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Bruce Dickison on stage with Eddie (Picture: John McMurtrie) Growing up on Iron Maiden meant car journeys to Cornwall headbanging to Run To The Hills and screaming the lyrics to The Number Of The Beast, so to find out I was going to go on tour with the band was a literal dream come true. But it’s been 38 years since Iron Maiden signed a record contract with EMI and went on to become one of the UK’s most prolific heavy metal bands of all time, and a lot has changed in those four decades. Band members have come and gone and come back again, they’ve been through claims of satanism and been banned from performing in certain countries, and won Brit, Grammy, and Ivor Novello awards – but can they still put on one heck of a show? Of bloody course they can. During a four hour trip up the M1 on a tour bus branded The Bus Of Souls – destination Nottingham Arena where the band kicked off their first UK tour in years – we learnt more about the metal band, their passions, why they’re still leading the charge in 2017 – and the beer. Advertisement Advertisement 1. Their age means things are a little different these days: The band’s average age is 60 so things are, shall we say, a little tamer these days. ‘We don’t stay up so late at night getting pissed and doing things we shouldn’t do!’ the band’s long-term manager Rod Smallwood told us. Steve Harris on the bass (Picture: John McMurtrie) ‘I think that’s the only difference,’ he added of touring in 2017 compared to the 1980s. ‘But the attitude of touring and playing is the same, and the fans are the same – we’re playing to more people now obviously but if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. The band are all fit but then again… we were naughtier 20 years ago.’ 2. The band are fond of beer – British beer. In fact, they’re so fond of it that lead singer Bruce Dickinson was asked to create a traditional ale which ended up being named after their famous 1983 album The Trooper. Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden launches a new beer named Trooper (Picture: Getty Images) ‘I’m a lifelong fan of traditional English ale; I thought I’d died and gone to heaven when we were asked to create our own beer. I have to say that I was very nervous: Robinsons are the only people I have had to audition for in 30 years,’ Dickinson had previously said. Trooper beer is readily available backstage on tour with Maiden – in fact, very quickly the fridge was empty and more had to be bought in – and at one point during the show, Dickinson went on a tirade against what he called ‘piss’… otherwise known as American beer. Advertisement Advertisement 3. ‘Where’s Ed Force One’? The Ed Force One airplane (Picture: Getty Images) Okay so what any Maiden fan really wants is to take to the skies in Ed Force One, but as Smallwood told us the plane is only used ‘when the average between gigs is 200 miles’; currently during the UK dates, the distances are so short that ‘you couldn’t play consecutive nights with the plane’ so there was no point taking it. Ed Force One? As Rod Smallwood says, Ed Force One is simply just a plane: ‘It looks great on the outside with the decals on!’ The plane was originally a Boeing 757 but in recent years was upgraded to a 747. View of the Ed Force One Boeing 747 (Picture: Getty Images) ‘The 757… we couldn’t get the old equipment – 20, 30 tonnes of equipment and all the stage set, the back lights, and mixing desks [on board] – so with the 757 we had to convert the entire back fuselage and put a massive fireproof module and steel floor to take the weight; it’s a big operation, and to get the safety through was really tough,’ said Smallwood. ‘But the advantage of 747, it had a longer range so not many fuel stop overs and it’s faster, but we could also get all the gear in all the holds; 747 is bigger and more expensive but made more sense as the gear went straight on.’ 4. Their passion is real: Bruce Dickinson performing in April 2016 (Picture: Getty Images) Smallwood first met the band at The Swan in Hammersmith; they were due to go on stage when Steve Harris, a founding member of the band told Smallwood that their singer had been arrested. Advertisement ‘Steve came up to me and said, “Paul has been arrested, what should we do?”, and there was about 30 kids, we were at The Swan Hammersmith, and about 30 kids had come down from the east end and so he said to me – Maiden ethos really – he said “we’ve got to play”, and I said, “can you sing?”, and he said, “not really”, I said, “can you try?”, he said, “yes”, I said, “do you know the words?”, he said, “I wrote them all” so that’s, that’s verbatim! So the first time I saw Iron Maiden. ‘I knew then, the way that Dave and Steve looked the audience in the eye with a lot of passion and excitement and commitment then, I’ve never seen anything like it, it was quite special, and they still do – you watch those guys, they are into the audience’s eyes.’ Dave Murray, Dickinson, and Harris (Picture: John McMurtrie) And it’s true. Watching the band banter back and forth with the crowd and among themselves, dancing around and bouncing off each other, you can tell they still love this all these decades later. ‘They make the stadium into a club,’ added Smallwood. ‘It’s amazing, it’s the relationship with the fans – it’s an unusual bond, the commitment on both sides – and some gigs are good gigs and some gigs, it takes off, unbelievable atmosphere and joy and camaraderie.’ 5. The band are innovators – and are a major mission to crack down on ticket touts: Advertisement Touts are ‘taking millions and millions and millions of fans money for no real reason except for greed,’ said Smallwood. ‘We reckon that we’ve sold about 40,000 tickets this tour, and at any one time there’s only been about 200 on Viagogo – the other three websites didn’t even list it – Seatwave, Get Me In, and Stubhub – because of the process we’re doing to protect the fans. ‘Instead of 10,000 we’ve got 200. If you reckon those 10,000 are going to be £100 or more for face value, that’s a lot of money – I think we’ve saved our fans over a million pounds and you’ve got to look at it: “how will that extra money be used?” Not everyone can afford to go to so many concerts every month, but if they spend all their money on one, and they can’t go and see the new band down the pub or the theatre with a £20 ticket, because they spent all their money on the big act in the arena, how do smaller bands develop?’ He added: ‘Disposable income is limited, so if these guys are taken out – and they don’t provide any service whatsoever, surely the tickets are not counterfeit… it’s ludicrous that after eight years more hasn’t been done, but I think consumers are finally waking up. ‘Ninety-five percent of the fans are proud of the band standing up – why don’t other bands do this? There’s no gain to the band doing this so hopefully people will start taking a look at bands who are not making an effort.’ Iron Maiden close out their UK tour at London’s 02 Arena on Sunday May 28. MORE: 10 times Iron Maiden hit peak Iron Maiden MORE: Iron Maiden to use paperless tickets on new UK tour to stamp out pesky touts |
The following is a statement to fans from Orlando City CEO Alex Leitão: First of all we'd like to thank our fans for their continued and loyal support throughout this season. You are the driving force behind this organization and we are very grateful. Like you, we were disappointed that the broadcast of the match on UniMas was preempted at the last minute. Our match was scheduled on a national broadcast slot as per the league agreements with its partners, and the result of the preemption decision was beyond our control. Ultimately, we applaud MLS for finding a solution for fans, including airing the match live in its entirety on Univision Deportes – which many of you were able to watch here in Orlando – and streaming the game for free on MLSsoccer.com. Our radio partners Real Radio 104.1 FM and La Grande 1030 AM also provided excellent coverage in-market. We will continue to work, in partnership with MLS, with our national and local broadcast partners to ensure their commitment to deliver the best televised coverage of our matches for you each and every week. Thank you and Go City! |
This article includes lists of sovereign countries, territories, and supranational unions by Nobel laureates per capita. That is, lists of said entities ranked by their Nobel Prize winners in relation to their current population. The article does not account for a country's population at the time each prize was awarded. Nobel Prizes have been awarded over more than 100 years, during which time national populations have varied very significantly. Because the population of an entity is significantly higher than its Nobel laureates, the figures have been multiplied by 10 million. Thus, the number on the rightmost column should be read as the number of Nobel laureates of an entity for every 10 million of its population. The figures include all 908 Nobel Prizes awarded to individuals up to and including 8 October 2018. Note: Only sovereign countries are ranked; unranked entities are marked in italics. All prizes [ edit ] All five prizes (Chemistry, Literature, Peace, Physics, and Physiology or Medicine) and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences are considered. Scientific prizes [ edit ] Only the awards for Chemistry, Physics, Physiology or Medicine, and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences are considered. Inclusion criteria [ edit ] The list of Nobel laureates by country was compiled by BBC News using the following criteria:[1] Prizes are allocated to the country/countries stated on the winner's biography on the website of the Nobel Prize committee (www.nobelprize.org). Where the website mentions multiple countries in relation to a prize winner (country of birth; country of citizenship; country of residence at time of award) each of those countries is credited as having won the prize. Where a prize has multiple winners, the country (or countries) of each winner are credited. Prizes which were declined by the winner are included. Prizes won by organisations are not allocated to countries. Winners from Belarus and Ukraine are not credited to Russia. Winners born in what was then Poland but is now Ukraine are credited to Poland. Note: The BBC News figures included all Nobel Prizes awarded up to and including 8 October 2010. Nobel prizes announced after that date were added generally following the same criteria outlined above (see Updates section below for details). Corrections [ edit ] This is a list of corrections made to the original figures provided by BBC News: No award was attributed to Luxembourg, but, according to the Nobel Prize website, Gabriel Lippmann (Physics, 1908) was born in that country. [7] No award was attributed to Azerbaijan, but, according to the Nobel Prize website, Lev Landau (Physics, 1962) was born in the area that is now held by that country (then part of the Russian Empire). [8] The justification for this correction is that BBC News did credit Latvia for Wilhelm Ostwald's 1909 Chemistry Prize, even though his birthplace—Latvia's capital Riga—was by the time he was born (1853) also part of the Russian Empire. The justification for this correction is that BBC News did credit Latvia for Wilhelm Ostwald's 1909 Chemistry Prize, even though his birthplace—Latvia's capital Riga—was by the time he was born (1853) also part of the Russian Empire. Australia was credited with only one Nobel laureate in Physics, but up to and including 8 October 2010 there were two Physics laureates associated with that country: William Lawrence Bragg (1915) and Aleksandr Prokhorov (1964), both of whom were born there according to the Nobel Prize website.[9][10] This section details how Nobel Prizes announced after 8 October 2010 were added. 2010 update: Economic Sciences: 2 to the United States and 1 each to Cyprus, Denmark and the United Kingdom. 2011 update: Chemistry: 1 to Israel. Literature: 1 to Sweden. Peace: 2 to Liberia and 1 to Yemen. Physics: 3 to the United States and 1 to Australia. Physiology or Medicine: 2 to the United States and 1 each to Canada, France and Luxembourg. Economic Sciences: 2 to the United States. 2012 update: Physiology or Medicine: 1 each to Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. Physics: 1 each to France, Morocco and the United States. Chemistry: 2 to the United States. Literature: 1 to China. Peace: Not applicable. Economic Sciences: 2 to the United States. 2013 update: Physiology or Medicine: 2 to the United States and 1 to Germany. Physics: 1 each to Belgium and the United Kingdom. Chemistry: 3 to the United States, 2 to Israel, and 1 each to Austria, South Africa and the United Kingdom. Literature: 1 to Canada. Peace: Not applicable. Economic Sciences: 3 to the United States. 2014 update: Physiology or Medicine: 2 to Norway and 1 each to the United Kingdom and the United States. Physics: 3 to Japan and 1 to the United States. Chemistry: 2 to the United States and 1 each to Germany and Romania. Literature: 1 to France. Peace: 1 each to India, Pakistan and the United Kingdom. Economic Sciences: 1 to France. 2015 update: Physiology or Medicine: 1 each to China, Ireland, Japan and the United States. Physics: 1 each to Canada and Japan. Chemistry: 2 to the United States and 1 each to Sweden, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Literature: 1 each to Belarus and Ukraine. Peace: Not applicable. Economic Sciences: 1 each to the United Kingdom and the United States. 2016 update: Physiology or Medicine: 1 to Japan. Physics: 3 each to the United Kingdom and the United States. Chemistry: 1 each to France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. Peace: 1 to Colombia. Economic Sciences: 2 to the United States and 1 each to Finland and the United Kingdom. Literature: 1 to the United States. 2017 update: Physiology or Medicine: 3 to the United States. Physics: 3 to the United States and 1 to Germany. Chemistry: 1 each to Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Literature: 1 each to Japan and the United Kingdom. Peace: Not applicable. Economic Sciences: 1 to the United States. 2018 update: Physiology or Medicine: 1 each to Japan and the United States. Physics: 2 to the United States and 1 each to Canada and France. Chemistry: 2 to the United States and 1 to the United Kingdom. Literature: Not awarded. Peace: 1 each to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Germany and Iraq. Economic Sciences: 2 to the United States. See also [ edit ] References [ edit ] Further reading [ edit ] |
Thoughts on Python 3 I spent the last couple of days thinking about Python 3's current state a lot. While it might not appear to be the case, I do love Python as a language and especially the direction it's heading in. Python has been not only part of my life for the last couple of five years, it has been the largest part by far. Let there be a warning upfront: this is a very personal post. I counted a hundred instances of a certain capital letter in this text. That's because I am very grateful for all the opportunities I got over the last few years to travel the world, to talk to people and to share the spirit that an open source project like Python can drive innovation and make people happy. The whole Python community is amazing and I do not express that nearly as often enough. Quite the contrary actually. I love Python, I love discussing ways and implementations but I am not committing the project despite my commit bit. I am a pain in the ass at language summits, if I am attending them, and can see why my opinion would be unpopular. “Always complaining, not doing anything”. There is just so much stuff I would love to see Python do but at the end of the day, I'm a user of Python more than a developer. When you read my comments about Python 3 since it was released as the first version, you get the impression that I hate it and don't want to move to it. I do, but not in the state it's currently in. Since I learned my lesson that people link to articles long after the fact, let me first explain the situation in which Python 3 is as of writing: the release version of 3.2, the next version is 3.3 and there is no plan on ever having a Python 2.8. In fact there is even a PEP that specifies that a release will never happen. PyPy is making amazing progress but at the same time it continues to be a project that is so far from the architecture of other stuff that it will probably fight with acceptance problems for a longer time. In many ways PyPy is currently doing stuff that “you don't do”. And I think it's amazing. Why do we use Python? Why do we use Python? I think this is a very valid question which we don't ask ourselves often enough. I don't use Python because it's a language without faults. This year's PyCodeConf I spent a lot of time discussing stuff with Nick Coghlan at the last day's party. We were drunk but as a result of that the discussion was very honest to say the least. We both pretty much agreed on the fact that the Python language is with faults and that some of these faults are now being further worked on and in some regards even exposed. The “ yield from ” PEP was brought up as a perfect example where a questionable design decision (coroutines as generators) was further expanded to make it somewhat work. Yet even with the “ yield from ” changes they are still miles away from the user friendliness of greenlets. This discussion largely came from the talk “The Prejudgement of Programming Languages” by Gary Bernhardt on the same day at the conference. And we both agreed that Ruby's blocks are amazing design but for many reasons don't work that well in Python in its current design. I personally don't think we're using Python because it's an entirely beautiful and flawless language. In fact if you go back in time and look at some of the first versions of Python it's a very, very ugly language and it does not come as a surprise that not too many people took notice of Python in the early days. I think it's largely a miracle that the language took off to that extent. And here is why I think we use Python: because the language evolved ever so slightly over the years and had the right ideas. Early Python was horrible, there was no concept of iterators, there was not even a way to iterate over dictionaries without creating a intermediate list of all the keys. At one point exceptions were strings, the string methods were not methods but functions in a string module. The syntax for catching down exceptions haunts us to the latest iteration of the Python 2 language and Unicode was added too late and partially never. But it did so many things well. Even if not executed flawlessly, the whole idea of having modules with their own namespace was great. The multimethod based design of the language is still unmatched in many ways. The greatness of that design is not appreciated enough even though we benefit from that design on a daily basis. The language always did an amazing job at exposing the internals of the interpreter (tracebacks, stack frames, opcodes, code objects, the ast etc.) and in combination with the dynamic design it allows developers to quickly solve or debug problems in ways that are not working that well in other languages. The indentation based syntax of the language was often criticized, but seeing how many languages now show up with exactly that as a feature (think HAML, CoffeeScript and many more) shows that it's well received. Even when I sometimes don't agree with how Raymond implements certain stuff in the stdlib, his modules are state of the art and a huge part of why I use Python. I could not imagine having to use Python if I did not have access to the collections module or itertools. But the real reason why I loved and adored Python was the fact that I was looking forward to each new release like a child to Christmas. The small things and improvements blew my mind. Even benign things like the fact that you can now specify a starting index for the enumerate function made me appreciate a new release of Python. And all that with a strong focus of backwards compatibility. While we sometimes hate the fact that we have to import from __future__ it's that precise thing that made upgrades easy and painless. When I was using PHP I did not appreciate new releases at all. PHP would start introducing new built-in functions and with the total absence of namespaces in the old days, each release was hoping for no namespace collisions to show up (and I know I could have avoided them with prefixing, but that was before I learned basic things about software development). What changed? What changed that I stopped looking forward to Python releases? I cannot speak for anyone but me, but I noticed that I was not the only person that seemed to have changed the way they were thinking about releases. With Python 2.x releases I never really questioned what the core team was doing. Sure, some things were not well thought out, such as the implementation details of abstract base classes or their specific semantics, but in general that was criticism on a very high level. With Python 3 suddenly my general way of working with the language was changed by an outside force though. While I appreciated new features in the past, I never really started using them for a while since a lot of what I was doing was writing libraries. Using the latest and greatest was not an option. Werkzeug's code is still riddled with hacks to make it work on Python 2.3 even though the version requirement raised to 2.5 by now. I used to ship bugfixes for the standard library in my code since certain companies (Apple is notorious for that) would never update their interpreter unless there was a critical security issue. None of that was possible with Python 3. With Python 3 it's either developing for 2.x or 3.x. There is absolutely no middle ground in practical terms. When Python 3 was announced, Guido always talked about how amazing 2to3 was and how it would make porting easy. It turns out that 2to3 is one of the worst things that could have happened to Python. With Jinja2 I went through the pain of porting it with 2to3 and I deeply regret doing that now. In fact for my JSON Jinja spinoff project I reverted the hacks I did to make it work with 2to3 and will no longer use it. I am now (like many others) actively trying to have a codebase that runs both on 2.x and 3.x. Why? Because 2to3 is so incredible slow, integrates so badly into the whole process of testing and changes behavior depending on which Python 3 version you're deploying against and ultimately cannot be customized out of the box without applying black magic. It's a painful process that just takes the fun out of writing libraries. I loved hacking in Jinja2, but I totally stopped doing that the moment I had my Python 3 port ready since I was too afraid to break stuff. But right now the idea of a shared codebase clashes greatly with the fact that I have to support Python down to 2.5. Python 3 is in the spot where it changed just too much that it broke all our code and not nearly enough that it would warrant upgrading immediately. And in my absolutely personal opinion Python 3.3/3.4 should be more like Python 3 and Python 2.8 should happen and be a bit more like Python 3. Because as it stands, Python 3 is the XHTML of the programming language world. It's incompatible to what it tries to replace but does not offer much besides being more “correct”. The Thing with Unicode Obviously the big change in Python 3 is how Unicode is being handled. While it appears that forcing Unicode on everybody is great, it's also a very unrealistic view of the world. It's unrealistic because in the real world we do not only deal with bytes and Unicode, we also deal with strings of a known encoding. What's worse is that Python 3 in many ways started to become the Fisher Price of programming languages. Some features were removed because the core team was afraid that people would hurt themselves. And that came at the cost of removing functionality that was widely used. To give a very concrete example codec operations in 3.x as of now are limited to Unicode <-> bytes but not bytes <-> bytes or Unicode <-> Unicode. This appears to make sense but if you look closer it's removed functionality that was badly needed. One of the great features of the codec system in Python 2 was that it was written with the idea in mind to allow dealing with countless different encodings and algorithms in various different ways. You could use a codec to encode and decode a string, but you could also ask the codec for an object that provided operations on streams and other partial data. And the coded system worked on both content encodings and transfer encodings. You can write a new codec, register it and every part of the system would automatically know about it. Whoever implemented an HTTP library in Python will have delightedly noticed that you were able use the codecs both to decode UTF-8 (an actual character encoding) as well as gzip (a compression algorithm). And not only on strings, but also on generators or file objects if you knew how. In Python 3 that just does not work at the moment. They not only removed the functions from the string object, the byte -> byte codecs themselves were removed as well without replacement. And it took close to three years, if I am not mistaken, to even acknowledge the problem as the reintroduction is now being discussed for 3.3. Then Unicode was introduced in places where it did not belong. Case in point there are the filesystem layer and the URLs module. And then a bunch of Unicode support was written with the mindset of a programmer from the 70s. The filesystem on UNIX systems is byte based. That's currently how it works and this is what we have to deal with. Now obviously it would be great to change this, but without breaking everybody's code there is no way to do that. Because specifying an encoding is not nearly enough to make a filesystem Unicode-aware. There is still the issue of normalization forms and the general question about how much case sensitivity should be preserved if normalization is already in place. Now this all would not be a problem if the bytestring type would still exist on Python 3, but it does not. It was replaced by the byte type which does not behave like a string. It behaves like a datatype that was written to punish people that deal with byte data that also is in text form. It does not appear to be designed to provide developers with tools to solve these problems. And these problems are very real. So if you now operate on the filesystem in Python 3, even with the new surrogate escape encoding it feels weird at times. It's a painful procedure and it's painful because the tools are missing to deal with the mess. Python 3 basically tells you “Buddy, your filesystem is now Unicode”, but it does not provide you with ways to deal with the mess. It does not even tell you out of the box if Python fakes the filesystem Unicode support or not, it does not tell you if normalization happens, it does not tell you how you are supposed to compare filenames. It works in clinical testing conditions, but it falls flat in the real world. Traditionally my mac has a American keyboard layout, American locale, American everything basically — with the exception of how numbers and dates are formatted. The result of that (and I suppose the fact that I upgraded my mac since Tiger) I had the situation that when I logged into my remote server the locale was set to the string “POSIX”. What is “POSIX” you are asking? I have no freaking idea. But the end result of that was that Python was about as clueless as me and decided to go with “ANSI_X3.4_1968”. This also marked the day that I learned that ASCII goes by many names. Turns out that's indeed just another name for ASCII. And lo and behold my remote Python interpreter did not show the entries properly from a folder which internationalized filenames. Why did they exist there in the first place? Because I dumped Wikipedia articles in there with their original names. And when I was running that I was using Python 3.1 which was silently hiding files instead of giving exceptions or hacking around it. But it did not end with the filesystem not working. Python also uses the environment variables (which as you know where garbage) to decide on the default encoding of files. I was asking that question at a conference of a couple of attendees if they would want to guess the default encoding for textfiles on Python 3. Out of my incredible small sample size, more than 90% were sure that it would be UTF-8. No it's not, it's platform-dependent on the locale. Straight from the 70s I'm telling you. I logged on two of the servers under my control for the fun of it and it turns out that one of them has a latin1 encoding when logged in from the console itself, which switches to a latin15 encoding when logged in via ssh as root and UTF-8 if logged in as myself. Bloody amazing and totally my fault. But I am pretty sure I am not the only person that has a server with magic encoding switching since SSH by default forwards the locale settings on login. And why am I writing this here? Because all in all I have to argue that the Unicode support in Python 3 is causing me tons more problems than it ever did in Python 2. If one sticks to the Python 2 Zen of “explicit is better than implicit” then Unicode becomes a non-issue in terms of decoding and encoding. Here is how the part of every application looks like that talks to other services: bytes come in, Unicode goes out. You can explain that. You can explain that because you document it. You document that working with text data internally as Unicode makes sense. You tell the user that the world out there is harsh and based on bytes, so you need to encode and decode when talking to it. It's for a moment a novel concept to new users but if documented properly it's also one that does not cause too many issues. Why can I say that? Because all my software forces Unicode on users since at least 2006. And the amount of support requests I got about Unicode are not even close to the amount of support requests I got about dealing with Python packages or the import system. And even with distutils2 this is still a much bigger problem in the Python-land than Unicode is. Quite the contrary. Hiding Unicode away from the user in Python 3 might seem like the natural thing to do, but now people are even less exposed to how Unicode works and I am not so sure if the implicit defaults are a good thing. Python 3 is certainly going in the right direction now. I observed that discussions are going on to reintroduce some byte based APIs. Naively my idea was always to have a third string type in Python 3 which would just be called estr or something like that. It would behave just like the Python 2 string type. It would store bytes and it would have the familiar string API. But it also has an encoding attached and uses that encoding to transparently and implicitly decode into a Unicode string and coerce into a bytes object. It would be the awesomeness that could make porting easy. But it does not exist and Python's interpreter internals are not designed to make a new string type a possibility. “We broke their World” Nick talked about how the Python core team broke the web developer's world. The core team broke the world in so far as they broke Python's backwards compatibility. But they did not break our world any more than the other developer's world was broken. It's the same world. The web is based on bytes with encodings but that's true for low level protocols in general. Talking to a lot of low level stuff happens in bytes with an encoding. However what was changed was the mentality which we should follow when dealing with these layers. In Python 2 it was very common to allow Unicode objects when talking on these layers and encode them on demand to bytes or the other way round. This had the nice effect which enabled us to speed certain operations up by encoding or decoding early and pass it to an otherwise already Unicode aware pipeline. It enabled in many ways the functionality of the Python core serializer modules. Pickle, for instance, talks to streams that support both bytes and Unicode. So does simplejson to some degree. All that changes in Python 3 where you suddenly have separate Unicode streams and byte streams. Many APIs can't survive on the way to Python 3 without major changes to their interface. True, it's a more correct way to work, but it makes everything more complex and does not achieve much besides making it more correct. Having worked with the IO layer in Python 3, I am convinced it's awesome but does not work in the real world nearly as well as the Python 2 one did. I might be biased of course because I worked so much with Python 2 and so little with Python 3 but having to write more code for the same functionality is generally a bad sign. And in Python 3 I currently have to, all things considered. But Porting Works! Of course porting to Python 3 works. It has been proven again and again. But just because something is possible and passes the tests does not mean it's well executed. I am a person with faults and I make tons of mistakes. But what I do is taking pride in trying to work out APIs that I love using. I sometimes catch myself rewriting the same code over and over again to make it more user friendly. With Flask I spent an incredible amount of time fine tuning certain core features to a degree where some would talk about obsession. I want it to work perfectly. When I use an API for a common task I want it to have the same level of perfection that goes into the design of a Porsche. Yes. It's developer facing stuff, but a product must be designed well from top to bottom. I can make my stuff “work” on Python 3, and I would still hate it. I want to make it work. I want to feel the same level of enjoyment in using my libraries or other people's libraries on Python 3 I had in Python 2. Jinja2 on Python 3 for instance does not use the IO layer properly since that would be impossible to do on both 2.x and 3.x with the same codebase without switching out implementations at runtime. Now templates are opened in binary mode on both 2.x and 3.x since that's the only reliable thing to do and then Jinja2 decodes from that binary stream itself. It kinda works since we normalize newlines anyways but I am pretty sure that if people would be doing that on Windows without normalizing newlines themselves they might end up creating files with mixed newlines without realizing. Embracing Python 3 Python 3 changed stuff. This is a fact and likewise is that Python 3 is without the doubt the future in which we have to walk. A lot of stuff in Python 3 is promising. The greatly improved import system, the introduction of __qualname__ , the new way to distribute Python packages, the unified representation of strings in memory. But right now porting a library to Python 3 currently feels like developing the Python 2 library and making a shitty version for Python 3 to prove that it works there. Jinja2 on Python 3 is by all means (pardon my French) “fucking awful”. It's horrible and I should be ashamed to use it. For example Jinja2 loads two one megabyte regular expressions into memory in the Python 3 version and I did not care when I released it. I just wanted it to kinda work there. Why do I have a one megabyte regular expression in Jinja2? Because the Python regular expression engine is unable to match on Unicode categories. And without that essential feature I am left with two choices: limit myself to ASCII identifiers and not support Python 3's new Unicode identifiers or generate a huge regular expression with all the character definitions by hand. And this is the prime example of why Python 3 for me right now is just not there yet. It does not provide to tools to deal with the new stuff it provides. Python 3 badly needs Unicode-aware regular expressions, it needs APIs to deal with locales now that we embrace Unicode. It needs an improved path module that exposes more behavior of the underlying file system. It has to be bolder and force a default encoding on text files that is not depending on the execution environment. It has to provide more tools to explicitly deal with encoded strings. It needs support for IRIs and not just URLs. It needs that more than “ yield from ”. There need to be helpers to deal with the transcoding that is necessary to map URLs to the filesystem. But it might also need a Python 2.8 release that brings it a bit closer to Python 3. In my mind there is only one realistic upgrade path: the one where the libraries and applications on Python 3 are perfectly Unicode aware and integrated into the new ecosystem that Python 3 provides. Don't let the Inexperienced lead the Way Python 3's biggest fault is that it's binary incompatible with Python 2. And by that I mean that you cannot have a Python 2 and a Python 3 interpreter in the same process space. And the result of that is that you cannot have a Gimp with a Python 2 scripting interface as well as a Python 3. Same goes with vim, same goes with Blender. We just can't. There might be half-baked hacks with having a separate process and doing fancy IPC, but nobody does that. The result of that is that the kind of developer that will lead the Python 3 adoption was forced to use Python 3. And that developer is not necessarily the person that knows Python well. Because let's be honest: Python 2 is currently where the money is at. Even if we would be hacking on Python 3 code at night, the day job would be Python 2. For the time being at least. If, however, a bunch of graphic designers start scripting Blender in Python 3 there is your adoption. I really do not want to see the Cheeseshop being tortured with bad ports of libraries to Python 3. I really do not want to see another Jinja2 on there and a lot of the code that is currently being ported to work on both 2.x and 3.x is just horrible to look at. Hacks like sys.exc_info()[1] to get around syntax differences, hacks to convert literals at runtime to work on 2.x and 3.x and a lot more. It's not only bad for runtime performance, it ruins what Python stands for: readable code, beautiful code, no hacks. |
OSSINING, N.Y. – As the Vatican accuses American nuns of spending too much time on human rights and helping the poor, some Catholic activists who support them are organizing vigils and petitions to persuade the church to change its mind. "With the sisters, they've worked their fingers to the bone. They deserve more than this," said Eileen Sammon, a parishioner at St. Ann's Church here and a former Dominican nun. "They're like a helicopter hierarchy hovering over the sisters instead of cleaning their own house," referring to the continuing problem of priests' sexual abuse of children. Sammon is organizing a prayer vigil Tuesday in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan with the hope that Cardinal Timothy Dolan will contact the Vatican and ask to have the reprimand rescinded. Fifty-six years ago, the Vatican's Congregation for Religious asked Catholic nuns in the United States to create a national conference. The organization, now called the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, is a unified voice for sisters across the country who aid the poor, nurse the sick, perform missionary work in developing nations, educate students and advocate against violence. The group, which includes about 80% of all Catholic sisters in the United States, is now being accused of focusing too much time and energy on social justice issues and not enough promoting the teachings of the church on right to life, human sexuality and other issues. The church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which issued the assessment last month, criticized the conference for being "silent on the right to life from conception to natural death" and for not having the church's views on family life and human sexuality on its agenda "in a way that promotes Church teaching." "Moreover, occasional public statements by the LCWR that disagree with or challenge positions taken by the Bishops, who are the Church's authentic teachers of faith and morals, are not compatible with its purpose," it said. Archbishop Peter Sartain of Seattle has been appointed to bring reforms to the conference. He will help revise its statutes, which the Vatican will have to approve, and review the group's plans and programs to ensure its "mission is fulfilled in accord with Church teachings and discipline." A spokesman for Sartain said the archbishop would not make any public comments on the matter before he meets privately with the Leadership Conference. In a statement released by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops last month, Sartain said the ministry of the religious sisters, especially in the United States, "is deeply respected and paramount to the mission of the Church." He hopes to be of service to the Leadership Conference and the Vatican "as we face areas of concern to all," he said. Chicago-based Call To Action, the country's largest Catholic Church justice organization, has joined with other groups on what it calls the Nun Justice Project. The website —www.nunjustice.org— encourages members to organize or join vigils leading up to the Leadership Conference's national board meeting, which starts May 29. The project's goal is to get 57,000 signatures — one for every sister — on an online petition. As of Monday, more than 48,000 people had signed. "From my point of view, what the Vatican's trying to do is crack down and prevent open dialogue within the church," said Jim FitzGerald, executive director of Call to Action. A relatively small group of people are trying to determine what's Catholic and what's not, he said. "Women religious, they've been the backbone of the church," FitzGerald said. "When it comes to putting Gospel into action, women religious have been doing that for so long." Sister Eileen Finnerty of St. Ann's parish, an Ursuline sister, said she is confident that with the collective wisdom of the conference, it will "make a choice that's in the best interest of women religious and women in the church in general." Sister Mary Murray, president of the Dominican Sisters of Sparkill, N.Y., said she is confident the Leadership Conference could work with the church. "We're all looking forward to a very hopeful, positive outcome," she said. |
There are spades for digging, blocks for building and a drill for tunnelling or demolition work. Ace of Spades a bit like Minecraft, you might think. Well, there are also rifles for shooting, grenades for exploding and sniper rifles for long range headpopping. It’s a team deathmatch game on large, destructible maps! But when I played it last week, Ace of Spades put me in mind of something else entirely. Playing on a server full of games journalists*, I was surprised to see how quickly people fell into roles. Teams spawn at what I’ll loosely term a base. On one map it’s an actual building that is on the moon, on another it’s a tree. My personal favourite of the three team deathmatch maps we played has a tower at each end and bridges between them. Whichever map we playing, I’d always hear the tink tink tink of a pickaxe on stone. Somebody was digging. I never found out who it was, but he was persistent. By the ten minute mark of a game, every time some blew my bonce off from afar I’d reappear at the base and find fresh tunnels and shafts carved into it. And still, tink tink tink. The sound was the only proof of his existence. He was never seen, no matter how deep into his twisted passages we wandered. He had become erosion. The thing is, nobody asked that man to dig and I don’t even know if he knew why he was doing it. He seemed happy though and occasionally the fractured scenery formed a decent vantage point or secret exit route, so perhaps there was purpose to the tinkering. Maybe he’s still digging. It was as a bridge fell to pieces, pelted by bazooka fire from our gloating enemies, that I finally banished all comparisons to Minecraft/Infiniminer from my mind. Ace of Spades is much more like a realtime, 3d Worms game. And it’s the best Worms games for ages. It doesn’t have the crazy weapons and the physics are more like those in Scorched Earth than either Minecraft or Team 17’s perpetual product line, but it allows players to build a home, a castle or a warren and then allows everyone else to burn it to the ground. The Darkside, it used to be called, that side of Worms play. The people who dug deep and planted mines, as if it were ever possible to hide when all the world was war. In Ace of Spades, where there are no turns to take and fortifications can be much more grand, having a few Darksiders about is great. Each class has four prefabricated constructions they can build immediately and if you’re a sniper, like me, you might find that one of your teammates just drops perfect little bunker-towers all over the place. Go teamwork! For those who aren’t aware of the background, Ace of Spades has been available for a while. Publishers Jagex refer to the original version as a prototype and it was a prototype that I spent a great deal of time with, enjoying the tension of its WWI-esque trench warfare. The announcement of the commercial release concerned me a little because screenshots showed dragons and massive explosions. It’s not that I don’t like those things but the limited toolset available to the tiny, cuboid soldiers were part of the game’s charm. The dragon doesn’t fly around, smashing levels to bits; it’s part of the scenery, a sculpture looming over a bridge. The explosions are never particularly huge either and guns are still the most important weapon. Dynamite provides the biggest bang and even that will only take chunks out of the larger buildings, while guns will only chip away, damaging blocks before they destroy them completely. In the original, a spade, a gun and some rudimentary block-stacking transformed the voxel landscapes into nerve-wracking battlefields, but even though there are now four classes, and a selection of modes and maps, the core of the game hasn’t been lost. It’s more frantic than I remember and it doesn’t take long for the world to be pockmarked with craters, but it’s still possible to play patiently, either as an engineer or a sniping scout. Of the maps we played, my favourites had valleys and/or hills, allowing players to hide rather than just run toward the action with their fingers on the triggers. There’s a moonbase and that didn’t seem to work as well, although low gravity means it’s possible to infiltrate the enemy’s structures in surprising ways. It all felt a bit too empty though, like a large expanse of snow with the occasional mast sticking out of it. Far better is the zombie mode. I’m going to assume that you already knew there was a zombie mode because this is a computer game. We only saw one map that supports zombies, although there may well be more, and it was a SPOOKY mansion in the middle of a CREEPY graveyard. One player spawns as a zombie, selected randomly, and instead of having a crude, cuboid gun obscuring part of his screen, that lucky specimen has two brilliantly corny grasping corpse-hands to punch the world with. Zombies are very good at smashing things and they run extremely fast, so the defending players are likely to see the bastard thing boring through their fortress like a bullet through butter. The zombie’s victims respawn as zombies and if everyone gets chomped before time runs out, the dead win. In my experience, zombies will not try to eat people though, they will simply barrel through the ground floor of their home, trying to destroy every support so the whole thing tumbles to the ground. Damage is persistent across rounds too, so when the game is up and the next random zombie is chosen, the once mighty mansion might be a pile of rubble. Despite all the possibilities that construction, minefields and the like offer, Ace of Spades is a team game that doesn’t require a great deal of communication. It’d be easy to jump into a map with a group of strangers and immediately fit in because playing in the world is a pleasure in itself. Watching a platform fall off a cliff when a sniper takes out the last block holding it in place is entertaining and there’s skill in performing the perfect headshot across the generously sized maps. It’s not quite as bracing as the original version was and I miss what that game used to be, but it’s another clever use of destructible/constructible worlds that really doesn’t rely on comparisons to Minecraft. It’s not a particularly attractive game, with no clear artistic direction beyond BLOCKS, but I’m definitely looking forward to playing more. Like I said – it brings back fond memories of the original Worms. Teams blowing the crap out of each other and the environment, building bunkers and trenches that might as well be sand, and probably won’t survive the next wave of carnage. If you’re going to bring that concept into 3d, I reckon this is a damn good way to do it. I’m not sure how many maps will be included, and nor are Jagex yet, but the game will be on Steam and will, so we are told, make full use of the Steam Workshop for map sharing and, hopefully, mods. *or if not journalists, whatever term you reckon fits Ace of Spades is out in early December. |
There are many reasons to be deeply worried about a Donald Trump presidency. But if he makes the right choices, he could fundamentally alter U.S. foreign policy for the better. Trump campaigned against America’s powerful foreign policy community—what one of President Obama’s advisors derisively labeled “the Blob.” Its members include prominent Democrats and Republicans with similar views on foreign policy. He accused them of producing “one foreign policy disaster after another,” and promised to “develop a new foreign policy direction for our country.” This was precisely the message many voters wanted to hear, and the president-elect now has the opportunity to change how the United States deploys its power around the world. Over the past twenty-five years, American leaders have pursued a policy of liberal hegemony, which calls for the United States to dominate the entire globe. This strategy assumes every region of the world matters greatly for American security, and it calls for extending the U.S. security umbrella to nearly any country that wants protection as well as trying to spread democracy far and wide. In practice, this objective means toppling regimes and then doing nation building. Small wonder the United States has been at war for two out of every three years since the Cold War ended. Liberal hegemony is a bankrupt strategy. The United States has worked to topple regimes and promote democracy in six countries in the greater Middle East: Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen. Each attempt has been an abject failure: wars are raging in every one of those countries except Egypt, which is once again a military dictatorship. This campaign has also made America’s terrorism problem worse: Al Qaeda has morphed and multiplied, and we are now at war with ISIS, which is largely a consequence of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. In Europe, the United States foolishly tried to integrate Georgia and Ukraine into the West, precipitating an unnecessary crisis with Russia that upset the peace in eastern Europe and made it harder for Moscow and Washington to cooperate on other matters, like ending the bloodletting in Syria. Spreading democracy, especially by force, almost always fails. It inevitably involves large-scale social engineering in societies that most Americans poorly understand. Dismantling and then replacing existing political institutions inevitably creates winners and losers, and the latter usually take up arms in opposition, which forces the U.S. military to wage costly counterinsurgency campaigns that are extremely difficult to win. The end result is precisely the sort of quagmire we faced in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Trump administration should abandon liberal hegemony and adopt a realist foreign policy. Realism is chiefly concerned with America’s position in the global balance of power, and it shuns doing social engineering inside other countries. Instead, Washington would respect the sovereignty of other states even when it disagrees with their internal policies. Americans prize their own sovereignty, which is why they recoiled at the idea that Russia might be interfering in the recent presidential election. The United States should treat other countries according to the same standard and respect their sovereignty as well. Instead of trying to garrison the world and spread democracy, the Trump administration should concentrate on maintaining the balance of power in the three regions that are vital to U.S. security: Europe, East Asia and the Persian Gulf. East Asia and Europe are important because they are the key centers of wealth and have long been home to the world’s other great powers. The Persian Gulf is a core strategic interest, because it produces about 30 percent of the world’s oil, which is a critical resource for the functioning of the global economy. America’s main goal in each of these regions should be to prevent the rise of a regional hegemon. The good news is that no country is strong enough to dominate Europe or the Gulf for the foreseeable future. Germany’s power will decline over time, mainly because of its shrinking population, while Russia has similar demographic problems and an economy that is too dependent on gas and oil revenues. Even if Russia modernizes its economy and its population grows in the years ahead—big ifs—it will still be unable to project significant military power beyond eastern Europe. And even then, the Europeans themselves can afford to build the military forces necessary to check Moscow’s ambitions. Thus, the Trump administration should encourage the Europeans to take responsibility for their own security, while gradually reducing the remaining U.S. troops there. Trump should also make a concerted effort to improve relations with Russia, which is not a serious threat to American interests. Indeed, the two countries should be allies, as they have a common interest in combatting terrorism, ending the Syrian conflict and keeping Iran (and other countries) from acquiring nuclear weapons. Most importantly, the United States needs Russia to help contain a rising China. Given the history of competition between Russia and China, and the long border they share, Moscow is likely to join in this effort once Washington abandons the misguided foreign policy that has driven it closer to Beijing. There is also no looming threat to dominate the Gulf, which means the new administration should move most of America’s military forces out of that region and station them over the horizon. The United States would monitor the regional balance of power from afar, but only reintroduce troops in the event a potential hegemon appeared on the scene. This policy of offshore balancing, coupled with quitting the regime-change business, would also ameliorate America’s terrorism problem, which is fueled in part by the U.S. military presence on Arab territory as well as the endless wars the United States has waged in the greater Middle East. The Trump administration should let local powers deal with ISIS and limit its efforts to providing intelligence, training and arms. ISIS is a serious threat to them but a minor problem for America, and the only long-term solution is building better local institutions, something the United States cannot provide. Regarding Syria, Washington should let Moscow take the lead in shutting down that conflict, which means helping the Assad government reestablish control over most of the country. A Syria run by Assad poses no threat to the United States; indeed, both Democratic and Republican presidents have long experience dealing with the Assad regime. If the civil war continues it will be largely Moscow’s problem. The new president should also work to improve relations with Iran. It is not in the U.S. interest for Iran to abandon, or not renew, the nuclear deal it recently struck and race to acquire a bomb. Tehran is more likely to take that step if it fears an American attack. After all, nuclear weapons are the ultimate deterrent. Therefore, the United States should seek to mend fences with Iran to take away its main incentive for acquiring nuclear weapons. There is bad news, however, and it concerns East Asia. If China continues its impressive rise, it is likely to try to dominate Asia the way the United States dominates the Western Hemisphere. The Trump administration must go to great lengths to prevent China from becoming a regional hegemon. Ideally, Washington would rely on countries in Asia to contain China, but that strategy will not work. Not only is China likely to be far more powerful than its neighbors, but also they are located far from each other, making it difficult for them to form an effective balancing coalition. The United States will have to coordinate these efforts and throw its considerable weight behind them. American leadership is indispensable for dealing with an increasingly powerful China. The fact that no country threatens to dominate either Europe or the Gulf is a blessing, as it not only allows Washington to concentrate its military forces in Asia, but also allows American policymakers to concentrate their strategic thinking on how to prevent China from becoming a peer competitor. That mission should be of paramount importance for the United States in the years ahead. Unfortunately, it is not clear whether the Trump administration will be able to adopt the realist strategy described above. The foreign-policy community, which has deep roots and cuts across both of the major political parties, will go to enormous lengths to tame the new president and make sure he sticks with liberal hegemony. Should it prevail, there will be more terrorism, more failed attempts to spread democracy, more lost wars, and more death and destruction across the greater Middle East. And most importantly, it will be difficult for the United States to concentrate on containing China, mainly because liberal hegemony sets no priorities. It calls for the American military to be everywhere. Let us hope Trump is able to defeat the Blob once he is in the White House, as easily as he did in the campaign. |
Sen. Lindsey Graham Lindsey Olin GrahamWhite House pleads with Senate GOP on emergency declaration GOP lawmaker says panel to investigate drug company gaming of patent system Sixteen years later, let's finally heed the call of the 9/11 Commission MORE (R-S.C.) said Thursday that the investigation into alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russia appears to be a criminal investigation. “It seems to me now to be considered a criminal investigation,” Graham told reporters. Graham's remarks came shortly after the Senate met with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel on the Russia investigation Wednesday. Graham said that the creation of the special counsel will likely hamper congressional probes. ADVERTISEMENT “I think a lot of members want the special counsel to be appointed but don’t understand that you’re pretty well knocked out of the game. And that’s probably the way it should be,” he continued. President Trump said Thursday that Mueller’s appointment to lead the investigation “hurts the country.” |
Richard Drew / AP Trader Frank O'Connell works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday. The stock market is getting a little bumpy as the government shutdown wears on, but if Congress pushes a deadline on the federal debt limit in two weeks, you can buckle up for something much scarier — maybe even a replay of the 2008 financial crisis. The difference: The shutdown, a dispute over the federal budget and the new health care law, will probably take a small bite out of economic growth. Messing with the debt limit would alarm investors around the world who lend the United States trillions of dollars. Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist for the brokerage BTIG, told his clients in a note Wednesday morning that it appears increasingly likely that the fight over the shutdown will spill into a battle over the debt limit. “We had said we were starting to get nervous,” he said. “If this continues, nervousness will have to give way to fright.” You don’t have to look far into the past to remember what fright looks like: During the crisis of 2008, the Dow Jones industrial average lurched up and down by hundreds of points in minutes. It lost almost 5,000 points from the collapse of Lehman Brothers to the market bottom six months later. Nothing remotely that bad so far, but investors are feeling edgy. On Wednesday, the Dow sank 58 points. It was down as much as 146 points earlier in the day. A report on job growth in the private sector came in lower than expected, which suggests that the economic recovery is weaker than market analysts believed. The shutdown has left an estimated 800,000 federal employees home without pay, money they would otherwise be pouring back into the economy. And it has made other Americans, even those whose jobs are unaffected, worried about the economy. President Barack Obama told CNBC on Wednesday that he is “exasperated” by the shutdown and warned Wall Street that the country is “in trouble.” It was just two weeks ago, on Sept. 18, that the Dow set an all-time closing high of 15,676. As worries about the shutdown and corporate profits have grown, the Dow has slid to 15,133. That’s about 3.5 percent, less than what happened when the federal government shut down for a total of four weeks in 1995 and 1996. The real concern comes later this month, when the government exhausts its authority to borrow money — which it does by selling U.S. Treasury bonds and bills to investors around the world. To keep borrowing and paying the bills, Congress must raise the federal debt limit, which is $16.7 trillion. Already, the Treasury Department has started tinkering with some of its financial tools to buy a little time. But Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has warned that the government will out be of options on Oct. 17. This may sound familiar. Republicans in Congress faced off with the White House in the summer of 2011 over the debt limit. The credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded its rating of U.S. government bonds for the first time in history. That sent the stock market into its worst convulsions since 2008, including a drop of 635 points in the Dow on the first day of trading after the S&P downgrade. S&P has already warned this week that political brinksmanship is exactly the reason that the United States has never recovered the top-of-the-line AAA credit rating it lost two years ago. If the Oct. 17 deadline passes without a deal on the debt limit, S&P warned that it could classify the United States as being in “sovereign default.” Hugh Johnson, the chief investment officer and chief economist at Hugh Johnson Advisors, a financial management company in Albany, N.Y., warned that such a downgrade could send the stock market into hysterics. And if a downgrade forces investors around the world to dump their U.S. bonds, interest rates could spike. In the 2011 crisis, the reverse happened: Interest rates fell because investors determined that there was still no safer place in the world to put their money than U.S. bonds. Johnson said he thinks such a silver lining is unlikely this time. Erskine Bowles, who served as White House chief of staff under President Clinton, told CNBC on Wednesday that hitting the debt ceiling would be “really bad” — rattling faith in the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. “The shutdown is bad. It’s painful. It does hurt some people. It costs the taxpayers some real money,” he said. “But it’s not catastrophic. We hit this debt ceiling, that’s catastrophic.” So where does that leave everyday investors — the tens of millions of Americans whose retirement savings are tied up in stocks through 401(k) accounts? Johnson told NBC News that he’s telling customers to do their best to ignore the antics in Washington. Try to relax, he said, because the odds are that all of this will be resolved. Don’t try to buy and sell the daily swings in the market — that’s never a good long-term strategy. Keep your eyes on the overall health of the economy. “Try to be calm and try to be rational,” he said, “when those in Washington are not.” This story was originally published on |
.- The numbers are in: almost 600 Catholic men will be ordained priests for the U.S. in 2015, an increase of more than 100 from last year. Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Raleigh, N.C. said April 7 that the increase in ordination numbers is “encouraging.” The bishop, who heads the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations, noted that those to be ordained cited positive influences like “very high” support from their family, parish priests and Catholic schools. The 595 men to be ordained in 2015 is an increase of 25 percent from 2014, when 477 men were ordained to the priesthood. In 2013, 497 men were ordained Catholic priests, the U.S. bishops’ conference reports. A survey from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, based at Georgetown University, received responses from 411 of the men: 317 prospective ordinands for 120 different dioceses as well as 94 ordinands who are vowed religious. The median age of the priests-to-be is 31, a slight decrease from past years. Respondents to the survey said they first began to consider a vocation to the priesthood at the age of 17 and received encouragement to pursue a vocation from an average of four people. Most said a parish priest encouraged them, while under half said friends, parishioners, and mothers had encouraged them in their vocations. Most have been Catholic since infancy, though seven percent were converts. Eighty-four percent said both of their parents were Catholic, while about 37 percent said they had a relative who is a priest or vowed religious. Half attended Catholic elementary schools. They were somewhat more likely than other Catholics to have attended a Catholic high school and were much more likely to have attended a Catholic college than other U.S. Catholics. Almost 80 percent had been an altar server, while half had served as a lector. Seventy percent said they prayed the rosary regularly before they entered seminary, while a similar number said they participated in Eucharistic adoration before entering the seminary. Almost 70 percent identified their race as Caucasian, European American or White. Fourteen percent identified as Hispanic or Latino, while 10 percent said they were of Asian or Pacific Islander background. About 60 percent of 2015 ordinands had completed college before entering seminary. Father W. Shawn McKnight, executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations, voiced concern about new seminarians’ student loan debt. About 26 percent had educational debt when they entered seminary, averaging $22,500. “Considering the high percentage of the men ordained already having earned an undergraduate degree, it will be important to find ways to assist in debt reduction in the future,” Fr. McKnight said. |
My name is Jeremy Blum and I’m the founder here at New World. Back in June of last year I wrote about the state of our games, starting what I hope will become a tradition here. We find it important that our audience understands our goals as a team, and how they impact the decisions we make. What started as a small 12 person indie team developing Insurgency has grown into a 36 person team developing multiple projects, and we still remain financially independent developing our own IPs. Getting to this point has not been an easy road. Even over the past eight months we have learned a lot. We would like to give you all a glimpse behind the scenes, and share some insights about the future of our games. State of Insurgency One of the intentions we’ve always had with Insurgency was to take it further and bring it to console. It was clear to us that Source Engine would never support next-gen console platforms such as PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, and that an engine switch would be necessary for this. With Valve moving on to Source 2, it was also clear to us that Source Engine would not improve technologically, and in order to provide our players with a technological upgrade we would have to look elsewhere. When we decided to make a sequel for Insurgency on Unreal Engine 4, despite it being consistent with our vision for the game since the beginning, it became immediately clear that it was inconsistent with another vision of ours: continued post-release development of Insurgency. We had established a precedent by being committed to our game for a long time after release, delivering numerous major content updates over a span of two years. We had a long list of things we still wanted to add and improve even at the end of this period, some of which we had shared with our community. After announcing the Insurgency sequel, we recognized we were stuck between Insurgency on Source and the reality of having a sequel on the way. On one hand, our community was still expecting things from us for Insurgency on Source. On the other hand, continued post-release development didn’t make a whole lot of sense when we wanted to give our players good reasons to play the sequel. In hindsight, it would have made a lot of sense to make a more calculated decision about what our approach would be a year ago when we started development on Insurgency: Sandstorm. We could have stalled development on Sandstorm and focused on fulfilling our final objectives for the Source version, or gone full force into the sequel’s development and openly discontinue development of Insurgency for Source. Instead, we tried something else, which we thought was the right move at the time. We decided that we would try to accomplish both. We would work toward fulfilling our commitments to the Insurgency community, and also dive into the sequel. Looking back, the approach we decided to take at this critical moment was a mistake. Insurgency has been successful in many ways. The game has established a niche in a crowded FPS genre, selling over 3 million units and achieving thousands of concurrent players at any time. We are incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished. However, we see this miscue as a failure on our part, one we hope to learn from going forward. In the interest of not making the same mistake twice, we have decided that from this point forward we will officially discontinue the development of new features/content for Insurgency on Source Engine. From this point forward, we will continue to fix bugs and exploits that arise, but we will not commit to any further changes or additions to Insurgency on Source Engine. The competitive systems and some of the other plans we have pursued for Insurgency will instead be incorporated into the design of Insurgency: Sandstorm. In addition to a fresh new environment with diverse new characters, weapons and factions, Insurgency: Sandstorm will continue the multiplayer and cooperative experience of its predecessor. We aim to push the franchise in a new direction with an exciting new story mode. We are designing it for cooperative play with friends, both split-screen and online. We’ve gone through a few story iterations and have finally settled on a compelling experience that we’re excited about. Not only will it capture Insurgency’s strengths with regards to gameplay, but we also hope to move people with a unique story with interesting new perspectives. We’re excited to share more with you when we are a little further along. The process of bringing Insurgency to a new engine, designing the game from the ground up, and developing a story has been a great challenge for us. We have learned a ton about new aspects of game development which interest us, and which we’re excited to put into our work going forward. While we don’t have any news on a release date, we are making great progress and there should be a press release emerging very soon with more information and a few new pieces of media. State of Day of Infamy Pursuing Day of Infamy as a project was always a no-brainer for us. Even as I was assembling the team that would go on to develop the Red Orchestra mod for Unreal Tournament 2003, what the Day of Defeat mod for Half-Life had established was a major influence. This influence later extended over to the Insurgency mod for Half-Life 2, and later the commercial version of Insurgency. As you can see, Day of Defeat had a big influence on our team as developers especially when we were first starting out. And now we get to ask ourselves: If the original Day of Defeat mod had gone more in Insurgency’s direction, with its core movement and weapon mechanics, what would that experience be like? What happens when you take the gritty, close quarters, immersive WWII experience of the earlier Day of Defeat experience and push the intensity a bit further to the likes of Insurgency? Our team is well versed in this type of gameplay. To us, this design challenge was exciting, since it also felt nostalgic in so many ways. In the process, we have captured a classic WWII game feeling which spans even beyond Day of Defeat. We’ve received a lot of feedback where players reminisce how the game brings them back to their days playing Medal of Honor: Allied Assault or the original Call of Duty. We are finding some success in bringing back an experience lost over the past decade, and re-energizing it with our unique twist of visceral intensity and minimalism. Our early access mentality from Insurgency has carried over into Day of Infamy. We’ve utilized early access to balance the game around analytics, improve it based on community surveys and feedback, and also to continue finding ways to innovate the genre as much as possible before the game is introduced to a larger audience. While we could stay in perpetual early access and constantly improve the game before it is “final”, we find this approach doesn’t make a whole lot of business sense. Similar to Insurgency, we plan to develop content for Day of Infamy after release, so the whole “final release” mentality doesn’t really apply. In addition, we aim to use the visibility of a “launch” to boost player counts for the game which would help us financially so we can continue our development efforts and also support our new Unreal Engine 4 platform which will become the basis of our FPS creations going forward. Considering the feedback we have received in the form of surveys and reviews on Steam, we feel like we are not far away from reaching the point that Day of Infamy will be well received. According to our August community survey 32% of players were happy with the game as it was, 53% saw the game benefiting from some improvement, and only 13% saw the game as needing a lot of work. Less than 1% claimed the gameplay was not enjoyable (0.74% to be exact). It was clear to us at the time of this first survey that the game had a strong core experience, but lacked extended replay value. Since then we’ve added new maps, new weapons, as well as a ranking system, additional fire support features, a new game mode and much more. We feel the game is finally nearing the point where it has the extended replay value it requires to sustain a large player base. We are very proud of what we’ve done since the early access launch just over six months ago, and we acknowledge there is still some more polish needed before release. We are hard at work improving level balance across the board, improving the visual quality of our environments, finalizing the user interfaces, working on new Units and voice over, fixing bugs and issues, improving stability and performance, improving Mac as well as Linux support, and a lot more. As we fast-track towards a release, we are focused on finalizing the game and building excitement around it. We will continue to collect data, read feedback and conduct market research to come up with the best release strategy possible. We hope that our audience will help spread the word, and 2017 will be an exciting year for Day of Infamy! State of Our Team While our audience naturally cares most about the experiences we create, there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes getting there. Our team is committed to quality, and reaching this is never a simple or straightforward task. There are team dynamics, company culture decisions, communication procedures, strategy considerations and countless administrative challenges that game companies face. We’re navigating these aspects of our growing studio and building our vision of a world-class, independent video game company. We want to earn the respect of our audience and be seen as a desirable studio to work with. One aspect we’ve been working on improving lately is our team structure. This has been an ever-evolving thing for us. Ultimately, we want each of our developers to have a lot of freedom to work on the aspects of games which excite them the most. Additionally we want to make sure each developer obtains the feedback needed to push the quality of their work, and has the opportunity to be a part of the creative process at our company. We want to minimize bureaucracy but have clear processes in place for everything, and ensure fluid, clear communication throughout our team. We’ve found all of the above to be critical to the happiness of our team and the innovation of our games. These goals embody our culture and DNA as a team. As straightforward as they are, arriving at them is no easy task. Every so often we ask ourselves if we are doing a good job creating the work environment we want for our team, and if necessary we make adjustments in order to get things on track. Occasionally we make a change that feels good at the time but ends up being regrettable, and it’s better to reverse these changes than to let them stick. Similar to our games, our team structure is a work in progress dynamic we are always iterating on and trying to improve. When we decided to start the studio in Amsterdam a year ago, we knew it would make our games better and push the capabilities of our team. We wanted motion capture, for example, and a sound recording studio for voice acting and audio production. We are now building a higher tier game at a higher price point with Insurgency: Sandstorm. We’ve had to expand our capabilities as a company in order to accomplish this. While the studio boosted our production immensely, it also presented us with an unforeseen issue. The daily interactions between the onsite team naturally created a sense of a ‘core’ team that did not exist prior. It was a dynamic we never intended, and one that we are working to reverse. In addressing this issue, we’ve acknowledged the value that onsite developers bring. Instead of reversing the decision to have a physical studio, and going back to working from home, we feel it makes more sense to expand our physical locations and establish more onsite presence. We feel that having multiple boutique studios around the world is very much in line with our team’s culture and long-term vision. As we move toward accomplishing this goal, we will form a studio in Denver, Colorado next year. We will slowly grow this team to become the same size as our Amsterdam studio. When our European developers leave the office in the evening, our American developers will just be getting started. We will get a whole lot accomplished each day, similar to how we’ve always operated as an international team. In addition to the structural changes we’ve undergone recently, and the operational plans we have for the future, we have started the process of expanding our capability in the area of communications. Communications includes public relations, branding, marketing, community engagement, blog posts, video content, screenshots, etc. It’s essentially how we interface with the public – an area where we have been admittedly weak in the past and we acknowledge as being critical to our future. In recognizing the above, we have established a communications team at our company and have hired two additional staff to expand on our abilities in this area. We want to do a better job getting the word out about why people should play our games, especially as we near Day of Infamy’s launch, and have some big Insurgency: Sandstorm reveals coming your way this year. I am personally excited about New World, our games and our community. I think the next year will be pretty exciting for all of you, our fans, as well. As always thank you for your support and the great feedback that helps us make better games. |
Ward’s publishes their 2011 10 Best Engines list and BMW is well represented once again. The new four-cylinder 2.0 liter turbocharged N20 engine made the list, along with the 3.0 liter twin-scroll N55 powerplant. The Ward’s 10 Best Engines competition recognizes the latest powertrain technologies that are affordable to most consumers, boost horsepower and torque, sound appealing and integrate well with their respective vehicles. As Ward’s Auto points out, a record seven of this year’s Ward’s 10 Best Engines winners integrate state-of-the-art direct fuel injection, demonstrating the rapid pace of technology development as auto makers downsize their engines in anticipation of strict U.S. fuel-economy rules. if (pl_is_mobile()) { ? } ? The direct injection technology helps improving fuel efficiency while providing quick acceleration and high torque at low rpms. BMW’s competitors are represented by Audi and its 3.0 liter superchaged V6 engine found in the new A6. if (pl_is_mobile()) { ? } ? Here is what Ward’s has to say about the BMW units: BMW returns to the list for a second time with the N55 3.0L turbocharged 6-cyl. engine in the 335i coupe, an engine that perfectly illustrates the superior balance and refinement of inline engines and the Bavarian auto maker’s mastery of the architecture’s execution. With 300 hp and 300 lb.-ft. (407 Nm) of torque, this engine manages better than 25 mpg (9.4 L/100 km) during heavy-footed evaluation by WardsAuto editors in October. New to the winner’s circle is BMW’s 2.0L N20 turbocharged 4-cyl. engine that dazzles editors in both the Z4 sDrive 28i roadster and larger 528i sedan. With 258 lb.-ft. (350 Nm) of torque in the Z4 and 260 lb.-ft. (353 Nm) in the 5-Series, this stout, compact powertrain packs an impressive 120 hp/L, without sacrificing any of BMW’s stellar vehicle dynamics. This year’s winners and the applications tested: 3.0L TFSI Supercharged DOHC V-6 (Audi A6) 2.0L N20 Turbocharged DOHC I-4 (BMW Z4/528i) 3.0L N55 Turbocharged DOHC I-6 (BMW 335i coupe) 3.6L Pentastar DOHC V-6 (Chrysler 300S/Jeep Wrangler) 2.0L EcoBoost DOHC I-4 (Ford Edge) 5.0L DOHC V-8 (Ford Mustang Boss 302) 2.0L Turbocharged DOHC I-4 (Buick Regal GS) 1.6L DOHC I-4 (Hyundai Accent/Kia Soul) 2.0L Skyactiv DOHC I-4 (Mazda3) 3.5L DOHC V-6 HEV (Infiniti M35h) |
Drain your tankard, choose a side, and get ready to rumble in OKTOBERBRAWL! The Hearthstone tavern is rough and tumble at the best of times, but during Oktoberbrawl the rivalries get really rowdy, and the whole tavern descends into a fantastic fracas! This is your chance to leap into the fray and help decide who comes out on top! What is Oktoberbrawl? It’s a special event featuring two teams of Hearthstone luminaries facing off in weekly grudge matches. What makes it special is that each Oktoberbrawler is limited to a fresh account – but YOU can help battle for packs that your team can use to improve their decks! As Oktoberbrawl goes on each team will build better decks and battle for glory, culminating in show match finals at TwitchCon! Choose a card back, dive into Oktoberbrawl, and support your team! EVERYONE, GET IN HERE! Joining the Oktoberbrawl is a snap! From September 11th to October 10th, Twitch Prime members can redeem two new Hearthstone card backs from Prime Loot: Call of the Void and Call of the Light! If you don’t have Twitch Prime yet, you can link your Amazon Prime account to your Twitch account. No Amazon Prime account? No worries, just sign up for a free trial! These card backs don’t just look awesome, they have an important role to play! Each card back corresponds with one of the teams in Oktoberbrawl. Every time you win a game in Standard Ranked, Wild Ranked, and Arena while using one, you'll strike a blow for your team by helping them get a chance to open more card packs for the week. These card packs will be a precious resource that both teams will be vying to get, and your results will determine how they’re divvied up between each team! After the event begins, we’ll post a blog that we’ll update each day to show you how your efforts are contributing to your team. Meet Your Teams Now that you know how it works, it’s time to pick a team! Each Oktoberbrawl team is composed of three players, assembled from well-known personalities in the Hearthstone scene. Check out the rosters, decide where your loyalties lie, and then use the card back that corresponds with your chosen team! TEAM VOID VS TEAM LIGHT Dog Kripparrian Thijs Reynad J4CKIECHAN Alliestrasza Watch What Happens You won’t just battle on behalf of your team, you'll get to watch the results of your efforts in action as Oktoberbrawl battles are streamed on the official Hearthstone twitch channel. Each team member will also stream their efforts to bolster their Oktoberbrawl decks (Remember: the only time they can play Oktoberbrawl decks is during a live stream!). Watch as your favorite player opens packs on stream and strives to build the strongest deck possible, leading up to a Friday grudge match each week! The winning team of each grudge match gets to choose a penalty that will be applied to the opposing team during the finals at TwitchCon! Each week will also be themed according to the Hearthstone expansion cards each team gains access to. WILD WEEK – September 11-15 Weekly Packs: 10 packs each of Goblins vs Gnomes and The Grand Tournament KRAKEN WEEK – September 18-22 Weekly Packs: 10 packs each of Whispers of the Old Gods and Mean Streets of Gadgetzan MAMMOTH WEEK – September 25-29 Weekly Packs: 10 packs each of Journey to Un’Goro and Knights of the Frozen Throne ADVENTURE WEEK – October 2-6 Weekly Cards: Surprise Format! Finals at TwitchCon – October 20 Rules Each player on each Oktoberbrawl team will receive a fresh account, 10 Classic packs, and a Welcome Bundle. During the Oktoberbrawl period, on Monday of each week, each player will receive 10 packs each from two different expansions. Then on Wednesday of each week, each team member will receive a portion of a second pack award based on a percentage of total wins earned in Ranked Play by players using their team’s card back. Play for each week will culminate in a grudge match on the official Hearthstone twitch channel. Oktoberbrawl accounts may only be played while streaming on Twitch. Oktoberbrawl team members may earn gold through quests and playing constructed games, and spend it to purchase Classic packs, but may not purchase packs in any other way. A free Arena ticket can be used, but Arena runs cannot be purchased otherwise. Players may not disenchant cards, and may only complete the 80g “play a friend” quest with one of their teammates. Remember, every pack you earn for your team counts! So what are you waiting for? Oktoberbrawl is waiting! Link your account and leap into the fray! |
The administration of President George W. Bush continues to expand government secrecy across a broad array of agencies and actions and at greatly increased cost to taxpayers, according to a coalition of groups that promote greater transparency. Dr. Patrice McDermott, director of Open the Government, a watchdog group, told IPS, "The federal government under the Bush administration has shown its commitment to secrecy by where it has put its money more no-bid contracts, fewer government employees processing FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] requests, less on training on classification issues, and almost 200 dollars spent on keeping secrets to every dollar allocated to open them." "Given our growing deficit, the next administration faces difficult choices in restoring accountable government," he added. In its "Secrecy Report Card 2008," released Sept. 9, the group concluded that the Bush administration "exercised unprecedented levels not only of restriction of access to information about federal government’s policies and decisions, but also of suppression of discussion of those policies and their underpinnings and sources." Open the Government is a Washington-based coalition of consumer and good government groups, librarians, environmentalists, labor, journalists, and others. It says that that classification activity remains significantly higher than before 2001. In 2006, the number of original classification decisions increased to 233,639, after dropping for the two previous years. The government spent $195 maintaining the secrets already on the books for every one dollar it spent declassifying documents in 2007, a 5 percent increase in one year. At the same time, fewer pages were declassified than in 2006. The nation’s 16 intelligence agencies, which account for a large segment of the declassification numbers, are excluded from the total reported figures. Classified or "black" programs accounted for about $31.9 billion, or 18 percent of the fiscal year (FY) 2008 Department of Defense (DOD) acquisition funding requested last year. Classified acquisition funding has more than doubled in real terms since FY 1995. Almost 22 million requests were received under FOIA in 2007, an increase of almost 2 percent over the previous year. But a 2008 study revealed that, in 2007, FOIA spending at 25 key agencies fell by $7 million, to $233.8 million, and the agencies put 209 fewer people to work processing FOIA requests. While the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court does not reveal much about its activities, the Department of Justice reported that, in 2007, the court approved 2,371 orders rejecting only three and approving two left over from the previous year. Since 2000, federal surveillance activity under the jurisdiction of the court has risen for the ninth year in a row more than doubling during the Bush administration. The court was established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978 after revelations of the widespread wiretapping by the administration of Richard M. Nixon to spy on political and activist groups. Recently, efforts to reform the act have been triggered by the Bush administration’s admission that it had conducted secret surveillance programs in the U.S. without warrants from the court. In addition, more than 25 percent (worth $114.2 billion) of all contracts awarded by the federal government last year were not subject to open competition a proportion that has remained largely unchanged for the last eight years. Investigations by Congress and independent government agencies of the war in Iraq have revealed billions of dollars in no-bid contracts, covering everything from delivering food and water to U.S. troops to providing armed security for U.S. officials and visiting dignitaries. There have been widespread allegations of waste, fraud, and abuse by contractors. Several have been convicted and prosecutions of others are pending. During 2007, government-wide, 64 percent of meetings of the Federal Advisory Committee were closed to the public. Excluding groups advising three agencies that historically have accounted for the majority of closed meetings, 15 percent of the remainder were closed a 24 percent increase over the number closed in 2006. These numbers do not reflect closed meetings of subcommittees and task forces. The Federal Advisory Committee Act was passed in 1972 to ensure that advice by the various advisory committees formed over the years is objective and accessible to the public. The report also found that in seven years, President Bush has issued at least 156 "signing statements," challenging over 1,000 provisions of laws passed by Congress. In 2007, eight were issued. The so-called "state secrets privilege" invoked only six times between 1953 and 1976 has been used by the Bush administration a reported 45 times, an average of 6.4 times per year in seven years. This is more than double the average (2.46) in the previous 24 years. The "state secrets privilege" is a legal doctrine that contends that admission of certain information into court proceedings would endanger U.S. national security. The Bush administration has frequently invoked the privilege to dismiss lawsuits that would be embarrassing to the government, and the courts have generally been deferential to the government’s claims. National Security Letter (NSL) requests continued to rise; the 2007 numbers are still classified, but the recently unclassified new number for 2006 shows a 4.7 percent increase in requests over 2005. Since enactment of the USA PATRIOT Act in 2001, the number of NSLs issued has seen an astronomical increase. The NSL provision of the PATRIOT Act radically expanded the authority of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to demand personal customer records from Internet service providers, financial institutions, and credit companies without prior court approval. Through NSLs, the FBI is authorized to compile dossiers about innocent people and obtain sensitive information such as the Web sites a person visits and a list of e-mail addresses with which a person has corresponded, or even to unmask the identity of a person who has posted anonymous speech on a political Web site. The provision also allows the FBI to forbid or "gag" anyone who receives an NSL from telling anyone about the record demand. Read more by William Fisher |
Today there are dozens of options for high-end laptops and mobile computing, and while extreme raw performance is nice to have, it is not necessary for the majority of users. Focusing on productivity and durability, the Acer Chromebook 11 C771 meets the needs of educators and professionals to provide a solution that is meant to work under rough conditions. Passing MIL-STD 810G tests, the Chromebook 11 C771 can hold up to temperature variation, drops, spills, and dust ingress. Rubber bumpers on the corners of the casing have been added to allow survivable drops up to four feet. In addition, a honeycomb structure has been implemented in the lid so that placing up to 132lbs on top of the laptop will not crush it. This is more than enough to allow the Chromebook to be tossed around in a backpack or briefcase without worry. In terms of IO, options are limited compared to massive gaming laptops, but are more than sufficient for a highly portable machine. A USB Type-C port, HDMI port, USB 3.0 port, and 3.5mm TRRS combo jack can be found on the left hand side. On the right hand side, a microSD card reader and second USB 3.0 port can be found in addition to a Kensington lock port. Opening up the Chromebook 11 C771 reveals an 11.6 inch IPS panel with a resolution of 1366x768 that optionally comes as a touch screen (C771T). Although not pictured, the hinges allow a full 180 degrees of range so that touch screen users can enjoy a flat surface to work on. A fairly simple 720p webcam with built in microphone is centered above the screen. Keeping with the theme of durability, the keyboard leaves little space around the edges of the keys to help prevent liquids from quickly entering and from key caps being removed. Liquids are directed to drain out the bottom of the laptop in the event of a mishap. Inside the C771, a 6th Generation Intel Celeron 3855U comes standard, although Core i3 and Core i5 models will also be available. A 32GB eMMC module can be found for storage alongside 4GB of RAM. A 2x2 MIMO 802.11ac wireless adapter is also present. The specs are not likely to impress any enthusiasts, but they are very helpful in providing up to 12 hours of battery life on the touch screen model and up to 13 hours on the non-touch variant. Weighing in at only 2.98 lbs and measuring 0.82 inches thick, the Acer Chromebook C11 C771 is extremely portable given that it can last for an entire day of school or work. The standard C771 and C771T models will be available to commercial and education customers in August with suggested retail prices of $279.99 and $329.99 respectively. The Core i3 and Core i5 models will be available for purchase starting in September. |
Image copyright Edinburgh Airport Image caption The expansion will include six more gates at Edinburgh Airport Work has begun on an £80m expansion at Edinburgh Airport, following predictions of a big rise in passenger numbers. A new three-storey extension will provide six more gates and more space for shops and customs and immigration when it is finished next summer. Edinburgh Airport officials are expecting passenger numbers to go up by 16.5 million by 2021. The expansion is part of the airport's £220m capital investment programme. The extension will stretch from the existing gate 12 area, covering the old east end service yard, out to the Gogar Burn. Image copyright Edinburgh Airport Gordon Dewar, Edinburgh Airport chief executive, said: "This is a major investment for the capital and Scotland and further establishes Edinburgh Airport as one of the most innovative and forward thinking airports in the UK. "We are Scotland's busiest airport and the fastest growing airport in the UK - and that demand is only going to grow with record numbers of passengers we expect to see passing through the terminal. "There have been times this summer where we've experienced busy periods that have impacted on our service and this investment in new facilities will ensure we have the infrastructure needed to handle more passengers and provide them with a positive experience whether arriving or departing. "As Scotland's gateway to the world, it's vital that we have first class infrastructure and we will continue to invest in that, creating more jobs, supporting the economy and opening up Scotland to the world." |
When Specialized first invited us out to Utah, we had no idea what was in store. It was soon revealed however, that we would be headed to Moab to test out the Turbo Levo FSR 6Fattie. Their first full suspension e-mountain bike. Huh. With mixed emotions, we accepted the opportunity as a chance to at least have first hand knowledge on what the bike is – and isn’t. After all, as Einstein is often quoted, “the only source of knowledge is experience.” So we set out to gain that experience. On e-bikes. On legal trails. In Moab… It wasn’t that long ago that I was having a discussion with an employee of Haibike, another brand that sells a lot of e-bikes… Out of genuine curiosity, I inquired what their plan was for the sale of e-mountain bikes in the United States considering you weren’t able to ride them on mountain bike trails. Without missing a beat he said there were plenty of places at that very moment that e-bikes were completely legal to ride off road. He actually chose Moab as an example. While the Moab BLM recently declared that “motor assisted bikes” are illegal to use on any mountain bike trails in and around Moab, it seems to have been missed by many that the ban does not apply to all of the OHV trails that are open to anything from Jeeps to motos. If you haven’t been to Moab, there are far more trails open to motorized vehicles than not. In fact, many legendary “mountain bike” trails (like Slickrock) were actually pioneered by motos and are still open to the motorized set today. All of this played directly into Specialized’s decision to host this event in Moab. It wasn’t intended to ‘poke the bear’ but rather clear up some misconceptions on the current legality of e-bikes. Also… Moab turns out to be an incredibly fun place to ride an e-bike. And ride we did. We put more miles on the Turbo Levo in two days than I have on a classic bike (as Specialized likes to call them) here in a week. Brutal, tiring miles. One of the favorite criticisms of e-bikes seems to be that to ride one you would have to be lazy, or weak, or a terrible rider, or hoping to ride without getting a workout. After two days on a Levo here, I was beat. My legs were admittedly in pretty good shape on the return home. My upper body though? I felt like I had been weight lifting for a week. Overall, it actually seemed like more of a full body workout than the leg-intensive workout of a classic bike. There were quite a few points in the rides where we all looked at each other, out of breath with our hearts beating out of our chests thinking, “I thought this was supposed to be easy?” There is no doubt that this was because the motor assist kept our legs feeling more fresh at the end of each ride, which in turn led to more riding. Two-a-days on some of Moab’s most iconic and brutal trails like Amasa Back (from town) and Slickrock Trail. Everything we rode was completely legal for e-bike use which led to some interesting encounters with other trail users. On Amasa Back we ran into a large group of moto riders at a relatively tricky section of trail. As the motos struggled to get their heavy bikes over a boulder strewn climb, we simply picked up the Levos and scrambled up. We didn’t see them again until we had already reached the summit. This brings up another argument against e-bikes – they’re so expensive (they’re actually similarly priced to many mountain bikes), why not just get a motorcycle? That ride up Amasa back seemed to be all I needed to answer that question. Don’t get me wrong, I love motorcycles, and probably always will. But I love mountain bikes more. And compared to a motocross bike I found the near silence of the Levo combined with the relative light weight to be more like a bike than a motorcycle. You still have to pedal. You still have to ride it like a mountain bike downhill. It just helps fast forward the flat parts and gives you the ability to ride more trail. Keep in mind that we are talking about pedal assist bikes here – there are no throttles. If you don’t pedal, it doesn’t go. One thing is for sure, the addition of a motor in most cases will not give you super human mountain bike handling powers. It might make you faster on the climbs, but if you don’t have the skills, you will stumble as much (or more) as you would with a classic bike. There are of course some exceptions like Slickrock trail – the combination of endless grip and smooth rolling terrain really will leave you feeling like Superman. But generally, the Levo seems to amplify what is already there. If you are a fast rider, you will be even faster on the Levo. A mediocre rider? You’ll still struggle through the technical sections, but you will probably be a bit faster on the smooth sections. That’s largely due to the fact that the Levo really rewards you for continuously pedaling. That means you really have to pick your lines quickly lest you stop pedaling and the motor bogs down. Then there is the potential for too much power to push the front end or send the bike out of control if you aren’t ready for the boost. There may be some truth to the fear that e-bike riders would suddenly find themselves in a situation where they are way over their head, but more likely they would have turned back long before they got to that point. The 6Fattie’s big contact patch certainly helped to stay planted to the trail, but it still requires just as much skill to pilot at high speeds. Also, in spite of the bigger tires and motors, no one was sending plumes of roost off the back tires. While riding the Sovereign trail system it was often hard to make out where the riders ahead had gone in spite of the sandy trail surface. The Levo certainly allowed us to cruise at ridiculous speeds on the pavement, but once on the trail, normal trail obstacles made it difficult to maintain anything other than slightly higher than average speeds except on few of the less technical climbs. On the climb up Amasa Back our speed never got much past 12 mph with the average closer to 6 or 7. And that was with a group of extremely talented riders pushing each other to the summit. Honestly, this was an extremely difficult post to write knowing the cauldron of hate that e-bikes seem to stir. But trying to remain completely objective here, throw a leg over the Levo and you’re going to have fun. There’s really no way around it unless you are lying to yourself. Every rider who approached us at the trail head at first couldn’t figure out what it was. Then realization set in, and we encouraged them to take a spin for our own sake more than anything, paying close attention to their reaction. They all came back with a big grin, some even joking about trading in their classic bike. This is one of those things you really do have to try in order to understand it. Fun aside, is this really a mountain bike? Does it belong on non-motorized trails? Personally, I’m fine with their current restrictions to OHV trail use only. A place like Moab made it clear that just because we weren’t on mountain bike specific trails it didn’t mean it wasn’t fun. In fact, I think the nature of the OHV trails may have suited the e-bikes more. Riding Slickrock on an e-bike will forever alter your opinion of the infamous trail. Of all of the arguments against e-bikes though, I think the trail access issue is one of the few that does have a lot of merit. If you’ve been around mountain biking for any length of time, you know that trail access is a contentious issue and that an army of great people are constantly working to improve that. At this point in time, it seems that adding e-bikes to the mix would unnecessarily complicate things. Perhaps in the future when non-motorized mountain bikes are no longer viewed as the enemy to Wilderness, e-bikes could possibly gain acceptance, but for now it seems like the obvious answer is to keep them to motorized, off road vehicle trails. However, even if e-bikes are kept to OHV trail use, we still foresee issues in the future. For starters, the Turbo Levo hardly looks like an e-bike at all, and e-bikes are only going to get more stealthy. That makes the act of enforcing trail use much more difficult for those in charge. As the history of mountain biking (and Strava use) shows, trails are still poached to this day by ‘classic’ bikes, so would e-bikes be any different? And even if trails aren’t intentionally poached, we have to figure that there would be a number of riders who purchase an e-bike and simply aren’t aware of trail restrictions and end up violating the rules even if they have no intention to. Specialized does make a plea to potential users that they follow the rules and stay on e-bike legal trails. All of this left us still a bit unsure of the future of e-bikes off road in the United States. Our time with the Turbo Levo was undeniably fun and destroyed many of the misconceptions surrounding electric bikes, but still left us worried about potential trail conflicts. Even if confined to OHV trails (and streets), e-bikes will more than likely open the door to a new group of enthusiasts who may never find themselves on a classic bike – or enthusiast riders looking for the ability to ride more miles in a day. Of course this would greatly benefit companies like Specialized and others who are selling e-bikes which is certainly part of the equation and needs to be kept in mind. In the long term we just have to make sure that what’s good for the industry, is also good for the sport. |
• Italy striker must pay €15,000 for slur • Cassano later denied he meant to cause offence The Milan striker Antonio Cassano has received a €15,000 (£11,700) fine from Uefa for a discriminatory statement he made while with Italy at Euro 2012. Cassano caused uproar when he said he hoped there were no gay players in the national team squad in Poland and Ukraine. He later said his comments had been misinterpreted and did not want to cause offence but Uefa has taken a dim view of his outburst. "The Uefa Control and Disciplinary Body has fined Italy's Antonio Cassano €15,000 for a discriminatory press statement during Euro 2012," said a statement on the Uefa website. "An appeal can be lodged against this decision within three days of the dispatch of the full written decision." Cassano had responded to questions about reports in Italy which claimed there were two gay players in Cesare Prandelli's squad. "The coach had warned me that you would ask me this question," Cassano said. "If I say what I think … I hope there are none. But if there are queers here, that's their business." Cassano quickly apologised for his comments the following day. "I sincerely regret that my statements have sparked controversy and protest from gay rights groups," he said. "Homophobia is a sentiment that is not mine. I did not want to offend anyone and I can not question the sexual freedom of other people. I only said that it is a problem that does not concern me and it is not for me to pass judgment on the choices of others, who are all respected." |
Image caption The tyranny of entropy abounds in everyday examples of disorder - and a tendency toward mess A modification to one of the most fundamental laws of physics may provide a link to the rise of intelligence, cooperation - even upright walking. The idea of entropy describes the way in which the Universe heads inexorably toward a higher state of disorder. A mathematical model in Physical Review Letters proposes that systems maximise entropy in the present and the future. Simple simulations based on the idea reproduce a variety of real-world cases that reflect intelligent behaviour. The idea of entropy is fundamentally an intuitive one - that the Universe tends in general to a more disordered state. The classic example is a dropped cup: it will smash into pieces, but those pieces will never spontaneously recombine back into a cup. Analogously, a hot cup of coffee will always cool down if left - it will never draw warmth from a room to heat back up. But the idea of "causal entropy" goes further, suggesting that a given physical system not only maximises the entropy within its current conditions, but that it reaches a state that will allow it more entropy - in a real sense, more options - in the future. Alex Wissner-Gross of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US and Cameron Freer from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, have now put together a mathematical model that ties this causal entropy idea - evident in a range of recent studies - into a single framework. "In the past 10 to 15 years, there have been many hints from a variety of different disciplines that there was a deep link between entropy production and intelligence," Dr Wissner-Gross told BBC News. The laws of thermodynamics First law: Energy can be neither created nor destroyed (although, thanks to Einstein's most famous equation E=mc2, energy can come from or be turned into mass) Energy can be neither created nor destroyed (although, thanks to Einstein's most famous equation E=mc2, energy can come from or be turned into mass) Second law: The entropy of an isolated system always rises. But put some energy in and order can be achieved - in a crystal of salt, in humans, even in galaxies The entropy of an isolated system always rises. But put some energy in and order can be achieved - in a crystal of salt, in humans, even in galaxies Third Law: As the temperature of an ordered system - like that salt crystal - approaches "absolute zero", entropy approaches its lowest level. But never zero, because everything, everywhere is at least a little bit disordered "This paper is really the first result that clarifies what that link precisely is... to the point that it's prescriptive - it actually allows you to calculate in a sensible way answers to questions that couldn't reasonably be answered before." The simplistic model considers a number of examples, such as a pendulum hanging from a moving cart. Simulations of the causal entropy idea show that the pendulum ends up pointing upward - an unstable situation, but one from which the pendulum can explore a wider variety of positions. The researchers liken this to the development of upright walking. Further simulations showed how the same idea could drive the development of tool use, social network formation and cooperation, and even the maximisation of profit in a simple financial market. "While there were hints from a variety of other fields such as cosmology, it was so enormously surprising to see that one could take these principles, apply them to simple systems, and effectively for free have such behaviours pop out," Dr Wissner-Gross said. 'Beyond luck' Raphael Bousso of the University of California Berkeley said: "It has always mystified me how well this principle models intelligent observers, and it would be wonderful if Alex's work could shed some light on this." Image caption Entropy-maximised simulations of trade routes saw ships spontaneously discover the Panama Canal Prof Bousso showed in a 2007 paper in Physical Review D that models of the Universe that incorporated causal entropy were more likely to come up with a Universe that contains intelligent observers - that is, us. However, he cautions that although the new paper bolsters the case for causal entropy, the idea still lacks explanatory power. "The paper argues that intelligent behaviour, which is hard to quantify, can be reduced to maximising one's options, which is relatively easy to quantify. But it cannot explain intelligent behaviour from first principles," he told BBC News. "It cannot explain how that 'intelligent agent' evolved in the first place, and why it seeks to maximise future options." Axel Kleidon of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Germany, who authored a 2010 paper in Physics of Life Reviews using maximised entropy to consider the machinery of life on Earth, said that the work "shows some very intriguing examples" but that only time would tell if causal entropy was as fundamental as it may seem. "It seems that it is beyond just luck and coincidence," he told BBC News. "On the other hand, I know from my own research that applying thermodynamics to real-world systems is anything but simple and straightforward... I think it is through more examples that (we will see) how practical their approach will be, compared to other thermodynamic approaches." |
Over the past decade, the landscape of Brooklyn’s post-industrial waterfront has been radically reshaped. Vacant refineries, powerhouses, and train yards have disappeared, replaced by residential towers and shopping centers. Empty lots and brownfields have been cleared out and remediated, becoming new parks and recreation spaces. Wild dogs have vanished, burnt-out cars are hard to find, and roaming through an abandoned building has become an increasingly rare pleasure. Few reminders from this earlier, anarchic period of history remain today, especially along the Gowanus Canal, where a decade of redevelopment has erased many of the historic industrial ruins that once were neighborhood landmarks. The fertile fields around the Coignet Stone Building have become a Whole Foods Market; the Kentile Floors and Eagle Clothing signs have been removed from the skyline; and countless warehouses have been demolished or retrofitted, to make way for bars, boutiques, shuffleboard courts, spas, and other indoor playgrounds. Even the fabled Bat Cave, an 1890s powerhouse that became an infamous graffiti-covered squat before being purchased by millionaire developer Joshua Rechnitz in 2013, is now being redesigned by famed architects Herzog & de Meuron, with the New York Times romanticizing this “temple of graffiti” as “the lone sentinel of the neighborhood’s postindustrial, pre-apocalyptic days.” However, vestiges of the past remain hidden all along the city’s waterfront, and a haven for displaced graffiti artists can still be found on the Gowanus Canal just 13 blocks away from the Bat Cave, at an equally historic complex of abandoned buildings. Stretched out along four quiet waterfront blocks, this graffiti-covered campus includes the S.W. Bowne Grain Storehouse, a uniquely feral 1800s artifact that may also soon disappear. The S.W. Bowne warehouse was built in 1886, after the marshes of Red Hook were filled in for development, but the industrial history of this stretch of Gowanus waterfront dates back to the Dutch era of New York City. “In this spot, really, there is a continuous thread of grain-handling from the time the Dutch arrived,” says Joseph Alexiou, the author of Gowanus: Brooklyn's Curious Canal. “There were a lot of dikes and different mill ponds around there, for grain-grinding mills. It would have been completely marshland.” At the time of its construction, the Bowne facility was a two-block complex used to process hay, feed, and grain for local stables, and its owner, S.W. Bowne, eventually became a wealthy man. “By the mid-1920s, this guy owned a lot of property around the Gowanus,” explains Alexiou. “He became rich, but he also worked alongside all his workers.” These early factories could be dangerous workplaces, and in 1916, while helping his employees load lumber into the warehouse, Bowne’s left leg was crushed by a conveyor and had to be amputated above the knee. As the industries along the Gowanus Canal evolved over the decades, the Bowne warehouse slowly slipped into obsolescence. By the 1930s, it had become a general-use warehouse, and by the 1950s, parts of the property were being used by cargo and stevedoring companies, but “around World War II would have been when these things started failing,” says Alexiou. “Most official documents seem to suggest that it was abandoned by 1960.” Today, the S.W. Bowne Grain Storehouse has been left to slowly collapse. In 2007, it was purchased by CF Smith LLC and Red Hook Developers Holdings LLC, two companies formed in Delaware, as part of an $11.5 million package for a four-block stretch of Gowanus waterfront at the southern end of Smith Street. After the purchase, all of the properties onsite appear to have been abandoned. Dire conditions at the Bowne warehouse were first reported in 2014, when its roof began to cave in, and that same year, the city placed a full vacate order on the warehouse and its surrounding grounds due to a parapet collapse. By 2015, graffiti artists had begun covering the empty warehouse in elaborate murals, and in 2016, a partial vacate order was placed on the buildings next door for illegal dumping of asbestos and other hazardous waste. Several other major violations were also cited in 2016 at the property’s southernmost warehouses, which had become a canvas for large-scale graffiti works. None of these violations appear to have been resolved, and the entire campus is currently being left wide open to the elements. During several recent visits, groups of teenagers could be seen wandering from building to building, clearly overwhelmed by their first visit to a post-industrial wilderness. Their explorations could soon come to an end, however, as the property’s owners continue to allow the Bowne complex to collapse. “They are trying to let the elements take it, it’s pretty clear to me,” says Joseph Alexiou. “But I don’t think it’s beyond help. It could all be repaired, it really could be.” When I first began this series of photo essays 10 years ago, in March 2007, it still seemed that there might be some hope for Brooklyn’s historic industrial waterfront. That year, the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed the entire Brooklyn waterfront on their list of America’s most endangered historic places, and the Municipal Art Society launched an initiative to “Save Industrial Brooklyn.” But in the ensuing years, many of the borough’s iconic factories, warehouses, and refineries were destroyed, culminating with the demolition of Admiral’s Row in 2016. Over the past decade, the unique architecture of the industrial era has been burned, buried, and crushed, replaced by a new vision of the waterfront. The S.W. Bowne warehouse complex, a holdout from this transitional moment between past and future, is a fitting place to reflect on what has been lost. The S.W. Bowne Grain Storehouse, on the banks of the southern end of the Gowanus Canal. Built in 1886, the building’s roof is now collapsing in several places. The Bowne building is part of a larger Red Hook property that stretches for four blocks along the waterfront, and which includes several other empty warehouses. The property’s shoreline is collapsing into the canal, and its abandoned piers are overgrown with trees above the waters of this federal Superfund site. Almost every surface has been covered with graffiti. Inside the more modern warehouses at the southern end of the property, elaborate graffiti murals date back to at least 2014. The interiors of these warehouses are largely empty, revealing their dramatic skeletal framework. The roof here is also slowly falling in. Every wall in these warehouses has been covered in graffiti, though some reminders of the industrial past remain. A gutted office space has been turned into a clubhouse by local teenagers. Little evidence remains from the businesses that preceded this current period of abandonment. An abandoned boat, also covered in graffiti. The warehouse’s front door has been left open for many months. The historic Bowne Warehouse, also covered in graffiti, also with its front door wide open. Concrete-covered landfill nearby is eroding into the water. Inside the Bowne building, massive wooden pillars support four floors of open warehouse space, an impressively solid piece of 1800s architecture. The rotting roof has let rain and snow slowly erode the floors away, creating gaping holes down through the building. Truck traffic on the nearby BQE, visible through two expanding holes in the roof. The recent snowstorms will have filled this room with ice. On lower floors, solid wooden pillars and floors have withstood the elements, though they have been marked by many recent visitors. Into the darkness of the deeper recesses. Few artifacts from the building’s former life remain, besides several “No Smoking” signs, in both Yiddish and English. Even in the darkest corners, the walls are covered in detailed graffiti pieces. The solitude of the building has left space for much creative experimentation. Left unprotected, the Bowne building may soon disappear, like the now-vanished Kentile Floors sign, a neighborhood landmark that was removed in 2014. The Burns Brothers coal pockets, as seen in 2009, were another casualty of the Gowanus Canal’s recent development boom. They were demolished in 2014. The open fields of the Coignet Stone complex, as seen in 2009, were a wild creative space for many years. They are now a parking lot for a Whole Foods Market. The Coignet Stone building, as seen in 2008, before its renovation and before Whole Foods was constructed. A decade of change has reshaped the wild open spaces that once dominated the neighborhood. Nathan Kensinger is a photographer, filmmaker, and curator who has been documenting New York City's abandoned edges, endangered neighborhoods, and post-industrial waterfront for more than a decade. His Camera Obscura photo essays have appeared on Curbed since 2012. "Industrial Twilight," an exhibit of Kensinger’s photographs of Brooklyn’s changing waterfront, is currently being exhibited at the Atlantic Avenue subway station in Brooklyn. |
PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren has a long-term plan for the organization, and to his credit, he has stuck to it the last three seasons. It’s becoming quite clear that the idea was to acquire young players with high ceilings, stick with them through thick and thin and let them grow together. The reward has been a young nucleus of players ranging in ages from 21 to 27 that has developed, along with 26-year-old captain Claude Giroux, and could have the Flyers on the cusp of a successful run over the next couple years. And since adding each of the players, Holmgren has kept his finger on the trigger when given the chance to pull it and make a deal for an older veteran and quick fix. He proved his patience and commitment to the plan again this past week when the trade deadline passed on Wednesday afternoon without any player from the nucleus leaving town. “Obviously the world we live in it’s tough to go out and buy a team and trade all of your young guys,” defenseman Luke Schenn said following Wednesday’s wild 6-4 win over the Capitals. “We need to keep those guys and build from within. I think we have some good young players here. “Everyone wants to win for each other and sticks up for each other. I am really happy they kept the core together.” The two deals Holmgren made were trading for Islanders defenseman Andrew MacDonald for a minor leaguer and two picks on Tuesday and then shipping D-man Andrej Meszaros to Boston for a conditional pick on Wednesday. Although MacDonald is an unrestricted free agent after the season, the 27 year old has already indicated he wouldn’t mind remaining in Philadelphia and the feeling is mutual. “Andrew MacDonald is a guy we focused on,” Holmgren said on Wednesday. “We believe he will make our team better. With an eye on the future, we have an interest in keeping Andrew longer term. He’s a solid, two-way defenseman in our league and he’s still young, too. He brings a lot to the table. He is going to make our team better.” The one deal he did make that shipped a young star out of town — James van Riemsdyk to Toronto for Schenn (24 years old) — so far hasn’t gone the Flyers’ way, but at least he got another young player in return. JVR is on pace for his first 30-goal campaign while Schenn has many holes in his game to sew up. The master plan took shape following the 2011 season, when the Flyers were ousted in the second round of the playoffs by the Boston Bruins. In one of the biggest shake-ups of an organization in this town, Holmgren traded captain Mike Richards and all-star Jeff Carter on the same day — and subsequently signed goalie Ilya Bryzgalov. In return, he netted Wayne Simmonds (25) and Luke’s younger brother, Brayden (22), from the Kings for Richards, and landed Jakub Voracek (24) and the eighth pick in the draft from the Blue Jackets that turned into Sean Couturier (21). Before the 2011-2012 season, the Flyers signed Matt Read (27) and plucked Michael Raffl (25) out of Europe last summer. They also have highly touted prospects and first-round picks Scott Laughton and Sam Morin playing in juniors. The Bryzgalov move was the one time Holmgren deviated from the plan and it ended up backfiring. The then aloof 31-year-old netminder never fit in and the Flyers used their amnesty buyout on him last summer. After originally signing him, they traded then 22-year-old goalie Sergei Bobrovsky — for some high picks — to Columbus where he won the Vezina trophy, awarded to the league’s best goalie, last season. Although Holmgren has had his chances to break from the script, the GM has all but refrained from trading anyone from the core. Rumors surfaced earlier in the week that the Flyers were in play for Vancouver forward Ryan Kesler and that any deal would have involved Brayden Schenn or Couturier. Holmgren downplayed the reports. “It’s nice to have the same group of guys together,” Raffl said. “We have been playing together for months now and we know each other well and think we have a good group of guys that can really achieve something.” The Flyers have given them the chance. “(The front office) kind of made a lot of trades a couple years ago and brought in a lot of new guys and young guys and now they are letting us grow together,” Luke Schenn said. “Last year we didn’t make the playoffs and everyone was a bit on edge and then we started this year slow. They could have shaken a few things up, but they let us ride through it and hopefully we will get rewarded for it. “We have a long way to go to make the playoffs but I can tell you for sure everyone wants to be here. We have a great group of young guys and older veterans that care for each other and really want to win.” That is the plan, and Holmgren is sticking to it. |
Although today’s roads aren't filled with self-driving cars (aka autonomous vehicles: AVs), billions of dollars are being bet — by car companies from Ford F, +1.37% to Tesla TSLA, -0.30% , tech companies from Alphabet’s Google GOOG, +0.52% GOOGL, +0.42% to Apple AAPL, +0.06% and the U.S. government — on the proposition that they soon will be. If and when the bets pay off, the basic features — good and bad — of AV systems will already have been established, hence hard to change. It is time to start thinking about the rules of the new road. Otherwise, we may end up with some analog to today’s chaos in cyberspace, which arose from decisions in the 1980s about how personal computers and the Internet would work. One of the biggest issues will be the rules under which public infrastructures and public safety officers may be empowered to override how autonomous vehicles are controlled. It is not hard to imagine why they might want such override power. One is for traffic control. As AVs proliferate there are many advantages to having them talk with intelligent roadways, the better to use scarce freeway space. Controls may also be imposed to leave lanes clear for emergency vehicles or crowded busses. Road conditions that are hard to detect by AV sensors, like weather-related lane closures, may also be more efficiently and fairly handled by having roadways or emergency crews redirect AVs away from problematic lanes, as well as around police, fire, and EMS activity. Overrides could be used to restrict certain vehicles from sensitive locations, like military sites. More intrusive controls may be called for to deal with crime. For instance, high-speed chases could become a thing of the past. The vehicles of drunk/drugged individuals who insist on doing their own driving could be pulled over if their cars’ actions could be controlled from the outside. To prevent great mayhem, police may dearly want to override the use of automated vehicles by terrorists or other criminals. Read: Why Tesla’s Model 3 could mean better, cheaper cars from other luxury brands These capabilities cannot be conjured overnight, but must be engineered well in advance. AVs would have to be built with a capacity to accept real-time commands — which in turn, requires some communications channel plus the requisite software to override the AV’s internal logic — and in very standardized ways so that a single command is interpreted the same way by all AVs. There have to be authentication standards and encryption standards to limit commands to those who are authorized to use them. There should be techniques that direct commands to one AV rather than all in the neighborhood. Rules and protocols would have to be developed to ensure there are no (or very few) non-autonomous vehicles and to ensure that terrorists, criminals, or hackers cannot “jail-break” their cars in order to evade external command override. And all this must keep in mind the possibility that other governments around the world — notably China’s — may be as or more eager to see AVs built with such capabilities, but not necessarily to U.S. standards. Getty Images Tesla has been adding self-driving features to the Model S. Last, but by no means least, is whether such override systems could possibly be made hack-proof. A system to allow authorized people to control someone else’s car is also a system with a built-in mechanism by which unauthorized people — aka hackers — can do the same. Even if hackers are kept out, if every police officer is equipped to override AV systems, the number of authorized users is already in the hundreds of thousands — or more if override authority is extended to members of the National Guard, military police, fire/EMS units, and bus drivers. The likelihood that car makers, repair personnel, and entertainment companies will want to communicate with other parts of the car adds further complications. It is unlikely that every last one of them will play by the rules. Clearly, whether and how government gets that kind of power is a question both serious and deep. Better start thinking about it now. Martin Libicki is a senior management scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan Rand Corp. |
In the first case of its kind, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that employers are allowed to ban employees from wearing visible religious, political and philosophical symbols in the workplace. However, such a ban has to be based on internal company rules dictating that employees “dress neutrally” and cannot be based on “the wishes of a customer”, the ECJ stipulated. “An internal rule of an undertaking which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination,” the court said in a statement. “However, in the absence of such a rule, the willingness of an employer to take account of the wishes of a customer no longer to have the employer’s services provided by a worker wearing an Islamic headscarf cannot be considered an occupational requirement that could rule out discrimination.” #ECJ: no direct discrimination if internal company rule prohibits wearing of religious symbols https://t.co/B0sMPtNgss — EU Court of Justice (@EUCourtPress) March 14, 2017 The ECJ ruling was based on court cases brought by two female employees in Belgium and France, who were dismissed for refusing to remove their Islamic headscarves. The headscarf and other religious symbols are a contentious issue in a number of European countries. France, in particular, attaches importance to the separation of Church and State. Its far-right National Front party is expected to perform strongly in presidential elections this spring. The ruling comes a day before the Netherlands goes to the polls in a parliamentary election dominated by issues of immigration and integration. |
One of the fundamental principles of modern psychology is that its success must be based on effective communication and a strong therapeutic relationship between the patient and therapist. That’s particularly hard to achieve when adolescents are involved. Young people experiencing mental health problems can often react confrontationally, or not at all, to a therapist. So finding effective ways of engaging adolescents is an important goal. Today, David Coyle at the University of Bristol and Gavin Doherty at Trinity College Dublin outline the work they’ve done on a computer game called gNats Island which is specifically designed to facilitate communication between therapists and adolescents between the ages of 10 and 15. The game involves exploring a tropical island where visitors meet a team of wildlife explorers. These characters introduce various concepts associated with cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). “For example negative automatic thoughts, a key concept in CBT, are presented as little creatures called gNats that can sting people, causing negative thinking,” say Coyle and Doherty. Various conversations with the explorers show players how to identify and deal with challenging thoughts using metaphors such as catching, trapping and swatting gNats. A key aspect of the game is that the therapist and adolescent sit together at the computer. But instead of talking face-to-face, the therapist acts as a partner in the adolescent’s exploration of the island. That’s a significant change to the traditional relationship between therapist and patient but has been well received so far. Coyle and Doherty say that more than 750 mental health professionals in Ireland, UK and the US have received training in the gNats game since it was launched in 2011. “Therapists who used gNats Island with adolescents were very positive about the way in which the game changed the dynamics of the therapeutic interaction,” they report. For example, the game-based interaction between therapist and patient can take place without the usual level of eye contact, which can be difficult for adolescents with mental health problems. The bottom line is that it enhances the engagement between the patient and the therapist and that this helps to build a positive relationship between them. That’s an interesting and innovative approach to mental health therapy which clearly has more potential. To that end, Coyle and Doherty have other technology-based projects designed to facilitate engagement between therapist in patients in various different ways. It’ll be interesting to see how widely they end up being used. Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1307.3164 : Supporting Therapeutic Relationships and Communication about Mental Health |
At first, I thought it was my imagination. Around the time the iPhone 5S and 5C were released, in September, I noticed that my sad old iPhone 4 was becoming a lot more sluggish. The battery was starting to run down much faster, too. But the same thing seemed to be happening to a lot of people who, like me, swear by their Apple products. When I called tech analysts, they said that the new operating system (iOS 7) being pushed out to existing users was making older models unbearably slow. Apple phone batteries, which have a finite number of charges in them to begin with, were drained by the new software. So I could pay Apple $79 to replace the battery, or perhaps spend 20 bucks more for an iPhone 5C. It seemed like Apple was sending me a not-so-subtle message to upgrade. Of course, there are more benign explanations. The new software and recent app updates offer fancy new features that existing users want; maybe the battery is sealed with tiny five-point screws for aesthetic considerations. Perhaps, but this isn’t the first time that tech analysts and random crazies on the Internet have noted that breakdowns in older Apple products can often coincide with when upgrades come onto the market. Many have taken this as evidence of “planned obsolescence,” a term that dates to the Great Depression, when a real estate broker suggested that the government should stimulate the economy by placing artificial expiration dates on consumer products so people would buy more. To conspiracy-theory-hungry observers (and some of the rest of us), it might make sense that Apple would employ this business strategy. The tech giant, after all, has reached near-saturation levels in the U.S. smartphone market. If iPhones work forever, people who already own the devices won’t buy new ones. Furthermore, selling products with finite life spans can be good for consumers, depending on their tastes and how informed they are. The fashion industry, whose entire mission is to essentially render products obsolete long before they cease to be functional, does this regularly. I buy clothes from H&M and other low-cost, trend-driven stores knowing full well that the pieces might fall apart after a year’s worth of washes. And if the clothes won’t be fashionable next year anyway, who cares? Improving the durability — and thereby cost — of the clothes would probably just drive away price-sensitive shoppers like me. Apple has similar considerations. Would the additional longevity of the battery be valuable enough to its core consumers to justify the inevitable higher price? Economists have theories about market conditions that encourage planned obsolescence. A company has strong incentives to degrade product durability when it has a lot of market power and when consumers don’t have good substitute products to choose from. (That’s what happened with the international light-bulb cartel of the early 20th century, which penalized its members for manufacturing bulbs that lasted more than 1,000 hours.) When Apple started making the iPhone in 2007, its product was so innovative that it could have deliberately degraded durability without fear. But in the last couple years, the company has faced stiffer competition from Samsung and HTC, among others, which should deincentivize planned obsolescence. “Buyers are smart, and if they start figuring out that one of the costs of buying Apple’s products is that they’re constantly nickel-and-diming you, they’ll switch,” said Austan Goolsbee, an economics professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. |
0 SHARES Share Tweet Find Out Yourself Buddy Let find yourself for your better future. We people just want others to know about us, to appreciate us, expect calls from others for their hello, but not many people have their time to do all these. In this fast-moving world, everyone has lots of distractions and problems that divert their mind and reflects in not paying attention to what others speak. To make life meaningful everyone has a purpose to complete. If the thing is identified by you then there is no force to stop you. Which impacts in creating your identity. Everyone is different from other their purpose in life may also vary. So this article helps you as a tool for identifying your purpose of life and to find yourself. Here are the 8 Questions you need to ask yourself to find yourself. 1) The philosophy that you follow? The important question that you need to ask yourself to find yourself. What is the philosophy that you follow, whether you are seeing people and the world with the positive attitude or negative attitude? Do you believe people or not? Did you come forward to help people or not? These questions will be continued. You need to find answers to find yourself. 2) What did you like the most from you? It is a simple question but it is not much simple to answer for this. To find the answer you need to analyze yourself. Think about the good things done by you, think about your favorites think about your hobbies, the most memorable moment for you that like. This will help to find yourself that means what kind of personality you are. 3) What did you hate the most for you? It is a difficult question to answer because our human mind does not easily accept our mistakes. Think about the behavior that makes you feel ashamed. Remember the worst thing that is happened to you as a result of your action. This will help to find yourself instead of doing it again. 4) Are you proud of yourself, for what? – Find Yourself As failure is part of our life, there must be some achievement by you that makes you feel proud. Identify the best achievement in your life that creates more positivity in you. That may be your first job, exam results, promotions etc… These may result in the change in your life as well as improves your identity. 5) If you have a chance to change anything in this world what would you change? Our character always reacts to the behavior of the opposite person. Likewise, the external forces in the whole world are responsible for our every action. We people always criticize the people around us and sometimes criticize our self. So before trying to change the world start with yourself first make a change on you and then say other to change. This will help you to find yourself. 6) What is your biggest dream/ Ambition? Try to know about your ambition in life. This will help you to move your life in a constant manner to achieve it. A without ambition is nothing. So try to find your dream and achieve it. This will create a positive attitude in you and to others about you. 7) What is your hobby? Your hobby reveals your character because it shows your interest and passion. This will help you to spend your valuable time something interesting. So find your hobby make your time useful and valuable. This will help you to find yourself. 8) Have you hurt anyone in your life? Think about the incident that you hurt anyone and broken the heart of some people. And also try to find out the reason for your behavior in that instance. Try yourself and make sure this will not happen anymore in your life. Finally, these are the question you need to ask yourself to find yourself you. |
Papua New Guinea’s indigenous people have lost their right to challenge developers and the state over deals involving their land and resources. Numbering some six million people, Papua New Guineans - comprising hundreds of ethnic groups - own 97 percent of the country’s land. “This raises huge human rights issues,” Tiffany Nonnggor, a lawyer and human rights advocate, told IRIN in Port Moresby. While the rest of the western democratic world has spent the better part of the past 50 years trying to restore indigenous property rights, this government “has just stripped its most vulnerable citizens, those in the remote rural areas where the projects are, of their rights with no consultation and debate, let alone compensation”, she said. “It is obvious that the government has decided that development of any type is good and that any obstacles to resource projects must be swept aside,” wrote the country’s English daily Post Courier on 31 May. “National interest” On 28 May, the country’s parliament amended sections of the Environment and Conservation Act 2000, which rules on major resource projects in the Pacific island nation. The amendments give the director of the Office of Environment and Conservation wide-ranging powers to grant various certificates relating to environmental plans submitted by investors, in addition to provisions that complying certificates issued by the director will be final and “may not be challenged or reviewed in any court or tribunal, except at the instigation of an Authorization Instrument”. PNG Minister for Environment and Conservation Benny Allen, when introducing the amendments, said the “national interest” was paramount and therefore the law needed to be changed. Photo: David Swanson/IRIN Disputes over land and resources are not uncommon The opposition is up in arms over the amendments, saying the changes were open to legal challenge to determine their constitutionality.“The new laws [are] meant to protect the interests of investors at the expense of the environment and the resource owners. The new laws [are] selling [out] the rights of the people,” deputy opposition leader Bart Philemon told a press conference.The amendments are devastating for all landowners, not only customary ones.The changes remove the rights that Papua New Guineans have had for years to protect their property from environmental harm and the right to sue for compensation for environmental damage and the customary rights to claim compensation for environmental harm.“Not only have they breached many sections of the constitution, they have managed to breach the international convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries, ratified by parliament in 2000,” Nonnggor said. “This is the worst piece of legislation as far as human rights go that I have ever seen in a supposed western democracy.”Disputes concerning land and resource rights between indigenous groups, the government and corporate entities are not uncommon in PNG.While figures vary significantly, more than 5,000 people lost their lives on the island of Bougainville off the east coast of PNG between 1989 and 1999 following a bitter fight over compensation between Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL), an Australian-owned mining company, and the hundreds of indigenous landowners it displaced in Panguna.The conflict escalated into a bloody civil war between members of the indigenous population and government troops.At present, there are claims of environmental damage caused by the Ok Tedi copper mine in the country’s Western Province, the Kutubu oil project in the Southern Highlands, the Porgera gold mine in the Southern Highlands Province, the Lihir gold mine in the New Ireland Province, the now defunct Misima gold mine in the Milne Bay Province and the Tokoluma gold mine in the Central Province.pk/ds/mw |
“There are so many Jews at the top of Britain’s Conservative party, Prime Minister David Cameron once quipped, that it should be known as the Torah party rather than the Tory party” an article in the Times of Israel has said. This astonishingly honest assessment of the Jewish Supremacist control of Britain’s ruling Conservative Party is contained in an article dealing with appointment of yet another avowed Zionist Supremacist to the British cabinet, Ian Livingston, appointed as “trade and investment minister.” This Jewish Supremacist has been given a seat in the House of Lords in order to be able sit in the cabinet and, according to The Times of Israel, is “possibly its [the Conservative Party’s] most committed Jew yet, and certainly its most outspoken supporter of Israel. According to the newspaper, Livingston has called the Zionist Supremacist racist country “the most amazing state in the world.” Other top Jewish figures in the Conservative party include co-chairs Lord Feldman and Grant Shapps MP, who has defined himself as “quite observant,” senior treasurer Howard Leigh, a member of the Jewish Leadership Council; and former party treasurers Richard Harrington MP and Lord Fink, another member of the JLC. |
The German Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) has given scandal-stricken carmaker Volkswagen a deadline of October 7 to submit a plan laying out whether and when its vehicles will meet emissions standards without the use of manipulatory software, a newspaper reported on Sunday. In a two-page document cited by the "Bild am Sonntag," the KBA said it was legally required "to call for the necessary measures to ensure that the manufactured vehicles are brought into line with the respective approved type [of vehicle.]" If Volkswagen does not comply with the KBA's demand, the approval applying to the types of vehicles using the software designed to deceive regulators would be withdrawn. Withdrawing the approval would mean the cars could not be sold or moved in Germany, the paper said. The paper quoted a VW spokesman as saying only that the vehicles were safe and ready to drive, and would be called back for adjustment. While VW cars have come under fire around the world for not adhering to emissions standards, the safety of the cars has not been called into question. Growing losses The German carmaker is facing huge financial losses after US environmental authorities revealed that it had used software - a so-called "defeat device" - to manipulate the results of emission tests. The software recognized when a vehicle was being tested and reduced emissions for the duration of the examination, while emissions under normal driving conditions could be several times higher than the allowed limit. The scandal forced longtime CEO Martin Winterkorn to step down last week. He was replaced on Friday by former Porsche head Matthias Müller. Müller will have to restore customer trust in the company Supplier's warning? In another revelation damaging to the carmaker, the paper reported that an internal company review of the affair has discovered a document showing that one of Volkswagen's most important suppliers, Bosch, had warned against using its software for illegal purposes as far back as 2007. The paper said it had information that Bosch had told Volkswagen the planned use of the software to manipulate emissions results would be against the law. A VW technician told managers that the carmaker's emissions measuring system was illegal in 2011, according to a report in the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung." The paper said an internal inspection report came to the same conclusion. The paper did not, however, go into details about who was aware of the information in 2011. Eleven million vehicles across the world have been affected by the scandal, 2.8 million of them in Germany. Volkswagen is one of the biggest carmakers in the world Berlin 'wants emissions test delay' Another German newspaper reported on Sunday that the German government intends to delay the introduction of new, more realistic emissions tests by the EU despite the scandal at Volkswagen, which is a mainstay of the country's vital auto industry. Citing an internal position paper, the "Welt am Sonntag" said Germany wanted to see the new tests brought into force in 2021, rather than at the end of 2017 as planned. The paper said the German government also wanted to retain many existing loopholes in emissions regulations. The paper quoted a member of the task force working on the new test procedure, Greg Archer, who described Berlin's intention to delay the tests as "improper." The German environmental group Deutsche Umwelthilfe has accused politicians in Germany of having known about the manipulation of emissions test results. tj/sms (Reuters, dpa, AFP) |
[UPDATES BELOW] Here is disturbing video of a legal observer for the National Lawyers Guild getting run over by an NYPD scooter during this morning's Occupy Wall Street march. We're still trying to determine how badly he was injured, but one witness speculated that he broke his leg. Attorney Gideon Oliver, a member of the National Lawyers Guild, confirms that the man seen in this harrowing video is in fact a legal observer for the NLG, and that he was arrested and then hospitalized. He's currently in police custody in the emergency room. We'll update more as it comes in, but for now, there's this: The NYPD repeatedly drove scooters at high speeds through crowds of demonstrators during this morning's march, and another demonstrator was beaten after kicking a police scooter. In this case, the unidentified legal observer will be charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, obstruction of governmental administration, and two counts of criminal mischief. Oliver tells us, "It's absolutely outrageous he was assaulted in the first place, it is outrageous that he was arrested, and outrageous he was assaulted after he was arrested—he has injuries to his face. It's an example of the police putting charges against someone just to cover their ass. We ask that the NYPD releases him without charges immediately after he's treated." Update 4:45 p.m.: The legal observer in this video has been identified as Ari Douglas, and while the extent of his injuries remains unclear, some doubt has been cast on earlier reports that he was seriously injured. A photographer for the Daily News who witnessed the confrontation, Joe Marino, says "the bike definitely hit him" but the officer didn't run him over. "I saw him sticking his legs under the bike to make it appear he was run over," Marino claims. Another photographer who witnessed the incident believes Douglas was run over. And another legal observer, Zainab Akbar, tells the News, "His leg was stuck under the bike, and he kicked his leg to get the bike off his leg, and then the police attacked him and shoved him into the ground and put a night stick against the back of his neck." Here's video from a different angle, via The Local: OWS_PoliceScooter from The Local East Village on Vimeo. |
Pioneer Ah yes, the Pioneer SP-BS21-LR -- it was love at first listen back in 2011 when I reviewed it as part of Pioneer's awesome SP-PK21BS six-piece, subwoofer/satellite home-theater system. I used the SP-PK21BS package as one of my reference speaker systems in reviews after that and was always amazed by the speaker's sound and build quality. The SP-BS21-LR speakers sold for $130 a pair. It was later replaced by the SP-BS22-LR, which is the current model (the SP-PK21BS package has also been discontinued). The old and current speaker models have the same retail price, $130 a pair, but right now while supplies last, Pioneer is clearing out its remaining stock of SP-BS21-LRs for $51.98 a pair on Amazon, and shipping is free for Prime customers. The SP-BS21-LR is a midsize bookshelf speaker, it measures 12.6x7.2x8.1 inches and features a 4-inch woofer and a 1-inch soft-dome tweeter. The black vinyl-wrapped wood grain cabinet has curved side panels, and the drivers are protected by perforated metal grilles (they can be removed, but it's not easy). The SP-BS21-LR sounds a lot better than my recommended go-to budget speaker, the Dayton Audio B652, which currently sells for $52 a pair on Amazon. I recently compared the two speakers head to head, and the B652 sounded coarse and harsh next to the more refined SP-BS21-LR. That speaker produces more spacious imaging with higher definition bass, and voices sound more natural than what you'll hear from the B652. I also compared the SP-BS21-LR to our SP-BS22-LR speakers, and SP-BS22-LR speakers were definitely more transparent than the older model. If you can afford $130 a pair, go for the SP-BS22-LR. I'm not sure how long the Amazon deal on the SP-BS21-LR will last; if you're interested don't hesitate. |
The street lights of Pimlico and Chelsea scatter iridescent patterns over the Thames. Across the water lie some of London’s smartest mansion blocks and best-known landmarks but I am surrounded by 42 acres of urban wasteland: a cement plant rumbles nearby, glowing orange as dusk settles on the city; a great white chimney looms overhead; and beneath me a vast brick shell sits silent, waiting. Kate Allen looks out on the chimney stacks from the office area For the past 31 years, Battersea Power Station has lain empty and derelict. Inside the roofless turbine hall is a tangle of scaffolding and debris. Large enough to contain St Paul’s Cathedral, with space to fit Tate Modern on either side, the building has inspired many dreams of regeneration (a rollercoaster; a football stadium) but the ideas have all come and gone. This time, however, it may be different. I am the first resident of the new Battersea Power Station and my home (for one night) is a show flat perched on the roof. The flat was built by Battersea Power Station Development Company (BPSDC) – and decorated in a studied, post-industrial style – in an attempt to convince potential buyers that the developer is serious about its ambition. The power station was widely unpopular when in operation, its coal-fired chimneys blamed for contributing to London’s “pea-souper” fogs which blighted locals’ health. Yet in 1977 the building became a global icon when it featured on a Pink Floyd album cover, and after its decommission in 1983, it gained Britons’ affection as a poignant symbol of the nation’s decline as an industrial powerhouse. The arrival of deep-pocketed Malaysian investors in 2012 turbocharged the redevelopment plans – and they are not the only ones taking an interest in this part of town. The power station and a string of other developments scattered along the southern riverbank comprise Nine Elms, London’s biggest residential construction zone. A settlement that will include around 18,000 new homes is now under construction. Peter Rees is one of London’s most experienced planners, having spent three decades as the City of London Corporation’s planning officer, and now as professor of places and planning at University College London. He has described the proliferation of new, largely residential, towers along the south bank between Battersea and London Bridge as “a disaster” that is “ruining London”. So who will come to occupy this previously disregarded corner of the capital? US diplomats, for starters. The American embassy is set to move from Grosvenor Square to a new building in Nine Elms in 2017. And more than 1,000 people have so far bought into the Battersea developers’ vision. BPSDC cites the popular view that London is a series of villages, and they are attempting to create one more: the £8bn scheme will provide 3.5m sq ft of shops, restaurants and offices, as well as 4,000 homes. Now that redevelopment is finally under way, it is happening quickly. The first residents are set to move into their homes – located in a newly-built block alongside the power station – in 2016. Entrance to the show flat Meanwhile, the redevelopment plans have become a microcosm of the wider debate over London’s housing market, with critics arguing that expensive apartments bought by foreigners and investors, and then left empty, do not address the capital’s housing shortage. Many of London’s biggest developers argue that without pre-sales, nothing would get built – usually a third of homes need to be sold in advance to make construction financially viable – and foreigners are more willing than locals to stump up their cash years in advance. As with most of the city’s biggest developers, BPSDC offers its homes to locals first: 56 per cent of the 1,120 homes sold so far have been bought by Londoners, rising to 75 per cent of the 254 homes to be built on the roof of the power station itself. They also market these homes around the world. “Clearly we’ve got to make sure that all our homes are occupied,” says Rob Tincknell, BPSDC chief executive. “The debate isn’t about foreign owners. Central London is an international place.” This does nothing to assuage affordability complaints. Homes in two new buildings designed by Frank Gehry and Norman Foster have just gone on sale. Priced from £495,000 for a studio apartment and £3.2m for a four-bedroom home, affordable housing campaigners argue that the nationality of the buyers is less important than their income levels. “The eye-watering asking price of these tiny flats is testament to a housing market that simply isn’t working for ordinary Londoners,” says Duncan Stott, director of affordable housing campaign Priced Out. Tincknell counters that BPSDC has sacrificed larger profits to build some cheaper flats in a bid to attract “a good mix of different types of people”. There will be 570 homes to rent and buy at below market prices, making the power station one of London’s largest affordable housing developments. In addition, the first phase of housing, under construction now, is targeted at young professionals. Yet, priced from £340,000 for a studio flat, this is still 10 times the average London worker’s salary. A desk in the show flat, resembling the power plant upside down Creating the right mix is a challenge for Battersea’s commercial property plans too. BPSDC is embarking on a world tour in an attempt to convince foreign businesses, retailers and restaurants to open offices and outlets in the power station. They want to attract companies that are new to London. “We don’t care about only having the biggest tenants with the highest rents possible,” says Tincknell. “We could have put residential throughout the whole building and made three times as much money. But we chose to make it a mix of different uses, because that is what we felt would make it the best possible place to be.” Battersea has three crucial factors on its side, according to Andrew Jones, a planning adviser at consultancy Aecom who has worked on major urban planning projects around the world: “The heritage, a well-designed master plan and new public transport thanks to a [Northern line] Tube extension all give it a pretty good chance of succeeding,” he says. Mixing homes with retail and office space also helps, because it creates “a 24-hour new place”, adds Jones. In a decade’s time, if the developers’ plans come to fruition, they will have turned a desolate, windswept corner on the crowded map of London into a new focal point for the city, with tens of thousands of people bustling in and out of its immense halls each day. Yet, for now, all that seems a long way off. Viewed from the apartment’s rear balcony the next morning, the power station’s broken windows glint in the early light. The cranes begin to move again, and Battersea’s transformation inches forward. Kate Allen is the FT’s property correspondent. She was a guest of the Battersea Power Station Development Company ——————————————- A temple to industry The Switch Room Few people have heard of J Theo Halliday, but from 1927 this Manchester architect was responsible for the design of Battersea Power Station, writes Jonathan Foyle. Sir Giles Gilbert Scott was the “starchitect” brought in to smooth the path to its improbable completion, such are development politics. Scott was responsible for the eventual form of the four-chimneyed exterior as finished in 1955, choosing generously fine brickwork from Blockley in Worcestershire, and stepping the cliff-like façades with proportion and rhythm. Yet Halliday was responsible for the finest interior – the surviving art-deco Switch Room, where Fred Astaire meets Wallace and Gromit. So the power station was not a “set piece” of design. Yet the much admired collaborative result begs questions about its usage and treatment. In 2005, three engineers concluded the existing chimneys could be repaired in-situ. Instead, they are to be razed and rebuilt as smoke stacks that never smoked, reducing long-term maintenance. That replica skyline is to be altered by glass pavilions, while the view from the railway will be lost to serpentine, argentine, apartment blocks. These will at least uphold the tradition of the “starchitect”. Whether they will be as beloved as the temple of industry they mask remains to be seen. Meanwhile, visiting hours to Halliday’s fabulous Switch Room remain unresolved. Jonathan Foyle is chief executive of World Monuments Fund Britain Photographs: David Sandison; Peter Dazeley Slideshow photographs: Fox Photos/Getty Images; John Downing / Getty Images; Peter Dazeley; John Broome; Chelsea Football Club; BPSDC; David Sandison ——————————————- Letter in response to this article: My towers good, anyone else’s towers bad / From Christopher Bellew |
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler will host the Golden Globes ceremony on Jan. 13, 2013. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association and Dick Clark Productions announced the pairing on Monday. Fey and Poehler have a long history of working together. In addition to acting as co-anchors on the "Saturday Night Live" Weekend Update desk from 2004 to 2006, Fey and Poehler co-starred in the 2004 film "Mean Girls" and the 2008 film "Baby Mama." As recently as this past weekend, Fey and Poehler connected on stage at the Comedy Central charity event "Night of Too Many Stars" and auctioned off a night of their friendship to raise money for autism awareness. (Their friendship earned $46,000 each.) At the 2012 Golden Globes, Fey photobombed Poehler when Poehler's name was read as a nominee for Best Actress - Television Series Musical or Comedy. The decision to hire Fey and Poehler to host the Globes isn't all that surprising: The pair have a longstanding relationship with NBC (from "SNL" to "30 Rock" and "Parks and Recreation"), the network that airs the Golden Globes. As recently seen with Jimmy Kimmel and Neil Patrick Harris -- as, respectively, emcees of the Emmys on ABC and the Tony Awards on CBS -- having a connection with the ceremony's home network is a plus for potential awards show hosts. (That's part of the reason why Seth MacFarlane was such an out-of-left-field choice to for the 85th annual Academy Awards, which air on ABC; he's closely connected to Fox with "Family Guy" and NBC/Universal with "Ted.") The Golden Globes honor the best in television and film as determined by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. The awards are usually handed out before the Academy Award nominations are announced, but that won't be the case in 2013: The Oscar nominations will occur on Jan. 10, 2013, three days before the Globes telecast. The 70th annual Golden Globes air on NBC on on Jan. 13, 2013. For more on the decision to hire Fey and Poehler, head over to THR. [via THR] |
"Shock and horror". That's how most of the world is taking the news that the Ugandan President has just turned an anti-gay bill into law. This makes me so very angry, and extremely disappointed.Why? Because we've known this was going to happen for years, but nobody actually did anything about it. Petitions, documentaries, sure. But no government official actually spoke up about it properly until it was too late. Thank you John Kerry . But please know that Uganda is not the problem. You've got to see the bigger picture. That's what's more important here. That's what's really urgent. Every country that helps Uganda be it financially or through aid, must speak up now and must (most importantly) act. This is of utmost importance because what's just happened in Ugandahappen elsewhere. In fact, what happened in Uganda could easily be linked to the laws that were passed in Russia. But what did the rest of the world powers do then? "Oh dear, Russia! We don't really like that" - nothing.Uganda is different. They depend on the West quite a bit. This is a country that's sitting on oil, but significantly less amounts than Russia. Unfortunately, energy is the reason I believe the UK and US didn't speak up about the Russian anti-gay laws, unlike France whose president publicly denounced the draconian laws and as far as I know, I still have electricity and heating in my apartment. The UK and US are afraid of stumbling into a Second Cold War with Russia, we've clearly understood that with the Ukraine crisis.So, here's the difference. According to Reuters, Russia is the world's biggest oil producer churning out 10.51 million barrels a day , so I can understand why Cameron and Obama are cautious not to step on Putin's toes. Uganda has 1 or 2 billion barrels in total exploitable oil, a tenth of Russia's daily production. According to oilinuganda.org, "the world as a whole consumes one billion barrels of oil every fortnight" so denouncing Uganda's new law clearly poses no threat to western countries.Sadly, I strongly believe that oil is what it comes down to. Obama didn't slam Putin when Russia's laws were signed, however he jumped straight in when President Museveni signed Uganda's law into action.Right now, Uganda's not the problem. Some French gay news sources believe Mali might be next. This article (in French) published in the last few hours on MaliActu, one of Mali's top news sources sings the praise of Uganda's homophobic law and the author hopes Mali's government won't continue to fall to the temptation of money that Malian homosexuals are apparently "paying the government". This homophobic rhetoric is frighteningly similar to that of articles you can read on Ugandan websites. Uganda has just lit the green light for other African countries to follow suit. We have to stop this now before the draconian laws spread. It started in Russia, and now it's spreading around the world to Nigeria, India and now Uganda, and yet I'm still getting the impression that the world is just watching. We need to find a solution. Now.Any countries whose beliefs differ from Uganda's when it comes to gay rights should get out of there. Stop the aid. Let them know we're not happy. Western countries have very little to lose. No oil, nothing. The population widely supports this law. We all need to start taking a "no tolerance" approach to laws like these, because before you know it, somewhere along the line some crazy government official will have the "bright idea" of locking gays in camps.of Uganda in front of the rest of the homophobic world, because Uganda's not the first, and it certainly won't be the last. |
How big? Until it fits in a bathtub! Jonathan Chait with some disturbing news about how the Republicans plan to further shrink government: The Republicans have a new plan to make it easier to rack up deficits: Aside from these symbolic changes, Boehner says he will replace the Democrats’ “Paygo” scheme, which once ensured that every program was paid for prior to passage, with “Cutgo,” which would require Congress to cut spending for a program of equal or greater value before approving a new program. Let me explain what this is all about. "Paygo" was a reform imposed by the 1990 budget agreement that required Congress to offset the cost of any new entitlement program or tax cuts with entitlement cuts or tax hikes. It was a significant factor in the decline of the deficit through the 1990s. Republicans hated it because it required them to offset the cost of tax cuts with either spending cuts or increases in other taxes, thereby making the trade-offs of tax cuts explicit. When they took control of Congress in 2001, Republicans ended the Paygo rule, which allowed them to pass a series of tax cuts along with a Medicare prescription drug benefit without any offsetting measures. The structural deficit exploded. When Democrats recaptured Congress, they re-imposed pay-go rules, leaving an exception for extension of the Bush tax cuts for income under $250,000. That's one reason why the Affordable Care Act had to be offset with hundreds of billions of dollars in politically-painful Medicare cuts, rather than financed solely through borrowing like the Medicare prescription drug law. Naturally, this made the Affordable Care Act much harder to pass through Congress as well as less popular -- bills that hide their cost pass more quickly and with less complaint than bills that make make explicit who is going to pay for their costs. Looking ahead to controlling Congress, Republicans again propose to eliminate Paygo, as they did under Bush. But this time they propose to replace it with a different rule, Cutgo, which would require that new spending be offset with spending cuts. That would indeed be an effective way to limit new spending programs. Of course, it would retain the ability to pass tax cuts with no offsets whatsoever. The decision once again reflects the core Republican belief that tax revenues do not need to bear any relationship to expenditures. |
LITTLE ROCK — The Republican candidate for attorney general said Friday she would use the office to fight against an overreaching federal government, while the Democratic and Libertarian candidates said the attorney general should focus on Arkansas, not Washington. LITTLE ROCK — The Republican candidate for attorney general said Friday she would use the office to fight against an overreaching federal government, while the Democratic and Libertarian candidates said the attorney general should focus on Arkansas, not Washington. The candidates, all lawyers, met for a debate held at the annual convention of the Arkansas Press Association in Hot Springs and streamed live online. Republican candidate Leslie Rutledge said she would use her experience as counsel to former Gov. Mike Huckabee and the Republican National Committee "to combat this overreaching federal government, so that way our farmers and our businesses across the state can get the federal government’s foot off their throat so we can have more jobs in Arkansas, more opportunities for Arkansans." Asked to cite examples, Rutledge said she would fight back against the federal Affordable Care Act and efforts by the Environmental Protection Agency to garnish wages without a court order. State Rep. Nate Steel, D-Nashville, said he is "as frustrated with a lot of the actions of the federal government as anybody" but said his focus would be on Arkansas. "I don’t think that the solution to an overreaching federal government is an overreaching attorney general," he said. "We send six members of Congress to D.C. every year to worry about federal politics. I don’t think we need to turn the attorney general’s office into a seventh." Steel said the attorney general has plenty of problems in the state to handle, including the crime rate, scams against seniors and child predators. Libertarian candidate Aaron Scott Cash said he agreed with Steel. "The federal government may be overreaching, but there are other, more important issues that we could focus on here at home, and I don’t think we should be wasting resources in federal court," Cash said. Steel said that if elected he will propose a package of legislation including measures to address prison overcrowding. "I think we need to start from a law enforcement perspective to have a comprehensive criminal justice reform act that expands drug courts, focuses on alternative sentencing and creates more truth in sentencing for violent crimes and sexual predators," he said. Rutledge said she has not ruled out proposing legislation but has no legislative agenda planned. "I believe the role of the attorney general is to help the legislators, so that way they write good, clean laws. Too often we see ambiguities in the laws," she said. Cash said he would look at deferred prosecutions for non-violent immigrants, to avoid tearing apart families with prosecutions that result in deportation. The candidates were asked if they believe Act 746 of 2013 allows open carry of firearms, as some have claimed despite an advisory opinion by Attorney General Dustin McDaniel stating it does not. Cash said he believes the law does allow open carry of firearms; Steel said he believes it does not. Rutledge said the law is ambiguous and needs clarification. Asked about legalization marijuana for medicinal or recreational use, Steel said, "I don’t think legalizing marijuana would create any benefit." Rutledge said she opposes legalizing marijuana for any purpose, calling it "a gateway drug." Cash said he supports legalizing marijuana. "Enforcing marijuana laws is a waste of our taxpayer dollars. We should be focused on violent criminals," he said. |
- Vaping could be banned in workplaces, and nursing-home and assisted-living facility residents could be guaranteed certain rights --- including the ability to sue without limitations The proposals are part of a series of health-care related legislation being considered by a Florida panel that has the power to place proposed constitutional amendments on the 2018 ballot. Former state Sen. Lisa Carlton, the sponsor of the measure on vaping, said her goal is to amend the Florida Constitution to make clear that the state's existing ban on smoking in workplaces also incorporates vaping, such as the use of electronic cigarettes. “The goal is, if you cannot smoke there, you cannot vape there,” Carlton said, noting that electronic cigarettes weren't available when the original ban was passed by Florida voters in 2002. After e-cigarettes started to become available, she expected the Legislature to tackle the issue, but it didn't. In retrospect, Carlton said she thinks it's better the Legislature didn't address the issue because voters could get the opportunity to put a vaping ban in the Constitution. More than 70 percent of voters approved the original workplace smoking ban in 2002. “It's the perfect opportunity because it should be alongside smoking,” she said, adding, “I feel like this (vaping) has put a cloud over our clean air, and it's time for us to recognize it and update it.” Carlton's proposal would amend a section of the Constitution currently titled “Workplaces without Tobacco Smoke” to read “Workplaces without Tobacco Smoke or Vapor.” Carlton is part of the 37-member Florida Constitution Revision Commission which meets every 20 years to evaluate possible changes to the Constitution. The panel can put issues before voters without having to gather petition signatures or get proposals approved by the Legislature. Commission members proposed 103 amendments, and the panel is expected to whittle that number in the coming months. The commission's General Provisions Committee could take up Carlton's proposal Tuesday. In all, the commission is expected to consider seven health-care related proposals, including a controversial proposal about nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Commissioner Brecht Heuchan has offered a proposal that would establish a “bill of rights” for residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Heuchan's proposal, in part, would require nursing homes to carry liability insurance --- which is not a requirement today --- and includes a right of access to courts and legal remedies, “without limitations,” in cases involving issues such as abuse, negligence or exploitation. Emmett Reed, executive director of the Florida Health Care Association, the state's largest nursing-home group, issued a scathing news release attacking Heuchan for the proposed amendment. Reed accused Heuchan, who is a lobbyist for the Florida Justice Association trial-lawyers group, of ignoring “his broader obligations in order to serve the narrow interest of his clients.” Reed called the state Constitution the “core document” that sets out the structure of Florida's government and said that “some things simply do not belong in the Florida Constitution.” He also said that the proposal would “add nothing to the quality of life for our state's frailest elders, nor would it solve the real issues of keeping nursing home residents safe during disasters. It would only serve the interests of greedy trial attorneys who continually attempt to cash in by suing nursing homes.” But Heuchan fired back at the nursing home organization. In a letter he sent to The News Service of Florida, Heuchan said the Constitution is “a place where rights of the individual are protected, especially when it comes to the rights of the vulnerable.” “I cannot count the number of times I have been told one issue or another does not belong in the Constitution,” he wrote in the letter, adding that when the argument comes from special-interest groups, it's “code” for something else. “What they really mean,” the letter said, is “they think they have other forums wired in their favor, (or) … they know if voters have a chance to consider the proposal, it would pass.” Heuchan disputed the allegation that his amendment would help his clients or is a potential conflict of interest. Before filing the amendment he reviewed the rules, which make clear that he cannot file an amendment that would result in a special gain for him or a principal of his. “What they are saying is speculative at best,” he said adding that if a lawyer successfully sues a nursing home on behalf of a resident, the attorney is paid from the damages the resident is awarded. “It's not a gain to me personally, and it's not a special gain to anyone I work for,” he said. “This is just part of their campaign to discredit me personally because they don't have a good answer to the proposal,” he said. Meanwhile, Heuchan isn't the only member of the Constitution Revision Commission wanting to create a patient's bill of rights. Commissioner Frank Kruppenbacher has proposed an amendment that, if approved by voters, would require the Legislature to guarantee patients “transparency in health care.” That transparency would apply to such things as medical costs and information needed to help patients make informed decisions about treatment. Health-care transparency has been a priority for Gov. Rick Scott, who appointed Kruppenbacher to the commission. Kruppenbacher also has offered another health-care proposal that aligns with Scott's priorities. That proposal would eliminate “certificate of need” laws, which the state can use to restrict the addition of new hospitals and nursing homes. Certificates of need are licenses that Florida requires before new health care facilities can be built. Proponents of so-called CONs argue that they help keep health-care costs lower by preventing facilities from being overbuilt. Critics, such as Scott and House Speaker Richard Corcoran, maintain that CONs are artificial barriers to the marketplace that prevent competition and provide monopolies for companies that already have the licenses. Scott and the House have tried unsuccessfully to eliminate certificate of need laws but have faced opposition from hospitals and nursing homes that don't want to see the restrictions lifted. Information provided by The News Service of Florida. |
Real Salt Lake is set to sign Landon Donovan, former LA Galaxy star, according to multiple sources close to the club’s front office. This would bring to a close weeks of speculation about Donovan’s future and RSL’s interest in the player — weeks that have seen the status of the move fluctuate significantly. We have sought confirmation from RSL Communications on the signing, who have yet to issue an official comment. Donovan, 34, retired from professional soccer following the 2014 MLS campaign, returning to soccer 18 months later to play — again — for LA Galaxy. The news comes after weeks of speculation about Donovan’s future, with his former club indicating he was set to retire. It didn’t take long for rumors surrounding a move to Real Salt Lake to circulate, and they gained further traction before the interest being confirmed as genuine by general manager Craig Waibel. A bump in the road came later, when reports surfaced that the move was in jeopardy, then dead, largely owing to concerns about MLS and CBA rules surrounding the movement and contract size of free agents. The move was recently more or less dead, but rumors came bubbling up again yesterday after RSL coach Jeff Cassar said he was optimistic a deal would be completed. UPDATE, 3:45 p.m.: RSL commentator Brian Dunseth says he was told the deal wasn’t done today — we’ll continue reporting on this throughout the day, as always. This may be a case of “done,” as in agreed, and “done,” meaning complete, being different uses of the same word. When we have further light to shed on the matter, we’ll report it. I was told it wasn’t done an hour ago. https://t.co/cAA9OJ4wQv — Brian Dunseth (@BrianDunseth) January 19, 2017 UPDATE, 4:30 p.m.: MLS writer Sam Stejskal is reiterating what Dunseth said above — that the deal isn’t done. He adds a bit more detail, saying he’s been told that the two sides are talking but nothing is agreed or completed. Told that Landon Donovan to RSL is in no way done. They're talking, but nothing agreed to/completed. MLS approval potential sticking point. — Sam Stejskal (@samstejskal) January 19, 2017 We’ll continue reporting on this one — it’s likely to be a long night. |
A few days ago, The Times published a report on a society that is being undermined by extreme inequality. This society claims to reward the best and brightest regardless of family background. In practice, however, the children of the wealthy benefit from opportunities and connections unavailable to children of the middle and working classes. And it was clear from the article that the gap between the society’s meritocratic ideology and its increasingly oligarchic reality is having a deeply demoralizing effect. The report illustrated in a nutshell why extreme inequality is destructive, why claims ring hollow that inequality of outcomes doesn’t matter as long as there is equality of opportunity. If the rich are so much richer than the rest that they live in a different social and material universe, that fact in itself makes nonsense of any notion of equal opportunity. By the way, which society are we talking about? The answer is: the Harvard Business School — an elite institution, but one that is now characterized by a sharp internal division between ordinary students and a sub-elite of students from wealthy families. The point, of course, is that as the business school goes, so goes America, only even more so — a point driven home by the latest data on taxpayer incomes. |
CANUCKS GM SEARCH CONTINUES Hey I wouldn't even be doing up a post if nothing was happening. And even though it's quiet and it appears nothing is happening on Trevor Linden's search for a new General Manager, shiz seems to be going down. First of all, I just wanted t point out that it was Trevor Linden's plan to hire a new General Manager before the end of May. "I would love to have someone in place by the end of May. I don’t know if that’s possible," Linden said in late April. Yeah well, Linden may meet that deadline, but things have become more complicated since then. Jim Benning was believed to be the Canucks' top guy all along. But after interviewing Benning (reportedly) twice, why hasn't a decision been made here? No report of negotiations? It's starting to seem like Benning doesn't want the job here, and could elect to take a GM job with the Penguins or Capitals. I've already talked about the "resumes" of Ray Shero and George McPhee here. SCOTT HOWSON Now, CBC's Elliotte Friedman drops this bomb on us: Sounds like Edmonton's Scott Howson was in Vancouver for an interview. He didn't respond to a call, email or text seeking comment. That is The Triple Crown of avoidance. Scott Howson. That's a strange one. He was Oilers' assistant GM from 2002-2007, then GM of the Columbus Blue Jackets from 2007-2013, and now the Oilers' Senior Vice President Of Hockey Operations. There is nothing really impressive about his tenure in any of those areas. As far as drafting goes... In his days as assistant GM in Edmonton his most notable picks were: -Jarett Stoll, 36th overall, 2002 -Matt Greene, 44th overall in 2002 -Kyle Brodziak, 214th overall in 2003 -Devan Dubnyk, 14th overall in 2004 -Andrew Cogliano, 25th overall in 2005 -Jeff Petry, 24th overall in 2006 -Sam Gagner, 6th overall in 2007 Of course, keep in mind that he was the assistant GM, and that there is a scouting staff to shoulder the blame for the fails as well. The biggest highlights of Howson's assistant GM career were in the 2005-06 season when the Oilers went to the Cup Finals. He was a part of these whoppers: -Oilers trade Eric Brewer, Doug Lynch and Jeff Woywitka to the Blues for Chris Pronger. -trade Mike York and a pick in 2006 to the Sabres fro Mike Peca. -A first and 3rd round pick to the Wild for Dwayne Roloson -traded Yan Stastny, Marty Reasoner and a 2nd round pick (Milan Lucic) to the Bruins for Sergei Samsonov All key parts in the Oilers' playoff run in 2006. When they had to flog Pronger, they sent him to the Ducks for Joffrey Lupul, Ladislav Smid, a first round pick in 2007, a 2nd round pick in 2008, and a 1st round pick in 2008 which they used to pick Jordan Eberle. Now on to his drafting days as GM of the Blue Jackets. -Jakub Voracek, 7th overall in 2007 -Matt Calvert, 127th overall in 2008 -Cam Atkinson, 157th overall in 2008 -John Moore, 27th overall in 2009 -David Savard, 94h overall in 2009 -Ryan Johansen, 4th overall in 2010 -Boone Jenner, 37th overall in 2011 -Ryan Murray, 2nd overall in 2012 The significant trades made by Howson: -BJ's acquire RJ Umberger from the Flyers in exchange for a 1st and 3rd round pick in 2008 -Jackets acquire Antoine Vermette from the Senators for Pascal Leclaire and a 2nd round pick in 2009 -Jackets acquire Jeff Carter from the Flyers in exchange for Jakub Voracek, and 1st and 3rd round picks in 2011 -traded Jeff Carter to the Kings for a conditional 1st round pick in 2012 or 2013 and Jack Johnson. You know what? I don't want to go any further than this. If we go by track record alone WE DON'T WANT SCOTT HOWSON. |
Writing the measure that ended marijuana prohibition in Washington state would’ve been enough to enshrine Alison Holcomb among Capitol Hill’s most celebrated residents. Now that voter-approved I-502 is finally rolling out, Holcomb is carefully considering her next move, which could include deepening her position as a neighborhood leader by becoming Capitol Hill’s first representative on the Seattle City Council. In her current day job as criminal justice director for the ACLU of Washington, Holcomb has largely focused on protecting individuals from government overreach. In recent years she said she’s been drawn towards thinking about how the government can better serve individuals. “A little bit more about creating new policies instead of having to defend against bad ones,” she told CHS. Last month Holcomb announced in an interview that she was strongly considering running for the newly created District 3 council seat, where she would become Capitol Hill and the Central District’s first ever dedicated council member. To get there, Holcomb will almost certainly have to challenge city council member and Capitol Hill resident Kshama Sawant. “I’m fairly frustrated (by) the way that she approaches the work,” Holcomb told CHS. “I think it’s very important that she distinguish between being an activist and a legislator.” Holcomb’s early city council announcement, which she called a “bit of a rookie blunder,” was met with some surprise given her strong progressive credentials and Sawant’s popularity on Capitol Hill and in Central Seattle. Holcolmb said it was her deep connection to Capitol Hill and some political calculus that led her to hone in on the District 3 seat over challenging one of the two presumed incumbents for the at-large positions. She said she wouldn’t run against Tim Burgess as they’ve worked together extensively on criminal justice issues and she hasn’t heard a convincing argument to challenge Sally Clark. Capitol Hill food and drink owners that have sparred with Sawant over the $15 an hour minimum wage issue would likely be a big source of support for Holcomb’s campaign. Holcomb’s husband, Gregg Holcomb, is a longtime Capitol Hill bartender who opened Witness on north Broadway last year. Holcomb said she is still mulling the run for council and said she wouldn’t make a decision until after November’s general election. Holcomb’s interest in elected office didn’t come out of the blue. Last year she sought the appointment to Sen. Jaime Pedersen’s seat in the House after he took over for Mayor Ed Murray in the Senate. Brady Walkinshaw, a Capitol Hill resident and program officer at the Gates Foundation, ultimately took the role. Holcomb tells CHS she always assumed she would end up at the state level. Upon reflecting on her work to legalize marijuana, Holcomb said she realized that much of the movement at the state level began with the cities, including SPD’s de-prioritization of marijuana enforcement. “I had just come to understand how much I really love problem solving and I-502 was the most dramatic example,” she said. “It’s fascinating to me, it’s a multi-demnsional chess game and I think it’s the next work I want to do” Living on Capitol Hill since 2000, Holcomb has established deep roots in the neighborhood. She was married at All Pilgrims Church, her 6-year-old son attends Lowell Elementary School, and her husband has made a career behind Capitol Hill bars. Those connections are part of the reason why Holcomb wants to represent the area on the council. “I’m really committed to this neighborhood because it’s where we’ve had some of the most amazing experiences of our lives,” Holcomb, who owns a 700-square-foot condo in a 1910-built building, said. It has been eight months since Washington state effectively ended marijuana prohibition with Holcomb’s I-502 measure. Holcomb said she’s mostly pleased with the rollout thus far, but is concerned about the lack of supply and prohibitive buffer regulations for retail locations. The problems are perhaps most emblematic in Holcomb’s own neighborhood where pot-loving Capitol Hill has no retail marijuana shops and the closest permitted location is at 24th and Union. The problem lies in the buffer rule that prevents marijuana shops from being within 1,000 feet of schools and parks — a tough feat on Capitol Hill. Holcomb said she would like to see the 1,000-foot buffer cut in half, especially for large cities. “The 1,000-foot rule is not workable, especially in more densely populated cities,” she said. “I think it’s fair to say there would be healthy demand for marijuana in the Capitol Hill neighborhood.” One solution could be giving local lawmakers the power to decide where shops should be located within their own city limits, something Holcomb said she supports. Until Holcomb makes a final decision on a council run, she said she’ll continue to monitor the rollout of I-502 through her post at the ACLU. As a Capitol Hill resident, she’ll also be eagerly awaiting more development in her north Broadway neighborhood. “We’re hoping there will continue to be a development for a range of people,” she said. “We do want the preservation of the economic diversity of the neighborhood because it gives it so much character.” |
If you buy a new router today, you probably want to get one with 802.11AC, and if you get a new modem, you definitely want the Motorola SURFboard SB6141. Today, you can kill two birds with one stone at Newegg. Just buy a Linksys AC1900 router, add in promo code EMCPHWB92, and you'll get the modem for free. Even if you have a modem, you could easily sell this one for $60-$70 to recoup part of the cost of the router. [Newegg] Advertisement An SSD is one of the best upgrades you can give your computer, and there happen to be a ton of great deals on them today. Ranging in size from 60GB to 1TB, you shouldn't have any trouble finding one to fit your needs. Advertisement Advertisement You might not have heard of the brand before, but this 12,000mAh external charger from Mpow has great reviews, and is only $30 today on Amazon with a promo code. Advertisement GMG may get a commission Buy now Mpow 12,000mAh USB Charger | $30 With Promo Code PB12MPOW Advertisement The Belkin WeMo line is one of the easiest ways to break into home automation, and Newegg is offering $12 off the WeMo light switch today. We've seen a few $10 discounts on the switch before, but this is the cheapest it's ever been. Grab one before they're gone. Belkin WeMo Light Switch | $38 With Promo Code EMCPHWB84 Advertisement The WD My Passport Ultra is one of the best portable drives around, according to both user reviews and The Wirecutter. The 1TB model is down to just $60 today on Newegg, which is $9 less than the lowest price we've seen to date. Update: Sold out on Newegg, but Amazon has it for $69, which is the second lowest price we've ever seen. GMG may get a commission Buy now Advertisement Featuring smart TV apps and a smart remote to boot, this 60" Vizio is available today at Target for $800, matching the price we saw during Black Friday. If you have a Target REDcard, your 5% discount amounts to a whopping $40 here as well. Advertisement Apps iOS Android Advertisement Mac Unclutter ($2) | Normally $5 | Desktop organizer Phones and Tablets Moto X [Verizon] ($.01) | Amazon | Plus a $100 bill credit when you activate a new line. Motorola HX550 Universal Bluetooth Headset ($25) | Amazon | Must choose Amazon as seller Advertisement GMG may get a commission Buy now Computers HP ENVY 15t-j100 Quad Edition Core i7-4700MQ Haswell, 8GB, 1TB Laptop ($600) | HP | Use promo code 50PDS599 Advertisement Displays Networking Linksys AC1900 Gigabit Router Plus Motorola SURFboard SB6141 Modem ($200) | Newegg | Coupon code EMCPHWB92 adds the modem to your cart automatically. The router is wireless AC, and the modem is the best on the market. Would be $285 purchased separately. refurb ASUS RT-AC66R Dual-Band Wireless-AC1750 Gigabit Router ($110) | NewEgg | Use promo code 218CALVLUP7 Advertisement Printers Brother HL2230 Monochrome Laser Printer ($50) | Amazon | Excellent reviews Advertisement PC Parts Advertisement Storage Advertisement Power GMG may get a commission Buy now Advertisement Headphones Advertisement Home Theater TVs and Projectors Audio and Accessories Advertisement Home Advertisement Tools Fitness Gazelle Edge Exercise System ($100) | Kmart | Today Only Photography Advertisement Apparel Advertisement Books Advertisement Entertainment Advertisement Gaming Advertisement Inventory Advertisement Advertisement This post is brought to you by the Commerce Team, a dedicated group of deal hunters and product enthusiasts. We operate independently of Editorial to bring you the best bargains every day, share our favorite products with you, and ask you about yours. When you buy something we recommend, we may also get a small share of the sale. We welcome your questions and want your feedback. |
NEWCASTLE United’s Curits Good has told of his World Cup dream. The defender, on loan at Dundee United, has been called up into the Australia squad for next week’s friendly against Ecuador. It is the last international before Australia’s provisional 30-man squad for the summer’s finals in Brazil is announced. Coach Ange Postecoglou said: “If players do well in this game, and back it up with a strong second half of the year, they’ll be in pole position.” Good – who has made one senior appearance for Newcastle – is hopeful he can make an impression against Ecuador at Millwall’s New Den on Wednesday night. “I’m delighted to have been picked for my country, because when you start playing football as a kid that’s what you dream of,” said the 20-year-old. “It’s a great chance to impress the coach before the World Cup. I’ve been trying hard not to get too excited about it but it hasn’t been easy. “Brazil is a long way away yet, but it would be great if it could happen for me.” |
Geoffrey Canada This article is part of Promoting Social Mobility, a forum on using early intervention to reduce inequality. Geoffrey Canada As James Heckman argues, we need to be smarter investors with our public-education dollars and increase funding for early-childhood education. But we also need to improve our efforts for all the phases of our children’s lives. To make the kind of dramatic progress we need, we have to rethink our definition of public education, so it begins before kindergarten and goes beyond classroom walls. Schools are the centerpiece of our children’s academic life, but they are failing to inspire, educate, and develop millions in poverty. We need to radically reform a public education system that has been paralyzed for decades. The problem is not a lack of curricula and instructional tools, but a lack of perspective and political will. With evidence that brain development differences begin as early as the first year, we must start the work of readying our children before they arrive at their local school for kindergarten. Many parents already do this, but it has to be part of our public policy. On that score, Heckman and I are in agreement. Without bolstering early-education for children, our public schools will be handicapped in fulfilling their mandate for a large portion of their students—particularly those of poor parents. Family life has a tremendous effect on a child’s educational prospects, and the early years essentially set the table for future learning. There, too, I agree with Heckman. But we cannot simply blame or ignore the parents, as some in the debate do. At the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ), we have a parenting program, The Baby College, where we have learned that if parents are treated with respect, they are open to changing their assumptions about raising a baby. Where they might not have spoken to a baby who “can’t understand,” they learn to talk, read, and sing with them to encourage optimal brain development. And at our Harlem Gems pre-kindergarten program, we bring parents into the process, and most are excited to play such an active role in their child’s development. Even if a parent is unwilling or unable to help, we cannot turn our backs on their children. We must—as a society and as educators—uphold our responsibility to help their children become self-sustaining adults. These children belong to all of us, but we are simply not acting that way. Once we accept that, we will have made the first step in changing the direction of their lives. Children at risk belong to all of us; we need to start acting that way. As a comprehensive program, HCZ has to make sure problems are addressed early, or we will be forced to expend much more time and energy to solve them later. That said, even the superhero work of saving off-track teenagers is possible, and a better investment than dealing with the repercussions of educational failure—unemployment, prison, unwanted pregnancy, drug abuse. I feel more strongly than Heckman that later interventions are still very necessary. In truth, the “secret” to saving poor children is hiding in plain sight across the country in the middle-class communities that surround many of our successful public schools. There, parents pick a favorite book each night from the bookcase to read to their baby at bedtime. If students have trouble seeing the board, their parents get them glasses. For the most part, students don’t worry about whether they will get dinner after school or get shot on their way home. In these communities, a set of givens allows their schools to succeed. I’ve spent my entire professional life working to even the playing fields between these two communities by lifting up what’s there for poor children. Where I have succeeded, I’ve seen the children succeed. And I’ve seen that investing in children early pays big dividends later. This fall, HCZ will have more than a thousand young people sitting in college classrooms—not in prison cells, like many of their peers. My core belief that all children can learn has never been diminished; just the opposite, in fact. It’s a transformational belief our country needs to adopt today. I guarantee that anyone who expects to live another ten or twenty years will see for themselves the repercussions of our abdication of responsibility toward our children. Kids who are off-track in elementary school are, without a lucky break, going to end up in the unenviable position of having no skills in a high-skills job market. And we know that dropouts and the unemployed sometimes drift into criminal activity. Already the country’s military reports that only 25 percent of young people qualify to enlist. Our malign neglect will produce a generation of Americans who are less educated, less healthy, and less able than their predecessors to maintain this country’s standing in the world. If all children—even poor ones—can learn, we are left with an embarrassing question: Why aren’t we, who have been given so much by this country, doing all we can to make it happen so America’s great legacy will continue? |
Bleeding Cool told you that Tom King was planning an upcoming “The War Of Jokes And Riddles”. You know, by reading the comic and seeing what the characters in it said to each other. And then looking up catalogue solicitations online. …The War Of Jokes And Riddles by Tom King and Mikel Janin. Taking place in the aftermath of Year Zero, when The Riddler controlled Gotham for a whole year. It will run from Batman #25 to #32. And at the Dallas Fan Expo, Tom King talked a lot. Batman News got a full report. Here are a few snippets interspersed with artwork that Ton King has been tweeting out. “Brilliant Mikel Janin cover for The War of Jokes and Riddles.” Batman #24 will be a sort of recap and wrap-up of the run so far, with a cliffhanger that leads into “The War of Jokes and Riddles.” He says the last page will be shared and talked about for decades. “Coming in Batman: The War of Jokes and Riddles, a story of the past that will shape the future of the DCU.” It begins in Batman #25, which is a deluxe sized anniversary issue, and is an eight-part story arc. “A year after he began, Batman thinks he understands the pain and power of Gotham. And the war comes, and he learns he knows nothing.” The basic premise: the Joker and the Riddler clash, as neither one wants the other to destroy Batman and rob them of the satisfaction. This causes a “gang war” to erupt with people taking sides, all while Batman is caught in the middle trying to keep the city safe. “Joker vs. Riddler, a war that divides and destroys his city. In the midst of the carnage, will the Dark Knight rise again or finally fall?” We’ll see some cool fights, like Deadshot vs. Deathstroke and Solomon Grundy vs. Killer Croc. “The Riddler is tired of jokes.” The arc will be broken up into acts, after a fashion: issues 25-26, 28-29, and 31-32 will be part of the main story, with art by Mikel Janín. “The Joker is tired of riddles.” Issues 27 and 30 will feature a guest artist he couldn’t announce at the time, and they will take a look at what it means be a bottom-tier villain during one of these big wars. It may or may not focus on Kite-Man. War of Jokes and Riddles is an 8 part epic starting in Batman 25. Scripts by me. Art by my genius brother, Mikel Janin/ Look for more in DC’s July solicits. About Rich Johnston Chief writer and founder of Bleeding Cool. Father of two. Comic book clairvoyant. Political cartoonist. (Last Updated ) Related Posts None found |
Earlier this week, American Pastor Saeed Abedini was able to write a letter to his wife and supporters detailing the horrific conditions he suffers in Iran’s brutal Evin Prison. Pastor Saeed has now been imprisoned in Iran nearly five months. He describes how the “the psychological warfare, a year of not seeing my family, physical violence, actions committed to humiliate me, insults, being mocked,” extremists and other bullying groups in Evin “create another prison within the prison walls.” In his last public letter, before his conviction, Pastor Saeed wrote that he was told he “will hang” for his faith. Today, he says that he still faces “death threats” in prison. For the first time, Pastor Saeed acknowledges that the beatings and torture are designed to get him to recant his Christian faith – something he says he will never do. “They are only waiting for one thing…for me to deny Christ,” he wrote. “But they will never get this from me.” In one instance, a fellow cellmate “attacked” him because he was singing praise songs. As Pastor Saeed writes, “It is during these harsh conditions, that I deeply need God’s Saving Grace so that I can be the fragrant scent of Christ in the dark house of Evin prison.” These are the conditions he will face every day for the next eight years of his prison sentence. Pastor Saeed, a U.S. citizen, is being forced to undergo some of the most horrific conditions imaginable. Upon receiving this heartbreaking letter, Pastor Saeed’s wife, Naghmeh, told us: It is heart wrenching to hear of Saeed's continued abuse and torture in the Iranian prison. We have known for some time that he is facing physical and psychological abuse. Now our worst fears have been confirmed. He continues to face life-threatening abuse at the hands of the Iranian officials simply because of his faith in Jesus. These are the dreadful conditions he will continue to face as he serves his lengthy prison sentence in Iran. Saeed is an American citizen who is being pressured and falsely promised freedom if only he will deny his faith in Jesus. We have seen this tactic used in the past. Saeed will never recant his faith in Jesus - even if it means continued torture and abuse. Our primary concern is for his health and well-being with each passing day. We know that while he is very weak physically, Saeed is strong in his faith. His situation is dire and with the continued abuse and death threats, we are not sure how long Saeed will survive these horrendous conditions in prison. The most important thing we can do is pray, continue to raise awareness of his case and continue to work for his freedom. It is incumbent upon each of us to stand up for this 32-year-old U.S. citizen, loving father of two, devoted husband, and committed pastor. It is rare that he is able to get a letter like this to the public. He has no voice. Each of us must be his voice. Sign the petition for his freedom at SaveSaeed.org. After you have signed the petition, please consider who of your family and friends can also sign this petition to save Pastor Saeed. Watch and share the video above as his letter is narrated. Below is the complete letter from Pastor Saeed, translated into English – a powerful testimony of perseverance in the face of unspeakable persecution: Writing from my heart. My Dear Friends, The conditions here get so very difficult that my eyes get blurry, my body does not have the strength to walk, and my steps become very weak and shaky. Various (bullying) groups, the psychological warfare, a year of not seeing my family, physical violence, actions committed to humiliate me, insults, being mocked, being confronted with extremists in the prison who create another prison within the prison walls, and the death threats… It is interesting that because I am a Christian pastor, I am carefully watched. I am expected to smile at them despite what is being done and to understand why they are doing all of these things. But, of course, I can clearly see what is going on and because I want to serve God, I see all of these difficulties as golden opportunities and great doors to serve. There are empty containers who are thirsty for a taste of the Living Water and we can quench their thirst by giving them Jesus Christ. Maybe you are also in such a situation, so pray and seek God that He would use you and direct you in the pressures and difficulties of your lives. There are those who are enemies of the Living Bible and do not want to hear. They are trying to put me under such horrific pressures (that are sometimes unbearable) so that they can show me that my faith is empty and not real. And after all of these pressures, after all of the nails they have pressed against my hands and feet, they are only waiting for one thing…for me to deny Christ. But they will never get this from me. This is why the Bible is Truth and they are in the way of destruction. There is another group who does not know the Gospel of Truth. Instead of truly listening and meditating on God’s Word, they are just waiting to see how I react to all of their pressures and persecution. What will come out of me during these intense times? But again, this is another golden opportunity for me to shine the light of Christ in this dark world and to let God to use me. Yesterday when I was singing worship songs, the head of my cell room attacked me in order to stop me from praising but in response I hugged him and showed him love. He was shocked. It is during these harsh conditions, that I deeply need God’s Saving Grace so that I can be the fragrant scent of Christ in the dark house of Evin prison. I have often seen the Shining Morning Star in the darkness of this prison and I have seen His amazing and supernatural works. Oh, how beautiful is seeing the light of the Shining Morning Star of Christ in such evil darkness. So: See your golden opportunities in pressures and difficulties. See the Shining Morning Star in the dark times of your life. I Love Him! He is Gracious, Merciful, and Righteous to me. I now know that I have not been forgotten and that we are together in this path. God gives me Grace. This is my message for the Church: Stay Strong for His Glory. He will come back soon! Be with God and give your best efforts for His kingdom. Pastor Saeed, servant of Jesus Christ in chains for endurance of Gospel. I love you all. Share his letter. Pray. Join over a quarter of a million others, and sign the petition at SaveSaeed.org. |
CLOSE Detroit rapper Eminem releases first new album since his "The Marshall Mathers LP 2" in 2013. Wochit Detroit rapper Eminem in 2017. (Photo: Craig McDean, Interscope Records) Rapper Eminem is hosting a promotional event in Detroit in the style of a pop-up restaurant with a menu featuring "mom's spaghetti." Eminem touted the Friday event at the Shelter club to promote his new album, "Revival," in a tweet Thursday, saying: "Detroit! Come vomit up some spaghetti with me this weekend at our official #Revival pop up." He says food and exclusive merchandise will be available. Related: The spaghetti menu item is a nod to lyrics from his Oscar-winning hit "Lose Yourself" from the movie, "8 Mile," in which he's so nervous about competing in a rap battle that "there's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti." Last month, the rapper released a freestyle rap that derided President Donald Trump, focusing on Trump's campaign against NFL national anthem protests. Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/2Az37pN |
Update: A soldier has been chosen* to lead humanity in this upcoming war, and his name is Chris Underwood! Please consult your twitter account for instructions on how to proceed! For everyone else, thanks for participating and keep on the lookout for more contests down the line! *The drawing was done using the List Randomizer over at random.org. You there, soldier! Have you not reported to your commander to help stave off the extraterrestrial threat? Have you not gotten a copy of 2K Games and Firaxis Games’ XCOM: Enemy Unknown and joined the fight? Well then. I’m here to offer you a chance to be part of the human resistance. You can win a copy of the game! How, you ask? By listening to orders, soldier! All you have to do is: 1.) Follow us on both Facebook and Twitter (which can be done clicking the buttons on the sidebar to your right) and 2.) Comment below on what you would do to save the human race from alien invaders, and 3.) Tweet “I want to win a copy of XCOM: Enemy Unknown from @Glitch_Cat!” Simple enough for you? A winner will be chosen on Tuesday, October 16, 2012 at 3:00 p.m. EDT. He or she will be announced as winner on the contest page and will be notified via Twitter so their mailing address and system of preference can be obtained, so a copy can be shipped their way. So make sure you check your twitter account for further instructions! And as usual in this excercise: This contest is only open to residents of the United States and Canada. So strap on some boots, get your gear, and enter the contest! |
How can we solve traffic jams, emissions and accidents? Self-driving cars! Gameplay (skip to 1:16) Created in 12 hours for #TrafikJam, the winning entry Error-Prone is cute little game of chaos and carnage made for 26 people to play around one keyboard. The end result illustrates perfectly how self driving cars are vastly superior to their human counterparts in terms of traffic grid lock, efficiency and avoiding road accidents. The game itself is very simple, 26 cars autonomous cars driving around in a neat little circle. When you press a letter on the keyboard you assume control and almost immediately you will see the effects your erratic human driving causing grid lock or even accidents. The more people play (up to 26, if you can fit and have a good enough keyboard) the more chaos ensues. The only way to win is to not play at all. TrafikJam is collaboration between Stugan (an indie games accelerator set in the Swedish country side) and Trafikverket (the Swedish Transport Administration) to imagine the future of transport. Credits: Code - Peter Cardwell-Gardner @TheFuntastic Art & Sound - Mark Backler @MarkBackler If you like this please consider checking out Cadence (The musical playground, out on Steam Early Access this September) or The Last Word Sound sample attribution: Big Crash - Northern_Monkey 1004_crash - FatLane Car Crash - squareal Cuckoo & Nightingale Duet - Vonora Car Horn - bsumusictech Car Horn - BeatsbyCasper Car Horn - keweldog |
From the peanut husks that carpeted the floor to the steel guitar pickers in western shirts who shared the stage with a stuffed buffalo, the Rodeo Bar took Texas-size pride in its incongruity. Here, beneath the sparkling skyscrapers of Midtown Manhattan, lay a country oasis that served sizzling Tex-Mex food, high-caliber margaritas and live music with plenty of twang. But after 27 years of holding out, Alamo style, against rising rents and marching chain stores, this roadhouse on the corner of Third Avenue and East 27th Street closed on Sunday. “There’s not many country spots in New York for a Southerner — it was a sanctuary,” said Chris Yarbrough, 37, a native of the Florida Panhandle, who returned to the spot where on New Year’s Eve in 2005 he met his future wife, Suzie Yarbrough. On Saturday afternoon. Mrs. Yarbrough walked in silence past walls covered in framed posters of the rockabilly guitarist Ronnie Dawson, albums by Johnny Cash and Link Wray and a sticker-covered horse trailer that housed a working bartender. |
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