you enough! My girlfriend and I will enjoy all the episodes once again, for many evenings to come. (This is so suiting since House got removed from Netflix... You did a really amazing job!) So for the experience. After a whole day of work I arrived at home to find a parcel waiting for me. I eagerly cut it open to find bubble wrap and a very fitting, nice bag. To be honest, the note attached spoiled the gift inside, but it only made me open it faster. And there it was; A season 1 to 8 House Box Once again, thank you so so so much, I'm really overjoyed by your gift! |
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The violence took place outside the Turkish ambassador's residence in Washington DC Germany says it does not expect Turkish security agents who were charged for violent scuffles in Washington last month to join President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a G20 summit next week. A spokesman said leaders can bring their own bodyguards to the summit in Hamburg, but the law must be respected. A list of Turkish officials expected to travel to the event reportedly included several people involved in the brawl. US prosecutors charged 12 agents with assault last week for the incident. Police called it a "brutal attack" on protesters by Turkish security personnel, but Turkey blamed the violence on pro-Kurdish demonstrators who were outside the Turkish ambassador's residence in Washington. The case strained US-Turkey relations and could inflict more damage on already soured relations between Ankara and Berlin, correspondents say. Germany's foreign ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer said: "I have reason to expect that these people, who have been incriminated by the American criminal justice (system) will not step onto German soil in the foreseeable future, including during the G20 summit." German media reported that a list of 50 people who were expected to accompany Mr Erdogan included agents that had participated in the incident. In response, German authorities told Turkey to not bring those security personnel, newspaper Die Welt reports (in German). Officials say they expect violent protests during the summit, to be held on 7 and 8 July. Some 15,000 security agents are expected to be deployed in Hamburg. |
Have you ever loaded up a retro arcade game with MAME, only to be greeted with an error message about those bad ROMs you downloaded 2 years ago? Well one enterprising developer decided to take that idea and actually turn it into a game. The chaos that ensues in ROM CHECK FAIL! is one that really needs to be seen to be understood, but basically, the virtual arcade machine starts out with a failed startup sequence, and proceeds to land you in a warped 8-bit game mashup, where worlds continuously collide. One second, you’re controlling Mario as he navigates the Mushroom Kingdom, and the next minute Pac-Man is getting killed by tumbling Asteroids. To give you a better idea of the mayhem, here’s a video clip of the game in action: This is truly a must-try for anyone who loves retro gaming. You can grab both Windows and Linux installers for ROM CHECK FAIL! over at Farbs.org. See if you can spot all of the different classic games that are packed into this crazy thing. [thanks for the tip, John!] |
On the afternoon of July 4, 2012, Brendan Iribe, Nate Mitchell and Michael Antonov sat in a room at the Long Beach Hilton, nervously waiting for Palmer Luckey. Luckey was late—very late, in fact—but that wasn’t the only thing making them edgy. Just days before, the three video game industry veterans had agreed to found a company with Luckey to develop a device he called the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset that had been lauded as revolutionary by nearly everyone who had tested it. Because this new venture conflicted with a deal they’d made with another tech company, partnering with Luckey meant potentially forfeiting millions of dollars. And therein lay the source of their anxiety: Not only were they walking away from a lot of money, the three were gambling on a product they had never actually tried themselves. “Palmer described the Rift in such a compelling way that we wanted to do it without even seeing it,” Iribe explained. “We thought, Why not?” When Luckey finally bounded into the room, clad in T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops, Iribe’s unease about the risk they’d taken escalated. Their grinning 19-year-old business partner wasn’t holding a slick-looking prototype; he was lugging in a tray tangled over with a mess of cables. That’s Oculus? Iribe thought. From underneath this thicket, Luckey dug out a crudely fashioned electronics box, apparently the headset: a tape-covered black brick with wires poking out from every angle. As Luckey cheerfully struggled to get this jumble into working order, Iribe was all but holding his breath. Finally, Luckey handed the headset to Antonov, who pressed it to his eyes and, slowly, began to bob his head around, exploring a three-dimensional digital space. “Wow ...” he managed. After his turn, Mitchell offered the same monosyllabic response. “I was the last to try it,” recalled Iribe, who is now the CEO of Oculus VR, the company they founded. “Sure enough, it really worked. And we all looked at each other like, Oh, my God.” In his parents' garage, he dreamed up Oculus Rift, a homemade headset that's creating a new reality They would not be the last investors moved to rapture by Luckey’s invention. This past March, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stopped by the Oculus offices for a demonstration and, according to Fortune magazine, immediately pronounced the Rift “one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.” Within weeks, Facebook bought the company for $2 billion. In the Rift, Zuckerberg saw something far grander than a mere entertainment device. “Imagine enjoying a court-side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face—just by putting on goggles in your home,” he wrote at the time. Even better, for Facebook’s purposes, virtual reality could allow users to share entire immersive experiences, rather than just photos. To Jeremy Bailenson, the director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab and the co-author of the book Infinite Reality, the widespread use of virtual reality has the potential not just to change our leisure habits but to alter how we think and live. “An example I use is Yosemite, which millions of people drive through each year,” Bailenson told me. “With virtual reality, we can now produce an experience that rivals that drive, which means we could potentially spare a lot of wear and tear on the environment, and also make it available to people who couldn’t afford to go otherwise.” Bailenson’s research shows that immersion in a digital world can make people more environmentally conscious—for instance, by showing them firsthand the devastation of a simulated trash-strewn ocean—and even, perhaps, more compassionate. “If you can virtually look in a mirror and see yourself as a senior citizen, or as belonging to a different race, or as handicapped, that helps you form empathy with others in different walks of life,” he said. And if dreams like these come to fruition sooner rather than later, most of the credit will go to Luckey. When I went to meet him this past summer at Oculus’s new offices, in a sleek high-rise in Irvine, California, evidence of the company’s breakneck growth was everywhere. Desks piled with computer equipment and Rift prototypes lay scattered seemingly at random through vast, monochromatic open-plan areas. Staffers unpacked fresh blue Facebook T-shirts and posted maps of the regional offices of their giant parent company. Hammering and drilling noises punctuated seemingly every conversation. The one notable thing that was missing was Luckey himself, who, naturally, was late. But when he finally showed, in his standard uniform of jeans, striped T-shirt, and sandals, there was no mistaking it. “I am Palmer!” he proclaimed, and his energy instantly infused the office. At 22, he still seems like an overgrown teenager, with an unruly mop of brown hair, a fondness for emphatically pronouncing things “super cool,” and a habit of staying in constant motion even when sitting still. (Despite being a millionaire many times over, he’s clung to the much-loved car from his teenage days, a 2001 Honda Insight, as well.) Where Zuckerberg and other titans of tech are often chilly and aloof, Luckey is all warmth and geek charm—a smiling, chatty pitchman who also happens to be a world-class engineer. And all of this energy, I soon learned, was despite his being ill; moments earlier, he told me, he had thrown up inside a friend’s brand-new Tesla. When I expressed surprise at his exuberance, he shrugged. “I have a really high pain-slash-sickness tolerance,” he said. Chris Dycus, an Oculus hardware engineer, described Luckey’s zeal as a nearly indestructible force. “Palmer’s enthusiastic about everything,” he said. “Like, go ask him why McDonald’s isn’t actually that bad for you, and you’ll get talked to for an hour.” But Luckey is first and foremost an evangelist for virtual reality. For decades, people have dreamed of a technology that would let them experience an alternate reality—artificial, crafted, entirely new. Companies poured billions of dollars into research in the ’80s and ’90s but computing technology simply wasn’t advanced enough yet; by the time Luckey started playing around with virtual reality, most had given it up for dead. There were specialty headsets available on the market, but they were a huge letdown. “A lot of them were low resolution,” Luckey told me, ticking off their deficiencies. “They were extremely heavy—my best one weighed six pounds. All of them had a low field of view.” Even worse, new models could easily cost more than a new Porsche. In just a few years of tinkering, the teenage Luckey turned all of that on its head, using existing parts to engineer something far better and lighter than any other headset out there, all for under $300—thereby creating the first virtual reality device that could be a viable mainstream product. And he did it not in a lab but in his parents’ garage. *** If there is a case to be made that unconventional schooling, without busywork or fixed schedules, helps unleash creativity, Luckey might well be Exhibit A for the prosecution. His mother, Julie, home-schooled all four of her children during a period of each of their childhoods (Luckey’s father, Donald, is a car salesman), but Palmer was the only one of the kids who never went back; he liked the flexibility too much. In his ample free time, he devoted most of his considerable energy to teaching himself how to build electronics from scratch. No one else in Luckey’s family was especially interested in technology, but his parents were happy to give over half of the garage at their Long Beach, California, home to his experiments. There, Luckey quickly progressed from making small electronics to “high-voltage stuff” like lasers and electromagnetic coilguns. Inevitably, there were mishaps. While working on a live Tesla coil, Luckey once accidentally touched a grounded metal bed frame, and blew himself across the garage; another time, while cleaning an infrared laser, he burned a gray spot into his vision. When Luckey was 15, he started “modding” video game equipment: taking consoles like the Nintendo GameCube, disassembling them, and modifying them with newer parts, to transform them into compact, efficient and hand-crafted devices. “Modding was more interesting than just building things entirely using new technologies,” Luckey told me. “It was this very special type of engineering that required deeply understanding why people had made the decisions they made in designing the hardware.” Luckey soon became obsessed with PC gaming. How well, he wondered, could he play games? “Not skill level,” he clarified to me, “but how good could the experience be?” By this time, Luckey was making good money fixing broken iPhones, and he spent most of it on high-end gaming equipment in order to make the experience as immersive as possible. At one point, his standard gaming setup consisted of a mind-boggling six-monitor arrangement. “It was so sick,” he recalled. But it wasn’t enough. Luckey didn’t just want to play on expensive screens; he wanted to jump inside the game itself. He knew the military sometimes trained soldiers using virtual reality headsets, so he set out to buy some—on the cheap, through government auctions. “You’d read that these VR systems originally cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and you thought, clearly if they’re that expensive, they must be really good,” Luckey said. Instead, they fell miles short of his hopes. The field of view on one headset might be so narrow that he’d feel as if he was looking through a half-opened door. Another might weigh ten pounds, or have preposterously long lag between his head moving and the image reacting onscreen—a feature common to early VR that literally makes users nauseated. So Luckey decided to do what he’d been doing for years with game consoles: He’d take the technology apart, figure out where it was falling short and modify it with new parts to improve it. Very quickly, he realized that this wasn’t going to be simple. “It turned out that a lot of the approaches the old systems were taking were dead ends,” he said. The problem was one of fundamental design philosophy. In order to create the illusion of a three-dimensional digital world from a single flat screen, VR manufacturers had typically used complex optical apparatuses that magnified the onscreen image to fill the user’s visual field while also correcting for any distortion. Because these optics had to perform a variety of elaborate tricks to make the magnified image seem clear, they were extremely heavy and costly to produce. Luckey’s solution to this dilemma was ingeniously simple. Why use bulky, expensive optics, he thought, when he could put in cheap, lightweight lenses and then use software to distort the image, so that it came out clear through them? Plus, he quickly realized that he could combine these lenses with screens from mobile phones, which the smartphone arms race had made bigger, crisper and less expensive than ever before. “That let me make something that was a lot lighter and cheaper, with a much wider field of view, than anything else out there,” he said. From 2009 to 2012, while also taking college classes and working at the University of Southern California’s VR-focused Institute for Creative Technologies, Luckey poured countless hours into creating a working prototype from this core vision. He tinkered with different screens, mixed and matched parts from his collection of VR hardware, and refined the motion tracking equipment, which monitored the user’s head movements in real-time. Amazingly, considering the eventual value of his invention, Luckey was also posting detailed reports about his work to a 3-D gaming message board. The idea was sitting there for anyone to steal. But, as Brendan Iribe put it to me, “Maybe his name is Luckey for a reason.” By that point, no one was interested in throwing more money away on another doomed virtual reality project. Then, in early 2012, luck struck again when the legendary video game programmer John Carmack stumbled onto his work online and asked Luckey if he could buy one of his prototypes. Luckey sent him one for free. “I played it super cool,” he assured me. Carmack returned the favor in a big way: At that June’s E3 convention—the game industry’s gigantic annual commercial carnival—he showed off the Rift prototype to a flock of journalists, using a repurposed version of his hit game “Doom 3” for the demonstration. The response was immediate and ecstatic. “I was in Boston at a display conference at the time,” Luckey said, “and people there were like, ‘Dude, Palmer, everyone’s writing articles about your thing!’” The rest, as they say, is virtual history: Over the next 21 months, Luckey partnered with Iribe, Antonov and Mitchell, launched a Kickstarter campaign that netted $2.4 million in funding—nearly ten times its initial goal—and joined the Facebook empire, thereby ensuring the company the kind of financial backing that most early-stage tech companies can only dream of. The Oculus Rift is now entering its final stages of development—it’s slated for commercial release next year—and this fall Samsung will release a scaled-down product for developers and enthusiasts, powered by Oculus technology, that will clip over the company’s Galaxy Note 4 smartphone. But Luckey knows that success is by no means assured. “To this point, there has never been a successful commercial VR product, ever,” Luckey told me. “Nobody’s actually managed to pull this off.” Spend a few minutes inside the Rift, though, and one can’t help but believe that Luckey will be the one to do it. *** “Oh, wow,” chuckled the older gentleman ahead of me in the Oculus demo room, his head nodding about with a Rift prototype, the DK2, slung like a pair of thick black ski goggles over his face. “Oh jeez. The guy’s right here.” I tapped my foot impatiently. All day, I’d been giddy about my impending journey into the intoxicating new virtual world, and my time of revelation was achingly close. Finally, Joseph Chen, a bullet-headed Oculus product lead, ushered me onto the still-warm demo chair. This version of the Rift, he explained, had come a long way from earlier iterations. Whereas previously the headset’s dozens of tiny infrared LEDs—continuously monitored by a camera to mirror the user’s head movements—had been exposed, now they were invisible beneath the Rift’s smooth plastic veneer. Its software could render video at 75 frames per second (compared with high-definition TV’s paltry 24), making the virtual experience feel smooth and natural instead of nauseatingly choppy. At long last, I strapped on the Rift—which, with my glasses on, made an uncomfortably tight fit—and braced myself to vault headlong into the future. And my first impression of said future, I must report, was that it was neat enough—but not quite mind-blowing. Mind-breezing, you might say. As soon as the Rift came down over my eyes, I found myself hovering above an archipelago of verdant land masses, staring down at a cartoonish orange fox. This was Lucky (no relation), of “Lucky’s Tale,” a run-and-jump game in the mold of Nintendo’s “Super Mario” series. Yet the experience truly was different. I could gaze up and see clouds floating through a blue sky, look over to find a crashing waterfall, and peer around to get a better view of the swinging wooden mallets through which Lucky was supposed to navigate. At one point, a pair of sapphire butterflies fluttered right before my eyes, making me draw back in surprise. The problem, though, was that I felt as if I was exploring Lucky’s world with wire mesh over my eyes. This is the so-called “screen door” effect—the product of the Rift’s screen being magnified so greatly that the black squares around the pixels become visible—and it’s a distracting barrier to the immersion process. But, in time, I felt myself learning to ignore the screen door and enjoy the Rift for what it was: a novel, immersive new digital medium. When Chen cued up a different program—a graphics demo in which you perch over a stone labyrinth filled with tiny marching dwarves—I started to grow legitimately excited about the Rift’s promise. As the minutes ticked by, my brain began to forget that this digital world wasn’t actually reality. With a tilt of my head, I could stare down into a glowing river of magma flowing between my legs, and it almost seemed as though I would scorch my hand if I reached down and touched it. When the Rift arrives in stores, it will be an imperfect, fledgling product, but one that promises previously unimaginable new experiences. Luckey himself agrees with this assessment. “This is the Model T,” he told me. “We want to be where the Tesla is eventually. What we have now is something that’s affordable, that’s good enough for people, and that will be able to sustain the growth that’s needed to get to the Tesla.” And what, I asked, is the VR equivalent of the Tesla in this analogy? Perfect virtual reality, he replied—by which he meant a digital experience that is indistinguishable from real life. “That’s the end goal,” he said. “We’ll get there within my lifetime.” For now, though, Luckey is buoyantly happy with the development of the Rift, and with his role at Oculus. He doesn’t get to do as much engineering work these days, but rather than feel left out, he’s glad to leave the grunt work behind. “It wasn’t like I was handing off my baby to someone,” he explained. “It’s more like I was handing off changing the diapers to someone, and I still get the baby.” He remains plenty busy doing precisely what he loves: building excitement for what will be the first true wave of popular virtual reality—a wave that he, to his continual amazement, helped to create. “All of a sudden, we haven’t just built a viable company,” he told me. “We’ve revitalized an entire segment of dreams. That’s...” Luckey paused for a moment, uncharacteristically short of words. “That’s super cool.” |
“He @RickSantorum lost his 06 Senate race by 18 points. He is also disqualified for 18 Ohio delegates. Coincidence? And these lost delegates show that he is badly organized and not a good manager.” Donald Trump, March 2012 Kyle Cheney of Politico found some tweets from Donald Trump from 2012, where he slammed then-presidential candidate Rick Santorum for not understanding delegate rules. Here is the list: Despite complaints today, @realDonaldTrump seemed to have a nuanced understanding of the delegate process in 2012. pic.twitter.com/rrLebt4DRg — Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) April 11, 2016 Here are some with their “twitlonger” text. He @RickSantorum lost his 06 Senate race by 18 points. He is also disqualified for 18 Ohio delegates. (cont) http://t.co/jcbS4Prv — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 5, 2012 He @RickSantorum is ineligible for 30 delegates next month due to his campaign missing deadlines. (cont) http://t.co/3hfgEzHp — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 12, 2012 The Twitlonger version: @RickSantorum's campaign is so inept he doesn't even have a full slate of delegates in his home state of (cont) http://t.co/Hn5S2OFU — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2012 The Twitlonger version: Indeed. H/T: Angela Riley Related: |
When Marvel and Netflix first announced their new partnership that would bring us shows starring Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist prior to them all teaming up to become what is known as The Defenders. We are already well on our way to seeing that become a reality with two seasons of Daredevil already being released with Charlie Cox starring, plus the first season of Jessica Jones which featured Kryten Ritter as the lead but also introduced us to Mike Colter as Luke Cage. His own series is set to debut in September and rumor has it, Finn Jones will make his debut as Iron Fist. The Iron Fist series is the only thing standing between us and The Defenders mini-series. When the time comes, it will be interesting to see how all these heroes come together and work as a team. Season 2 of Daredevil dealt with Matt realizing he needs help protecting his city, but even though a second season of Jessica Jones has been ordered, we will not get to see Jessica make that adjustment before. Ritter recently spoke to the LA Times about season 1 of her show and the eventual team up, and she does not see the fit right now. I’m really looking forward to it. I think Marvel is proving just over and over again that the quality is so high. I mean, I don’t know how Jessica fits into that world. I think we kind of all feel that way. Like, how do we all get together? How does that work? But I’m excited to see what they come up with. There is no doubt in my mind that the writers will make her decision to join the team make sense for the character and that it will play directly into season 2 of the show as well. Ritter will be playing Jessica non-stop later this year with Defenders and season 2 possibly filming back to back, and this looks to be only the beginning of the road. She understands this and realizes how much this one role has changed her life. The whole thing is just more than I could have ever imagined. Getting this part completely changed my life. It changed where I live and it changed the amount of promotion, the shooting. It’s changed everything. The first season focused plenty on Jessica’s backstory, with there still being areas that could be explored moving forward. For Ritter, developing this backstory and basically living it out in her real life made the character even more special to play. It helped her tremendously to experience pieces of Jessica’s life in her own so that she could further understand the mentality that she would have. It was also nice to have Melissa Rosenberg and S.J. Clarkson around to help build Jessica. That’s the exciting part for an actor. So getting a character with this incredibly rich back story — everything she does is informed by this back story — is really exciting, because I always knew where I was coming from. But it definitely takes a toll because I’m more bubbly and alive and zestful and I like to have a good time. So after a while, you’re like, “Oh my God, I’m getting really depressed.” And I just had to move across the country, so I’m in an apartment that doesn’t have my furniture. I’m not around my friends. I spent a lot of time walking around doing the scenes by myself in my apartment. All of that helped me find Jessica’s loneliness. Melissa and I have had a very open dialogue from the beginning. We also have a great director, S.J. Clarkson, who I always felt like was in it with me. She was the constant. I do have a lot of scenes where I’m all by myself, and so I would turn to her afterward and she would be the person I connected with. Season one ended with Jessica making the difficult decision to kill Kilgrave with her bare hands. This was not an easy choice for her to make, and we will feel the repercussions in season 2, but it was definitely necessary for the character to be free from his grasp and for the show to move forward. Although it may have been difficult to kill another person, Ritter was all for it. Around Episode 12, before I got the finale, I was like, she’s got to, she’s got to kill him. After Hope died, everything kind of shifted. For me, playing her, at the moment when Jessica kills him, she’s very conflicted because he was her purpose. It’s a little bit of a Stockholm syndrome thing. She’s almost become codependent on that relationship, but he’s just been so awful, and Jessica needs to kill him to get to that next step. I don’t know where she goes next emotionally, but I know in the moment when we were playing that scene, it was very difficult for me. There is no word yet if Jessica will visit her old friend Luke come September, but it would be a surprise to me if that did not happen. Hopefully we do not have to wait until Defenders to see her again. Let us know how you think The Defenders should be formed and any other thoughts you have in the comments below! Source: LA Times. |
GHC 6.12.1 only works with Cabal-install version 0.8 or later. Please upgrade if you have an older version of cabal-install. If you have installed a standalone GHC before and are upgrading to 6.12.1, note that this release of GHC comes with fewer packages than before. The extra packages have to be installed separately. For most users, we recommend installing the Haskell Platform instead of GHC. The current Haskell Platform release includes a recent GHC as well as some other tools (such as cabal), and a larger set of libraries that are known to work together. The GHC 6.12.1 release is aimed primarily at package maintainers and early adopters. GHC is packaged for a number of operating systems and distributions. While they may lag behind the latest GHC release, advantages such as dependency checking and ease of uninstallation mean we recommend using them anyway, unless you have a particular need for new features or bug fixes. The OS-specific packages (eg. RPMs on Linux) are generally a better bet than the vanilla .tar.bz2 binary bundles, because they will check for dependencies and allow the package to be uninstalled at a later date. However, if you don't have permission to install binaries on your system, or you want to install somewhere other than the default place ( /usr or /usr/local on a Unix system), then you'll need to use a .tar.bz2 binary bundle. Supported platforms Linux (x86) Generic i386 Linux. This is a complete build, including interactive system, profiling libraries and documentation. ghc-6.12.1-i386-unknown-linux-n.tar.bz2 (102 MB) Generic i386 Linux. You need to have a file /lib/libtinfo.so.5 to use this bindist. This is a complete build, including interactive system, profiling libraries and documentation. ghc-6.12.1-i386-unknown-linux-t.tar.bz2 (102 MB) NOTE: If you have too old a version of libc, then you will get an error like "floating point exception" from the binaries in these bindists. You will need to either upgrade your libc (we're not sure what the minimum version required is, but 2.7 is known to work), or use a binary package built for your distribution instead. Linux (x86_64) Generic amd64 Linux. This is a complete build, including interactive system, profiling libraries and documentation. ghc-6.12.1-x86_64-unknown-linux-n.tar.bz2 (102 MB) Generic amd64 Linux. You need to have a file /lib/libtinfo.so.5 to use this bindist. This is a complete build, including interactive system, profiling libraries and documentation. ghc-6.12.1-x86_64-unknown-linux-t.tar.bz2 (102 MB) NOTE: If you have too old a version of libc, then you will get an error like "floating point exception" from the binaries in these bindists. You will need to either upgrade your libc (we're not sure what the minimum version required is, but 2.7 is known to work), or use a binary package built for your distribution instead. Windows (x86) (standalone) ghc-6.12.1-i386-windows.exe (63 MB); a Windows Installer for GHC 6.12.1. This is a complete build, and should work for Microsoft Windows 2000, XP and Vista. It also includes support for compiling C++ files. This installer will not overwrite previous installed versions of GHC, with the exception that the default handler for .lhs and .hs files will point to the most recently installed version. MacOS X (Intel) This is an installer for Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). The package requires Xcode 3.1 (in particular, the "Unix Development Support") to be already installed. You can find Xcode 3.1 at http://developer.apple.com/ (or you may have a new enough version on your OS X installation DVD). FreeBSD (x86) Gabor PALI has provided binary distribution tarballs for FreeBSD 7 and 8. These are complete builds, including interactive system, profiling libraries and documentation. Note: These are not the same as the lang/ghc port. The packages require ports math/gmp, converters/libiconv, devel/gmake, lang/perl5.10, devel/autoconf262 to be already installed. For installation, set your prefix by "./configure --prefix=${PREFIX}" and install the binaries by "gmake install". For running the testsuite you will need the lang/python26 port as well. If you have a 4.x version of GMP (installed from math/libgmp), then you will get an error like "libgmp.so.10 not found" from the binaries in these bindists. Upgrading your GMP port to 5.x by using the math/gmp port will solve this problem. FreeBSD (x86_64) Gabor PALI has provided binary distribution tarballs for FreeBSD 7 and 8. These are complete builds, including interactive system, profiling libraries and documentation. Note: These are not the same as the lang/ghc port. The packages require ports math/gmp, converters/libiconv, devel/gmake, lang/perl5.10, devel/autoconf262 to be already installed. For installation, set your prefix by "./configure --prefix=${PREFIX}" and install the binaries by "gmake install". For running the testsuite you will need the lang/python26 port as well. If you have a 4.x version of GMP (installed from math/libgmp), then you will get an error like "libgmp.so.10 not found" from the binaries in these bindists. Upgrading your GMP port to 5.x by using the math/gmp port will solve this problem. Community supported platforms These platforms are supported by community members. This is a full binary distribution for Solaris, prepared by Ben Lippmeier. Please use gtar rather than tar to unpack the tarball, as tar may have problems with filenames longer than 100 characters. There may be problems with gcc-3.4.x; see #951 for details. There may be problems with gcc >= 4.3.x; see this page for details. This is a binary distribution for OpenSolaris snv_129, prepared by Michael Lee. |
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