text stringlengths 0 100k |
|---|
While reading on RSA I stumbled upon Dan Boneh’s Twenty Years of Attacks on the RSA Cryptosystem 1999 paper. In there, I found a trove of applied attacks against RSA; one of which, Wiener’s, employs continued fractions approximation to break RSA efficiently (under certain conditions). The attack was interesting enough to make me want to learn about it and spread the word. So, today we’re going to use simple math and Python to distill Wiener’s Attack :). Preliminaries Listed below are some basic math and crypto concepts. Academic fellows might want Wiener’s original paper [ ]. Continued Fractions A simple continued fraction is an expression of the following form: $$ x = a_0 + \frac{1}{a_1 + \frac{1}{a_2 + \frac{1}{a_3 + \ldots}}}$$ Where $a_i$s are called quotients. A continued fraction is abbreviated by its continued fraction expansion: $$ x = [a_0, a_1, a_2, a_3, \ldots, a_n] $$ Rational numbers (Irrational numbers) have finite (infinite) continued fraction expansions. Simple examples: $$ \frac{73}{95} = 0 + \frac{1}{1 + \frac{1}{3 + \frac{1}{3 + \frac{1}{7}}}} = [0, 1, 3, 3, 7]$$ $$ \pi = [3, 7, 15, 1, 292, 1, 1, 1, 2, \ldots]$$ The following algorithm calculates the continued fraction expansion of a rational number with nominator $n$ and denominator $d$. def cf_expansion (n, d): e = [] q = n // d r = n % d e . append(q) while r != 0 : n, d = d, r q = n // d r = n % d e . append(q) return e Rational Approximations We know that $\pi$ is an irrational number. The cool thing is that we can form succinct rational approximations of $\pi$ using its continued fraction expansion. $$ c_0 = \frac{3}{1} = 3.0 $$ $$ c_1 = 3 + \frac{1}{7} = \frac{22}{7} = 3.142857 $$ $$ c_2 = 3 + \frac{1}{7 + \frac{1}{15}} = \frac{333}{106} = 3.141509 $$ $$ c_3 = 3 + \frac{1}{7 + \frac{1}{15 + \frac{1}{1}}} = \frac{355}{113} = 3.141593 $$ $$ \ldots $$ These rational numbers ($c_i$) are called the convergents of a continued fraction. As $i$ grows $c_i$ approaches $\pi$ (3.141592…). The following algorithm (taken from [1]) calculates the convergents of a continued fraction expansion $e = [a_0, a_1,\ldots , a_n]$: def convergents (e): n = [] # Nominators d = [] # Denominators for i in range ( len (e)): if i == 0 : ni = e[i] di = 1 elif i == 1 : ni = e[i] * e[i - 1 ] + 1 di = e[i] else : # i > 1 ni = e[i] * n[i - 1 ] + n[i - 2 ] di = e[i] * d[i - 1 ] + d[i - 2 ] n . append(ni) d . append(di) yield (ni, di) RSA Review An RSA public key consists of two integers: an exponent $e$ and a modulus $N$. $N$ is the product of two randomly chosen prime numbers $p$ and $q$. The private key, $d$, is the decryption exponent: $$ d = e^{-1}\ \text{mod}\ (p-1)(q-1) = e^{-1}\ \text{mod}\ \varphi(N)$$ Where $\varphi(N)$ is Euler’s totient function. That is, there exists an integer $k$ such that $ed-k\varphi(N)=1$, therefore: $$ \varphi(N) = \frac{ed - 1}{k} $$ Lets assume that the attacker has an educated guess of what $k$ and $d$ are. Using the formula above he can simply compute $\varphi(N)$, but what can he do with $\varphi(N)$? and how can he be certain that these are the correct $k$ and $d$? Factoring N with $\varphi(N)$ Recall that $N=pq$ and $\varphi(N) = (p-1)(q-1)$: $$ \begin{aligned} \varphi(N) &= (p-1)(q-1) \\ &= N -p -q +1 \\ &= N -p -\frac{N}{p} + 1 \end{aligned} $$ Therefore: $$ p^2 +p(\varphi(N) -N -1) -N = 0 $$ That is, given $\varphi(N)$ ($N$ is public knowledge) we can efficiently compute the quadratic roots $p_1$, $p_2$ and simply check if $ p_1p_2 = N$ to ascertain correctness. Guessing $k$ and $d$ Recall that $ed-k\varphi(N)=1$, therefore: $$ \left| \frac{e}{\varphi(N)} - \frac{k}{d} \right| = \frac{1}{d\varphi(N)}$$ Hence, $\frac{k}{d}$ is a rational approximation of $\frac{e}{\varphi(N)}$ ($\frac{1}{d\varphi(N)}$ is small). Assuming the attacker has $\frac{e}{\varphi(N)}$, he may find $\frac{k}{d}$ among its convergents. But… the attacker doesn’t have $\varphi(N)$, he only has the $e$ and $N$. Could it be that under certain conditions $\frac{k}{d}$ may be derived from $\frac{e}{N}$? Wiener’s Theorem Let $N=pq$ with $q<p<2q$. Let $d<\frac{1}{3}N^{\frac{1}{4}}$. Given $\langle e,N \rangle$ with $ed = 1\ \text{mod}\ \varphi(N)$, $d$ can be efficiently recovered by searching the right $\frac{k}{d}$ among the convergents of $\frac{e}{N}$. Sanity Check So the whole attack is as follows: Generate a vulnerable RSA keypair (one with short private exponent ($d<\frac{1}{3}N^{\frac{1}{4}}$)). Find the convergents of the continued fraction expansion of $\frac{e}{N}$. Iterate through the convergents $\frac{d_i}{k_i}$: Compute $\varphi_i(N)$ using $k_i$ and $d_i$. Ascertain correctness through factoring $N$ with $\varphi_i(N)$. (Alternatively, we can do [ ] instead). Lets see if it actually works. Vulnerable Key Generation We simply adapt the normal RSA key generation to fit the constraints on $d$, $q$ and $p$. import gmpy2 , random from gmpy2 import isqrt, c_div # Adapted from Hack.lu 2014 CTF urandom = random . SystemRandom() def get_prime (size): while True : r = urandom . getrandbits(size) if gmpy2 . is_prime(r): # Miller-rabin return r def test_key (N, e, d): msg = (N - 123 ) >> 7 c = pow (msg, e, N) return pow (c, d, N) == msg def create_keypair (size): while True : p = get_prime(size // 2 ) q = get_prime(size // 2 ) if q < p < 2 * q: break N = p * q phi_N = (p - 1 ) * (q - 1 ) # Recall that: d < (N^(0.25))/3 max_d = c_div(isqrt(isqrt(N)), 3 ) max_d_bits = max_d . bit_length() - 1 while True : d = urandom . getrandbits(max_d_bits) try : e = int (gmpy2 . invert(d, phi_N)) except ZeroDivisionError : continue if (e * d) % phi_N == 1 : break assert test_key(N, e, d) return N, e, d, p, q The Whole Attack Flow #!/usr/bin/python3 import cf , sys , hashlib import vulnerable_key as vk from sympy import * def sha1 (n): h = hashlib . sha1() h . update( str (n) . encode( 'utf-8' )) return h . hexdigest() if __name__ == '__main__' : N, e, d, p, q = vk . create_keypair( 1024 ) print ( '[+] Generated an RSA keypair with a short private exponent.' ) print ( '[+] For brevity, keypair components are crypto. hashed:' ) print ( '[+] ++ SHA1(e): ' , sha1(e)) print ( '[+] -- SHA1(d): ' , sha1(d)) print ( '[+] ++ SHA1(N): ' , sha1(N)) print ( '[+] -- SHA1(p): ' , sha1(p)) print ( '[+] -- SHA1(q): ' , sha1(q)) print ( '[+] -- SHA1(phiN): ' , sha1((p - 1 ) * (q - 1 ))) print ( '[+] ------------------' ) cf_expansion = cf . get_cf_expansion(e, N) convergents = cf . get_convergents(cf_expansion) print ( '[+] Found the continued fractions expansion convergents of e/N.' ) print ( '[+] Iterating over convergents; ' 'Testing correctness through factorization.' ) print ( '[+] ...' ) for pk, pd in convergents: # pk - possible k, pd - possible d if pk == 0 : continue ; possible_phi = (e * pd - 1 ) // pk p = Symbol( 'p' , integer = True ) roots = solve(p ** 2 + (possible_phi - N - 1 ) * p + N, p) if len (roots) == 2 : pp, pq = roots # pp - possible p, pq - possible q if pp * pq == N: print ( '[+] Factored N! :) derived keypair components:' ) print ( '[+] ++ SHA1(e): ' , sha1(e)) print ( '[+] ++ SHA1(d): ' , sha1(pd)) print ( '[+] ++ SHA1(N): ' , sha1(N)) print ( '[+] ++ SHA1(p): ' , sha1(pp)) print ( '[+] ++ SHA1(q): ' , sha1(pq)) print ( '[+] ++ SHA1(phiN): ' , sha1(possible_phi)) sys . exit( 0 ) print ( '[-] Wiener \' s Attack failed; Could not factor N' ) sys . exit( 1 ) Executing it: $ ./wiener.py [+] Generated an RSA keypair with a short private exponent. [+] For brevity, keypair components are crypto. hashed: [+] ++ SHA1(e): cf50c0f6e658fae6bd416f7cb5b99dd2764b44fa [+] -- SHA1(d): 1772bee24f59ea13976f03510bbc32852f02c300 [+] ++ SHA1(N): d2d6f603c4adf7cdc0d449ca288dd130a6741c91 [+] -- SHA1(p): d34f85dbc869626f7cab9c367bcbfec8aad8a6d3 [+] -- SHA1(q): 1e93d20bf5a79200b98441ef8b82d9f76a06df8a [+] -- SHA1(phiN): a5835c28d591a66e57eacdeab88a0d1d0cb3d74a [+] ------------------ [+] Found the continued fractions expansion convergents of e/N. [+] Iterating over convergents; Testing correctness through factorization. [+] ... [+] Factored N! :) derived keypair components: [+] ++ SHA1(e): cf50c0f6e658fae6bd416f7cb5b99dd2764b44fa [+] ++ SHA1(d): 1772bee24f59ea13976f03510bbc32852f02c300 [+] ++ SHA1(N): d2d6f603c4adf7cdc0d449ca288dd130a6741c91 [+] ++ SHA1(p): 1e93d20bf5a79200b98441ef8b82d9f76a06df8a [+] ++ SHA1(q): d34f85dbc869626f7cab9c367bcbfec8aad8a6d3 [+] ++ SHA1(phiN): a5835c28d591a66e57eacdeab88a0d1d0cb3d74a All used code snippets are available on github. That’s it ! :) I hope it brought some value to you. Comments and thoughts are welcome on this tweet: New (old-polished) blog post! Crypto-Classics: Wiener's RSA Attack: https://t.co/vjTYygdV2v — Sagi Kedmi (@sagikedmi) September 28, 2016 If this post brought any value to you, please consider donating: |
• 2015-16 Roster | 2015-16 Schedule | Ticket Information WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. ââ'¬"- The Big Ten Conference has granted Purdue men's basketball player Jacquil Taylor a medical hardship waiver, restoring his freshman season of eligibility with the Boilermakers. A season ago, Taylor struggled through recurring leg and shin injuries suffered during his high school career and was forced to sit out the remainder of the 2014-15 campaign after appearing in six games. He played in the first five games of the season against Samford, IUPUI, Grambling, Kansas State and Missouri and then again on Dec. 10 against Arkansas State. Taylor scored 13 points (5-11 FGs) with 12 rebounds, two assists, four blocked shots and one steal in just 42 minutes of action, before being shut down for the rest of the season after the Arkansas State game. Taylor has been cleared to resume practicing this summer and has gained about 25 pounds of muscle to his frame since his arrival last summer, standing 6 feet, 9 inches, and weighing about 240 pounds. Taylor will become part of a freshman class that consists of guards Ryan Cline and Grant Weatherford and forwards Caleb Swanigan and Grady Eifert. Purdue will open its exhibition season on Nov. 8 against Northwestern Ohio, before hosting North Carolina A&T for the regular-season opener on Nov. 13. The Boilermakers return nine of its top 11 scorers from a year ago and welcome in a top-25 recruiting class nationally. Season tickets are available by visiting PurdueSports.com or by calling 1.800.49SPORT. |
The explosion of hydraulic fracturing in the last several years, according to a new report, is creating a previously 'unimaginable' situation in which hundreds of billions of gallons of the nation's fresh water supply are being annually transformed into unusable—sometimes radioactive—cancer-causing wastewater. According to the report, Fracking by the Numbers, produced by Environment America, the scale and severity of fracking’s myriad impacts betray all claims that natural gas is a "cleaner" or somehow less damaging alternative to other fossil fuels. The report explores various ways in which gas fracking negatively impacts both human health and the environment, including the contamination of drinking water, overuse of scarce water sources, the effect of air pollution on public health, its connection to global warming, and the overall cost imposed on communities where fracking operations are located. “The bottom line is this: The numbers on fracking add up to an environmental nightmare,” said John Rumpler, the report's lead author and senior attorney for Environment America. “For our environment and for public health, we need to put a stop to fracking.” In fact, the report concludes that in state's where the practice is now occurring, immediate moratoriums should be enacted and in states where the practice has yet to be approved, bans should be legislated to prevent this kind of drilling from ever occurring. Though the report acknowledges its too early to know the full the extent of the damage caused by the controversial drilling practice, it found that even a look at the "limited data" available—taken mostly from industry reports and government figures between 2005 and 2012—paints "an increasingly clear picture of the damage that fracking has done to our environment and health." So what are the numbers? The report measured key indicators of fracking threats across the country, and found: • 280 billion gallons of toxic wastewater generated in 2012, • 450,000 tons of air pollution produced in one year, • 250 billion gallons of fresh water used since 2005, • 360,000 acres of land degraded since 2005, • 100 million metric tons of global warming pollution since 2005. SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT Help Keep Common Dreams Alive Our progressive news model only survives if those informed and inspired by this work support our efforts “The numbers don't lie," said Rumbpler. "Fracking has taken a dirty and destructive toll on our environment. If this dirty drilling continues unchecked, these numbers will only get worse." The Environment America report comes on the heels of a study released by researchers at Duke University earlier this week that found a "surprising magnitude of radioactivity" in the local water near a fracking operation in Pennsylvania. And ClimateProgress adds: The report also pointed out the weaknesses of current wastewater disposal practices — wastewater is often stored in deep wells, but over time these wells can fail, leading to the potential for ground and surface water contamination. In New Mexico alone, chemicals from oil and gas pits have contaminated water sources at least 421 times, according to the report. Those toxic chemicals are exempt from federal disclosure laws, so it’s up to each state to decide if and how the oil and gas companies should disclose the chemicals they use in their operations — which is why in many states, citizens don’t know what goes into the brew that fracking operators use to extract oil and natural gas. Luckily, some states are beginning to address this — California recently passed a law ordering fracking companies to make their chemicals public, an order similar to laws in about seven other states. The report also noted the vast quantities of water needed for fracking — from 2 million to 9 million gallons on average to frack one well. Since 2005, according to the report, fracking operations have used 250 billion gallons of freshwater. This is putting a strain on places like one South Texas county, where fracking was nearly one quarter of total water use in 2011 — and dry conditions could push that amount closer to one-third. In addition to the impact on surface and ground water supplies, fracking is a well-known contributor to global warming and numerous studies have shown that the methane emissions created by the extraction and transportation of natural gas far outweighs any benefit generated by its ability to burn "cleaner" than oil or coal. Download or read the complete report here (pdf). _______________________________________ |
Once again, a Federal Communications Commission attempt to lower the price inmates pay for phone calls has been blocked in court. A ruling on Wednesday from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted a petition for a stay filed by Securus Technologies. This puts a halt to rate caps on inmate calling services that were implemented in August. “Petitioners have satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending court review,” judges wrote. The FCC has repeatedly been stymied in attempts to lower the rates inmates pay for phone calls to family, friends, and lawyers. After a March 2016 federal appeals court ruling stayed new rate caps of 11¢ to 22¢ per minute on both interstate and intrastate calls from prisons, the FCC proposed new caps of 13¢ to 31¢ per minute in an attempt to satisfy the court. Those new caps were halted in this week's ruling. As we’ve previously written, prison phone companies Global Tel*Link (GTL) and Securus Technologies argued that the FCC's limits fell short of what the companies are contractually obligated to pay in "site commissions" to correctional facilities. Though the FCC hasn’t tried to ban or limit the site commissions, the commission argued that the latest caps would better account for the companies’ costs. The FCC has been able to implement a 21¢-per-minute cap on interstate long-distance calls, but attempts to reduce prices on in-state calls have failed. The FCC’s Democrats and Republicans have split on the issue. Republican Ajit Pai criticized Democrats yesterday, saying that this was the fourth time the appeals court stayed the FCC’s inmate calling rate regulations. “I am not aware of any other proceeding in which the courts have intervened this frequently to block agency action,” Pai said. “It didn’t have to be this way. Three times I have urged my colleagues to adopt reasonable regulations that would substantially reduce interstate inmate calling rates and survive judicial scrutiny. Three times they have declined. And so here we are yet again—left with little more than a faded headline.” |
A NEW era will begin today for one of Dublin’s most famous cafes when the former Bewley’s on Westmoreland Street reopens this morning with Starbucks as the main occupant. The building has been empty since 2005 and yesterday the black hoarding, which had hidden the landmark facade for more than a year, was taken down. Thom Breslin, design director with Starbucks, said the company was “delighted” to be in “such a prestigious and historic location”. “We have worked hard to bring the site back to life in a way that reflects and maintains the character of a building which is part of Dublin life. We’ve retained the original ornate facade and hope we can build on a great tradition of coffee in the city.” He said the cafe would have a new mezzanine floor and “there will be seats for more than 100 customers on both levels”. Founder of the Save Bewley’s campaign, former councillor Damien Cassidy, who has been critical of the neglect of the site as well as plans, in 2007, to change it into a shop, said he was “really pleased” with the development. American food chain TGI Friday’s will open to the rear later this week, with an entrance from Fleet Street. |
Very sad news. British programmer and game designer Mike Singleton has died, aged 61. Singleton will perhaps be best remembered for a series of remarkably ambitious ZX Spectrum titles including The Lords of Midnight, Doomdark’s Revenge, and War In Middle-Earth. Personally I was enormously influenced by his Midwinter games for 16-bit home computers – pioneering works of procedural generation and designs of immense scope that have to this day defined for me what games could and should be. With those games alone Singleton made an extraordinary contribution to the depth and diversity of game development. Singleton worked in game development into the 21st century, contributing to games on the Playstation and Xbox 360. Mr Singleton died in Switzerland on Wednesday 10th October. He had been suffering from cancer. |
I/O Coin (IOC) is an open-source blockchain project that has a number of innovative features including data storage, sidechains and messaging. I/O Coin was launched in 2014 and was designed with businesses in mind. The idea is that I/O Coin can be used for a range of data storage capabilities including the secure storage of digital identities and messages. DIONS is the name of the new blockchain that I/O Coin upgraded to in late 2017. Envisaged uses for the I/O Coin platform, which is operated by the I/O Digital Foundation, include holding certificates of authenticity, condition reports and rights management. Proof of existence is one of the ways in which I/O Coin will enable users to confirm the veracity of a document, which could be correlated to a piece of art or sheet music for example. |
Switchfoot has raised more than $1 million over the past decade for various San Diego children’s charities with its Bro-Am surf contest, beach concert and auction. Yet, while Saturday’s 11th annual edition of the Bro-Am will draw thousands of people for a day of free music and organized water activities at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas, the members of this Grammy Award-winning San Diego rock band want to do more. Without playing or singing a note, they are poised to begin making a year-round impact. “Today, we are at Bro-Am Studios in Encinitas, where we are set to launch a positive place for the next generation. It’s a performance space and a pay-what-you-can music school, right here in our hometown,” said Switchfoot leader Jon Foreman, chatting in the intimate studio on a recent early summer afternoon. Live from the 4th: Jon Foreman Live from the 4th: Jon Foreman SEE MORE VIDEOS Located just off Pacific Coast Highway, Bro-Am Studios is directly across from San Diego County’s largest surf shop, Hansen’s, which has 16,000 square feet of retail space. By comparison, the main room in Switchfoot’s fledgling music school and performance space measures just 20 feet by 28 feet. Equipped with a small stage and an upright Baldwin piano, it will be used for group lessons four days a week. An even smaller room, which stands opposite the adjacent courtyard, will host one-on-one lessons. A vintage silver Airstream trailer, used by a Switchfoot friend as his office, is tucked against the courtyard's wooden fence. So is an outdoor shower, installed for the band's members to use after surfing across the street at Swami's. Initial plans call for guitar and piano instruction for kids, 8 to 18. Friends, hand-picked by the band, will serve as teachers. Violin lessons may be added, if there is sufficient demand. Lessons will be held most weekday afternoons, in order to avoid conflicting with students' class schedules at area schools. Live from the 4th: Jon Foreman performs Live from the 4th: Jon Foreman performs SEE MORE VIDEOS Foreman, 38, and the other four members of Switchfoot have devoted more than half their lives to music. The band, which celebrates its 20th anniversary next year, regards Bro-Am Studios as an extension of its annual Bro-Am surf event and multi-band concert, which concludes each year with a performance by Switchfoot. Singing out for at-risk kids “The Switchfoot Bro-Am is a surf contest and a concert on the beach, in our hometown, that has raised money primarily for homeless and at-risk youth,” said Foreman, as he sat on the edge of the Bro-Am Studios stage. “We figured surfing and rock ’n’ roll were the two things that kind of kept us out of trouble when we were kids, (so) let’s try and pass that forward. And this school is, I guess, a logical extension of that. We got to thinking: ‘The Bro-Am happens one day a year. What if we had a physical location we could bring people to, and have that (Bro-Am concept) lived out, 365 days of the year?’ ” Foreman and his 36-year-old brother, Tim, who is Switchfoot’s bassist, both got their start playing music in Encinitas as teens. One of their bands, Chin-Up, laid the foundation for Switchfoot. The siblings attended UC San Diego, where they were members of the school’s surf team, before deciding to focus on music full-time. Both brothers are married. Both have children. A desire to reach out to less-fortunate kids inspired them to launch Bro-Am. The pairing of music and surfing to help kids in need was an eminently logical move for the band's members, three of whom are avid surfers. The group's most stirring songs address matters of faith and love, adversity and redemption, which are also underlying themes for Bro-Am. “We just wanted to throw a party for these kids that don’t get celebrated,” Foreman recalled. “We wanted to cheer them on, and say: ‘Your story matters. You’re important.’ And we wanted to give them more than just money; we wanted to give them the idea that their community cares about them.” The first Bro-Am drew only a few hundred people. Last year’s edition attracted about 6,000, over the course of 10 or so hours. The annual event is, Foreman proudly notes, family-friendly, alcohol-free and has a completely solar-powered main stage. He credits surfing legend Rob Machado, a Switchfoot friend who used to coach Foreman's youth soccer team, as an altruistic inspiration for the event. Machado, also an Encinitas resident, now oversees the Bro-Am’s Rob Machado Bro Junior event. ‘Everyone needs a hand’ Foreman, who rode his skateboard to this interview at Bro-Am Studios, has an easy laugh. But he is unmistakably earnest. His compassion for helping others appears to be deeply rooted in his spiritual beliefs. “I think everyone needs a hand, from time to time,” he said. “We find ourselves in those places in life, (even) as an adult... But, then you think back to your experience in high school, or junior high, and you think how lost you can feel in the shuffle, like you’re slipping through the cracks. For me, that was my experience in high school. I didn’t really feel like I ever fit in. I had some really good friends by the end of high school, but there were moments where I definitely didn’t belong. “And then you add puberty to that, (and) you add the idea that, for (some of) these kids, they don’t know where they’re sleeping at night. So, for me, that’s where I began to think (about) all the people in our community that we could help out... And, many times, these (kids) are the true victims of decisions that weren’t made by them, but, rather, by their parents. So why not give to them? Why not support them (and) give them opportunities to take a different path? That’s what we’re hoping to do.” The idea to start a music school has been incubating for some time. It took root about the time last year’s Bro-Am was held. “We have kind of tested it out (and) had a few little events, here and there, and we’re just about ready to start opening the doors for music lessons. By the time this year’s Bro-Am happens, we will already be in motion with lessons here,” Foreman said. His Bro-Am performance Saturday with Switchfoot is the third date on the band's summer tour, which concludes Aug. 29 at East Tennessee State University. Foreman begins a solo tour in late August to promote "The Wonderlands," a 24-song collection that he is releasing in a series of four EPs this year, each with four songs. The second will be released digitally on July 17. Help fill a void Bro-Am Studios will, Foreman hopes, help fill a growing void, especially at a time when funding for music and arts in public schools continues to plummet. “The goal is to be able to supplement music lessons (when the) school system doesn’t have the funds to do that anymore...” he said. |
Invasive Roots of Anti-Cheat Software Alissa Torres Some of the most sophisticated rootkit behaviors are implemented by today's anti-cheat gaming software, in a constantly evolving game of cat and mouse. Game hackers often look for flaws in a system or program’s logic, seeking to exploit them for their own performance gains. As cheats evolve to evade detection, so do the anti-cheat software products, employing hooking mechanisms to catch the newest subversions. Often the effectiveness of an anti-cheat implementation will affect legitimate users’ enjoyment (no one likes to play with cheaters, even cheaters themselves!), making it highly profitable for game developers to focus on improving this technology and expediently identifying game hackers. As a natural consequence, anti-cheat software has grown more invasive and intrusive. For example, a recent version of VAC (Valve's Anti-Cheat Software) was found to scrape gamers' system DNS cache in order to spot commercial game cheats and ban users. Just what else is being extricated from our gaming systems and which products are the worst offenders? By analyzing system memory, several anti-cheat software implementations will be isolated. With a cadre of reverse engineers, we will walk through just how these products are monitoring for game hacking behavior and if any of these techniques call into question aspects of their End User License Agreements. Bio: Alissa Torres is a certified SANS instructor, specializing in advanced computer forensics and incident response. Her industry experience includes serving in the trenches as part of the Mandiant Computer Incident Response Team (MCIRT) as an incident handler and working on a internal security team as a digital forensic investigator. She has extensive experience in information security, spanning government, academic, and corporate environments and holds a Bachelors degree from University of Virginia and a Masters from University of Maryland in Information Technology. Alissa has taught as an instructor at the Defense Cyber Investigations Training Academy (DCITA), delivering incident response and network basics to security professionals entering the forensics community. She has presented at various industry conferences and numerous B-Sides events (those being the best events, obviously!). In addition to being a GIAC Certified Forensic Analyst (GCFA), she holds the GCFE, GPEN, GCIH, CISSP, EnCE, and CFCE. Back to BSides Las Vegas 2014 video list |
A while ago I was reading about the Ido-schism when I noticed several Wikipedia pages referenced a book named A Curable Romantic by Joseph Skibell, in which the schism was portrayed. As it’s rare to see reference to Esperanto in English, let alone a book about it, I bought the book straight away. It’s not the only English language novel that has Esperanto in it, for example in the Yiddish Policeman’s Union, the main character lives in Hotel Zamenhof which includes a few Esperanto signs like lifto (lift) and one character exclaims “What’s Esperanto for a pile of shit?” (I would suggest fekaĵaro). However, unlike others in books, Esperanto isn’t just mentioned in a throwaway line, it forms a core part of the story. The book is essentially about three Jewish men and three cities at the turn of the century. Sigmund Freud, L.L. Zamenhof and Kalonymos Kalmish Szapira, in Vienna, Paris and London from 1894-1940. Following this structure the book is divided into three parts, with the middle one heavily focusing on Esperanto. The main character becomes a passionate Esperantist and there are many conversations in and about Esperanto. So is the book any good? To be honest, the book gets off to a bad start. The narrator and main character, Jakob Sammelsohn is completely empty. He has no hobbies, interests, friends or personality, he says little and does nothing. He’s a poor, lonely Jewish doctor who mainly exists for us to observe other people. Throughout the book I found it very difficult to care about anything he did, partly because he did so little. The title is strange because he’s clearly an incurable romantic who lusts after every woman he meets. Perhaps the author deliberately choose to create a passive narrator to mimic the style of 19th century books, but there’s a good reason was that style has gone out of fashion, it’s incredibly boring. The narrator becomes lovesick with a woman he doesn’t know, who turns out to be a patient of Freud. Pages pass during which he says, does and understands little. We are introduced to his father, a man so religious that he only spoke in Ancient Hebrew quotes from the bible. This leads to a hilarious scene where he gives his son a sex talk solely using Bible quotes. There is a description of the Jewish town where he grew up and the culture of the time. I should point out that this is a very Jewish novel. All the main characters are Jews, there are numerous religious references, Yiddish quotes and a major theme is the place of Jews in early 20th century society. However, as I am not Jewish and know little about Jewish culture at that time, I didn’t understand many references. However, the story eventually starts to pick up. It turns out that the woman Jakob is in love with is actually possessed by the ghost or dybbuk, of his ex-wife. As a child, his father had forced him to marry Ita, a mentally challenged girl, but he ran away and now she is haunting him. In her previous life she was unable to speak and could only incoherently repeat what others said to her, but now she has returned with passion. As a ghost, Ita is feisty, defiant and the first interesting person in the book (Freud might be famous but he comes off as a toff). She can actually tell a story. This is the premise of the novel. Her soul and Jabok’s have been in love for millennia but are always separated in their various lives and can never consummate the love. The premise is now that she will follow him along his travels, constantly being reborn and meeting him at various points. There is some sappy nonsense about where the purity of his love saves her, but otherwise it’s a good set-up. The writing is very pompous and grandiose which could be a deliberate mocking of the narrator’s self-delusions or perhaps the author was trying too hard. There are numerous tangents and irrelevant side details that play no role in the story. The book is 600 pages long but could easily be cut in half. There are occasional funny moments and sometimes the author describes a scene in a witty way. The narrator is a fool, but it is occasionally funny to laugh at his foolishness and hope that he will cop on. Unfortunately these gems are buried under a pile of nonsense, where a stream of nothing passes by and even the narrator seems bored. Then he meets Zamenhof, who is described in a kindly grandfatherly way. Perhaps too idealistic and naïve, yet still inspiring. At first the narrator wishes to laugh in his face at the ridiculousness of it, but gradually warms to the idea, helped as many of us are, by the presence of a gorgeous Esperantistino. There is no mere token mention of Esperanto, there are many full sentences and even conversations in Esperanto. The Esperanto is not a Google translate job and the author didn’t just pull words out of a dictionary, it’s of good quality with only the occasional mistake. The author did proper research and Zamenhof accurately explains the history of the language. Most surprising of all is that there are numerous Esperanto phrases left untranslated. “Sidu ĉe la tablo, Doktoro, kaj me alportas du varmajn ĉokoladojn.” The first Universala Kongreso en Boulogne-sur-Mer is covered including many of the leading Esperantists at the time. Their eccentrics are well described, though in Beaufront’s case they are probably deserved. There is an absurd element to a Jewish eye doctor hoping to change the world with a blind man, a pretend marquis and a French philosopher. There is an attempt to capture the etoso, the atmosphere of people discussing Esperanto for the very first time and realising that it works. There is a very strange scene where they visit Zamenhof who acts mad, seeing creatures and hearing voices that aren’t there. This is a story where angels and ghosts exist, but it was still weird and pretty insulting. The main theme running through the novel is the place of Jews in modern society, in relation to God, the clash between the new and the old, between progress and tradition. The narrator is trying to escape his childhood in a simple Jewish village by fleeing to a modern city. A contrast is made between Esperanto and Yiddish, between “the language of a new and braver world, but in the old and fearful one of our childhoods”. The rationalist French want to remove any mysticism from Zamenhof’s speech and mentions of his Jewishness. Almost his entire speech is quoted. It is so amazing that the narrator’s girlfriend falls back in love with him. The marriage proposal occurs in untranslated Esperanto. “mia kara, mia dolĉa knabino . . .” “Karulino, edziniĝu al mi.” “Kio?” “Estu mia edzino. Mi petas!” “Jes,” “Vere?” “Jes, mi diris, jes, mi volas, jes!” There is even untranslated dirty talk in Esperanto. It’s awkwardly expressed, but it’s the thought that counts. “Via buŝo je la ektuŝo donacas tute jam sian molecon de veluro!” “Ho! Mia amanto, mi ludos viran rolon kun plezuro, rajdonte vin kun arta kokso-lulo!” “Dum inter viajn du fermurojn, mia kara, premiĝos mia kapo kaj mia lango vibros kun fervoro!” Sed, sufiĉe, leganto, mi estas maldiskreta kaj ĉi tiuj aĵoj estas neniom da via afero, vere! Jabok becomes a member of the delegation for an international language as a representative for Esperanto. The delegates are portrayed as odd and eccentric and rather pompous. The committee is shambolic with rules being ignored and no procedure followed, just squabbling. Jabok is lured outside by a small boy (the reincarnation of Ita), who is then beaten to death before his eyes, causing him to miss the final vote and is unable to oppose the adoption of Ido. Due to the nature of the novel, the split symbolises the clash between tradition and progress, Esperanto is only good enough for a simple Eastern Jew like Jakob and Zamenhof, the modern French want something better. Beaufront is revealed as a fraud, which is historically accurate and one section where there was no need for exaggeration. The author incorrectly claims that the schism destroyed the language, which is untrue, most Esperantists remained loyal to the language and Ido quickly fizzled out. It is later revealed that angels were sent to destroy Esperanto to prevent the return of the Messiah. Then comes the third section of the novel, the shortest and worst. To be honest, by this point the story loses all purpose and doesn’t seem to know where to go. The plot jumps 30 years into the future during which nothing happened, because that’s how boring and empty the main character is. After the war, Jakob decides to visit the Zamenhof’s and marry one of his daughters. He instantly realises this is a ridiculous idea, falls in love with the daughter-in-law, but stays with the family for the next 20 years anyway. When Germany invades Poland, the family are arrested and the plot instantly forgets about them. Instead he meets a random rabbi (or rebbe, I had to google the difference) Kalonymos Kalmish Szapira, and ends up helping him write a book for no particular reason. Jakob isn’t religious and doesn’t particularly like the rebbe so it doesn’t make sense why he’s helping him. To be honest the story runs out of steam and just plods along aimlessly. Even the author seems to have given up by now. I’d never heard of the rebbe but apparently he (and his book) is famous so that’s why he’s shoehorned into the book. So Jabok is surrounded by two angels who follow him throughout the Warsaw Ghetto . . . yet it somehow seems boring. The author manages the difficult task of making Nazi occupation seem dull and uninteresting. After a while I just stopped caring. The narrator is so empty, his life is so empty that it didn’t seem to matter whether he lived. An enormous amount of the book is spent in Vienna with Freud and every minor detail there, yet there is little space spent in Warsaw. It feels like the author ran out of space or interest, so he rushed the novel to an end. The angels take him to visit Heaven (for no particular reason), and even that was anti-climatic. They come close to God and are told he is weeping. That’s it, that’s all, so they go home having learned nothing. Eventually Ita reappears as a nurse, but it’s pointless. She doesn’t remember him and does nothing. The whole build up was for nothing. This was the most frustrating part, I felt cheated that I was lured into a premise of reborn souls following each other through time, only to find that the author abandoned the premise halfway through the novel. The ending is awful. Too awful for me to even to describe here, but let’s just say it felt like I had been slapped in the face by the author (and I felt like returning the favour). It was one of the worst endings to a novel I’ve seen in a long time and made most of which came before it seem pointless. So would I recommend the novel? Not particularly. It’s far too long and filled with an enormous amount of boring sections. I did enjoy the Esperanto section (which is about 40% of the novel) but I don’t think it’s enough to compensate for the dull first section and the train wreck of the third. Esperantists might find it interesting if they don’t have too high expectations. Borrow it for the novelty of seeing our language as part of a plot and don’t read the ending. Advertisements |
I am sure most programmers have heard of Node.js, but what about NodeOS? Yes, NodeOS, an operating system written in Node.js. Well, kind of. NodeOS uses the Linux kernel for most performance critical stuff like, for example, hardware interactions, but for everything else it uses Node.js. NodeOS development started two years ago and was created by people who shared a simple, but intriguing, idea: “Is it possible to create an operating system using only Node.js?” Is it possible to create an operating system using only Node.js? What is the big deal? First of all, think about the progress Node.js has made in the short time it’s been around. Now, think about the same thing happening with an operating system. Then, let’s add some cool stuff to it. Per-user independent and isolated root filesystem NodeOS introduced an interesting paradigm: If all users have an isolated filesystem, it gives them a simple filesystem hierarchy to work with. Since their “home folder” is, in fact, the root of their own filesystem hierarchy, they can install packages globally without requiring special permissions and not need to configure anything since they are installed in their home directory by default. Also, it provides a good deal of security; if a hacker finds a way to get inside a particular account in the operating system, the only partition that s/he can access is the partition of that user. The end result is hacker cannot compromise the whole system. Node.js and NPM If you think about it, an operating system that uses Node.js means that any package available in NPM is, at the same time, also a NodeOS package. At the time of writing, there are 210,735 packages; since the number of NPM packages grows every minute, it would not be strange if, in a few years, NodeOS has a million applications. It is based on the Linux kernel This might not seem like a big deal, but Linux is the most-used server operating system. Since NodeOS is based on the Linux kernel, you could run every application written for other Linux distributions with minimal changes. The downsides As much as I would like a finished NodeOS, it is not there, yet. It’s still missing many key functions for a server operating system. For example, the whole BASH toolset is missing, including ps, tail, nano and grep. Furthermore, you cannot run it as a desktop operating system since it has no GUI. Sure, you can implement some of the missing features fairly easily using a bit of JavaScript, but the fact all the mentioned features are not available by default, is not good. So, how can I try out NodeOS? Using Docker The easiest and quickest way to try out NodeOS is by using the following: A computer with either Mac OSX or Linux. It might work with Windows, but I did not try it. Docker. Once you installed Docker, running an instance of NodeOS is easy. All you need to do is execute the following command, and Docker does all the magic: sudo docker run -t -i nodeos/nodeos The easiest and quickest way to try out NodeOS is by using Docker. When you run the aforementioned command, Docker automatically downloads the disk image for NodeOS from a repository and performs the installation of NodeOS inside a virtual machine. Once the installation is completed, it opens an SSH session to the NodeOS shell. Without docker There are some reasons why you would want to avoid using Docker, and one being the latest NodeOS version. At the time of writing, the last change to the Docker image of NodeOS was performed two months ago, while the development version was updated six days ago. So, if you want to use the latest version you should definitely get the source code. That’s not too difficult, but it takes a long time. You will need: A computer with Linux. You can compile it on OS X, but it will take longer since it has to make a cross compilation. The same goes for Windows. The Linux build utilities (make, g++, gcc, autoconf). Qemu. Time. Seriously, a lot. Once you have everything, you can proceed with the source code compilation: Download the project source code: bash git clone [email protected]:NodeOS/NodeOS.git . Compile it by running following commands: cd NodeOS and npm install . I am going to quote, word by word, the official documentation: “Pick some microwave popcorn and go to see a movie. No, really, do it.”. Yes, it will take that much time, so do something interesting in the meantime. Run bash npm start to run NodeOS inside Qemu. Is it working? Once the installation is completed, we can check if it is working by executing inside the NodeOS shell the command ls . An output like this should show up: [ 'etc', 'lib', 'lib64', 'root', 'bin', 'sys', 'usr', 'share', 'proc' ] If it does, it means some basic commands are working. But, what if we want to display the network card’s IP address? Under Linux, there’s a command called ifconfig that does just that; let’s try it: command not found: ifconfig It looks like the command ifconfig is missing. That is because NodeOS does not have a default ifconfig command. Now, what? Well, it is simple; NodeOS has an integrated package manager (like apt or yum ), called npkg , which is based on Node’s NPM and is easy to use. Installing ifconfig is as simple as running the following command: npkg install bin-ifconfig If all went well, the command ifconfig should now be available in the shell. If we try to execute it again, an output like this shows up (I put a random MAC address and IP address for obvious reasons): eth0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 ether 01:23:45:67:89:ab inet6 f0cd::ef01:0203:0405:181%en1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x5 inet 192.168.0.21 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.21 nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD> media: autoselect status: active If your output looks kind of like that, then it is working. You’ve successfully installed your first NodeOS application: ifconfig . It is working. However, what do we do now with the OS? What is the point of having an operating system written in Node.js if you can do the same things (or even fewer things) that you can do on Ubuntu or any other Linux distribution? Well, the whole point is everything is developed by using nothing more than Node.js. It also means we can develop our applications using nothing more than Node.js. For example, NodeOS does not have a default implementation for the command man , which is used on Linux to display manual pages of other commands. Fear not, implementing it is easy. How, I hear you ask? Simple. First, let’s install a text editor called Hipster so we can create and edit files by executing the following command: npm install -g [email protected] . This file editor is simple, and definitely not something I would use as an editor for anything else, but it is good enough in this case. Creating files with Hipster is really simple, just run hip filename , like hip package.json ; to save press Ctrl + s and to exit press Ctrl + q . For this example I am going to use a code developed by one of the main NodeOS developers, I have not actually implemented it, myself. The original code for our example can be found in the node-bin-man Git repository. Let’s get back to creating our first NodeOS application. As with every Node.js application (or NPM package), we start by creating a package.json file, as in the following example: { "name": "bin-man", "version": "0.0.1", "description": "Format and display manual pages", "bin": { "man": "man.js" }, "repository": "https://github.com/groundwater/node-bin-man", "author": "groundwater", "license": "MIT", "dependencies": { "blessed": "~0.0.22" } } The parameters name , version , author , repository , license , and description are self-explanatory. The bin collection is a JSON key/value object containing the command name and an associated JavaScript file. In our example, the man command is associated with the file man.js . The collection, dependencies , contains a list of NPM packages that are needed to use this application. In our example, the author of the code included Blessed, a curses-like library with a high-level terminal interface API for Node.js. Now let’s go to the main part, the actual code. #!/usr/bin/env node This part is called “shebang”. It is not actually required by NodeOS, but it tells an operating system how to execute the following code. In our case, it tells the interpreter that everything needs to be executed with the command /usr/bin/env node . var fs = require('fs'); var blessed = require('blessed'); Just like in Node.js, the function require() loads the selected package into memory and saves it to the specified variable. var arg = process.argv[2] || 'bin-man'; The standard behavior of a man command is to tell a manual about itself if no other command is specified. Our code example is doing the same: If no argument is specified for the second parameter (the first being man itself), it defaults to bin-man. var path = process.env.HOME + "/lib/node_modules/" + arg + "/README.md"; try{ var readme = fs.readFileSync(path, 'utf-8'); }catch(e){ console.log('No README.md for Package ',arg); process.exit(-1); } At this point, the program checks if a readme file exists for the given application. In NodeOS, the installation path of every application is the home directory (or / ) followed by the directory lib/node_modules . If the file README.md exists, it saves its content inside the variable readme . Otherwise, it shows an error and exits the process. // Create a screen object. var screen = blessed.screen(); var box = blessed.box({ content: readme, alwaysScroll:true, scrollable: true, }); // Append our box to the screen. screen.append(box); Blessed has a really simple API; showing the content of a file is as easy as telling it to create a box and loading the content. screen.key(['escape', 'q', 'C-c'], function(ch, key) { return process.exit(0); }); Now, let’s create a way to exit the man application. We combine the keys escape , q or the emacs-style combination C-c to exit the process. screen.key(['space','f','j','n'], function(ch, key) { box.scroll(box.height); screen.render(); }); screen.key(['down'], function(ch, key) { box.scroll(1); screen.render(); }); screen.key(['up'], function(ch, key) { box.scroll(-1); screen.render(); }); screen.key(['b','k','p'], function(ch, key) { box.scroll(-box.height); screen.render(); }); We use the directional keys to scroll up or down one row and the keys space , f , j or n to scroll down a page (as many lines as there are on the screen). Use b , k or p to do the reverse. box.focus(); screen.render(); Finally, we tell the application to focus on the box we created and render the whole thing. Let’s put those files in the directory /lib/node_modules/bin-man and let’s add a simple README.md , something like this: # Man Author: @groundwater ## Install npkg install bin-man ## Usage ``` Usage: man PKGNAME Display a packages README.md file ``` We are almost done with our first custom application for NodeOS. Only one last small step remains; we need to create a config file since it is a requirement for NodeOS applications. It is as simple as creating a file in the path /etc/bin-man/config.json with the following content: {} , an empty JSON object. Now, we can try our new application. Running man inside the NodeOS shell should show the readme file we created earlier. Conclusion As you can see with our simple code example, implementing anything in NodeOS is an easy task, you only need to know Node.js. NodeOS has plenty of potential, and I think it could become a great operating system once additional features are implemented. It still needs work, but as a result of the popularity of the whole Node.js-based ecosystem, I would not be surprised if it quickly becomes a popular operating system quickly. What do you think about it? Let me know in the comments. |
24 SHARES Facebook Twitter Far and away one of the most confident and idiosyncratic filmmakers of his generation, Wes Anderson knows his way around cinema. Like all good directors, Anderson is a student of the medium, and he goes to great lengths to put his influences up on the screen, mimicking shots, themes, and stylistic choices. Where the meticulous auteur breaks through, though, is in his ability to take all these influences and mold them into a succinct style all his own — you know a Wes Anderson film when you see it, without a doubt, a compliment that can be said about very few. READ MORE: Supercut Compares The Cinematic Styles Of Stanley Kubrick And Wes Anderson Now, to help parse some of these influences that run rife through Anderson’s work, Beyond The Frame has put together a tidy video essay that juxtaposes dozens of memorable shots from Anderson’s oeuvre and their cinematic counterparts. The two-minute “The Influences And References Of Wes Anderson” runs the gamut of his films, highlighting what must be some of the director’s favorite works, like “The 400 Blows,” “The Graduate,” and “Citizen Kane,” among a wide variety of others. The short supercut also brings to light one of Anderson’s best references: Gene Hackman’s Royal Tenenbaum driving a go-kart in a scene perfectly riffing on Hackman’s epic car-chase-that-redefined-car-chases from “The French Connection.” It’s a moment that works on so many levels, perfectly embodying Anderson’s visual flair, his peculiar tone, and the emotionally stunted men that populate his films. “The Influences And References Of Wes Anderson” is a must-watch for fans of the director, if only because it might turn you onto some of the films that helped to turn Wes Anderson into the filmmaker he is today. Check out the video and share your thoughts in the comments below. |
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption A Kenyan opposition stronghold celebrates the decision Kenya's Supreme Court has annulled the result of last month's presidential election, citing irregularities, and ordered a new one within 60 days. The election commission had declared incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta the winner by a margin of 1.4 million votes. Raila Odinga, Mr Kenyatta's opponent, said the commission was "rotten" and demanded resignations and prosecutions. President Kenyatta said he would respect the court's decision but also branded the judges "crooks". Other elections in Africa have been annulled or cancelled but this appears to be the first time on the continent that an opposition court challenge against a presidential poll result has been successful. Chief Justice David Maraga said the 8 August election had not been "conducted in accordance with the constitution" and declared it "invalid, null and void". He said the verdict was backed by four of the six Supreme Court judges. The announcement drew cheers from opposition supporters both inside and outside the courtroom. The court ruling did not attribute any blame to President Kenyatta's party or campaign. What did the judges say was wrong? Justice Maraga said the election commission had failed "to conduct the presidential election in a manner consistent with the dictates of the constitution". Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Justice Maraga declares the election "invalid, null and void" He said the commission had committed irregularities "in the transmission of results", adding that the court would provide details in a full judgment within 21 days. Dissenting judges said that the Nasa opposition alliance - which had petitioned the Supreme Court - failed to prove claims that the polls had been rigged. The election sparked days of sporadic protests, in which at least 28 people were killed. The vote had raised fears of major political violence - as was the case after a disputed poll in 2007. How have the two political sides reacted? Mr Odinga, 72, said the ruling marked "a historic day for the people of Kenya and by extension for the people of the continent of Africa". He said: "It is now clear that the entire [electoral commission] is rotten. "It is clear that the real election results were never shared with Kenyans. Someone must take responsibility." Image copyright AFP Image caption Raila Odinga (C) reacts with delight in the courtroom Mr Odinga added: "We won the elections and we are going to win them again." President Kenyatta, in a televised address, said that it was "important to respect the rule of law even if you disagree with the Supreme Court ruling". He called for calm, saying: "Your neighbour will still be your neighbour, regardless of what has happened... My primary message today to every single Kenyan is peace. Let us be people of peace." Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Uhuru Kenyatta, in power since 2013, won a second term at last month's poll, which has now been declared invalid Mr Kenyatta, 55, added: "We are ready to go back again to the people with the same agenda that we delivered to the people." The president was more combative later at a rally of supporters in a market in Nairobi. He referred to Justice Maraga and his fellow judges as wakora (crooks in Swahili), saying they had "decided to cancel the election". He warned the chief justice that as the poll had been annulled he was now the president again, not president-elect. "Do you understand me? Maraga should know that he is now dealing with the serving president," Mr Kenyatta said. "We are keeping a close eye on them. But let us deal with the election first. We are not afraid." And the electoral commission? Chairman Wafula Chebukati noted the ruling and said there would be "changes to personnel" ahead of the new election. He invited the director of public prosecutions "to prosecute any of our staff that may have been involved in violations". But he ruled out resigning, saying he had not been accused of wrongdoing. What have the international monitors said? After the election, international monitors from the EU, the African Union and the US had said there was no major fraud on polling day and urged Mr Odinga to concede. On Friday, Marietje Schaake, the head of the EU Observer Mission, said the court ruling represented "a historic day for Kenya and we have always said that people who feel aggrieved should seek the path of the courts". She said the monitors had at the time pointed to irregularities and encouraged the Kenyan authorities to deal with them. Ms Schaake said the monitors were awaiting the full details of the ruling. A huge victory for Odinga Dickens Olewe, BBC News Image copyright AFP Raila Odinga will feel vindicated against accusations that he was just being a bad loser in challenging President Kenyatta's win. However, this historic decision is a massive indictment of the electoral commission. It is therefore no surprise that the opposition Nasa coalition is now calling for a new team to manage the next elections. This is also a setback for the international, and some local, election observers, who profusely praised the election as free, fair and credible. People will be watching for the reaction of former US Secretary of State John Kerry, who was the head of the mission for US NGO, the Carter Centre, whose positive assessment of the election was used in court. Regardless of the winners and losers following the ruling, this is a proud moment for Kenya. The litigation and debate on the merits of the election was done at the Supreme Court and not on the streets. Chief Justice Maraga said it best in his opening statement: "The greatness of a nation lies in its fidelity to the constitution and the strict adherence to the rule of law." |
Golang and why it matters James O'Toole Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jan 13, 2016 Go, or as its easily google-able moniker, Golang, is a typed systems programming language created by Google. It was designed to be in the vein of C/C++ with Garbage Collection, simpler to read and write unlike C++, strong opinions about how code should be built and strong primitives to enable effective concurrency. It was originally designed as a thought experiment between Robert Griesemer (V8 engine, Google Distributed File System), Rob Pike (Unix Team) and Ken Thompson (B Programming Language, c predecessor). There’s a lot of information and blogs about peoples experience with Go and I’ll link to a few of those at the end of this blog. I’ve been dabbling with Golang this last year for little side projects and a lot for the sake of learning. Coming from what most to be considered an somewhat embarrassingly long stint of doing PHP development for 4 years, it very quickly became obvious why there’s a lot of benefit to the choices made in Golang’s direction. I’ve also used Node the last 2 years for nearly all my side projects/backend work, java + objective-C for my mobile work and a bit of ruby, python and bash for scripting when it’s appropriate. For me Golang combines all the best elements of these languages, with an excellent community, build tools, it solves a bunch of problems in it’s inherent design and creates new ways to solve problems with its concurency options. I’ve been using it to build a few API’s and tools, and started toying with using some openGL bindings to make some little 2D games. I wanted to share my thoughts on this with the larger dev community and hopefully spur on some discussions and even for a few people to dive in and try their hand at the language. What Golang is all about: It is a statically typed, fast compiled language designed for modern development. Produces binary executables, like c++ Powerful at Concurrency with inbuilt primitives and features to allow systems to be built to scale and effectively use the computing power available. Simple but Opinionated Empowered by the open source community; all users are encouraged to put their go projects on github.com when setting up their environment Automatic type inference (similiar to dynamic languages, var x int =3 or x := 3 or y := “James” are all valid) Automatic documentation. Like JDoc or PHPDoc, but no comments required, and even no commands. You can automatically have your code documented at the same level of quality as the standard library and inbuilt golang API’s. Strict compilation checking, unused packages and variables will prevent compilation. Strong standard library Awesome at building API’s/backend Cross platform (runs on linux/mac/windows. Currently has experimental mobile support. You can write an opengl program that can run on iOS/Android natively in Go1.5). Useful tools for code linting, code generation, building, testing, etc. What Go doesn’t have: Classes ( * SHOCKED EXPRESSION * ) — Golang has Structs, and struct functions, but there is deliberately no tradtional class structure or inheritance. Objects follow an Interface simply by having the correct function ( * ) — Golang has Structs, and struct functions, but there is deliberately no tradtional class structure or inheritance. Objects follow an Interface simply by having the correct function Generics. This is divisive to newcomers, but decisions made to build fast and smart binaries, no generic functions exist. This means if you have an getArea(number) function, you must have a getFloatArea(float) and getIntArea(int) if you wish to cover multipe types. Note that interfaces will allow alternatives to sidestep this issue with still some extra code but better organsation. Full memory control (due to garbage collection system) Vendoring is still early and can be enabled via an experimental flag. You can pull packages but updating them independantly; there are some community tools but I would expect something like a package.json to be added in the next release of Golang. Why should developers care about Golang? Golang combines a clean, fast, typed language that is particularly strong for web development and has built into its ethos and community one very clear message: You don’t need a web development framework! The standard library provides everything you need to build a web server, do routing, html templates, file serving, res/req handling, databases, etc.. The standard library provides everything you need to build a web server, do routing, html templates, file serving, res/req handling, databases, etc.. It is very opinionated about how code should be written. For example the default linting tool decides exactly where there should be new lines (no more than one additional between function, etc.), automatically formatting brackets; code will not execute if you start your curly brace on a new line, there are no semi-colons due to the insistence on this rule. This means code is very readable, code can be easily worked on between teams and people can easily move between projects and be effective. due to the insistence on this rule. This means code is very readable, code can be easily worked on between teams and people can easily move between projects and be effective. Compilation is very fast (usually a second or two), and produces a single binary. This means in terms of artefact handling for deployment you only need to push a new binary and run it. There are currently MANY tools to enable application server orchestration (Puppet, Docker and the like), because a traditional Java Application might take someone half a day to setup just to run a hello world on a server. When Atlassian can to talk to us about how Docker enables their developers to setup their code in an hour instead of a day or two, this to me speaks to how languages like Java which is common in many places for reliable web app’s and API builds have some many pieces holding it together to be able to run. The web server, the build tool, the framework, the framework build tools, the dozens of libraries available to get core usage of the tools, testing tools… You’re getting a picture here. It’s big, i’ts clunky and we’re investing huge amounts of effort into learning orchestration tools because the fundamental tools we’re using to code and build web apps and api’s are crap. tools to enable application server orchestration (Puppet, Docker and the like), because a traditional Java Application might take someone half a day to setup just to run a hello world on a server. When Atlassian can to talk to us about how Docker enables their developers to setup their code in an hour instead of a day or two, this to me speaks to how languages like Java which is common in many places for reliable web app’s and API builds have some many pieces holding it together to be able to run. The web server, the build tool, the framework, the framework build tools, the dozens of libraries available to get core usage of the tools, testing tools… You’re getting a picture here. It’s big, i’ts clunky and Whilst “The Cloud” has enabled us to quickly build, clone and dynamically add servers to handle load of performant web applications, it often ends up with people horizontally scaling to cater for often poor performing applications. 10 applications servers to run a simple web app because peak loads require it is a very expensive cost to customers. Using a typed compiled language gives huge benefits in this domain. There’s a great article from the creators of Parse, the mobile backend api tool about how moving from ruby to let them reduce their API server pool down by 90%, which is definitely worth reading here. which is definitely worth reading here. Concurrency is baked nicely into the language. Go has has the very simple ‘go’ keyword, which is to say “go do this function in the background”, channels, which allow for buffered references of data for processing as well as parallelism by running go-routines on multiple cores asynchronously. These tools are not libraries or packages but instead primitives in the flow of the language/compiler. This means developers can write programs that with relatively little easy take full use of the CPU available and build non blocking, beautiful programs. and build non blocking, beautiful programs. It’s open source and encourages all code and libraries built to solve problems to be part of the open source community. This would provide an opportunity to make some excellent tools and libraries that could be shared with the larger software development community. and encourages all code and libraries built to solve problems to be part of the open source community. This would provide Golang is currently the goto programming language for dev ops development. It’s what Docker was built in . If we wish to not just support dev ops for clients but continue building tools that are flexible and usable for the larger dev ops community, Golang is an excellent language for doing so. . If we wish to not just support dev ops for clients but continue building tools that are flexible and usable for the larger dev ops community, Golang is an excellent language for doing so. Mobile is still in its experimental phase, but you can currently build OpenGL applications with Golang that run on both iOS and Android as well as include callable binaries for running shared code/business logic on both platforms. There is currently no UI binding to UIKit or the Android interface builder, but I think it’ll be coming, at least for android. It wouldn’t surprise me if the next 18 months Google push it as the next language for building native android mobile apps, in the same way apple have transitioned to Swift as it’s future language moving forward. What has my experience been like? GoPath + Setup My initial experiences were a little but mixed; there is some intentionally different ideas as soon as you start looking at the first tutorials and setup of Go. The first being the setup of a $GOPATH system variable and to gentle force users to store all code under a github user folder. For example, $GOPATH/src/github.com/usernamehere/helloworld. Most developers are very comfortable with their certain /code /dev or /projects folder so telling you “No, lets have a bit of structure with this” and btw, we recommend github, a very specific hosting domain, was I thought a pretty strong stance. However, I quickly started to see the benefits. Firstly, by storing all my learning/sampling code on github.com, I was for the first time able to immediately share my problems, learnings and experiments with friends. No “I’m working on a thing, it’s cool”, but instead “Here take a look, lets collaborate”. It’s almost like slipping a little sneaky shove in the direction of “hey guys, you should look at this open source thing”; but I really enjoyed it. I forked a few examples and started building on them. I started building a little game and sharing feature development on different branches with a friend. Also, users can grab by code, documentation and all from the same path. Simply typing go get github.com/bomer/hellochipmunk , will download and build a project. It can no be included as an import in any other project Pretty neat. Lastly, there are both excellent VIM + Sublime plugins that give autocomplete, automatic linting on save, automatic sorting of imports, build integration, etc. Go-Sublime with organised imports Compiling Code Code can be run directly for dev/testing by using go run filename.go. go run file.go Code be be built using go build. This will run it compile an executable ready to run/share based on their being a main.go file; else a filename can be specified.. Binaries will contain everything needed to run your program on your architecture. Compilation is very fast for a typed language due to the design of the golang compiler. go build Writing Code Writing code is for me is definitely the thing I like most about Golang. It’s designed to get out of the way and just let you start writing your logic. I’ll start off with a hello world and expand to show a few features I find neat in Golang. I will be running all these files using the go run command. 1)Hello World Pretty straight forward, func main is the main entry point to any program as it is in C based language. FMT is the formatting tool and allows standard in/output, string formating. Here we are using the Printf function to print a formatted string. 2)Hello Structs! Now as I mentioned earlier, Go has no classes. What it does have is structs and structs can have functions. This gives the basics of what people often think of when they think of classes. Objects with properties and functions. However, there is no idea of inheritance, operator overloading, abstract classes or some of the traditional C++/Java style uses of Classes. Often I find very smart people use abstract classes and inheritance to design a brilliantly unreadable mess that they can produce amazing things with, and require constant jumping through files, reading documentation and code to figure out how the pieces fit together. Golang intentionally removes all of this. Golang has things that store and do stuff. Below is a simple example defining a struct of rectangle with length/width and a name. Second, I’m defining a function for all rectangle structs called display, that will print out the properties of the object. Finally in the main function I’m initializing some rectangles with some different syntax and calling our function. In the first rectangle I’m using the var keyword and no named variables in the declaration. Go will just assign these values based on the order. In the second rectangle object, I’m using := to declare and assign. You cannot use this on the same variable name twice because it can only be created once. I am then naming the variables to initialize them, like JSON. I generally prefer the second option as it’s clear and neat. 3)And now…. Make it a web app! So nothing too fancy shown off so far, pretty basic static typed language stuff. But using the Go standard library, you can very quickly turn a command line driven app into a full web api! Let me show you an update version of the previous project. You can see the lines that have changed in the side bar next to the line numbers (git gutter package for Sublime). We will add a web server, request handling and json encoding; all the usual stuff web devs do every day. The inbuilt http server is very performant and functions very similiar to the NodeJS Express server out of the box. First off, we added two new imports, and have grouped them using brackets. GoLint (which the GoSublime plugin uses) will automatically sort these alphabetically and indent them for you. Secondly, in the struct I added a uppercase first characters on the variable names. This is to signal to the compiler if this variable is publicly accessible or not. Without this, the json encoder will not be able to access the variables. This is easy to forget, I certainly have once or twice, but it will allow you to easily have private/hidden variables without additional keywords or even worse, comment notations! Yuck! In the display function I also just updated the variable case of the first letter. The new function rectangleHandler implements the interface required for handling requests/response. I will address interfaces a little more in Golang shortly. The two parameters passed in are handled by the handlefunc (line 26) call; w/http.ResponseWriter is where the response is returned. r/http.Request. We won’t be using the request in this example, but you can easily grab post data, request type, etc. from here. We will just directly pass the ResponseWriter to the json encoder. The Json Encoder.Encode() function will just take and struct and encode it. You can also Marshal/Unmarshall (encode/decode), but this encode function is a nice one liner helper function. Finally in the main function, we bind the default route (“localhost:8008/”) to our rectangle function. We can add additional handle functions to handle more routers. 4)Goroutines Goroutines are lightweight asynchronus threads managed by the go runtime. The best part is how easy it is to make a regular blocking/sync call async. Put the keyword “go” in front the call! It can also be done with a closure function. In this example, I turned rec into a global variable but putting it outside the main function. I added math/rand and the time package to be able to sleep and refresh the values using the rand int function. The updatedRectangle() function is a recursive function that just randomly sets the value to a number between 1 and 10, waits for 2 seconds and re-runs itself. Finally, before I setup the http handler, I create a go routine that runs the updateRectangle recursive function. Finally I removed the local variable so the global rec variable is used instead. Now every two seconds I will get a different value returned on my api! 5)Interfaces! Interfaces is not a new concept by any means, but there a few ways which mean it critical how you code in Golang. Due to no inheritance or generics, interfaces allow for explicit ways to share code and functionality between packages, structure implementations and allow for an amazing upgradability of application components and the standard library. In this example, I have created two structs, a Circle and a Square. Both have different properties but the same Area() function which returns a printable string based on the correct formula for the shape. The Square is in its open file in the shapes package, which we then import into the main program. This is just to show how packages/applications can be broken down to be more managable and still share a common interface. There is also an interface that specifies anything that is considered a “Shape”, must have an Area function that returns a string. The printArea function expects to receive an object that confirms to the Shape interface. It doesn’t matter what object it is, aslong as it has the Area() function, as specified in the Interface. In the main function, we initilise two objects, and call our print area function. In the print function we output the value of the Area function. Without the interface we couldn’t pass any object to this function to get the value. Finally, go automatically provide documentation lookup without any comment blocks! Take a look at the objects automatically documented here from this example. godoc.org/github.com/bomer/go-interfaces Closing Thoughts So I think I’ve made my self stance pretty clear, I think Golang is awesome. A team starting a new project with a good API/Backend component would definitely benefit hugely from using Golang, and I think its only going to go from strength to strength in terms of dev adoption and its coming updates. I’m going to keep working with it and I hope some people here give it a crack based on this blog. I’m attaching below a few recommended places to start/read about. Happy Coding! |
The Grand Mufti then spoke about ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's threat against Israel made in an audio recording on Saturday, in which al-Baghdadi said, "Palestine will not be your land or your home, but it will be a graveyard for you." Ahlul Bayt News Agency - Saudi “Grand Mufti” Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Sheikh who is dependent upon Al-Saud Royal Family has called ISIS part of the Zionist regime, while many believe that Al-Saud is the first and the major source of support and ideology behind ISIS terrorist group. The 72-year old Mufti said that ISIS terrorists are part of Israeli army. "Actually ISIS is part of the Israeli soldiers," he stated, asserting an alliance between the Israeli army and ISIS militants. Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Asheikh, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, issued a whopper of a conspiracy theory on Monday, said that ISIS militants are actually "Israeli soldiers." Speaking to the Saudi Gazette, Asheikh said ISIS members are "harming" Islam and Muslims. "They cannot be considered as followers of Islam. Rather, they are an extension of Kharijites, who rose in revolt against the Islamic caliphate for the first time by labeling Muslims as infidels and permitting their bloodletting," said Asheikh. The Grand Mufti then spoke about ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's threat against Israel made in an audio recording on Saturday, in which al-Baghdadi said, "Palestine will not be your land or your home, but it will be a graveyard for you." "This threat against Israel is simply a big lair. Actually, Daesh (ISIS) is part of the Israeli soldiers," said Asheikh. Saudi Arabia has been the main financial and logistical supporter of ISIS and Al-Saud family have made a lot of investment on ISIS to use this terrorist group to overthrow the legitimate and elected government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. This remark by Saudi grand Mufti has astonished experts while many experts and intellectuals strongly believe that ISIS has been derived from Wahhabi Ideology. /129 |
He Gave His Life For The Nation And His Name To An Airport Enlarge this image toggle caption Associated Press Associated Press There's a man whose name is part of millions of lives, but many of us don't know his story. This Memorial Day weekend may be a good time to hear about him. Butch was the son of a lawyer who worked for Al Capone. The father wound up testifying against the legendary gangster in a 1931 tax evasion trial that sent Capone to prison. Butch was in military school, and won an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy. He was fascinated by flying, and was learning to take off and land in tricky ocean winds when he got word that his father had been shot to death, just a few days before Al Capone was released from prison in 1939. Like a lot of young men in uniform, Butch took on grave responsibilities in the days following Pearl Harbor; he became leader of a flight squadron. On Feb. 20, 1942, Butch's fighter was alone in the air when a wave of nine Japanese bombers swooped down on the USS Lexington. As the Medal of Honor citation put it: "Without hesitation, alone and unaided, he repeatedly attacked this enemy formation, at close range in the face of intense combined machine gun and cannon fire ... one of the most daring, if not the most daring, single action in the history of combat aviation." President Roosevelt personally congratulated Butch for his Medal of Honor. Butch then spent more than a year as what amounted to a poster boy for the war effort, making appearances to help inspire enlistments and sell war bonds by talking about the mission on which he had risked his life. But Butch also knew that men he flew with still risked their lives, so he asked to go back to war. On the night of Nov. 26, 1943, Butch led one of the first-ever nighttime fighter missions launched from an aircraft carrier. A Japanese bomber fired at him from behind, his plane hit the ocean in the darkness, and to this day the aircraft of Lt. Cmdr. Edward "Butch" O'Hare has not been found. Many American airports are named after politicians: LaGuardia, Kennedy, Reagan, Hartsfield-Jackson. Occasionally they're named after celebrities, like John Wayne or Louis Armstrong. One and a half million passengers are expected to move through O' Hare International Airport this Memorial Day weekend, and some travelers might want to hold a thought for the man for whom it's named. He was a 29-year-old flier with a wife, a daughter and his whole life ahead of him, who, in the words of the citation on the Navy Cross, "gallantly gave his life for his country." |
0 of 11 The Chicago Bears looked very impressive on Sunday in a 30-12 victory over the Atlanta Falcons. The Bears defense came to play, as usual, but it was the offensive performance that stood out for me. QB Jay Cutler was solid, as his only interception was off a tipped pass that really wasn't his fault. He finished with 312 yards passing and two TDs to go along with that one INT for a QB rating of 107.8. The line generally did a decent job of blocking, although Gabe Carimi had some trouble early and J'Marcus Webb is still a work in progress at left tackle. Matt Forte continued his solid play, totaling 158 yards of offense, leading all Bears receivers with five catches. Matt Ryan, meanwhile, was busy sidestepping a Bears pass rush that finished with five sacks and officially 11 QB hits. (TV announcers gave the Bears credit for 14 hits). The Falcons running game did well but was limited because of an early Bears lead that forced Ryan and Atlanta to throw the ball 47 times. Micheal Turner rushed the ball for 100 yards on 10 carries. The Bears also won the turnover battle, three-to-one, so again, it was an impressive performance. So what specifically did we learn from this game? Read on, young football fans, and you will find out. |
But despite having these convictions from an early age, and although she was raised in a Catholic home, her father did not think the convent was the right calling for her. “He told me I could better make a living working with my hands,” she recalls. “I wanted to study agriculture, but that was not possible in the abbey school, so the headmistress asked if I might be interested in the brewery.” Mallersdorf has been a site for brewing beer since the 12th century. It was originally a monastery housing Benedictine monks, who began producing beer as a safe alternative to drinking unclean water for themselves and for the pilgrims who visited them. The monastery was converted to the current Franciscan convent in 1869, and brewing resumed in 1881. The abbey now houses a modern brewery with two large copper boilers, cooling pans, and a storage cellar. Sister Doris began her apprenticeship in 1966, under the careful watch of another sister who had been brewing beer there since 1931. By 1969, Sister Doris had completed a course in brewing beer at a nearby vocational school. “I had become a master brewer,” she says. “Then I decided that I wanted to join the convent, and I took my vows.” Brewing is her service to the convent—her assigned profession. “There are 490 sisters in the abbey,” she says, “and some work as teachers in schools, in children’s homes, nursing homes. We also have cooks and pig farmers and a baker. We do everything for ourselves.” Of her own job, Sister Doris says: “I love the work, and I love the smell when I’m making beer. And I love working with living things—with yeast, barley, and with the people who enjoy the beer.” Monastic brewing has existed since the Middle Ages—monasteries undertook the first large-scale production of beer in medieval Europe—but according to Richard Unger, author of Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, there has not been a specific study of the history of nuns and brewing. In the secular world, however—particularly when it came to beer for private consumption or small-scale selling—women were the original brewmasters. “It may well be that since the task was classed with domestic chores it was generally done by women,” Unger writes in his book. “But in the high and late Middle Ages, when [brewing] moved from a household industry to a system of [centralized] workshops, you see fewer women brewing.” The number of women making beer may have declined, but in the late Middle Ages women were predominantly the ones selling it in pubs and taverns. Still, “women who sold beer were long the subject of complaint and even a source for derision,” according to Unger. “The operators of taverns were always suspect in northern Europe because of the problems of drunkenness and disorder which the establishments generated, so the women who ran them had bad reputations.” |
Internet users have decided that time travel is real after a 1,500-year-old mummy was pictured wearing what appear to be Adidas boots. The fashion-forward mummy was found 10,000 feet up in Mongolia’s Altai mountains - and dates from more than a millennia before the rise of the iconic German footwear brand. One Liveleak user commented, ‘The mummy had on some Adidas in the first pic?’ Experts believe that the foot wrappings are, in fact, a sign of high status - rather than devotion to the sports brand beloved of Run DMC.‘‘This person was not from elite, and we believe it was likely a woman, because there is no bow in the tomb,’ B. Sukhbaatar, researcher at Khovd Museum, told the Siberian Times. ‘Now we are carefully unwrapping the body and once this is complete the specialists will be able to say more precisely about the gender.’ |
HOUSTON, Texas – Armed Black Panther members marched in front of the Waller County jail and shouted, “You’re gonna stop doing what you’re doing, or we will start creeping up on you in the darkness.” The statement was made just two weeks prior to the assassination of a Harris County deputy sheriff. Shannon Miles, a black male, allegedly came “creeping up” behind Harris County Deputy Darren Goforth in the darkness on the night of August 28. While Goforth stood at a convenience store pumping gas into his patrol vehicle, Miles allegedly raised a pistol and shot him dead. The comments, made by a leader of the Houston-based chapter of the New Black Panther Party, were captured on a short video clip (below) from the scene by the Houston Chronicle. The writers from the Chronicle made no mention of the threat in their article published that same day. Not part of a chant, the march leader, wearing the rank of colonel, shouted directly to Harris County mounted deputies through a megaphone. “You think we’re not pissed off a bunch about y’all killing our sisters? You think it’s okay? [We’re] the wrong n***ers to mess with. You’re gonna stop doing what you’re doing, or we will start creeping up on you in the darkness.” The rally, also covered by Breitbart Texas, took place at the Waller County Jail where inmate Sandra Bland took her own life by hanging herself with a trash bag after her arrest following a traffic stop in the town of Prairie View. She was accused of an illegal lane change and assaulting a police officer. After being left in jail by her family for three days, Bland hung herself. In the video below, Breitbart Texas recorded several other violent statements towards police. “The revolution is on… Off the pigs,” and “Oink Oink… Bang Bang!,” was the message leveled by the heavily armed Black Panthers directly at Harris County deputies who had been asked by the Waller County Sheriff to come out to help keep the peace. Two weeks later, a black man, Shannon Miles, allegedly walked up behind Deputy Goforth and shot him in the head and back fifteen times, according to a Breitbart Texas report on Miles’ first court appearance. The Waller County jail is located just over 30 miles from the Chevron station where Goforth was executed. The alleged killer, Shannon Miles, also attended the same university as Sandra Bland. It is possible that her arrest and subsequent suicide could have played a role in Miles’ possible motivation. Lana Shadwick is a contributing writer and legal analyst for Breitbart Texas. She has served as a prosecutor and an associate judge. Follow her on Twitter @LanaShadwick2. Bob Price is a senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas and a member of the original Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX. |
Unfortunately I am overseas visiting my parents at the moment but my roommates have confirmed that a suspicious package was received with loud barking coming from within. I told them not to open the package until I returned. They said they thought it was a live dog and were concerned about its well being. We all agreed that would be awesome cause we have always wanted a house dog but at the same time I explained that it is more important that they respect my privacy and not open the package until I got home. Edit: We came to an agreement that my roommates were allowed to cut a small hole into the package and pour one cup of dog food and a gallon of water into the suspicious box. They will do this once a day until I return or until the barking stops. |
Padding was placed on exposed metal beams just before the finish line. And the men’s start was moved to the women’s start, a lower position that will slow maximum speeds by about five or six m.p.h. Olympic officials insisted that the changes were not made for safety reasons, but rather to accommodate the emotional state of Kumaritashvili’s fellow athletes — a bogus notion. Photo “They don’t know what the emotions of the athletes are, because they don’t see the athletes on a day-to-day basis,” said Wolfgang Staudinger, the Canadian Olympic team coach. Officials said Kumaritashvili’s death was the first luge fatality since 1975. Several sliders and officials said it could not have been foreseen. But the idea that something terrible might happen here, on the fastest course in the world, was talked about publicly and feared for a year. Frequent concerns were expressed about excessive speeds. Even Armin Zoeggeler of Italy , a two-time Olympic champion and a favorite here, had crashed on this track. On Thursday, after struggling to maintain control of her sled, Hannah Campbell-Pegg of Australia said, “To what extent are we just little lemmings that they throw down a track and we’re crash-test dummies?” Canadian reporters said Saturday morning that they had been told privately during the week of concerns for the safety of four sliders — Kumaritashvili included. So many people knew of possible danger. So little was done to prevent it. Canada ’s decision to give minimal access to the Olympic track to athletes from other nations now seems to have been an unfortunate nationalistic impulse. This was done to give Canadians a home-field advantage in a program called Own the Podium. In the end, safety took a back seat to patriotism. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “I’m all for giving the advantage of the home track to the home country,” said Shiva Kannan Palan Keshavan, a 12-year veteran from India . “At the same time, everybody should get enough runs to be comfortable. Safety cannot be compromised.” The president of Georgia , Mikheil Saakashvili , said in a news conference Saturday that officials should have listened more carefully to athletes’ concerns about the safety of the track. “I don’t claim to know all the technical details,” he said. “But one thing I know for sure, that no sports mistake is supposed to lead to a death. No sports mistake is supposed to be fatal.” Saakashvili said he was glad officials had decided to raise the height of the wall on the part of the track where Kumaritashvili crashed. “The good news is that they built it now,” he said. “But I think the best news would be, in the future, if they listen more to the grievances of sportsmen.” Photo The sport’s leaders also should consider strengthening the qualification standards, especially for events on treacherous courses like the luge track. Kumaritashvili had finished 55th out of 62 sliders on the World Cup circuit in the 2008-9 season and was ranked 44th out of 65 sliders in 2009-10. Before his crash, he had taken 25 training runs on the Whistler track — but 10 had begun at the novice, junior and women’s starts. By comparison, the average Canadian slider has taken 250 training runs. “This is definitely something that has to be considered” by the International Luge Federation, said Staudinger, Canada’s coach. “We tightened already the rules a little bit prior to 2010. But looking back in 2002, we had exotic sliders. This could have happened in the previous Games, too. Unfortunately, it happened in the Vancouver Games.” Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. Training was postponed for more than an hour Saturday as workers finished altering the track. Sun poked through the clouds, which hung low in the valley as dynamite explosions for avalanche control on Blackcomb Mountain boomed in the distance. When the sliders took to the course, they wore a black stripe on their helmets in honor of Kumaritashvili. Three sliders did not participate in the training runs, including Levan Gureshidze, a fellow Georgian. The memory of Kumaritashvili “is in our hearts,” said Kannan Palan Keshavan of India. And yet, he added: “We are professional athletes. We need to perform. The whole world is watching us.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story On the opening training run — the first since Kumaritashvili’s death — Tony Benshoof of the United States was the first slider down the hill. Asked about his emotions during that run, he said, “I’m not going to talk about that stuff.” After the second run, Benshoof acknowledged that he thought “a little bit” about the death of a fellow racer. But, he said: “Luge is a tough sport. It takes a long time to master. That’s the bottom line. We could hash over it for hours. But at the end of the day, we’re going 95-98 miles an hour and we’re six inches off the ice. We get down a mile of track in 45 seconds. There’s an inherent risk.” True, but if a track is to be opened to everyone, it should be safe for everyone. |
The tables were turned at Infinity Park on Saturday as Glendale claimed a dominant 41-7 victory over Ontario, in doing so exacting their revenge on the loss in Burlington earlier in the year. Six tries in all to only one for Ontario, a disappointing result in their maiden voyage as the Arrows. A poor start for Ontario saw Will Magie sucker the defense with a long cut-out pass to Chad London. The midfielder had only the fullback to beat who he fixed with ease to put John Ryberg in for a score just two minutes into the game. Zach Fenoglio was dispatched for a breather after committing a cynical foul at the breakdown. The visitors had trouble taking advantage of the numerical mismatch until a sneaky bit of business put Andrew Ferguson into the corner. A quick lineout throw went to the scrumhalf tearing away and he ran half the length of the field to touch down. With the conversion from wide out Ontario were back in the game. It wouldn’t be for long, however. With Fenoglio still off the pitch John Quill popped a short ball to Dustin Croy and took the return pass from his winger. The Eagles flanker then sold a cheeky dummy that suckered two defenders and opened a free lane for a try. A penalty goal from Magie stretched the gap and then Ryberg made it a double just before the break. Shaun Davies spotted a gap on the short side and his flat ball hit the powerful winger at pace to sneak around the outside and barrel through Ferguson’s cover tackle for a disheartening score. The second half proved just as challenging with the affects of the high altitude taking their toll on the visitors. Seth Halliman slipped through the line to touch down at the 50-minute mark and then Connor Cook scored a ridiculous individual effort. The flanker casually took off on a counter-attack from 70-odd meters out, stepping inside one defender and then racing past two more to skip over under the sticks. Peter Milazzo was binned for an indiscretion at a maul and then Zach Fenoglio had the final say. The captain followed up a half-break from Max de Achaval and found the post defense lacking. With replacements streaming into the match there would be no further acts of scoring. While the result was far from ideal for Ontario, the proof-of-concept must be deemed a success as fans were treated to an entertaining if slightly one-sided spectacle between two high quality sides. More matches of this caliber are set to take place in 2018 as professional domestic rugby is re-introduced to North American shores. SCORING GLENDALE 41 Tries – J. Ryberg 2 (2′, 37′), J. Quill (27′), S. Halliman (50′), C. Cook (54′), Z. Fenoglio (60′) Cons – W. Magie 4/6 (3′, 28′, 38′, 55′) Pens – W. Magie 1/1 (32′) Yellow cards – Z. Fenoglio (19′) ONTARIO 7 Tries – A. Ferguson (24′) Cons – A. Ferguson 1/1 (25′) Pens – A. Ferguson 0/1 Yellow cards – P. Milazzo (58′) TEAMS GLENDALE MERLINS 1 Luke White, 2 Zach Fenoglio (capt.), 3 Kelepi Fifita, 4 Ben Landry, 5 Casey Rock, 6 Connor Cook, 7 Peter Dahl, 8 John Quill, 9 Shaun Davies, 10 Will Magie, 11 John Ryberg, 12 Bryce Campbell, 13 Chad London, 14 Dustin Croy, 15 Seth Halliman Replacements: 16 James Del Bozque, 17 Blake Rogers, 18 Giorgi Tsverava, 19 Devin Vaughter, 20 Grigori Kerdikoshvili, 21 Mose Timoteo, 22 Ata Malifa, 23 Maximo de Achaval ONTARIO ARROWS 1 Rob Brouwer (capt.), 2 Eric Howard, 3 Alex Forrest, 4 Mike Sheppard, 5 Hank McQueen, 6 Peter Milazzo, 7 Lucas Rumball, 8 Andrew Wilson, 9 Andrew Ferguson, 10 Patrick Parfrey, 11 Jon West, 12 Guiseppe du Toit, 13 Josh Campbell, 14 Kainoa Lloyd, 15 Johnny Sheridan Replacements: 16 AJ Quattrin, 17 Pat Lynott, 18 Ryan Surgenor, 19 Paul Ciulini, 20 Marcello Wainwright, 21 Mario van der Westhuizen, 22 Mitch Richardson, 23 Kyle Lagasca MATCH OFFICIALS Referee: Derek Summers (USAR) |
Jordan Littman 08/29/2014 4:41 pm in Schedule Indiana on Friday evening released its non-conference schedule for this upcoming season, completing the Hoosiers’ 2014-2015 slate. The 13-game lineup includes the likes of SMU, Pittsburgh, Louisville and Georgetown, and starts with the season-opener on Nov. 14 against Mississippi Valley State. Following the opener, former Indiana coach Mike Davis and Texas Southern — a 2014 NCAA tournament participant —will come to Assembly Hall on Nov. 17. Additional non-conference opponents include Butler, Savannah State, UNC-Greensboro, Lamar, Eastern Washington, Grand Canyon and New Orleans. The Hoosiers also will play one home exhibition, on Nov. 10, against the University of Indianapolis. Indiana’s full 2014-2015 schedule is available on our schedule page. Tom Crean’s comments on IU’s non-conference schedule are below: “I’m glad we can bring a tournament tested team like Texas Southern for our tournament. Mike Davis has that program headed in the right direction and I’m sure he is looking forward to being back in Assembly Hall. SMU, when we decide to do that, it was really last early fall and then they went out and had a phenomenal season. They are adding players left and right and are going to be nationally ranked to start and without question they will bring in an experienced team. “The fact that we are getting a home game with a team like Pittsburgh says a lot. We had a lot of battles with them when we were at Marquette and played them our second year here at Indiana in the Garden. We have had great battles with them over a period of time. “The Louisville game is something that has been in the works for a while and we are excited to play them in the Jimmy V Classic. They are another team we became familiar with in the Big East at Marquette and we had some intense games. The Georgetown game is a unique opportunity to play right after Christmas at Madison Square Garden against a great team. It is certainly not what you are used to doing in that sense of playing somebody that strong right after Christmas, but it will be really good for us. “Butler is Butler and they are always going to be a tough team to play. They get Roosevelt Jones back, who is one of the tougher matchups in college basketball, not to mention Kellen Dunham and the rest of the guys they have.” Filed to: 2014-2015 schedule |
In 2011, Disney asked husband and wife songwriting team Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez – the maestro behind Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon – to work on their new animation, Frozen . Very loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, it would tell the tale of two orphaned princesses: Anna, a beautiful, loving optimist, and Elsa, her jealous, blue-skinned, spiky-haired villain of a sister, who uses her icy powers to launch a vicious attack on the kingdom, accompanied by an army of evil snowmen. But the Lopezes saw things differently. To them, Elsa was simply a scared girl struggling to control and come to terms with her gift. So when they came to write her big number Let it Go , they decided to create what Anderson-Lopez has described as “an anthem that said, ‘Screw fear and shame, be yourself, be powerful.’” “The minute we heard the song for the first time,” says Jennifer Lee, the film’s co-director and screenwriter, “I knew that I had to rewrite the whole movie.” The new story was one of sisterly love: protective Elsa, convinced she will hurt Anna (and her subjects) with her gift, flees the kingdom, but not before accidentally triggering an eternal winter. Meanwhile, feisty Anna, ever-supportive of her big sis, sets out (with socially-impaired ice seller Kristoff and brainless snowman Olaf) to bring her back, prove her innocence and restore summer. Frozen directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee The rewrite turned out to be rather a good decision; since its release last November, the film has become nothing short of a cultural behemoth. As well as picking up Academy Awards for best animated feature and best original song, plus a Bafta, a Golden Globe and five Annie Awards, Frozen is an eye-watering commercial success. Already the UK and Ireland’s highest grossing original animated film of all time, it has also passed the global $1 billion dollar mark – the first Disney animation to do so. It has even leapfrogged Toy Story 3, which took $1,063.2, to become the world’s highest grossing animated film of all time. And when the film eventually leaves cinemas, Disney has little to worry about; pre-orders of the DVD and Blu-Ray made it Amazon's bestselling children's film of all time before it was even released in the US. And when it was, it sold 3.2 million units on its first day (including pre-sales).The soundtrack, meanwhile, beat Beyonce’s surprise December album to the top of the Billboard chart, and has since been streamed over 7.5 million times on Spotify. There’s also a Broadway musical in the works. But it isn’t critical clout or box offices sweeps that have made Frozen an unstoppable force. It is the reaction of its audiences. Type ‘Frozen fans’ into Google and you will be sucked into a wormhole of seemingly endless blogs, videos and articles by and about Frozen-lovers. There is fan art (think swirling watercolours of Elsa working her magic, and topless cartoons of leading man Kristoff); fan fiction; YouTube tutorials for recreating the princesses’ hairstyles; and lists of the best ice castles for your next holiday. Hop onto Twitter and you’ll find #TheColdNeverBotheredMeAnyway (a pivotal line from Let it Go) used as a badge of devotion by hardcore aficionados. And then there’s the general Let it Go mania. As well as spawning hundreds of remakes, from the ‘honest version’ (“F--- it all, f--- it all! / Don’t give a s--- any more!”), through numerous adorable toddler recordings, to an uplifting African tribal version with its own professional music video, the song has also become a worldwide self-empowerment anthem. The film’s makers receiving message after message from fans who it has helped through cancer, divorce, crises of confidence and more. For Lee, who is Disney’s first ever female director of an animation, the fans responses have been overwhelming, delighting and (I get the feeling, as we speak the morning after her Bafta win), occasionally baffling. “At night my daughter and I go online and see what’s new,” she tells me. “One girl did an ‘autism version’ of Let it Go, about accepting that the thing she thinks is the most negative about herself is actually a positive. That really moved me. I’ve also seen people making costumes, reshooting scenes, and the whole movie acted out by kittens. I love the fact that the fans can make it their own and that they’re moved to spend time creating something.” She’s “still guessing” at the reasons behind the film’s power but is willing to throw a combination of music and social media into the ring. “I think it’s a phenomenon that reflects the times we’re in right now,” she says. “We didn’t have social media when I was a kid. We would sing the songs from The Little Mermaid in our living rooms but I think this is the first grand scale musical for some of these people. A couple of generations have gone by without what I grew up on. Now they can reach out to us, tell us what it means to them and it feels like there’s more of a relationship with the film than I expected.” For many, the film’s greatest selling point is its progressiveness, especially the championing of two strong female leads. And while cynics will no doubt accuse Disney of maximising their merchandising by creating two princesses in one hit, for Lee, the decision was obvious. “We had never done a film that was a sister story,” explains Lee, “so we really needed to have two very strong girls who could balance each other.” Add to the mix a modern leading man unafraid of powerful women, the first truly funny Disney princess in the form of goofy Anna, and the universal disapproval she faces when she tries to marry a man she’s just met, and it’s not surprising that the film has won a whole new set of unexpected fans, from youth rights activists and feminist bloggers, to parents advocating the film’s didactic qualities. Frozen fan art by Elsa Log For Lee, the trick was to combine the charm of the Disney films she grew up on with modern sensibilities. “For Chris Buck, Pinocchio was his first film and Cinderella was mine,” she tells me. “They dared us to dream, challenged us and made us feel a little bit of heartache and they [sent us on] these wonderful emotional journeys but you were able to do it safely. We wanted to do that again but we’re also contemporary filmmakers and the kind of characters that I’d love to see and that I find inspirational are different now. So we looked at love from a different angle, for example, and how it really is for some people.” The success of Frozen continues a reversal of fortunes between Disney and animation powerhouse Pixar, which Walt’s studio acquired in 2006 for $7.4 billion. Formerly the darling of the animation world, Pixar laid off 67 employees in November 2013 and delayed the release of its next feature, The Good Dinosaur, by 18 months. There are also murmurings in critics’ circles that the studio is relying too heavily on sequels and has lost its creative vigor. Whether Disney continues its winning streak will depend largely on the lessons it chooses to take from the success of its thoroughly modern musical. Lee, for one, is optimistic. “What I hope this success does is allow us to be even more fearless. We were taking a chance on this film, saying that we could do a musical again, have two female leads but believing that the boys would come too, and they did. It just shows that if you just focus on telling the best story you can, you might get the response you hope for.” Frozen is on release on DVD and Blu-Ray now READ: Robbie Collin's review of Frozen |
The OSRF plans to add ARM support to the Robot Operating System (ROS), starting with the Snapdragon 600 running Linux in Q4, followed by Android in 2015. The Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF), which maintains the open source Robot Operating System (ROS) and oversees the ROS.org website, has announced the first formal support for an ARM target. The organization will add support for the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600, a smartphone-oriented, quad-core, Cortex-A15-like system-on-chip running up to 1.7GHz, also referred to as the APQ8064 and S4 Pro. Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 block diagram (click image to enlarge) ROS- and Linux-based Kuka YouBot (click image to enlarge) UBR-1 (click to enlarge) The Linux version of ROS for Snapdragon 600 will be available the fourth quarter, while the Android version is due in the first half of 2015. The OSRF will test, refine, and fully integrate support for the ARM instruction set architecture into ROS development efforts. OSRF will also perform ongoing maintenance to support ROS on the Snapdragon 600.ROS has run primarily on microcontroller-based bots. However, it is increasingly used in conjunction with Linux on more advanced robot targets, almost exclusively using x86 processors. For example, ROS is paired with Linux on the Intel Atom processor used on the Kuka YouBot , and on the Intel Core processor used on the Unbounded Robotics UBR-1 According to the OSRF, the port to an ARM SoC is intended to enable robots that are smaller, more efficient, and have a longer battery life. The latter is a particular challenge with robots, which need more power than smartphones and tablets in order to run motors and other gear. The Snapdragon version will be the first officially supported ARM target for ROS. The ROS.org site lists several experimental ROS Hydro for Ubuntu builds for open source ARM SBCs like the BeagleBoard, Radxa Rock, Udoo, Odroid, FXI Cotton Candy, and Parallella. There has also been work on ROS support for the Raspberry Pi using Raspbian Linux on the ARM11-based SBC. This is also experimental, and the installation process is said to be “very long process.” About ROS Developed in large part by now defunct Willow Garage, ROS was designed for collaborative, open source robotics development. ROS is a collection of tools and libraries that simplify the task of creating and programming robotic platforms and applications. ROS is not a real-time OS, but it can be integrated with RTOSes, as well as Linux. As of earlier this year, Android support was added. The default install for ROS is Ubuntu Linux. Core ROS components include message passing, message recording and playback, remote procedure calls, and a distributed parameter system. In addition to these core middleware components, ROS offers more robotics-specific features like a Unified Robot Description Format (URDF), a remote geometry library, preemptable remote procedure calls, and diagnostics. It also offers ready-built packages for common robotics problems like mobile navigation, pose estimation, and building a map and having the robot self-localize on it. Rviz visualization software in ROS ROS supports command-line tools, as well as providing a “rviz” 3D visualization environment (see image above). There’s also a Qt-based “rqt” framework for developing graphical interfaces. NASA’s R2 humanoid robot running ROS on ISS On Sept. 7, the OSRF announced that NASA’s Robonaut 2 (R2) humanoid robot was finally fully operational as of last month at the International Space Station (ISS), running ROS and Ubuntu Linux. In March we reported that the R2 would receive a set of robotic legs, after its torso had been initially tested at the station the year before. According to the OSRF, the R2 recently received an overhaul to replace old electronics. NASA’s R2 robot (click image to enlarge) “As adoption of ROS continues to increase, our developer community wants to incorporate the latest computing platforms,” stated Brian Gerkey, CEO of OSRF. “Given the intersection between robotics and mobile and embedded systems, we believe that offering Snapdragon’s SoC capabilities to our users will be a big hit.” “Qualcomm Technologies is proud to join OSRF and the ROS community to create an official, supported release for Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processors,” stated Matt Grob, executive vice president and CTO, Qualcomm. Further information ROS for the Snapdragon 600 will be available for Linux in Q4 2014 and on Android in the first half of 2015. More information should eventually appear on the OSRF and ROS.org websites. The announcement was made at ROSCon 2014, being held Sept.-12-13 at Palmer House in Chicago. |
Prison is the one place in the world where you can’t get kicked out for bad behavior. Instead, you get kicked in. To solitary confinement. Except that might not be the case anymore after Barack Obama’s historic humanitarian move yesterday of banning solitary confinement for juveniles and for low-level offenders in the federal prison system. In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Obama noted that inhabitants of solitary confinement decompensate mentally because of the conditions, sometimes so severely that it affects their re-entry into society once they go home. He is right. Solitary confinement is impeccable psychological torture. I remember that, mere minutes after being in solitary confinement at York Correctional Institution, my emotions would divebomb. The conditions – the tedium, the prison FOMO and the inability to change clothes more than once a week – are that brutal. Obama bans solitary confinement of juveniles in federal prisons Read more Because solitary confinement is so bad, little jaunts out of the Restricted Housing Unit are tantamount to vacations. When guards took me to a meeting with an attorney or to speak with prison administration, I was hardly welcomed by the general population; prisoners in solitary (or “seg” as we called it) cannot interact with other prisoners. Other inmates are sometimes asked to turn toward a wall so that they can’t make eye contact with someone in segregation as she is escorted past in shackles and cuffs. Confinement just isn’t solitary if you have any contact with other people. Still, I longed for those trips out of “seg”. To walk in a straight line instead of pacing in tiny circles, to sit in a chair, even as a defendant, to wear clean civilian clothes around people who weren’t correctional officers is practically paradise. The number of suicides in that type of correctional housing bear this out: half of all suicides behind bars occur in solitary confinement even though inmates in segregation account for only 5% of the entire incarcerated population. Of all the studies examining the effects of extreme isolation of prisoners, only one claimed that segregation was not damaging to a person’s psyche and social ability. Critics of that study attribute these results to the fact that the subjects were just so happy to be out of their cells for the research interview that their temporary joy masked any psychological distress. There’s no research specific to the timing of segregation suicides, whether they occur after time spent out of the cell, but I would guess that many suicides in solitary happen after the person gets a taste of humanity, a moment out of seclusion, only to have it fade at the threshold of their 9x12, freezing cell. It’s bad enough to go to the hole. Going back to the hole is worse. The glimpse of something better is supposed to be a great motivator for people. But it only works if that something better is actually attainable. If it’s not, then all it does is highlight your decline in a violent neon, define your abjectness and refine the boundaries that separate you from emotional regulation. In theory, the lack of contact and activity of solitary confinement should be the perfect canvas for zen’s artistry. After all, the only thing a prisoner in solitary confinement needs to do is to be. But peace doesn’t follow this type of emptying. Instead, your mind goes through death throes and your thoughts develop a viciousness that you can’t express by being. You have to do something. And that’s when prisoners take their own lives in solitary confinement. I never got to that point, and not because I’m strong. My mind was gelatin; establishing a firm plan on it would have been impossible. But for many others, that is not the case. Let us hope that Obama’s new regulation will mean fewer people behind bars reach those levels of despair in the first place. • In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 08457 90 90 90. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here. |
Summary W e review another crazy week of hockey and give our best and worst players for the week. Then, we look forward and preview a packed weekend and share some pickup suggestions to take advantage. Lastly, we do a three person Draft on DRAFT. Download the DRAFT app on iOS or Android or visit draft.com and use promo code 'FHP' when you sign up for a $3 ticket on your first deposit AND a $100 satisfaction guarantee. Show Notes Week in Review - 1:00 Weekend Pickup Suggestions - 9:00 Picks of the Night - 24:30 Players Talked About Best Players of the Week Steven Stamkos Jamie Benn Nikita Kucherov Derek Dorsett John Tavares Aleksander Barkov Sean Couturier Erik Karlsson Martin Jones Worst Players of the Week Nikita Zaitsev James Neal Kevin Shattenkirk Ben Bishop Henrik Zetterberg Patric Hornqvist Mark Giordano Frederik Andersen Weekend Pickup Suggestions Mikko Rantanen William Karlsson Oscar Dansk Sebastian Aho Drew Stafford Alex DeBrincat Brandon Montour Evgeny Dadonov Carter Hutton Our Top Picks of the Night Jamie Benn Tyler Seguin Vladimir Tarasenko Erik Karlsson Sergei Bobrovsky Jaden Schwartz Our Value Picks of the Night |
Why Tech vs Flow is an Incomplete View For years there’s been a debate over “tech” versus “flow” and, as is want to happen at regular intervals, someone new asked what the difference is. I think the entire Tech vs Flow discussion, which often hinges on “how skilled are you with poi,” lacks the other dimension of the conversation which is about “performance expression” and I believe thinking about it more in terms of the 4 dimensions might help. My thesis follows. Mihaly Czikszentimihaiyl has done extensive research on flow. While “tech” may still be a subjective term (though everyone I think agrees it has something to do with technical execution), there is quite a bit of actual knowledge and information about what comprises flow state. In the community, we sometimes use the lax term “muscle memory” when the actual memories are stored in the brain. A few follow up thoughts to that: Stages of Learning When we talk about learning, there’s generally four stages of development which we all go through — it’s just a matter of the pace at which we go through it. Note: a prodigy will seemingly skip the first three stages and just go to the last, but ask him/her what s/he did and because they didn’t go through the other stages of learning, they may not be able to explain it — which is why instruction is often not ideal from a natural born master because they barely think about it (and therefore barely have to break it down) in order to understand it and/or execute it. Here’s the stages of learning: you don’t know what you don’t know (ignorant of your ignorance or “unconscious incompetence“) you know what you don’t know (able to define where your ignorance lies or “conscious incompetence“) you know what you know (you’re able to define both what you do know and you don’t know, which means you’ve past the stage of recognizing that your mostly ignorant and you start to have distinctions about what you’re doing, or, “conscious competence”) you know what you know so well you don’t have to think about it (or “unconscious competence” or “flowstate“) If you’re not following, think about a kid learning to tie his shoe laces. At first, he doesn’t even know he has shoe laces (doesn’t know what he doesn’t know). Then, as he starts to learn how to tie them, he realizes he can’t quite do it yet (conscious incompetence) until finally, he can do it most of the time (conscious competence) until finally, he can tie his shoelaces without thinking (unconscious competence). If you look through your life, you’ll undoubtedly see this pattern emerge again and again as it relates to learning. From what I’ve studied, because memories of how you do things are stored in the brain not muscles, if you actually imagine the task in full detail, as if you’re holding the props in your hand, you can actually build the “muscle memory” in your brain because the same neurons are firing in your head and therefore, the “grooves” of the “record of your mind” are being deepened. This has been documented to work for training for high end athletes which is interesting if you ask me and why we recommend visualization before sleep to reinforce learning. Czikszentimihaiyl says the ideal opportunity for flow to arise in the place where we are both aroused and excited by what we’re doing yet feeling a little bit beyond our sense of control… while still having enough control to not completely flail. In other words, you want to have enough skill to be somewhat competent and also challenged — riding the line between them. I believe there are other dimensions that are not being looked at because the conversation is about “tech versus flow” rather than about also measuring the dimensions of “divinity vs discovery”. 4 Quadrants System If the X axis measures “Tool Mastery” or “Competence” with “tech” (masterful execution) on the left and “flow” (the ability to move fluidly from pattern to pattern with ease and grace) being on the right; and then the Y axis is “Performance mastery” or “Expression” where “discovery” (the endless process of distinguishing new patterns) is on the bottom and “divinity” (that sense of a “higher power” taking over and moving through you) on the top, it’s really a much more gradient system and I think accounts for the anomalies that lead to the debate in the first place. Take a look at how it unfolds: Upper right would be Divine Flow — probably the people who are super spiritual and care very little about technical exploration. I’ve seen absolutely mind blowing performances from people with almost no poi skill who were, it seemed, possessed by a greater force than themselves: the divine. It’s a magical experience and absolutely transcends the tools. Audience members feel a palpable sense of energetic exchange and walk away with an impression that has little to do with the tool itself. An artist in this box may be a “performance prodigy” and can move the audience with simple moves. — probably the people who are super spiritual and care very little about technical exploration. I’ve seen absolutely mind blowing performances from people with almost no poi skill who were, it seemed, possessed by a greater force than themselves: the divine. It’s a magical experience and absolutely transcends the tools. Audience members feel a palpable sense of energetic exchange and walk away with an impression that has little to do with the tool itself. An artist in this box may be a “performance prodigy” and can move the audience with simple moves. Lower right would be Discovered Flow — a place where new moves are being discovered on the fly yet fluidly accessed in a presentation. This is where an artist is at the edge of their technique and without past preparation, they are making up flows between moves. The audience is often left with a sense of awe at the masterful expression that shows up through unique combinations and patterns that work effortlessly together. An artist in this box may be a “drunken master” style spinner. — a place where new moves are being discovered on the fly yet fluidly accessed in a presentation. This is where an artist is at the edge of their technique and without past preparation, they are making up flows between moves. The audience is often left with a sense of awe at the masterful expression that shows up through unique combinations and patterns that work effortlessly together. An artist in this box may be a “drunken master” style spinner. Upper left would be Divine Tech — which would be that place where spirit arises and expresses itself through masterful technique — so the artist still disappears — though the degree of mastery of their tricks outweighs their flow between moves. They are often prettier than the Divine Flow artists in terms of accuracy of planes and timing, though they are working with a known repertoire and not so much generating on the fly as working with a large and masterful repertoire of moves. An artist in this box may be a “technical prodigy” — you know that spinner who can get seemingly any more really quickly. — which would be that place where spirit arises and expresses itself through masterful technique — so the artist still disappears — though the degree of mastery of their tricks outweighs their flow between moves. They are often prettier than the Divine Flow artists in terms of accuracy of planes and timing, though they are working with a known repertoire and not so much generating on the fly as working with a large and masterful repertoire of moves. An artist in this box may be a “technical prodigy” — you know that spinner who can get seemingly any more really quickly. Lower left would be Discovered Tech — probably the extreme case of tech spinners that are often dismissed as lacking in entertainment as performers because they stand still a lot. This is where the artist is exploring new moves with as much accuracy in the technique as possible and likely standing still. It’s about doing the move right, repeating it, executing with precision. Where Discovered Flow will be more engaging with the audience, Discovered Tech will be the most static and least performance oriented because, ultimately, it’s about distinguishing more new tech all the time without necessarily caring about flowing from move to move. People who do several impressive tricks in a flow and repeat those over and over again, trying to find a new edge or new way to expand on that are characteristic of this box and an artist might be accused of having “tree trunk syndrome.” From this perspective, it’s easy to see that when we talk about tech vs flow, we lose a lot of dimension because “divine flow” and “discovered tech” are often working in opposition though, in my experience, are not generally accounted for in this conversation because, like politics, it’s been diluted to either/or rather than multidimensional thinking. Just like the political map is 4 quadrants, I contend the tech versus flow conversation has at least 4 as well. Hopefully these ideas will help you explore who you want to be as an artist and bring more of what you want to your performance. Written by Temple of Poi founder and visionary, GlitterGirl, who has been a full time flow arts coach and instructor since 2002. If you seek professional guidance associated with creating a safe performance, obtaining a permit in San Francisco or other personalized coaching, contact GlitterGirl directly for a free consultation (GlitterGirl <that pretty little at symbol> TempleOfPoi <daaaaaaaught> com). |
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Networks most at threat are small businesses and home users, researchers said A computer virus that can spread via wi-fi like a "common cold" has been created by researchers in Liverpool. In densely populated areas with lots of wi-fi networks, the virus can go from network to network finding weaknesses. Once in control of a wi-fi access point, it leaves computers on the network extremely vulnerable. The team's lead researcher told the BBC it was working on software to prevent such attacks being possible. "Rather than rely on people to use strong passwords, you want to integrate intrusion detection systems to the access points," said Alan Marshall, professor of communication networks at the University of Liverpool. He would not go into detail about the methods in order to prevent the attack being used on real victims but said a proof-of-concept attack had been developed at the university. 'Under control' The virus, dubbed Chameleon, seeks out wi-fi access points - devices that transmit the wi-fi signal, found in many homes - that have not had their admin password changed. Image copyright bbc Image caption Many people do not change their wi-fi admin password This password is different from the one used to log on to the wi-fi network itself, and is often left unchanged from the default setting. Once an access point is under a hacker's control, new firmware can be installed. "So it's now under our control," explained Prof Marshall. "Once you do that you can then do other things with it. You can recover passwords, steal data - anything you want." Spreading out But it is the next step of the virus that is most unusual. Once installed on one access point, the virus can - without being controlled by a human - automatically seek out other vulnerable access points, taking them over as and when they are found. Prof Marshall told the BBC that this was unlikely to be a threat to big business wi-fi networks, which should have enhanced security in place. However, networks in homes, or at small premises like coffee shops, are typically found with less stringent protection measures in place. Now that his team has demonstrated the threat, Prof Marshall said attention would turn to creating a product that could be installed in wi-fi access points to prevent this kind of hijacking - without requiring the user to take responsibility. Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC |
The Message Passing Interface, or MPI (not to be confused with the Max Planck Institutes), is in the peculiar situation of being one of the most widely used technologies in HPC and supercomputing, despite being declared dead since decades. Lately however, my nose is picking up some smells which are troubling me. And others. tl/dr: MPI is still standing strong, but its inflexibility is giving away its age. Contenders are flexing their muscles. To make one thing clear: I'm not jumping on the MPI is dead bandwagon here. My point of view is that MPI will continue to be the standard interface for moving data on HPC machines, at least for a very long time. MPI has outlived so many other technologies, it has been here before InfiniBand, before the multi-core revolution, before the ubiquity of accelerators... and it just won't die. Instead, it continues to adapt: Modern implementations can move data directly from GPU RAM to the NIC via PCIe peer to peer transfers. Shared memory communication on multi-core machines is, thanks to tricks like cross memory attach (CMA) efficient (saves redundant copies) and blazingly fast. Performance-wise, this renders the potential margin for heterogeneous codes, which employ OpenMP and MPI, very thin. Thanks to the plugin-based architecture of most implementations, newer interconnects are easily supported. Often vendors will even provide a custom implementation of the ibverbs library (even if the new interconnect is not related to InfiniBand -- Cray did this for Gemini IIRC), thereby removing the need of adapting MPI alltogether. Anyway. Thanks to a sequence of lucky coincidences, I had the pleasure to attend the 2014 Mardi Gras Conference earlier this year. It was organized by CCT at LSU, Baton Rouge, LA. Pavan Balaji from Argone was giving a talk there on MPI for exascale. Pavan is deeply involved in MPI in general, but also in the MPICH project -- just the guy to ask about the guts of MPI. Supported Thread-Levels My first question was related to why so many MPI implementations are struggling to support MPI_THREAD_MULTIPLE well. Having multiple threads in one MPI process can still be valuable, despite CMA and such, as these may harness the CPU's shared caches -- especially useful for memory bound codes. As it turned out, the strategy most vendors chose to implement in this case was to wrap all MPI calls in a big lock. The more threads hammer MPI, the more this lock will hurt you -- contention is bad. But these locks add overhead, even if just one thread ends up calling MPI. There are smarter ways of going about this: don't use one giant lock, but multiple, each for a smaller scope. And we know lock-free algorithms, especially useful for managing queues of transfers. And much more. Given that multi-core CPUs aren't exactly new, I'm surprised that this is still not resolved. Interestingly, this also explains why most MPI variants have good support MPI_THREAD_SERIALIZED and MPI_THREAD_FUNNELED. The currently accepted workaround for users is to funnel all MPI calls through one single thread. The application developer needs to take care of not overburdening this single thread. Oh, and of course the user who's submitting the job also needs to take care of starting sufficient numbers of processes per node, if nodes have lots of cores. And the sysadmin needs to provide presets for facilitating different allocation and pinning schemes. It's a pain. Beyond the 2 GB Barrier If you dig around the MPICH and Open MPI user mailing lists, you will encounter multiple posts complaining about not being able to send/receive more than 2 GB en block. 2 GB is not much, considering that our machines at last year's Student Cluster Competition came with 128 GB of RAM per node. One source for these errors are genuine bugs in the MPI implementation (e.g. using an int to track a message size, instead of a long). These are easily fixed. The other source is apparently harder to come by: the MPI standard mandates that the number of items to be sent is specified by an MPI_INT. And that locks you down to 2^31 elements. If you're sending chars, you've just lost. It's not much better to be limited to 16 GB when sending doubles, though. Yes, you'll rarely send so many doubles for now. But it creates nasty glitches in user code, which are hard to hunt down. Now, the textbook solution would be to optionally replace MPI_INT by size_t. But this would either require all MPI functions to be specified twice in the standard: once for ints, once for size_t. A huge, but rather simple and mechanical change to the standard. I don't know why, but according to Pavan, this solution was instantly rejected by the MPI Standard Committee. Another solution would be to use packed datatypes, e.g. instead of sending 2^35 doubles, I could send them in 2^25 batches of 2^10 doubles each. So convenient! Not. Finally, one could imagine to create a meta-MPI-implementation which is not part of the standard, but only provides 64-bit enabled variants of the MPI API. Internally this meta-implementation would wrap all calls around the original 32-bit API and make sure buffer sizes etc. are set correctly. Sounds like a huge PITA, and a giant waste of time? Well, according to Pavan, work in this is already in progress. The name of the project escapes me though. Update: the project is called BigMPI. At the time of writing the last commit was on 2013.09.24. Update^2: Jeff Hammond, the author of BigMPI, got back to me to let me know that the project was rather meant as a tutorial to show users how to skirt this current limitation of MPI. He did however hint at the possiblity to develop a fully fledged wrapper library at a later point of time. C++ Bindings Removed from MPI-3 ...with the rationale of this being that the original bindings were basically a fig leave on top of the original C-code, and no one was using it anyway. So, no one is using code which isn't going to benefit him anyway? Color me impressed. Today folks are flocking around Boost.MPI , and rightfully so. Boost.MPI brings many features direly missing in vanilla MPI (e.g. support for STL types). If you ask me: Boost.MPI is what the C++ bindings of MPI should have been. This goes to prove that it is possible to bridge from MPI to C++ well. Asynchronous vs. Non-blocking Communication A lot of users think of MPI_Isend/recv and friends as asynchronous counterparts of MPI_Send/Recv etc. Implementers generally call them non-blocking, and for a good reason: often MPI will do progress (e.g. actually send the data) only if you're blocking in a call to MPI_Wait, or similar. The reason for this is simple: even if the interconnect supports RMDA and bus mastering, MPI still needs to provide it with new addresses, move memory to pinned pages and so on and so on. It's complicated. Still, asynchronous communication can be hugely advantegous, especially in strong scaling setups. So, how to achieve asynchronous progress? Regularly ping MPI, e.g. via MPI_Test(). The frequency of these calls needs to be carefully chosen though. Too few calls, and MPI won't have enough cycles to make good progress. Too many calls and you'll incur overhead. You might need to determine optimum parameters not just for every new machine, but even for every problem size. A pace maker: some architectures, e.g. IBM's Blue Gene/Q come with a core dedicated MPI pacing. That's nice. But what if you're st(r)uck with a machine that doesn't? Victim threads, e.g. nemesis engine: an elegant solution, which comes at a price. Considering that your company just spent a gigantic sum on procuring a new machine, people from accounting might not be super happy if you told them that you're wasting 10% of the cores on just waiting for communication. Pavan's opinion regarding these issues was: it's not MPI's task to make writing any parallel program easy. It's about making writing trivial programs easy and writing hugely complex programs feasible. He said, it was his opinion that no end user (i.e. domain scientist, e.g. a physicist writing a new simulation code) should ever touch MPI. These should use computationally libraries, which are easier to use and will deliver crucial performance optimizations. A surprising, and interesting point of view. One I can sympathize with. After all, that's why I'm working on LibGeoDecomp. This begs the question though if there was a way to express parallelism in a generic, yet user-friendly way. Feature Regressions in Open MPI From time to time RFCs pop up on the Open MPI devel list. These are used to discuss potentially disruptive changes to the code base with the larger developer community. Usually they're concerned with adding new features, but sometimes they also deal with cleaning up code or removing outdated, unmaintained code. That's fine. Open MPI is an active research project, and as members join and leave the project, portions of the code which are not actively used, may be orphaned. A while ago one of my colleagues, Adrian Knoth, added IPv6 support to Open MPI. Sounds like a trivial change, right? After all, IPv6 is like IPv4, just with longer addresses, right? Well, no. Today IPv6 support is disabled by default, as it is broken since five years and no one is maintaining it. Recently IBM has committed to opening their Power chips to collaborators. Simultaneously, Open MPI developers are discussing whether support for heterogeneous runs should be removed. MPI's hugely complicated type system is usually motivated by stating that if MPI could understand the structure of the data being sent, then it could translate between different architectures. If it can't do this anyway, why bother with defining MPI datatypes? The Gist of It None of the issues I've presented are catastrophic. Cleaning up code and removing rotting passages is part of a healthy software engineering process. And yet it stinks: MPI is not becoming easier to use, but harder. The voodoo dance an ordinary user has to complete to max out e.g. perfectly ordinary two-socket, 16-core nodes is inane: polling MPI for asynchronous progress, using a custom locking regime to funnel MPI calls into one thread, pack data into arbitrary chunks to skirt the limitations of 32-bit ints. Previously usable and useful features are being removed, sometimes confusing, sometimes even alienating users. Trivial changes (e.g. the use of size_t) seem next to impossible to implement. |
The match was also the joint longest ever by inning in World Series history The Kansas City Royals came from behind to secure a 5-4 victory over the New York Mets in a dramatic opening game of the seven-match World Series. The Mets were set for a 4-3 win when, at the bottom of the ninth, Alex Gordon hit a home run to bring the Royals level and force extra innings. Eric Hosmer then hit long for Alcides Escobar to run in a 14th-inning winner. Played over five hours and nine minutes, the match was the longest ever World Series game one. It was also the joint longest ever World Series match by inning, tying with Boston's victory over Brooklyn in game two of the 1916 edition and the Chicago White Sox's triumph at Houston in game three in 2005. Game two will be played on Wednesday, again in Kansas City, before the series shifts to New York for game three on Friday. The Royals are appearing in their second consecutive Fall Classic, having lost out in the deciding seventh game to the San Francisco Giants last year. For the Mets, this is a first World Series appearance since 2000, when they lost to city rivals the New York Yankees. The Mets led 4-3 going in to what was supposed to be the final inning Hosmer's sacrifice fly to right field saw Escobar run in for the winning score in the 14th Game two will again be played in Kansas City, before the series switches to New York |
Not only did Mr. Nasrallah fight Israel next door; he defied pro-American Arab states, trained and protected Hamas in Lebanon, backed Moktada al-Sadr’s Shiite militia as it killed Americans in Iraq, and showed absolute loyalty to Iran. His fans were in the millions. The Arab multitude from Casablanca to Mecca saw him as a genuine hero who talked the talk and fought the good fight. But when such a wildly popular resistance movement abandons the ideal, much less the practice, of liberation in support of tyranny, it loses credibility with the public. Fighting Israel as a Syrian proxy is one thing, but opposing the Syrian people’s desire for democratic change is something else entirely. The Assads are mortals who are today burdened by a moribund political system. Mr. Assad, his brother Maher and their henchmen have managed to trap themselves in a macabre machine of oppression that has left the stench of death in its wake, from Homs to Hama. Now, Mr. Nasrallah has reason to worry. In one speech, he defensively denied that his troops partake in repressing Syrian protesters. In another, he ignored the Syrian uprising altogether. Syrians, in Mr. Nasrallah’s eyes, apparently, do not deserve democracy because that would mean the downfall of Hezbollah’s patron in Damascus, not to mention the destruction of the “axis of resistance” that reaches from southern Beirut to Syria and Iran. Hezbollah’s fellow “resistance” movement, Hamas, has been more politically savvy. It has adapted to the new political landscape, navigating the uncharted territory of the Syrian uprising by impressing onlookers by what it didn’t do and say rather than what it did or said. Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. Historically, the biggest threat to the Palestinian national movement has been getting bogged down in other countries’ internal conflicts — from Jordan in the 1970s to Lebanon in the 1980s — and Hamas is mindful of that history. Advertisement Continue reading the main story When the former Syrian president Hafez al-Assad brutally crushed an earlier rebellion by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood in the city of Hama in 1982, Hamas did not even exist. But today, the group cannot afford to be seen as complicit in the face of Syria’s new killing fields. While Hezbollah’s pro-Assad rhetoric and deeds scream “united we stand,” Hamas’s position on the Syrian uprising has been eloquent in its quiet dissidence. The former frets over supply lines for weapons from Iran if the Assad regime falls. The latter, buoyed by the recent success of fellow Sunni Islamist movements — from Tunisia to Egypt — sees a horizon beyond the Assads. The Hamas leader Khaled Meshal’s cameos in Damascus are becoming increasingly rare and the skeleton staff left at Hamas’s Syrian politburo is simply to keep up appearances. Although it hasn’t severed ties with the Syrian regime, it has downsized its presence in the country, and many of its middle-ranking officials have left Damascus for good, opting to move to Gaza or even to Egypt, Jordan and Qatar — Sunni states where they are likely to find support. Hamas has paid a price for its more principled stand on Syria: Its coffers have been drying up as Iranian handouts diminish. Its popularity, however, is likely to increase. Meanwhile, resisting the Syrian people’s resistance has steadily darkened Hezbollah’s prospects as a popular movement throughout the region. In a speech last week, Mr. Nasrallah vowed to continue supporting the Syrian regime while commemorating the martyrdom of the venerated Shiite Imam Hussein ibn Ali during the battle of Karbala in the year 680. But Mr. Nasrallah forgets that before his death Imam Hussein lamented that living under the tyranny of the Damascus-based Umayyad Caliphate was a great sorrow — a message that seems to have been lost on Hezbollah today. Blind to his present political predicament, Mr. Nasrallah has instead declared that Hezbollah will never allow the ouster of Mr. Assad. Luckily for the Syrian people, that choice is not Mr. Nasrallah’s. |
Film on borderline personality disorder screens in Ridgefield Regina is the main character in the documentary film “Borderline.” Regina has borderline personality disorder. Regina is the main character in the documentary film “Borderline.” Regina has borderline personality disorder. Photo: Rebbie Ratner / Contributed Photo Photo: Rebbie Ratner / Contributed Photo Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Film on borderline personality disorder screens in Ridgefield 1 / 4 Back to Gallery Regina was just 5 years old when she tried to commit suicide. Since then she has struggled at times with alcohol and depression, had difficulties maintaining relationships and committing to a career. She was eventually diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, a condition characterized by problems regulating emotions, severe mood swings, impulsive behavior, poor self-image and stormy personal relationships. Despite the disorder, Regina grew into a funny and intelligent woman able to hold down a job and enjoy a 12-year relationship, but it still sometimes threatens to undermine what she has achieved. Years after her diagnosis, at 45, she agreed to become the main subject of a documentary film called “BORDERLINE.” Filmmakers followed her for almost a year, interviewing her and capturing interactions with people in her life, including her therapist, Gina Pulice, a licensed clinical social worker who now lives in Ridgefield. “My dream would be if a handful of people who have the illness, whether they know it or not, relate to Regina’s experience and then they realize there is a treatment, that it’s not a death sentence ... and that there is hope for you and it’s not your fault,” Pulice said. The 88-minute film will be screened at The Ridgefield Playhouse at 7 p.m. Tuesday. After the screening, the evening will continue with a panel discussion including Regina; Rebbie Ratner, the film’s director; Pulice; and Pulice’s husband, Dr. Aaron Krasner, a psychiatrist who works at Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan. Silver Hill is hosting the screening, which allowed it to be free to the public. An estimated 1.6 percent of American adults have borderline personality disorder, but the figure might be as high as 5.9 percent, according to the National Alliance for Mental Illness. Ratner herself was diagnosed with the disorder when she was 39, after years of struggling and actively searching for answers about her mental health. After receiving treatment, Ratner returned to graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin, where she had been pursing a master’s in filmmaking. She needed to make a film, so she decided to create one about borderline personality disorder. Ratner posted on Craigslist asking for someone with borderline personality disorder to be involved in her proposed film. That is how she found Regina. Ratner said the film offers viewers insight “into a misunderstood, highly stigmatized mental health diagnosis whose symptoms express the extremes of everyday human suffering.” The movie was co-produced by Suzanne Mitchell, who worked for a year at the Ridgefield Playhouse. The film has already been screened across the country, including in New York, Texas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Colorado and Oregon. “Hopefully it increases people’s emotional literacy, even a modicum,” said Ratner, who is now 44. “I want borderline on the map ... I think it’s the common citizens, not the great clinician, that together will increase awareness and make change.” For more information on BORDERLINE, visit www.borderlinethefilm.com. |
The San Francisco 49ers added an outside linebacker to replace Aldon Smith on the depth chart. Jim Tomsula announced that the team signed outside linebacker Shawn Lemon. He has spent the bulk of his career in the CFL, but signed a reserve/future contract this offseason with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Lemon initially signed with the Steelers on January 20, and was waived on July 29. Fooch's update: As pointed out by stultus, Lemon was dealing with an Achilles injury with the Steelers. He was on the Active/PUP list. The team waived him and when he was not claimed off waivers, he reverted to their Reserve/PUP list. The team agreed to an injury settlement, which made him a free agent. Lemon is 26, and turns 27 in August. He initially signed in the CFL back in 2011 as an undrafted free agent out of Akron. He bounced around the CFL, the Arena Football League and the Indoor Football League. In 2014, he had his best year as a pro, finishing with 13 sacks and eight forced fumbles in 18 games. The team released him following the season so he could sign with the Steelers. Our friends at Behind The Steel Curtain broke down some film on Lemon back in June. They found a guy who could get to the quarterback from both sides of the field. He is primarily a speed rush guy, but they saw some variations on that. They saw speed and athleticism that could benefit him on special teams, as well as depth at outside linebacker. He comes in a week and the full offseason behind some of the other guys. Given that, his roster chances are likely pretty slim. However, it is not impossible following Aldon Smith's release. Ahmad Brooks, Aaron Lynch and Eli Harold are all locks to make the roster. Corey Lemonier would be the favorite for the fourth OLB spot, but Lemon will get some opportunities along with Marcus Rush. And on a side note, his Twitter handle is SLemonator. I'm probably a little too excited about having two Lemon names. |
Of course, Bezos avoids talking publicly about his wealth. Like most tech tycoons, he insists he's trying to change the world rather than get rich. In his commencement speech at Princeton, Bezos said he had the idea of selling books on the internet while he was working at a New York hedge fund. Torn between his high-paying job and a risky start-up, he chose the start-up. "I took the less safe path to follow my passion and I'm proud of that choice," he said. Bezos may not only be the richest man in the world today — he might become the richest man ever, at least measured in pure dollars. At his peak Gates was worth $90 billion, marking the largest single fortune ever. With little sign that Amazon's momentum may be slowing, Bezos could well be the first 12-digit man, worth $100 billion one day. On Thursday, a leading analyst said that Amazon "could be the first trillion-dollar company" with its stock doubling to $2,000. Indeed, Bezos' rise to the top of the rich list shows just how large and fast today's biggest fortunes have become. In the 1980s, Saudi businessman Adnan Khashoggi was considered the richest man in the world with a net worth of around $4 billion. By 1995, when Gates first became the richest man, he was worth $12.9 billion. By 2005, Gates was still topping the list at $50 billion. In 1987, according to Forbes, there were 140 billionaires in the world with a combined net worth of $295 billion. Now, billionaires number 2,043 and have a combined $7.7 trillion. In fact there were more new billionaires in the world in 2016 — 233 — than the entire population of billionaires in 1987. Gates has been the richest man for 18 of the past 23 years. The only interlopers were Carlos Slim of Mexico, who was the richest man between 2010 and 2012, and Warren Buffett, who was the richest in 2008. Indeed, with the exception of Slim and the occasional overseas billionaire, Gates and Buffett have been a duopoly at the top of the rich list. Their close friendship and partnering in philanthropy made them a potent symbol of the philanthropic side of wealth. Bezos will be a different figurehead. Unlike Gates, he is still actively running and building a business. He is far more press-averse, rarely giving interviews or public addresses. He is hyper-competitive. And he is only moderately — some would say barely — philanthropic. But like Gates and Buffett, Bezos is not given to many flashy displays of wealth. He has loads of real estate — he bought the most expensive home in Washington, D.C., and owns homes in Beverly Hills, California, and New York along with his spread in Medina, Washington — and is one of the nation's largest landowners, with over 300,000 acres. He also owns The Washington Post and founded Blue Origin, the space-travel company. Yet Bezos drove his 1996 Honda Accord long after he became a billionaire. When asked how his life changed when he became a billionaire he said: "Personally, it hasn't changed at all. The big difference is that we now have $50 million in the bank, which is huge." With a net worth topping $90 billion, Bezos' definition of "huge" may have changed. |
SECURITY cameras installed inside three Hills public toilets to curb constant vandalism and graffiti have been effective, the Adelaide Hills Council says. The cameras have been operating in the Aldgate, Bridgewater and Stirling public toilets since late October and have already deterred vandalism. Urinals, as well as cubicles, are not filmed in the toilet blocks with the vision focused on the larger open area of the toilets where vandalism takes place. The cameras have already saved the council thousands of dollars. "We've noticed a very dramatic reduction in the amount of vandalism and graffiti since we did that," Tim Hancock, director of engineering at the council said. "It costs of in excess of $50,000 a year to remove graffiti and probably a considerable sum in addition to that to repair any damage." Mr Hancock said that the Adelaide Hills Council would consider adding more cameras to the 42 public toilets in the Adelaide hills. "Probably not all of them but we will definitely be looking at this for other public toilets," he said. "These cameras can also be moved around as well which is a great benefit in deterring the vandals." Originally published as Security cameras inside public toilets |
Loading ... Loading ... Just last week, the U.S. and its allies — who are currently conducting military operations within Syrian territory without a U.N. mandate or permission of the Syrian regime — bombed Syrian troops, killing over 60 fighters and wounding over 100 more. This attack, according to the Assad regime, lasted for over an hour. It also involved a number of warplanes belonging to American, British, and even Australian air forces. This aerial bombardment coincided with an offensive launched by ISIS militants, who then sought to take back government-held facilities. In the eyes of Russia and Syria, the aerial offensive was working in tandem with ISIS’s ground offensive, confirming their concerns the American-led coalition has been providing air cover to ISIS militants. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the rise of groups like ISIS in the Middle East. Since ISIS replaced al-Qaeda in 2014 as the top monster to fear, the U.S. has aided the group in a number of ways, both covertly and overtly, despite officially declaring war against the savage terror group. Let’s examine some of the ways the U.S. has directly aided ISIS while claiming to fight against it since the American-led war began in 2014 (the U.S. aided ISIS growth from the outset, but that is a topic for a separate article). 1. Mosul and Baiji In June 2014, ISIS crossed the Syrian border into Iraq, effortlessly taking the strategic oil-rich cities of Mosul and Baiji and almost making it as far as Baghdad. Amid the terror group’s frightening victory, they uploaded images and footage of drive-by-shootings, large-scale death marches, and mass graves (following the mass executions of Iraqi soldiers). ISIS militants claimed massive quantities of American military equipment, including entire truckloads of humvees, helicopters, tanks, and artillery, as their own. This was no secret to Washington, or even the world, as the militants photographed and recorded themselves and publicly flaunted their activity on social media. What did the U.S. do in response? Nothing. In spite of all the American bases in Iraq and the government’s ability to perform all manner of illicit activity — including assassinating Muammar Gaddafi in Libya using a drone that was flown out of Sicily by a pilot who operated the vehicle from a naval base in Nevada‚ the U.S. couldn’t do anything to stop ISIS rapid advancements. Was there a problem preventing the U.S. military from conducting air strikes? Clearly not, as the U.S. had been launching drone strikes in Pakistan at around the same time ISIS advanced. 2. ISIS oil revenue In documenting ISIS’s expansion, the media previously reported ISIS was enjoying a lucrative oil business in which they were earning at least $50 million a month. Who, exactly, was buying this oil? Mainstream media refused to investigate this openly, and the United States Air Force did nothing to try to eliminate ISIS’s main source of revenue. On the other hand, Russian air forces began targeting convoys of oil headed into Turkish territory in November 2015. In a completely unrelated matter, Turkey shot down a Russian bomber they claimed violated Turkish airspace (for 17 seconds). Russian and Turkish relations immediately deteriorated, and Russia responded in kind with sanctions. They also cited satellite evidence they claim shows Turkey is the main importer of ISIS oil. The U.S. government disputed the evidence, offered no evidence of their own, and was forced to partake in the Russian assault on ISIS oil tankers in an attempt to play catch-up. This whole debacle raised the question of why on earth a country with as shady and brutal a reputation as Russia is doing the job the U.S. claimed they were going to do. The U.S. was forced to offer an explanation as to why they had not targeted the main source of ISIS revenue. According to former CIA director Michael Morell, environmental damage and the need to protect Iraqi and Syrian infrastructure were the reasons why the U.S. did not target those oil tankers: “We didn’t go after oil wells, actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls, because we didn’t want to do environmental damage, and we didn’t want to destroy that infrastructure.” Makes sense. The U.S. military has a long history of protecting the environment and public infrastructure (it doesn’t). 3. Palmyra In May 2015, ISIS overran the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra in what CNN claimed was a “swift, destructive takeover or yet another city in the brutal quest to expand its caliphate in the Middle East.” The capture of Palmyra risked the future of a UNESCO World Heritage Site that was described as having “stood at the crossroads of several civilizations.” Once again, during this brutal takeover of a historic city, which is home to tens of thousands of civilians, American air forces were nowhere to be seen. At of the end of last year, the U.S. had spent approximately over $5 billion USD specifically fighting ISIS yet somehow didn’t take the initiative to use the most advanced air force in the world to counter their offensives. 4. Air drops In October 2014, the Washington Post reported the U.S. Air Force “accidentally” delivered weapons to ISIS that were intended for Kurdish militants in the Syrian border town of Kobane. The Kurds were battling the Islamic State. Although dropping weapons in a war zone seems like a fool-proof strategy, in this instance it backfired, and the weapons, including crates of hand grenades, were claimed by the terror group. Further, Iraqi and Syrian troops repeatedly find ISIS militants with Israeli military equipment following victories against the terror group. Coincidence? 5. Ramadi Just before the Palmyra offensive was launched last year, ISIS also took the strategic city of Ramadi. Locals again questioned why U.S. forces sat on their hands during the entire operation. The official explanation offered for not intervening was that the U.S. was more concerned with the protection of civilian life – if you can believe that. Honorable mentions The ways in which the U.S. and its allies have overtly aided ISIS is endless. The above list merely paints a picture of the ways in which the United States military, in particular, has directly aided ISIS while simultaneously claiming to be fighting them. This is something worth investigating in light of the recent attack on Syrian troops that also provided the air cover for an ISIS offensive. Honorable mentions that didn’t make this list include America’s support for the Saudi-led war on Yemen, which has never once targeted a single ISIS militant, and the recently renewed U.S. air campaign in Libya, which has targeted the city of Sirte. Sirte has almost all but driven out their ISIS constituents. It has been speculated, instead, that America’s motives in Libya are merely an excuse to kill any chance of a Gaddafi-inspired political movement — and the campaign is ultimately designed to prolong any chance of solving the Libyan crisis. As stated by the Stop The War Coalition: “More Western bombing will entrench divisions and intensify violence. It will inevitably increase bitterness against the West and will do nothing to defeat IS. Stop the War continues to demand Western powers learn the terrible lessons of the last fifteen years and end their addiction to military solutions.” Pre-2014 mentions include the fact ISIS was almost wholly a product of American foreign policy, as confirmed by a declassified DOI report. Help Us Be The Change We Wish To See In The World. |
You must enter the characters with black color that stand out from the other characters Message: * A friend wanted you to see this item from WRAL.com: http://wr.al/uXtc — State environmental regulators and representatives of Duke Energy were in early and frequent contact soon after environmental groups threatened in January 2013 to sue the power company over contaminants leaking from its coal ash ponds. North Carolina would eventually sue the company itself, cutting off the Southern Environmental Law Center's attempt to take the lead in that litigation. Emails obtained by the organization and released to media organizations Thursday show that officials for the company were in contact with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources soon after the SELC filed its notice to sue and maintained a close working relationship throughout the year. "DENR is supposed to be a public agency that protects the public interest," said Frank Holleman, a lawyer for the SELC. "What you have here is a very cozy relationship between the law enforcement agency and the law breaker." He points to email chains that show Duke's demands that the state not require the company to take specific actions to clean up coal ash, but rather just set a timeline for having cleanup plans in place. A spokesman for DENR said those emails were routine and pointed out that Duke was ready to make a legal case that it had not violated any federal or state laws. "The Attorney General's Office, who acts as our lawyers, worked on the particular language that's in the consent order, and that was predicated on existing law and precedent," said DENR spokesman Drew Elliot. Lawsuits preceded the spill Coal ash is the material left over after coal is burned for fuel. While much of it is inert, it contains toxins like arsenic, mercury and boron. Duke's coal ash pits have been in the news since a Feb. 2 spill at the company's plant in Eden released some 39,000 tons of toxin-laced slurry into the Dan River. However, a year before that spill, the SELC had given notice that it would sue the company over the slow leaching of toxins from a western North Carolina plant. Before that suit could take hold, the state stepped in and sued the company itself. Lawyers for the SELC say the state was obstructing their efforts to hold Duke accountable, while the state said it was fulfilling its obligations to uphold federal clean water laws. The state has now sued Duke over leaching toxins from the company's 14 coal ash plants across the state. The SELC says that the state's proposal to settle legal action over two of the plants with a $99,100 fine but no requirements to take specific actions is a sweetheart deal for the $50 billion company. MAP: Coal ash ponds in NC Locations source: NCDENR permits. Informatoin source: Duke Energy Some emails released by the SELC are seemingly innocuous. One, for example, that asks "how Duke wants to be sued" is part of an email chain that expressed confusion over the company's proper name. Kathy Cooper, a lawyer working for DENR in the Attorney General's Office, wrote to Debra Watts, supervisor of DENR's Groundwater Protection branch, noting that Duke had just merged with Progress Energy. "I need to check with Lacy about how Duke wants to be sued. Right now this complaint names Carolina Power and Light Company d/b/a Progress Energy Carolinas, Inc. as the defendant. I noticed in the Secretary of State’s website that Duke is changing the name of Progress Energy as well to Duke Energy Progress. CP&L’s shareholders voted for the name change on 3/8/13 but it is not effective until April 29, 2013," Cooper wrote. Other emails detail communications between the lawyers for the state and lawyers for Duke. For example, in an April 1, 2013, exchange, Frank Emory, who is working for Duke, asks Cooper if the state would object to a 30-day extension of time to answer a complaint. Cooper writes back that she doesn't object and then adds, "We heard from Charles Case last week that Duke/Progress are interested in working on a Consent Judgment to resolve this matter. DENR's General Counsel, Lacy Presnell, is taking the lead on arranging a meeting to start the discussion." Drafting compromises In other exchanges, lawyers for the state and Duke discussed proposals for permits and drafts of a consent order. Those exchanges are more problematic, Holleman said, because they show environmental regulators backing off demands that Duke propose specific actions to clean up its coal ash waste. "We think it makes sense for the Consent Order to set out deadlines by which the two companies will provide plans to the Department for completion of the required activities rather than deadlines by which the activities will be completed," wrote Charles Case, a lawyer working for Duke. DENR's proposed consent order did, in fact, suggest timelines for having plans in place but did not demand specific cleanup actions. "This is just part and parcel of DENR not enforcing the law," Holleman said. A Superior Court judge last week drew a similar conclusion, saying DENR had failed to follow the law and order Duke to clean up its coal ash ponds. But Elliot said DENR was trying to ensure some action was taken, rather than fighting out a lengthy lawsuit. "Maybe today you have things turn out differently because we know more," Elliot said. "We had to make decision based on what we knew at the time." |
In media mythology, the first 100 days is make-or-break time for a new president and an easily packaged time frame that is, of course, inherently arbitrary. While the phrase conjures up an FDR-like New Deal, it can also be a tough slog as a new president tries to push legislation through Congress, get nominees confirmed and becomes enveloped by Beltway process stories. But given Donald Trump’s unique status as an outsider who ran against the establishment of both parties, the first 100 days could be more fiery than usual. And that’s what Martha MacCallum is banking on. “We have to hold his feet to the fire,” she told me in a phone interview. The “America’s Newsroom” co-host is launching a new show Monday at 7 p.m. ET to chronicle the debut of the Trump administration. MacCallum, a onetime Wall Street Journal staffer and stock exchange reporter for CNBC, says the business community is counting on Trump slashing regulations and cutting taxes. “That in many ways is what the market is reading,” she said. “He needs to make sure that’s one of his top priorities.” MARTHA MACCALLUM SET TO PREMIERE NEW PRIMETIME SHOW 'THE FIRST 100 DAYS' On Sunday's "Media Buzz," MacCallum said that "the question has hung out there" since the election: "Will he become more presidential when he takes that oath of office?" As for the controversies that surround his statements and misstatements, she said: "I think in a strange way there’s an acceptance of exaggeration with Donald Trump that we haven’t had with former presidents." A political science major at St. Lawrence University in upstate New York, MacCallum says politics -- and history -- have always been her passion. She paid some serious dues, waitressing at four Manhattan restaurants while working as a fact-checker at a financial magazine. She also “got bitten by the theater bug,” studied acting and directing in graduate school and worked with a small theater company -- which may have helped her future career. “At the time I would have scoffed at any connection between the pure art form of theater having any relation to the news,” she says. “But in both it’s about connecting with your viewers…To be a good waitress is an art. You’ve got to juggle a lot of tables and people.” The reason she’ll be serving up the new fare at 7 p.m. on Fox is that the slot opened up when Megyn Kelly decided to leave for NBC and Tucker Carlson’s new show was moved to 9 p.m. MacCallum, who has three children, isn’t sure she’ll continue in the evening -- she loves her morning partnership with Bill Hemmer -- but she is pumped about raising the curtain on the Trump presidency. “We have seen plenty of presidents get gobsmacked in the first 100 days,” she says. |
Seventh Son is on the hunt for a talented artist to design the labels for their 2016 750ml bottle release series. “We had a fantastic series of labels from Mike Moses last year and are looking forward to finding another great local artist for 2016,” said brewery owner Collin Castore. To be considered, submit six pieces of recent work along with brief artist’s statement to info@seventhsonbrewing.com by November 1. From the initial pool of artists, Seventh Son will select 10 finalists who will be asked to submit a finished label design by December 1, including ideas for subsequent labels. The brewery will provide a general theme as well as beer styles and names. The winner will receive an initial payment of $400 and will design a total of ten labels for the brewery throughout 2016, earning an additional $400 per label. The winner will also get discounts at Seventh Son, brewery merchandise and label credit on all bottles for the length of the series. The contest runner-up will receive $300, and third place will get $200. |
"All right," said Hermione, pausing outside a disused classroom. "Before we get go to the hospital wing, I think we should test my theory. If you'll give me Scabbers, I will turn around, then one of you - don't tell me who, and don't say anything - go in the classroom and pick two corners of the room randomly, walk to each, then come back. When you're done, I'll go in with Scabbers and test the spell - if he can tell which corners you went to, and lead me back to the right one of you, then we're in good shape." The Gryffindor boys stared at her in confusion. "But...why don't we just test it in the actual place, save some time and trouble?" asked Ron. Hermione shook her head. "If it turns out not to be practical, there's no point in even trying it and risking getting in trouble with Madam Wainscott or anyone else. Also, this way we can check the answer, because you two will know it, whereas in the hospital wing, we couldn't be sure it wasn't just a guess or something?" Also, I needed to prep the room first, and that would've required an additional pretense to get Madam Wainscott out, Hermione added, silently. The boys looked at each other. "Makes sense to me," said Harry. Ron shrugged, and handed over the rat - Hermione steeled herself carefully to avoid showing her revulsion, though again wondered if it might've been more in character for her to be uneasy about handling a rat. She also made a point of standing so that she couldn't see what the boys were doing, but angled slightly so that the rat - if he were so inclined - could in fact spy on them. Better to give him every opportunity to cheat now, to feel as smug and confident as possible in whatever he decided to do. There were quiet noises behind her as the boys exchanged gestures to work out who would go in, followed by the sound of the door opening and closing, then doing so again after a brief delay. At the second door closing, Hermione turned back to face Ron and Harry. "Ok, just wait here. It might take a little while, since I'm going to be very careful, so please be patient? Oh, here," she added as if it was an afterthought, pulling a quill and a scrap of paper out of her bag and handing them to Harry, "once I've gone in, write down which of you went inside, and which corners you went to - it's important in science to document everything as you're doing it." Harry nodded, though he glanced at Ron, which probably meant Ron had gone into the room, but then the blind nature of the experiment wasn't actually the point, after all. That taken care of, Hermione entered the room and closed the door behind her. "Can I really trust them to wait, though?" Hermione asked herself quietly, deliberately forcing uncertainty into her voice - though this was not all that hard, considering. She withdrew her wand from her bag and aimed it at the door. "Colloportus," she said, making a tied-knot gesture with the wand tip. Throughout this process, she did not yet put Scabbers down. An Animagus transformation - indeed Transfiguration in general - conserved the location of the center of mass unless the accommodation of the process otherwise shifted it. But she obviously couldn't support the weight of an adult man with one hand, which meant if he reverted now, he'd probably end up falling at least 30 centimetres or so to the floor, and Hermione was hoping he'd wait rather than risk turning an ankle or something. Either her guess was accurate, or his plans didn't suit changing yet, because the rat remained quiescent during this process. When making her preparations, Hermione had picked the room partially due to its proximity to the Gryffindor common room, but also because it was a fully interior room and did not have any windows. She'd also carefully checked along the base of the walls around the room's perimeter for any chinks or holes a rat might squeeze through, and found none - thus the door was the only way in or out. She knew that if things went horribly wrong and the murderer somehow escaped what she'd planned - and had a wand - her simple Locking Charm wouldn't hold, but it would slow him at least a moment. While turning away from the door, she surreptitiously kicked what appeared to be an oddly-shaped collection of wood fragments about three inches high - it skittered on the stone floor and ended up roughly centered on the doorway. The classroom only held a handful of desks and no table, so her path to the center of the room was largely unobstructed. Hermione glanced around, making sure everything was in place, took a breath to steady herself, then started Step 4. She couldn't help tensing as she set the rat down on the floor - this was his first good chance to try something - but for the moment he seemed content to play his part as she was playing hers. "I'll have to go over the spell a few more times," she said, "I'm sure Ron won't mind if you have some biscuits while you're waiting…" She removed a pair of Bourbon creams from her bag, setting them down before the rat, then reached back in for Practical Household Magic, all the time not letting go of her wand. Ostensibly this was to review the Supersensory Charm, but in actuality it was just a prop for a brief delay. Hermione watched carefully over the top edge of the book to see if the rat seemed at all suspicious, but he had begun devouring the chocolate-flavoured biscuits without hesitation. In a little more than two minutes, he'd finished eating and cleaning his face and paws, and seeing Hermione still apparently muttering over her book, settled down patiently to nap. She waited as long as she dared, but if she waited too long most of her planning would end up wasted, and plus the longer she waited the more tense she became - she wasn't sure she'd have the nerve to go through with it. Hermione took a few more breaths that she'd intended to be calming, but had little effect on her churning stomach. Her hand shook a little as she tipped her wand down past the edge of the book, but she held her breath, waited for it to steady...waited… "Emméno," she said, with a double-flick of her wand, aiming the (non-Permanent) Sticking Charm at the rat's left forepaw, currently resting against the stone floor, his other paw crossed over it and his head atop both. At once, the rat awoke, and - as she'd hoped - instinctively planted its other paws for leverage to try to free the first. Hermione immediately cast another Sticking Charm at the other forepaw, then each of wthe two rear paws for good measure, ignoring the rat's increasingly frantic squeaking. Hermione put the book back into her bag and kept her wand trained on her captive. "You needn't bother - without a wand in hand, I'm pretty sure you couldn't get loose from even one of those, let alone four. Also, I know you're not a natural rat, and that you murdered Madam Pomfrey, probably because she discovered that too." Hermione tried to deliver this declaration in a tone of quiet confidence, but she found by the end her voice was a bit shaky. Her wand, at least, stayed steady enough, if not quite as steady as the proverbial rock. As for the rat, he had frozen, looking up at her by the start of the second sentence. By the end...the rat's form had begun shifting, growing. Hermione readied herself just in case it turned out her tests hadn't been rigorous enough, or the results couldn't be extended to an Animagus transformation... But they had, and could, and she relaxed - slightly. The rat had become an adult man. It was hard to tell in his current posture, but it seemed like he was on the short side, balding, in casual robes that had deteriorated to the point that they were little more than rags. Even if he was short for an adult, he was decidedly rounded, and probably outweighed Hermione by at least a factor of three. His slightly beady eyes rolled wildly, his face a mixture of outrage and fear - but much more of the latter. As Hermione had tested, with the help of a few Engorgement and Shrinking Charms, a Sticking Charm retained its enchantment even under shifts in size, and thus his entire palms were still affixed quite firmly to the stone floor, rather than tiny rat-paw-sized patches of them. His shoes were not - Hermione supposed because whatever kept his clothing suspended in the transformation didn't apply to the accommodation of the Sticking Charm, so the charms on his feet had dissipated being otherwise separated from the floor - or perhaps were simply holding his shoes on? And though the centers of the charms on his hands had shifted, each area had to continue to overlap the original area defined by the spell, so his hands were now touching, thumb-to-thumb. Unable to support himself in that position, he'd toppled forward, his legs splaying out, elbows bent awkwardly to avoid putting uncomfortable pressure on his wrists. He looked up at Hermione in a panic, eyes wild. "No, no, no...you have it all wrong! I'm a marked man, I'm hunted, I had to hide...but I didn't kill the Healer, I didn't!" Hermione wasn't inclined to simply take his word for it, but he did seem truly terrified. "You were there...the staff checked, and no one else could've done it," she pointed out, reaching into her bag with one hand while the other kept her wand on him. The man shook his head frantically. "The staff checked...was Snape one of them?" Hermione frowned, and the man's expression became desperately triumphant. "He's always been one for lying and sneaking and secrets...I saw him kill Pomfrey with my own eyes...I only just managed to open that cage and escape before he set up that subterfuge with the salamander blood and the quills, protected by a Bubble-Head Charm the whole time! When the other staff investigated, he must've interfered...subtly, carefully...and covered his tracks!" While Hermione tried to wrap her head around this accusation, another part of her automatically continued the plan, since either way, there was no good reason not to. She did not direct her wand away from her prisoner, but instead brought her other hand around in front of it just long enough for her Finite to catch the tiny object she held, which - no longer under the influence of seven stacked Shrinking Charms - agreeably ballooned outward until it was the normal-sized magical camera she'd borrowed from Penelope Clearwater. As much as she would have liked to quip 'Watch the birdie…' or something, surprise was paramount in the Plan as she didn't want him to have any chance to transform back into a rat at this point. So while the man was still trying to grasp what he was seeing, she centered him in the viewfinder and poked the shutter button with the tip of her wand. He blinked and sputtered from the large flash, looking even more desperate if anything. Hermione set down the camera carefully, keeping her eyes and wand on him. "What motive could Professor Snape possibly have for killing Madam Pomfrey?" Hermione asked, though there was not as much skepticism in her voice as there might have been. She now rather regretted not having had Harry explain precisely what he believed about the Potions Professor. Before the man could respond, a loud pounding began on the door, and muffled voices. Hermione simply sighed, while her prisoner startled violently, wincing at the pain this produced in his hands. "Oh, Merlin, who's that?!" he cried. Hermione shook her head. "That is the sound of someone who - presumably because they are Gryffindors, or possibly because they are boys - upon hearing a Reminder Charm on a quill tell them there is an emergency and to find whoever of Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, Quirrell or Dumbledore is nearest and bring them here as fast as they can, rather than doing that, have instead elected to shout and also pound pointlessly on the door that I prudently took the precaution of sealing. Though the latter was mostly for you," she added dryly. "Professor Snape?" she prompted, after a moment. The man blinked. "He's a secret Death Eater, has been for years! Pomfrey must have suspected something about me after all those tests she did, and he somehow learned of it first - I'm marked, I tell you, I was in the Order of the Phoenix, fought against the Dark Lord...Snape came to do unspeakable things to me, but first he had to eliminate the witness…" Hermione stared. That was ridiculous, Professor Snape was...well, a Professor. Teachers didn't go around being evil and murdering people, they just didn't. And if you were secretly evil, why on Earth would you go around deliberately trying to look evil? Professor Snape, like anyone, probably had various problems, but being stupid didn't appear to be one of them. And yet, Harry had learned something… Hermione glanced at the door, but by now the pounding had stopped. Looking back, she found the man had also noticed, and his panic had increased. "Do you have any evidence of that, other than your claim that he killed Madam Pomfrey? And if you knew he was evil, why didn't you just tell Dumbledore earlier? You've been living with the Weaselys - as a rat - for years!" "I...didn't have evidence! If I'd accused him, Snape would've wiggled out of it somehow, and then some odorless, tasteless potion would've found its way into my soup, and I'd have tragically choked to death or something!" "So just tell Professor Dumbledore what you told me, surely-" "Snape's muddied the waters, I told you! Unless...you could let me go, let me be a rat again, use your Charm, and I'm sure I can find Snape's trail. But even with him in Azkaban, the Dark Lord still has other secret supporters, I'd never be safe...just don't tell anyone, let me live as a rat, please, I'm fine with it, I'm a good rat…" Hermione's confidence was wavering, but her sense of propriety just couldn't let this last one go. "Look, you can't just carry on sleeping in children's beds as a rat, it's just...you just can't, okay?" She shuddered. "And besides, I, ah, don't actually think the Supersensory Charm will work that way...that was a sort of trap. Just wait, the Headmaster is a really amazing wizard, I'm sure he can think of a way to keep you safe…" The man, who'd been staring at her throughout, began to thrash, his face twisted in frustration and terror, eyes rolling wildly, wincing each time he strained to free his hands - one of which, Hermione noted, was missing a finger. Suddenly he slumped into a sort of dejected squat, his chin falling to his chest. "I'm really sorry," Hermione said, feeling a lot less good about the whole thing than she'd expected to, "I can't release you, but if you're telling the truth, everything will work out...somehow…" Could Snape have actually done it? Hermione still didn't know what spells the staff had used to investigate, maybe they could be fooled, particularly if you knew in advance what spells were likely to be tried, and were actually present there to make certain. But could he have done it right under the Headmaster's nose? Then again, while Professor Dumbledore - at minimum - had been sharp enough to suspect foul play, he hadn't managed to find Scabbers or Professor Snape, so maybe he wasn't infallible. And that bit about muddying the waters wasn't hard to imagine, given how easily her future self had done it to her. But something else had occurred to her. "If you were just running for your life, why did you steal Lavender's wand? And, more importantly, why run back to Ron's room, if you say Professor Snape knew who you were, wouldn't he just-" Hermione's question was interrupted by a terrible cry of mingled exertion and pain as the man lunged upwards from his squat with desperate strength. His scream mixed with a nightmarishly wet sound as all the skin from both of his palms tore free, gory handprints left behind on the stone. He staggered back a step, off balance from the sudden lack of resistance, his face contorted in pain. Hermione had tried to think of ways the Plan could go wrong at each stage. She'd moved all the furniture away from the center of the room (and put some of it to other use, besides) so he couldn't reach anything with his feet, or with a free hand in the event she'd only been able to get one stuck before he transformed. But this hadn't occurred to her at all, and even though she still had contingencies that might help, she simply wasn't emotionally prepared for the sight of a man mutilating himself to get free of spells she'd cast. And she wasn't even sure he was guilty anymore, he might just be so terrified he'd lost his reason. She froze in indecision. One of his bloody hands reached into his tattered robes and pulled out Lavender's wand, face twisting as he tightened his flayed hand around it, pointed it at her. A part of her noted that this still didn't prove anything, but the rest of her decided it still looked pretty bad, and her hesitation broke. "Expelliarmus!" she cried, giving her wand the appropriate diagonal flick. But the man slashed his wand downward, causing a bright flash as her spell was parried. He aimed his wand back at her, but Hermione had planned this sequence in advance and was already dropping onto her stomach, her own wand extended. His wordless spell finished first, but sailed over her and struck the wall behind. But he was still fast and experienced, and was able to sweep his wand down in another parry as Hermione shouted, "Illubrico!" However, the strategy she'd worked out had called for her to - just in case he already had a Shield up - aim this spell at the floor, and since the Lubricating Charm did not form a visible projectile, he was unable to adjust his parry to block the spell's unexpected trajectory. The stone became nearly frictionless, and the man's feet shot out from under him, dropping him heavily onto his back. At this point, Hermione hesitated - she was encouraged that her spell combination was actually working, but the next part called for her to manually trigger a fail-safe that ought to disable him. Except during her planning, she'd presumed that if things reached this point she would be in a life-or-death struggle and basically anything would be justified - including the fail-safe, which might cause serious injury or even death - whereas now she was uncertain enough to question that. But her instincts said she had no choice - and as long as he wasn't killed outright, if he was innocent, Madam Wainscott and the Professors ought to be able to set everything right. But the brief hesitation to weigh the moral considerations had been costly, and even as she began to point her wand upward, her opponent had recovered from his fall and launched his own spell. Hermione tried to dodge, but she was too slow, and before she even got two syllables out, her wand was sailing out of her hand to clatter into a corner of the room. I should've thought of that, tied a safety strap to it or something, but I was expecting Curses, not a Disarming Charm, maybe he really isn't a horrible murderer after- "Crucio!" snarled the man, struggling to his feet. Blood spattered the stone beneath him, scattered drips from his free hand mixing with staccato spurts between the fingers of the other, squeezed out by the pressure of his grip on the wand. Thought vanished as Hermione's world became pain. It was like her blood was on fire, or like her blood had been Transfigured to hydrofluoric acid, or something even more gruesome, except she couldn't really form these concepts, only feel them - there was no room for anything but the searing, hateful agony. And then it was suddenly gone, leaving her twitching and panting on the stone floor - blood no longer burning, but muscles still aching from their involuntary contractions, her cheeks wet with tears, one of her fingernails chipped from clawing at the hard surface beneath her. "Tell me what you know about me, what you've told!" screeched the man. "Tell me, so I can fix it…" Murderer or not, he was clearly unhinged at this point, and Hermione was terrified - she was pretty sure she'd do anything not to feel that pain again. But she still only answered the second part of his mad demands. "Y-you...were there...only w-what I...told Ron and Harry," she stammered out, between gasping sobs. "Who else?! You didn't plan this trap yourself, who is helping you?!" Hermione's mind cast about frantically for what he might want to hear. She wondered if he'd believe her if she told the whole truth...maybe that'd be enough time for a Professor to actually get here, since it seemed like the man's own heart-pounding fear - and maybe the pain in his hands - was interfering with what was supposed to have been her second fail-safe. And the Cruciatus Curse hadn't triggered the first...maybe that was why it could eventually drive a victim insane, you never lost consciousness from its effects, no matter how much you might want to? He raised the wand again, and Hermione's train of thought vanished as she immediately began to speak as fast as she could form the words, her brain barely connected to her mouth. "No one, honestly, I tried to talk to Dumbledore but I couldn't get into his office or he was out and I asked the Defence Professor for advice but it was all hypothetical and they all think I've been hexed so I needed real proof which is why I borrowed the camera, but the trap I just thought about and I've always been quite good at thinking, but now I'm rather suspecting I'm not smart at all and maybe I should have been in Gryffindor, because I can't imagine how I expected for a second any of this would-" "Dissocio," he interrupted, swishing Lavender's wand downward into a alternating flick at the end. Hermione gasped - recognizing a Disassembly Spell, and suddenly horrified at the thought of what it might do to a human body - but the spell was not aimed at her. Instead the camera turned into an exploded diagram of itself, all its individual parts separating and hanging in the air for a moment, then dropping gently to the floor. "Accio proof," he continued, waving the wand vaguely at the scattering of camera parts, and the film agreeably soared towards his free hand, but he recognized the problem with this and an additional flick sent the roll to the floor in front of him before it could contact his bloody, fleshless palm. Another flick and the mottled appearance of the exposed film changed to a uniform brown-black. A final swirling motion sent the film and all the camera parts back together, each fitting neatly into its proper place. While the man was carefully destroying her evidence, Hermione shakily stood up. Her wand was several yards away, and the only other ways of deliberately triggering her fail-safe she could think of seemed both unwise and unreliable. Though if it appeared he was about to use the Cruciatus on her again, she thought she might just go ahead and try one anyway. In the interim, she tried edging towards her wand as subtly as she could. She'd only made it about halfway when his attention turned back to her, whereupon she froze and tried to give the impression she was terrified into abject submission - a feat which did not require much acting ability, under the circumstances. "Accio wand," he said, aiming his own wand to the side, but keeping his eyes on her. Hermione's wand obediently leaped into the air and landed neatly in his free hand. He grunted at the pain this caused, but maintained his grip on it. "Trying to be clever? With me? I can always see what people want to hide..." The little man gave a hollow laugh, and Hermione couldn't keep disappointment from touching her features. He tucked Lavender's wand into his robes, and switched Hermione's to his right hand. "What...what are you going to do now?" she asked, her curiosity only barely edging out her fear at hearing the answer. "No time to stage a convincing death scene for you, it'll have to be a Memory Charm," he mused. "So you did do it. But...if you can do Memory Charms, why did you kill Madam Pomfrey in the first place?" Hermione asked, aghast. "I'm not very good at them," he said, with a shrug and an elaborate yawn. Hermione's heart briefly swelled with hope, but even if the Liquid Sheep she'd dosed the biscuits with was finally starting to kick in, it was taking forever...the dose must've been diluted within his greater body mass. But if he kept talking long enough… "I don't know enough Potions to pass off that kind of mental damage as an accident. But with that convenient Hex as an excuse, I can probably get you shipped off to St. Mungo's permanently, convinced of something ridiculous - say, that Grindelwald had escaped and had for some reason transfigured himself into a desk somewhere in Hogwarts…later, when I've had enough time to work something out and suspicion to die down, I can arrange a tragic accident for you too. " He raised her wand. "Wait!" interrupted Hermione, desperately. "If you're going to Obliviate me anyway, can you explain why you were really hiding as a rat first?" "What would the point in that be?" "I'm a Ravenclaw. If I have a choice between not-knowing and knowing...even temporarily...I'll choose knowing." For a moment, it looked as if he actually empathized with her, but the rat-faced man shook his head. "I recognize stalling when I see it, and reinforcements could arrive any minute." Hermione dove to one side as he opened his mouth again. She didn't have much hope of actually dodging the spell he was about to cast, so she also flung her arms backwards, piking forward, trying to hit the stone floor headfirst as hard as she could manage and if she was very lucky, triggering the other fail-safe before- "Petrificus Totalus!" The spell might have helped her, preventing an instinctive flinch, except that it also forced her rail-straight, so the impact was distributed more evenly across her entire body instead of just her forehead as she'd intended. It still hurt when her nose hit the floor, but not as much as the realization that she hadn't planned carefully enough, she hadn't read enough...she was going to be Obliviated again, probably be committed, and then - at some point - die. It wasn't supposed to have been like this. Probably all kinds of people thought something like that in their final moments of clarity before some ignominious end, but Hermione suspected she was unique in actually having fairly strong evidence on which to base that assertion. If this was how Time really worked, this disproportionate ruination of everything, she didn't think much of how the Universe was arranged. It was petty and nonsensical and frankly, someone ought to put Time in its place. She really hoped someone would, even if it obviously wasn't going to be her. "Obliviate." There was a terrible wrenching disorientation. |
People, it just got real. There’s a new sequel to the classic Charlie the Unicorn! Jason Steele as in FilmCow as in SecretAgentBob as in the original creator of Charlie has finally provided a new installment titled “Charlie the Unicorn 4,” and it’s great. We’re not pulling your leg, and it’s not from the charlie teh unicron series. What we’re trying to say is: This is not a drill. There is a new Charlie the Unicorn. Without spoiling too much, let’s just say that this particular Charlie the Unicorn episode unfolds much like previous ones, except they have to go to the Moon this time, because of course they have to go to the Moon. Even though it’s been something like three years since the last installment, it’s like Charlie never truly left us. The jokes feel right, and the animation is as amusingly terrible as always. Plus, there’s a surprise cameo at the end from a previous installment. It might not make sense — like, any at all — but Charlie the Unicorn will always have a place in our hearts. The Internet wouldn’t be the same had he never visited Candy Mountain or been on a bridge. Even trying to imagine a world without those two scenes is painful. (via YouTube) Relevant to your interests |
VINAYA CEO Kate Unsworth. Vinaya VINAYA, the London-headquartered wearables startup that went into administration on December 12, emailed backers of its Indiegogo campaign on January 1 telling them that they won't get the products they paid for. The email (which can be read in full below) sent to the 1,308 people who backed VINAYA's Indieogo campaign said "technically we are not liable, and you are not entitled to a refund, or even the product your ordered." However, an Indiegogo spokesperson told Business Insider that VINAYA's email was a mischaracterisation of the site's terms and conditions. Indiegogo said that its terms are there to protect backers — not companies, and said it will contact VINAYA to try to facilitate refunds. Read Indiegogo's full statement below. Instead of the products people have paid for, VINAYA is offering backers equity in a new company run by the same founders. A press statement released by VINAYA said that the company is considering moving to B2B, rather than the consumer model that it previously followed. The statement explains that CEO Kate Unsworth and VINAYA's other cofounders acquired what remained of the company, and they will offer equity in a new business named Vinaya Limited to their previous investors, as well as their Indiegogo backers. The only other option given to backers is to wait and see if the new company releases a product, and to get that instead. VINAYA says it will "gift you new product if and when released." VINAYA's closed Indiegogo campaign page was flooded with angry comments after the email was sent. "Wow, what a fraud," said backer Linda Unternahrer. "They took money from me just two weeks ago and then gave my sister a lousy card for Christmas and a link to the webpage, and now this. I'll never invest in Indiegogo again." One of VINAYA's original Altrius wearable devices. Lucy England Business Insider spoke to Unternahrer about her reaction. She explained that she backed VINAYA with $159 (£129) after it reached 200% of its funding goal, "so I felt it was a safe investment," she said. She described the email from VINAYA as "flippant" and said she intends to seek a refund from the company. VINAYA did not respond to a request for comment. Another backer, Yvonne Coats-Branley, wrote "Wow they stole my money… not gonna invest in indiegogo anymore, and I've done dozens, it's over.." Andie Katschthaler, who also backed VINAYA, told Business Insider that "I found myself wondering if the whole thing was a scam from the get-go. After all, this isn't just some small crowdfunding campaign run out of a garage that just happened to miscalculate out of sheer inexperience. This is a campaign by an existing company with existing products that got 239% funded and received more than $272,000 in contributions." Despite angry comments from backers, there's no indication that VINAYA acted fraudulently. Instead, the company said in its press statement that it was about to sign a large B2B contract that was delayed. It caused a cash flow problem, Unsworth said, which pushed her company into administration. VINAYA had appeared to have a bright future. The company described its products as "distraction management" tools that help customers to "filter out the noise." Its Altrius devices are smart jewellery pieces that connect to a smartphone via bluetooth and only notify the wearer when a notification is deemed important enough. And VINAYA had an all-star lineup of investors including Net-a-Porter cofounder Carmen Busquets, Tech City UK chair and Passion Capital partner Eileen Burbidge, Bebo founder Michael Birch, Localglobe partner Robin Klein, and Playfair Capital. Here's Indiegogo's full statement on VINAYA's closure and its email to backers: "The email from the Vinaya team was a mischaracterisation of Indiegogo's Terms of Use, which are in place to protect Indiegogo's backers. Our Trust and Safety team will be in contact with the Vinaya campaign owners and will attempt to recover funds. We are also committed to continuing to work with the entrepreneurs on our platform to address the challenges of bringing their ideas to market." Here's the full email sent by VINAYA to its Indiegogo backers: "Dear Indiegogo backer, We've had a challenging 2 weeks. In short, the business had some unexpected, and unfortunately detrimental, cash flow issues mid-December and as a result, we had to close the company (please see this press statement for more info). I'm incredibly disappointed that we weren't able to deliver on our vision; this has been financially painful for all our investors, and obviously very difficult for the whole VINAYA team. The group of people that I'm most disappointed for however is you; the people, mostly complete strangers, who were excited and inspired by our vision, enough to actually give us your financial support. I wanted to email you to update you, clarify the situation, explain what has happened over the last few weeks, and suggest a way we may be able to make it up to you: When you backed our campaign, you agreed to Indiegogo's Terms and Conditions, which protect us (the company) in the event that we are unable to deliver the product, or the company has to close down. Last week we had to close the company due to unforeseen circumstances. Technically we are not liable, and you are not entitled to a refund, or even the product your ordered. I understand how disappointing this must be. Whilst there can be no guarantees at this stage, and contractual commitment isn't possible within the confines of the administration process, it is the founders' intention to find a way to repay your faith from a personal perspective if a new company structure is successful moving forward. Our intention would be to gift you new product if and when released, or alternatively award you some shares in the new company if formed, which would obviously produce a financial return in the event that the new company is profitable or sold. As you can imagine, there are still a number of unknowns, so we appreciate your patience while we assess our options. Please bear with us while we get back on our feet - we no longer have a team to help manage everything, so updates to you may be less regular and / or less detailed, and responses to your queries may be delayed. We will be in touch as soon as we can see a clear path forward. Thanks again for your continued support. The VINAYA Founders" |
INKtroduction Welcome to INK. Good luck! (Die the First Time) 99.5% Common 100.00% Common INKompetent How can you be so bad? (Die 10 times in less than 30 seconds) 93.8% Common 90.79% Common INKjustice What did it ever do you? (Defeat the First Boss) 43.7% Rare 50.66% Common INKarnation They just keep coming back! (Defeat 300 enemies) 23.7% Rare 27.63% Uncommon INKsolent Better show some respect (Defeat the Second Boss) 20.0% Rare 29.61% Uncommon INKapacited Are you OK? (Die 500 times) 20.1% Rare 25.00% Uncommon INKling i had a feeling something was here...(Find and collect 5 hidden coins) 16.3% Rare 27.63% Uncommon INKfamous I've heard bad things about you... (Defeat the Third Boss) 7.2% Very Rare 17.11% Rare INKoming Didn't see me coming now, did ya? (Defeat 6 enemies without touching the ground) 5.9% Very Rare 17.76% Rare INKvisible Find 10 hidden messages (Find and collect 10 hidden coins) 4.6% Ultra Rare 14.47% Rare INKgenious Didn't know you could do that (Beat Level 66 without Double Jumping) 2.3% Ultra Rare 8.55% Very Rare INKognito Should hide things better next time (Find and collect 20 hidden coins) 1.6% Ultra Rare 7.89% Very Rare INKredible You really are amazing! (100% the game) 0.2% Ultra Rare 0.00% Ultra Rare INKvinsible Nothing can stop you (Beat World 1 without dying) 0.8% Ultra Rare 2.63% Ultra Rare INKfirmary How have you not had a heart attack yet? (Beat World 2 without dying) 0.3% Ultra Rare 1.32% Ultra Rare |
If you wanted to buy a car - say a Ford Focus, which is made in Michigan - you could go to an auto dealer. But even if you went to the Ford assembly plant - you couldn’t buy a Focus directly from Ford. It’s illegal for vehicle manufacturers to sell to consumers in the state. That’s causing trouble for popular electric car maker Tesla - and a small startup in Kalamazoo. Fido Motor Company in Kalamazoo makes simple, easy to use electric scooters. President Jeb Gast says when he worked for a company that sold Vespa scooters, he got frustrated having to rely on dealers for something like changing a flat tire. “The dealers want to talk you into buying a new tire $120 tire on top of the tow truck and on top of the labor fee," says Gast. "So with Fido, one wrench, the user himself can put in a $7 inner tube and be done with it." Gast wanted charging the battery to be easy too. “Battery comes out like a suitcase so you can actually take this inside and charge it in your apartment,” he says. Fido Motors sells one scooter that goes 30 miles per hour and another that can go 45. State law says Fido can sell the slower one directly to customers, no problem. But a 45 mile an hour bike is considered a motorcycle - and motorcycles have to be sold through dealers. “My favorite is the faster," says Gast. "I don’t find it that fun going 30 on a 45 mile an hour street.” Fido can only legally sell five of those faster scooters every twelve months, but they’re planning to produce much more than that. Fido’s Chris Broadbent says the law could keep the company from growing. He says part of their business is interacting personally with the customer. “That barrier would be great to have removed so we could start to build those relationships,” says Broadbent. Tesla's Lawsuit Against Michigan Auto manufacturer Tesla would also like to see the ban on direct sales lifted. The company is currently in a lawsuit with the state over its inability to sell in Michigan. Jarrett Skorup is with the free market think tank the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. He says this ban doesn’t make any sense. Skorup says there’s no evidence that buying a car or motorcycle through a dealer is cheaper and Michigan doesn’t ban direct sales on any other products. “If I want to go and get an iPhone I can directly order it off a website. I could go in and get it from a store or I could go directly to an Apple store and get it. So I have lots of options and we just think the market does the best job of sorting out how people want to pay for things,” says Skorup. What Dealers Have To Say Terry Burns - executive vice president of the Michigan Automobile Dealers Association - says you can’t really compare something like a car to an iPhone. He says it’s a much more important purchase. “The vehicles we’re talking about are some of the most expensive purchases customers make, they need to be in safe working order,” says Burns. Burns says dealers have the consumers’ best interests in mind because they’re independent from manufacturers. “It’s not an 800 number somewhere in a foreign country or in another city that you’re calling trying to get your car repaired. It’s right there with the people that live, work, and play in your own neighborhood,” he says. One of those local vehicle dealers is David Reynolds. He owns Life Cycle Motorcycles in Kalamazoo - likely Fido Motors’ only competition in town. It sells an electric motorcycle made by a company called Zero out of California. Reynolds says one advantage to dealerships is that customers can try out a bike before they buy it. But he says he doesn’t mind if companies like Fido sell direct. “Seems to be the wave of the future," says Reynolds. "In my opinion, the model of the big auto dealerships is probably winding down and probably in 20 years you won’t see what we have now.” Is Michigan Missing Out On Tax Revenue? People who support direct sales say allowing these companies to sell in Michigan could generate tax dollars. Jeff Timmer is the spokesperson for the Michigan Freedom to Buy Coalition - a group that wants to allow car and motorcycle companies to make direct sales in Michigan. He says Michiganders have already pre-ordered thousands of Tesla’s new Model 3. “They have to buy them elsewhere and Michigan is losing out on huge amounts of sales tax revenue, millions of dollars every year in sales tax revenue that the state is not getting. That would seem a desirable incentive to try to fix,” says Timmer. Meanwhile, companies like Tesla are trying to find ways around the law. According to the Michigan Secretary of State’s office, manufacturers can’t sell vehicles, but they can put them on display in what’s often called a “gallery.” Last year Fido opened up a coffee shop in part of its building. Fido’s Crystal Gast says it just happens to have one of Fido’s scooters hanging on the wall. “We’ve got plans to expand it a little more in order to include all the required elements of a dealership including like showroom space and office furniture,” says Crystal Gast. But unless the law changes, neither Fido Motors nor Tesla will be able to sell more than a handful of vehicles to customers in Michigan. |
Butcher Boys. National Gallery of Arts. Cape Town, South Africa. Butcher Boys (1985/86) is a sculpture made by South African artist Jane Alexander of three life size, oil painted plaster figures with animal horn and bone details, seated on a bench. The work formed part of her MAFA submission (University of the Witwatersrand) and was first exhibited at the Market Theatre Gallery in Johannesburg in 1986. It was acquired by the South African National Gallery in 1991. The work was a response to the state of emergency in South Africa at the time.[1] "...Jane Alexander arrived at the humanimal during a crisis period of uncertainty and transition in South Africa - the state of emergency declared in 1985, when she created Butcher Boys as part of her graduate studies, was renewed each year up to 1990 - indicates the farsighted choices by which her sculptural practice has revived the grotesque as a counterdiscourse of our times. Adapting the hybridity principle to produce original insights into the postcolonial condition, moreover, her practice - like a mutant strand of art historical DNA that claims multiple parentage - demonstrates how fitting the grotesque is as a means of questioning once-familiar notions of "race." The work consists of three lifesize humanoid beasts with powdery skin, black eyes, broken horns, and no mouths sitting on a bench. The beasts are devoid of their outside senses - their ears are nothing more than deep gorges in their heads and their mouths are missing, appearing to be covered with thick roughened skin. Brett Bailey's Plays of Miracle and Wonder was published with a cover photograph showing three men posed after Jane Alexander's Butcher Boys sculpture. Copyright controversy [ edit ] In February 2012, South African band Die Antwoord released an online teaser trailer for their album Ten$Ion which referenced the sculpture without Alexander's consent. In the video, band members Yolandi Visser and Ninja, along with their daughter Sixteen, appear in powdery white makeup. Yolandi and Ninja wear black contact lenses, and Ninja also wears ram horns on his head. The artist's lawyer, Martin Heller, stated: "Ms. Alexander is concerned that Die Antwoord's use of her work and its context might be publicly perceived as reflecting her own artistic intention. In creating the work, Ms. Alexander referred to the dehumanizing forces of apartheid. Ms. Alexander does not intend to limit her work's interpretation, and she does not seek to interfere with other artists' work." The video has since been removed from distribution. References [ edit ] ^ Information supplied by Jane Alexander |
28. December 2014 Yesterday I received the mail from Anita Graser’s blog about the best 10 articles on QGIS planet. Therefore I decided to have a look on our own top ten list of most read articles this year. And I have to admit: It’s not the open source world who leads this list…The whole list only shows English articles disregarding our job page which is the most read page on this blog (sidenote: you can post your job offer for free 😉 ) #10 – #5 I was surprised to see an install-something article on this list but with the release of QGIS 2.0 QGIS probably hit the road big time and there were many people who would like to try it out on their Ubuntu (#10). Two out of five articles covered the topics of D3. A great technology for webmapping and data visualisation created by Mike Bostock. Unfortunately Ralf seems to be very busy with other stuff and there were no newer tutorials on D3 on our page recently but maybe you will find some news on his blog (If you know D3 and want to write about, give us a “quick call”). The other two articles covered some ArcGIS content. One of it was a widely discussed one about the performance of ArcGIS Server were I just translated an old article from 2012 which itself cited a paper. It was going crazy with this one. But the other one was a quite normal one on how to make a topographic map by our Russian author Andrew Klikunov. Unfortunately this was a one-hit wonder… 3D visualisations with NVIZ and a description on how to create a leaflet based webmap with your data in QGIS had also an impact on our number of visitors. #4 Let’s enter the upper part of the list. Number four is QGIS specific and described the process of joining data with vector data/features. This a somewhat day-to-day problem as spatial data is often just a hull for meaningful data and the attributes needs to be added and enhanced to create the map for the spatial objects you would like to show. In QGIS it’s quite easy but yet I think it’s not the everyday business especially for non GIS-ers like journalists or teachers. #3 Once again: D3… This was our first article on D3 and it simply described the first steps in using D3 as a JavaScript framework. It had nothing to do with webmapping. But D3 means “Data Driven Documents” and so does this tutorial: show stuff you can do with any element: #2 The rating for this one so far is only 3 out of five stars but it seems to gain some attraction to our readers: How to georeference a map in QGIS. It is also an everyday task for persons working with GIS and it is not always as easy as in this case. Searching for ground control points, determining the correct projection of the image and using the best resampling technique isn’t the most easy task in QGIS. This article show you the steps from determining the projection of the scanned map, selecting the correct CRS in QGIS and using coordinate crosses from the map for a quick and dirty georeferenciation. #1 Once again: Georeferenciation. But in this case we are using ArcGIS 10. Same steps like in QGIS: scanned image, coordinate crosses from the map choosing good resampling of pixel values and exporting the whole thing as a georeferenced image for ongoing analysis or publishing. The Numbers |
I did not truly know what a foul odor was until a doctor cut into my right breast with a scalpel to remove a growth. I am a new woman, now. If you talk about a lump on your breast, people get twitchy; they always assume it’s potentially cancerous. Sometimes it is! But this was just a cyst, a pea-sized lump that has been chilling on my right breast, near the midline of my body, for years. Most of the time cysts are pretty harmless, unless they’re in a bad location or infected. I’d gone in to a doctor when I first noticed it, in 2012. As long as the cyst wasn’t hurting me, removing it was more trouble than it was worth, my doctor said. This seemed reasonable. So I just thought of it as, like, a not-very-demanding pet. We're skin bags filled with blood and all sorts of other nonsense That is, until last weekend, when I discovered it had more than doubled in size, was red and hot to the touch, and smelled weird, like dirty socks. This seemed bad, probably. So Monday I called the doctor. The disgusting truth is that we’re skin bags filled with blood and all sorts of other nonsense. Cysts fall in the category of "other nonsense"; they’re little sacs of fluid — usually the protein keratin, plus some rotting skin cells and maybe some fat — that just kind of hang out on the body. There are a couple kinds, but the most common one is epidermoid cysts, which are the result of cells from your skin’s surface migrating too far down into the skin’s layers. (These are sometimes called sebaceous cysts.) They multiply, forming the walls of the cyst; the fluid inside is excreted by these cells. Most descriptions of fluid from a cyst say it has a "foul" odor. This is a remarkable understatement I have read a fair amount of medical literature about cysts by now, though I will not say I understand it all. I checked in with a variety of sources (Mayo Clinic; Merck Manual; Medline; etc.) before my appointment. Most descriptions of this fluid from a cyst say that it has a "foul" odor. This is, it turns out, a remarkable understatement. I would say "foul odor" is a fair description of what the cyst smelled like before it was drained and removed, when it was still under my skin. My doctor numbed me up and cut me open, and the stench was immediately overwhelming. The smell was far and away the worst part; not the incision nor the stitches afterward. How do I say this? It smelled like death. There was, immediately, the sweetish stink of rotting meat, with a top note of dirty gym socks; the scent opened up, after a minute or so, to what I'd describe as a strangely sulfurous wet dog, wearing those gym socks, which have been stuffed with rotting meat. I have smelled many foul odors over the years: manure, slaughterhouses, chicken coops, New York’s garbage / urine / auto exhaust killer combo, floating god-knows-what from New Jersey, sewage, garbage dumps, chemical spills, teenage boys. This was the foulest, no question. I didn’t vomit but it was a near thing; apparently I turned quite green. Someone — I am not sure who, as I was busy staring at the ceiling and trying not to puke — opened a window to at least get me air. "Foul" doesn't even begin to describe it In no way had my amateur research prepared me for the so-called foul odor, either. "Cheesy" is a favorite description, appearing in the American Academy of Family Physicians’ copy, as well as that of Medline Plus, and the British Association of Dermatologists; the Cleveland Clinic prefers "cheese-like." Other descriptions: foul, malodorous, smelly. Doctors are fairly used to ghastly smells, I’d reckon. But I think something else is driving the faux-neutral word choices here. "Foul, cheesy odor" sounds distant; it's not descriptive but it's authoritative. It's vague and official-sounding at the same time. It doesn't make you imagine the doctor ever experiencing the stench first-hand, that's for sure. From experience: "foul" does not even begin to describe that stink, which I hope never to smell again in my life. As a word choice, "foul" is inadequate to the task. "Cheesy" doesn't really cover it either — try "Limberger from hell" and we're getting somewhere. I certainly understand not wanting to alarm patients — my perfectly accurate descriptions are possibly alarming — but I would have liked a chance to prepare myself, perhaps by drenching a bandanna in Shalimar and wearing it over my nose and mouth the entire time. In the interest of offering future patients some kind of guidance on cysts, I have put together some suggested descriptions for the smell: putrescent, noxious, shocking, repugnant, fetid, rancid, stinking, revolting, sent from hell itself… Or to keep it clinical, you could try this: nausea-inducing. Really, though: the surgery itself was quick and mostly painless — I only needed aspirin for the soreness after. I'm done with my antibiotics, the skin now lies flat again, and my stitches come out Monday. The procedure itself was so minor that the smell is really what stands out. My doctor, at least, tried to warn me. She told me she’d once seen a nurse faint at the smell. Nurses are among medicine’s hardiest creatures; if the stench can fell a nurse, you know it’s hellacious indeed. I realized what she was trying to tell me too late, I'm afraid. |
The High Court said that "deliberate improvements" were made by the woman on material points related to the case and her testimony does not inspire confidence. (File photo) The Delhi High Court has acquitted a man, who was jailed for 10 years by a trial court for raping a woman in 2011, observing that she was in a live-in relationship with him and her statement regarding the alleged incident was suffering from "serious infirmities".The court set aside the order passed by the trial court in 2013 in which it had convicted the man for alleged offences under sections 376 (rape) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code and had awarded him a 10-year jail along with a fine of Rs 15,000."From the above documents (referred in the judgement), which have not been considered in right perspective by trial court, it is clear that the prosecutrix (woman), who had been living alone away from her husband in Delhi, was in live-in relationship with the appellant (man)," Justice Pratibha Rani said.While allowing the appeal filed by the man against his conviction, the High Court said that "deliberate improvements" were made by the woman on material points related to the case and her testimony does not inspire confidence.According to the police, an FIR was lodged on the basis of woman's statement in which she had alleged that the incident took place on the intervening night of January 13-14, 2011, when she was alone at her house and was mourning the death of her daughter who had expired a few days back.She had claimed that the door of her house was open and the accused entered her room and raped her.The accused had denied the allegations levelled against him and during arguments on the appeal, his counsel said that the woman was in a live-in relationship with his client.The lawyer argued that prior to the incident, the woman had borrowed Rs 11,000 from the man and after he insisted on repayment, she falsely implicated him in the case.Opposing the appeal, the police had argued that the man had committed the crime when the woman was alone in her house. In its verdict, the High Court noted that the woman had changed her version at every stage and the man was well known to her. "She admitted having received Rs 11,000 on October 31, 2010 i.e. much prior to the alleged rape incident on the night intervening January 13-14, 2011. Thus, her statement that this amount was paid to her for changing her statement is falsified from the record," the court said. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.