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Energy from your body heat and motion could fuel the future of preventative health care. Researchers at the University of Virginia are developing a low-power microchip that can support on-body, real-time health monitoring. By harvesting all its needed energy from sources like body heat, motion and sunlight, the chip will provide an extremely compact, long-lasting power source for body metric sensors. U.Va.’s chip development is part of a larger nanotechnology collaboration known as the ASSIST Center (the Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Advanced Self-Powered Systems of Integrated Sensors and Technologies). Headquartered at North Carolina State University, the ASSIST Center’s research is funded by the National Science Foundation and includes multiple partner universities. “The main application that we’re targeting in the center right now is childhood asthma,” said ASSIST Associate Director for Translational Research John Lach, who chairs U.Va.’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. U.Va.’s self-powering ASSIST microchip and the small circuit board where it is housed. (Photo by Sanjay Suchak / University Communications) ASSIST is developing sensors that will work together with U.Va.’s microchip to detect changes in the body as well as environmental factors that could signal an impending asthma attack. “We’re monitoring the person and because of that we can see the early stages of asthma exasperation and make the appropriate notifications. At the same time, we’re also monitoring the environment so we can detect what kinds of environmental exposures cause their asthma events,” Lach said. “From there, we can develop the models that allow us to intervene before an asthma event has even started.” The data collected from asthma monitoring tests will help researchers gauge the type of demands that will be placed on their sensor-chip system, but asthma is not the only application for ASSIST technology. “As the center continues, we plan to continue extending the platform to more sensing modes – acoustic sensing of wheezing, blood pressure, biochemical markers, particulate counts and so on,” said Ben Calhoun, ASSIST site director and an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering. While some existing wearable health monitors have these capabilities, the ASSIST project is one of the first to consolidate them on a nanoscale. U.Va.’s contribution of a high-functioning, ultra-low-power microchip will allow the ASSIST team to keep their sensory devices small without the hindrances of larger batteries or communication devices. The microchip’s most difficult task is regulating the flow of energy it takes in from the user and his or her environment. Since available body heat, motion and sunlight can fluctuate throughout the day, the chip has to adapt its function and power consumption to maintain continuous operation. In addition to acting as a power source, the microchip also serves as a transceiver. It collects data from the attached sensors and then sends it wirelessly to another designated device, such as a user’s smartphone. “We hope our chip will inspire a new approach to wireless sensing that leverages self-powered hardware,” Calhoun said. The ASSIST effort is just one of the wearable technology projects that are springing up around Grounds. Here are a few other exciting devices in the works: TEMPO, short for Technology Enabled Medical Precision Observation, is a wristwatch-sized device developed by the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the U.Va. Medical Center that can be worn on various parts of the body to monitor a user’s motion. Health care providers are currently using it to assess the risk of falls by elderly patients. By pinpointing balance and gait disorders, physicians and care-givers can help prevent dangerous falls before they happen. TEMPO has also been used to diagnose and treat movement difficulties for patients with cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis. Episodes of extreme agitation are the main reason that people caring for loved ones with dementia feel forced to turn to assisted living facilities. BESI – Behavioral and Environmental Sensing and Intervention – could allow more dementia patients to continue living with their families. BESI combines a wearable sensor with environmental sensors placed around the homes of dementia patients. By correlating the movements of early agitation with current environmental conditions, BESI can monitor for the first stages of agitation and identify outside factors that might be triggers. When the system detects early agitation or a common trigger, it alerts caregivers to take preventative action. The U.Va. Department of Neurology conducted a clinical trial on a wearable device that emits low-level electrical fields designed to slow the progression of glioblastoma, the deadliest form of brain cancer. Patients wear the device like a skullcap, with electrodes attached to their heads. The device is powered by a separate, portable battery attached by long wires. U.Va.’s School of Medicine and 80 other test sites have found that 43 percent of newly diagnosed patients who wear the device survived two years following diagnosis. Only 29 percent of those who didn’t wear the device lived that long. Researchers at the School of Medicine and the U.Va. Center for Diabetes Technology have developed an artificial pancreas that has shown promising results in human clinical trials. For people with type-1 diabetes, the goal of the artificial pancreas is to alleviate the fear of life-threatening low blood sugar episodes. The artificial pancreas technology – known as the Diabetes Assistant– is designed to automatically monitor and regulate blood-sugar levels using a reconfigured smart phone running advanced algorithms and linked wirelessly to a continuous glucose monitor and an insulin pump. |
I love end to end testing. I think it’s one of the best ways to make sure your entire web application is healthy. Unit tests don’t tell you that a feature is working, and even running integration tests for your microservices doesn’t tell you that all your systems let your users log in. So let’s write some end to end tests to do just that. I’m going to use Mocha with Chai as the test runner and assertion library, and I’ll use puppeteer to manipulate a Chrome headless browser. Setting Up the Project Let’s create a new project and install our dependencies: yarn init yarn install --dev puppeteer mocha chai Mocha is our test runner. Chai is our assertion library. Puppeteer is the library we will be using to interact with a Chrome browser. When you install puppeteer, it will automatically install the latest version of Chrome so that you are guaranteed to have headless mode. Once we have our dependencies installed, we’re going to need to add a few files so that we can use the browser and do some clean up after our tests. First let’s create a simple wrapper for the browser that puppeteer gives us using a Proxy. browser.js const puppeteer = require('puppeteer'); /** * This is a thin wrapper so that we use a singleton of * the browser that puppeteer creates */ class Browser { setUp(done) { const puppeteerOpts = this.options && this.options.puppeteer ? this.options.puppeteer : {}; puppeteer.launch(puppeteerOpts).then(async b => { this.setBrowser(b); done(); }); } setBrowser(b) { this.browser = b; const oldNewPage = this.browser.newPage.bind(this.browser); this.browser.newPage = async function () { const page = await oldNewPage(); this.lastPage = page; return page; }; } setOptions(opts) { this.options = opts; } test(promise) { return (done) => { promise(this.browser, this.options) .then(() => done()).catch(done); }; } } /* * Create a new browser and use a proxy to pass * any puppeteer calls to the inner browser */ module.exports = new Proxy(new Browser(), { get: function(target, name) { return name in target ? target[name].bind(target) : target.browser[name]; } }); This let’s us use a singleton to store options that we will pass in and the browser object from puppeteer and provide some helper functions for using it. Next let’s add some before and after functions for mocha so that we can boot the browser up and clean up after ourselves. runner.js const path = require('path'); const slug = require('slug') const browser = require('./browser'); const options = require('./options'); before((done) => { browser.setOptions(options); browser.setUp(done); }); after(() => { browser.close(); }); And if you want to pass in variables to your tests, or options to puppeteer, create a options.js: puppeteer: { // headless: false, } }; Writing a Test We have our scaffolding set up, write a test. We’re going to import the test helper function that we wrote in our singleton so that we can easily pass down the browser and options to our test. tests/auth/canLogin.js const { expect } = require('chai'); const { test } = require('../../browser'); describe('Login', () => { it('can login', test(async (browser, opts) => { // ... })); }); Let’s try to login to a form and test that it passes: const page = await browser.newPage(); await page.goto(`${opts.appUrl}/login`); await page.click("[name=email]"); await page.type("test@test.com") await page.click("[name=password]"); await page.type("testing"); await page.click("[type=submit]"); const DASHBOARD_SELECTOR = 'div > ul > li > button > span'; await page.waitFor(DASHBOARD_SELECTOR); const innerText = await page.evaluate((sel) => { return document.querySelector(sel).innerText; }, DASHBOARD_SELECTOR); expect(innerText).to.be.equal('Dashboard'); Finishing Up All that’s left is running our test! mocha --timeout 10000 ./runner.js tests/*/**.js You’ll see the normal output from mocha! Be sure to follow me if you want more articles on doing end to end testing. I’ll be going over how to get puppeteer set up with docker and how to get screenshots for when tests fail! |
Image caption Testing a barrier: Just one of the options to stop a lorry attack Can an attack like the ones in Berlin or Nice, where a lorry is used as a weapon, ever be stopped? If we want to live in a free and open society, then no security infrastructure could ever remove all the risks. But there are really effective methods to stop lorry attacks and to protect public spaces. I'm among a small group of journalists fortunate enough to have seen one of the key methods tested, quite literally, to destruction. The US, Israel and the UK are among the nations that have led the thinking on protecting public spaces with the development of measures ranging from in-your-face massive barriers to incredibly subtle changes in the street scene that you and I would barely notice. Anyone who visits these nations' capitals will be in no doubt about the physical security that surrounds critical buildings. Our Parliament is ringed by massive black barriers. The area around the New York Stock Exchange is surrounded by anti-vehicle ramps and any visitor to Israel doesn't need to be told what security looks like. 'Target hardening' With careful planning, cities can be "hardened" by the creative use of special barriers and bollards capable of withstanding direct impacts - stopping a lorry from reaching its goal. Does this engineering and other related measures turn a city into a fortress? Let's go back to the example of Parliament. The large black barriers that surround the Palace of Westminster are obvious. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption How the UK is working to prevent a similar attack They're designed to stop a lorry strike at high speed and I saw a prototype of them tested in 2009. You can watch the video of that exercise on the old version of our website - although it may not work on modern smartphones. But less than 100m from Parliament lies Whitehall, the home of many of the UK government's ministries. There are no large black barriers there. Well that's not strictly true. The barriers are there - you just can't see them because they've been built into the architecture of a street scene that allows the free movement of pedestrians but would stop a lorry attack. Now, governments are obviously going to protect critical infrastructure - but what makes the Nice and Berlin attacks so frightening is that they were not buildings, but public spaces where people were out enjoying themselves. Image caption Walls in Whitehall: This will stop a lorry too If attackers shift their focus from "national" landmarks to what's known in the security jargon as "soft targets", how can anywhere ever be safe? The UK government's approach has been to have a team of dedicated police officers, engineers, architects and other experts who advise everyone from city councils through to Premiership football clubs about how to reduce the risk of vehicle-borne attacks to crowded locations. There is planning guidance and the Royal Institute of British Architects has its own dedicated advice on designing for counter-terrorism without turning the nation into Alcatraz. When local police counter-terrorism security advisers assess a location, they don't just say, "pour a load of concrete and hope for the best". Each recommended measure for a UK location has been tested to internationally-recognised criteria, including an official British Standards Institute specification. Image caption Stopped: Counter-terrorism lorry test witnessed by the BBC in 2009 So, depending on the specific location, many of the barriers increasingly built into our landscape have been tested to see if they can withstand a head-on impact from a seven-tonne lorry driven at 50mph (80 kmh). The most well-known example of that kind of planning in action can be found at Arsenal's Emirates' Stadium, where giant letters spelling out the club name are, in fact, also a massive shield. If a Berlin-like lorry attack were attempted at the stadium, the letters would absorb the energy of the collision. In all likelihood, the lorry would simply smash itself to pieces. Other public locations around the UK have been similarly hardened. Image copyright Alamy Image caption Emirates Stadium: Letters are an anti-attack measure Now, fairly obviously, nobody wants to see massive Parliament-style black barriers on the seafront of seaside resorts. But, again, there are measures that can reduce the risk. Temporary road barriers made of large reinforced concrete blocks can be deployed at public events within hours and can even be securely anchored into the ground with the minimum of disturbance to the landscape. Lesser measures, such as a series of complex chicanes, may be enough to thwart a lorry attack long enough for the police to arrive. These kinds of measures are regularly seen at major political events, such as party conferences or summits - but less so at public events. Could a lorry attack happen in the UK? Fairly obviously, yes, which is why the UK has guides for event organisers, urging them to think through how they mitigate the risks of becoming a target for terrorism. The key guide for major outdoor events runs to 81 pages, and it starts by urging organisers to answer some key questions: Identity the threat - that means take some proper advice from people in the know Establish what you want to protect and what's vulnerable Identity the security improvements that would offer protection Review and rehearse to make sure you've got it right So when the German authorities investigate the full circumstances of how this lorry was able to cause such devastation, they will have to ask themselves whether they have a system in place that can prepare and protect for such an atrocity. |
Official logo since 2004 Mission Barrio Adentro (English: Into the Neighborhood Mission) is a Bolivarian national social welfare program established under late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. The program seeks to provide comprehensive publicly funded health care, dental care, and sports training to poor and marginalized communities in Venezuela. Barrio Adentro features the construction of thousands of iconic two-storey medical clinics—consultorios or doctor’s offices—as well as staffing with resident certified medical professionals. Barrio Adentro constitutes an attempt to deliver a de facto form of universal healthcare, seeking to guarantee access to quality and cradle-to-grave medical attention for all Venezuelan citizens. The Latin American branch of the World Health Organization and UNICEF both praised the program in its early years.[1][2] According to WHO statistics, infant mortality fell from 23 to 20 in males and 19 to 17 in females per 1,000 births between 2003 and 2005.[3][4] Of a planned 8,500 Barrio Adentro I centers, 2,708 had been built by May 2007, using an investment of around US$126 million, with a further 3,284 under construction.[5] As of 2006, the staff included 31,439 professionals, technical personnel, and health technicians, of which 15,356 were Cuban doctors and 1,234 Venezuelan doctors.[6] In 2014, the government celebrated 11 years of the mission, announcing that over 10,000 clinics were created.[7] In Caracas, Mission Barrio Adentro I and II centers in 32 parishes were the subject of constant complaints about performance even after being funded Bs 1.492 million by the government. Councilman Alejandro Vivas stated that "instead of having positive results, what is observed is the discontent of the citizens for a performance that leaves much to be desired".[8] As of December 2014, it was estimated that 80% of Barrio Adentro establishments were abandoned in Venezuela,[9] with the majority of Cuban medical personnel leaving the country.[10] By the end of 2015, the Bolivarian government reported that of all Venezuelans admitted to public health facilities that year, one-in-three patients died.[11] One year later in October 2016, it was reported by the Miami Herald that hundreds of doctors were being recalled by Cuba, allegedly due to a lack of payments by Venezuela.[12] Background [ edit ] The Barrio Adentro program was developed against a background of a public health sector crumbling under long-term financial pressure. As part of the neoliberalisation programme of the early 1990s under President Rafael Caldera, a Venezuela struggling with inflation and a low oil price (oil being its primary export) was forced into spending cuts and privatisation in a number of sectors, including healthcare. A 1989 decentralisation law contributed to the trend; from 1993, state governors could request the transfer of public healthcare in their state to their control, and the inability to cope with the new responsibility encouraged cuts and privatisation. Cost recovery became increasingly prevalent through "voluntary" contributions from users.[13] In addition to the problems with the healthcare system, over the course of the decade, health problems caused by poverty (infectious and deficiency diseases) increased. By 1999, 67.7% of the Venezuelan population was living in poverty, from 44.4% in 1990.[13] In 1999, following the election of Hugo Chávez, the Ministry of Health planned to develop a new National Public Health System, with a particular focus on health promotion, disease prevention, community participation, and the strengthening of the primary health care infrastructure. The 2000/1 annual report by PROVEA highlighted a number of positive features of the new approach, including a wider availability of health services through progressive elimination of users’ fees.[13] Origins [ edit ] The Barrio Adentro program is an example of Latin American social medicine (LASM), which became prominent in the 1960s and 1970s. Amongst others in Latin America, both Salvador Allende in Chile in the early 1970s and Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay from 2005 have implemented LASM principles.[14] LASM's roots can be traced back to 19th-century European social medicine (particularly the work of social medicine pioneer Rudolf Virchow), which was exported to Latin America in the early 20th century.[14] LASM emphasises a collective and holistic approach to healthcare, rather than merely treating the particular symptoms of one individual. Thus the importance of health promotion and disease prevention is stressed—informed by the political-economic and social determinants of health—over a merely reactive treatment of health problems as they occur.[14] LASM incorporates the concept of primary health care (as defined by the 1978 Alma Ata Declaration), of which the "simplified healthcare" adopted in rural Venezuela in the 1960s and 1970s was one form.[15][16] More recently, in 2006, Barrio Adentro was described by the Director of the PAHO as "the culmination of 25 years of experience in Latin America and the rest of the world in transforming health systems through the primary health care strategy."[6] When Hugo Chávez became President in 1999, he sought to implement LASM principles, beginning with their incorporation into the new 1999 Venezuelan Constitution, in articles 83–85 of Title III. These articles enshrine free and high quality healthcare as a human right guaranteed to all Venezuelan citizens.[17] Notably, Article 84 of Title III follows LASM principles in declaring health promotion and disease prevention a priority; it also describes the healthcare system as "decentralised and participative" and declares that the community has "the right and the duty" to be involved in policy decisions regarding the public health system. In addition, Article 85 mandates that the government provide adequate funding for the public healthcare system, while Article 84 explicitly proscribes its privatization.[17] Initial attempts to transform the Ministry of Health to LASM principles, in the 1999–2003 period, met with little success. The Venezuelan Medical Federation was aligned with the Punto Fijo parties, and many of its members in private health care opposed the new emphasis on the public sector. At the same time that the new policies failed to make much ground within the healthcare system, the traditional top-down way in which the policies were developed and carried out prevented a strong connection with the concerns of the poor.[14] The origins of a different approach for carrying out LASM lay in the Libertador municipality of Caracas,[18] which in 2003 (under a pro-Chávez mayor, Freddy Bernal) set up an Institute for Endogenous Development (IED), broadly intended to improve living conditions through the active participation of the local population. Following a series of discussions between IED and local residents, a proposal was formulated to set up a "Plan Barrio Adentro" using small local clinics to provide free healthcare "inside the neighbourhood" where previously there was none, and to involve residents in the management of the scheme. Bernal then issued a call for doctors, but the Venezuelan Medical Federation put pressure on its members not to apply.[6] Of the 50 Venezuelan doctors who did apply, 30 left on hearing that they would need to live in the barrios; the remaining 20 were specialists and therefore employed in specialist centers and not required to work in the primary health care centers in the barrios.[6] Faced with a lack of willing doctors, Bernal recalled the Cuban doctors who had provided emergency aid following the 1999 mud slides, and discussion with the Cuban Embassy in February 2003 ultimately led to a contingent of 58 Cuban doctors starting the program in April 2003.[14] In the interim, three Cuban physicians spent a month visiting the barrios, examining the homes and clinic spaces offered by the community.[6] By May 2003, another 100 Cuban doctors arrived, and were sent to other parts of Libertador and to other municipalities in and around Caracas.[6] Besides diagnosis and treatment, including the provision of free prescription drugs, the doctors carried out a health census of the barrios, which provided a complete health survey of the Caracas barrios for the first time.[6] Despite some obstacles (including a refusal by public hospitals to accept referrals for diagnosis and treatment, only gradually and partially overcome during 2003), "Plan Barrio Adentro" became very popular with its constituents.[6] By December 2003, "Plan Barrio Adentro"—having seen over 9 million patient consultations and 4 million health interventions[6]—was so popular that it was attracting national attention, and President Chávez transformed it into a national program, named "Mission Barrio Adentro" (MBA). It became the first of a series of popular "missions" bypassing existing public institutions.[14] Barrio Adentro I [ edit ] "The key aspect of these centers is that they are located within the neighborhood and in the marginalized zones of the large cities,"[13] although some facilities were located in higher income areas.[14] "Placement of Barrio Adentro health posts within those neighborhoods that had been most excluded was undertaken at the request of the neighborhood health committees and taking into consideration preexisting health care facilities."[13] A key part of the national Barrio Adentro scheme, as it was in the original local plan, is the participation of the local community. This takes place through health committees, chosen in an assembly of citizens and typically around 10 people. By 2006, some 8,951 health committees had been registered, one for each primary care post.[13] (The total was already 6,241 in 2004.[6]) A total of 41,639 community health assemblies were held in the first quarter of 2006, with the participation of 1,423,815 people.[6] The issue of participation goes beyond mere management. As one academic study put it, "the observed role of positive, egalitarian clinical interactions between Cuban physicians and Venezuelan patients and other residents suggests that doctor–patient interactions model power relations between communities and institutions and affect local perceptions and participation." It concluded that developing more positive and egalitarian physician/patient and professional/community relationships "may be one of the easiest, most effective ways" the medical profession can contribute to overcoming health disparities.[14] Each primary care post covered 250 to 300 families.[13] By 2003, primary medical care coverage was achieved for 70% of the Venezuelan population for whom primary care was previously unavailable, representing over 18 million people. By 2007, 3,717 primary care posts had been built and equipped, and a total of 8,633 posts were operational (including those still located in community centers and homes). There were also 4,800 dentists. In 1998, Venezuela had only 1,628 staffed primary care posts, and 800 dentists. Between 1998 and 2007, this represented an increase of 530% and 600%, respectively.[13] In addition to the new infrastructure, there were also new outreach programmes. For example, in addition to the drug module for the popular medical dispensaries (which provided free access to 106 essential medicines designed to cover the needs at this level of care), a family drug module was launched in 2005. This programme reached 40 selected municipalities in 17 states, and every three months delivered drugs and vitamin supplements tailored to the family's needs. Hundreds of thousands of infants, children, and pregnant and elderly women have benefited.[6] Over 150,000 health promoters from local communities were trained in 2004–2006 to spread messages relating to ways of improving health.[6] Barrio Adentro II [ edit ] After the Barrio Adentro's primary care network went nationwide in 2004, moves to expand beyond primary care soon followed. What became known as "Barrio Adentro I" focused on primary health care. "Barrio Adentro II" focused on secondary care, in three main areas: Comprehensive Diagnosis Centers (for more advanced diagnosis), Comprehensive Rehabilitation Centers (for people with disabilities, another social deficit uncovered by Barrio Adentro I—there were only 78 public sector centers in 1998), and Advanced Technology Centers (for more advanced treatment). Plans were made for 600 each of the first two facilities (each serving a population of approximately 40,000 to 50,000) and 35 of the latter (with at least one in each state).[13] As of 2007, Barrio Adentro II involved 417 Comprehensive Diagnostic Centers (of 600 planned), 576 Comprehensive Rehabilitation Centers (of 600 planned), and 22 Advanced Technology Centers (of 35 planned). Key modern technology is split between CDCs and ATCs (by 2007 CDCs had 13 of the 19 public sector MRI machines, ATCs 15 of the 26 CT scanners). In 1998, there was only one MRI machine and five CT scanners in the public sector.[13] Barrio Adentro III and IV [ edit ] Barrio Adentro III provides care for those cases which cannot be resolved at the two lower levels—major illnesses, palliative and specialist care. Care is available 24 hours a day.[13] Barrio Adentro IV is responsible for the most complicated and specialized medical and surgical needs. These are national and referral facilities where teaching and research is carried out.[13] On 16 November 2006, the Chávez government introduced this phase of the Barrio Adentro project, with a planned 16 hospitals to be built around the country, especially in poor areas.[19] The Dr. Gilberto Rodríguez Ochoa Latin American Children’s Cardiology Hospital, inaugurated in 2007,[20] is the most notable example,[14] being one of the largest centers of its kind in the world, with 142 hospital beds and 33 intensive care beds.[6] Creation of related Missions [ edit ] As the work of the first primary health care Barrio Adentro proceeded, censuses began to reveal "the depth of the social deficits accumulated in these communities."[13] The response was to expand into a number of new areas, creating new missions. Thus under Misión Alimentación, efforts are made to ensure that the vulnerable (children, elderly, etc.) receive at least two meals a day. Misión Robinson was created to address illiteracy, which in turn led to Misión Milagro to deal with the revealed deficit of ophthalmological care for eye disease. Analysis [ edit ] From 1998 to 2007, the infant mortality rate fell from 21.3 to 13 per 1,000 registered births.[13] Between 2003 and 2007, 4,659 new comprehensive level I and II health care centers were built and equipped. Services in these centers is provided free of charge.[13] However, Jorge Díaz-Polanco, a sociologist of the Center for Development Studies (CENDES), stated that despite an increase of investment, the maternal mortality rate increased and in 2009, the rate was 70 deaths per 100,000, the highest since the 1990s.[21] In 2004 and 2005, Barrio Adentro provided 150 million consultations, four times as many as the conventional outpatient network; 40% of these were home visits.[6] "In surveys conducted by the Venezuelan government's National Statistics Institute (INE) in Caracas, 97 percent of the respondents said that they were satisfied or very satisfied with their general medical consultations, and 98 percent said they had little or no difficulty gaining access to health care, while 88.5 percent said that they had some or considerable difficulty gaining access to health care prior to Barrio Adentro."[6] However, in Caracas, Mission Barrio Adentro I and II centers in 32 parishes were the subject of constant complaints about performance even after being funded Bs 1.492 million by the government. Councilman Alejandro Vivas stated that "instead of having positive results, what is observed is the discontent of the citizens for a performance that leaves much to be desired".[8] One academic study noted that the successes of the Barrio Adentro program in 2003 and 2004 may have "crucially influenced" Chávez's 59% to 41% victory in the Venezuelan recall referendum, 2004.[14] By 2017, it was reported by The Miami Herald that though the program had "saved lives", it was "also clear the program is less effective than the administration would like the world to believe", with reports of exaggerated and fraudulent data being reported by Cuban medical personnel who had previously worked under the mission.[12] Abandonment [ edit ] In July 2007, Douglas León Natera, chairman of The Venezuelan Medical Federation, reported that up to 70% of the modules of Barrio Adentro have been either abandoned or were left unfinished.[22] In some cases the Venezuelan government accused elected opposition officials of trying to impede or close existing Missions. In 2006 Chávez accused the governor of Zulia state of impeding Barrio Adentro there.[23] According to investigative journalist Patricia Marcano, in 2010 the Venezuelan government promised to start 357 clinics but only 148 were completed. In 2012, 298 clinics were promised, while 175 were made and in 2013, 62 were promised, but only 35 were constructed.[21] In December 2014, it was estimated that 80% of Barrio Adentro establishments were abandoned with reports of some structures being filled with trash or being unintentional shelter for the homeless.[9] The majority of Cuban medical personnel has also left Venezuela.[10] Defections [ edit ] In August 2006, the United States under George W. Bush created the Cuban Medical Professional Parole program, specifically targeting Cuban medical personnel and encouraging them to defect when they are working in a country outside of Cuba.[24] According to a 2007 paper published in The Lancet medical journal, "growing numbers of Cuban doctors sent overseas to work are defecting to the USA".[25][26] Cuban doctors working abroad are reported to be monitored by "minders" and subject to curfew.[25] In February 2010, seven Cuban doctors who defected to the US introduced an indictment against the governments of Cuba and Venezuela and the oil company PDVSA for what they considered was a conspiracy to force them to work under conditions of "modern slaves" as payment for the Cuban government debt.[27] In 2014, it was reported by Miami NGO, Solidarity Without Borders, that at least 700 Cuban medical personnel had left Venezuela in the past year and that up to hundreds of Cuban personnel had asked for advice on how to escape from Venezuela weekly.[28] Solidarity Without Borders also stated that Cuban personnel cannot refuse to work, cannot express complaints and suffer with blackmail from threats against their family in Cuba.[28] Controversy [ edit ] Licensure [ edit ] The Venezuelan Medical Federation, the largest association of medical doctors in Venezuela, lobbied vigorously against the use of Cuban doctors in Mission Barrio Adentro, and was in a legal dispute with the Chávez administration over the legitimacy of the Cuban doctors' licensure and practice. In 2003, they obtained a court order preventing Cuban doctors from practicing in Venezuela, on the basis that they were not properly licensed according to the Venezuelan system; a compromise was reached enabling them to continue working in Barrio Adentro.[29][30][31] Irregularities in funding [ edit ] In 2014, the Comptroller General of the Republic "found serious irregularities in the process of repair, modernization and extension of eight national referral hospitals". In 2006, the Venezuelan government funded companies without reasons and without certain regulations. The Comptroller said that the project was "marked by weakness and improvisations" and that "[t]his authorization does not imply commitment to the Foundation or the MPPS (Ministry of Health)".[32] Dumping of medicine and faking of reports [ edit ] In 2017, The Miami Herald reported that groups of Cuban health care workers who had defected from the program stated that due to the daily quotas of patients, they would often feel pressured to fake paperwork and throw away medicine, since regular audits of their supplies meant they needed them to match their patient count. If Cuban medical personnel did not meet their quotas, they were threatened with having their pay cut or being sent back to Cuba.[12] Notes [ edit ] |
Rule number one of looking great in clothes is finding the right fit for your body. But if you're not model skinny or sample size, the fashion industry can sometimes seemed stacked against you—especially when it comes to jeans. Turns out, women aren't the only ones frustrated by ill-fitting denim. So how do stylish guys with dad bods or a body builder physique find great-fitting jeans? The answer used to be buy your jeans a size or two up and then go see a tailor. But these days more denim brands are making jeans specifically cut to fit a wide range of body types, including Crossfit-level quads and glutes. That means you can say goodbye to waist gap and save money at the tailor. We spoke to three brands at the forefront of the "athletic fit" revolution about great fit, swole bods, and the changing denim landscape. Because more muscular bodies have more curves (that's what leg day is for after all), jeans made to fit those bodies have to curve too. That's why Levi's reengineered the standard shape, from waistband to leg taper, in their 541 model. To perfect their athletic fit, Levi's sample tested 541s on a broad spectrum of men, from the guy who gets swole for a living to the man with a dadbod and a naturally bigger bottom half. The goal: to make a stylish pair of jeans that doesn't slide down in the back or look too baggy in the ankle. "You can’t just get an existing jean and plug in a one inch bigger thigh and that’s it," said Jonathan Cheung, Head of Design at Levi's. "We had to look at the ergonomics—we’ve dropped the waistband a little lower at the front and kept the back higher. This means it sits comfortably below your belly and covers your butt crack too! Then there’s the aesthetics. We pay a lot of attention to proportions—the angles and sizes of the pockets, everything. Lastly, we tested it both during and after the prototyping phase on athletes, construction workers of all types, and many regular guys. They all became part of the design process." View more The only down side, you still have to try them on to find your true size. Cheung suggests trying "one size smaller and one size bigger than you think you are." He also suggests trying "odd-numbers, like 31”, 33”, 35”. It makes a difference." Who knows maybe you've been a 33 wearing a 34 all along. The Cut: Bonobos Athletic Fit Jeans Bonobos was built on the idea of better fitting pants for everyone—including guys who aren't waif male model skinny. But that doesn't mean they found the magic formula on their first try. As with any industry, fashion evolves when customers voice their opinions often enough and loud enough. Bonobos created their athletic fit in response to customer demand for jeans with a tapered leg but a little more room in the butt and thighs. Dwight Fenton, Chief Creative Officer of Bonobos said, "Guys were writing in constantly, calling out that they loved the look of the slim fit but it was too tight in the seat and thighs or they had to buy two sizes up to get the legs to look the way they wanted. Working out and staying in shape is much more of a priority for men now." The Cut: Barbell Apparel Athletic Fit Denim For anyone who had to wear husky-fit clothing as a kid, the "athletic" moniker can seem like just another euphemism for chubby. And sure, if you've bulked up from too many nights of wings and not-so-light beers, athletic fit denim could totally be your jam. But the founders behind Barbell Apparel take their athletic fit pretty damn seriously. Mostly because they're athletes themselves with a lifetime of frustration surrounding the way their pants fit. "We all grew up lifting weights, playing sports, and staying active," said the company's co-founder Hunter Molzen. "Over the years we ended up with bigger than normal legs, and could never find pants that fit. Even if we could squeeze a pair of jeans on, they were impossible to move in. Many of our customers haven’t been able to comfortably wear a nice pair of pants in years, so when they get them on it’s like a paradigm shift. Our client base comes from all walks of life including weightlifters, rock climbers, cross fitters, and track cyclists. We definitely see a big subset of customers from first-responders and the military." Watch Now: Only You Can Stop Square-Toe Shoes Syndrome |
SOLON, Ohio -- An off-duty Solon police officer accused of grabbing a woman by the throat is charged with disorderly conduct. James Cervik, 49, was charged with the misdemeanor after an investigation by the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office. Cervik has been on administrative paid leave since the incident that occurred in the early morning of Oct. 4 at Freeway Lanes bowling alley in Solon. An Aurora woman called police and said that Cervik pushed her, swore at her and grabbed her neck. She told a dispatcher that the man identified himself to her as a Solon police officer, but did not give his name. An officer who responded to the 911 call noticed red marks on the woman's collarbone, according to a police report. The woman also said that the altercation occurred after she told a friend who was with Cervik that her ride was waiting outside the bowling alley. Police were not able to locate Cervik at the time of the incident, but made contact with him the next morning. Cervik has been a member of the Solon police force for 24 years, the department said in a press release Friday. He will remain on paid leave until the case is resolved. |
Fixes looks at solutions to social problems and why they work. Richard Lee for The New York Times Beeps and blinking lights are the constant chatter of a hospital intensive care unit, but at the I.C.U.’s in North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y., the conversation has some unusual contributors. Two L.E.D. displays adorn the wall across from each nurses’ station. They show the hand hygiene rate achieved: last Friday in the surgical I.C.U., the weekly rate was 85 percent and the current shift had a rate of 91 percent. “Great Shift!!” the sign said. At the medical I.C.U. next door, the weekly rate was 81 percent, and the current shift 82 percent. That’s too low for a “Great Shift!!” message. But by most standards, both I.C.U.’s are doing well. Those L.E.D. displays are very demanding — health care workers must clean their hands within 10 seconds of entering and exiting a patient’s room, or it doesn’t count. Three years ago, using the same criteria, the medical I.C.U.’s hand hygiene rate was appalling — it averaged 6.5 percent. But a video monitoring system that provides instant feedback on success has raised rates of hand-washing or use of alcohol rubs to over 80 percent, and kept them there. Hospitals do impossible things like heart surgery on a fetus, but they are apparently stymied by the task of getting health care workers to wash their hands. Most hospitals report compliance of around 40 percent — and that’s using a far more lax measure than North Shore uses. I.C.U.’s, where health care workers are the most harried, usually have the lowest rates — between 30 and 40 percent. But these are the places where patients are the sickest and most endangered by infection. How do hospitals even know their rates? Some hospitals track how much soap and alcohol gel gets used — a very rough measure. The current standard of care is to send around the hospital equivalent of secret shoppers — staff members who secretly observe their colleagues and record whether they wash their hands. This has serious drawbacks: it is expensive and the results are distorted if health care workers figure out they’re being observed. One reason the North Shore staff was so shocked by the 6.5 percent hand-washing rate the video cameras found was that measured by the secret shoppers, the rate was 60 percent. Richard Lee for The New York Times In the past few years, several new technologies have emerged that can help hospitals to measure and improve hand hygiene rates. I’ve written in Fixes about some hospitals that have tried them and found good results. But medicine pays attention only when there are studies in a peer-reviewed journal, and there hasn’t been one — until now. The North Shore study, published this week in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, is the first use of video in promoting hospital hand-washing, and the first controlled study in a peer-reviewed journal of a high-tech effort to increase hand hygiene rates. Dr. Bruce Farber, the head of infectious diseases at North Shore, says that hospitals are now willing to take extraordinary and expensive measures to prevent infection — but this attitude is new. If he had proposed experimenting with video cameras a few years earlier, he said, he might have met with a lot of resistance. But he found none. “I don’t think there’s any pushback in terms of people thinking this is a real problem and we need to do things,” he said. “The next crux is: what works and what doesn’t work?” There is an overwhelming need to find out. About 1 in 20 hospital patients becomes ill with an infection — many or most of them from the hands of health-care workers. Hospital-acquired infections are the fourth leading cause of death in America. Add up annual deaths in the United States from car accidents, AIDS, and breast cancer, and they are still lower than the 100,000 deaths each year from hospital-acquired infection. Recently, hospitals have been given a financial incentive as well. In 2008, Medicare began to stop reimbursing hospitals (nor are hospitals allowed to bill patients) for the cost of treating some hospital-acquired infections, and the list is expanding every year. The health care reform bill does the same with Medicaid, and insurance companies are beginning to follow. Treating these infections is hugely expensive — the average cost is at least $15,000. These infections cost somewhere between $28 billion and $45 billion a year. I wrote earlier about hospitals trying a sensor system: health care workers get a badge that sniffs alcohol — an ingredient in hand sanitizer and hospital soap. The sensor can tell when the worker last washed hands. If the worker crosses a perimeter around a patient and hasn’t washed his hands, the system beeps to remind him. Richard Lee for The New York Times North Shore instead uses a video monitoring system made by a company called Arrowsight. Cameras on the ceiling are trained on the sinks and hand sanitizer dispensers just inside and outside patient rooms. (Patients are not photographed.) A monitor at each door tracks when someone enters or leaves the room — anyone passing through a door has 10 seconds to wash hands. Arrowsight employees in India monitor random snippets of tape and grade each event as pass or fail. What makes the system function is not the videotaping alone — it’s the feedback. The nurse manager gets an e-mail message three hours into the shift with detailed information about hand hygiene rates, and again at the end. The L.E.D. signs are a constant presence in both the surgical and medical I.C.U.s. “They look at the rates,” said Isabel Law, nurse manager of the surgical I.C.U.. “It becomes a positive competition. Seeing “Great Shift!!” is important. It’s human nature that we all want to do well. Now we have a picture to see how we’re doing.” Data on infection rates was not in the journal article, but Dr. Farber said that rates of MRSA (resistant staph, one of the most deadly and expensive superbugs) have dropped. The development of Arrowsight’s technology shows the evolution in hospitals’ thinking about hand hygiene. This is Arrowsight’s first foray into health care. The company’s main business is meat: half the beef processing plants in America use its video system to monitor workers’ hygienic practices. Adam Aronson, Arrowsight’s chief executive, said that at one plant cameras focused on a hand sanitizer dispenser right outside the bathroom. With monitoring and feedback, hand hygiene rates went from about 4 percent to over 95 percent, and the achievement was sustained. Aronson showed the results to his father, Mark David Aronson, a professor at Harvard Medical School. His father told him that 3,000 people die every year of the food-borne illnesses the cameras in meat plants were trying to prevent — but 100,000 die of hospital-acquired infections. “You have a civic duty to try to get this into hospitals,” his father said. Aronson met with 10 hospitals; no one was interested, and he gave up. Then five years ago, Aronson’s mother and sister both contracted serious infections in hospitals: his sister nearly died of infection after giving birth, and his mother contracted a bone infection that has left her with a permanent limp. He decided to try again. One of his employees had an uncle who ran a tiny surgery center in Macon, Ga. “It had very low rates of hand hygiene — and we got them over 90 percent within weeks,” he said. Then he approached North Shore. At first Farber feared he wouldn’t be able to get approval; the conventional wisdom was that employees don’t like being videotaped. But then he thought about a recent experience at the dry cleaner: he had picked up some of his daughter’s clothes, but one of her suits was missing. He went back to the shop and told them the date and approximate time of his visit. They pulled up a video that indeed showed him leaving her suit behind. “If dry cleaners are doing that, we need to do that in the hospital,” he thought. Related More From Fixes Read previous contributions to this series. North Shore got a $50,000 grant from the New York State health department to install the system in the 18-bed medical I.C.U.; the hospital pays the $1000 monthly maintenance. Because it was an academic study, North Shore decided not to reward or punish individual workers, for fear it might contaminate the results. The “Great Shift!!” on the L.E.D. sign is the only reward. North Shore later put the system into the surgical I.C.U. as well. Now another hospital, the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, has installed the system. Like the other high-tech hand hygiene systems, Arrowsight’s is expensive. But if low-tech isn’t working, it’s a good investment — it will pay for itself if it prevents two or three infections. It is now nearly four years since the cameras went in to North Shore, and hand hygiene rates remain high, although higher in the surgical I.C.U. than the medical I.C.U.. William Senicola, the nurse manager of the medical I.C.U., said one reason for the difference was that there had been an emergency with a patient that morning, which gave the staff other priorities. “It has to do with volume,” he said. He said that three months into the program, one of the nurses on his staff called him on a Saturday morning at home. She told him that she had gotten up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and banged into the wall as she automatically reached for the alcohol gel dispenser she expected to find. “That’s a real change in culture,” he said. “That’s when we knew we were there.” Join Fixes on Facebook and follow updates on twitter.com/nytimesfixes. Tina Rosenberg won a Pulitzer Prize for her book “The Haunted Land: Facing Europe’s Ghosts After Communism.” She is a former editorial writer for The Times and now a contributing writer for the paper’s Sunday magazine. Her new book is “Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World.” |
Posted September 4, 2017 at 1:01 am In addition to wanting the two catch up comics to be on Monday because it would be easier to be on time (HA!) , I realized I could put these two specific comics comics together. I felt that would work well. 1st comic Worth noting is that I haven't watched a ton of anime series in full myself, and it's entirely possible that there is a perfect example out there somewhere of what Susan's talking about. At the same time, there's so much anime out there that, even if there is a good example, Hanma could have missed it. It is my understanding that Harry Potter has actually inspired a great many anime, however. Shocking, I know. Hanma would totally have her feet on the sofa in this comic if not for the fact that Susan, like me, would totally take issue with it. Granted, I would have wound up having Hanma sit as she is anyway in the end just for staging purposes, but the original rejection reason was "Susan would be super uncomfortable with it". (And so would I). 2nd comic Not wishing to spoil anything major in Harry Potter (seriously, new kids are born everyday, and people have lives to live. There's easily people who haven't read it), at SOME point in the series, it's made clear that trying to make people love you with magic is bad. As for the "mechanic" Hanma's talking about, well... I may have mentioned this already in a commentary, but they're not just going to be pretending to play a fictional game. I've designed a playable board game around getting points via transformation (of themselves and other players), and the game we're going to see in the comic will be based on the results of my playtesting it. To the point, Hanma is NOT kidding about that being an actual mechanic in the game, and it mostly can affect which direction a player moves around the board in. It makes things a lot more chaotic, I can assure you. |
18089 Ed Sheeran's grip on the Official Singles Chart isn't loosening easily - the Suffolk-born singer has now spent four weeks holding the Top 2 positions. Shape of You notched up sales of 47,000 and 8.8 million streams to keep the top spot this week. In just four weeks, the song has sold a total of 306,000 copies and has been streamed 42.9 million times. Ed's streak of domination now matches the all-time record held by Justin Bieber, whose tracks Love Yourself and Sorry also held Number 1 and 2 in the chart for four weeks on the bounce in November and December 2015. MORE: See this week's Top 100 Official Singles Chart in full Shape of You is also Ed's longest reigning Number 1 single in the UK, and has now spent two weeks longer at the top than his previous best effort Thinking Out Loud. View Ed Sheeran's full UK chart history here. Elsewhere in this week's Top 5, Jax Jones and Raye's You Don't Know Me holds firm at Number 3, Little Mix hold ground at 4 with Touch, and The Chainsmokers earn their third Top 5 record with Paris, a climber of two places. New entries and high climbers Sean Paul's No Lie featuring Dua Lipa infiltrates the Top 10 for the first time this week, rising once slot to Number 10. Dua is back again at Number 11 with Be The One, her highest chart position as a lead artist secured in the process. A new peak for Zayn and Taylor Swift's I Don't Wanna Live Forever occurs this week, the song rising five placings to Number 13. Major Lazer lock in their 4th Top 20 hit with Run Up at Number 20, which features uncredited vocals from Nicki Minaj and PARTYNEXTDOOR. Dua Lipa returns for her third Top 40 of the week, featuring on Martin Garrix's Scared To Be Lonely, a new entry at Number 23. The current US Number 1 Bad and Boujee from Migos hops three places to Number 31, and finally, Rag'n'Bone Man's Skin debuts at Number 35. |
Getty Images Share Pinterest Email When Philip Roth’s Alexander Portnoy discusses the arcane symbolism of his girlfriend eating a banana, or talks about time spent alone in the bathroom with women’s underwear hanging on the door, or any number of other things that can’t even be implied in the html of a family website, he is revealing his innermost “perversions” to his analyst, the things he’s repressed and sublimated and kept far away from public view; Nick Kroll’s Rodney Ruxin says the same things to his group of friends on “The League” every week and they celebrate him for it, and enjoy provoking him to see what invectives he’ll throw their way. “The League” is an FX show about a group of 30-something high school friends in the Chicago area who continue to bond over fantasy football. The characters are ethnically diverse in the way of most North Shore Chicago suburbs (Poles and Protestants) and Ruxin, as the Jewish member, marks the ironic result of six decades of suburbanization by American Jews. He’s been raised in suburban American settings, and is accepted as a normal white American by his friends, but he’s simultaneously been brought up on a Jewish American culture that emphasized outsiderdom from general American society (30 years of Roth and Woody Allen) and has been permanently affected by the meta-criticism of Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. It’s not just that Jewish humor has gotten bawdier over the years (though it has), but that what it means to be the lone, solitary Jew in a sitcom or film has changed. Seth Rogen and his cohort say horribly inappropriate things to each other in “Knocked Up” but they are almost all Jews, with only the token beard-growing gentile friend to hear them. With Ruxin we’ve entered a new era: The Jewish character no longer has to be nerdy, awkward, and nebbishy (Rob Morrow on “Northern Exposure”) or the overly-moral mensch for all seasons (Evan Handler’s Harry on “Sex and the City”); the Jewish character can now be the loud and abrasive jerk without anyone wondering too loudly “Is this good for the Jews?” In a fantastic piece of insider Jewish humor, Ruxin religiously wears pastel-colored shirts and ties from Brooks Brothers in order to fit in with the surrounding society. When he doesn’t wear a costume for Halloween he’s asked if he’s going as a “Jew dressed up as a WASP,” lampooning our superficial understanding of preppy culture. But the real joke is that Jewish firms, from J. Press to Ralph Lauren, helped market and sell classic American style in the first place, even if no one remembers that madras jackets, like the bagel, were brought to this country by Jews. Ruxin’s Jewish identity is an important part of his character, but it’s an unmarked one — another American ethnicity for the show to make jokes about. We recently learned that Ruxin worried about marrying a non-Jew on his wedding day, but the religious nature of his anxieties, while important, wasn’t the core of the joke; it was a Jewish flavoring for the sitcom convention of cold feet. In that regard it was much like Kroll’s “Bar Mitzvah Disco,” which figured the Bar Mitzvah as just another instance of awkward American adolescence, or “Wet Hot American Summer,” which did the same with Jewish summer camps. As the Bar Mitzvah circuit became a shared experience for Jews and their neighbors, mass media could exploit these Jewish rituals without having to teach the general audience what a Bar Mitzvah was. Still, the fact that Ruxin’s marriage anxieties took Jewish form is surprising and fascinating. The show takes place with Ruxin long married and extremely proud of his hot Hispanic wife. That he paused to wonder about whether he was doing the right thing marrying a non-Jew shows the remnants of Jewish difference in American society and humor. Just enough of a sense of separateness remains to continue making jokes about it, even in the suburbs. |
Star Wars: The Old Republic, the much-talked about MMORPG from BioWare, will not only be making an appearance at this year’s Comic-Con, it will also be playable! Click to read more after the jump. BioWare Senior Community Coordinator David Bass posted the news on the game’s official forums: Yesterday, BioWare made an announcement that we have a space at the Hilton Gaslamp hotel across the street from Comic-Con where fans can get their hands on Mass Effect 3 and the newest Dragon Age II DLC. Well, surprisingly enough, The Old Republic is planning on being there as well! Anyone (yes, even you!) can come to the Hilton and wait in line to play any of the BioWare games. Those of you who have Comic-Con badges, never fear. We will definitely have the game playable on the show floor too, but as we’ve always said, our goal is to get as many people playing as possible at these events, and we figured the best way to do that was to extend the experience outside of Comic-Con. And later when asked for more specifics on dates and times the game would be open to play, he posted this response: The current plan is for the space to be open during each day of Comic-Con, likely extending beyond show floor hours too. Plans are very much subject to change, however. And we may not have played all of our cards just yet. This is great news for fans of the long-awaited game, whether you were able to score a ticket to the con or not. Keep watching for more information as it is announced. |
Our politics isn't as simple as Coke v Pepsi Posted It's a well-worn theory that Australia's major political parties are mirror images. But our polling shows there is actually plenty of brand confusion among voters, and there are lessons for the Labor Party in particular, writes Peter Lewis. "Coke v Pepsi". It's the well-worn refrain about the converging of the modern political parties - the professionalisation of the political classes that has rendered the combatants as mirror images. Consider this: Turnbull and Abbott were reportedly courted by Labor before they "chose" the other team. Consider this: since the Keating era, the dominant economic agenda within Labor has been around deregulation and trade liberalisation - albeit at a slower pace than advocated by the conservatives. Consider this: in the US and UK maverick candidates to the left and right of the major establishment parties are wreaking havoc by breaking the centrist consensus and playing straight to the respective bases. The outside assault, which we have seen in Australia to a lesser extent with the Palmer United Party, creates a second panic - that the political establishment has become such a closed shop that only a crazy can knock the door down. The problem is that, just like its underlying premise, much of this political debate takes place amongst the insiders. So, what does the public think about the major political parties? Too left? Too right? Or do these labels even mean anything? Q. Do you think the following parties are too right wing/conservative, too left wing/progressive or about right? Too right wing/ conservative Too left wing/ progressive About right Don't know The Labor Party 16% 20% 28% 36% The Liberal Party 34% 7% 26% 33% The Nationals 29% 7% 21% 43% The Greens 9% 30% 20% 41% Palmer United Party 17% 12% 10% 61% A few points stick out from this top-line analysis, but it does take a bit of unpacking. First, witness the large number, more than one third of voters, who don't know about the major political brands' political orientation. Second, note that fewer than a third of the voters believe the parties orientation is where it should be. Third, while the Coalition parties are seen by a significant proportion of the electorate as too conservative, views about the ALP are evenly split between those who see it as too right and those who think it is too left. These findings are reinforced when voters are asked about their perceptions of the change in parties over the past few years. Q. Do you think over the last few years, these parties have become more right wing/conservative, more left wing/progressive or stayed about the same? More right wing/ conservative More left wing/ progressive About the same Don't know The Labor Party 19% 16% 31% 34% The Liberal Party 27% 8% 33% 32% The Nationals 20% 6% 35% 39% The Greens 6% 20% 35% 38% Palmer United Party 9% 9% 24% 57% There is a perception that the Coalition parties are moving to the right, the Greens are drifting to the left, but there is a confusion in Labor's brand and where it is going. An alternative way of understanding Australia's political brands is to ask people which groups in society they are seen to represent. Q. Which political party do you think best represents the interests of – Labor Liberal Greens Don't know Net (Labor- Liberal Big business 9% 61% 3% 27% -52 Working people on high incomes 11% 59% 3% 26% -48 Small businesses and self-employed 25% 40% 4% 31% -15 Rural and regional Australians 19% 27% 13% 41% -8 The next generation of Australians 22% 27% 12% 39% -5 Indigenous people 22% 21% 16% 41% +1 Ethnic communities 21% 19% 17% 43% +2 Families with young children 37% 24% 6% 33% +13 Pensioners 37% 22% 8% 33% +15 Students 36% 20% 11% 33% +16 Working people on average incomes 42% 26% 5% 27% +16 Working people on low incomes 44% 21% 6% 28% +23 People on welfare 41% 18% 10% 31% +23 These findings show the Liberals entrenched as the party for the wealthy and big business, but losing its hold on its traditional small business base. Labor is seen as the party of the poor and lower and middle incomes, yet their footprint does not represent a majority. While the Greens have split Labor's hold on some of its traditional sectional bases, critically, no party is seen as representing the next generation. What does it all mean? Judging by these findings the Coke v Pepsi analogy doesn't actually hold up. Rather, this is a story about market position and perception. On the one hand the Coalition is seen as occupying a defined ideological ground and representing a defined set of interests. You may not always like them, but you know where they stand. In contrast, Labor is seen by many as a party without a clearly defined home, crowded by the Greens to the left and susceptible to being dragged to the right on populist issues. Labor's ability to resolve these tensions remains fundamental to its long-term viability and the dynamism of the two-party model of government in Australia. Peter Lewis is a director of Essential Media Communications. Topics: government-and-politics, political-parties |
Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times Wherever you find yourself in the city, there is probably an outdoor chess table nearby. According to the parks department, there are more than 2,000 public chess or checkers tables spread among 536 parks, offering the perfect spot to sacrifice a queen or promote a pawn. Unless, apparently, the chess tables are in a playground. Seven chess players in Upper Manhattan found this out the hard way, when police officers approached them at the stone chess tables in Inwood Hill Park and issued them summonses for failure to comply with signs. The tables are behind the gates of the park’s Emerson Playground, which the signs in question state is off limits to adults unaccompanied by minors. Similar signs are posted at most if not all parks department playgrounds to deter what a parks official called “inappropriate adult use of space designated specifically for children.” But given that the overwhelming majority of users of public chess boards are adults and what seems to be the generally nonthreatening nature of the chess players, members of the Inwood Hill Seven wondered about the logic behind the crackdown, which took place Oct. 20 and was reported by the online Manhattan news site DNAInfo on Wednesday. “What is so harmful with chess?” asked Yacahudah Harrison, 49, a homeless man who said he and four other men were playing at the tables around lunchtime when three police cruisers drove into the park. “It’s a quiet game, but it still disturbs the peace.” Mr. Harrison, a white-bearded man with a personality reminiscent of Santa Claus, said he began playing chess in the park two years ago after a neighborhood resident who saw him playing in the 207th Street subway station invited him to come to the park to teach the game to children. “From what I know, chess is accepted as good culture in every culture,” he said. “We drink jasmine tea and have some muffins, nothing decadent.” The police, he said, “rolled up on us like we were big-time drug dealers.” The tables are separated from the rest of the play area by a fence. Mr. Harrison said there were no children present at the time. Mr. Harrison and his co-defendants are charged with violating a provision of parks regulation 1-03 formally known as “Failure to Comply With Directions of Police Officers, Urban Park Rangers, Parks Enforcement Patrol Officers, or Other Department Employees, or Park Signs.” It carries a $50 fine. They must go to court on the matter on or before Dec. 28. While the park does have its share of drug dealing and other illicit activity, supporters of the chess players say that the police are going after the wrong people. “This incident is an embarrassment to the officers from the 34th Precinct who felt that it was necessary to use their badge and authority to issue such a random summons,” Joanna Johnston, who said that her 7-year-old son learned to play chess from the men in the playground, wrote in a letter to the police and the mayor. But the 34th Precinct’s commanding officer, Capt. Jose Navarro, told DNAInfo that he had reviewed the summonses and stood by them. And a police spokesman said that the summonses were part of a larger campaign to clean up the park, driven by complaints from residents about crime. “There’s been an effort over time to address these concerns, and a lot of it begins with very simple innocuous violations such as this,” the spokesman said. Mr. Harrison said that none of the chess players had returned to the playground since the incident. “We’re not looking for trouble,” he said. “We’re not lawbreakers.” Dylan Loeb McClain contributed reporting. |
Although C++ is an old programming language, its Standard Library misses a few basic things. Features that Java or .NET had for years were/are not available in STL. With C++17 there’s a nice improvement: for example, we now have the standard filesystem! Traversing a path, even recursively is so simple now! Intro For the last five episodes/articles, I’ve covered most of the language features. Now it’s time for the Standard Library. I’ve planned three posts on that: Filesystem, Parallel STL and Concurrency, Utils. Maybe I was a bit harsh in the introduction. Although the Standard Library lacks some important features, you could always use Boost with its thousands of sub-libraries and do the work. The C++ Committee and the Community decided that the Boost libraries are so important that some of the systems were merged into the Standard. For example smart pointers (although improved with the move semantics in C++11), regular expressions, and much more. The similar story happened with the filesystem. Let’s try to understand what’s inside. The Series This post is the sixth in the series about C++17 features details. The plan for the series Just to recall: First of all, if you want to dig into the standard on your own, you can read the latest draft here: N4659, 2017-03-21, Working Draft, Standard for Programming Language C++ - the link also appears on the isocpp.org. And you can also grab my list of concise descriptions of all of the C++17 language features: It’s a one-page reference card, PDF. Links: OK, let’s return to our main topic: working with paths and directories! Filesystem Overview I think the Committee made a right choice with this feature. The filesystem library is nothing new, as it’s modeled directly over Boost filesystem, which is available since 2003 (with the version 1.30). There are only a little differences, plus some wording changes. Not to mention, all of this is also based on POSIX. Thanks to this approach it’s easy to port the code. Moreover, there’s a good chance a lot of developers are already familiar with the library. (Hmmm… so why I am not that dev? :)) The library is located in the <filesystem> header. It uses namespace std::filesystem . The final paper is P0218R0: Adopt the File System TS for C++17 but there are also others like P0317R1: Directory Entry Caching, PDF: P0430R2–File system library on non-POSIX-like operating systems, P0492R2… All in all, you can find the final spec in the C++17 draft: the “filesystem” section, 30.10. We have three/four core parts: The path object object directory_entry Directory iterators Plus many supportive functions getting information about the path files manipulation: copy, move, create, symlinks last write time permissions space/filesize … Compiler/Library support Depending on the version of your compiler you might need to use std::experimental::filesystem namespace. GCC: You have to specify -lstdc++fs when you want filesystem. Implemented in <experimental/filesystem> . when you want filesystem. Implemented in . Clang should be ready with Clang 5.0 https://libcxx.llvm.org/cxx1z_status.html Visual Studio: In VS 2017 (2017.2) you still have to use std::experimental namespace, it uses TS implementation. See the reference link and also C++17 Features In Visual Studio 2017 Version 15.3 Preview. Hopefully by the end of the year VS 2017 will fully implement C++17 (and STL) namespace, it uses TS implementation. Examples All the examples can be found on my Github: github.com/fenbf/articles/cpp17. I’ve used Visual Studio 2017 Update 2. Working with the Path object The core part of the library is the path object. Just pass it a string of the path, and then you have access to lots of useful functions. For example, let’s examine a path: namespace fs = std :: experimental :: filesystem ; fs :: path pathToShow ( /* ... */ ); cout << "exists() = " << fs :: exists ( pathToShow ) << " " << "root_name() = " << pathToShow . root_name () << " " << "root_path() = " << pathToShow . root_path () << " " << "relative_path() = " << pathToShow . relative_path () << " " << "parent_path() = " << pathToShow . parent_path () << " " << "filename() = " << pathToShow . filename () << " " << "stem() = " << pathToShow . stem () << " " << "extension() = " << pathToShow . extension () << " " ; Here’s an output for a file path like "C:\Windows\system.ini" : exists() = 1 root_name() = C: root_path() = C:\ relative_path() = Windows\system.ini parent_path() = C:\Windows filename() = system.ini stem() = system extension() = .ini What’s great about the above code? It’s so simple to use! But there’s more cool stuff: For example, if you want to iterate over all the elements of the path just write: int i = 0 ; for ( const auto & part : pathToShow ) cout << "path part: " << i ++ << " = " << part << " " ; The output: path part: 0 = C: path part: 1 = \ path part: 2 = Windows path part: 3 = system.ini We have several things here: the path object is implicitly convertible to std::wstring or std::string . So you can just pass a path object into any of the file stream functions. or . So you can just pass a path object into any of the file stream functions. you can initialize it from a string, const char*, etc. Also, there’s support for string_view , so if you have that object around there’s no need to convert it to string before passing to path . PDF: WG21 P0392 , so if you have that object around there’s no need to convert it to before passing to . PDF: WG21 P0392 path has begin() and end() (so it’s a kind of a collection!) that allows iterating over every part. What about composing a path? We have two options: using append or operator /= , or operator += . append - adds a path with a directory separator. concat - only adds the ‘string’ without any separator. For example: fs :: path p1 ( "C:\\temp" ); p1 /= "user" ; p1 /= "data" ; cout << p1 << " " ; fs :: path p2 ( "C:\\temp\\" ); p2 += "user" ; p2 += "data" ; cout << p2 << " " ; output: C:\temp\user\data C:\temp\userdata Play with the code: What can we do more? Let’s find a file size (using file_size ): uintmax_t ComputeFileSize ( const fs :: path & pathToCheck ) { if ( fs :: exists ( pathToCheck ) && fs :: is_regular_file ( pathToCheck )) { auto err = std :: error_code {}; auto filesize = fs :: file_size ( pathToCheck , err ); if ( filesize != static_cast <uintmax_t> (- 1 )) return filesize ; } return static_cast <uintmax_t> (- 1 ); } Or, how to find the last modified time for a file: auto timeEntry = fs :: last_write_time ( entry ); time_t cftime = chrono :: system_clock :: to_time_t ( timeEntry ); cout << std :: asctime ( std :: localtime (& cftime )); Isn’t that nice? :) As an additional information, most of the functions that work on a path have two versions: One that throws: filesystem_error Another with error_code (system specific) Let’s now take a bit more advanced example: how to traverse the directory tree and show its contents? Traversing a path We can traverse a path using two available iterators: directory_iterator recursive_directory_iterator - iterates recursively, but the order of the visited files/dirs is unspecified, each directory entry is visited only once. In both iterators the directories . and .. are skipped. Ok… show me the code: void DisplayDirTree ( const fs :: path & pathToShow , int level ) { if ( fs :: exists ( pathToShow ) && fs :: is_directory ( pathToShow )) { auto lead = std :: string ( level * 3 , ' ' ); for ( const auto & entry : fs :: directory_iterator ( pathToShow )) { auto filename = entry . path (). filename (); if ( fs :: is_directory ( entry . status ())) { cout << lead << "[+] " << filename << " " ; DisplayDirTree ( entry , level + 1 ); cout << " " ; } else if ( fs :: is_regular_file ( entry . status ())) DisplayFileInfo ( entry , lead , filename ); else cout << lead << " [?]" << filename << " " ; } } } The above example uses not a recursive iterator but does the recursion on its own. This is because I’d like to present the files in a nice, tree style order. We can also start with the root call: void DisplayDirectoryTree ( const fs :: path & pathToShow ) { DisplayDirectoryTree ( pathToShow , 0 ); } The core part is: for ( auto const & entry : fs :: directory_iterator ( pathToShow )) The code iterates over entries , each entry contains a path object plus some additional data used during the iteration. Not bad, right? You can play with the sample here: Of course there’s more stuff you can do with the library: Create files, move, copy, etc. Work on symbolic links, hard links Check and set file flags Count disk space usage, stats Today I wanted to give you a general glimpse over the library. As you can see there are more potential topics for the future. More resources You might want to read: Summary I think the filesystem library is an excellent part of the C++ Standard Library. A lot of time I had to use various API to do the same tasks on different platforms. Now, I’ll be able to just use one API that will work for probably 99.9% cases. The feature is based on Boost, so not only a lot of developers are familiar with the code/concepts, but also it’s proven to work in many existing projects. |
HACing is pretty new to a lot of us, and I noticed I was getting A LOT of similar questions. Made me want to round em up and make a little reference to troubleshoot any problems or questions you might have. So that’s exactly what I did. (if you didn’t catch my HAC post click HERE) What if I am REALLY fair skinned? If you are very fair skinned and every time you try to HAC you feel orangy, I hear ya. HARD TO FIND the right thing! I have searched and searched and the best thing I found was this: Physicians Formula Bronzer & Blush, 2-in-1, Glow & Mood Boosting, Bronze/Natural Instead of looking orange it will look like a shadow, which is the point. I used this color on my gorgeous fair skinned friend Micklee: For the highlight it can also be tricky to find a concealer fair enough. NYX totally hooked you up, though. HD Photogenic Concealer in Light Or dark skinned? MAC powder blush in Blunt for the contour I would use Clinique Even Better Concealer in something like Honeycomb for highlighting. It looks weird, what am I doing wrong? Well first of all, are you using the right products? Most bronzers either have shimmer or too much warmth to work well for the type of contouring I teach in my video. I recommend Bahama Mama bronzer (for most skin tones) because it is the closest thing I have found for the job. One product off the top of my head that I know is probably too warm would be (fittingly) Warmth from Bare Minerals. Secondly, are you blending well? You don’t want harsh lines or to see where the makeup starts and stops. BLEND BLEND BLEND!! Third, are you using the blush? I find my HAC can look harsh if I don’t use blush. I showed you some good ones on my HAC post, but I thought I’d show you a new fav of mine as well.. Urban Decay Cream Tint in Quickie It looks super bright, but goes on looking so soft and glowy. I LOVE it. (I’ll be using it in some makeup looks coming up so you can see it in action!) Fourth, a little practice makes perfect! If you try it once and don’t love it, don’t give up! It washes right off and you can try again later. It isn’t hard but it might be a lot different than how you are used to applying makeup. Don’t give up or think you are just not good at it or your face won’t work for it. You are and it will. I PROMISE! I hope this helps clear up a lot of your questions, Oceans of love, |
An Ohio landlord who posted a "White Only" sign outside her property's swimming pool is requesting that the state reconsider its ruling. She totally wasn't being racist, you see, since she did it because she was worried that if nonwhites were allowed in the pool, their strange black people hair products would make the water "cloudy." See? Not racist at all! Jamie Hein owns a rental complex outside of Cincinnati. When she noticed that one of her tenants were being visited by their teenage daughter, who is black, she grew concerned about the fact of the pool water's clarity and posted a sign outside of the pool that read "White Only." It wasn't that the teen's presence in the water would render it unclean; just that the crazy haircare products she must be using were threatening the very molecules in the water and the subsequent swimming enjoyment of all the god-fearing whites who wanted to enjoy some blackless water. Several eyewitnesses saw the sign, the girl's parents filed a complaint with the state Civil Rights Commission before moving out of the complex to one managed by someone who wasn't such an asshole. And on September 29, the Commission ruled against Hein and agreed that it is indeed Very Not Okay to segregate swimming pools by race. Hein still doesn't think she was being racist, though, and has requested that the Commissioners hear her case again. They're scheduled to reconsider the case tomorrow. If the Commission reiterates its earlier ruling, the case will proceed to the Ohio state Attorney General, and the Attorney General may choose to award punitive damages to the former tenants who complained. No word on whether Hein knows about how often people urinate in swimming pools, or if it was okay for other nonwhite races to swim in the pool. Also, how much of one nonwhite race do you need to be in order to be barred from swimming. Does the word "octoroon" come into play? So many stupid questions to be asked of this woman who doesn't appear to know the meanings of words. Advertisement Ohio landlord fights 'white only' pool sign ruling [Yahoo] |
Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley answers a question from the audience at a campaign town hall meeting in Manchester, N.H., Aug. 26, 2015. (Brian Snyder/Reuters) Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, who’s struggling to break through in the Democratic race for president, will turn his attention to two hot-button issues this week: gun control and legalization of marijuana. O’Malley plans to propose universal background checks and a minimum age of 21 to buy a gun in all states, among other measures, during a round table discussion Monday afternoon on gun safety in New York. Later in the week, O’Malley will travel to Denver for what is being advertised as a “marijuana legalization listening session.” Aides say the Democratic hopeful will hear from policy makers, business owners and law enforcement on Thursday about how Colorado’s decision to legalize marijuana has been working. “He has shown that he has an open mind when it comes to sensible drug policies,” said O’Malley spokeswoman Haley Morris. [Campaigning in Iowa, 2016 hopeful Martin O’Malley is keeping the faith] If O’Malley were to embrace legalization, it would mark a departure from where he stood as governor. When Maryland lawmakers took up the issue last year, during O’Malley’s final legislation session, he told a radio interviewer “I’m not much in favor of it” and expressed concerns that recreational pot use could be “a gateway to even more harmful behavior.” O’Malley signed legislation passed later that session by the heavily Democratic legislature that took the more modest step of decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana. On the campaign trail now, O’Malley regularly cites that legislation as one of his accomplishments. [As 90-day session opens, O’Malley opposes allowing recreational marijuana in Maryland] O’Malley’s record on gun control is more firmly rooted in his gubernatorial tenure. In 2013, in the wake of the school shootings in Newtown, Conn., he championed a sweeping gun-control bill that banned 45 types of assault rifles and required new fingerprinting requirements for handgun purchases. As a presidential candidate, O’Malley has pledged to take similar actions on a national level. In June, following the massacre at a Charleston, S.C., church, he sent an e-mail to supporters saying he was “pissed” by congressional inaction on gun control and asking them to stand with him in an effort to toughen the laws. [Martin O’Malley: ‘I’m pissed’ at lack of action on gun control] The proposals O’Malley will release Monday are his most detailed to date. Among other measures, he would ban the sale and distribution of all “military-style assault weapons,” establish a national firearms registry and make it easier for the federal government to revoke the licenses of gun dealers. “Week after week, more images of horrific gun violence flash across our TV and computer screens,” O’Malley says in a position paper outlining his plans. “We cannot afford to sit by and let this constant heartbreak become the norm.” |
On behalf of Prensa Latina news agency, Miguel Fernandez was the only journalist from the Western world accredited to work in the Syrian capital of Damascus for nearly a year. After returning home to Havana, Fernandez gave Sputnik News an exclusive interview in which he reflects back on what he experienced in the war torn country. Fernandez first gets into the single biggest lesson he learned, which is that the people of Syria don't give in, they don't stop pursuing the dream of having a prosperous country. "Seeing how these people don't give in, that they dream about a prosperous country, is the biggest lesson that Syria gave me" Miguel then reflects back on when a colleague of his first arrived in the city, and as the journalist took him around the city, everything was seemingly so normal that his friend asked "where is the war?" "Fear is the first thing that war creates, that fear which forces people to be on guard. However, Damascus broke that pattern. When my colleague arrived I took him around the city and he noticed that buses and taxis are traveling around, people are sitting in cafes and going shopping, children are going to school. He asked me, 'where is the war?'" "I said, I will show you before we leave for Cuba. And after less than a day, when we were traveling in a taxi, a mortar shell fell in front of us, onto a group of people, some of whom died, and there was chaos all around." "I looked at that and I said – that is war. That resistance of the Syrian people, the unwillingness to accept the hardships of war, has inspired me." The most harrowing moment for Fernandez was during the fall of Palmyra to the terrorists in May 2011 [later to be taken back from ISIS, and even recently held a concert that was put on by Russia's famous Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra]. Fernandez reflected on a time in which monuments were destroyed, and children under Daesh leadership were made to kill captured Syrian soldiers. "Palmyra is one of ten UNESCO World Heritage sites in Syria, an oasis in the desert, full of mystical stories. Seeing how the Arch of Triumph and other monuments were destroyed. A terrible scene that I will never forget, was when children under the leadership of Daesh killed 50 captured Syrian soldiers who were on their knees." "For me, that was the saddest moment, because I felt that the war was not only against Syria, but against the world, our culture, our values, our heritage. When I say ours, I mean civilization. These elements (Daesh) are savages. They can destroy a monument in the same way that they cut a child's head off." Fernandez also recalled how differently the Syrian people view Russia and the United States, and that the Russian participation did not feel like an intervention at all. Importantly, Miguel discusses the stark differences between the precision and effectiveness of the US vs Russian air strikes as well. Notably that US airstrikes were not coordinated and often hit Syrian infrastructure, as opposed to Russia's strikes, which destroyed more Daesh infrastructure in 30 days than the US had been able to accomplish in a year's time. "I am fair with blue eyes, so they often confused me with Russians and affectionately greeted me. Syrians believe in Russia because for a long time they were in conflict with the US and some European powers and Russia was the only friendly power." "I was there when Russia entered the war in September 2015 and Syrians did not perceive it as an intervention, but as support and a sign of solidarity," Fernandez explained. "For over a year before that the US had led an international coalition that didn't show any results. The Americans carried out bombings but Daesh spread even further, and seized new positions." "Those airstrikes were not coordinated and often hit Syrian infrastructure, hospitals and schools. The Russian airstrikes didn't, because they entered the war at the request of Damascus and their activities were coordinated in order to be effective and not bring harm to civilians." "During the first 30 days of bombing the Russians were able to destroy 40 percent of Daesh's infrastructure, which the US and its allies hadn't been able to do for a year." Fernandez ended the interview with a story of a Syrian soldier who complimented him by breaking bread and sharing it with the journalist, as a tribute to what the soldier said was Cuban bravery. "One of the soldiers, he was over 50, bearded, dirty, covered in powder and slush, he came to me, broke his bread in two and offered me half." "I refused, because I had already had breakfast at home and had no idea how many hours he had gone without eating. But my translator told me to take the bread, explaining that he wanted to share the bread with me because I am Cuban and he had always been told that Cuban soldiers are very brave and that if he shares the bread with me, it will bring him luck in the next battle." "I shed a few tears, because I am not a warrior, and I was very touched that he had such an impression about my nation," * * * With all of the speculation and observations from the pundits on television, who have never stepped foot inside the war torn country of Syria, it is helpful to get a first hand account of what's taking place on the ground. What one may find, is that those that sit around and parrot the "Russia Bad/US Good" narrative all day may not be exactly providing the complete picture. |
You must enter the characters with black color that stand out from the other characters — Three coyotes tracked a man walking his dog in Schenck Forest in west Raleigh last week and later tracked police escorting the man from the area after he called 911 for help, police said. Steven Keating, 24, was walking on Richland Creek Trail near the intersection of Edwards Mill Road and Wade Avenue at about 6:30 p.m. on July 1, and he told a 911 dispatcher that he spotted the coyotes when his boxer's behavior caused him to survey their surroundings. As he reversed his course and began moving away, the coyotes followed and flanked him, and he climbed up a 3-foot-tall elevated manhole with the dog for safety, he said. "They started walking toward me, so I just yelled and got big," Keating told the dispatcher. "One started running at me, so I sprinted with my dog and came up here. Once I got up, it turned and ran into the woods and went further down and was just staring at me for a while." Officers from the Raleigh Police Department, the North Carolina State University Police Department and Raleigh Animal Control were dispatched and had to follow the trails from both the north and the south to locate Keating and his dog. As the officers began to escort them out of the wooded area, the coyotes followed and flanked the party for an estimated 300 yards until the woods gave way to a clearing, police said. Dogs are prohibited in Schenck Forest, but the rule is rarely enforced. Lt. Sam Craft with the state Wildlife Resources Commission said encounters like Keating's are extremely rare, but it's possible the coyotes have a den nearby. "They have their pups with them this time of the year, and so, they're trying to feed their pups and pretty much take care of them at this point," Craft said. There's never been an unprovoked coyote attack on a human in North Carolina, even though the crafty canids are in each of the state's 100 counties – urban areas as well as rural. Coyotes generally want nothing to do with people, Craft said, but he advised anyone approached by a coyote not to turn your back on the animal and never, ever run from it. "They're predators, and that's what their prey do is run from them," he said. "Stand your ground, make loud noises, anything that you can do to try to turn the animal away." Keating couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday. |
“Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream […] Lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void. It is shining, it is shining. Yet you may see the meaning of within. It is being, it is being.” -John Lennon, Tomorrow Never Knows This weekend at the Pomme de Terre, I was squaring off against my old college teammate Kai-Moritz Keller, a German fencer harder to break through than the Berlin Wall. As the second period came to a close, I trailed 12-7. I walked to the end of my strip, closed my eyes, and began to meditate. I replayed all the touches in my mind, thinking what Kai had done to hit me, why I couldn’t get past his guard, and then envisioned the actions I was going to use to turn the bout around. Despite Kai being three touches away from victory, I could not accept the possibility of an imminent defeat. I came out more confident, pressing around the guard, baiting his parries and sniping him under the wrist, going to his foot when he came in with his hand up, which I had visualized doing during the one minute break. The next thing I knew, I was up 14-13. But then I choked and lost (I said this post was about bringing it back, not finishing the bout). There are a few things that you can do to internalize bringing a bout back, which I’ve shared with you below: Never accept defeat until the final touch is scored– Epic comebacks are common in our sport; yet, far too often I see athletes who just roll over when they’re down three or four touches. The first step to regaining victory is to know that the victory is still attainable. If things aren’t going your way, try to run down the clock to collect your thoughts– Subtly look at the clock to get an idea of how much time is remaining in the period. Instead of trying something new, let the clock run down to mentally reset in between periods and devise new strategies. In boxing, you try to clinch your opponent if you’re seeing stars and are on the verge of getting knocked out. In fencing, you have the luxury of killing the clock. Know why you’re getting hit and have a plan B– You’re not always going to have a strip coach with you. This idea will come with experience, but you need to have an awareness of your bout and the tactics used by both you and your opponent. Why are you losing? What actions can you bring to the table to turn it around when your initial plan fails? Fencing requires you to think outside the box and be creative. Be aware of the bout in all of its components (distance, preparation, closing actions, etc.) and know which areas to tweak in order to win. Convince yourself the score is 0-0 every touch– If you go through a string of touches to recoup a deficit, you might lose sight of the fact that you were down a few to begin with, and confidence can turn into overconfidence (e.g. my 14-13 choking. Ugh.) Reset every single touch as if it is the beginning of a new bout. This is of course consistent with the idea of “one touch at a time.” Utilize some form of meditation to “get in the zone” during the one minute break- It can be flustering when things aren’t going your way in a bout, and there’s nothing like some form of basic meditation to get you to clear your mind. Close your eyes, inhale for three seconds, exhale for three seconds, and relax. A calm and clear mind is needed on the path to victory. Try to enter every period relaxed. Believe in yourself- If you believe you’ve lost when you’re losing, then you’re going to lose. But if you believe you can win when you’re losing, then the victory can still be yours. Confidence stems from experience and tournament preparation. The more you compete, the more these ideas will become natural. The bout is not over until the final touch has been scored, so don’t believe anything but! |
In unique stellar laboratory, Einstein's theory passes strict, new test Related images (click to enlarge) Taking advantage of a unique cosmic configuration, astronomers have measured an effect predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of General Relativity in the extremely strong gravity of a pair of superdense neutron stars. Essentially, the famed physicist's 93-year-old theory passed yet another test. Scientists at McGill University used the National Science Foundation's Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) to do a four-year study of a double-star system unlike any other known in the Universe. The system is a pair of neutron stars, both of which are seen as pulsars that emit lighthouse-like beams of radio waves. "Of about 1700 known pulsars, this is the only case in which two pulsars orbit around each other," said Rene Breton, a graduate student at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. In addition, the stars' orbital plane is aligned nearly perfectly with their line of sight to the Earth. This causes the signal of one to be blocked, or eclipsed, as it circles the other. "Those eclipses are the key to making a measurement that could never be done before," Breton said. Einstein's 1915 theory predicted that in a close system of two very massive objects, such as neutron stars, one object's gravitational tug, along with an effect of its spinning around its axis, should cause the spin axis of the other to wobble, or precess. Studies of other pulsars in binary systems had indicated that such wobbling occurred, but could not produce precise measurements of the amount of wobbling. "Measuring the amount of wobbling is what tests the details of Einstein's theory and gives a benchmark that any alternative gravitational theories must meet," said Scott Ransom of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. The eclipses allowed the astronomers to pin down the geometry of the double-pulsar system and track changes in the orientation of the spin axis of one of them. As one pulsar's spin axis slowly moved, the pattern of signal blockages as the other passed behind it also changed. The signal from the pulsar in back is absorbed by the ionized gas in the other's magnetosphere. Pulsars, first discovered in 1967, are the "corpses" of massive stars that have exploded as supernovae. What is left after the explosion is a superdense neutron star that packs more than the mass of our Sun into the size of an average city. Beams of radio waves stream outward from the poles of the star's intense magnetic field and sweep around as the star rotates, as often as hundreds of times a second. The pair of pulsars studied with the GBT is about 1,700 light-years from Earth. The average distance between the two is only about twice the distance from the Earth to the Moon. The two orbit each other in just under two and a half hours. "A system like this, with two very massive objects very close to each other, is precisely the kind of extreme "cosmic laboratory" needed to test Einstein's prediction," said Victoria Kaspi, leader of McGill University's Pulsar Group. Theories of gravity don't differ significantly in "ordinary" regions of space such as our own Solar System. In regions of extremely strong gravity fields, such as near a pair of close, massive objects, however, differences are expected to show up. In the binary-pulsar study, General Relativity "passed the test" provided by such an extreme environment, the scientists said. "It's not quite right to say that we have now 'proven' General Relativity," Breton said. "However, so far, Einstein's theory has passed all the tests that have been conducted, including ours." |
The bizarre, ancient microbes and viruses found living in crystals in extremely punishing conditions deep in an abandoned lead and zinc mine Life forms that could be 50,000 years old found in caves in Mexico In a Mexican cave system so beautiful and hot that it is called both fairyland and hell, scientists have discovered life trapped in crystals that could be 50,000 years old. The bizarre and ancient microbes were found dormant in caves in Naica, in Mexico’s northern Chihuahua state, and were able to exist by living on minerals such as iron and manganese, said Penelope Boston, head of Nasa’s Astrobiology Institute. “It’s super life,” said Boston, who presented the discovery on Friday at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Boston. She said the creatures were like time machines. If confirmed, the find is yet another example of how microbes can survive in extremely punishing conditions on Earth. Though it was presented at a science conference and was the result of nine years of work, the findings haven’t yet been published in a scientific journal and haven’t been peer reviewed. Boston planned more genetic tests for the microbes she revived both in the lab and on site. The life forms – 40 different strains of microbes and even some viruses – are so weird that their nearest relatives are still 10% different genetically. That made their closest relative pretty far away, about as far away as humans were from mushrooms, Boston said. Woolly mammoth on verge of resurrection, scientists reveal Read more The Naica caves – an abandoned lead and zinc mine – are 800 metres (2,625 feet) deep. Before drilling occurred by a mine company, the mines had been completely cut off from the outside world. Some were as vast as cathedrals, with crystals lining the iron walls. They were also so hot that scientists had to don cheap versions of space suits – to prevent contamination with outside life – and had ice packs all over their bodies. Boston said the team could only work about 20 minutes at a time before ducking to a “cool” room that was about 38C (100F). Nasa wouldn’t allow Boston to share her work for outside review before Friday’s announcement so scientists couldn’t say much. But a University of South Florida biologist, Norine Noonan, who wasn’t part of the study but was on a panel where Boston presented her work, said it made sense. “Why are we surprised?” Noonan said. “As a biologist I would say life on Earth is extremely tough and extremely versatile.” This isn’t the oldest extreme life. Several years ago, a different group of scientists published studies about microbes that may be half a million years old and still alive. Those were trapped in ice and salt, which isn’t quite the same as rock or crystal, Boston said. The age of the Naica microbes was determined by outside experts who looked at where the microbes were located in the crystals and how fast those crystals grow. It’s not the only weird life Boston is examining. She is also studying microbes commonly found in caves in the United States, Ukraine and elsewhere that eat copper sulfate and seem to be close to indestructible. “It’s simply another illustration of just how completely tough Earth life is,” Boston said. |
FILE -This June 24, 2014 file photo shows Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky. on Capitol Hill in Washington. Shaky claims about Medicare were common in the 2012 campaign, from President Barack Obama on down. Now theyâve surfaced in this yearâs midterm elections, in one of the hottest Senate races in the country. McConnell responded Wednesday with an ad giving a dire spin to Medicare cuts set in motion by Obamaâs health care law, a familiar claim from the 2012 GOP playbook. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) If Republicans take the Senate next month (and if he wins his own reelection race), Mitch McConnell will be that body's next Majority Leader. Then what happens? McConnell's been frank about what the GOP would do with the Senate -- at least when he thinks nobody's listening. This quote comes from audio, obtained by Undercurrent's Lauren Windsor, of a talk McConnell gave to a Koch Brothers group in August: "Most things in the Senate require 60 (votes) ... but not the budget. So in the House and Senate, we own the budget. What does that mean? "... No money can be spent to do this or do that. We're going to go after them on healthcare, on financial services, on the Environmental Protection Agency, across the board ..." McConnell attacked the Dodd/Frank financial reform bill in further audio obtained by this week by Windsor, calling it "Obamacare for banks." McConnell said he would "definitely" defund the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, calling it "the biggest part of the Dodd/Frank bill." But then, that's been his position all along. Senate Republicans refused to accept anyone's nomination to lead the CFPB when it was formed. Said McConnell at the time: "We're simply not going to ... confirm him or anybody else to this agency that shouldn't exist in its current form." Last year McConnell remarked, "If I had my way, we wouldn't have the [CFPB] at all." The course of action McConnell lays out in these audio clips would: 1. Expose Americans to toxic threats, and make additional disasters like the BP oil spill more likely. Cuts in EPA funding are intended to meet the GOP's stated goal of deregulating high-polluting industries like those of the Koch brothers themselves. That would lead to more fracking, more poisons in the groundwater, a higher risk of water-supply crises like the one recently experienced in West Virginia, increased air pollution... The result? A sicker population which is at greater risk of environmental disaster. 2. Deprive millions of American of health insurance. The Affordable Care Act isn't perfect. But it has extended health insurance to millions of Americans, both through the exchanges and through Medicaid extensions at the state level (excepting those states where Republican governors have refused to accept Federal funds for that purpose). Denying funding for the law would, in all likelihood, close down the exchanges and end the Medicaid program. That would lead to thousands of additional deaths like that of Charlene Dill, a young working mother in Florida. (We discussed her death and related topics with Rep. Alan Grayson here). In addition, millions of Americans would lose their exchange-based health insurance under a Republican Senate, including people who have pre-existing conditions or are under 26 years old. 3. Ensure that money that financial institutions obtain dishonestly -- money like the $4.6 billion the CFPB has already returned to consumers -- would remain in the banks' pockets from now on. The CFPB reports that it arranged the return of $4.6 billion in improperly obtained fees in its first three years of operation. The money was distributed to 15 million customers. In addition, more than three quarters of a million customers will receive remediation from financial institutions (that is, they'll be made whole) as a result of the CFPB's actions. These actions will stop under a McConnell-led Senate, according to the senator himself. 4. Give a green light for credit-card companies to resume the "deceptive marketing practices" and other abuses that the CFPB has red-flagged. In its very first enforcement action the CFPB ordered giant credit-card company Capitol One to repay $150 million to ripped-off customers, as well as $60 million to regulators, after the CFPB and another agency identified dishonest marketing practices that resulted in people being saddled with costly and ineffective add-on services they didn't want or need. Since then a total of three major credit card companies (American Express and Discover are the others) have returned a total of $425 million. Interventions like this would end under a GOP Senate, according to McConnell, and credit-card companies would be free to resume their past deceptive practices. 5. Make credit-card agreements and mortgage documents harder to understand. The CFPB's rule require credit-card companies and mortgage lenders to write their agreements in plain English. That will end if McConnell has his way. The end result? Mortgage agreements that are impossible to understand, with provisions that could lead to foreclosure and/or prove financially ruinous to borrowers. 6. Make it harder to shop for student loans. Defunding the CFPB would put an end to rules which make it easier for students and their families to comparison-shop for student loans. The student-loan ombudsman's office, which reviews complaints about student loans, would also be shut down. 7. Decrease oversight of credit bureaus. That would mean, among other things, that it would become harder for you to obtain your own credit report or correct misinformation on your credit record. 8. Close down the CFPB complaint database. Consumers can now complain to the CFPB whenever they feel they have been cheated, abused, or misled by financial institutions. The CFPB tracks these complaints and intervenes with lenders where appropriate to resolve problems. That would end, according to McConnell, under a Republican Senate. 9. Increase racial discrimination in auto loans. The CFPB has been active in monitoring racial discrimination in auto lending, through its review of the business practice of the "indirect lenders" who underwrite these loans. That would stop. The remediation which has occurred under this program would also end if the Republican Senate and House act as McConnell indicates they would. 10. Protect "too big to fail" banks. Although Mitch McConnell claims otherwise, defunding Dodd/Frank would be a boon for too-big-to-fail banks. While he claims the law benefits them, the evidence suggests otherwise. As Mike Konczal observes in The New Republic, banks would pursue that designation if it were advantageous to them. Instead they're making every effort to avoid the label. 11. Help shady derivatives dealers While more needs to be done, the Dodd/Frank law was a definite improvement over the status quo. Konczal also offers a good overview of its other useful features, most of which would cease to exist if McConnell and the Republicans make good on their threats. 12. Allow more sneaky dealing in mortgages In Undercurrent's audio clips, McConnell seems to suggest that mortgage lenders didn't contribute to the 2008 financial crisis. This is nonsense. Fraud and excessive risk-taking were endemic throughout the mortgage financing system, from the underwriting of new loans to the bundling and selling of mortgages to third parties. That epidemic of fraud and risk-taking was central to the financial crisis, and to a massive loss of wealth for the American majority. Americans were persuaded to take out loans without understanding their provisions, based on deceitful projections of their homes' future worth. Investors were deceived, too, as banks knowingly and deceptively bundled and sold junk-value mortgages as high-grade investments (with the collusion of the ratings "agencies"). "I have a friend who runs a mortgage business," McConnell says on the audio recording, "and he says the cost of writing a mortgage has gone up $1000 for him." |
The video will start in 8 Cancel Get the biggest Aston Villa FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email Club legend Stiliyan Petrov says young Aston Villa striker Rushian Hepburn-Murphy should join Rangers for the sake of his career. Hepburn-Murphy has been offered a new contract by Villa amid interest from Ibrox and he featured in the defeat at Cardiff City because boss Steve Bruce was told he was close to signing a huge new bumper deal. But there has still been no breakthrough and Bruce has decided to withdraw the 18-year-old from the group ahead of the FA Cup third round trip to Tottenham on Sunday. Petrov believes Rangers boss Mark Warburton should sign the youngster to help progress his career. “Rushian is a very exciting young striker,” Petrov said. “He’s very quick and he would make a difference for Rangers. “He’s one of those players that you love to have in the team but you hate to play against. “He’s a very exciting young prospect and I would like to see Rushian moving away from Villa and having a chance somewhere to progress because he’s got tons of ability. “He hasn’t asked me about Scotland, but I’m going in next week so we’ll probably have a conversation if he wants to know anything about it.” |
The George Zimmerman not guilty verdict based on reasonable doubt has been blasted by lots of celebrities (as well as ordinary people) on social media, many using the hashtag #JusticeForTrayvon. Rapper Lupe Fiasco appears to be taking a different view of the Zimmerman trial outcome. Fiasco sent out several controversial tweets after the verdict was announced that in turn prompted a heated response on Twitter. As virtually everyone across the country (and the world perhaps) knows, George Zimmerman, a former neighborhood watch captain, was put on trial for fatally shooting Trayvon Martin, 17, on February 26, 2012, after confronting the teenager as he walked back to the house where he was staying in a gated community outside of Orlando, Florida. Zimmerman entered a plea of not guilty on self-defense grounds and went on trial in a Seminole County courtroom starting on June 24. After about 16 hours of deliberation, the six-person, all-female jury last night found him not guilty of both second degree murder and manslaughter. The not-guilty verdict means that the prosecutors for the state of Florida failed to uphold the burden of proof that George Zimmerman was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, i.e., to the exclusion of reasonable doubt. A not guilty verdict doesn’t necessarily mean innocent, more precisely it means not proven in the eyes of the law based on the evidence presented in the trial. One of Lupe Fiasco’s tweets read “Nobody knows what really happened except Trayvon and Zimmerman. The justice system relies on reasonable doubt not our emotions.” Another tweet stated “Rub your face in it! Swallow down that hard pill! Black blood spills in the streets of America nightly at the hands other blacks.” You can view Lupe Fiasco’s George Zimmerman-related tweets and the intense social media debate that it touched off at Twitchy. As we reported previously, back in January Lupe Fiasco was reportedly thrown off stage and escorted off the premises at a presidential pre-inauguration concert after he went on an anti-war, anti-Obama rant, according to accounts from concertgoers. Nobody knows what really happened except trayvon and Zimmerman. The justice system relies on reasonable doubt not our emotions. — Lupe Fiasco (@LupeFiasco) July 14, 2013 What do you think of the Lupe Fiasco Zimmerman trial tweets? |
In the midst of the RNC convention, CNN New Day host Chris Cuomo became unhinged during an interview with three conservative commentators as he pounced on the current GOP reluctance to discuss accusations of plagiarism against Melania Trump. During the interview Cuomo also interjected how the Republicans continued to bring up Hillary Clinton’s email servers, in which the following remarks ensued: CHRIS CUOMO: This was a good night for your party, Margaret. Came out strong out of the box with what they believe the theory of the case is to win laid out most passionately by Mayor Rudy Giuliani. But lying matters. If you lie small, you'll lie big in politics. Look back in the Iraq war that Donald Trump is such a big fan of, what happened with the yellow cake, it was about lying. Weapons of mass destruction was about lying. You’re banging on the e-mail situation not because classified information got sent, because it didn't in any real way and we all know that, but it's about lying. How is that not communicated by this situation? MARGARET HOOVER: Well, that doesn't square with the major allegation about Hillary's credible and Hillary's honesty, right? Whether Cuomo was lying about Clinton’s sharing of classified intelligence or whether he was ignorant of current events can be up for debate, but what is clear is that according to an independent FBI investigation and testimony from FBI director Comey, Hillary Clinton did in fact send classified materials over her undocumented private server. |
When David Scharf first examined dust that another photographer had scooped up from her quarantined apartment 350 feet from the collapsed World Trade Center, he was a bit spooked. Mr. Scharf, an Emmy-winning photographer (for his work on a National Geographic film about parasites), has three scanning electron microscopes in his home that he uses to produce highly magnified images of ordinary things -- fruit flies, fungi, even dental plaque. He was curious to examine the dust. "I wondered what exactly is in there," he said. But he did not want to disturb the dead; he did not want to be looking at even microscopic human remains. Fortunately, he did not find any signs of life, like red blood cells. The dust contained mostly ash and fiberglass and an occasional thread of asbestos. "It was an extremely high-energy, high-temperature event," he said. "Everything organic was incinerated." He has captured images of the dust in a series of prints (this one magnified about 275 times) that seem to show chaos itself. He has presented them only at a microscopy conference. "Hardly anyone knows I've taken these photographs," he said. Jenna M. McKnight |
A Briton cheated death in a 5000ft parachute accident because of his instructor's sacrifice, it emerged yesterday. The widow of instructor Michael Costello said she was convinced her husband had wrapped himself around Mr Gareth Griffiths, 27, after their parachutes failed to open and they plunged to the ground. Mr Costello was killed in the Florida accident but management consultant Mr Griffiths, from Bridgend, South Wales, survived, and was last night recovering in hospital. Mrs Sandi Costello said the fact that Mr Griffiths survived the fall was a ''comfort'' to her and that she intended to send him a message in hospital. ''When he realised the 'chutes were not going to open, we believe Michael wrapped himself around his student to save his life,'' she said from their home in Umatilla, Florida. ''It was very intentional, and we know that if he had survived, he would have done it again. He had tremendous experience, and loved parachuting and flying.'' Mr Griffiths' father, David, 67, said: ''It is just a miracle he is not dead. But our feelings are entirely with the family of the instructor who was killed.'' Mr Griffiths' mother, Fay, also 67, of Greenfield Avenue, Bridgend, added: ''We are all still terribly worried about what the effect of his injuries might be. But thank God somehow he is alive. ''It was Gareth's first sky-dive - and I certainly hope he will never do another one again''. The two parachutists were making a tandem dive - with Mr Griffiths strapped to the front of his instructor - when they plummeted into a field near Umatilla airport in central Florida. Mr Griffiths, who is single, underwent seven hours of surgery for lower back injuries at Orlando Medical Centre Hospital and was said to be in a serious but comfortable condition. A spokesman for Mr Griffiths' company, Andersen Consulting, said yesterday: ''All the employees are thinking of Gareth Griffiths and his family at this time.'' One of the group, Michael Tighe, saw the accident, but at first did not realise it was Gareth. He said: ''The instructor saved Gareth's life. ''We have spoken to him in hospital, where he is in a lot of pain. He has just had an operation on his back ... and the doctors are pleased with him.'' Surgeons at Orlando Medical Centre said the operation to insert pins in his lower back appeared to have been a success, and at the family's home, Mrs Griffiths said: ''Gareth is still in intensive care but stable. ''We are just praying we will be able to speak to him in the next 24 hours or so. The whole family just feels so sorry for the family of the poor instructor who died. Our hearts go out to them.'' Gareth's twin brother David was last night preparing to fly to Florida to be at his bedside. David said he had learned more details of how Mr Costello, in the final seconds of the plunge, may have twisted around in his harness to cushion the blow of landing in order to save his pupil. ''If he managed to do that for my brother then that is terribly heroic and brave,'' David said. ''We have been rocked backwards by that thought.'' One of Mr Griffiths' companions last night said he also thought the instructor may have died to save his pupil. Mr Keith Bush was one of a group of three people watching from the ground and unable to comprehend what was happening. He said Mr Griffiths was doing ''remarkably well'' in hospital after an operation last night, able to breathe and move his body. ''They deployed the main 'chute and it didn't open properly,'' he said. ''Then they deployed the reserve, and that one didn't work either. ''When they landed, the instructor landed below Mr Griffiths.'' said Mr Bush. ''We really did not know enough about the situation to realise how serious the nature of it was. It was just total confusion,'' he added. Ambulance and safety workers arrived ''unbelievably'' quickly, appearing within five minutes. Asked if the instructor may have sacrificed his own life to save Mr Griffiths, Mr Bush said: ''It is possible - yes, definitely, definitely.'' He said he did not believe Mr Griffiths realised at first what had happened. ''He was in too much pain. From what he said, he just had a really big impression of ground-rush, the ground coming towards them.'' Mr Bush said the Federal Aviation Authority were studying the accident, but did know yet know what had happened. |
InDesign has many features, but sometimes it lacks the exact single feature you need to make your layout great or to cut the production time of your documents. Scripts might come to the rescue sometimes, while other times what you need is a plugin (Here is a list of 105 Must-Have InDesign scripts (Free and paid) you might want to check). We’ve collected a list of the best plugins there are around. If you can't find what you need – or you think we missed some great ones, feel free to drop a comment below. See how to install a plugin here. Or use an add-on (listed below) to manage your Adobe® Creative Suite/Cloud extensions. Price For each plugin, you’ll find a short description, the author, the link to the plugin page, and the pricing. I’ll try to keep each price updated, but I might sometimes fail on doing that, so please check the plugin page - prices in this page are only indicative. The list We divided the list into sections for easy consultation. Click on one of the entries of the list to go directly to that section. Want to get better at InDesign? Sign up today for free and be the first to get notified on new tutorials and tips about InDesign. Immediately get a useful InDesign Shortcut Cheat Sheet sent to your inbox. I understand and agree to the email marketing terms. Text, Formulas, Tables, and Figures 1. Typefitter (by Typefi) - $59.88/year This InDesign plug-in automatically finds and corrects text problems, including text overset, short lines, unbalanced columns and more. It is an essential component of InDesign for anyone who does serious type composition. Link to the plugin 2. Text Count (by DTP Tools) - $119/year (for the entire suite) This is a plugin that comes to help you with controlling the word counts in your documents. It has a real time panel, and the ability to export comprehensive reports. Link to the plugin 3. Vertical Justification (by in-tools.com) - $59.00 For professional typesetting, the InDesign built in Vertical Justification is essentially useless because the software distributes all the space evenly. This plugin improves the VJ feature with other very useful automations and controls. Link to the plugin 4. Use formulas in Tables (by DTP Tools) - $119/year (for the entire suite) Active Tables allows you to sort tables and create formulas. The formulas are not limited to tables, so you can also have calculation results inside text. See also how linking your InDesign tables to Excel files can help you speed up the production of your files. Link to the plugin 5. Mathematic equation editor These are three plugins. MathMagic Pro Edition by InfoLogic Inc., MathTools by Movemen, and JMathEdit by Pilot Software. These three plugins add a professional mathematic, scientific and financial equation editor to InDesign. Link to the plugin by InfoLogic – US$ 499.00 Link to the plugin by Movemen – US$ 99.00 Link to the plugin by Pilot Software – US$ 99.00 6. Automatic Figure and Table Numbering (by Virginia Systems) This plugin dynamically numbers figures and tables, and makes it easy to create and update references to those figures and tables. Link to the plugin Go back to the categories Productivity 7. Import a Word file using automatic semantic structuring (by Jens Tröger) - $19.95 Bookalope uses AI to strip away all visual styles and cleans up the document automatically, and then exports a semantically structures document to InDesign. Link to the plugin 8. Multi-Find/Change (by Martinho da Gloria) This is an extension that gives you a very useful interface from which you can create and run a series of find-change operations. Link to the script 9. Power Headers (by in-tools.com) - $59.00 The plugin adds many feature to the variables already present in InDesign. You can personalise the setting to automate almost anything related to the headers of your document. Its capabilities are so many that I invite you to follow the link below in case you are interested in having more information. Link to the plugin 10. Fully-automated Complex Layouts Footnotes in InDesign (by id-extras.com) - $385 Footwork is a suite of InDesign add-ons that gives complete control over footnote layout. Link to the product 11. Apply master pages based on paragraph and object styles (by id-extras.com) - $57 This InDesign add-on lets you link up master pages to paragraph styles and object styles. Link to the add-on 12. Link Google Docs with InDesign (by Em Software) $200 DocsFlow makes possible to link Google Docs and Spreadsheet with InDesign. The plugin enables you to edit both the InDesign story and the Google Docs document independently, without losing work on either side. Link to the plugin 13. Link Excel and Word with InDesign (by Em Software) - $200 WordsFlow makes it possible to link Word and Excel with InDesign. The plugin enables you to edit both the InDesign story and the documents in Word or Excel independently, without losing work on either side. Link to the plugin 14. Reflective Object (by in-tools.com) - $59.00 When laying out documents with facing pages a simple edit might force you to change the layout in all the pages which have elements with a distinct position relative to the spine. Reflective Object automatically applies the changes to your InDesign document. Link to the plugin 15. Grid Calculator Pro Edition (by Designers Bookshop) - $165/year This plugin helps you to create professional grid based layouts quickly. Link to the plugin 16. Group objects in different layers (by DTP Tools) - $119/year (for the entire suite) Power Groups allows you to group objects in many different layers. Link to the plugin 17. Layer Tools (by DTP Tools) - $119/year (for the entire suite) This is a bundle with two plugins. It allows you to export selected layers into a document, import layers from documents (including pagination changes), group layers into folders, record visibility and settings into Comps. For copying a layer from a document to another see also our own free script “Copy layer”. Link to the bundle 18. Combine layer into views (by Axaio) - €149 MadeForLayers allows you to combine layers into layer views simplifying the creation and editing of documents with regional variants, and the proofreading/editing workflow in teams where many people share different responsibilities. Link to the plugin 19. Blatner Tools (by DTP Tools) - $119/year (for the entire suite) This is a suite of 12 plug-ins designed by David Blatner to help you speed up your work. The tools vary from styles automations, auto fractions, paging automation, and so on. See how it work in DTP Tools’ YouTube channel. Link to the bundle 20. Select All Similar (by Rorohiko) "LikeFindsLike" plugin adds to InDesign the Select All Similar function you probably know from Illustrator to InDesign. Link to the plugin Go back to the categories Want to get better at InDesign? Sign up today for free and be the first to get notified on new tutorials and tips about InDesign. Immediately get a useful InDesign Shortcut Cheat Sheet sent to your inbox. I understand and agree to the email marketing terms. Team productivity 21. Annotations (by DTP Tools) - $119/year (for the entire suite) This plug-in allows you to load notes and comments from PDF into an InDesign file. It helps with being more precise and quick at applying changes and corrections to your files. Link to the plugin 22. Indicate changes to proofreaders (by Kerntiff Publishing Systems) - £UK 100.00 This plugin draws a red bar (it’s customisable) adjacent to a change in the left margins of the frame. This way a proofreader knows immediately where changes have been applied. Link to the plugin 23. History Log (by Rorohiko) This plugin inserts into two text frames a time stamp and an automated log of file modifications to an InDesign document. Link to the plugin 24. History (by DTP Tools) - $119/year (for the entire suite) The plugin gives InDesign an extra panel similar to the one known from Photoshop. With this tool you can redo and undo steps, and save different versions of your file. Regardless of how much you change your documents, you can always return to any state at any time. See also “99. History scripts” by in-tools. Link to the plugin 25. Frame Reporter (by Rorohiko) - $89.00 This tool displays important information about your InDesign document in your work area. Link to the plugin 26. Yearbook creator (by Balfour) More than a plugin, it's everything you need to create a Yearbook with InDesign. Link to the plugin Go back to the categories File Conversion 27. InDesign to Markdown (by Rorohiko) - $249.00 The plugin gives InDesign the ability to convert documents and books into the Markdown format. Link to the plugin 28. Convert InDesign document to HTML5 (by Ajar Productions) - $279 In5 by Ajar Productions “simply” converts InDesign layouts into HTML5 without requiring any line of code. Link to the plugin 29. Convert PDF to INDD (by Markzware) - $199 PDF2DTP (PDF to Desktop Publishing) converts PDF files to Adobe InDesign. Link to the product Go back to the categories Others 30. Create accessible PDF files (by Axaio) - €599 MadeToTag helps you create a tagged PDF file that complies with the terms of the PDF/UA-Standard, the international standard for universally accessible PDF. Link to the plugin 31. Patterns into InDesign (by Teacup Software) - $49 USD / year This lets you create patterns based on three core pattern templates: Crosses, Lines, and Scallops. Link to the plugin 32. Floating library-palette (by Rorohiko) This plugin gives you a floating library-palette filled with images that are automatically retrieved from one or more folders. The palette shows the images stored in that folder, ready to be drag-dropped into your document. Link to the plugin 33. Index Utilities (by Kerntiff Publishing Systems) - £UK 75.00 IndexUtilities is a collection of scripts and plugins that help embed index markers in InDesign. Link to the plugin 34. Track your time (by Openhour) TimeTracker automatically and privately captures your activity and produces a timesheet on demand. Link to the Adobe Add-ons section 35. Check files for printing quality (by Markzware) - $199 FlightCheck is a stand-alone application that checks files for printing quality. It supports: InDesign (of course), Acrobat PDF (v3.0 – CC 2017), Illustrator, Photoshop, PageMaker, FreeHand, QuarkXPress, Word, CorelDRAW, EPS, TIFF, and many others. Link to the product 36. Create product catalogs (by 65bit) - $1300 EasyCatalog is one of the most famous plugins for InDesign. It helps you with creating product catalogs automatically. You can create different templates for the catalog pages, and populate them from an external data source. Link to the plugin 37. InDesign Repair for Windows (by Mikhail Kondakov) This is actually a Win application – not a script – but it's so helpful that I must mention it here. You can use this Win app to repair corrupt InDesign files in some scenarios (Here the original post in Russian). Link to the script 38. InDesign Repair for Mac (by Stellar Phoenix) - 89€ You can use this script to repair corrupt InDesign files (for Mac only). Link to the script 39. Create calendars (by Scott Selberg) - $20 This plugin helps you with creating calendars in InDesign. Thanks to the options it gives and the use of InDesign styles (Paragraphs, Cells, and Table Styles), you can entirely personalize the layout of the calendar. The script includes everything, and it comes with up to 20 different languages. Link to the script 40. Barcodes directly into InDesign (by Teacup Software) - $99 USD / year BarcodeMaker creates barcodes into InDesign. You can manually insert the code number, get the data from an Excel file, or connect the plugin to a database. The plugin supports over 50 types of barcode. Link to the plugin 41. EAN-13 barcodes (by Indiscripts) - €39.00 BookBarcode creates EAN-13 barcodes within InDesign. Link to the plugin 42. iDML app for iOS (by DTP Tools) - $19.99 With this app for iOS, you can edit stories in InDesign and easily assign paragraph styles and characters styles. Link to the app 43. Install/remove/update Adobe® Creative Suite/Cloud extensions (by Anastasiy) - UPDATE Must-have: this addon helps you with installing/removing/updating any extention or plugin. Link to the plugin Go back to the categories Language Translation This is actually not a plugin, but our own Redokun. Redokun provides a hassle-free solution for translating InDesign documents and it’s flexible enough that it can be adapted to pretty much every workflow. It can work well for freelance designers, and it can be adopted to scale by companies of all sizes with in-house translators around the globe. Learn more about Redokun, and try it for free for 14 days. Go back to the categories Other resources from the blog After talking with a lot of designers and giving advice on their InDesign workflow, we realized that with just a small amount of effort everyone’s workflow can improve dramatically. That’s why we started Redokun’s blog. In this blog we share posts like: InDesign shortcuts (Printable cheat sheet) Illustrator shortcuts (Printable cheat sheet) Import Word to InDesign InDesign Table of Contents in the CC 2017 version InDesign to Word: 4 Minutes tutorial Data Merge InDesign: Quick Tutorial (Updated CC 2017) |
In a clear snub to his MLA Sangeet Som for stirring the Taj Mahal controversy, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is set to visit the monument on October 26.This would be the maiden visit by the CM to the mausoleum of Mughal Emperor Shahjahan, after being sworn into office earlier this year.Sources said that the CM spoke to Som seeking an explanation on his statement calling the Taj Mahal a “blot on Indian culture”."Many people were disappointed that the Taj Mahal was removed from UP tourism booklet. What history are we talking about? The creator of Taj Mahal (Shahjahan) imprisoned his father. He wanted to wipe out Hindus. If these people are part of our history, then it is very sad and we will change this history," Som had said."It is immaterial as to who and how the Taj Mahal was built... It was made by the sweat and blood of Bharat Mata's sons," the Chief Ninister said in Gorakhpur, according to PTI."It is famous the world over for its architecture... it is a historical monument and its protection and further development for tourism is the responsibility of the government," he added.Reacting to the incident, Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan had jumped into the controversy and called the Parliament, Rashtrapati Bhavan and Qutub Minar "signs of slavery"."From the very beginning, I've been saying that all signs of slavery should be removed. Why just Taj Mahal? They should remove Parliament, Rashtrapati Bhavan, Red Fort and even Qutub Minar. All of these are signs of slavery," said Khan.Adityanath also announcing that he would visit Agra on October 26 and there was a Rs 370 crore work plan for the city. He said it was the duty of the Uttar Pradesh government to ensure that proper security and facilities were extended to tourists.Earlier, the BJP had backed its MLA and described Muslim rule in India as "barbaric and a period of incomparable intolerance", while asserting that its members can hold any opinion they want on specific monuments.Party spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao said the party does not have any view on specific monuments and its members can hold whatever opinion they have. "But as far as the Muslim, Mughal rule in this country is concerned, that period can only be described as exploitative, barbaric and a period of incomparable intolerance which harmed Indian civilisation and traditions immensely," he said.(With PTI inputs) |
1. Engagement matters. Apathy is fatal, in more ways than one. It kills your mind, because you cease to think, question, and explore; it kills compromise, because you refuse to understand others, much less listen to them; it kills others and causes them to suffer, because you fail to act decisively on urgent issues. Debate has shown me how little engagement actually happens when it matters most—politics, social issues, economic policy—and it has both empowered and inspired me to constantly seek engagement. 2. There is a world outside of campus. Academics aren’t everything, and there exist billions of people outside of your school. Don’t waste four years living in a bubble. Meet people, talk to people, befriend people who are different than you. Ask insightful questions to people who aren’t professors. Know the world beyond your classroom windows. Campus is the place you live for four or six years; out there is where you will live until you die. 3. There will always be someone better than you. I can trace my debate career in arcs: for a time, I perform well, collecting shiny tokens of success. Then, one weekend, my success collapses in on itself. Maybe I hit a team so extraordinarily good, they make me feel like a fresh-faced novice again. Maybe I get a motion I know shamefully little about, like labour relations. Maybe I’m burned out and hungover, and my brain rebels. Whatever the cause, I fail miserably. I am profoundly humbled: by my lack of knowledge; by others’ skill; by the fickleness of luck. More than anything, debate has taught me humility. You are most likely to fail in the moments you feel invincible, so check yourself before you wreck yourself. 4. Find something that enthralls you, and then seek excellence. I love the way speaking makes me feel. I love knowing exactly how to answer an opponent’s question. I love the exhaustion that comes after debating five rounds in one day. I love watching new debaters progress and improve. And so I spend three nights a week practicing. I give up my weekends to attend tournaments. I grab coffee with novices when I ought to be studying, and I volunteer my services as a judge for free. Debate consumes my life, because I love it, and loving it drives me to pursue excellence. If you want to be good at something, you need to fall in love with it first. 5. But winning isn’t everything. Competition is good only insofar as it enhances pedagogy. If debate were competitive but not instructive, my success would mean nothing; if the lessons I learn in rounds didn’t carry over to real life, debate wouldn’t be worthwhile. And if my success came at the expense or exclusion of others, trophies would be a badge of shame. Debate is a game, but the end goal isn’t winning; it’s being better, more informed, more engaged, and more connected. The organic conversations I have with debaters outside of rounds matter much more than the contrived interactions we have during rounds; it’s there that my ability and willingness to engage shine through. 6. Your ability to listen matters more than your ability to speak. As a novice debater, you’ll often hear your debate rounds described as “ships passing in the night.” This phrase means that there was no actual collision of arguments; there was no “clash,” as debate vernacular would put it. These sorts of debates are awful and awfully boring, and usually, they happen because someone failed to listen. You can give a great speech and still lose, because you didn’t interact with your opponent’s argument. Perhaps you misunderstood what they were saying; perhaps you understood, but didn’t want to engage with it—the rhetorical equivalent of plugging your ears and singing “la-la-la-la-la.” In the end, you not only look silly but small and cowardly. Your success, both in debate and in life, depends on your ability to listen actively to others. 7. Be charitable towards your opponents. Debate forces you into uncomfortable situations; it asks you to purposefully disagree with others in significant ways. It’s tempting to be unflattering towards the other speakers, or perhaps even disingenuous; you’ll want to sputter furiously at them, to dodge their best arguments, to erect a giant straw man and set it ablaze with fiery rhetoric. But these tactics won’t win you the round, and they certainly won’t win people to your side in real life. You must learn to woo people—judges and opponents; bosses and friends—and the best method is to treat them like the intelligent, rational, well-meaning people they are. 8. It doesn’t matter what school you went to. I attend a small, private liberal arts college. It’s not particularly well-known, and it’s definitely not particularly prestigious. Sometimes, I’ve second-guessed my choice of school; after I graduate, how can I possibly compete against students who can hang degrees from Oxford, Harvard, and LSE on their office walls? But then I realize that I already do compete with them–and, more than occasionally, I win. Debate is, more than anything else, an equalizer. It gives you a platform, a voice, a sense of success. Persuasion is power, and it matters far more than branding. |
Itliong had organized the first walkout of Filipino workers on Sept. 8, 1965, when the growers refused to honor the union's demand for wages of $1.40 an hour. That's when Chavez first heard about the Filipinos in the streets, according to Gilbert Padilla, who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) with Chavez. At a Labor Day celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Delano grape strike last month, Padilla said the NFWA was just an organization of workers and not a real union at the time. But when Itliong realized the Filipino workers needed the Mexican workers to defeat the growers, Padilla said Itliong’s insistence persuaded the NFWA to merge with the AWOC. "I feel we are just as good as any of them. I feel we have the same rights as any of them. Because in that Constitution, it said that everybody has equal rights and justice." It didn’t take long. By Sept. 16, the NFWA took a vote and the farm workers were united. With more workers migrating from Mexico, Chavez became the leader of the United Farm Workers. Itliong was his second in command. Itliong, who arrived in America from the Philippines in 1929 as a 16-year old with a 6th grade education, was typical of the early migration of Filipinos. Mostly men, who outnumbered women 10-1, they were intended to work the fields and not start families. Many arrived during the years of the Great Depression in San Francisco and took jobs where they could; most ended up in the Central Valley where they became migrants, following the crops up and down the western states and as far north as Alaska for the salmon season. RELATED: Joint House, Senate Resolution Urges Recognition of Filipino American History But the migrants also faced a strong anti-Filipino backlash for taking menial jobs and dating white women, which resulted in anti-miscegenation laws, and laws restricting property ownership. In 1934, Congress passed the Tydings-McDuffie Act which, among other things, reclassified Filipinos as aliens and created a quota for Filipino immigrants. "You go to the United States where they pick money on trees," Itliong said during a classroom talk at UC Santa Cruz in 1976 and recorded by members of the Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS). He added, "Did that happen? Hell, no." Itliong found that Filipinos were working the fields for less than a dime an hour. Within a year of his arrival, he began his first labor strike in 1930. "I have the ability to make that white man know I am just as mean as anybody in this world," Itliong said. "I could make him think, and I could make them recognize that I'm a mean son of a bitch in terms of my direction fighting for the rights of Filipinos in this country. Because I feel we are just as good as any of them. I feel we have the same rights as any of them. Because in that Constitution, it said that everybody has equal rights and justice. You've got to make that come about. They are not going to give it to you." |
August 2016 was the warmest such month on record, according to preliminary data released by NASA on Monday. This further ensures that the year will beat 2015 for the dubious title of the warmest year on record. In addition, August tied July for the distinction of being the hottest month of any month on record, according to a NASA statement released on Monday. This was unexpected, since the planet's seasonal temperature cycle typically peaks in July, but global warming and natural climate variability has thrown that off, at least for this year. The temperature record also means that those in the Northern Hemisphere can say they just lived through the hottest summer on Earth, while residents of the Southern Hemisphere would refer to it as the globe's warmest winter. According to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, readings from more than 6,300 thermometers, buoys and other sources show that August had a global average surface temperature departure from average of 0.98 degrees Celsius, or 1.76 degrees Fahrenheit above average. August 2016 is now the 11th straight month to set a warm temperature record, according to NASA's data. The month shattered the previous mark for the warmest August, which was August of 2014, when global average temperatures were 0.82 degrees Celsius above average, based on NASA readings. The third-warmest August occurred last year. The warmth is already having consequences all over the world, from polar ice caps to the floor of overheated seas. In the Arctic, sea ice has melted to the second-lowest ice extent on record, with open water approaching the geographic North Pole. Global average surface temperatures during 2016 compared to other years. Image: Gavin schmidt/nasa In the U.S., much of the country had a record warm or near record warm summer, particularly in the northeast as well as Alaska. The June through August period was the fifth-hottest June through August period on record for the country, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA will release its own global temperature statistics for August in the coming days, since it uses slightly different methods to calculate the global average. The presumed record warm year of 2016 has brought flood disasters to the U.S., including a billion-dollar flood in Louisiana in August. Typically hot locations, such as India , Kuwait and Iraq , set new benchmarks for what constitutes their hottest days. GISTEMP analysis for August 2016 - Another month, another record: https://t.co/edAuzEZwmq pic.twitter.com/5jlMOYpnYE — NASA GISS (@NASAGISS) September 12, 2016 The heat in the past two years has been produced by human-caused climate change with a boost from an El Niño event, which has now faded. Yet the record heat marches on. A predicted La Niña event, which would have been characterized by unusually cool ocean temperatures in parts of the equatorial tropical Pacific Ocean, has largely been a no-show. That event could have tapped the brakes on the planet's warm streak, at least temporarily, but the likelihood of such an event developing during 2016 has dropped considerably. Federal climate forecasters dropped the "La Niña Watch" last week. Global temperature departures from average had been declining from March through June, which was consistent with a coming La Niña. This led to the possibility that the record-breaking warm streak would come to an end. However, the anomalies have ticked back up since then. While July had a temperature departure from average of 0.85 degrees Celsius, or 1.53 degrees Fahrenheit, both July and August had higher anomalies. This may indicate that Earth's fever is not breaking, even in the short-term. What's worse, from the point of view of climate activists, scientists and policymakers, is the fact that the temperature anomalies seen this year have occasionally ticked up to limits set by the Paris Climate Agreement. That agreement, negotiated in December of 2015 and expected to enter force by the end of the year, seeks to hold global average surface temperatures to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, relative to preindustrial levels. It also contains an aspirational goal of limiting warming to at or below 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels. That lower number was a major priority of small island nations, which face an existential threat from rising seas. February's global average surface temperature was 1.32 degrees Celsius, which was uncomfortably close to 1.5 degrees when viewed in the Paris Agreement context. Prospects for a record 2016 given Jan-Aug data remain v. high (> 99%) pic.twitter.com/tnaeL0yIbA — Gavin Schmidt (@ClimateOfGavin) September 12, 2016 For climate scientists, what matters is the long-term trend over decades to centuries, making monthly records much less significant compared to the steady increase in temperatures throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. "Monthly rankings, which vary by only a few hundredths of a degree, are inherently fragile," said GISS Director Gavin Schmidt, in a statement. "We stress that the long-term trends are the most important for understanding the ongoing changes that are affecting our planet." The long-term record shows an unmistakable upward trend in global temperatures, with warming accelerating in the oceans and atmosphere in recent decades. |
Motivation Early in my quant finance journey, I learned various time series analysis techniques and how to use them but I failed to develop a deeper understanding of how the pieces fit together. I struggled to see the bigger picture of why we use certain models vs others, or how these models build on each other's weaknesses. The underlying purpose for employing these techniques eluded me for too long. That is, until I came to understand this: Time series analysis attempts to understand the past and predict the future - Michael Halls Moore [Quantstart.com] By developing our time series analysis (TSA) skillset we are better able to understand what has already happened, and make better, more profitable, predictions of the future. Example applications include predicting future asset returns, future correlations/covariances, and future volatility. This post is inspired by the great work Michael Halls Moore has done on his blog, Quantstart, especially his series on TSA. I thought translating some of his work to Python could help others who are less familiar with R. I have also adapted code from other bloggers as well. See References. This article is a living document. I will update it with corrections as needed and more useful information as time passes. Before we begin let's import our Python libraries. |
SANTA ANA – A former Santa Ana teacher was sentenced Monday to 190 years in federal prison for sexually assaulting two girls during trips to the Philippines. U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney opted to give Robert Ruben Ornelas the maximum punishment after a jury found the 65-year-old Santa Ana man guilty of seven felony counts, including having illicit sexual conduct in a foreign country and producing child pornography. During three trips to the Philippines from 2006 to 2012, Ornelas sexually assaulted two girls who were as young as 8 years old when the abuse began. Ornelas filmed the encounters, bringing the footage back with him into the United States. A relative found the child pornography on Ornelas’ computer in 2013, sparking the federal investigation. Prosecutors argued that giving Ornelas the maximum sentence was the only way to stop him from “preying upon other children in the future.” Ornelas taught in the Santa Ana Unified School District from 1992 to 2003. Contact the writer: semery@ocregister.com |
Many applicants stress over their GMAT/GRE scores. While these scores are an important component in the application review process, many myths surround the topic of the GMAT/GRE test: Truth: Some employers (typically the top strategy consulting firms) will use test scores in the interview screening and hiring process. Myth: Taking the test without adequate preparation will result in adequate results. Myth: You need to do a test prep course in order to be successful. Truth: Having a demanding job is not a valid reason for poor performance on an exam. Truth: You owe it to yourself to take the test again if you feel you can do better. General Tips for taking the GMAT/GRE: While the quantitative section of the test is scrutinized because it provides a good assessment of the applicant’s quantitative skills, be sure and prepare for the other sections of the test as well. Every school has a posted average test score for their students. If your score is below the average, you should probably take the exam again to see if you can get closer to the school’s average test results. If your score is below the school’s 80% test score range, then you should most likely take the test again to see if you can get a score that falls within the 80% test score range. If you have a lower undergraduate GPA, the GMAT/GRE is all the more important in proving you can handle the rigors of MBA coursework. Plan to excel on the test. When preparing for the GMAT/GRE, make sure you study content (particularly the quantitative section) as well as test-taking strategies (time management, question logic). Both these skills will help you preform your best on the test. - Emory Goizueta MBA Admissions Team |
House Republicans took another swipe at the financing for President Obama’s health care law on Thursday, voting to repeal two more pieces of the landmark legislation — including a tax on medical-device makers that was intended to help pay for the act. Even though the partial repeal will be dead on arrival in the Democrat-controlled Senate, House Republicans, with the help of 37 Democrats, approved the rebuke of Mr. Obama’s signature legislative accomplishment 270-146, with conservative lawmakers using the vote as a chance to paint the health care law as an unpopular job-destroyer. “The president has threatened to veto our bill because the tax will pay for his health care law,” said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. “We shouldn’t be increasing taxes to pay for a law that a majority of Americans want repealed, a law that even some ardent supporters admit will not work as intended.” Sponsored by Rep. Erik Paulsen, Minnesota Republican, the bill would undo a 2.3 percent tax on the sales of companies that produce medical equipment such as pacemakers and ultrasound machines. Republicans said the tax would force companies to lay off workers, especially in states with strong presences of the industry, including Minnesota, Massachusetts and New Jersey. Democrats had written the tax into the 2010 law after striking a deal with medical-device makers. In return, the law is expected to increase demand for medical equipment by extending health coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans. The Paulsen bill would also lift new restrictions that went into effect last year on using tax-deductible health savings accounts to buy over-the-counter drugs. To foot the cost for repealing both items, Republicans proposed dipping into a pot of money they’ve turned to several times before: a fund based on the return of “overpayments” the government is expecting from taxpayers who have been overcompensated on insurance-payment subsidies. The bill would require Americans with overpayments to return every last dime, raising $44 billion over a decade but resulting in 350,000 fewer Americans enrolling in the crucial insurance exchanges, according to congressional tax analysts. The “pay-for” element of the bill cost Republicans votes with some Democrats who said they dislike the medical-device tax, but refused to back a measure that could undercut the insurance exchanges — a central provision of the health care law. “If we had a good pay-for today and everybody agreed we were going to try to hold onto the basis of the Affordable Care Act, count me in,” said Rep. Richard E. Neal, Massachusetts Democrat, who said he’s worried about harming medical-device manufacturers, but wouldn’t vote for the payment method. “The reality is, this vote is simply another political stunt to chip away at the Affordable Care Act.” But with Massachusetts as a major hub for device manufacturing, other Democrats in the state have called for repealing the medical-device tax, including Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren. And GOP presidential nominee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney applauded the bill’s House passage. “With unemployment stuck over 8 percent for 40 months, we can’t afford policies that kill jobs and stifle innovation in one of America’s most dynamic industries,” he said. “The ill-considered medical-device tax is only one of many fatal flaws in Obamacare.” The Paulsen bill marked the 30th time the House has voted to repeal part or all of the Affordable Care Act. Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission. |
I have, what I can only describe, as the mother of all bruises on my right leg. It’s just come up today and I assume it’s from Saturday’s exertions. I’m still a little stiff but thankfully managed to get through my yoga class this morning and I was showing off my battle scars to my gym buddies like a big kid! We’re off to see the family next week and I am very much looking forward to a little socialising and trying out some new restaurants in the London area. I might even treat myself to a little shopping at one of the markets as I’m looking for a nice silver ring, so I’ll be keeping my eyes open for a bargain! Meeting up with old friends who live in the area so will hopefully get a nice tour around some good eateries and bars. Then up to Edinburgh to see my clan, it’s the Easter holidays so I should, hopefully, see a little more of them this time around. To the Brownies we go. These are so good I’ve made 3 batches already and that is very unlike me. They are one of the easiest things I’ve ever made and they taste awesome. The chopped dates are like little bits of fudge and give the brownie an added sweetness which is yummy. I am already thinking of some brownie variations, maybe throw in some walnuts or pecans, or even make some peanut butter fudge to mix through it, or chocolate and cherry, or hazelnut and dark Belgian chocolate, oh my goodness, mouth is watering, too many fabulous things! Chocolate Date Brownie (Vegan with Gluten free option) MyInspiration Feel The Difference Range Serves 8 – Ready in 45 minutes 1 ½ cup wholewheat flour (For Gluten Free, use your favourite flour blend eg buckwheat, GF plain flour etc) 2 ½ tsp baking powder 1/3 tsp baking soda 3 tbsp cocoa powder 1 cup non dairy milk (I used coconut) ½ tsp apple cider vinegar 3 tbsp maple syrup 2 tbsp chia seeds (or ground flaxseed) mixed with 5 tbs water 2 tsp vanilla extract 5 dates chopped ¼ cup chocolate chips Method Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius (356 degrees Fahrenheit) and rub a little vegan margarine over a 10″ square cake tin. In a small bowl combine the milk with the apple cider vinegar and leave for 2 minutes before adding in the vanilla and maple syrup. In another bowl/glass mix together the chia seeds and water and leave to set for 3 minutes. In a large mixing bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa powder, chopped dates and chocolate chips, then add in the milk and chia seed mixtures and fold everything together until well combined. If the mixture feels too dry & sticky add ½ tbsp of coconut milk at a time until you are happy with the consistency. Pour the batter into your cake tin, sprinkle a ½ tbsp demerara sugar over the top (optional) and pop in the oven for 25 – 30 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Cool completely. Each brownie is 130 calories – 2.8g fat – 3.2g protein |
Texas A&M University cancelled white nationalist Richard Spencer’s “White Lives Matter” event Monday, citing security concerns. The university cancelled the event scheduled to take place outdoors on Sept. 11 at Texas A&M, following a notice event organizer Preston Wiginton sent to the media titled “Today Charlottesville, Tomorrow Texas A&M,” according to a university statement. “Linking the tragedy of Charlottesville with the Texas A&M event creates a major security risk on our campus,” said the university. “Additionally, the daylong event would provide disruption to our class schedules and to student, faculty, and staff movement (both bus system and pedestrian).” (RELATED: Left-Wing Agitators Call For Escalated Tactics In Response To Charlottesville) Here’s the news release: “TEXAS A&M CANCELS 9/11 EVENT RESERVATION” pic.twitter.com/iiygJMk3Oj — Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) August 14, 2017 Texas A&M went on to say that its dedication to free speech could not be questioned and that the university had previously allowed Spencer to speak in Dec. 2016. The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to Texas A&M, but a university spokesman declined to provide further comment. TheDCNF reached out to Spencer for comment but received none in time for publication. Follow Rob Shimshock on Twitter Connect with Rob Shimshock on Facebook Send tips to rob@dailycallernewsfoundation.org. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org. |
Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey accepts a box of wine from California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, decorated with images from the Pittsburgh Penguins Stanley Cup victory as Feinstein pays up on her hockey bet in Casey's office. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call) California Sen. Dianne Feinstein upheld her end of a NHL Stanley Cup finals bet by personally delivering a box of California chardonnay to her Pennsylvania colleague’s office. While she didn’t actually carry the case herself, she presented the box to Sen. Bob Casey in his Hart office to acknowledge the Pittsburgh Penguins’ win over the San Jose Sharks. The box was covered in black wrapping paper and decorated with photographs of the Pittsburgh team and the Stanley Cup. And, Feinstein had some photographs of her own. She showed pictures of two of San Jose’s players to Casey. “They have a lot of beard,” she said. “It might be good if they shave their beard for next year, they might go faster.” “I salute your team, we lost fair and square,” Feinstein said. The wine was a Sonoma Coast Chardonnay purchased in D.C. “Chardonnays are really expensive, this is sort of moderate priced at $20,” she said as to why she chose this brand. Her favorite wine —Blackburn Chardonnay — must be purchased at the California vineyard, she said. “You have a few senators who might come over for a drink,” she joked with Casey. If San Jose had won, Casey would have owed her Wigle whiskey, which is made in Pittsburgh. The Pennsylvania Democrat pointed out to Feinstein that they were standing where President John F. Kennedy positioned his desk when the office belonged to him as a senator from Massachusetts. Then the two looked at old photographs of Kennedy that hang in Casey's office. On her way out, Feinstein pointed to a Sandy Hook T-shirt Casey had on display. “I’m honored by this,” she said of the tribute to 20 school kids and six adults killed in a mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012. Casey thanked her for her work on gun control measures . Before Feinstein arrived, Casey was joking with his communications director John Rizzo about his love of the Pittsburgh Penguins. The two attended a game against the Washington Capitals. “He did a Chris Murphy ,” Casey said, sharing that Rizzo stood during the entire game à la the Connecticut senator who concluded a nearly 15-hour filibuster for gun control legislation early Thursday morning. Casey said that he personally watched every game but one of the Cup finals. And asked about his favorite alcoholic beverage: “Yuengling is the leader, no question,” he said of the Pennsylvania beer. If the Golden State Warriors fail to repeat as champions against the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals, Feinstein will also owe Ohio GOP Sen. Rob Portman a case of chardonnay. Get breaking news alerts and more from Roll Call on your iPhone or your Android. |
It’s not experiences that defines a person, but for many men and women who have lived through war, those experiences oftentimes control them. They struggle to live in the present but the memories of that far off nightmare constantly thrust them into the past. All too often they rely on themselves to push on while showing a facade to the world as if everything is OK, when in reality it is as far from OK as humanly possible. The concept of “suck it up and drive on” was thrust down their throats from initial training to the end of their enlistment and relying on anything outside themselves is something that everyone of them must relearn. War is counter everything that makes us human and for those who have experienced it we are never the same. There is a simple truth that anyone who struggles with the nightmares, the flashbacks or the memories of lost friends, must come to accept. We cannot do it on our own. We talk to our friends, we talk to counselors, and we talked to our loved ones, but in truth, for many of us, the memories are just as fresh and raw as ever. At the end of the day when we are alone and the memories come flooding back, we must turn to something that is outside of this world if we truly wish to heal. It is amazing how much grace God has shown to the world that he would give us the gift of salvation through His son, Jesus Christ. An extra added benefit for those who have lived through war is that this grace and this salvation has a healing effect and allows us to realize that no matter what we did and no matter how many friends we’ve lost, God loves us and this world is not our home. This website has one simple mission. We wish that every veteran, no matter combat experience or time in service, finds the peace that can only be obtained through salvation in Jesus Christ. This is not counseling sessions nor is it light and feathery articles, but a simple invitation to peace. What Christ offers is not an end to suffering, but rebirth and salvation. It is our sincere hope that every veteran (and their family members) finds hope in what we provide on this website and that we can help in a small way of getting them to understand how much God loves them. Those of us who write for this blog range from field grade chaplains to combat arms veterans. We feel led to contribute not for anything more than to glorify God and to help our fellow brothers and sisters. May God guide us in our words so that we can be at the right time and the right place for veterans or for those who care about them. We all look forward to seeing how God guides us in this new ministry. Please make sure to follow us on Facebook and tell your friends about what we are doing! Bless you all and thank you for your support. |
Max Stier is president and chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service. President Trump is correct when he says the federal government must be more responsive to the needs of the American people. Unfortunately, his directive Monday to freeze federal hiring will have the opposite effect of what is intended. (Reuters) It makes no sense to freeze a problem in place rather than fix it. Although the president’s order to downsize the federal workforce through attrition has some exceptions, it is unclear exactly how it will be interpreted and applied. The order will not improve government performance, but could bar the door to hiring employees who are needed to prevent cyberattacks on federal computer systems, ensure the safety of our food supply and air quality, and provide important services to small businesses, farmers, seniors, veterans and students. If our new president examined previous federal hiring freezes, he would find they hampered, not helped, government effectiveness. The Government Accountability Office, for example, reported that the hiring freezes imposed by Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan “disrupted agency operations and, in some cases, increased the cost to the government” because they “ignored individual agencies’ missions, workload, and staffing requirements.” More recent workforce reductions at the Internal Revenue Service — 13,000 employees, including 5,000 enforcement personnel, between 2010 and 2014 — cost the government $2 billion in revenue in 2015, according to IRS estimates. At his Senate confirmation hearing last week, Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s choice to be treasury secretary, acknowledged that deep staffing cutbacks have hurt the IRS’s ability to do its job. Mnuchin said he expects to convince Trump that staffing levels should increase because if “we add people, we make money.” At the Social Security Administration, sizable budget cuts forced the agency to impose a hiring freeze starting in 2011. This step led to the deterioration of customer service and greatly increased wait times for those seeking disability benefits. The same is true for immigration courts, where a hiring freeze under the budget sequester from 2011 to 2014 prevented adding judges and led to the current enormous backlog and lengthy delays in dealing with deportation and refugee cases. The move by the president will penalize veterans, who now make up more than 40 percent of all newly hired federal employees, and will further stymie the ability to attract a young generation of talent to public service. Today, for example, there are almost three times more information technology employees in government over the age of 60 than under 30, and that trend will only worsen under Trump’s directive. Trump should direct attention to making sure that the public’s resources are used more efficiently by having a more effective public-sector workforce. To do that, the president should: • Select political appointees with demonstrated success managing large organizations, equip them to operate in the unique federal environment, and ensure that they have performance plans that define success and demand accountability. • Fix the broken hiring process, which is complicated, opaque and slow, and which discourages highly qualified people from entering government service. On average, it takes at least three times longer for federal agencies to hire workers than it does in the private sector. That is unacceptable. • Modernize the rules governing talent, including improving the government’s ability to deal more effectively with poor performers. • Place an emphasis on improving the delivery of government services and interactions with citizens. Americans have seen tremendous customer service improvements, such as online banking, in many aspects of their lives, but government has struggled to keep pace. That can and must change. • Develop cross-agency initiatives to achieve goals, breaking down separate government fiefdoms, overlapping jurisdictions and duplicative programs. None of today’s big challenges, from cybersecurity to rebuilding our infrastructure, can be solved by any single agency acting alone. There are many constructive ways to reform government and improve how it functions. But Trump’s opening salvo toward the civil service is a shot in the wrong direction and will end up backfiring by making government less, not more, effective. |
Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence illustrated the strength of the Donald Trump campaign Tuesday when he gave a speech in Virginia in the middle of the pouring rain. 650 supporters joined us in the pouring rain in Williamsburg, VA. Virginia is ready to elect @realDonaldTrump! #MAGA pic.twitter.com/H6bgsaysyU — Mike Pence (@mike_pence) September 21, 2016 Nearly 700 supporters gathered at the Capitol in Colonial Williamsburg to hear the Indiana governor’s half hour long speech, given almost entirely in the rain. “Thanks for being out on what we call a ‘moist evening,’” Pence told the crowd. “But you know where I come from in the Hoosier state, rain is a good thing. And tonight we’re showing the media and showing the world this is a movement that is going to elect Donald Trump as the next president of the United States.” By the end of the speech, Pence, rally attendees and reporters were drenched. The media was absolutely beside themselves with awe. There's something visually striking about a vice presidential candidate speaking in the pouring rain pic.twitter.com/eANosSrLkk — Alan He (@alanhe) September 20, 2016 I can honestly say, in about five years covering politics, I have never seen anyone power through a speech in these kinds of conditions — Hunter Walker (@hunterw) September 20, 2016 Pence, up there in suit and tie with no umbrella, is getting seriously soaked. Much of crowd is hanging in there though. — Matthew Nussbaum (@MatthewNussbaum) September 20, 2016 Mike Pence just had THE campaign stop of his VP run. Pouring rain, no umbrella, protesters heard from afar, great crowd energy, revved crowd pic.twitter.com/Txy93E3Pr9 — Vaughn Hillyard (@VaughnHillyard) September 21, 2016 Update: Pence is soaked, crowd is soaked, and I am soaked 💦💦 pic.twitter.com/sLQC2JnTUJ — Alan He (@alanhe) September 20, 2016 Afterwards, Pence spoke with reporters on his campaign plane and showed them his rain-soaked speech notes: Pence came to back of the plane & talked to the soaked press/showed off his soaked note cards from this rally. People & notes are drenched! pic.twitter.com/76TxScsIwI — Dan Gallo (@dangallo) September 21, 2016 Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton prepares for a four-day break after a rally today in Orlando, Florida, following several rough weeks over which concerns over the Democrat nominee’s health have compounded. Republican presidential contender Donald Trump even hit back at the former First Lady’s campaign break, advising her to “sleep well” and get plenty of rest ahead of next week’s debate. Hillary Clinton is taking the day off again, she needs the rest. Sleep well Hillary – see you at the debate! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 20, 2016 H/T: Kristinn Taylor |
by Aboubacar Ndiaye Houston, the fourth-largest city in America, has a self-esteem problem. Our local boosters are continuously looking for new branding approaches, commissioning expensive ads and websites extolling our municipal virtues. There was “Houston, It’s worth it;” “Houston is hip/tasty/inspired,” and the latest “Houston, the city without limits.” The city’s younger residents are partial to the more profane “Fuck You, Houston’s Awesome,” in response to criticisms of the city. There are many reasons for this insecurity. For Houstonians, who know of our parks, our museums, our bars, our restaurants, our people, it can feel like the rest of the country has settled on an idea of the city that’s still stuck on fading memories of Urban Cowboy. There is also the nagging sense that perhaps they’re right; that Houston, for all of its diversity, for all of its affordability, for all of its expansiveness, maybe isn’t that awesome, and that better pastures lie just a plane ride away. The anxiety around living here, the need for outside validation, is at odds with the demographic changes in the city. Each day, dozens of people move here, the city has grown more than any other metro area in the country from 2000–2010, and Fort Bend County, on the southwestern side of the metro area, recently passed Queens County, New York as the most diverse in the country. The source of the anxiety is that we don’t like the reasons why people are coming: good jobs, cheap housing, safe neighborhoods. We hate how practical it is. We are not drawing in Patti Smiths and Joan Didions. There are no mass arrivals of Portland and San Francisco expatriates in skinny jeans and vintage dresses stepping off planes at Bush International Airport. We attract engineers from Midwestern state schools and school teachers from Florida — people who want to make a good income, and maybe get married, buy a house, and have a couple of kids. But that’s not enough. We don’t want to just be safe, and rich, and comfortable. We want to be cool. I ended up in Houston almost by accident, the result of the vagaries of my mother’s marriages, college admissions, and bus routes. My life here began on September 7, 2002, the day I stepped off a Greyhound bus at the age of 15, having just left a pungent, Post-9/11 New York, and walked eye-deep into the hellish conditions of late summer in Houston. By the time I got to Houston, I had moved 20-odd times in my life including from one continent to another, from suburb to megalopolis, from quaint medieval town to sun-drenched California sprawl. I thought that the city that lay before me that day, with an endless supply of strip-malls, big box stores, and gargantuan trucks, was just another pitstop, that my next city awaited me, just like Los Angeles, New York, Paris, and Atlanta had before it. If you were a third-culture kid or a military kid or any kind of child for whom “home” was more metaphysical than physical, more concept than place, you learn to not get too sentimental about the city you are moving to. There is no point in making very many good friends, in learning all of the street names, in learning too much about its history. For a long time, I imagined that my answer for the dreaded “you look/sound vaguely foreign so I must therefore interrogate your origins until you give me a satisfactory answer which matches my assumptions about you” would always be that I am from Orleans, a small city about an hour south of Paris, but I have now lived in Houston longer than I lived in Orleans, and saying that I am not from here now feels like mendacity. It’s my hometown at this point because it was the backdrop of the experiences that have made me who I am. I first discovered love and sex and heartache here. It’s where I first heard my words spoken on a stage and first saw my name in newspaper ink. It’s where I forged my best friendships, the merry gaggle of people who listen to my confused ideas and tortured pleas for attention. It’s where I formed a political identity, aligning myself with the interest of those who did not draw a royal flush at birth. Some of this is might sound cloying, but when I think of Houston, I don’t see the majesty of the Williams Tower, or the winding cobblestone streets of Hyde Park, or the Victorian mansions along Heights Boulevard. I see myself entwined in sinuous conversations with women I have loved, or wanted to love, over bahn mi sandwiches in Little Saigon; or blitzed out of my mind dancing with abandon to Whitney Houston in a Montrose club; or laying out on the green expanse of Menil Park surrounded by wine and friends and mosquitoes, my legs folded, slightly drunk from the possibilities of youth, completely sure that I would never die. Understanding Houston means understanding summer. It’s hard for out-of-towners to grasp how central an organizing principle summer is to life in Houston. It lasts, almost like the seasons in Game of Thrones, an interminable amount of time, beginning around mid April and abetting in the beginning of October, a six-month period of full blast air-conditioning and socially acceptable sweat stains. In the summer, we drink beer on patios, or in the cool apartments of friends, or in the too-short time between work and home. In the summer we avoid touch, or, sometimes, seek out touch, hungering for the tactile sensation of each other, going out to the dankiest bar, the most crowded dance floors, to partake in the transcendence of being hot and sweaty and horny together. But even summer, the most trying time in the city, the period when even the most ardent H-towner will pledge to go live in a place with actual seasons, isn’t enough to mitigate the livability of the city. We find ways to avoid the outdoors or we gather around bodies of water, usually with animal carcasses on grills not far away, seeking not just relief from the heat but communion with others who have decided to be here with us in the dog days of August. Apart from the heat, the city, even in the summer, offers simple, hearty treasures, like a carne torta from a food truck parked outside a bar you paid $1 for whiskey sours in, or some dhosa masala from the ubiquitous Indian restaurants dotting the city. There are apartments available in beautiful neighborhoods, with coffee shops and terraces on every corner for less than what New Yorkers pay for closets. Our streets are congested and our traffic can drive a Jesuit to madness, but when all the suburbanites have gone home, on evenings or on weekends, you can navigate the far reaches of the city at 70 miles per hour, like a character from Mario Kart that has just activated rainbow speed. There are jobs aplenty too, especially in our twin economic engines, the Energy and Medical sectors, or in the industries that support them. The people are friendly and welcoming and accepting of each other’s foibles. The city is full of social ills too, including worsening schools, wider economic stratification, and crumbling infrastructure, but these are made small by the bounty available. The stickiness of Houston, living in the city for longer than planned, is borne out of this ease. Unlike New York or D.C. or San Francisco, Houston is not a layover city, a place to play out one’s youth and eventually settle into more comfortable circumstances. People who are here came for college or for jobs or to escape their small towns. They came to Houston to stay. Some of the young who grew up here grumble about moving to Austin, our popular sibling with its great music and coolness oozing out of its hippie streets, or to some other supposedly better city. Some of them left, to try their lucks in New York and Los Angeles and Chicago, but a lot came back, finding that while Houston does not have the cultural friction of those glittering cities, it has friends and money and time and hope. Those who come back, especially those with artistic inclinations, are embraced with open hearts and fatted tacos, because those of us who live here are aware of this inescapable truth: we’ve got it pretty good here, not great, but good. Instead of throwing ourselves face first into the whetstones of New York and L.A., a lot of us stay in Houston and make enough working at desk jobs or part-time to have to time for artistic endeavors. Half the baristas and bartenders in Houston are artists or designers or musicians or writers, all of them living lives of mediocre content, rising at the most to local celebrity and local adoration. I sometimes, half-seriously, call Houston the Land of the Lotus Eaters, full of people who are continually high from a cocktail of affluence, affability, and comfort. You never leave Houston. Even if you live out your days in Brooklyn or Belize, you never really forget the grid of the highways. You never stop thinking of the first time you had tamales. You never leave behind the feeling that you once lived in a place where the prices were right and the living was easy. I type this as I prepare to move soon to one of these glitzy cities, and I know that I cannot escape the slight worry that I am making a mistake. I type this while sitting on a coffee shop patio, in 90-degree weather, trying to smack down the ‘skeetas that hover around me, and I feel like I could never truly leave this swamp. See, Houston’s not awesome, it’s real. See also: What Does It Cost to Live in the Overlooked Parts of a City? Aboubacar Ndiaye is a writer living in Houston. He has written for the Atlantic, McSweeney’s, and NPR. Photo: Bill Jacobus Support The Billfold The Billfold continues to exist thanks to support from our readers. Help us continue to do our work by making a monthly pledge on Patreon or a one-time-only contribution through PayPal. |
American baseball player and manager For other people known by this name, see Billy Martin (disambiguation) Alfred Manuel Martin Jr. (May 16, 1928 – December 25, 1989), commonly called Billy, was an American Major League Baseball second baseman and manager who, as well as leading other teams, was five times the manager of the New York Yankees. Known first as a scrappy infielder who made considerable contributions to the championship Yankee teams of the 1950s, he built a reputation as a manager who would initially make bad teams good, and then be fired amid dysfunction. In each of his stints with the Yankees, he managed them to winning records before being fired or forced to resign by team owner George Steinbrenner, usually amid a well-publicized scandal such as Martin's involvement in an alcohol-fueled fight. Martin was born in a working-class section of Berkeley, California. His skill as a baseball player gave him a route out of his home town. Signed by the Pacific Coast League Oakland Oaks, Martin learned much from the man who would manage him both in Oakland and in New York, Casey Stengel, and enjoyed a close relationship with him. Martin's spectacular catch of a wind-blown Jackie Robinson popup late in Game Seven of the 1952 World Series saved that Series for the Yankees, and he was the hitting star of the 1953 World Series, earning the Most Valuable Player award in the Yankee victory. He missed most of two seasons, 1954 and 1955, after being drafted into the Army, and his abilities never fully returned; the Yankees traded him after a brawl at the Copacabana club in New York during the 1957 season. Martin bitterly resented being traded, and did not speak to Stengel for years, a time during which Martin completed his playing career, appearing with a series of also-ran baseball teams. The last team for whom Martin played, the Minnesota Twins, gave him a job as a scout, and he spent most of the 1960s with them, becoming a coach in 1965. After a successful managerial debut with the minor-league Denver Bears, Martin was made Twins manager in 1969, and led the club to the American League West title, but was fired after the season. He then was hired by a declining Detroit Tigers franchise in 1971, and led the team to an American League East title in 1972 before being fired by the Tigers late in the 1973 season. He was quickly hired by the Texas Rangers, and turned them for a season (1974) into a winning team, but was fired amid conflict with ownership in 1975. He was almost immediately hired by the Yankees. As Yankee manager, Martin led the team to consecutive American League pennants in 1976 and 1977; the Yankees were swept in the 1976 World Series by the Cincinnati Reds but triumphed over the Los Angeles Dodgers in six games in the 1977 World Series. The 1977 season saw season-long conflict between Martin and Steinbrenner, as well as between the manager and Yankee slugger Reggie Jackson, including a near brawl between the two in the dugout on national television, but culminated in Martin's only world championship as a manager. He was forced to resign midway through the 1978 season after saying of Jackson and Steinbrenner, "one's a born liar, and the other's convicted"; less than a week later, the news that he would return as manager in a future season was announced to a huge ovation from the Yankee Stadium crowd. He returned in 1979, but was fired at season's end by Steinbrenner. From 1980 to 1982, he managed the Oakland A's, earning a division title with an aggressive style of play known as "Billyball", but he was fired after the 1982 season. He was rehired by the Yankees, whom he managed three more times, each for a season or less and each ending in his firing by Steinbrenner. Martin died in an automobile accident on Christmas night, 1989, and is fondly remembered by many Yankee fans. Early life [ edit ] Alfred Manuel Martin Jr. was born on May 16, 1928, in Berkeley, California.[1] He was given his father's name; the elder Martin, usually nicknamed Al, was a truck driver for the city of Berkeley. Al Martin had been born in Kauai, the son of Portuguese immigrants, and had moved to Oakland. Billy Martin's mother's birth name was Juvan Salvini, but she went by the first name Jenny for most of her life. The daughter of Italian immigrants who had lived in San Francisco, but who moved across the Bay about the time of the 1906 earthquake, she also changed her last name, first when she married Donato Pisani around 1918, by whom she had a son, Frank, nicknamed Tudo, before the marriage broke up—Jenny later claimed Donato was unfaithful. There is some doubt that Jenny and Al ever married, but they lived together as a wedded couple for a time, during which Billy Martin was born at his maternal grandmother's house in West Berkeley. Billy Martin acquired his name because his grandmother, who never mastered English, would croon bello (beautiful) repeatedly over the baby, who only learned his birth name when a teacher used it at school. The Martin couple broke up soon after Billy was born, and each later accused the other of infidelity. In any event, Billy Martin would have no further contact with his father until he was in his thirties, and the conflict between the parents likely left him with emotional wounds. With Al Martin having returned to his native Hawaii, Jenny no longer used his name, either in conversation[a] or as part of hers, and before Billy's first birthday had met John "Jack" Downey, a laborer and jack-of-all-trades, who she married in late 1929, and whose name she took for herself, but not for her sons. Billy Martin later called his stepfather a "great guy". Jenny always regretted that fame came to her son under the name Billy Martin, not Billy Downey. Billy was an indifferent student once he started school, and from the age of about 12, was often in trouble with teachers or the principal. His unusual home situation, his small size and large nose, and his residence in poverty-stricken West Berkeley caused other children to mock him, leading to conflict. Intensely competitive and thin-skinned, he quickly gained a reputation as a street fighter who would do almost anything to win. Sports proved an outlet for Martin's competitiveness. He boxed at an amateur level, but it was baseball that proved to be his calling. His older brother Tudo, 10 years his senior, had grown up with Augie Galan, an outfielder for the Chicago Cubs from 1934 to 1941 who continued in the major leagues until his retirement in 1949. Galan, like other professional ballplayers, made James Kenney Park in Berkeley his off-season training ground, for there was a well-maintained baseball field there. Tudo was a good enough ballplayer that he was often invited to play, and Billy would tag. As the boy got to play more and more as he grew, Galan took a special interest in tutoring Martin in the art of baseball. When Martin reached Berkeley High School, which he attended from 1942 to 1946, he was dressed worse than many students from the more upscale housing east of San Pablo Avenue, but gained acceptance through sports, especially baseball, raising his batting average from .210 as a sophomore to .450 as a senior. He was an aggressive player, and was involved in fights both in and out of baseball uniform. One such on-field incident his senior year led to his dismissal from the team and concerned the professional baseball teams considering signing him. He was given a workout by the Brooklyn Dodgers, but they chose another California infielder, Jackie Robinson. The Oakland Oaks, a Pacific Coast League team, had been quietly scouting Martin for years, impressed with everything but his temper. Soon after Martin's high school graduation, Oaks trainer Red Adams persuaded the team's new manager, Casey Stengel, to give Martin a tryout. Stengel had seen Martin play in a high school all-star game, and though Martin did not play well, Stengel had told him that he had a future in baseball. Within weeks of the tryout, an infielder for the Oaks' Class D affiliate, the Idaho Falls Russets, was injured, and Stengel recommended that team owner Brick Laws sign Martin. Laws did so but first attempted, without success, to put a clause in the contract that would have nullified it if Martin misbehaved in a way similar to the fight that had ended his high school career. He would not be the last baseball owner to attempt to regulate Martin's behavior in such a manner. Playing career (1946–1961) [ edit ] Reaching the majors (1946–1949) [ edit ] The 18-year-old Martin was unimpressive with Idaho Falls in 1946, hitting .254 while playing mostly third base, and racking up many throwing errors. He had a good spring training with the Oaks in 1947, but was sent to the Class C Phoenix Senators of the Arizona-Texas League. Martin felt he should have remained with the Oaks, and told Stengel so. The manager's response: "Prove me wrong". Playing most day games in the arid Southwest in the era before widespread air conditioning, the Senators endured harsh playing and living conditions, as many of them boarded in a barracks beyond the right field fence. Nevertheless, Martin thrived there. Wearing the uniform number 1, a number he tried to secure with each team he played for, he hit .393, the highest average in organized baseball in 1947, drove in 173 runs, and was named the league's most valuable player. When the team's regular second baseman was injured in a fight with opposing catcher Clint Courtney—with whom Martin would lock horns himself—Martin was moved from third base, and would remain as a second baseman for most of the remainder of his playing career. Phoenix's season ended before that of the Oaks, and Martin was called up to the parent club. Though he did not play much, Martin won two games with doubles, and was an instant hit with the fans at Oaks Park. When not playing, Martin closely shadowed Stengel, wanting to learn why the manager made the decisions he did. This impressed Stengel, who during his time as an outfielder for the New York Giants had sought to learn from their manager, John McGraw. Stengel and Martin grew closer in what has sometimes been described as a father-son relationship—Stengel had no children, and Martin had been abandoned by his father. According to Martin biographer Peter Golenbock, "the two men, the punk kid and the old-time ballplayer, would develop a bond that would not be broken for a decade. Binding them was their deep love for the game of baseball." Martin made the Oaks' roster in 1948, but was slow to get regular playing time, as the Oaks had a former major-leaguer at each position and Stengel did not want to use Martin until the young ballplayer was ready. Instead, the manager had Martin sit on the bench next to him as he pointed out nuances of the game. Martin also learned about life on and off the field from his teammates. Stengel assigned veteran players to work with Martin and be his roommate on road trips; at first Mel Duezabou, a student of the art of hitting with a lifetime minor league batting average over .300, who improved Martin at the plate. Later in the season, Duezabou was replaced with Cookie Lavagetto, a fellow infielder and former Dodgers star who was able to help Martin with fielding and advise him on what to expect in the major leagues. As injuries depleted the Oaks' regulars, Martin got increasing playing time, and finished the season with a .277 batting average, 3 home runs and 42 runs batted in. He became a team leader, active in brawls on the field and a loud and annoying bench jockey in an era when a player often had to contend with a stream of insults from the opposing team's dugout. The Oaks won the PCL pennant and the Governors' Cup playoffs. Martin's reward for the championship was a new car, bought by Laws, but to his distress, Stengel's reward was the manager's job with the New York Yankees, leaving Martin feeling abandoned. He was especially dispirited because his lifelong desire was to be a Yankee. Stengel's replacement with the Oaks was Charlie Dressen. Highly knowledgeable about the game, Dressen was initially wary of Martin as a Stengel favorite, but was won over by the second baseman's hard work and desire to learn. Martin's education continued under Dressen, as he learned such things as the art of stealing signs, and learned to try to force the other team into game-deciding mistakes. Although the team did not play as well as it had in 1948, Martin improved his statistics, hitting .286 with 12 home runs and 92 runs batted in. At the same time, Stengel, who was managing the Yankees to the 1949 American League pennant and a World Series triumph, talked of Martin to the New York press, leading many to assume he would soon be a Yankee. On October 13, 1949, Martin and fellow Oak Jackie Jensen were acquired by the Yankees. Yankee years (1950–1957) [ edit ] Press coverage of Martin's sale[b] by the Oaks to the Yankees dismissed him as a "utility infielder", calling him "Alfred M. Martin", a name he detested. He was among those younger Yankees players, including Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle, who reported in February 1950 to a pre-spring training instructional camp in Phoenix to work on fundamentals under Stengel's eye. Martin hoped to become the starting second baseman for the defending world champion Yankees, but the incumbent, Jerry Coleman, had just won the American League Rookie of the League award. On reporting to spring training in St. Petersburg, Florida, he stood out for his brashness if nothing else, taking care to correct the press on how to refer to him. Confident of Stengel's protection, Martin sometimes defied Yankee coaches such as Frank Crosetti and Jim Turner, but won over most of his teammates as he showed his desire to learn and win, goals consistent with the "Yankee Way", that individual achievement was insignificant compared to team victory. Martin made his major league debut on April 18, 1950, Opening Day, for the Yankees as they visited the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park, as a pinch hitter inserted in the eighth inning with the Yankees down, 9–4, with two men on base. Martin doubled off the Green Monster in left field to drive in the runners. The Yankees batted around and in his second at-bat of the inning, he singled with the bases loaded to drive in two more runs, the first time in major league history that a player got two hits in an inning in his debut game. Despite the feat, Martin was not made an everyday player, but sat next to Stengel in the dugout, listening and learning. When he did play, he quickly became a favorite of the Yankee Stadium crowd, and they would remain loyal to him for the rest of his life. Despite his stellar start, Martin was little-used by the Yankees in 1950 and 1951, as Coleman remained the starting second baseman. Martin was sent to the minor leagues in May 1950 to give him everyday playing experience, a decision with which he vociferously disagreed, and so stated to Yankee general manager George Weiss, an outburst that Martin always believed poisoned the relationship between himself and the team front office. He was recalled after a month, but remained mostly on the bench, with only 39 plate appearances for the Yankees in 1950, batting .250. The Yankees won the pennant again, and swept the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1950 World Series, in which Martin did not play and Coleman was the Most Valuable Player. After the season, with the Korean War raging, the 22-year-old was drafted into the army, but gained a hardship discharge after two months, something that made him less of a hero in West Berkeley. He was discharged in late April, and rejoined the Yankees, but was used sparingly, Rookie of the Year Gil McDougald absorbing what playing time at second base was not used by Coleman. Martin, wearing uniform number 1 for the Yankees for the first time,[c] hit .259 in 51 games. Martin helped bring rookie outfielder Mickey Mantle out of his shell, introducing him to New York nightlife. In the 1951 World Series, which the Yankees won in six games over the Giants, Martin did not bat, but was inserted as a pinch runner in Game Two with the Yankees leading by a run after losing Game One. Martin scored a crucial insurance run in the Yankee victory, evading the tag from the catcher, Roy Noble, and after the game was singled out for praise by Giants manager Leo Durocher. Coleman's induction into the armed forces before the 1952 season opened the way for Martin to be the regular Yankee second baseman. His debut as such was delayed when he broke his ankle demonstrating the technique of sliding into second base on a television show in March, and it was not until May 12 that he made his regular season debut. Once he did, he hit .267 in 109 games, his highest as an everyday player, becoming the "sparkplug" that Stengel had sought for his team, energizing it. When Stengel offered $100 to any player who let himself be hit by a pitch, Martin earned $300 for the game. In the 1952 World Series against the Dodgers, Martin got 5 hits in 23 at-bats, but that included a three-run home run to break open Game Two and tie the series. In Game Four, with the Dodgers leading the Series two games to one and threatening to tie the one-run game in the fifth inning, Charlie Dressen, who was coaching third base for the Dodgers, called for the squeeze play. Martin stole the sign and the runner was out when pitcher Allie Reynolds threw a pitchout, killing the rally.[31] In Game Seven, with the Yankees up 4–2 in the seventh inning, two outs, and the bases loaded, Jackie Robinson hit a high, wind-blown pop fly. When first baseman Joe Collins appeared to lose the ball in the sun, Martin raced in from second base, catching the ball in fair ground near home plate only inches off the grass. All three runners would most likely have scored had the ball dropped, giving the Dodgers the lead going into the eighth inning; Martin biographer David Falkner called the catch "one of the great moments in World Series history". As Yankees' regular second baseman in 1953, Martin saw his average drop to .257, but set what would be career highs with 149 games played (146 at second base), 15 home runs and 75 runs batted in. He was also ejected for the first two occasions in his career, once for arguing balls and strikes, the other for fighting.[31] With Martin's growing reputation as a fighter, opposing players often slid into second base hard, hoping to injure him: Stengel stated, "Billy’s being hit with the hardest blocks this side of a professional football field."[43] Nevertheless, he finished second in the league in fielding percentage among second basemen. The Yankees won their fifth consecutive pennant, and in the 1953 World Series, Martin dominated, collecting 12 hits (tying a series record) with 23 total bases (breaking Babe Ruth's record of 19) as the Yankees beat the Dodgers in six games; Martin's hit in the ninth inning of Game Six scored the winning run. He was elected the Series' Most Valuable Player.[43] Stengel exulted, "Look at him. He doesn’t look like a great player—but he is a helluva player. Try to find something he can't do. You can't."[43] There had been congressional investigations into whether athletes and others were given preferable treatment to avoid conscription and, in early 1954, Martin was drafted into the army, his renewed request for a hardship discharge denied. He complained to a reporter that he was given worse treatment than his fellow soldiers, allowed fewer weekend passes and not allowed to play on the Fort Ord baseball team.[43] He missed the entire 1954 season, in which the Yankees, uniquely during Martin's career with them, did not win the pennant, and much of the 1955 season. He was transferred to Fort Carson in Colorado, where he was allowed to live off base. He played on and managed the baseball team, and rose to the rank of corporal. In August 1955, a furlough allowed him to return to the Yankees and, when they won the pennant, it was extended for the 1955 World Series. Although Martin batted .300 for the regular season, and .320 with four runs batted in during the Series, the Yankees lost to the Dodgers in seven games, and Martin berated himself for letting down Stengel. He was discharged from the army later in October, having been awarded the Good Conduct Medal. During the 1956 season, Weiss began to hint to the media that Martin was a poor influence on his fellow players, especially on his roommate, Mantle, with whom he often caroused until the early hours of the morning. A dignified man, Weiss did not feel that Martin fit the image he wanted for the Yankees, and may have been offended by the player's outburst on being sent to the minors in 1950. By 1956, the Yankees were developing the next wave of infielders, including Bobby Richardson and Tony Kubek. Weiss would have liked to trade Martin, but was deterred by the fact that the second baseman was extremely popular with Yankee fans and with the press covering the team. Although Martin appeared in the 1956 All-Star Game—his only All-Star appearance as a player[31]—his abilities as a player never fully returned after leaving the army. With Richardson progressing rapidly through the Yankee farm system, Martin worried that his days with the team were numbered. Nevertheless, he hit .264 with nine home runs for the Yankees in 1956,[31] and in the 1956 World Series against the Dodgers, Martin played well both in the field and at the plate, getting the hit that gave the Yankees the lead for good in Game Four to tie the Series, and hitting .296 with two home runs as the Yankees won in seven games, thus finishing his World Series career as a player with a .333 batting average. Weiss warned Martin before the 1957 season to avoid trouble, and the infielder did nothing to aid his own cause by injuring both himself and Mantle (the reigning MVP) in an intentional collision between their golf carts as they played a round on a Florida course during spring training. While Martin recovered from this and other injuries, Bobby Richardson played, showing a fielding range that Martin no longer possessed. But the incident that gave Weiss the leeway to trade Martin was a brawl at the Copacabana nightclub in New York on May 16. Although it was fellow Yankee Hank Bauer who was accused of throwing the first punch, Martin believed that Weiss would blame him, and as the trade deadline of June 15 approached, his foreboding and tension grew. Stories differ about how Martin learned he had been traded to the Kansas City A's on the trade deadline: biographer David Falkner stated that Martin, out of the lineup in the game at Kansas City's Municipal Stadium, was informed by farm director Lee MacPhail, and that Stengel refused to see Martin, but Martin in his autobiography alleged that he had been sitting in the bullpen and that Stengel came to inform him. Marty Appel, in his biography of Stengel, stated that Martin was called in to see Stengel, was told of the trade, and Martin blamed the manager for not preventing it. According to Appel, "No one had worn the Yankees uniform more proudly than Billy; it was like a fraternity jacket to him. An eighteen-year exile was beginning for him, and his sadness, bitterness, melancholy, resentment, and hurt never really faded. His career as a journeyman infielder—playing with six teams, none more than a year, and never to see the World Series again—had begun." Among the consequences of the trade was the loss of the relationship with Stengel, with whom he rarely spoke in the years that followed. Later career (1957–1961) [ edit ] Martin in 1957 Martin switched dugouts after the trade to the A's, and in his first game got two hits, including a home run off the Yankees' Johnny Kucks. Then the Yankees left town, without Martin, who now faced playing for a seventh-place team with little hope of doing better. He hit .360 in his first ten games, but the A's lost nine of them. Although Martin hit .257 with Kansas City, an improvement over the .241 he was hitting with the Yankees, the A's lost 94 games, finishing 381⁄ 2 games behind the Yankees. At the end of the season, Martin was traded to the Detroit Tigers in a 13-player deal,[31] and he stated angrily, "They just can’t throw us [players] around from one club to another without us having a say-so."[43] Detroit manager Jack Tighe called Martin "the key to our future"; he was expected to electrify the team as he had the Yankees. Without talent on the field and Stengel in the dugout to back him up, Martin was unable to do that, as after a decent start, the Tigers settled down to a losing season, and the players became annoyed at Martin's ways. The Tigers had him play shortstop, but he lacked the range and the throwing arm needed to be effective, and made 20 errors for the season. He hit .255 with seven home runs, but the Tigers finished fifth, 15 games behind the Yankees. After the season, Martin and Al Cicotte were traded to Cleveland in exchange for Don Mossi, Ray Narleski and Ossie Alvarez.[31] With Martin at second base, the Indians finished second in 1959, five games behind the Chicago White Sox and ahead of the third-place Yankees. Despite the relatively good finish, Martin was embittered, contending that if manager Joe Gordon had used him properly, the Indians would have won the pennant. In August, Martin, who did not wear a batting helmet, was hit on the head by a pitch from Tex Clevenger of the Washington Senators, breaking a cheekbone and giving him an unconscious fear of being hit again, diminishing his effectiveness at the plate. He was traded, after the season, to the Cincinnati Reds; manager Fred Hutchinson hoped Martin could instill some fight into his team. Although he could not make the Reds a winner with his diminished skills, he still was a battler on the field, notoriously fighting pitcher Jim Brewer of the Chicago Cubs on August 4, 1960.[31] In the aftermath of his beaning by Clevenger, teams pitched Martin inside, as did Brewer. After one such pitch, Martin, on the next, swung and let his bat go, though it landed far from the pitching mound. When he went out to retrieve it, Brewer approached, Martin swung at him, and sometime during the brawl, a punch broke Brewer's orbital bone, though whether it was Martin who did it or Reds pitcher Cal McLish is uncertain. Martin was ejected (his sixth and final ejection as a player), and was suspended for five games and fined by National League president Warren Giles. With Brewer out for the season, the Cubs sued Martin. Litigation dragged on for a decade and the case was eventually settled in 1969 for $10,000 plus $12,000 attorney's fees. Martin, who in the press defended his actions as justified given pitchers threw inside to him, asked, "Do they want a check or cash?"[31][43] Although Martin played 103 games for the Reds in 1960, batting .246, he had only three home runs and 16 runs batted in, and following the season was sold to the Milwaukee Braves.[31] His old manager with the Oaks, Dressen, led the Braves, but even he could not find a starting position for Martin. He had only six at-bats for the Braves, with no hits, and on June 1, 1961, was traded to the Minnesota Twins for Billy Consolo.[31] Martin, given the starting second baseman position, started well and finished well for the Twins, but in between had a prolonged batting slump. Between the Braves and Twins, he batted .242 for 1961, his lowest full-season average. He reported for spring training in 1962, but was soon approached by manager Sam Mele, a longtime friend, and told that he had been released by the team. No longer able to compete on the field, Martin's playing career was over at the age of 32. Scout, coach and minor league manager (1962–1968) [ edit ] Martin accepted an offer by Twins owner Calvin Griffith to be a scout for the team. He also took a job with Grain Belt Brewery in public relations. The combination worked well; Martin proved himself a competent evaluator of talent, while selling the Twins in bars across Minnesota. He urged the Twins to sign pitching prospect Jim Palmer, but Griffith was unwilling to pay the $50,000 signing bonus Palmer requested, and the pitcher went on to a Hall of Fame career with the Baltimore Orioles. With his survival in baseball on the line, Martin kept his nose clean, his drinking moderate, and his fists unclenched. With manager Mele's consent, Griffith made Martin third base coach before the 1965 season, leading to immediate media speculation that when the Twins hit a rough patch, Martin would be appointed as manager. Mele later denied having any feeling that Martin was after his job, and the Twins experienced few losing streaks in 1965, winning the American League pennant. Martin worked with the players to make them more aggressive on the base paths. He recognized the talent of the young Rod Carew, and spent much time working with him to make him a better ballplayer. The Twins had tried to trade shortstop Zoilo Versalles the previous winter; Martin worked on his hitting and base running and Versalles was voted the league's Most Valuable Player. Although the Twins lost the 1965 World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers in seven games, Martin was given much of the credit for getting them there. In 1966, Martin damaged his chances of promotion to the managerial job by getting in a fight with Twins traveling secretary Howard Fox. The Twins and Yankees shared a charter flight, and the players got rowdy. Martin refused Fox's request that he intercede with his former teammates, including Mantle and Ford, to get them to quiet down. When the Twins reached their hotel, Fox was slow to give Martin his room key, violating baseball's usual etiquette that the manager and coaches got theirs first. When Martin demanded it, Fox threw it at him, and after words were exchanged, Martin hit him in the face. Martin was fined by Griffith, a friend of Fox's. When Mele was fired in 1967, his replacement was not Martin, as had been widely speculated, but Cal Ermer. The Twins started the 1968 season poorly and Martin was called into Griffith's office, expecting to be offered Ermer's job. Instead, the owner wanted to make Martin the manager of the Denver Bears, the Twins' top affiliate, at that time with an 8–22 record. Martin was reluctant to accept, but did when his wife Gretchen told him that he needed to prove his ability as a manager before getting a job as one in the major leagues. The Bears started well under .500, but by the end of the season had a winning record. Martin had stressed to the team that they were a single unit, with him as boss. He instituted the aggressive base running he had used in Minnesota, and focused on fundamentals. When the team lost, he told them (and anyone else within earshot) exactly why they had lost; third baseman Graig Nettles, who would play again for Martin as a major leaguer, stated Martin made the players afraid to lose. He defended them before the outside world, confronting umpires—he was ejected from games eight times. The team was 65–50 under Martin, and by season's end there was widespread speculation that Martin would be a major league manager in 1969. Despite the two AL expansion teams, the Seattle Pilots and Kansas City Royals, having vacancies, and expressing interest in hiring Martin, he stated that his loyalty was to the Twins, who had had another disappointing season. On October 11, 1968, the Twins gave Martin a one-year contract as manager. Said Griffith, "I feel like I'm sitting on a keg of dynamite." Managing career [ edit ] Minnesota Twins (1969) [ edit ] As Twins manager, Martin continued the aggressive baseball he had urged on the team as third-base coach. The team lost the first four games of the season, on the road, but came home to the largest Opening Day crowd since the franchise moved to Minnesota. Winning streaks of 5 and 8 games in April established the team in first place in the new American League West and kept the fans coming to Metropolitan Stadium. Martin set a tone of willingness to do anything to win. When Oakland A's slugger Reggie Jackson hit home runs in his first two at bats against the Twins, Minnesota pitcher Dick Woodson threw a pitch behind Jackson's head. After a second pitch closer to Jackson's head than to the plate, the slugger charged the mound, provoking a full-scale brawl, for which Jackson later blamed Martin, who he said had ordered the pitches. Despite the winning baseball, owner Griffith was less than enamored with Martin's conduct. Griffith wanted Martin to meet regularly with him to discuss the team; Martin repeatedly showed up during the time set aside for Griffith's daily nap. When pitcher Dave Boswell and outfielder Bob Allison got into a fight outside the Lindell A. C. sports bar in August, Martin joined the battle, repeatedly punching Boswell, who won 20 games that year. Martin claimed that Boswell had come at him first, which Boswell denied. Although it was Boswell who was fined by the team, Griffith considered firing Martin, but decided that the victories on the field justified keeping him. The Twins won the Western Division by 9 games over Oakland, with Boswell winning 8 games down the stretch.[72] The Twins played the Orioles, who had won 109 games during the regular season (the Twins had won 97) and who were managed by Earl Weaver in the 1969 American League Championship Series (ALCS). Baltimore won the first two games of the best-of-five series at home, with both games going extra innings. At home for Game Three, Martin was expected to start star pitcher Jim Kaat but instead chose Bob Miller, who was knocked out of the box in the second inning, and the Twins were eliminated.[73] Martin had been given a one-year contract for 1969; he asked for a two-year deal for 1970 and 1971. Griffith was unhappy both that Martin had not pitched Kaat (a friend of his) and that the explanation he had asked Martin for had been "Because I'm the manager". Martin's decision was defensible, as Kaat had been struggling with injuries, and Miller had won during the pennant race. Other events during the season, such as the fight with Boswell and Martin kicking former US vice president Hubert Humphrey out of the locker room when he tried to visit after a Twins loss also embarrassed the team. Although Martin had led the team to a division title, Fox and other Twins executives felt Martin was more trouble than he was worth and urged his dismissal. Griffith fired him on October 13, 1969. There was outrage among Twins fans, and attendance, which had been boosted by Martin's presence and the team's success, sank in 1970. The Twins won their second straight division title but again lost the ALCS to Baltimore in three games, this time with Kaat pitching—and losing—Game Three.[80] Detroit Tigers (1971–1973) [ edit ] Martin spent the 1970 season unemployed by any baseball team, working as a radio interviewer for Minneapolis station KDWB.[43] He received nibbles of interest, including from A's owner Charlie Finley, and each later blamed the other for the failure to come to terms. The Detroit Tigers had won the World Series in 1968, but dropped below .500 two years later. Team general manager Jim Campbell felt that the team could win again with the right manager. On October 2, 1970, Campbell gave Martin a two-year deal (for 1971 and 1972) at an annual salary of $65,000. Martin seemed to be an odd fit for the Tigers, given their straitlaced reputation under Campbell's watch, but the manager felt that Martin was the spark the Tigers needed to return to contention.[72] Martin announced that the Tigers would win the 1971 American League East title, and that the Orioles were over the hill. He made it clear that he was going to run the team his way, and his clubhouse tirades for poor play even during spring training were reported in the media and concerned Detroit management. He had a well-publicized feud with slugger Willie Horton, whom Martin repeatedly benched and who kept himself out of the lineup with an alleged injury that Martin disputed. There were repeated conflicts with umpires, and with personnel off the field: he accused the organist in Oakland of trying to distract his players, and the scoreboard operators in Baltimore with spying on his team. After a poor April, Martin's players won seven in a row to surge to within 41⁄ 2 games of the top-placing Red Sox near the start of June. The results helped establish Martin as one of the best managers in baseball, at least on the field. His generalship could not paper over the flaws in the ball club, and the Tigers finished second, 11 games behind the Orioles. The team's improvement by 12 victories to a record of 91–71 proved to many people that Martin's success in Minnesota had not been a fluke. Martin was rewarded with a new two-year contract, through 1973, with an increase in salary. At spring training, Martin was relaxed and confident, his Tigers a favorite to win the American League East. The season started late, due to a player's strike, and the missed games were not made up, which left the teams playing an unequal number of games. Once play started, Martin was his usual self, berating opposing managers and the umpires from the dugout, and being ejected for it in the second game of the season, against Baltimore and Weaver. This was his first ejection as Tigers manager. There was a close AL East pennant race in 1972, when the Tigers and Orioles were joined by the Yankees and Red Sox in contending for the division title. With Detroit winning, those players hostile to Martin remained silent. The season came down to a three-game set between the Tigers and Red Sox, with Boston a half game ahead. The Tigers won the first two, though they lost the meaningless third game, making them the AL East champs by a half game. In the 1972 American League Championship Series, the Tigers faced the Oakland A's. The Tigers lost Game One in extra innings. With the A's up 5–0 in Game Two, Tigers pitcher Lerrin LaGrow hit the speedy A's shortstop, Bert Campaneris, in the legs. Before a national television audience, Campaneris threw his bat towards the mound, and a brawl ensued. Many believed Martin had ordered Campaneris hit. The Tigers recovered from the 2–0 deficit by winning Games Three and Four at Tiger Stadium, but lost Game Five and the series. Martin was praised for taking the Tigers as far as he did, but his lineup choices for Game Five were questioned—playing catcher Bill Freehan with a broken thumb, while a healthy catcher, Duke Sims, played left field instead of Horton. Both of Martin's choices were involved in plays that resulted in A's runs, which a better-fielding player might have prevented. Nevertheless, Martin again received a revised two-year contract, through the 1974 season. The Tigers did not repeat in 1973, as the Orioles won the division. Nevertheless, Martin did have some successes, making John Hiller a successful closer after the pitcher had survived a heart attack, and discovering Ron LeFlore in a Michigan prison; LeFlore would go on to a successful major league career. Martin wanted general manager Campbell to trade some aging veterans to renew the squad, but Campbell refused. Martin briefly quit during spring training when Campbell did not uphold a fine he had imposed on Horton. Factional conflict within the team, muted by the team's 1972 success, resurged as the team, after contending for first place with the Orioles and Yankees, in August fell further from the lead. Martin criticized the front office in the media. On August 30, frustrated that umpires were not calling Indians pitcher Gaylord Perry for spitballs, Martin ordered his pitchers to do the same, and told the media what he had done after the game. He was suspended by AL president Joe Cronin for breaching league rules. Campbell had seen enough, and fired Martin before the suspension ran out.[72] Texas Rangers (1973–1975) [ edit ] [d] backslappers and hucksters and hustlers, all wanting to say hello to the Little Dago. A district judge from New Orleans who had known Martin from God could only guess where arrived at Billy's springtime cavalcade of thrills, claiming that he was in town "looking for a little During my baseball travels, I never met a man who didn't know Billy Martin. Billy must have been on a first-name basis with probably 10,000 notable Americans. Sen. Eugene McCarthy , the presidential peace candidate who had become chums with Billy when he managed the Twins, came to [1975 Rangers spring training in] Pompano Beach and stayed a week. So too did entire squadrons of automobile dealers, tavern owners ...backslappers and hucksters and hustlers, all wanting to say hello to the Little Dago. A district judge from New Orleans who had known Martin from God could only guess where arrived at Billy's springtime cavalcade of thrills, claiming that he was in town "looking for a little keister for Easter". —Mike Shropshire, Seasons in Hell: With Billy Martin, Whitey Herzog, and the Worst Baseball Team in History, the 1973–1975 Texas Rangers (2014 edition), Kindle locations 2823–2827 Texas Rangers owner Bob Short was a person Martin knew and trusted from the time in the 1960s when Short was an executive with the Twins. After Martin was dismissed by the Tigers, Short told his manager, Whitey Herzog, that he would fire his own grandmother to have a chance to hire Martin. Short, days later, fired Herzog and hired Martin, provoking Herzog's comment, "I'm fired, I'm the grandmother."[43] Martin faced a serious challenge in trying to rebuild a team that was 47–81 and would lose 105 games that season. No pitcher on the staff won more than nine games that year, and the team had the worst fan attendance in baseball. But Martin felt Short understood him, and he was given a five-year contract with, informally, control over who would be on the Rangers' 25-player roster. Martin faced a receptive clubhouse; most of the players had grown up watching him as a Yankee on television. Martin in 1974 Over the winter of 1973–1974, Martin made several trades, bringing Ferguson Jenkins from the Cubs in exchange for Bill Madlock. Jenkins and Jim Bibby would anchor the pitching staff. He promoted Jim Sundberg and Mike Hargrove to the Rangers from the lower minor leagues. Short sold the team to Brad Corbett just before the 1974 season began; the new owner retained Martin as manager, but did not allow him control of the roster. The Rangers opened at Arlington Stadium against the two-time defending world champion A's: Martin billed the series as the meeting of the top two AL West teams though Las Vegas put the Rangers at 50–1 to win the division. The A's won two of three, but all the games were close. After winning a series at Oakland at the end of April marked by aggressive baserunning, the Rangers were in first place. Martin taught the Rangers to improve their play and to beware his rage; outfielder Tom Grieve later stated that he made the team afraid to lose. The Rangers stayed close to the division lead through May and June, though they dropped to fourth place and eight games back at the All-Star break. The Rangers kept the race close until late September, and finished second, five games back, their record of 84–76 a considerable improvement on 1973. Martin was named AL Manager of the Year, and home attendance more than doubled. On the night that the firing [from the Rangers] was announced Billy sat with a group of sportswriters in his office and, I'm told, wept ... There is a term that describes Billy's emotional state at that point. Crocodile tears, I believe they call it. The next time I laid eyes on Billy Martin was in the Pontchartrain Hotel in Detroit. Billy was on television, appearing on the game of the week. He was wearing his proud number 1 on the back of a uniform that had pinstripes ... The new field manager of the New York Yankees looked real happy. Like I said, say what you want about Billy Martin, he was smart. —Mike Shropshire, Seasons in Hell: With Billy Martin, Whitey Herzog, and the Worst Baseball Team in History, the 1973–1975 Texas Rangers (2014 edition), Kindle locations 3134–3138 Given their strong performance in 1974 and Martin's reputation for building winners, the Rangers were the favorite in the AL West for 1975 over the three-time defending world champion A's. The team underperformed, however, Jenkins going from 25 wins to 17 and other key players not doing as well as in 1974. After a slow start, the Rangers recovered to some extent, but near the end of June found themselves 12 games behind the A's. Relations between Martin and the Ranger front office were strained by off-field issues, including Martin's drinking and conflict with some of the players, including Sundberg. As he lost control of his team, Martin struck Rangers traveling secretary Bert Hawkins, allegedly for organizing a players' wives' club. In July, after a dispute with Corbett over whether to sign free agent catcher Tom Egan, Martin told the media that the owner, who had made a fortune selling plumbing pipes, "knows as much about baseball as I do about pipe". Corbett began consulting the minority owners to decide whether to fire Martin, and informed the manager of this. One day later, on July 20, after Martin ordered the public address announcer to play "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" during the seventh inning stretch instead of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" (as Corbett had instructed), he was fired.[43] First stint with the Yankees (1975–1978) [ edit ] 1975 and 1976 [ edit ] Martin was not out of work for very long. Two weeks after Texas fired Martin, manager Bill Virdon was fired by the Yankees. The former Yankee second baseman was hired to take his place, marking Martin's first time in a Yankee uniform since the 1957 trade. Some players and writers have concluded that he had long campaigned for the Yankee job; what is certain is that after Martin was dismissed by Texas, New York general manager Gabe Paul, acting on behalf of team owner George Steinbrenner, was quickly in touch, and an agreement soon followed. Well aware of Martin's behavioral proclivities, Paul and Steinbrenner believed they could keep Martin under control. They not only inserted good-conduct clauses in Martin's contract, but picked the coaching staff themselves. The only job. The Yankee job. This is the only job I ever wanted. —Billy Martin on being hired by the New York Yankees, 1975. With little chance of catching the first-place Red Sox, Martin spent the remainder of the 1975 season evaluating his team, cultivating the press and getting ready for 1976. At that time, Paul was operating head of the franchise; Steinbrenner had been suspended from baseball by Commissioner Bowie Kuhn following his conviction for making illegal contributions to Richard Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign, but continued to make decisions (such as Martin's hiring) behind the scenes. With Martin at the helm, the Yankees went 30–26 in their final 56 games of the 1975 season; they ended the season in third place, where they had been when he took over.[31] Martin worked with Paul during the offseason to dispose of players such as Bobby Bonds and Doc Medich, obtaining in return Mickey Rivers, Willie Randolph and others. The 1976 Yankee season was probably his most trouble-free as a major league manager. Martin endeared himself to his players quickly by effectively winning a game in Milwaukee. He pointed out that the first-base umpire had, almost unnoticed, called time out just before an apparent game-winning grand slam by Don Money. Steinbrenner had been restored to the Yankee offices when Kuhn shortened his suspension during spring training, but did not interfere with Martin's managing, content to sit back and watch as the Yankees continued to win. The Yankees won the AL East by 11 games over Baltimore, securing their first postseason appearance since 1964. In the 1976 American League Championship Series, they played Kansas City. Aggressive baserunning, plus bench jockeying that may have caused Royals third baseman George Brett to make two crucial errors, helped New York win Game One, but Kansas City won two of the next three. Martin's choice of Ed Figueroa to pitch the decisive Game Five at Yankee Stadium was controversial as Figueroa had not pitched well late in the season and had lost Game Two, but he was in good form and helped the Yankees to a 6–3 lead in the eighth inning—when Brett tied the game with a three-run home run. Martin did not let the home run faze him, and had a verbal exchange with the next batter, John Mayberry, which helped wake the Yankees up from their stunned disbelief at Brett's home run. Yankee first baseman Chris Chambliss drove the first pitch of the bottom of the ninth over the right field wall, and the Yankees had their first pennant since 1964, and Martin his first as a manager. The Yankees faced the defending world champion Reds in the 1976 World Series, and lost in four straight games. Martin was ejected from Game Four, at Yankee Stadium, after rolling a baseball towards umpire Bruce Froemming, the only Yankee to ever be kicked out of a World Series game. 1977 championship season [ edit ] Reggie Jackson at the press conference announcing his signing with the Yankees, 1976 In the offseason, Steinbrenner sought to sign free agent outfielder Reggie Jackson, convinced that he would add punch to the middle of the Yankee lineup. Steinbrenner wooed the slugger, taking him to lunch at the 21 Club and walking with him on Manhattan's sidewalks as fans called out to Jackson, urging him to become a Yankee. Though New York did not make the highest offer, Jackson signed with the team. Sources record Martin's views on Jackson's signing differently: Pennington stated that Martin was not opposed and told Steinbrenner he could use a right fielder, whereas Golenbock deemed Martin "certainly didn't want Reggie", feeling that Jackson was too much of a prima donna, who might rebel against the manager's authority, and be "tougher to handle than a bull at a rodeo". Falkner wrote that while Martin did not see Jackson as filling the team's needs, he was not opposed. Both Martin and Paul stated that once Bobby Grich was signed by the California Angels, Martin supported signing Jackson. Nevertheless, Martin was embittered by Steinbrenner taking Jackson to famous restaurants when he had not invited Martin to lunch, even though the manager was spending the offseason in nearby New Jersey. When the Yankees lost six of the first eight games of the 1977 season, Steinbrenner called separate meetings with the players, the manager and the press, and told Martin that he had better get the team to turn things around or he could expect to be fired. Steinbrenner told the press what he had told Martin. In May, Jackson alienated most of his teammates by saying in an interview that he, rather than the respected team captain, Thurman Munson, was "the straw that stirs the drink" on the team. Martin was drinking heavily, and had briefly quit in spring training following an argument with Steinbrenner, who was, according to Falkner, "the owner whose idea of 'hands-on' was a stranglehold". Jackson's ties to Steinbrenner, who had given him his contract, made Martin powerless to discipline the slugger. Golenbock noted, For the rest of the season Billy Martin would have to spend the majority of his time worrying about the egos of George Steinbrenner and Reggie Jackson rather than concentrating on managing his team. His biggest headache would be George's pet player. Billy knew what he had to do to control Reggie Jackson, but he was impotent to do it as long as George Steinbrenner protected Jackson. The question of whether the strife between Martin and Jackson involved a racial element has divided Yankee players and those who have written about the 1977 team. In his 2013 autobiography, Jackson stated that there was, and that Martin and some white Yankees would tell racist jokes. Among black Yankees who were there when Martin was, Elliott Maddox agreed with Jackson but others, such as Chambliss, denied there was racism. BILLY, JAX CLASH IN DUGOUT —Daily News back page headline, June 19, 1977 (p. 120) Tensions between Martin and Jackson exploded on national television on June 18 at Fenway Park, the NBC Saturday afternoon Game of the Week, with the Yankees a half game behind the Red Sox. Martin pulled Jackson off the field mid-inning (replacing him with Paul Blair) for failing to hustle on a shallow outfield fly ball by Jim Rice, allowing Rice to reach second base. The extremely angry Martin had to be restrained by coaches Elston Howard and Yogi Berra from getting into a fight with Jackson in the dugout, scenes shown across the nation by NBC. Steinbrenner was convinced that he should fire Martin, but negotiations brokered by backup catcher Fran Healy secured a truce. Nevertheless, the rumors that Martin would be fired, some originated by Steinbrenner, would continue season-long. All of this went on in the full glare of New York's newspapers and, with the public firmly on Martin's side, Steinbrenner stayed his hand. According to Appel in his history of the Yankees, "the team was winning, the turnstiles were clicking, and the Yanks were dominating the sports pages". By August 7, there was renewed conflict on the team, including between Martin and Jackson, and the Yankees had fallen five games behind the Red Sox. Martin had pledged to bat Jackson cleanup, as he wanted, but had rarely done so. Healy and Munson interceded with Martin, and when Martin batted Jackson fourth on August 10, both Jackson and the team responded by going on hot streaks. Despite a season of turmoil,[43] the Yankees won 40 of their last 50 games to take the division by 21⁄ 2 games over both Boston and Baltimore. Appel noted, "The '77 Yanks won 100 games and the division title, but Billy Martin looked much more like a man who had taken each of the 62 defeats as a sock in the face. Hidden behind dark glasses, losing weight, drinking excessively, he had been through hell and back." The Yankees played the Royals again in the 1977 American League Championship Series, the teams split the first two games, at Yankee Stadium, and the Royals won Game Three in Kansas City. Needing to win two straight on the road to win the pennant, the Yankees won Game Four, and Martin benched Jackson from the starting lineup in Game Five, feeling that he did not hit Royals pitcher Paul Splittorff well. In the eighth inning, with the Yankees losing 3–1, Martin put Jackson in as a pinch hitter and Jackson singled off reliever Doug Bird to drive in a run. The Yankees scored three runs in the ninth to win their second straight pennant, 5–3. The 1977 World Series was against the Los Angeles Dodgers. In Game One in New York, the Yankees won 4–3 in 12 innings on a single by Blair, who had replaced Jackson late in the game for defensive reasons. The Yankees lost Game Two, and on the off day before Game Three at Dodger Stadium, there was more conflict in the press between Martin and Jackson. A conference in Gabe Paul's hotel room smoothed matters over, and the Yankees won Games Three and Four, but lost Game Five to send the series back to New York. Prior to Game Six, the Yankees announced that Martin was being given a bonus and an extended contract, relieving some of the intense pressure on him—the media had reported that he would be fired if the Yankees lost the World Series. Jackson, who had been mockingly dubbed Mr. October by Munson during the conflict before Game Three, made the name his own by hitting three home runs off three Dodger pitchers on consecutive pitches, and the Yankees won 8–4, before a jubilant crowd which invaded the field after the final pitch. Jackson and Martin were interviewed for television with arms around each other. Golenbeck noted that Martin "had fought the other teams in the league, fought his star player, and fought his owner, who respected no man". According to Appel, "it would be the only world championship of Martin's managing career, and it was a painful one". 1978 and first departure [ edit ] The events of 1977 placed Martin among the most prominent New York celebrities, a status he would keep until his death, as headline writers would refer to "Billy" without fear of readers misunderstanding who was meant. He was seen in the city's nightlife, often with different young women, at a time when his second marriage was disintegrating after years of turmoil. Paul's departure to run the Cleveland Indians after the 1977 season removed one of the buffers between Martin and Steinbrenner; Martin blamed the owner for constant interference during the season. Paul was replaced by Al Rosen. There was no relief from conflict when the 1978 season began, with Mickey Rivers benched after appearing to loaf after a fly ball, and an alcohol-fueled altercation between team members on an airplane that helped put an end to the Yankees flying on commercial airlines in favor of charter flights. Steinbrenner blamed Martin for failure to keep discipline; the manager did not believe in trying to regulate the players' conduct off the field, something he had learned from Casey Stengel. Injuries to several players, including much of the starting staff, meant the Yankees did not commence the season as well as the previous year. By mid-June, the Yankees were seven games behind the Red Sox, and Steinbrenner was impatient. Repeated rumors that he would be fired put Martin under extreme stress. By July 17, the Yankees were 13 games behind Boston. That day, against the Royals, Jackson came to the plate in the bottom of the tenth inning with Munson on base and Martin put the bunt sign on. After Jackson fouled the first pitch off, the sign was taken off, with Jackson instructed to swing away. Jackson tried to bunt the next two pitches, and popped out. A furious Martin demanded Jackson be suspended for the remainder of the season after the game, but on conversing with upper management agreed on a five-game suspension. When Jackson returned, he told reporters that he did not know why Martin had suspended him. Martin also learned, from White Sox owner Bill Veeck, that while Steinbrenner had been publicly pledging that Martin would remain Yankee manager for the rest of the season no matter what, he had been trying to arrange a trade of managers with Chicago, with New York to receive Bob Lemon, through the deal was not made and Lemon had been subsequently fired by Veeck. Martin told reporters of Jackson and Steinbrenner, "They deserve each other." He went on to say of Jackson, "one's a born liar" and then referred to Steinbrenner's illegal contributions by saying "and the other's convicted".[133] The next day, July 24, 1978,[43] Martin resigned at a tearful press conference in Kansas City, having quit before he could be fired by Rosen, stating that he was doing so for health reasons. Steinbrenner replaced Martin with Lemon. There was considerable anger among Yankee fans at Martin's forced departure, and towards Steinbrenner; some holders of season tickets burned them outside Yankee Stadium. Billy II: Second stint with the Yankees (1979) [ edit ] Steinbrenner almost immediately had second thoughts about Martin's departure, and negotiations for his return, including meetings between the two, began within two days of the resignation. At first, the plan was for Martin to return in 1979, working elsewhere in the organization until then, but Rosen felt Lemon, who replaced Martin, needed to be given a full year. The talks were successfully kept quiet, and at Old-Timers' Day at Yankee Stadium, July 29, 1978, Martin was introduced as the Yankee manager for 1980 and after by public address announcer Bob Sheppard, meeting an ovation from the crowd second only to that given Lou Gehrig on his retirement in 1939; according to Golenbock it might have been greater, "The fans liked Gehrig. They loved Billy." The re-hiring was only a verbal commitment, and was to some extent dependent on Martin staying out of trouble, which he did not do. During the offseason, Martin engaged in fisticuffs with Reno Gazette reporter Ray Hagar while visiting the city as a guest of the Reno Bighorns basketball team. Steinbrenner insisted that Martin could only return to the Yankees if there was no conviction nor out-of-court settlement, and this occurred, though money likely changed hands behind the scenes. In the interim, the Yankees, under Lemon, had made a dramatic comeback to win the division, pennant and their second consecutive World Series over the Dodgers. In 1979, the Yankees got off to a slow start under Lemon. Injuries to Jackson and Gossage, and key players proving less effective than the year before had the Yankees reeling. Steinbrenner fired Lemon on June 18 and brought back Martin. The Yankees failed to improve, and Munson's death in a private plane crash on August 1 devastated the team. The Yankees were 34–30 when Martin took over and finished 89–71, in fourth place. After the season, Martin got into a fight with marshmallow salesman Joseph Cooper at a hotel in Minneapolis. Cooper alleged that he said that Martin should not have won his American League Manager of the Year award, which he believed should have gone to Dick Williams or Earl Weaver. Martin, in his autobiography, replied by mocking Cooper's profession and in the process angered him to the point where Cooper challenged Martin to a fight. Martin responded by wagering $500 that he could beat Cooper and proceeded to do so.[139] Steinbrenner fired Martin days later. Oakland Athletics [ edit ] Martin did not get any immediate interest after being dismissed by the Yankees, but in February 1980 Oakland owner Charlie Finley sought to hire him. The A's had fallen far from their championship heyday of the early 1970s as Finley had refused to go along with the escalating salaries of free agency; in 1979, the team had lost 108 games. The job brought Martin back to his East Bay roots, but he also knew it might be his last chance, both because of the conflict that surrounded him, and because of his lack of success with the 1979 Yankees. The 1980 A's had few standouts, and many of the young players were in awe of Martin: some who later became stars credited Martin with developing them. He had Rickey Henderson steal only on signs until Henderson learned how to read pitchers in their windup; then Martin turned Henderson loose. According to Pennington, "under Billy's tutelage, Henderson became the best leadoff hitter and base stealer in the history of Major League Baseball." Many in baseball were surprised to find the A's only 21⁄ 2 games behind the heavily favored Royals at the end of May. The A's finished second with an 83–79 record, 14 games behind the Royals, and Martin was given a Manager of the Year award. Attendance at the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum rose by 500,000, enabling Finley to sell the team at a better price. The new owners, the Haas family, owners of Levi Strauss, were inexperienced in baseball. They named Martin general manager, giving him complete control of the baseball side of the operation. Martin brought his aggressive style of play, which was dubbed "Billyball" by a sportswriter early in the 1981 season, and the name stuck. The A's began the season going 18–3, and Martin appeared on the cover of Time magazine. He was applauded by baseball fans across the country even when he was kicked out of a game and suspended by the league for a week for kicking dirt on the umpire. The Oakland momentum was finally checked by the 1981 Major League Baseball strike, which shut down baseball for nearly two months midseason. The season was split into two halves, the division leaders at the time of the strike (in the AL West, the A's) to play the second-half winners (the Royals) in a special division series. The A's won in three straight games to face the Yankees in the 1981 American League Championship Series. The opportunity to beat the Yankees meant much to Martin, and Steinbrenner, seeing the Oakland success, was privately stating that he might have been too quick to fire Martin after the marshmallow salesman incident. But the veteran New York lineup and pitching staff was able to dominate the A's as the Yankees won the first three games to take the series. The A's finished a combined 64-45, the second-best record in baseball, and hopes were very high for 1981.[145] The 1982 season did not go as well for the A's, who never got much above .500. By July were well below .500, and a long way out of the pennant race. None of the starting pitchers matched their 1981 form, nor ever would, leading to accusations from baseball historians and statisticians that Martin abbreviated their careers by overusing them in 1981. In 2006, Rob Neyer estimated that the four top starters from the 1981 team threw anywhere from 120–140 pitches per complete game—a heavy workload for pitchers that young.[145] The A's went 68–94 and finished fifth, both the worst full-season records of Martin's managerial career.[31] Martin's behavior during the 1982 season concerned A's management; incidents included considerable drinking, traveling with a mistress while on the road, and trashing his own office after being refused a loan by the team to pay a tax debt. There has been speculation that Martin had been assured by Steinbrenner that he would be Yankee manager in 1983 if he could get himself fired by Oakland, and he may have been acting to that end. On October 20, 1982, three weeks after the A's season ended, Martin was fired with three years remaining on his contract. Remaining stints with the Yankees [ edit ] Martin as Yankees manager in 1983 The Yankees had finished fifth in 1982, their first losing record in the Steinbrenner era, doing so under three managers—Lemon, Gene Michael and Clyde King—all fired by Steinbrenner. On January 11, 1983, the Yankees announced that Martin had been hired as manager under a long-term contract: he would stay with the Yankees, though not always manager, for the rest of his life. Jackson had departed for the California Angels, but other Yankees from Martin's earlier tenures remained, such as Randolph and Ron Guidry, and the team had added strong players like Dave Winfield and Don Baylor. Steinbrenner had pledged non-interference but, as the team struggled early in the season, resumed his second-guessing of Martin, both directly and by leak to the media. As relations between owner and manager deteriorated, Martin had conflicts with reporters and a brawl with a patron in an Anaheim bar. During the 1983 season, Martin was involved in one of the most controversial regular season games, known as the Pine Tar Incident, when Martin challenged a home run by George Brett on the ground that the amount of pine tar on the bat broke the rules. Brett was ruled out and the home run disallowed; as this occurred with two out in the top of the ninth, it ended the game with the Yankees leading 4–3. American League President Lee MacPhail ruled in favor of the Royals' protest. The game was resumed some weeks later with Kansas City leading 5–4 and two out in the top half of the ninth. At the start of the resumed game, Martin tried to protest on the grounds that Brett had missed a base. The umpires had anticipated this, and had obtained an affidavit from the crew who had worked the original game saying that Brett had indeed touched all the bases. The Yankees did not play as well during and after the distraction of the Pine Tar Game, and fell further behind the division-leading Orioles. The Yankees finished second, 91–71,[31] seven games behind the Orioles. On December 16, Steinbrenner fired Martin as manager, but kept him under contract, giving him a scouting assignment. Yogi Berra was the Yankee manager for 1984, and the team finished third, 17 games behind the Tigers. When, at the start of the 1985 season, Steinbrenner pledged that Berra would remain manager for the whole season, there was immediate speculation that Martin would return, which he did, Berra being dismissed after 16 games. Stated Martin, "George and I have the greatest relationship I've ever had with him." With an MVP season from Don Mattingly and a strong effort from Rickey Henderson, who had been acquired by the Yankees, the team played well throughout the summer, coming to within a game and a half of the division-leading Toronto Blue Jays on September 12. They then lost eight in a row, and as the Yankees fell out of the race, according to Pennington, "Martin seemed to melt down with it." On September 22, 1985, while at a hotel bar in Baltimore, Martin fought one of his pitchers, Ed Whitson, who was larger, heavier and trained in martial arts. Martin suffered a broken arm.[157] The Yankees recovered to win 97 games, but finished two games back of the Blue Jays, eliminated on the second to last day of the season. On October 27, 1985, Martin was fired again as Yankee manager, replaced by longtime Yankee player Lou Piniella. Nevertheless, Steinbrenner, believing that Martin could again bring a championship to the Yankees and, fearing he might do so elsewhere, increased Martin's salary; the four-time manager of the Yankees turned down lucrative offers from the White Sox and Indians. Steinbrenner kept Martin as a close advisor in 1986; he was formally part of the broadcasting staff under his personal services contract, which the owner extended so that Martin was now earning over $300,000 per year, a sum he was unlikely to match as manager elsewhere. Steinbrenner had considerable affection for Martin and wanted him to be without financial worries. Martin had long wanted to see his number 1 retired by the Yankees, and seeking to keep his past and future manager happy, Steinbrenner agreed, and Billy Martin Day took place at Yankee Stadium on August 10, 1986. At the ceremony, during which the number was retired and Martin given a plaque in Monument Park, he stated, "I may not have been the greatest Yankee to ever put on the uniform but I was the proudest."[43] New York finished second behind the Red Sox in 1986, but were never really in contention, and finished fourth in 1987. Piniella was asked to become general manager so that Steinbrenner could make Martin manager for a fifth time in 1988. Despite minimal expectations, Martin got the 1988 Yankees off to a good start, but on the night of May 7, was involved in a brawl at a Dallas-area nightclub in which he came out worst. Already foreseeing the end, and with marital troubles, on May 30, Martin was kicked out of a game against the A's, flinging dirt on umpire Dale Scott. Martin was suspended for three games and fined by the league, a punishment the umpire's association considered inadequate, and American League umpires stated that they would eject Martin as soon as he left the Yankee dugout. A month later, Steinbrenner fired Martin, citing "a combination of factors" in explaining his decision; Pennington suggested that while many Yankee fans took to talk radio in anger at Martin's firing, there was less outrage than there had been in the 1970s, and greater concern for Martin as a person. He became a special adviser to Steinbrenner, though in practice he had no duties and rarely visited New York. The Yankees had played under .500 in 1988 with Piniella as manager, and at the end of the 1988 season, Steinbrenner fired him and hired Dallas Green. The Yankees saw little success under Green in 1989, and he was fired in August, replaced by Bucky Dent. Steinbrenner was unconvinced that Dent could lead the Yankees back to a championship, and planned to keep Martin close at hand in 1990, as manager-in-waiting should Dent falter. He apparently told Martin of this during a November meeting at Yankee Stadium, as Martin began to recruit coaches for a sixth managerial tenure with the Yankees. Death [ edit ] Martin was still a special consultant to Steinbrenner when he was killed in a low speed single-vehicle accident on Christmas Day 1989. His vehicle ran into a drainage culvert near the entrance of the driveway to his farm in Port Crane, north of Binghamton, New York. He was pronounced dead at a hospital in Johnson City, New York.[1] Also present in the vehicle that night was Martin's friend Bill Reedy, who had been drinking with Martin at a local bar, and who was seriously injured in the accident. Reedy at first stated that he had driven the vehicle with Martin the passenger but after learning that Martin had died, changed his story, saying that he had lied to protect Martin against the consequences of a drunk driving conviction. He was convicted in a jury trial of driving with a blood alcohol level of .10, was fined and his license suspended. A subsequent civil trial also found he was the driver. Golenbock, who wrote his book after the criminal trial but before the civil, was convinced that Martin was the driver. In this, he joined Martin's children and some of his close friends, like Mickey Mantle, who believed Martin would not have allowed another to drive him that night. Martin's biographers point to inadequacies in the police investigation. Pennington noted that those who believe Martin was the driver are the minority; Reedy was seen holding the car keys as the two left the bar, and the positions of the men when rescuers arrived pointed to Reedy being the driver. No autopsy was performed, allegedly due to opposition by Martin's widow and by Steinbrenner; New York City Medical Examiner Michael Baden was allowed to examine the body. Martin was eulogized by Cardinal John O'Connor at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York, before his interment at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York. His grave is located about 150 feet (46 m) from Babe Ruth's, in Section 25. The following epitaph, spoken by Martin at his number retiring ceremony at Yankee Stadium in 1986, appears on the headstone: I may not have been the greatest Yankee to put on the uniform, but I was the proudest. Steinbrenner and former United States President Richard Nixon, along with many former New York Yankee greats, attended Martin's funeral service.[175] Managerial record [ edit ] Managerial techniques [ edit ] Billy Martin's number 1 was retired by the New York Yankees in 1986. Bill James noted that "Billy Martin, of course, improved every team he ever managed in his first year in control, usually by huge margins. Within a year or two, all of those teams were ready to get rid of him." According to Chris Jaffe in his book evaluating baseball managers, "Martin was the perfect manager to hire if you wanted an immediate improvement and the worst manager for a team seeking sustained success." Part of this, Jaffe argued, was because Martin "would do whatever it took to win that day, and not worry about any negative side effects in the future", even if it meant a shortened career for his players. The subsequent ineffectiveness of the young starting pitchers on the 1981 A's is cited by Jaffe as one example of this; others include pitcher Catfish Hunter, who completed every game he started but one during Martin's partial season with the 1975 Yankees, and who was never the same pitcher after that year, and Ferguson Jenkins with Texas in 1974, who pitched 29 complete games for the Rangers, and who declined thereafter. A similar attitude permeated his use of relief pitchers: "he wanted who he wanted when he wanted without concern towards keeping their arms well rested." In 1988, the Elias Sports Bureau proclaimed Martin the best manager in major league history, based on modeling that found that Martin's teams won 7.45 more games per year than they should have as predicted by statistics, higher than any other manager. Martin sought to catch the other team by surprise, using such techniques as stealing home—once having two Twins steal home on different pitches of the same at bat, with the slugger Harmon Killebrew at the plate. Stealing home is a tactic unlikely to succeed, yet Martin made it work, and his teams got better. Jaffe noted that with Minnesota in 1969, Martin ended such risky tactics well before the end of the season, by which time he had set the tone he wanted both with his team, and with opponents. According to Jimmy Keenan and Frank Russo in their biography of Martin for the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), "He played the game hard and made no excuses for the way he handled himself on or off the field. Many people, including his off-and-on boss, George Steinbrenner, considered Martin a baseball genius for the intuitive way he managed his teams."[43] Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa stated of him, "without reservation I would call Billy the most brilliant field manager I ever saw. He was unmatched. None of us felt up to him." Stengel stated in an interview a month before his death in 1975, "He’s a good manager. He might be a little selfish about some things he does and he may think he knows more about baseball than anybody else and it wouldn’t surprise me if he was right."[43] When asked why he had admired Martin as a player, Stengel replied, "If liking a kid who never let you down in the clutch is favoritism, then I plead guilty."[43] James deemed Martin the third-most successful manager of the 1970s, behind Sparky Anderson and Earl Weaver, and the most controversial. Falkner noted that what Martin wanted was "to win, period", and quoted him as saying, "I would play Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo on my team if I thought it would help me win." Willie Randolph stated, "you always knew if you got to the eighth or ninth inning and you were tied or one run down, Billy would find a way to win". Falkner noted, "he wanted to win, that was all. And for the time he was in the game, everyone knew it. And he won." Jaffe suggested that the person Martin was most akin to was not any other baseball manager, but Hernando Cortez, the conquistador who burned his own ships after arriving in Mexico, forcing his soldiers to conquer or die. "That was Billyball, sixteenth century style." Pennington believed that Martin was very much a person of his times: "In the age of several round-the-clock ESPN channels, the ceaseless chatter of sports talk radio, and omnipresent smartphone cameras, Billy could not exist. At least not as an employed baseball manager." Pennington suggested, though, that had Martin been born 20 years later, his friends would have confronted him about his drinking problem; in Martin's day, such things were more often ignored. Pennington believes Martin's reputation for brawling and drinking has kept him out of the Hall of Fame; even if other managers who are in the Hall, such as Weaver and Leo Durocher, got into fights and drank sometimes to excess, they did not acquire the same reputation for those things as did Martin. Golenbock suggested that Martin's alcoholism, together with his pride in being a Yankee kept him in a relationship with Steinbrenner that kept him willing to try to manage the team again and again, despite the difficult relationship with the owner. Personal life and public image [ edit ] Martin was married four times and had two children, a daughter named Kelly Ann and a son named Billy Joe. His first marriage was to Lois Berndt, by whom he had his daughter. She divorced him in 1955, after he had contested the action for more than a year on the grounds that he was Catholic.[191] He married Gretchen Winkler in 1961, by whom he had his son, and stayed married to her until 1979, when the two divorced.[191] He was married a third time, to Heather Ervolino, while he was managing in Oakland, but was never faithful to her and eventually married his mistress, a woman named Jillian Guiver, in January 1988.[192] Martin and Steinbrenner appeared together in the series of "Tastes Great!...Less Filling!" commercials for Miller Lite beer. In one, filmed in 1978, during the final days of Martin's first stint with the Yankees, Steinbrenner fires Martin, who says, "Oh, not again".[193] Within weeks, Martin was forced to resign over the "one's a born liar, and the other's convicted" statement. The commercial aired again in June 1979, following Martin's return to manage the Yankees a second time, but with Steinbrenner saying "You're hired."[193] In 1978, Martin played himself in the CBS TV movie One in a Million: The Ron LeFlore Story.[194] Martin was a guest ring announcer at the inaugural WrestleMania in March 1985.[195] On May 24, 1986, on the season finale of Saturday Night Live, co-host Martin was "fired" by executive producer Lorne Michaels for being "drunk" in a skit, slurring his lines. In retaliation, Martin set the dressing room on fire, a staged scene set as a cliffhanger for the following season.[196] In 1978, Martin and sports agent Doug Newton opened "Billy Martin's", a western wear boutique in New York City.[197] Newton bought out Martin in 1982, and the store remained open until 2010.[198] Appraisal [ edit ] Pennington, writing over 20 years after Martin's death, noted, "Billy was beloved because he represented a traditional American dream: freedom. He lived independent from rules. He bucked the system ... He told his boss to shove it. Often." The biographer complained that Martin, in the era of video clips and ESPN, has been reduced to a caricature: the man who kicked dirt on umpires, battled with Reggie Jackson in a dugout and who was forever being hired and fired, something that ignores a record of achievement both as player and manager. Appel noted, "There was never a more prideful Yankee. Or a more complicated one. James wrote, "I suppose one could say the same about Billy Martin or about Richard Nixon ... had he not been so insecure, he could have resisted the self-destructive excesses which gradually destroyed him". Pennington, who covered the Yankees as a newspaper reporter from 1985 to 1989, described Martin as "without question one of the most magnetic, entertaining, sensitive, humane, brilliant, generous, insecure, paranoid, dangerous, irrational, and unhinged people I had ever met". Golenbock, who co-wrote Martin's autobiography, said of him, "but because Billy was an alcoholic who drank and fought publicly, and because the man for whom he worked destroyed his reputation through constant public denigrations and firings, he may never join the hallowed hall where he should rightfully be placed next to his mentor, Casey Stengel." Mike Lupica of the Daily News wrote that "Yankee fans never seemed to see him drunk, or nasty, or as Steinbrenner's toady, the way others did. They looked the other way, again and again and again. They always saw him as Billy the Kid."[204] Pennington noted that the new owners of Martin's farm sometimes find fans wanting to see where he died, or makeshift memorials by the roadside where the accident occurred. Martin's grave has remained well-visited by Yankee fans, sometimes before driving to the Bronx to take in a home game. Andrew Nagle, who oversaw the cemetery, stated "people want to leave some acknowledgement of what he meant to them ... we don't let go of the people that touched us ... It's the same with Billy Martin. People won't let him go. They won't forget him." See also [ edit ] Notes [ edit ] References [ edit ] Numbers not designated as pages are Kindle locations. |
Grounded Ship Blocks Antwerp Port Traffic By MarEx 2014-12-15 10:07:50 Traffic for large ships heading towards the Belgian port of Antwerp was temporarily blocked on Friday after a giant container ship ran aground outside the Dutch port of Terneuzen downstream from the Belgian harbor, emergency services said. Emergeny services for the Dutch province Zeeland said on their website the MSC Rachelle had run on to a sandbank on its way to Antwerp, though they later said it had been refloated. High tide was due at 1700 GMT and six tugs had been involved in the effort to refloat the vessel, authorities said, adding that the shipping restrictions would be lifted in the afternoon. The Dutch port lies on the south side of the mouth of the River Schelde which links Antwerp, by some measures Europe's second-largest port, to the sea. The MSC Rachelle, owned by the Mediterranean Shipping Co, was heading from the Spanish port of Valencia when it ran aground, according to Thomson Reuters Eikon data. Copyright Reuters 2014. |
Donation mining to support open source software This past weekend there was a popular article about The Pirate Bay using their visitors computers to mine cryptocurrency. They were using a service called Coin Hive on their site, it uses a javascript miner to mine Monero currency while users browsed the site. It happens seamless in the background, while just putting a little stress on the CPU as it processes hashes. This made the gears in my head start to turn a little bit. I finished my breakfast and went home to investigate this further and to see if I could hash out any possible uses. Then I had an idea! Is this viable to fund open source? Let me make it clear that I do not think a project can get 100% of their funding from their users mining, but I do think it has a chance to provide some of the funding for a project. With my gears turning, I played around with the code from Coin Hive a bit and found what I thought was a happy medium of hashes and performance. Then I installed the code on our site and forum and let it run for about 24 hours to see what kind of generation we got under our normal traffic. We made $1.24. Not a whole lot of money. But at the same time, we don’t get a ton of traffic either. Personally I considered it a success, sure, its not a lot of money, but it is something. Having a proof of concept and some viability, it made me really want to try to test the theory in a different way. Merchants that run our software spend a lot of time in their back offices, sometimes they are just open, sometimes they are working on orders or products. What if we could harness that time to give back to our open source project? To keep everything above board, with a clear opt-in only strategy we decided not to release an update that had the Coin Hive miner in the core. I instead made a module, that is 100% optional to install in thirty bees, that will allow our users to give back and help support us if they choose. About the module The module is in the feed in the back office of thirty bees shops, and can be installed if you are a merchant that thinks thirty bees is awesome and you want to help the project along. Some quick facts about the module: It is not used on the front of your site. It only affects users that are logged into the back office, not any of the front office customers. The miner mines in the browser using javascript. It is NOT a server miner. So it will only mine when you are logged into your back office. It will not slow the server down or your site down in any way, it is 100% client side. The module has settings in it where you can turn it on or off, and also choose how much CPU power you dedicate to mining. With all of that being said, I think a wide release would be an awesome opportunity to measure the viability of helping to fund our project. It lets users help thirty bees out, with no out of pocket costs. To us open source software is about growth and innovation. Breaking the standard molds of funding a project for the long run is innovative. Sure, this could be a huge flop as well. No one could install the module and we could be stuck with $1.24. But is it really a loss? I personally do not think so. But why not other ways? There are actually a ton of ways we can try to fund thirty bees, why would we look into cryptocurrency mining? That is a valid question that needs to be asked. When I look around at the other platforms in our market space and take a hard look at them, it bothers me. There are several big players, with widely read blogs that are all but a huge advertisement. Thin content posts about “5 modules you need to buy from us to be successful” or “Signup with this partner service so we can make money”. There are several platforms whose blogs consist solely of material like that. That is not what I want us to be. I want people to want to read our blogs. I don’t want us to have to constantly market and advertise to our community. I want to provide good content that people want to read, that will help merchants grow their businesses. At the same time I want to start a dialog with our community, with our supporters and the whole open source community about innovative ways to fund projects. I think there are ways out there we have not even considered that could make free software more viable. Ways that do not include a constant barrage of advertisements, that do not include selling user information (something we strictly will not do). Now for the module If you are using thirty bees, there is a new module in your back office this morning. It is called the Donation Miner. It looks like the image below in your module feed. If you want to support thirty bees by allowing your computer to mine cryptocurrency, install the module, then go to the configuration screen. The configuration screen looks like the image below. In the settings panel you can enable and disable the mining from the module. The module also lets you choose the number of threads to mine with and also allows you to set an idle time throttle as well. This way you can tune the settings to cause the least disruption to your work as possible. Remember, this module will not slow down your site or server. It is only run on your local computer, so users will never experience any issues on your site. Love this idea? Hate this idea? Let us know below. We care what our users and supporters think! |
Researchers have succeeded in developing a novel way of making tough, biocompatible materials called “hydrogels” in sophisticated and intricately patterned shapes—3D printing. The newly created process could offer new ways of delivering drugs or cells into the body, scaffolds for regenerating load-bearing tissues or tough but flexible actuators for robots. At top, the structure of the hydrogel material is shown at different scales, down to the molecular level. At bottom, material 3-D printed using this method is so flexible that it can be squeezed flat, and then spring back to its full original shape. At top, the structure of the hydrogel material is shown at different scales, down to the molecular level. At bottom, material 3-D printed using this method is so flexible that it can be squeezed flat, and then spring back to its full original shape. A paper in the journal Advanced Materials describes the process in detail, co-authored by MIT Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Xuanhe Zhao and colleagues at MIT, Duke University, and Columbia University. Zhao says the new process could make it possible to 3D print “extremely tough and robust” hydrogel implants, which could be infused with cells and drugs and then placed in the body. Hydrogels are defined by water molecules encased in rubbery polymer networks that provide shape and structure. Their material characteristics are similar to natural tissues such as cartilage, which is used by our bodies for shock absorption. These new 3D printed hydrogel structures could be used for replacement of knee cartilage in meniscus surgeries, for example. Synthetic hydrogels are generally weak and tend to break easily, but a number of tough and flexible ones have been developed in the last 10 years. However, most previous methods of creating tough and flexible hydrogels involved creating “harsh chemical environments” that would kill encapsulated living cells, according to Zhao. The new materials can synthesize together with living cells (think stem cells) which could then allow high viability of the cells, states Zhao, who holds a joint appointment in MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Previous efforts did not yield an ability to print complex 3D structures with tough hydrogels. The new biocompatible hydrogel can be fabricated into 3D structures such as a hollow cube, hemisphere, pyramid, twisted bundle, multilayer mesh, or physiologically relevant shapes such as a human nose or ear. Zhao continues to explain that the new method also uses a commercially available 3D printing mechanism. “The innovation is really about the material—a new ink for 3-D printing of biocompatible tough hydrogel,” which as is turns out is a composite of two different biopolymers. “Each [material] individually is very weak and brittle, but once you put them together, it becomes very tough and strong. It’s like steel-reinforced concrete.” The polymers act differently, but combined they create a material with the properties of both. One type of polymer provides elasticity, while the other allows it to “dissipate energy under deformation without breaking.” A biocompatible “nanoclay” rounds out the characteristics of the new material by helping it fine-tune the viscosity of the material, which allows for high levels of flow control as the material passes through the 3D-printing nozzle. The flexible characteristics of this material are remarkable—a printed shape such as a pyramid “can be compressed by 99 percent, and then spring back to its original shape.” Sungmin Hong, a lead author of the paper, writes that it can also be stretched to five times its original size. This type of resilience reproduces key features of natural bodily tissues that have evolved to withstand a variety of forces, collisions and other physical events. Not only could this material be used to custom-print shapes for the replacement of cartilaginous tissues in ears, noses, or load-bearing joints—the results of lab tests suggest that this material is even tougher than natural cartilage. The downside of this material is its limited ability in terms of resolution. Currently limited to 500 micrometers in size, “We are enhancing the resolution to be able to print more accurate structures for applications,” says Zhao. Source: MIT |
MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Some businessmen in Mosul have begun rebuilding their shattered premises without waiting for financial support from the cash-strapped Iraqi government or for the final defeat of Islamic State in the city. “If we wait for support, it could take a long time,” said Rafeh Ghanem, who owns an automotive spare-parts business in the eastern side of the city. An airstrike in January reduced the two-storey building that houses his shop and dozens of others to a heap of rubble and twisted steel rods. U.S.-backed Iraqi forces took back the eastern side of Mosul in January, after 100 days of fighting. They are now fighting Islamic State in districts lying west of the Tigris river that bisects the city. Ghanem said he and the 25 other businesses that rent space in the building agreed to contribute funds to help the landlord clear the debris and rebuild one of the two storeys. Reconstruction started on April 11 and Ghanem hopes to return to business in three to four months. He says waiting is of no use since the price of building materials is expected to rise as more reconstruction projects get under way, boosting demand for steel and cement. The city, captured by IS in 2014, has suffered extensive damage as hundreds of houses and public buildings including the airport, the main railway station and the university have been destroyed. Cement and steel prices have gone down steeply since the militants were defeated in eastern Mosul, as road connections have opened up with the rest of Iraq and Turkey, allowing supplies to resume. Slideshow (12 Images) A metric ton of cement used to sell for up to 350,000 Iraqi dinars ($300) after the militants took over nearly three years ago. It now costs 80,000 to 90,000, said an importer, Saif Ibrahim. For Ghanem, there is no other choice but to rebuild the city which had a pre-war population of more than 2 million. “We live in this city, we have to bring it back.” ($1 = 1,167.0000 Iraqi dinars) |
The developers of Project Spark "love" Conker the Squirrel and are hoping to "be as true and genuine to Conker as possible" with its use of the character, even if what it's offering isn't the new Conker game many fans were hoping for. During Microsoft's E3 press conference today, it was announced that Conker content of some kind is coming to Project Spark, the free-to-play game that allows you to make your own games. A subsequent press release described it as "giving players the power to continue the 'Conker' legacy." While some are excited to see Conker after such a long hiatus--Conker's Bad Fur Day, the last original game to feature Conker, was released in 2001--others were critical of the announcement. To some, this was perceived as a lazy move by Microsoft, which they say couldn't be bothered to make a Conker game itself. Project Spark community manager Mike Lescault took to NeoGAF today to respond to this sentiment and explain developer Team Dakota's approach to bringing Conker to the game. Quoting a post that reads, "You guys want Conker? Make it yourselves!" Lescault said, "That's a completely understandable way to look at it. And it makes sense that anyone who was eagerly hoping to hear the announcement of a new Conker game (and there's many of you, clearly) would be at least somewhat let down." "We love games. Old games, new games, classic games. Conker is something many of us grew up with," he wrote. "We love the heck out of the crazy little guy and we want to hang out with him as much as you guys do, possibly more." "[Conker]'s not one to pull any punches, and it wouldn't have made sense for him to gloss over the fact he hasn’t had a game in almost a decade." -- Project Spark community manager Mike Lescault on today's trailer joking about Conker's absence. Lescault went on to explain what Project Spark is all about and how, as a free-to-play game, it'll be supported by selling "DLC packs that provide different assets and visuals to allow creators added flexibility in creating whatever their hearts desire." As Team Dakota is relatively small, he said, "[W]e have to be very selective in what we spend our time creating. Conker has such a passionate and diehard following he was the clear first choice for us." At this point, the vagueness with which Conker's appearance in Project Spark was announced stems from the fact that Team Dakota hasn't finalized its plans for him. As it's still finishing up work on other aspects of the game, we'll have to wait for more details to be decided on before they are announced. "We'll be releasing more details on our plans for Conker in the future," Lescault said. "Please know that we love and respect Conker and his (in)famous history. We're huge fans of everyone at Rare and we're a very community-driven team that is always looking for your ideas and feedback. Please let us know your thoughts on what you'd consider the best and most respectful way for us to honor Conker in Project Spark. "One final note on Conker's line in our trailer. It was important to us to be as true and genuine to Conker as possible. Not only was it important to get Conker's voice right, it was equally important to let Conker be Conker. He's not one to pull any punches, and it wouldn't have made sense for him to gloss over the fact he hasn’t had a game in almost a decade. We were poking fun at ourselves, certainly not the dedicated Conker fans." The Rare-created Conker originally showed up in Nintendo 64 game Diddy Kong Racing as a playable character. Although he was initially a friendly character, he would be turned into a foul-mouthed alcoholic in N64 cult classic Conker's Bad Fur Day. That game was re-released on the original Xbox in 2005 as Conker: Live & Reloaded after Microsoft acquired Rare. The character has not been seen since. What do you make of Conker's return in Project Spark? What kind of content are you hoping Team Dakota releases? Let us know in the comments below. See more coverage of E3 2014 → |
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