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Photo Credit: archive (Guest contributor, Rabbi Mitchell Rocklin is a member of the Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Council of America} Why would anyone want to ban women rabbis? And why now? As one of the organizers and supporters of what has been characterized as the Rabbinical Council of America’s recent “ban on women rabbis,” I would like to help set the record straight. Advertisement This resolution was a response to a schism created by the “Open Orthodox” splinter group, led by Rabbi Avi Weiss. Since 2009, “Open Orthodox” advocates have been channeling millions of dollars of non-Orthodox money to create new “facts on the ground” that pressure Modern Orthodoxy into yielding to certain Reform and Conservative Jewish standards. As “Open Orthodox” proponents have made clear, these reforms include ordaining women as rabbis so that they might serve in a variety of traditional roles, including pulpit rabbis of synagogues. During the past several years, leading rabbis in and outside of the RCA have prohibited Orthodox Jews from redefining their clergy in the image of other religions or other non-Orthodox Jewish denominations. Their reasons, some of which have appeared in print, have included halakhic (religious-legal) as well as other justifications. Based on these rationales, the RCA’s membership unanimously passed a resolution in 2010 stating that it does not accept women rabbis. The organization subsequently clarified that this resolution applies to “Maharat” and other newly-invented equivalent titles. Recently, several RCA members in Orthodox Union synagogues defied these resolutions by supporting the hiring of women rabbis in their institutions. In response to the confusion this caused, a large group of RCA members proposed a resolution that contained unambiguous and definitive language, clarifying that RCA members are prohibited from supporting the hiring of women rabbis. This resolution was ratified by a general membership vote on October 30, 2015. Judaism leaves a great deal of room for differences of opinion. Yet throughout our history, some religious disputes needed to be resolved with universal rabbinic agreement and clarity. Earlier in Jewish history, all rabbis agreed to follow one uniform calendar, so that they would all observe Jewish holidays together. Although the Jewish community was repeatedly divided in its acceptance of different calendars, it was taken for granted that a religion must have one calendar. In modern times, a similar final decision had to be made concerning the requirement for a mechitzah (partition) and separate seating in synagogue sanctuaries. A final decision was reached by Orthodoxy’s leading rabbis, who ruled that no synagogue can be considered Orthodox if it violates this standard. The practice of maintaining separate seating partitions is not mentioned explicitly in codes of Jewish law. Like the need to maintain a uniform Jewish calendar, however, the mechitzah requirement was taken for granted as an essential part of Jewish tradition and a distinguishing trait of Orthodox Judaism. Just as Orthodox Judaism cannot exist with separate calendars or synagogue seating requirements, it cannot have different definitions of clergy. Without unity on these issues, Orthodox Jews cannot even pray together. The phenomenon of separate synagogue seating was not arbitrary or imitative. Nor was the Jewish requirement that only men may serve as the kohanim (priests) and rabbis who preside over temple and synagogue rituals. There is a reason why there is no Jewish precedent for a female leader of ritual services. Judaism was not imitating its surrounding cultures, as it may have been with its lack of women educators or leaders. On the contrary, the idea of male responsibility for religious ritual was a revolutionary idea in Judaism, one opposed to the female ritual leadership that was common in the ancient Near East, the Greco-Roman world, Christendom, and modernity. This distinction is an essential part of Judaism, one that relates to uniquely Jewish assumptions concerning men, women, ritual, and family life. There is no new egalitarian crisis when it comes to Jewish ritual services. Judaism has long been at odds with its neighboring religions when it comes to who should lead public rituals. Because essential assumptions or ideas are often contained in established ritual practice, traditional change is only legitimate when it occurs due to internal considerations that respond to new challenges or realizations. The considerations that motivate change must never be external if they are inimical to foundational principles. Traditional change can occur organically, in which case customs shift gradually and with little controversy; it also may be inorganic and urged by leading religious leaders who are universally accepted for their erudition, judgment, and wisdom, and who implement change in order to preserve first principles in the face of new challenges. This latter type of change usually involves practical decisions, such as women’s education and religious Zionism, but it does not create entirely new principles. Proponents of women rabbis, frustrated with the slow pace of development in Orthodox Jewish women’s leadership, would like to see radical and inorganic change that is inconsistent with Judaism’s first principles. Yet the concept of a woman ritual leader runs counter to the ancient, unique, and essential Jewish understanding of male-led leadership in the sphere of ritual. Furthermore, there is no single widely accepted posek (authority on difficult problems in Jewish law) who approves of this development. Instead, “Open Orthodoxy” hopes that ordaining “Maharats” will create new “facts on the ground” as women take over synagogue pulpits. One of its leaders even made a misleading claim that one posek, former Israeli Sephardic Chief Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron, permitted women’s ordination. This is incorrect. Rabbi Bakshi-Doron allowed women to answer religious inquiries, but did not permit them to become rabbis and preside over synagogue rituals (Binyan Av 65:5). It is clear that current opportunities for Jewish women’s leadership are inadequate. There are many possible ways to provide far better opportunities for Orthodox Jewish women. For instance, an existing Jewish institute of higher education could establish a school offering a variety of useful and respectable degrees, such as M.Div. or a D.Min. These degrees are commonplace in the non-Jewish world, and would allow an accomplished Jewish woman to be far more respected with the title of “Doctor” instead of “Maharat.” At the same time, these new degrees would not violate traditional and uniquely Jewish understandings of ritual leadership obligations. Whatever path we choose, it cannot be one that abrogates male responsibility for assuming ritual leadership roles. A radical path may garner a great deal of non-Orthodox money and support, as well as some Orthodox support. But it also alienates most of Orthodoxy. The Orthodox rabbinate’s membership organizations, including the Modern Orthodox RCA, cannot countenance the disregard of essential Jewish traditions in the name of progress. This position is not taken with malice or prejudice, but with respect and deference to our tradition. There is plenty of room to advance Jewish causes, both within and outside of Orthodoxy. Anyone is free to disagree with the resolution, and to seek to create “facts on the ground,” as Open Orthodoxy is seemingly intent on doing. The RCA’s resolution effectively demands that “Open Orthodox” should not mislead the public by calling themselves “Orthodox” if they do not wish to follow Orthodox guidelines, and that they present themselves honestly to the public. The RCA can only establish its own membership standards. It has just done so when it comes to the matter of hiring women rabbis, and its conclusion is now unambiguous, definitive, and binding on its members. {Rabbi Mitchell Rocklin is a member of the Executive Committee of the Rabbinical Council of America. The opinions expressed in this article are his own, and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of other individuals or the RCA}
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio's speech calling on "ending the corporate greed" of the coal, oil and gas industries may have garnered polite applause at the World Economic Forum, but it's getting a skeptical reception in Alberta. The speech came during a ceremony where DiCaprio announced his foundation would donate $15 million to environmental projects. "Those entities with a financial interest in preserving this destructive system have denied and even covered up the evidence of our changing climate," said The Revenant star. Dr. Rebecca Sullivan, a professor at the University of Calgary, says this kind of commentary is what's to be expected at the forum in Davos, Switzerland, calling it "one heck of an expensive, carbon-footprinty cocktail party" for the wealthy and their favourite celebrities du jour. "It just keeps on being this group of stateless elites who feel that, by virtue of their wealth and their power and their status, that that makes them experts," said Sullivan. "And it doesn't." Not to say Sullivan doesn't think there's room for celebrities to talk about what matters to them, but it's about how they do it. Sharing the spotlight "I think what celebrities can do is bring the spotlight that follows them and shine it on important social issues, like climate change. But celebrities do this best when they move the spotlight off of them and on to the people that know better." The frustrating part, says Sullivan, is it seems DiCaprio doesn't want to share the spotlight. "That becomes problematic because he's not an expert. He doesn't know what he's talking about all of the time. He's learning along with the rest of us." Gwendolyn Blue, an associate professor of Geography at University of Calgary, says she's glad DiCaprio is bringing more attention to climate change but she thinks his comments are missing the big picture. "He's not being reflective about his own industry. And, given his platform, a more important role for him to play would be to look at the implications of the media industry and the film industry in terms of their climate impacts rather than tying into a moralistic discussion," says Blue. "Not just looking at his lifestyle, but pointing a finger to the industry practices he's involved in is a much harder conversation, and an important one. And because he has that platform, he could do something about that. But he's choosing not to and choosing to feed into rather simplistic types of soundbites. And that's unfortunate." DiCaprio was one of several celebrities being honoured for their charitable works by the World Economic Forum, including musician Will.i.am, Danish artist Olafur Eliasson and Chinese actress Yao Chen. <a href="https://twitter.com/CBCCalgary">@CBCCalgary</a> Right. Corporate greed. I'm sorry Leo, how much do you require to be paid in order to be in a movie? Right. —@meganpratt <a href="https://twitter.com/CBCCalgary">@CBCCalgary</a> wish smug movie stars would stick to entertaining and leave world issues to the people with proper education & experience —@HerbDerby <a href="https://twitter.com/CBCCalgary">@CBCCalgary</a> says the guy who makes $20 million for acting in a film —@MasternakMatt <a href="https://twitter.com/CBCCalgary">@CBCCalgary</a> and how did he get to Davos? Horse & buggy —@peterhof3
One of the most provocative ideas about business in this decade so far surfaced in a most unlikely place. The forum wasn’t the Harvard Business School or one of those $4,000-a-head conferences where Silicon Valley’s venture capitalists search for the next big thing. It was a convention of Canadian cops in the far-flung province of Newfoundland. The speaker, a 71-year-old professor emeritus from the University of British Columbia, remains virtually unknown in the business realm. But he’s renowned in his own field: criminal psychology. Robert Hare is the creator of the Psychopathy Checklist. The 20-item personality evaluation has exerted enormous influence in its quarter-century history. It’s the standard tool for making clinical diagnoses of psychopaths — the 1% of the general population that isn’t burdened by conscience. Psychopaths have a profound lack of empathy. They use other people callously and remorselessly for their own ends. They seduce victims with a hypnotic charm that masks their true nature as pathological liars, master con artists, and heartless manipulators. Easily bored, they crave constant stimulation, so they seek thrills from real-life “games” they can win — and take pleasure from their power over other people. advertisement advertisement On that August day in 2002, Hare gave a talk on psychopathy to about 150 police and law-enforcement officials. He was a legendary figure to that crowd. The FBI and the British justice system have long relied on his advice. He created the P-Scan, a test widely used by police departments to screen new recruits for psychopathy, and his ideas have inspired the testing of firefighters, teachers, and operators of nuclear power plants. According to the Canadian Press and Toronto Sun reporters who rescued the moment from obscurity, Hare began by talking about Mafia hit men and sex offenders, whose photos were projected on a large screen behind him. But then those images were replaced by pictures of top executives from WorldCom, which had just declared bankruptcy, and Enron, which imploded only months earlier. The securities frauds would eventually lead to long prison sentences for WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers and Enron CFO Andrew Fastow. “These are callous, cold-blooded individuals,” Hare said. “They don’t care that you have thoughts and feelings. They have no sense of guilt or remorse.” He talked about the pain and suffering the corporate rogues had inflicted on thousands of people who had lost their jobs, or their life’s savings. Some of those victims would succumb to heart attacks or commit suicide, he said. Then Hare came out with a startling proposal. He said that the recent corporate scandals could have been prevented if CEOs were screened for psychopathic behavior. “Why wouldn’t we want to screen them?” he asked. “We screen police officers, teachers. Why not people who are going to handle billions of dollars?” It’s Hare’s latest contribution to the public awareness of “corporate psychopathy.” He appeared in the 2003 documentary The Corporation, giving authority to the film’s premise that corporations are “sociopathic” (a synonym for “psychopathic”) because they ruthlessly seek their own selfish interests — “shareholder value” — without regard for the harms they cause to others, such as environmental damage. advertisement Is Hare right? Are corporations fundamentally psychopathic organizations that attract similarly disposed people? It’s a compelling idea, especially given the recent evidence. Such scandals as Enron and WorldCom aren’t just aberrations; they represent what can happen when some basic currents in our business culture turn malignant. We’re worshipful of top executives who seem charismatic, visionary, and tough. So long as they’re lifting profits and stock prices, we’re willing to overlook that they can also be callous, conning, manipulative, deceitful, verbally and psychologically abusive, remorseless, exploitative, self-delusional, irresponsible, and megalomaniacal. So we collude in the elevation of leaders who are sadly insensitive to hurting others and society at large. But wait, you say: Don’t bona fide psychopaths become serial killers or other kinds of violent criminals, rather than the guys in the next cubicle or the corner office? That was the conventional wisdom. Indeed, Hare began his work by studying men in prison. Granted, that’s still an unusually good place to look for the conscience-impaired. The average Psychopathy Checklist score for incarcerated male offenders in North America is 23.3, out of a possible 40. A score of around 20 qualifies as “moderately psychopathic.” Only 1% of the general population would score 30 or above, which is “highly psychopathic,” the range for the most violent offenders. Hare has said that the typical citizen would score a 3 or 4, while anything below that is “sliding into sainthood.” On the broad continuum between the ethical everyman and the predatory killer, there’s plenty of room for people who are ruthless but not violent. This is where you’re likely to find such people as Ebbers, Fastow, ImClone CEO Sam Waksal, and hotelier Leona Helmsley. We put several big-name CEOs through the checklist, and they scored as “moderately psychopathic”; our quiz on page 48 lets you try a similar exercise with your favorite boss. And this summer, together with New York industrial psychologist Paul Babiak, Hare begins marketing the B-Scan, a personality test that companies can use to spot job candidates who may have an MBA but lack a conscience. “I always said that if I wasn’t studying psychopaths in prison, I’d do it at the stock exchange,” Hare told Fast Company. “There are certainly more people in the business world who would score high in the psychopathic dimension than in the general population. You’ll find them in any organization where, by the nature of one’s position, you have power and control over other people and the opportunity to get something.” There’s evidence that the business climate has become even more hospitable to psychopaths in recent years. In pioneering long-term studies of psychopaths in the workplace, Babiak focused on a half-dozen unnamed companies: One was a fast-growing high-tech firm, and the others were large multinationals undergoing dramatic organizational changes — severe downsizing, restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, and joint ventures. That’s just the sort of corporate tumult that has increasingly characterized the U.S. business landscape in the last couple of decades. And just as wars can produce exciting opportunities for murderous psychopaths to shine (think of Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic), Babiak found that these organizational shake-ups created a welcoming environment for the corporate killer. “The psychopath has no difficulty dealing with the consequences of rapid change; in fact, he or she thrives on it,” Babiak claims. “Organizational chaos provides both the necessary stimulation for psychopathic thrill seeking and sufficient cover for psychopathic manipulation and abusive behavior.” And you can make a compelling case that the New Economy, with its rule-breaking and roller-coaster results, is just dandy for folks with psychopathic traits too. A slow-moving old-economy corporation would be too boring for a psychopath, who needs constant stimulation. Its rigid structures and processes and predictable ways might stymie his unethical scheming. But a charge-ahead New Economy maverick — an Enron, for instance — would seem the ideal place for this kind of operator. But how can we recognize psychopathic types? Hare has revised his Psychopathy Checklist (known as the PCL-R, or simply “the Hare”) to make it easier to identify so-called subcriminal or corporate psychopaths. He has broken down the 20 personality characteristics into two subsets, or “factors.” Corporate psychopaths score high on Factor 1, the “selfish, callous, and remorseless use of others” category. It includes eight traits: glibness and superficial charm; grandiose sense of self-worth; pathological lying; conning and manipulativeness; lack of remorse or guilt; shallow affect (i.e., a coldness covered up by dramatic emotional displays that are actually playacting); callousness and lack of empathy; and the failure to accept responsibility for one’s own actions. Sound like anyone you know? (Corporate psychopaths score only low to moderate on Factor 2, which pinpoints “chronically unstable, antisocial, and socially deviant lifestyle,” the hallmarks of people who wind up in jail for rougher crimes than creative accounting.) advertisement This view is supported by research by psychologists Belinda Board and Katarina Fritzon at the University of Surrey, who interviewed and gave personality tests to 39 high-level British executives and compared their profiles with those of criminals and psychiatric patients. The executives were even more likely to be superficially charming, egocentric, insincere, and manipulative, and just as likely to be grandiose, exploitative, and lacking in empathy. Board and Fritzon concluded that the businesspeople they studied might be called “successful psychopaths.” In contrast, the criminals — the “unsuccessful psychopaths” — were more impulsive and physically aggressive. The Factor 1 psychopathic traits seem like the playbook of many corporate power brokers through the decades. Manipulative? Louis B. Mayer was said to be a better actor than any of the stars he employed at MGM, able to turn on the tears at will to evoke sympathy during salary negotiations with his actors. Callous? Henry Ford hired thugs to crush union organizers, deployed machine guns at his plants, and stockpiled tear gas. He cheated on his wife with his teenage personal assistant and then had the younger woman marry his chauffeur as a cover. Lacking empathy? Hotel magnate Leona Helmsley shouted profanities at and summarily fired hundreds of employees allegedly for trivialities, like a maid missing a piece of lint. Remorseless? Soon after Martin Davis ascended to the top position at Gulf & Western, a visitor asked why half the offices were empty on the top floor of the company’s Manhattan skyscraper. “Those were my enemies,” Davis said. “I got rid of them.” Deceitful? Oil baron Armand Hammer laundered money to pay for Soviet espionage. Grandiosity? Thy name is Trump. In the most recent wave of scandals, Enron’s Fastow displayed many of the corporate psychopath’s traits. He pressured his bosses for a promotion to CFO even though he had a shaky grasp of the position’s basic responsibilities, such as accounting and treasury operations. Suffering delusions of grandeur after just a little time on the job, Fastow ordered Enron’s PR people to lobby CFO magazine to make him its CFO of the Year. But Fastow’s master manipulation was a scheme to loot Enron. He set up separate partnerships, secretly run by himself, to engage in deals with Enron. The deals quickly made tens of millions of dollars for Fastow — and prettified Enron’s financials in the short run by taking unwanted assets off its books. But they left Enron with time bombs that would ultimately cause the company’s total implosion — and lose shareholders billions. When Enron’s scandals were exposed, Fastow pleaded guilty to securities fraud and agreed to pay back nearly $24 million and serve 10 years in prison. “Chainsaw” Al Dunlap might score impressively on the corporate Psychopathy Checklist too. What do you say about a guy who didn’t attend his own parents’ funerals? He allegedly threatened his first wife with guns and knives. She charged that he left her with no food and no access to their money while he was away for days. His divorce was granted on grounds of “extreme cruelty.” That’s the characteristic that endeared him to Wall Street, which applauded when he fired 11,000 workers at Scott Paper, then another 6,000 (half the labor force) at Sunbeam. Chainsaw hurled a chair at his human-resources chief, the very man who approved the handgun and bulletproof vest on his expense report. Dunlap needed the protection because so many people despised him. His plant closings kept up his reputation for ruthlessness but made no sense economically, and Sunbeam’s financial gains were really the result of Dunlap’s alleged book cooking. When he was finally exposed and booted, Dunlap had the nerve to demand severance pay and insist that the board reprice his stock options. Talk about failure to accept responsibility for one’s own actions. While knaves such as Fastow and Dunlap make the headlines, most horror stories of workplace psychopathy remain the stuff of frightened whispers. Insiders in the New York media business say the publisher of one of the nation’s most famous magazines broke the nose of one of his female sales reps in the 1990s. But he was considered so valuable to the organization that the incident didn’t impede his career. Most criminals — whether psychopathic or not — are shaped by poverty and often childhood abuse as well. In contrast, corporate psychopaths typically grew up in stable, loving families that were middle class or affluent. But because they’re pathological liars, they tell romanticized tales of rising from tough, impoverished backgrounds. Dunlap pretended that he grew up as the son of a laid-off dockworker; in truth, his father worked steadily and raised his family in suburban comfort. The corporate psychopaths whom Babiak studied all went to college, and a couple even had PhDs. Their ruthless pursuit of self-interest was more easily accomplished in the white-collar realm, which their backgrounds had groomed them for, rather than the criminal one, which comes with much lousier odds. advertisement Psychopaths succeed in conventional society in large measure because few of us grasp that they are fundamentally different from ourselves. We assume that they, too, care about other people’s feelings. This makes it easier for them to “play” us. Although they lack empathy, they develop an actor’s expertise in evoking ours. While they don’t care about us, “they have an element of emotional intelligence, of being able to see our emotions very clearly and manipulate them,” says Michael Maccoby, a psychotherapist who has consulted for major corporations. Psychopaths are typically very likable. They make us believe that they reciprocate our loyalty and friendship. When we realize that they were conning us all along, we feel betrayed and foolish. “People see sociopathy in their personal lives, and they don’t have a clue that it has a label or that others have encountered it,” says Martha Stout, a psychologist at the Harvard Medical School and the author of the recent best-seller The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless Versus the Rest of Us (Broadway Books, 2005). “It makes them feel crazy or alone. It goes against our intuition that a small percentage of people can be so different from the rest of us — and so evil. Good people don’t want to believe it.” Of course, cynics might say that it can be an advantage to lack a conscience. That’s probably why major investors installed Dunlap as the CEO of Sunbeam: He had no qualms about decimating the workforce to impress Wall Street. One reason outside executives get brought into troubled companies is that they lack the emotional stake in either the enterprise or its people. It’s easier for them to act callously and remorselessly, which is exactly what their backers want. The obvious danger of the new B-Scan test for psychopathic tendencies is that companies will hire or promote people with high scores rather than screen them out. Even Babiak, the test’s codeveloper, says that while “a high score is a red flag, sometimes middle scores are okay. Perhaps you don’t want the most honest and upfront salesman.” Indeed, not every aberrant boss is necessarily a corporate psychopath. There’s another personality that’s often found in the executive suite: the narcissist. While many psychologists would call narcissism a disorder, this trait can be quite beneficial for top bosses, and it’s certainly less pathological than psychopathy. Maccoby’s book The Productive Narcissist: The Promise and Perils of Visionary Leadership (Broadway Books, 2003) portrays the narcissistic CEO as a grandiose egotist who is on a mission to help humanity in the abstract even though he’s often insensitive to the real people around him. Maccoby counts Apple’s Steve Jobs, General Electric’s Jack Welch, Intel’s Andy Grove, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, and Southwest Airlines’ Herb Kelleher as “productive narcissists,” or PNs. Narcissists are visionaries who attract hordes of followers, which can make them excel as innovators, but they’re poor listeners and they can be awfully touchy about criticism. “These people don’t have much empathy,” Maccoby says. “When Bill Gates tells someone, ‘That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,’ or Steve Jobs calls someone a bozo, they’re not concerned about people’s feelings. They see other people as a means toward their ends. But they do have a sense of changing the world — in their eyes, improving the world. They build their own view of what the world should be and get others recruited to their vision. Psychopaths, in contrast, are only interested in self.” Maccoby concedes that productive narcissists can become “drunk with power” and turn destructive. The trick, he thinks, is to pair a productive narcissist with a “productive obsessive,” or conscientious, control-minded manager. Think of Grove when he was matched with chief operating officer Craig Barrett, Gates with president Steve Ballmer, Kelleher with COO Colleen Barrett, and Oracle’s Larry Ellison with COO Ray Lane and CFO Jeff Henley. In his remarkably successful second tour of duty at Apple, Jobs has been balanced by steady, competent behind-the-scenes players such as Timothy Cook, his executive vice president for sales and operations. But our culture’s embrace of narcissism as the hallmark of admired business leaders is dangerous, Babiak maintains, since “individuals who are really psychopaths are often mistaken for narcissists and chosen by the organization for leadership positions.” How does he distinguish the difference between the two types? “In the case of a narcissist, everything is me, me, me,” Babiak explains. “With a psychopath, it’s ‘Is it thrilling, is it a game I can win, and does it hurt others?’ My belief is a psychopath enjoys hurting others.” advertisement Intriguingly, Babiak believes that it’s extremely unlikely for an entrepreneurial founder-CEO to be a corporate psychopath because the company is an extension of his own ego — something he promotes rather than plunders. “The psychopath has no allegiance to the company at all, just to self,” Babiak says. “A psychopath is playing a short-term parasitic game.” That was the profile of Fastow and Dunlap — guys out to profit for themselves without any concern for the companies and lives they were wrecking. In contrast, Jobs and Ellison want their own companies to thrive forever — indeed, to dominate their industries and take over other fields as well. “An entrepreneurial founder-CEO might have a narcissistic tendency that looks like psychopathy,” Babiak says. “But they have a vested interest: Their identity is wrapped up with the company’s existence. They’re loyal to the company.” So these types are ruthless not only for themselves but also for their companies, their extensions of self. The issue is whether we will continue to elevate, celebrate, and reward so many executives who, however charismatic, remain indifferent to hurting other people. Babiak says that while the first line of defense against psychopaths in the workplace is screening job candidates, the second line is a “culture of openness and trust, especially when the company is undergoing intense, chaotic change.” Europe is far ahead of the United States in trying to deal with psychological abuse and manipulation at work. The “antibullying” movement in Europe has produced new laws in France and Sweden. Harvard’s Stout suggests that the relentlessly individualistic culture of the United States contributes a lot to our problems. She points out that psychopathy has a dramatically lower incidence in certain Asian cultures, where the heritage has emphasized community bonds rather than glorified self-interest. “If we continue to go this way in our Western culture,” she says, “evolutionarily speaking, it doesn’t end well.” The good news is that we can do something about corporate psychopaths. Scientific consensus says that only about 50% of personality is influenced by genetics, so psychopaths are molded by our culture just as much as they are born among us. But unless American business makes a dramatic shift, we’ll get more Enrons — and deserve them.
Google boss Eric Schmidt has labelled Wave, which the company just ditched, “a very clever product”. He was speaking to reporters at the Techonomy conference yesterday, just hours after the Mountain View Chocolate Factory confirmed that it was dumping Wave because no one was tinkering with the minimalist and very shaky real-time collaboration tool. This reporter presaged Wave’s demise way back in January, so it's hardly surprising to see Google finally ‘fess up that the tool isn't everything the company had hoped it would be. In a classic PR lesson in face-saving, Schmidt tried to recast Wave’s failure as proof that the world’s largest ad broker was willing to live dangerously. "Our policy is we try things," he told reporters, according to CNet’s Ina Fried. "We celebrate our failures. This is a company where it is absolutely OK to try something that is very hard, have it not be successful, take the learning and apply it to something new." He then added that even though Wave never gained any interest from Google fans, it remained “a very clever product”. Perhaps it was just ahead of the curve, eh, Eric? "We liked the [user interface] and we liked a lot of the new features in it [but] didn't get enough traction, so we are taking those technologies and applying them to new technologies that are not announced. We'll get the benefit of Google Wave but it won't be as a separate product." All of which hints that Google is indeed beavering away at a social networking site that it hopes will unseat Facebook. Then there’s the company’s privacy-lite, horribly creepy Buzz, which in contrast is here to stay. "Today Buzz is really an extension of Gmail," said Schmidt, who also claimed the tool now has tens of millions of users. It’s hard to say how many of those people are in fact unwittingly signed into Buzz, which Google stealthily slotted into Gmail at the start of this year without first testing it as a separate product. But bolting Buzz directly onto Gmail was always going to give the Web2.0 tool a head start in terms of usage, no matter how many complaints from privacy watchdogs that stacked up in the process.
The late-night drinking, drugging and open-air gym sessions at Communications Hill may soon come to an end. Or at least ease up a little. Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday signed off on a law that empowers San Jose to enact a curfew on the hillside staircase. Senate Bill 236, authored by Sen. Jim Beall (D-San Jose), allows the city to monitor the stairs as they would a public park. Until now, the walkway has been designated under the state vehicle code as a sidewalk, which are legally open to traffic 24-7. Social media and word of mouth turned the south San Jose stairways into a destination for people all around the Bay Area. Problem was: the stairs were never designed as a public park. Visitors overwhelmed the neighborhood, taking up all the street parking, trampling public landscaping and littering. The most shameless reportedly had sex in the open, to residents’ dismay. Exasperated neighbors called on local leaders to help deal with the crowd, but there was only so much the city could do. So they appealed to state lawmakers, who advanced this special bill allowing the city to change the public service easement. “The goal of the bill was to protect the families who live on the hill,” Beall explained. “Those households needed help and the city’s hands were handcuffed by a statute that prevented them from taking effective action.” This new law takes effect Jan. 1. “SB 236 allows the city of San Jose more freedom to control the stairwell to stop crime,” Beall explained. Beall introduced the bill in February after hearing an appeal from city leaders about the issues that had plagued the stairs for the past five years. “I’m grateful to Sen. Beall for his leadership on SB 236,"Mayor Sam Liccardo said in a statement, "which will allow the city local control to successfully operate the staircase to the benefit of both the community and those who use the facility." Jeremy Jones, president of the neighborhood's Tuscany Homeowner's Association, said the new law comes as a huge relief to residents. "Over the last five years we have watched the grand staircase go from a peaceful amenity for residents to a Bay Area tourist attraction, which is not what [it] was ever designed to be nor has the infrastructure to support," he told San Jose Inside. "Because of this, residents deal with all types of issues such as litter, graffiti, parking, drugs, and noise disturbances. We look forward to the implementation of this curfew and hope it will bring the relief residents are asking for." UPDATE: The city sent out the following notice on Oct. 6, indicating that staff will bring a proposal to vacate the easement in January. Like this: Like Loading... Related Jennifer Wadsworth is the news editor for San Jose Inside and Metro Newspaper. Email tips to [email protected] or follow her on Twitter at @jennwadsworth.
Here we Joh again! Newman reveals asset privatisation is a scam Queensland likely next premier, after Campbell Newman loses his seat, Jeff Seeney, produces a rare moment of honesty during the previous Bligh Government SCAM WARNING! In releasing the LNP’s election costings Campbell Newman has finally exposed the fact that his plan to sell Queensland's assets is a scam with little to do with reducing general Government debt. Like many scams, it’s been cleverly constructed to make it appear like a genuine scheme. Bear with me while I unravel it for you. Basically, there are two completely separate areas of government debt. One is borne by general government. The other is borne by government-owned corporations (GOCs). The general government debt is the one which the annual state budget has to deal with. I’ll return to this in a few paragraphs. According to the 'Strong Choices' plan, the GOCs comprise: '... entities such as those that operate in the energy, transport and water industries.' Queensland audit commission reported: Queensland currently has 12 Government owned Corporations (GOCs) which have projected debt of $19.8 billion as at 30 June 2012, representing an estimated 32% of total State debt.' The Government’s own budget papers explain that these '... entities utilise debt financing as a source of funds for capital investment and to maintain an optimum capital structure” and the entities “are required to take a prudent and sound approach to the management of debt…' In other words, it makes sense for these government businesses (most of which are corporations operating under the regulations of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission) to borrow money and use debt as a sensible economic option. Queensland election: the battle to control the debt debate http://t.co/U2DEGJ2RHs — Dave Donovan (@davrosz) January 30, 2015 Moreover, these GOCs have to convince ratings agencies that their debt truly is self-sustaining. The audit reported: 'Usually, the financing of net capital expenditure in the Public Non-financial Corporations sector, whether by operating revenue or borrowings should not be of concern, as the corporations in this sector are required to operate under commercial criteria.' So, crucially for the argument, their debt cannot viewed as excessive. It is, therefore, the general government debt which becomes important in terms of this scam. The Commission made it very clear in its report that the debt it was concerned about came from general government. It reported: 'The deterioration of Queensland’s debt position since 2005-06 was the result of a substantial increase in General Government net capital expenditure at the same time that the operating balance went into deficit.' I could not find a figure for general government debt in the report despite checking all 243 references to 'general government' therein, however the Newman Government’s budget paper number 2 for 2013/14 says the general government debt at June 30 2012 was $29.513 billion. Nowhere in the report does the Commission explain how it arrived at a figure for gross debt of $64 billion, bearing in mind the debts of $19.8 billion from the GOCs and $29.513 billion from general government. Despite this massive discrepancy, the report said it was the general government debt which needed to be reduced. Here’s another reference [IA emphasis]: 'The General Government sector share of Total Government sector gross capital expenditure has increased from 41% in 2005-06 to 62% in 2010-11. To the extent that this expenditure has been funded from borrowings rather than operating surpluses, this has contributed to the rapid build-up of government debt.' The Newman Government said this was why it needed to sell assets. Its Strong Choices propaganda campaign was based on this premise: 'The Independent Queensland Commission of Audit recommended that the Government evaluate the State’s ownership of a number of assets as part of a comprehensive debt reduction strategy.' But of the $37 billion the LNP is hoping to raise from privatising our assets, only $7 billion is being devoted to solving the alleged problem of general government debt. The Brisbane Times reported: 'Of the $37 billion the government "conservatively" hopes to raise, $25 billion would be set aside for debt pay down, $7 billion of which would be used for general government debt, with the rest to go on debt owned by the government-owned corporations.' We have been conned. It is plainly a scam. If you're a QLDer read this. Newman is trying to con us just like @TonyAbbottMHR did. RT & don't let it happen http://t.co/ytsec7WpEv — Anne Carlin (@sacarlin48) June 2, 2014 Why would the LNP want to put $18 billion into government-owned corporations that don’t need it? One reason: to use the money from the privatisation of one company to make the others more saleable and build a bigger war chest to fight the next election. Don't be a mug when you cast your vote tomorrow. Monthly Donation Frequency Monthly Annually Amount $ Single Donation Amount $ As if there's any distinction MT @abcnews: @theqldpremier almost confuses asset sales with asset leases https://t.co/93dqdBWsT4 #qldvotes — Astro Psycho (@FaintOfMatts) January 30, 2015 Join Newsletter Name * * Email * * Security Image * Join Now This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
Business Insider Apple hasn't revealed specific sales figures for the Apple Watch since its launch in April. However, analytics firm Slice Intelligence has pulled together some data that claims to give us an idea of what sales have been like over the past few months. And it doesn't look good. Slice Intelligence shared a chart with Business Insider that shows how sales have progressed day-by-day from mid-April through the beginning of July. On April 13, Apple was selling about 35,000 watches per day, according to Slice. But that number has dipped significantly since then. On July 2, Apple sold more than 5,000 Apple Watches per day, the chart indicates. It seems as if there's been a steady decline in day-by-day sales except for a few noticeable spikes, such as one on June 2, which you'll notice in the chart below. Slice Intelligence Slice Intelligence bases these numbers on e-receipt data it received from its panel of 2.5 million online shoppers in the U.S. The data may not be perfect, but it backs up what some Wall Street analysts have previously said about the Apple Watch. In a note to clients, Andy Hargreaves from Pacific Crest wrote that "store visits, Google search volume, third-party data and recent supply checks all suggest demand for Apple Watch has fallen sharply from initial levels." Apple has remained quiet when it comes to sales numbers for the Apple Watch. It didn't issue a press release to announce opening weekend sales like it does with the iPhone, but Slice Intelligence previously estimated that there were 1 million orders for the Apple Watch in its first weekend on the market. When Re/code's Walt Mossberg asked Apple's Jeff Williams how many watches have been sold, Williams replied: "A lot, but not enough. The only number I'll give you is that demand divided by supply is greater than one, and so that's all I've got for you, Walt. It's a lot." Apple declined to provide comment for this story.
Microsoft is bailing out of the world's biggest consumer electronics trade show. In a post on Microsoft's official blog site, the company announced that it will no longer participate directly with the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas after CES 2012, which will be held in early January. In its post, Microsoft's corporate vice-president Frank X. Shaw stated that the company was reevaluating when Microsoft will be making major product and service announcements. He states: After thinking about questions like these, we have decided that this coming January will be our last keynote presentation and booth at CES. We’ll continue to participate in CES as a great place to connect with partners and customers across the PC, phone and entertainment industries, but we won’t have a keynote or booth after this year because our product news milestones generally don’t align with the show’s January timing. As we look at all of the new ways we tell our consumer stories – from product momentum disclosures, to exciting events like our Big Windows Phone, to a range of consumer connection points like Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft.com and our retail stores – it feels like the right time to make this transition. Microsoft's keynote speeches, first handled by Chairman Bill Gates and later by CEO Steve Ballmer, have been a mainstay of CES in previous years. Microsoft isn't the only major company that is cutting back on its CES commitments. AllThingsD.com reported earlier this month that Dell won't have as big of a presence at CES 2012 as it has in the past few years when it took over a whole floor of the The Palms Casino Resort. Instead, it will be holding meetings in hotel suites and conference rooms.
“I don’t care. Bring it on.” These are the words Wolfkrone used regarding thoughts on being perceived as a villain. Called out and often hated by many, villains still prevail in an esports environment. You need look no further than popular representatives such as Greg “IdrA” Fields in StarCraft or Konstantinos Napoleon “FORG1VEN” Tzortziou in League of Legends. However, claims against the legitimacy or value of these esports villains run contrary to the constant attention, the clamouring of fans in which these players take part in. But villains need not worry about the fans, or “haters”, for they have burdens of their own. Sure, they need not fear walking on eggshells or concern themselves with political correctness, but must handle their own tumultuous inner dialogue, lest it brings them to the a defeat only as bitter as their mischievous minds at their worst. The focus is on winning, and your feelings do not matter. Controversial or not, Wolfkrone’s path thus far at ELEAGUE has been one of success. Skipping the quarterfinals stage of his group, Wolfkrone was seeded directly into the semifinals of Group C with a 6-1 start. His first opponent? Xian’s Ibuki. Watch the Wolfkrone v Xian VOD below: Xian was a cold and calculated player, but Wolfkrone unveiled predatorial instincts of his own. Knowing patience would be a virtue in the matchup, Wolfkrone’s Laura proceeded to read Xian by poking and jabbing at him until he saw openings. When the openings revealed themselves, Wolfkrone was quick to fully exploit them. Wolfkrone quickly found himself up 2-0 in the set, but Xian was not going to go down without a fight. Reading Wolfkrone’s aggression and countering in such a way that would tilt any human being, Xian came back from a 0-2 deficit to knock Wolfkrone to the loser’s bracket. To add insult to injury, Xian Perfect KO’d Wolfkrone — that is, defeated his opponent without getting touched — on the last game of the final set. The only question is: would this negatively impact Wolfkrone’s performance for the rest of the evening, or would it become just the fire he needs to prove everybody wrong? Wolfkrone’s next opponent would be Tokido, a powerful Akuma player hailing from Japan. Tokido dropped to fellow Japanese player, Fuudo earlier in the set, but defeated other powerhouses such as Splyce \| FChamp and Wolfkrone’s previous opponent, Xian. Watch the Wolfkrone vs Tokido VOD below: The set was looking grim for Wolfkrone, but through calculated reads and proper counterplay, Wolfkrone was able to take the next two games, and thus, the first set. 1-0. Tokido, wanting revenge, found vulnerable windows to abuse from his opponent, and looked extremely close to closing the first game of the next set, but Wolfkrone played the patient game. With a fabulous overhead swing with an aerial and proper guarding, Wolfkrone was the one to take the first K.O. of the next set. 2-0. Playing slow, they said? Wolfkrone need not care what those within the scene and casters feel about his play, even if it does yield results. The exceptional Laura player would prove to be anything but a one-trick patient pony, opening up the next set wrecking Tokido aggressively without taking a blow in a perfect K.O. Short work was made of the Japanese Akuma, and Wolfkrone had fire in his eyes. 3-0. Wolfkrone would rematch his previous opponent who knocked him into the loser’s bracket, Xian, to see who would advance to the playoffs at the end of the month. Now was the time to determine if Wolfkrone was shaken from his last encounter and would fall prey in a close set once again, or if he would prevail. Watch the Wolfkrone vs Xian rematch VOD below: Ambitious and hungry, narrowly losing the first set to his opponent meant little to him, as he sent a statement by perfect KOing Xian in the first round of the set. Xian would return with a hard-fought KO of his own, but not before Wolfkrone took the final one to close out the first set of the BO5. Xian battled valiantly but had little answer for Wolfkrone’s aggressive Laura, dealing the first blood with 1-0. Xian answers back, 1-1. Xian begins to play more defensive, but Wolfkrone crushes Xian’s walling tactics, 2-1. But this would not be so easy, as sweet satisfaction rarely is for a villain — we’ve all consumed our share of fairy tales. An epic power struggle would ensue for Xian to put a point on the board. Xian made a strong statement with his return victory in the set. Mirroring the end of the previous set, Xian breaks down Wolfkrone’s walls, bringing the set up 2-1. Games continued to appear so close, with differences in ending HP bars barely distinguishable, almost as if the matches were scripted. Xian tied the set 2-2. Alas for Xian, good guys don’t always win, and Wolfkrone turned heads and proved everyone wrong, advancing to the playoffs and closing the book on Group C. One could fire any barrage of excuses to discredit Wolfkrone’s wins. Sure, he wasn’t in the group of death; he didn’t have to face the likes of Daigo or PRBalrog. Some of the more difficult opponents were already taken care of within the group. You can call him disrespectful. You can call him a ragequitter. You can even call him the — recently disproven — online ladder only hero. But you cannot take away the indisputable key factor: results. “I don’t feel I have to wipe everybody out, Tom. Just my enemies.”
Share This Story Tweet Share Share Pin Email For Erica Slone, the choice boiled down to a simple equation: Die. Or go to Fort Thomas. In early July, she pulled into the parking lot of the Cincinnati VA’s Trauma Recovery Center in Fort Thomas. She stood outside studying the formidable brick building. She had a lot riding on this place. Slone had arrived after years of suffering. In 2003, barely a year into her Air Force enlistment, another airman raped her. She told no one. She pushed on through her 6-year hitch, earning a rack of medals and serving in Iraq. When she got out of the service, she earned an art degree. Through it all, she fought to block the memories, even as every moment of her life demanded hyper-vigilance. At last, the trauma broke within, and the war against intrusive thoughts, anxiety and dread went badly. Slone ended up in a VA hospital planning suicide. Then a bed opened in the residential treatment program at Fort Thomas. She was doubtful. But she wanted to function in society again. So she walked inside. Erica Slone’s Air Force portrait. Erica recently went through a residential treatment program through the Ft. Thomas Division of the Cincinnati VA Medical Center for PTSD. (Photo: Provided) In confronting post-traumatic stress disorder among military veterans, the Cincinnati VA Medical Center and its Fort Thomas Division stand as important battlements. Last year, more than 5,000 of the 43,000 veterans in Greater Cincinnati received treatment for PTSD at the medical center’s main campus, the Fort Thomas facility and six area clinics. Psychologist Kathleen Chard directs the VA’s Trauma Recovery Center. She is bullish on bringing PTSD under control as she oversees three residential programs for veterans – for men, for veterans with traumatic brain injuries and for women. When the Fort Thomas program for women opened in 2007, it was just the third in the nation. The main reason women veterans seek PTSD treatment is for enduring military sexual trauma – a VA term that includes rape, assault and sexual harassment while in service. Recent research reveals the shocking level of military sexual trauma and the risk of suicide among female veterans. A study released in July of veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars found that 41 percent of women and 4 percent of men experienced military sexual trauma. In June, the VA released disturbing research showing that the suicide rate among young women veterans is nearly 12 times the rate of non-veterans. CLOSE An Air Force veteran spends seven weeks going through a residential treatment program for PTSD at The Trauma Recovery Center, Fort Thomas Division of the Cincinnati VA Medical Center. The Enquirer/Amanda Rossmann No such thing as cure, but there is recovery There is no cure for PTSD. But, “for 70 percent of the people who walk out of here,” Chard said, “their symptoms are relieved to the point where you can say they no longer have PTSD. And the other 30 percent are doing better overall.” Chard and the Cincinnati VA bring to the treatment room an insistence on talk therapies with clinical results. Chard has trained psychologists now working across the country to use two proven techniques that can be adapted in almost a dozen ways not just for veterans but to help couples and children. Prolonged exposure has the patient talk about the mortally dangerous situation over and over, desensitizing the brain. Cognitive processing therapy does not require a retelling of the event but an examination of high-alert responses: Does this smell really mean danger? Does that person really mean me harm? Erica Slone makes her way to Coffee Emporium in downtown Cincinnati. One of Erica’s weekend homework assignments was to go to a crowded coffee shop and sit for 20 minutes. At this time, Erica, an air force veteran, was mid-way through her time at a seven-week residential treatment program for PTSD through the Cincinnati VA Medical Center. (Photo: The Enquirer/Amanda Rossmann) “Cincinnati is distinctive in its use of, and integration of, evidence-based practices into clinical care,” said Paula Schnurr, executive director of the VA’s National Center for PTSD. “At Cincinnati, there has been a very thorough integration of these treatments into the programming, coupled with the use of validated structured assessment measures.” Chard has been so successful that a year ago, she opened the UC Health Stress Center for civilians, financed by $750,000 from the foundation of Cincinnati Reds star Joey Votto. The Fort Thomas residential program takes 10 women at a time. Most have finished their service, but some are on active duty. Last month, three women in the program agreed to talk to The Enquirer once a week, with Chard present. Bea Myers, 55, is from Martinsburg, West Virginia. Barbara Fleming, 59, came from Raleigh, North Carolina, and was on her second trip through the program. Erica Slone, 33, grew up near Cambridge but lives in Chicago. “I’m still withholding judgment,” Slone said early on. “I’m still getting to know everyone.” “And that’s important,” Chard said, “because too often, PTSD patients just right away see everyone is a threat. The fact that she’s withholding judgment? That’s exactly where I want her to be.” CLOSE A victim of PTSD reads a letter describing her military sexual trauma and talks about her ability to finally address the situation. The Enquirer/Amanda Rossmann A ‘quilt’ of emotions in the treatment room Slone, Fleming, Myers and the seven other women in their cohort at Fort Thomas would undergo cognitive processing therapy in group and individual sessions. They did homework to challenge their triggers or “stuck points,” the mental hurdles that block their ability to deal with everyday events. To start, the therapists asked the women to write words or draw pictures of their emotions on sheets of construction paper that were taped to the wall of the group room as a “quilt” of interior battles. On one piece of paper, Bea Myers wrote: “Angry. Sad. I don’t want to be here.” In early interviews, Myers’ voice rarely rose above a whisper. Fleming’s gaze drifted around the room. Slone could not make eye contact. Their faces radiated pain. Even the people closest to them didn’t understand what was happening to them, the women said. An ever-present option had been suicide. But they wanted to get well. And they wanted to speak out so that others could learn from them. Bea Myers wipes away her tears as she reads from a piece of paper describing the trauma of being gang raped while in the Army. Myers, 55, of Martinsburg, West Virginia, has recently gone through residential treatment for PTSD at the Ft. Thomas Division of the Cincinnati VA Medical Center. (Photo: The Enquirer/Amanda Rossmann) “There are a lot of people out there feeling terrible,” Myers said. “If this can do some good, then, I’m willing.” Not long after Bea Myers joined the Army in 1980, other soldiers gang-raped her. She reported the assault, but no one believed her. She became pregnant but lost the child, and that sorrow filled her life. She was stern to her other children, sometimes used physical force with them. In her mind, the child she lost died over and over and over. “I need to let go,” said a weeping Myers. “But how can I let it go, when I feel like I caused it, my child’s death? I didn’t mean to cause it. How can I trust someone, when somebody in authority did this to me? When I accepted what they did to me?” Barbara Fleming once was a bubbly cheerleader type, the one who organized all the parties. She enlisted in the Army and served 13 years. She was raped by another soldier and intensely verbally harassed by others. She went into the combat zones of the Persian Gulf and Somalia. When she mustered out and went home to North Carolina, Fleming said, “I stayed locked up in my house all the time.” “My sister, my family kept trying to get me to leave, but I couldn’t do it. I was sure that all men looked at me as a sex object, and I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t trust any man. Not any single man.” Erica Slone enlisted as part of “the poverty draft” to escape the hardship of southeastern Ohio. With her art degree, she used her creativity to explore her own story. She won a fellowship at the National Veterans Art Museum in Chicago. Yet her anger deepened. At the NATO summit in Chicago in May 2012, she joined a demonstration by Iraq veterans and threw her medals away. Her PTSD kept her on high alert. “All the time, people would be doing ignorant things, and I would be scared that they’re using the equipment wrong, or standing in a water puddle. Yeah, big red flags, safety issues. When I’m driving down the road and there’s a tree or a bush obstructing a stop sign, I flip out.” CLOSE A military veteran who has struggled with leaving her home, receives treatment at the Ft. Thomas Division of the Cincinnati VA Medical Center. The Enquirer/Amanda Rossmann The price of being human, and when it is too high Post-traumatic stress is the price of being human. When a threat arises, a region deep in the brain called the amygdala directs the first response, without conscious thought: flee, fight or freeze. After the acute crisis passes, the brain’s executive processor, the prefrontal cortex just above the eyes, adapts to new conditions, puts the threat in context. The fear response decreases. Life goes on. But in some people, the amygdala overrides higher-level decision-making. PTSD locks in a constant loop of flee-fight-freeze, a crippling condition as the sufferer avoids anything that could amplify the anxiety. Avoidance can last years, and the effects cascade through the body, in depression, high blood pressure and cardiac problems. “The problem for many people,” said Chard “is that they don’t like the option that the amygdala chose. So they’re very upset that the man froze on the battlefield, or the woman didn’t fight back. Part of what we’re doing is having to teach society that this really isn’t a conscious choice. It’s the amygdala responding.” Breakthroughs in PTSD research are now appearing at the genetic level. The Cincinnati VA Medical Center and Chard are on the forefront there as well. With the help of Mason biotech company Assurex Health, Chard is leading VA efforts to learn whether there are genetic reasons that some people develop anxieties that last for years, and some do not. Last year, the VA announced that it would pay for veterans to use Assurex Health’s GeneSight test. Developed in Mason, the test can determine, using a patient’s DNA, which of 38 psychoactive drugs work best. Assurex Health donated 100 tests to the Cincinnati VA, and in time, Chard hopes to use the results for deeper research about the genetic component of PTSD. Barbara Fleming, an Army veteran, sits on a bench inside of Tower Park, near the Ft. Thomas Division of the Cincinnati VA Medical Center where she is taking part in a residential treatment program for PTSD. Fleming spent 13 years serving in the Army where she spent time in the Persian Gulf and Somalia. (Photo: The Enquirer/Amanda Rossmann) Facing the life to come, outside the program Weekends at Fort Thomas constituted free time, and therapists encouraged the women to get out into the community. Myers found a hair salon that she liked. Fleming got on a bus that crossed the Ohio River and dropped her off at Fountain Square. She worried about the crowds. But as she sat in the heart of Cincinnati, she examined her stuck points and realized, “This is fine. I can handle this. This isn’t bad.” Slone painted with watercolors. One weekend day, she, too, got on a bus, and spent much of the trip watching a woman standing in the aisle, holding onto a bar, swaying as the bus moved. Later, Slone talked about her anxiety for that woman’s safety. The widespread prevalence of the acronym after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan leaves a false impression of a PTSD epidemic. Chard said in fact, more people, particularly Vietnam War veterans, have realized that they’ve avoided dealing with their traumas for decades and at last are seeking treatment. Barbara Fleming’s Army portrait. Barbara recently went through a residential treatment program through the Ft. Thomas Division of the Cincinnati VA Medical Center for PTSD. (Photo: Provided) As their stay in Fort Thomas neared an end, Myers, Fleming and Slone said they knew they were improving. Fleming felt refreshed in her certainty that she could face life, and she decided to move to Fort Thomas. In her last week of treatment, she rented an apartment. She hung the keys on the lanyard around her neck and proudly jingled them. “I was sitting on a bench right out here” – Fleming gestured toward the strip of shops on South Fort Thomas Way – “and I said hello to people. I realized that not all men see me as a sex object. This is going to be an adventure for me, and I’m really looking forward to being by myself.” For her final interview, a smiling Myers arrived at Chard’s office with a fresh hairstyle and a notebook. She had written a letter to her dead child. She had discovered that, for all the tears over that death, she had never faced the trauma of the rape. Through talk therapy, she said, that event no longer controlled her. “I didn’t think that book stuff that you read about was true,” she said. “But (the rape) was something that was buried for many, many years. And my children had to deal with that, too. My son who is living said he didn’t think that I loved him. We’ve been talking a lot. We’ll be fine.” The program, Myers said, “definitely works. Because I was a hard cookie to crack.” Erica Slone, an Air Force veteran, walks in Tower Park, near the Ft. Thomas Division of the Cincinnati VA Medical Center where she is taking part in a residential treatment program for PTSD. (Photo: The Enquirer/Amanda Rossmann) Erica Slone let herself feel confident. But she wasn’t sure what that would mean for her. “Getting better is scary. At first, it feels like I’m being negligent, or irresponsible. Eventually, I realize that it’s closer to normal, to not be worried all the time.” On graduation day, the group therapy room filled with the women who had made a journey together. Bea Myers pulled down her piece of construction paper where she had first written “I don’t want to be here.” On the other side, at the end of the treatment, she wrote: “Congrats 2 Everyone.” Barbara Fleming read a letter she had written to her “friend,” PTSD: “I can live without you. I’m healed, and I’m ready to show the world.” The therapists praised the women for their courage and handed out completion certificates. The women hugged, wished each other luck, promised to stay in touch. Erica Slone gave away her watercolors. She loaded her belongings in the truck of her car. She took one more look around. Then she drove away. On Monday, another group of 10 women veterans arrived at the big brick building in Fort Thomas and went inside, looking for the way to stay alive. Resources for PTSD sufferers Experts say that post-traumatic stress disorder is present when someone is experiencing these symptoms that last longer than three months, cause great distress and disrupt home or work life: reliving the event; avoiding situations that remind you of the trauma, having negative changes in beliefs and feelings and feeling keyed up. For help, call: The Veterans Crisis Line: 1-800-273-8255, press 1 (text 838255) or Confidential Veterans Chat with a counselor The Trauma Recovery Center, Fort Thomas Division, Cincinnati VA Medical Center: 859-572-6208. UC Stress Center: 513-558-5872
About Math Lady / Confused Lady refers to pictures or gifs of Brazilian actress Renata Sorrah playing Nazaré Tedesco in a scene from the telenovela, Senhora do Destino. The pictures are often used as reaction images to express confusion. Origin Tedesco is a very popular character from the telenovela "Senhora do Destino" in Brazil. Because of her comical personality, images of her have been photoshopped into reaction images and image macros. On Facebook, there is a fan page devoted to posting such pictures of her. The earliest known example of the original gif (shown below) being used as a reaction image is from October 31st, 2013, when UKMix forum poster CrazyCrazy posted the gif with the caption "I'm sure there is better music to hear while you wait for Beywance…" The gif originated the following video: Spread The gif saw light use as a reaction image over the next two and a half years. It began growing in popularity around the summer of 2016. Buzzfeed Portugal included it as a reaction image in a "top post" on July 29th. A popular post on 9Gag featured four screenshots from the gif of Sorrah with math equations over her face, captioned "when she tells you she's 29 weeks pregnant." The post has over 33,000 points as of October 11th, 2016. After the math symbols were added, the image and gif surged in popularity, particularly on Brazilian parts of social media, before it grew popular worldwide. On October 2nd, a thread appeared on the subreddit /r/OutOfTheLoop asking about its origins. Various Examples Search Interest External References
Welcome to the Sunday Giveaway, the place where we giveaway a new Android phone each and every Sunday! A big congratulations to last week’s winner of the Google Pixel 2 XL International Giveaway: Srinavin K. (India). This week we are giving away a brand new Samsung Galaxy Note 8 courtesy of the AA App for Android! If you’re looking for the best way to stay up to date with AndroidAuthority.com, look no further than the AA App for Android. Available for free in the Google Play Store, the official AA App is the fastest way to get all the latest news, rumors, tips & tricks, and device reviews on your mobile device. No advertisements, plenty of Material Design influence, and breaking Android news at your fingertips. What more could you want? Samsung’s new Galaxy Note 8 is the definition of a power user’s dream phone. Not only does it sport the most top-of-the-line specs, it’s also one of the more feature-packed smartphones out there right now. If a Snapdragon 835, 6 GB of RAM, a dual-camera setup, and an S Pen aren’t doing it for you, just remember that the Note 8 has the best smartphone display on the market. To learn more about the Galaxy Note 8, check out our related articles below: Enter the giveaway here Samsung Galaxy Note 8 International Giveaway! More giveaways Winners gallery
Re: Hello from Maryland From:john.podesta@gmail.com To: hms@sandlerfoundation.org Date: 2014-02-05 01:01 Subject: Re: Hello from Maryland No reason. I'm ok. Call soon. JP --Sent from my iPad-- john.podesta@gmail.com For scheduling: eryn.sepp@gmail.com > On Feb 4, 2014, at 8:50 PM, "Sandler, Herbert" <hms@sandlerfoundation.org> wrote: > > This is from a relative of mine? Any reason you would want me to see O'Malley? Otherwise I don't intend to see him. > How are you doing? > > Sent from my iPad > > Begin forwarded message: > >> From: Jason Shapiro <jason@shapiroandmack.com> >> Date: February 4, 2014 12:29:02 PM PST >> To: "hms@sandlerfoundation.org" <hms@sandlerfoundation.org> >> Subject: Hello from Maryland >> Dear Herb: >> >> It has been about eight months since we last spoke. This is Jason, Arthur and Harriet Shapiro’s son. I hope that this email finds you, Susan, Jimmy and their families in good health. I am writing this email to you on behalf of Martin O’Malley, the Governor of the State of Maryland. >> >> The Governor must have a good memory, because shortly after our dinner in College Park, Maryland I mentioned to the Governor that we met and how impressed I am with all the fantastic work that your foundation facilitates. As a lifetime asthmatic, I especially appreciate the interest that your foundation has in finding a cure for this condition. I mentioned to the Governor how awe-inspiring it must be to be part of a foundation that can literally change the world. It makes all of the community service projects that I work on pale in comparison to the change for good that your foundation can effectuate. >> >> I infer that the Governor must have a good memory as he has just contacted me to ask if you would have the opportunity to grab a cup of coffee with him on his next trip to California. The Governor will be in the San Francisco area on March 7, 2014 and would love to meet with you. Although I am probably not needed for this meeting, I can fly out to properly introduce you to the Governor. >> >> Please let me know if you are open and available to this meeting. Please also extend my best to Susan, and to Jimmy as well, although I’m not sure if he remembers me since the last time we met over 35 years ago. I plan to visit Uncle Mannie in Florida in about two weeks and I will extend to him your good wishes. >> >> All my best, >> >> Jason >> Jason A. Shapiro >> >> Shapiro and Mack >> 7226 Lee Deforest Drive, Suite 207 >> Columbia, Maryland 21046 >> 410-884-6100 >> http://www.shapiroandmack.com >> http://www.howardcountydui.com >> http://www.howardcountypersonalinjury.com >> http://www.fightcollections.com >> http://www.facebook.com/howardcountylawyers >> http://www.twitter.com/howardcountylaw > <DDCFC9D1-B781-457E-B149-B5FDBB673BDA[132].png>
The Twin’Z is the latest all-electric concept car from Renault and British designer Ross Lovegrove. The all-electric concept car is the fruit of their close collaboration and brings together two worlds — the world of furniture and that of the automobile. The Twin’Z was unveiled at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile di Milano, which is apparently the centerpiece of the design industry’s annual calendar. When creating the Twin’Z, Renault invited Lovegrove to add design flourishes, and to make the cabin truly occupant-friendly. A lot of the inspiration for the Twin’Z comes from the first-generation Twingo, as well as that of the Renault 5 superminis. The Twin’z sports rear-wheel drive, and is equipped with a 50 kW, 226 N·m (167 lb-ft) rear-mounted electric motor that is propelled with four evenly spaced lithium-ion battery packs beneath the floor. The Twin’Z has a unique electric rear-wheel drive architecture that allows the wheels to be pushed out to the car’s extreme corners to provide it with a solid grounding and large platform. The front and rear doors open electrically. Without having a center pillar, the entire cabin can thus be revealed to the eye — and frees up space that can be important at times (think of those times when you were moving and trying to stuff oddly shapes items into the car). The Twin’Z has a length of 3.62 meters (11.87 ft) and has a weight 980 kg (2,162 lbs). The top speed for the Twin’Z is around 130 km/h (81 mph) and has a range of 160 km (99 miles). Source: Green Car Congress Image Credits: Renault ZE (Facebook page)
* Unions urge high turnout in general strike * Rallies planned in Athens to coincide with crucial vote (Adds details of police presence) By Tatiana Fragou ATHENS, June 27 (Reuters) - Greece’s main labour unions called on Monday for a massive turnout in a 48-hour strike this week which they said could help to block austerity policies demanded by international lenders as the price for a bailout. ADEDY, the public sector union representing half a million civil servants, and its private sector equivalent GSEE, which represents 2 million workers, have called the two-day stoppage to coincide with a vote in parliament on an austerity package which the government must win to avoid defaulting on its debts. “The strike may prove a catalyst in overthrowing the austerity policies, helping the country to break loose from the chains of its lenders,” ADEDY said in a statement. The European Union and International Monetary Fund have made approval of the painful mix of spending cuts, tax increases and privatisations a condition for releasing a 12 billion euro loan installment which the government needs to repay maturing debt as well as to keep paying wages and benefits. ADEDY condemned the package, saying it would “wipe out the rights of workers and pensioners and throw the unemployed and the new generation into despair”. The two unions are due to hold a joint rally at 11 a.m. (0800 GMT) on Tuesday with PAME, a communist workers’ group, holding a separate rally at the same time. They will hold a second set of rallies on Wednesday evening. Air traffic, buses, trains, postal services and hospitals are all expected to be hit, while police in Athens were also preparing to handle big demonstrations in Syntagma Square, outside parliament, which has become the focus of opposition to the austerity measures. The rallies are expected to begin early on Tuesday with organisers planning to surround parliament on Wednesday when deputies begin voting. OFFENSIVE GESTURE Although the Syntagma Square protests have been largely peaceful so far, violence has broken out on occasion and earlier this month, rioters threw petrol bombs at the finance ministry. More than 5,000 police will be deployed in central Athens, while metal and plexiglass barriers plus a watercannon will be in place to protect the 19th century neoclassical palace which houses parliament. Prime Minister George Papandreou’s Socialist government survived a confidence motion earlier this month with 155 votes in the 300-member parliament, but the protests will pile pressure on deputies who will have to explain their choice to angry voters. Protesters have held regular rallies outside parliament for weeks, chanting contemptuous slogans and waving their open hands at the shuttered windows, a highly offensive gesture in Greece. The popular anger inspired by the bitter EU/IMF medicine has deeply alarmed deputies, many of whom themselves doubt the measures will leave Greece’s stricken economy capable of paying off a debt equivalent to 150 percent of gross domestic product. “We have stated that we cannot agree to a mistake. We are in favour of achieving the main goals — eliminating deficits and reducing the debt,” Yannis Mihelakis, spokesman of the opposition New Democracy party said in a statement. “We cannot support a policy that deepens the recession and even undoes fiscal consolidation,” he said. (Additional reporting by George Georgiopoulos and Renee Maltezou; Writing by James Mackenzie; editing by David Stamp)
BENNINGTON SHOW. Finding comedy in everything and everything in comedy. Ron Bennington has been a stand up comedian and comedy club owner and promoter. He’s also been part of two legendary radio shows, the Ron and Ron Radio Network and the Ron and Fez show. All of that experience comes together for Bennington. Three hours of talk entertainment with nationally known comedians. His co-host is Gail Bennington who has literally grown up in the business of comedy. It’s fun, edgy and covers everything in comedy today. What ESPN is to sports, Bennington is to comedy. is a New York based radio talk show host who broadcasts internationally on SiriusXM satellite radio. In addition to hosting Bennington, through his two interview shows, “Ron Bennington Interviews” and “Unmasked,” he conducts incisive critically acclaimed interviews about artistry, creativity and craft with artists and personalities who are renown in their fields. Ron’s guests on “Ron Bennington Interviews” have included game changers in every field—including brilliant film makers like Quentin Tarantino, legendary actors such as Jeff Bridges, groundbreaking musicians like Iggy Pop, as well as scientists, authors, journalists and creators of all kinds. “Unmasked” features hour long interviews with artists in the business of comedy, taped before a studio audience. Past guests have included great performers and writers like Joan Rivers, Dick Cavett, Wanda Sykes, Louis C.K., Richard Lewis, Jimmy Fallon and Bob Newhart. Prior to coming to SiriusXM, Ron hosted shows on New York’s WNEW and WFNY Free FM, WJFK in Washington DC, and a nationally syndicated show in Tampa, Florida. You can listen to Ron on SiriusXM’s Raw Dog Comedy Hits weekdays from noon to 3 pm, and on the Indie Channel nightly from 9 pm to 10 pm.
I dunno I had a debate with my bestie about how I don't consider Rose a Sonic FC since I've been trying to steer her away from that...Yes I use my characters with other characters that are considered "Sonic FCs" or OCs but... Well I have my own plans I guess even though they may be more "Dreams" than plans... anyways... I drew Rose in the "Sonic" style VS the style that I always use... since I wanna use more "human" like figures on my characters and slowly drift them more into the world of "anthro" than a Sonic character. Anyways it was a silly debate since I just dislike when people try to define my character... even if its just the smallest thing. ANYWAYS IGNORE ME AND JUST LOOK AT THE CUTE DRAWING 8'DRose Sunset belongs to Art by
Warning: Video contains graphic content The SIU is investigating after a man died following a police-involved shooting on a streetcar near Trinity Bellwoods Park early Saturday morning. 18 year old Sammy Yatim was holding up a knife on an empty streetcar. The cops surrounded him and ordered him repeatedly to drop it. He wouldn't, then they shot him. Police investigated a man on a streetcar on Dundas St. W. near Grace St., west of Bathurst St., just after midnight, the SIU said in a news release. There was some sort of an interaction between police and the man and he was shot. The man was then taken to St. Michael’s hospital trauma centre with life-threatening injuries after suffering multiple gunshot wounds in his upper torso and no vital signs, Toronto Emergency Medical Services said. Rosemary Pimentel, who lives on Bellwoods Ave. a few houses down from Dundas St. W, witnessed the shooting. She said that she heard what sounded like a taser being used after the shots had been fired. Article Continued Below He died at the hospital after suffering a gunshot wound, the SIU said. The SIU is a civilian agency that looks into incidents involving the police and civilians that have resulted in serious injury, death or allegations of sexual assault. It has assigned eight investigators, including two forensic investigators, to probe the circumstances of the shooting. A TTC spokesman confirmed there was no one else on board the streetcar at the time of the incident. Owen Melville, 25, was in Trinity Bellwoods throwing a football around with his friends when he heard the shots. "We heard these popping noises and we were like 'Whoah those were gunshots,'" said Melville. Janna Kale, 29, came home and saw the police tape and cars lining the corner of her familiar street. Article Continued Below "I love this neighbourhood," she said. "This scares the crap out of me. It really does." Kale lives on Gore Vale Ave. just steps from where the shooting occurred. Police cars lined the streets and a lone streetcar sat in the centre of the police tape. Several restaurant workers finishing their shifts on the busy strip declined to comment. Dundas St. W. between Montrose Ave. and Claremont St., which had been closed for the investigation, has reopened and all streetcars and buses in the area will be operating normally. With files from Arshy Mann and Robin Levison
This week, I finally show you Glux in action. It's not perfect, and I will tell you why, but it's going to be implemented anyway. Posted by Woseseltops on Oct 27th, 2013 Hi everyone! I've gotten a number of very positive responses to the [new trailer] I released last week, so I've decided to go on with it and try to send it to a few smaller indie news sites. But before I do so, the screenshots shown here on IndieDB/Desura will have to be updated, and the website needs to have a serious update as well. I've already made a start with that, as you can see at [olvand.com]: I've added a FAQ and a videos section, complete with new icons and tooltips. Glux: current status And now that I'm showing you finished things and videos, I might as well do that for Glux. The animations and text blocks I talked about last time are now fully implemented and working. On top of that, I reorganized the whole project to make it a bit easier to maintain, and cleaned up some last things, so Glux is now fully ready to be implemented. I have to admit I'm a bit scared to start, as lots and lots of very basic code that has been in the game for years will have to rewritten... wish me luck! And sorry if my next blogpost will be a bit pessimistic because I broke everything and can't get it back to working . However, before I start the implementation, I wanted to give you an idea of what Glux looks like in real time. Here's a video of Glux in action: There are several things in this video I haven't discussed before - for example, the fact that objects can be lit from the side and have the correct shadows, or the difference between lighting in outdoor and indoor areas. I'll talk about those things later, when I don't have that much progress to share. What's also in this video, but impossible for the naked eye to see, is that it all works extremely fast (1000+ fps)! I've done several rounds of optimizations, and the results are clearly visible (if you have an fps counter running, that is). I hope it will be as quick when it runs the full game - what you see here is just a mock-up. Finally, while recording this, I discovered another nice advantage of Glux: with Glux, making Fraps videos is super-easy! With the current version of Olvand, you have to record your whole screen, and then crop so you only see the game window. Glux windows (that is: OpenGL windows), however, can be captured directly by Fraps. No longer those stupid hours and hours of mindless editing, hurray! An improvement area for Glux That said, there are also still various areas where Glux can be improved. I'll discuss my biggest concern now: you might have noticed that with the lighting as shown above, something is still not right, if you know what I mean. Actually, it is 'not right' to such an extent that it is taking some of the fun out of the game, actually. What am I talking about here? As you may remembers from [my explanation of the workings of shadows in Glux], shadows are drawn on top of the game world... but only on the ground. You can see that here: If the shadows had worked like this in real life, the stones indicated with the arrows should have been dark, like this: This means that all objects that are close enough to a light will be lit up, no matter whether something is blocking this light or not. So in caves, you can light up things behind walls without actually breaking this wall. That of course makes discovering underground caves a whole lot less mysterious. It is a small disadvantage compared to the many advantages Glux brings, but it is definitely something I want to try to fix later.
Everyone please welcome Benjamin Welton, our second additional writer at Zeroth Position. By any objective measure, the immigration system in the United States is a joke. Current estimates find at least 11 million illegal aliens living in and working in the United States. There is a possibility that the real figure is significantly higher, given the fact that criminals do not normally volunteer to tell census takers about their criminal exploits. If one needs any more proof that American immigration policy is a logical mess built on wobbly legs of moralism, then one need look no further than the current controversy over DACA. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which produces so-called DREAMers, is nothing more than warmed-over pablum about each new arrival making America more “American. ” The Left fights for illegal immigrants and their children because Hispanics and Asians , who make up the majority of America’s immigrant population, are among the most solidly Democratic voters in the country. Mainstream Republicans tend to favor “amnesty” or “immigration reform” because their corporate overlords have an unending appetite for cheap labor. The mushy middle either keeps silent or pretends to support DREAMers and other illegal aliens simply because they do not want to look like the “bad guy.” Curtailing illegal immigration is a public safety issue. Contrary to establishment media propaganda, illegal and legal immigrants are overrepresented in American crime statistics. They are nine percent of the U.S. population overall, but make up about 27 percent of the federal prison population. It is also a cultural issue that directly weakens the original American promise of liberty. Freshly arrived immigrants and well-established immigrants both use welfare at higher rates than the native-born . 48 percent of all immigrant households are on some kind of welfare. Hispanic immigrants alone use 73 percent of this 48 percent share. Such welfare dependency expands the vampiric state, and in turn promotes the continuance of anarcho-tyranny (more on that shortly). Such a state will never voluntarily shrink itself; therefore, the more immigrants America has, the more the American Leviathan will expand and consume. Illegal immigration has helped wages for working-class Americans to either stay the same or decrease since the 1970s . These Americans, many of whom have failed to get the stamp of approval of the neoliberal world order that is known as a college diploma, the opportunities for ascending the economic ladder have virtually become null and void. This is a direct suppression of economic liberty via the coercive force of the state and its unwillingness to enforce its own laws. Finally, curtailing illegal immigration means protecting the unique heritage of the United States. America is not a “ proposition nation ,” nor can such a thing really exist, despite all of the starry-eyed propaganda to the contrary. America and its culture can be traced back to the English Reformation of the 16th century. New England received the rebellious Puritans, who dissented from the Stuart’s practice of the divine right of kings and the supposedly godless idolatry of the “popish” Anglican Church. Virginia on the other hand became the home of Englishmen from the Vale of Berkeley , a part of old, Anglo-Saxon England with a strong tradition of slavery and hierarchical social relations. Subsequent waves of Scots-Irish, French Huguenot, and German Protestants added to this English culture, thus creating a firmly Anglo-Celtic and Protestant nation by the 18th century. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution did not make America; these failed pieces of paper merely tried to document a culture and a people that already existed. This culture is precious and should not be beholden to the whims of transnational corporations or academic aristocrats who control the moral economy. A true libertarian alternative to America’s broken immigration system would emphasize the concept of outlawry. This pre-modern designation, along with attendant penalties, would not only help to decentralize border enforcement, but it would also prioritize punishments for those individual aliens who enter the United States illegally and who commit crimes against people and/or property. By branding illegal aliens who also attack Americans as outlaws, enforcement would fall to local jurisdictions, not to the monolithic federal government. Anarcho-Tyranny The term anarcho-tyranny was first coined by paleolibertarian writer Samuel T. Francis. According to Francis, this is a state of affairs in which real crimes are not policed, while innocents are tyrannically controlled. Francis’s concept echoed the wisdom of 18th century conservative Edmund Burke, who noted that “Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more of it there must be without.” When it comes to state-enforced multiculturalism, freedom of association is curtailed under the auspices of keeping the peace. Ingrained tribal prejudices must either be shamed out of existence or injected with happy drugs . Christian bakers must create wedding cakes for gay couples so that the neoliberal state maintains the consent of homosexual voters. Americans who exercise the right of self-defense in some states have to deal with the prospect of police officers invading their homes and confiscating their guns because someone claimed that they were crazy. All of these are examples of anarcho-tyranny in practice. Anarcho-tyranny can be seen when Antifa and Black Lives Matter agitators are allowed to riot while the Unite the Right demonstrators faced down riot police after suffering the slings and arrows of the control-left. Every violent protest in recent memory could have been put down with extreme prejudice against radical leftists, but the police almost invariably hang back either because they do not want to be called “racist” or because their superiors told them to give the rioters room to blow off steam . (When they do not hang back and instead form and hold a protective line, events tend to remain nonviolent.) These decisions not only cost private businesses and business owners millions of dollars (when was the last time that violent protestors in America seriously attacked state buildings?), but they also directly oppress law-abiding citizens. After all, what does the state do better; capture real criminals or harass individuals exercising their liberty? When it comes to illegal immigration, the state has the money and resources to enforce existing immigration laws. It simply refuses to do so because it is in its rational self-interest to behave in this manner. A multicultural society with low trust levels between citizens is the ideal state for those who seek to create statism. When neighbors do not trust each other or do not even interact with each other, each threat, real or perceived, becomes the job of outside forces, namely the police. What this does is remove the responsibility of personal and communal defense from individuals, thus further legitimizing the idea that the state is the only entity that has a right to use violence. The Concept and Practice of Outlawry In pre-modern societies, outlaws were those individuals or families who directly threatened the security or private properties of the community. Since these communities managed their own security and made their own laws, they had a very visceral idea of why branded outlaws were dangerous. In ancient Greece, organized thievery was considered a somewhat legitimate way of earning money. Later Balkan cultures (for instance Serbia) relied on bandit warriors named hajduks in order to resist Ottoman Turkish control. British Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm would later characterize the hajduk figure as an “invented tradition”—a masculine folk hero that lived outside the cloying strictures of both Turkish and official Serbian rule. The ancient Romans did not take the Greek view of banditry. The Roman Republic considered outlawry to be the antithesis of Roman virtues like Industria (industriousness) and Severitas (self-control). The later Roman Empire similarly took a dim view of outlaws. The punishment for banditry was fierce—all outlaws became “non-persons” and were barred from maintaining or earning Roman citizenship. Furthermore, outlaws, which were known in Latin as latrones, faced the threat of losing all property rights, crucifixion, or being used as animal bait during gladiatorial games. Several famous outlaws struck against Rome, thus showing why the Senate and the Caesars took outlawry so seriously. Between 147 and 139 BC, Viriatus, a Lusitanian sphered led a rebellion against the Roman government. After surviving praetor Servius Sulpicius Galba’s massacre of the Lusitani, Viriatus swore revenge and created a peasant army in what is today Portugal and Spain. Viriatus’ army initially had the upper hand during the Lusitanian War, especially when Celtiberian tribes decided to join his cause. Ultimately, Rome crushed the insurrection by renewing the war after Viritaus agreed to a peace with Fabius Maximus Servilianus. Servilius Caepio bribed war-weary Lusitani emissaries with a money and peace if they assassinated Viriatus, which they did. Rome would rule Hispania until the 5th century AD. In the medieval world, outlaws continued to plague private citizens as well as the state. In medieval England, outlaws were those individuals who were considered “outside of the law” (hence “outlaw”). These individuals had been accused of crimes in court, and if they failed to appear before a local judge, the sheriff was sent to get them. Robin Hood is the most famous outlaw of this period. In the late medieval courts, outlaws were those who committed treason, rebellion, or murder. A special writ of capias utlagatum could be issued by the Crown or Common Pleas. In these instances, sheriffs could seize the property of outlaws, which was then forfeited to the Crown. As recounted in the work of Michel Foucault, pre-Enlightenment Europe disciplined all outlaws and criminals very publicly. For instance, in 1757, Robert-Francois Damiens, a domestic servant who tried to kill King Louis XV, was drawn and quartered by the command of the king. Such punishments seem ghastly to us today, but that is only because the Enlightenment took a completely radical approach to the entire concept of criminality. Thanks to social reformers like Jeremy Bentham and others, crime became something that could be cured, or, at the very least, hidden away from society. This idea of criminality as something “antisocial”—as something against the mass of individuals that make up so-called society—led directly to the growth of the impersonal penal state. Rather than be punished and made to perform restitution by the Crown or the process of common law, modern-day outlaws are institutionalized by prisons that operate very much like schools and hospitals. In essence, outlaws are still those who go against the wishes of the state, but the modern state sees it as its duty to try and rehabilitate these criminals. Of course, the government seizes money from private citizens in the form of taxes in order to carry out these hare-brained designs. For A New Outlawry Officials in the modern state have no real conception of interpersonal violence because the state is not controlled by a small set of private individuals. The state is a monstrosity that moves forward with its own internal logic, regardless of which political party is in power. In order to reclaim any sense of liberty in the modern world, America must embrace the pre-modern sense of security and responsibility as primarily the province of local communities. Rather than rely on labyrinthine state and federal laws that only seem to allow repeat offenders to constantly cross back and forth between borders, a more sane alternative would simply brand those illegal immigrants who commit serious crimes as outlaws, seize their property (if they have any), deny them the possibility of ever obtaining American citizenship, and force them to pay restitution to their victims. Furthermore, like the “ civil death ” doctrine of medieval Europe, immigrant outlaws should face the wrath of the civilian population. Rather than promote further statism through the use of federal agents or local law enforcement, private individuals should be able to take the reins of enforcing immigration laws. In preparation for a stateless society (or at least a society that does not fit the current definition of the neoliberal state), free associations of individuals should be tasked with not only securing their properties and the border, but should be authorized to apprehend outlaws and bring them to court. As dangerous as these laws may sound, they at least would show that this country and its people take immigration laws seriously. Similarly, so long as illegal immigrants only fear deportation, they will consistently break American laws in order to get on American welfare or to work for better wages in this country than elsewhere. Physical Removal Hans-Hermann Hoppe argues that culturally destructive forces like Marxism, both economic and cultural, should be physically removed from libertarian societies in order to guarantee the survival of liberty, free association, and voluntary transactions. Continued illegal immigration is clearly a threat to America’s precarious liberty, and as such should be met with a form of physical removal. This removal should be accomplished by private citizens or groups of private citizens. First and foremost, the police, in the words of Robert Taylor, “do not exist to protect you, defend private property, or maintain the peaceful order of a free society.” Taylor further notes that the primary function “is to make sure that the state’s exploitation of the public runs as smoothly as possible.”[1] Therefore, security should become a private affair. This includes enforcing the law against illegal immigrants who directly threaten communities. Criminal illegal aliens should answer for their crimes in front of the communities that they have injured. As Hans-Hermann Hoppe writes: “Families, authority, communities, and social ranks are the empirical-sociological concretization of the abstract philosophical-praxeological categories and concepts of property, production, exchange, and contract. Property and property relations do not exist apart from families and kinship relations.”[2] There is no need for a government corrective here. Immigrant criminals, many of whom come from countries where socialism is the norm, not only carry the possibility of political warfare (in the form of voting for or giving a raison d’etre for anti-liberty statists), but they expressly threaten the organic unity of American families through violence. As ever, the democratic state can grow from the chaos of illegal immigration, and as such, stopping criminal aliens without the overview of the state is one way of circumventing state power. Objections Such a draconian proposal is certain to meet with objections from both the political mainstream and from left-libertarians, so let us attempt to address some of the most likely criticisms. First, left-libertarians consistently make the argument that open borders are the only truly libertarian solution to the problem of state power and statism. However, as has already been noted in this publication, “maintaining a distinctive culture is a good reason to restrict immigration.” Of course, immigration has economic benefits, but all libertarians should ask themselves whether immediate economic benefits are worth the cost of potentially dissolving any chance for a libertarian social order. After all, Taylor correctly notes that the left-libertarian case for open borders often conflates state with nation. He notes that “the state is artificial, arbitrary, and coercive,” but calls a nation “a national identity, protected by borders.”[3] This is healthy and natural so long as private property rights on the border are respected. Another possible libertarian criticism of the entire concept of national borders is the problem of state coercion, namely the fact that immigration laws are fundamentally about states using force to welcome or remove private individuals based on sloppy thinking or criteria that seems highly flexible and dependent on the whims of Washington bureaucrats. An answer to this criticism can be found in the words of Murray Rothbard, who summarized why libertarians should never overlook the fact that “nation” is a category separate from both “state” and “individual.” Rothbard writes: “Contemporary libertarians often assume, mistakenly, that individuals are bound to each other only by the nexus of market exchange. They forget that everyone is born into a family, a language, and a culture. Every person is born into one or several overlapping communities, usually including an ethnic group, with specific values, cultures, religious beliefs, and traditions. He is generally born into a country; he is always born into a specific time and place, meaning neighborhood and land area.”[4] To ignore this is the height of political autism. A third criticism is that implementing outlawry encourages murder. The plan described above only labels unrepentant, determined aggressors as outlaws, and killing aggressors is defense, not murder. Furthermore, anyone who tries to kill an outlaw but instead ends the life of a non-outlaw would be guilty of premeditated murder and thus subject to life imprisonment or capital punishment, thus providing a strong deterrence against overzealous outlaw hunters. Finally, the most likely objection to this plan is that it would lead to vigilante justice, but in a sense, that is precisely the point. And is not vigilante justice preferable to anarcho-tyranny? A world wherein outlaws are chased down is better than a world wherein immigrant criminals rape and murder, get deported, then rape and murder some more before being thrown into a money-making machine run by the state. Conclusion The outlaw solution would encourage communities, towns, and counties to mobilize their independent resources to protect their own people from the threat of criminal illegal aliens. If a serious crime is committed, then these localities could extract just punishment from the criminals without feeding into the state’s prison system. Outlawry not only takes away the state’s monopoly on violence; it is also preferable to any open or quasi-open borders situation wherein wanted and unwanted immigrants used public roads and public property that once belonged to private individuals. The concept of outlawry as a way to combat illegal immigration may only be feasible in a truly libertarian state. However, certain measures could be put in place at present that could dramatically change the on-the-ground reality. Namely, the rise of border militias like the Minutemen is a positive development. America should go further by abolishing the Border Patrol and replacing it with private security agencies that have to answer to those citizens who own the land on the American border. Unlike federal employees, these private agents could be fired for doing a poor job and/or for colluding with Mexican drug cartels. Illegal immigration has not only helped the cause of “ Brazilification ” in America, but attendant criminality is a direct threat to all private citizens, their properties, and their freedom of association. Given this reality, criminal illegal aliens who return to the United States after being arrested, convicted, imprisoned, released, and deported should be treated as outlaws and should face the possibility of death for impinging upon American liberty. This proposal has the added benefit of legitimizing decentralized power structures in the face of anarcho-tyrant state. References: Taylor, Robert (2016). Reactionary Liberty. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. p. 125. Hoppe, Hans-Hermann (2001). Democracy – The God That Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy, and Natural Order. Transaction Publishers p. 203. Taylor, p. 221. Rothbard, Murray. Nations by Consent: Decomposing The Nation-State. Journal of Libertarian Studies 11:1 (Fall 1984). https://mises.org/library/nations-consent-decomposing-nation-state-0 Support The Zeroth Position on Patreon! Like this: Like Loading...
Image caption US drone attacks in Pakistan have led to increasing public anger Pakistan's parliament has called for a review of the country's relationship with the US over the American commando raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. MPs said they "condemned the unilateral action... which constitutes a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty". They unanimously passed a resolution urging a ban on Nato transit convoys unless the US ended drone attacks. The session followed Friday's double suicide bombing that killed 80 people in north-western Pakistan. At least 120 others were wounded in the attack on a Frontier Constabulary training centre in Shabqadar, Charsadda district. The Pakistani Taliban said they carried out the attack - this year's deadliest on the security forces - to avenge Bin Laden's death. Heightened security The 2 May US raid on the al-Qaeda leader's Abbottabad hideout has left Washington-Islamabad relations at an all-time low, correspondents say. Members of the US Congress have been calling for Washington to cut its billions of dollars in aid to Islamabad, saying some Pakistani officials must have known Bin Laden was hiding in the country. On Saturday, the parliament in Islamabad said the American operation was a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty. The MPs' resolution was passed after a joint session, under heightened security, lasting more than 10 hours. "The people of Pakistan will no longer tolerate such actions and a repeat of unilateral measures could have dire consequences for peace and security in the region and the world," the AFP news agency quoted the resolution as saying. Analysis None of the new resolutions adopted by Pakistan's parliament following the Bin Laden affair deals with the issue of the al-Qaeda leader's presence in this country. Instead, most of the discussion in this special session centred on Pakistan's relationship with the United States. There was strong condemnation in the resolutions that were adopted - of US operations in Pakistan and of what parliament called the "campaign to malign Pakistan". Rather than any public criticism of the Pakistani security forces from the government, there was a resolution affirming full confidence in them. MPs who attended the closed session though, said the head of the intelligence agencies, Gen Pasha, who made a rare appearance to explain himself, had a tough time from some quarters and offered his resignation - though the prime minister did not accept it. An investigation should take place to "fix responsibility and recommend necessary measures to ensure that such an incident does not recur", it added. The resolution also labelled as "unacceptable" the US use of pilotless planes to attack militants along the mountainous border with Afghanistan. It said if the attacks did not stop, the government should consider halting the transit of supplies through its territory for Nato forces in Afghanistan. More than 100 drone strikes are estimated to have been carried out last year. Correspondents say Islamabad has tacitly approved of such US air strikes, although Pakistani leaders have always denied supporting them. In recent months senior Pakistani security officials have reportedly been pressing for a limit to such operations, in the face of public anger over civilian casualties. Photograph lawsuit US Senator John Kerry, who is on a visit to Afghanistan before heading to Pakistan, told the BBC there were "serious questions that need to be answered" in the US-Pakistan relationship. Image caption Many of the wounded were rushed to hospital in the nearby city of Peshawar. In pictures: Bombs wreak havoc Eyewitness: Carnage in Shabqadar Pakistan condemns Bin Laden raid Mr Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in the Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif: "We're not trying to find a way to break the relationship apart, we're trying to find a way to build it." However the Democrat senator, who is close to the Obama administration, said that if the US came to believe Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar was in Pakistan, the US would "always reserve all of its options to be able to protect our people". During the parliamentary session, Pakistan's army chiefs appeared before MPs to explain their actions over Bin Laden's death. Lt Gen Ahmed Shujaa Pasha, head of Pakistan's security services, is reported to have told MPs that he had offered to quit after the US Navy Seals raid, but had been turned down by the army chief. Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan said Lt Gen Pasha had told MPs he was ready to take responsibility for any criminal failing. Pakistani leaders have insisted they had no idea Bin Laden was holed up in the country. Separately in the US, Judicial Watch, a conservative lobby group, has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the defence department, calling for the publication of the photographs of Bin Laden's body. Its president, Tom Fitton, said the "American people have a right to know, by law, basic information about the killing". President Barack Obama has said publication of the "gruesome" photos could incite violence and threaten US national security.
Earlier this week, late-night talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel delivered an emotional monologue, describing how his newborn son had nearly died because of a heart ailment and declaring that before Obamacare "if you were born with congenital heart disease like my son was, there was a good chance you wouldn’t be able to get health insurance because you had a pre-existing condition." Added Kimmel: "If your baby is going to die, and it doesn’t have to, it shouldn’t matter how much money you make. I think that’s something that, whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat or something else, we all agree on that, right?" While it's easy to analyze Republicans' ongoing effort to repeal Obamacare from a strictly analytical perspective, it is necessary at times to realize that there is a human toll to their plan for letting insurance companies charge higher premiums based on pre-existing conditions. Emotion as well as reason is vital when making that case, a fact that Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio clearly recognized when he began tweeting on Thursday. Advertisement: He didn't tell a personal story. He just listed the conditions that could cause someone to have skyrocketing health insurance costs under the proposed Republican system. And it was a very, very, very long list. The new health care bill, which is being pushed through the House of Representatives before the Congressional Budget Office can even assess its impact, would increase costs for low-income Americans by hundreds or even thousands of dollars each year. It would also make it very likely that people with pre-existing conditions will face higher costs for their insurance coverage. Then again, considering that the House Republicans contain individuals like Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama, who said earlier this week that "people who lead good lives" don't have pre-existing conditions, perhaps it's not surprising that this bill has a real chance of being passed regardless of the millions of people it would hurt.
Welcome to my Smoke Shack Tour! My name is Buzz Danklin and I review vaporizers. This page will be dedicated to the different smoke shacks I find as a travel around skiing and snowboarding. I am a MMJ patient in Montana, and travel to Colorado and BC occasionally. Big Sky Smoke Shacks! Here are some of the smoke shacks I found in Big Sky, Montana during winter 2015. “Hobbit Hole” Smoke Shack I believe this one was called Hobbit Hole, the entrance was a bit small and required bending over. Surprisingly the inside could fit a bunch of people, but as you probably guessed it was very dark. I am not quite sure how they got this old Volkswagen beetle up the mountain, but I was really impressed either way. Grill Out With A View This was one of my favorite spots. Not only did it have a grill and a gondola to get out of the snow, but it had an AMAZING view of lone peak from the clearing Rainbow Room Smoke Shack I think this one was called rainbow room, it was like a ski graveyard, pretty cool This is rainbow room’s secondary gondona tree fort in the back. I was ripping on the Crafty in the gondola, the Crafty is one of my very favorite portable portables overall and it also does very well on the slopes. You can check out my crafty review to learn more about the crafty vaporizer. “Had to Hike” This one took a bit of hiking to get to, you can see me half dead in the snow in the left photo catching my breath. On the right hanging out in the old gondola with the Pax. I think the Pax is the best vaporizer for the skiing and snowboarding. My Pax has dropped a half dozen times into the snow getting wet, and its survived countless crashes and it just keeps on working. Its also the easiest vape to rip on the chairlift, you don’t even need to take your gloves off. If you want to learn more about it, check out my pax review Overall Big Sky Montana is probably one of my favorite places in the world, I have been coming here for years, and it just never disappoints. Since becoming an adult, I’ve really enjoyed how many smoke shacks they have. Yet they are all completely hidden so no one ever stumbles upon them unknowingly. In all the times coming here while growing and cruising through the powder in the trees I never found a single shack. Breckenridge, Colorado Smoke Shacks I made it out to Breckenridge Colorado in Winter 2015, but I was not able to find any shacks unfortunately. This was the first time I was able to take the Grasshopper vaporizer out onto the slopes, it performed really well. It is easily the best vape for hitting the slopes if you only want to use it yourself, but if you want to pass it around with others, you will probably want to look at something like the Pax 2 or the Crafty. If you want to learn more about this one, check out my grasshopper review. You can also check out my best portable vaporizer guide for more options if you aren’t quite sold on the Grasshopper or Pax. If you happen to know where any smoke shacks are at Breck, let me know in case I make it back. I was a bit disappointed I got stumped. I will continue to update this page as I continue to ski and snowboard around searching for smoke and vape shacks! Have any of you ever hit up any of these shacks? Have you found some cool shacks at other mountains? Please let me know below in the comments!
President Trump's enduring support among evangelical Christians and Mass-attending Catholics befuddles many of his critics. "How could a Christian accept [some presidential action or statement]?" is now a trope. The genuinely confused should realize that for millions of voters, religious liberty remains the overarching issue of the day, the alpha and omega of whether Trump gets a nod of approval or at least a pass. And most of those voters are very well aware that religious liberty is on the Supreme Court's docket this term. The Supreme Court will soon consider the religious liberty of Jack Phillips in Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The state of Colorado has said that Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Phillips's refusal to create custom wedding cakes celebrating same-sex wedding ceremonies violates the state's law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation — despite Phillips's policy of refusing to create other confections that collide with his faith, including cakes containing alcohol or celebrating Halloween or atheism. The case will draw huge attention because it is at the intersection of so many controversies. But the emotions it elicits shouldn't obscure its connection to a large portion of Trump's core support: conservative people of faith. Evangelicals and Mass-attending Catholics gave the president healthy majorities when they voted last fall, and largely that support has not wavered. For those wondering why, it comes down to the issue at the core of Masterpiece Cakeshop: Will Americans be allowed to practice their religious beliefs without fear of ruin from secular absolutists? In the view of these voters, elites believe every knee must bend to their secular creed, not just on matters regarding sexual intimacy but also on issues of when life begins and when death ought to be optional. Many people of faith are convinced that their ability to believe, proclaim and practice their genuine faith convictions is in danger not just of ridicule but also of punishment. They hear themselves routinely — and unfairly — compared to racist bigots. They know that racial bigotry in the marketplace is illegal; indeed, they agree with the laws that make it so, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and believe those laws are righteous and, more to the point, constitutional. Moreover, the vast majority of evangelical and Catholic leaders assert that they, and the president, are not homophobic and that their positions on same-sex marriage do not mean they are anti-gay. They also believe, not without reason, that only Christians, not faithful Muslims, are targeted for refusal to celebrate same-sex unions, in a double standard born of animus toward the Christian community, fear of the Islamic one, or both. And they expect that, absent a new "test" emerging from the case now before the court, their civil right of free exercise of religion will be erased, quietly and quickly, from the constitutional canon. That fear drives a lot of politics these days, though it is only dimly perceived by political and media elites for whom the underlying variants of religious belief are at best unusual and sometimes unthinkable. I think that fear explains so much as to be almost too obvious an answer to too many current dilemmas. Why did Roy Moore win the GOP Senate primary in Alabama? People of faith may not agree with his positions — and most probably don't — but they can count on him being on their side in free-exercise disputes. Why do evangelicals hang in with the president despite his all-too-frequent un-Christian bouts of public disdain toward others, attacks that are at odds with the gospel? Because his judicial appointments — the source of the ultimate protection of faith and the free-exercise clause — are not only solid, they are also better than those of either President Bush. For many millions of people of faith, Trump is the last line of defense preventing their having to choose between their religious beliefs and full participation in the community and in business. In short, as the Supreme Court returns to work this week, understand that a lot of the politics of today are driven by its decisions in the past and fear about its decisions in the future. This remains a deeply religious country, and many of its most ardent believers distrust the federal courts and elite opinion-makers to such a degree that they will make common cause with those who will protect their freedom of conscience. The right to "free exercise" isn't just one of many important rights to them; it is the central one by far. Figure that truth into your political analysis, and a lot more becomes clear.
Hillary Clinton may be the Democratic frontrunner, but her appeal is waning. According to the HuffPost Pollster average, 55 percent of the electorate now views Clinton unfavorably—and 40.2 percent of people view her favorably, according to the same average. “[The numbers] are pretty bad,” said Democratic strategist Brad Bannon. “The No. 1 reason that her favorability is so bad is that you have large numbers of Americans who say they don’t trust her. I could make it sound more complicated than that, but that’s really what it is. Voters see her as the ultimate politician, who will do or say anything to get elected.” Advertisement: Historically, 62 percent of voters saw Barack Obama as favorable at this point in the 2008 election. The same pattern shows for the 2000 election; in March 2000, then-Texas Governor George W. Bush’s favorability was even higher: 63 percent. Clinton’s main advantage right now is that the Republican candidates are faring far worse in terms of favorability. On the GOP side, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have net favorability ratings in the single digits. John Kasich is doing slightly better at 26 percent, but has only won one state to date. On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders' favorability has slid this month also, but is still 16 points higher than Clinton on the net favorable scale. Clinton’s highest favorability ratings came when she served as President Obama’s Secretary of State. Her second-highest were during Bill Clinton's administration, at the time of the Monica Lewinsky scandal in 1998, when she was viewed favorably by 60 percent of voters. Watch: Comparing Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders' electability:
A team of researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology and two other institutions has developed a new 3-D printing method to create objects that can permanently transform into a range of different shapes in response to heat. The team, which included researchers from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) and Xi'an Jiaotong University in China, created the objects by printing layers of shape memory polymers with each layer designed to respond differently when exposed to heat. "This new approach significantly simplifies and increases the potential of 4-D printing by incorporating the mechanical programming post-processing step directly into the 3-D printing process," said Jerry Qi, a professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. "This allows high-resolution 3-D printed components to be designed by computer simulation, 3-D printed, and then directly and rapidly transformed into new permanent configurations by simply heating." The research was reported April 12 in the journal Science Advances, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The work is funded by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Singapore National Research Foundation through the SUTD DManD Centre. Their development of the new 3-D printed objects follows earlier work the team had done using smart shape memory polymers (SMPs), which have the ability to remember one shape and change to another programmed shape when uniform heat is applied, to make objects that could fold themselves along hinges. "The approach can achieve printing time and material savings up to 90 percent, while completely eliminating time-consuming mechanical programming from the design and manufacturing workflow," Qi said. To demonstrate the capabilities of the new process, the team fabricated several objects that could bend or expand quickly when immersed in hot water -- including a model of a flower whose petals bend like a real daisy responding to sunlight and a lattice-shaped object that could expand by nearly eight times its original size. "Our composite materials at room temperature have one material that is soft but can be programmed to contain internal stress, while the other material is stiff," said Zhen Ding, a postdoc researcher at Singapore University of Technology and Design. "We use computational simulations to design composite components where the stiff material has a shape and size that prevents the release of the programmed internal stress from the soft material after 3-D printing. Upon heating the stiff material softens and allows the soft material to release its stress and this results in a change -- often dramatic -- in the product shape." The new 4-D objects could enable a range of new product features, such as allowing products that could be stacked flat or rolled for shipping and then expanded once in use, the researchers said. Eventually, the technology could enable components that could respond to stimuli such as temperature, moisture or light in a way that is precisely timed to create space structures, deployable medical devices, robots, toys and range of other structures. "The key advance of this work is a 4-D printing method that is dramatically simplified and allows the creation of high-resolution complex 3-D reprogrammable products," said Martin L. Dunn a professor at Singapore University of Technology and Design who is also the director of the SUTD Digital Manufacturing and Design Centre. "It promises to enable myriad applications across biomedical devices, 3-D electronics, and consumer products. It even opens the door to a new paradigm in product design, where components are designed from the onset to inhabit multiple configurations during service."
Lebanese troops moved in to diffuse protests in the coastal city of Sidon after demonstrators gathered at the end of Friday prayers. Gunfire was reported in the southern city of Sidon, but few details regarding casualties were available. The military moved to break up the demonstration after protesters tried to reach the mosque complex where fugitive cleric Ahmad al-Assir used to give his sermons. The compound has been under army control since Monday, after two days of fighting between troops and Assir's followers that left dozens of people dead, 18 of them soldiers. Al Jazeera's Nour Samaha, reporting from Beirut, said the situation in Sidon had been calmed when the army dispersed protesters by firing into the air, but Tripoli remained tense. Demonstrators have come out in favour of the cleric, but also because of a growing feeling that, as Sunnis, they feel targeted by the arm, who they believe to be working on behalf of Hezbollah. Our correspondent said news channel Al Jadeed was reporting that protesters in Tripoli had been seen taking down pictures of former Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri and replacing them with pictures of Assir and black Salafist flags were seen during the protests. Spordic gunfire in Tripoli has been reported, but is not thought to have been between rival factions or parties. Further protests had been called for in Tripoli, the northern district of Akkar, Tariq Jdideh in Beirut, and Saadnayel in the Bekaa Valley, but so far both Beirut and Saadnayel seem to have avoided being the scenes of any confrontation.
China is developing new rockets as part of ongoing work to update and upgrade its Long March families of space launch vehicles. The new launchers will help replace older, toxic rockets while filling gaps in capabilities and lowering costs. The new Long March booster rockets are being developed by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), the country's main launch vehicle manufacturer and a subordinate of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the main contractor for the space programme. Under development are the Long March 8 and 8A, and new variants of the twice-flown Long March 7. The first Long March 8 is expected to fly in 2018 or 2019. Professor Huang Jun at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, told gbtimes that the Long March 8 series is a new type of sun synchronous orbit launcher which will be used to replace the Long March 4 series. Professor Huang explains that, through an upgrade and update of Chinese launchers, the Long March 8 series will focus on providing internationally competitive commercial satellite launch missions, by way of, "improvements of economy, environmental friendliness, reliability and launching efficiency". China has already developed new Long March 5, 6 and 7 launchers with engines that burn kerosene and liquid oxygen - a much more environmentally friendly and less hazardous mix than the hydrazine fuel and dinitrogen tetroxide oxidizer used by the older Long March 2, 3 and 4 rockets. "The Long March 8 will use a similar core as the Long March 7 rocket, and uses two YF-100 liquid oxygen and kerosene engines. The second stage rocket is basically the same as the third core stage of the Long March 3A, using YF-75 liquid rocket engines. "The payload [capabilities] for sun synchronous orbit will increase to 3 to 4.5 tonnes [to 700km], compared with 1.5 to 2.8 tonnes for the Long March 4 series," Prof Huang says. Use of existing engines and cores has sped the development of the launcher, and will also help reduce costs. Long March 7 variants Also in development are variants of the Long March 7, a medium sized launcher developed, in part, to launch Tianzhou cargo spacecraft for the upcoming Chinese Space Station (CSS). The series is also expected to replace the Long March 3 family, which launch payloads to medium Earth orbit and geosynschronous orbits, such as telecommunications and Beidou navigation satellites. The Long March 7 made its second successful flight in April, lofting Tianzhou-1 to low Earth orbit to dock with the Tiangong-2 space lab to perform refuelling technology tests. "The new Long March 7 variants will meet the needs of different launch missions by adjusting the number and kind of boosters and increasing the third stage," Prof Huang says. These will use the same kerosene and liquid oxygen YF-115 and YF-100 engines as the Long March 6 and 7, and a hydrogen and oxygen engine for the third stage. Above: Rollout of the Long March 5 at Wenchang for launch in November 2016 (China Daily). CALT is working on the low Earth orbit variant of the Long March 5, the Long March 5B, which will be used to loft the 20 metric tonne core and two experimental modules for the CSS. However, the launch failure of the second Long March 5, intended to put a large satellite into geosynchronous transfer orbit and launch lunar and interplanetary missions, may impact these and other plans. The Long March 5 and 7 are manufactured in Tianjin, North China, and shipped to the southern island province of Hainan, as the video below shows. The launch site at Wenchang was developed especially as the country's rail and road networks are unable to accommodate the 5m diameter Long March 5 cores, and its location gives launches a boost from the greater rotational speed of the Earth nearer the equator. In another recent development, China will also soon begin tests of sea launches of its Long March 11 solid-fuelled small booster rocket. Long March to the Moon CALT is also working on the necessary technical breakthroughs for the Long March 9, which would boost upwards of 100 tonnes of carrying capacity to low-Earth orbit. The super-heavy lift rocket, which would be similar in capability to the Saturn V that took US astronauts to the Moon in the 1960s and '70s, would allow China to attempt its own crewed lunar landings. Necessary technical breakthroughs are expected to be achieved by the end of decade, with its carrying capacity to be as much as 140 tonnes to near-earth orbit. This would allow China to be able to send probes to the outer planets and carry people to the moon for scientific research, CASC chairman Lei Fanpei stated last year. Above: An interstage ring manufactured in Tianjin, North China, in preparation for the core of a Long March 9 rocket (CASC). Long March 9 is expected to be nearly 10 metres in diameter, over 100 metres tall, and have a mass of 3,000 tonnes, rivalling NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), the heaviest configuration of which is expected to fly in the early 2020s. CALT and the Academy of Aerospace Propulsion Technology (AAPT) under CASC also recently successfully performed tests on a kerosene and liquid oxygen rocket engine capable of producing the thrust necessary to power the Long March 9. Above: China's existing and proposed Long March launch vehicles, including the LM-8 (third left) (CALT). Long March 9 is still in the very early stages of development, and not expected to make its maiden flight until around 2030. The first major use could be a Mars sample return, which China has slated for 2030. China is also currently studying a mission concept for human landings on the Moon which involves both a Long March 9 rocket and Long March 5B. The concept involves a separate launch of a Long March 5B carrying the crewed spacecraft, followed by Earth orbit rendezvous with the rest of the lunar craft components ahead of translunar injection.
Talented brothers Sione and Chanel Mata’utia have always had their sights set on playing in the NRL. That’s why Friday night will be an extraordinary occasion for the Mata’utia family with the pair set to make their NRL debut together when the Newcastle Knights host the Sydney Roosters. NRL statistics guru, David Middleton says the pair is the first set of brothers to make an NRL debut in the same match for more than 70 years. “I’m looking forward to tomorrow because it’s something my brothers and I have always wanted to do,” Chanel told teammate Clint Newton after training on Thursday. “Prep this week was pretty good and today’s training went well. “I just can’t wait, I’m really eager.” Sione added, “To play with my brother is a good achievement and something we’ve always wanted to do. “It would be good to be all four of us, but I’m happy to just take the one." Football has always been a family affair for the Mata’utias. Chanel and Sione are joined by Pat at the Knights while their older brother Pete is playing for the St George Illawarra Dragons. The boys' mother had planned to return early from a visit to Samoa when it was announced on Wednesday that Sione was set to debut. She now has an extra reason to be at Hunter Stadium on Friday night. “I don’t think she knows that I’m playing at the moment so that will be a surprise for her,” Chanel revealed. “I really can’t wait to see her after the game. “They’re going to be really proud, it’s the reason why we play footy. “We play for our family and most of all our mum who’s done it tough for us. “I’m really happy that me and Sione can play together.” When asked who is the most talented of the four brothers, a diplomatic Sione points out that all the brothers are good in their own way. “We all help each other out and it’s a team effort so to speak with all four of us boys," he said. Coach Wayne Bennett is confident in Sione and Chanel will hold their own in first grade. “It’s just coincidence, both of them have had different journeys to get here,” he told the media on Thursday at Knights HQ. “Sione excels in all areas but it will be a test for him, there’s no doubt about that. “We were kind of thinking that this could happen to us when we moved Kurt into the halfback role, so we’ve been grooming him. “He’s ready for it and is a very confident young man, without being over confident, and has lots of football ability and skill. “We’re all confident that he can handle it. “Chanel has also improved a great deal as well and is a little bit older than Sione. “I’m really pleased for him as he’s probably had to make more changes than Sione. “He played for NSW this year in the state league game that they played against Queensland and he was one of the best players there. “He’s always had the ability, it was just about getting his attitude right and he’s really improved in that area. “He does all the little things better than he ever did which is good." The Newcastle Knights take on the Sydney Roosters on Friday at Hunter Stadium. Be there to see the Mata’utia brother debut and to cheer on your team. Get your ticket here.
Get the latest news and videos for this game daily, no spam, no fuss. Microtransactions and subscriptions will define the next generation of gaming, Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios founder and creative director Christofer Sundberg has said. "Micro-transactions, subscriptions, and other biz models will be the next generation of games. It is that simple," Sundberg said on Twitter recently. Responding to a question from Eurogamer, Sundberg explained that the "free-to-play" moniker has "become a label for low quality, unfortunately." "But basically that's where we're heading. There will be f-ups for sure," he added." Hopefully we can lower the initial price point and build the game with the community instead." Sundberg said previously that if the "free-to-play" title is swapped out for something new, then such games can be more widely accepted. This is not the first time Sundberg, who is currently working on next-generation action game Mad Max, has predicted great change for the industry in times ahead. Earlier this month, he said Call of Duty: Ghosts and Battlefield 4 represent the "end of an era." "I don't believe in the future for [Call of Duty] and I believe that [Battlefield] will live on as an [multiplayer] game," Sundberg said at the time. The single-player-only Mad Max is currently in development for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. For more on that title, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.
0 One of the many films to premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival is director Alexandre Aja’s (The Hills Have Eyes) new film Horns. Based on the novel of the same name by Joe Hill, the pic centers on Ig Perrish (Daniel Radcliffe), the main suspect in the rape and murder of his girlfriend. He wakes one morning to find horns growing from his head, appendages that have the ability to force confessions from strangers, which aid him in his quest to find the real killer and exact his revenge. Horns also stars Juno Temple, Max Minghella, James Remar, Joe Anderson and Kelli Garner. I caught the world premiere here at TIFF and am happy to report the film is really well done. Aja has managed to craft a film that mixes together a few genres (horror, comedy, love story) and results in something unique and cool, and the entire cast was great. While Horns doesn’t yet have a domestic distribution or a trailer, I’m happy to be able to offer our readers the first footage from the film. If you were curious what Radcliffe would look like moving around with the horns, watch the clip after the jump. Also, look for some exclusive video interviews with Aja and Radcliffe/Temple in the coming days.
After the apostles died, was the gospel hopelessly lost until the Reformation? That certainly seems to be a common assumption in some Protestant circles today. Thankfully, it is a false assumption. I’m not entirely sure where that misconception started. But one thing I do know: it did not come from the Protestant Reformers. The Reformers themselves (including Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and others) were convinced that their position was not only biblical, but also historical. In other words, they contended that both the apostles and the church fathers would have agreed with them on the heart of the gospel. For example, the second-generation Lutheran reformer, Martin Chemnitz (1522-1586), wrote a treatise on justification in which he defended the Protestant position by extensively using the church fathers. And John Calvin (1509-1564), in his Institutes, similarly claimed that he could easily debunk his Roman Catholic opponents using nothing but patristic sources. Here’s what he wrote: If the contest were to be determined by patristic authority, the tide of victory — to put it very modestly —would turn to our side. Now, these fathers have written many wise and excellent things. . . . [Yet] the good things that these fathers have written they [the Roman Catholics] either do not notice, or misrepresent or pervert. . . . But we do not despise them [the church fathers]; in fact, if it were to our present purpose, I could with no trouble at all prove that the greater part of what we are saying today meets their approval. Source: John Calvin, “Prefatory Address to King Francis I of France,” The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Section 4. How could the Reformers be so confident that their understanding of the gospel was consistent with the teachings of the ancient church? Or perhaps more to the point: What did the early church fathers have to say about the gospel of grace? Here is an admittedly brief collection of 30 patristic quotes, centering on the reality that justification is by grace alone through faith alone. Many more could be provided. But I think you’ll be encouraged by this survey look at the gospel according to the church fathers. (Even if you don’t read every quote, just take a moment to consider the fact that, long before Luther, the leaders of the ancient church were clearly proclaiming the gospel of grace through faith in Christ.) 1. Clement of Rome (30-100): “And we, too, being called by His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness, or works which we have wrought in holiness of heart; but by that faith through which, from the beginning, Almighty God has justified all men; to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” Source: Clement, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 32.4. 2. Epistle to Diognetus (second century): “He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for them that are mortal. For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness? By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! That the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors!” Source: The Epistle to Diognetus, 9.2-5. 3. Justin Martyr (100-165) speaks of “those who repented, and who no longer were purified by the blood of goats and of sheep, or by the ashes of an heifer, or by the offerings of fine flour, but by faith through the blood of Christ, and through His death.” Source: Justin, Dialogue with Trypho, 13. 4. Origen (185-254): “For God is just, and therefore he could not justify the unjust. Therefore he required the intervention of a propitiator, so that by having faith in Him those who could not be justified by their own works might be justified.” Source: Origen, Commentary on Romans, 2.112. 5. Origen (again): “A man is justified by faith. The works of the law can make no contribution to this. Where there is no faith which might justify the believer, even if there are works of the law these are not based on the foundation of faith. Even if they are good in themselves they cannot justify the one who does them, because faith is lacking, and faith is the mark of those who are justified by God.” Source: Origen, Commentary on Romans, 2.136. 6. Hilary of Poitiers (300-368): “Wages cannot be considered as a gift, because they are due to work, but God has given free grace to all men by the justification of faith.” Source: Hilary, Commentary on Matthew (on Matt. 20:7) 7. Hilary of Poitiers (again): “It disturbed the scribes that sin was forgiven by a man (for they considered that Jesus Christ was only a man) and that sin was forgiven by Him whereas the Law was not able to absolve it, since faith alone justifies.” Source: Hilary, Commentary on Matthew (on Matt. 9:3) 8. Didymus the Blind (c. 313-398) “A person is saved by grace, not by works but by faith. There should be no doubt but that faith saves and then lives by doing its own works, so that the works which are added to salvation by faith are not those of the law but a different kind of thing altogether.”[31] Source: Didymus the Blind. Commentary on James, 2:26b. 9. Basil of Caesarea (329-379): “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord, that Christ has been made by God for us righteousness, wisdom, justification, redemption. This is perfect and pure boasting in God, when one is not proud on account of his own righteousness but knows that he is indeed unworthy of the true righteousness and is justified solely by faith in Christ.” Source: Basil, Homily on Humility, 20.3. 10. Jerome (347–420): “We are saved by grace rather than works, for we can give God nothing in return for what he has bestowed on us.” Source: Jerome, Epistle to the Ephesians, 1.2.1. 11. John Chrysostom (349-407): “For Scripture says that faith has saved us. Put better: Since God willed it, faith has saved us. Now in what case, tell me, does faith save without itself doing anything at all? Faith’s workings themselves are a gift of God, lest anyone should boast. What then is Paul saying? Not that God has forbidden works but that he has forbidden us to be justified by works. No one, Paul says, is justified by works, precisely in order that the grace and benevolence of God may become apparent.” Source: John Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians, 4.2.9. 12. John Chrysostom (again): “But what is the ‘law of faith?’ It is, being saved by grace. Here he shows God’s power, in that He has not only saved, but has even justified, and led them to boasting, and this too without needing works, but looking for faith only.” Source: John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans, 7.27. 13. John Chrysostom (again): “God allowed his Son to suffer as if a condemned sinner, so that we might be delivered from the penalty of our sins. This is God’s righteousness, that we are not justified by works (for then they would have to be perfect, which is impossible), but by grace, in which case all our sin is removed.” Source: John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians, 11.5. 14. John Chrysostom (again): “Everywhere he puts the Gentiles upon a thorough equality. ‘And put no difference between us and them, having purified their hearts by faith.’ (v. 9.) From faith alone, he says, they obtained the same gifts. This is also meant as a lesson to those (objectors); this is able to teach even them that faith only is needed, not works nor circumcision.” Source: John Chrysostom, Homilies on Acts, 32 (regarding Acts 15:1) 15. John Chrysostom (again): “What then was it that was thought incredible? That those who were enemies, and sinners, neither justified by the law, nor by works, should immediately through faith alone be advanced to the highest favor. Upon this head accordingly Paul has discoursed at length in his Epistle to the Romans, and here again at length. “This is a faithful saying,” he says, “and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Source: John Chrysostom, Homilies on 1 Timothy, 4.1. 16. John Chrysostom (again): “”For it is most of all apparent among the Gentiles, as he also says elsewhere, ‘And that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy.’ (Romans 15:9.) For the great glory of this mystery is apparent among others also, but much more among these. For, on a sudden, to have brought men more senseless than stones to the dignity of Angels, simply through bare words, and faith alone, without any laboriousness, is indeed glory and riches of mystery: just as if one were to take a dog, quite consumed with hunger and the mange, foul, and loathsome to see, and not so much as able to move, but lying cast out, and make him all at once into a man, and to display him upon the royal throne.” Source: John Chrysostom, Homilies on Colossians, 5.2. 17. John Chrysostom (again): “Now since the Jews kept turning over and over the fact, that the Patriarch, and friend of God, was the first to receive circumcision, he wishes to show, that it was by faith that he too was justified. And this was quite a vantage ground to insist upon. For a person who had no works, to be justified by faith, was nothing unlikely. But for a person richly adorned with good deeds, not to be made just from hence, but from faith, this is the thing to cause wonder, and to set the power of faith in a strong light.” Source: John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans, 8.1. 18. Augustine (354-430): “If Abraham was not justified by works, how was he justified? The apostle goes on to tell us how: What does scripture say? (that is, about how Abraham was justified). Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness (Rom. 4:3; Gen. 15:6). Abraham, then, was justified by faith. Paul and James do not contradict each other: good works follow justification.” Source: Augustine, Exposition 2 of Psalm 31, 2-4. 19. Augustine (again): “When someone believes in him who justifies the impious, that faith is reckoned as justice to the believer, as David too declares that person blessed whom God has accepted and endowed with righteousness, independently of any righteous actions (Rom 4:5-6). What righteousness is this? The righteousness of faith, preceded by no good works, but with good works as its consequence.” Source: Augustine, Exposition 2 of Psalm 31, 6-7. 20. Ambrosiaster (fourth century): “God has decreed that a person who believes in Christ can be saved without works. By faith alone he receives the forgiveness of sins.” Source: Ambrosiaster, Commentary on 1 Corinthians 1:4. 21. Ambrosiaster (again): “They are justified freely because they have not done anything nor given anything in return, but by faith alone they have been made holy by the gift of God.” Source: Ambrosiaster, Commentary on Romans 3:24. 22. Ambrosiaster (again): “Paul tells those who live under the law that they have no reason to boast basing themselves on the law and claiming to be of the race of Abraham, seeing that no one is justified before God except by faith.” Source: Ambrosiaster, Commentary on Romans 3:27. 23. Ambrosiaster (again): “God gave what he promised in order to be revealed as righteous. For he had promised that he would justify those who believe in Christ, as he says in Habakkuk: ‘The righteous will live by faith in me’ (Hab. 2:4). Whoever has faith in God and Christ is righteous.” Source: Ambrosiaster, Commentary on Paul’s Epistles; CSEL 81 ad loc. 24. Marius Victorinus (fourth century): “The fact that you Ephesians are saved is not something that comes from yourselves. It is the gift of God. It is not from your works, but it is God’s grace and God’s gift, not from anything you have deserved. … We did not receive things by our own merit but by the grace and goodness of God.” Source: Marius Victorinus, Epistle to the Ephesians, 1.2.9. 25. Prosper of Aquitaine (390–455): “And just as there are no crimes so detestable that they can prevent the gift of grace, so too there can be no works so eminent that they are owed in condign [deserved] judgment that which is given freely. Would it not be a debasement of redemption in Christ’s blood, and would not God’s mercy be made secondary to human works, if justification, which is through grace, were owed in view of preceding merits, so that it were not the gift of a Donor, but the wages of a laborer?” Source: Prosper of Acquitaine, Call of All Nations, 1.17 26. Theodoret of Cyrus (393–457): “The Lord Christ is both God and the mercy seat, both the priest and the lamb, and he performed the work of our salvation by his blood, demanding only faith from us.” Source: Theodoret of Cyrus, Interpretation of the Letter to the Romans; PG 82 ad loc. 27. Theodoret of Cyrus (again): “All we bring to grace is our faith. But even in this faith, divine grace itself has become our enabler. For [Paul] adds, ‘And this is not of yourselves but it is a gift of God; not of works, lest anyone should boast’ (Eph. 2:8–9). It is not of our own accord that we have believed, but we have come to belief after having been called; and even when we had come to believe, He did not require of us purity of life, but approving mere faith, God bestowed on us forgiveness of sins” Source: Theodoret of Cyrus, Interpretation of the Fourteen Epistles of Paul; FEF 3:248–49, sec. 2163. 28. Cyril of Alexandria (412-444): “For we are justified by faith, not by works of the law, as Scripture says. By faith in whom, then, are we justified? Is it not in Him who suffered death according to the flesh for our sake? Is it not in one Lord Jesus Christ?” Source: Cyril of Alexandria, Against Nestorius, 3.62 29. Fulgentius (462–533): “The blessed Paul argues that we are saved by faith, which he declares to be not from us but a gift from God. Thus there cannot possibly be true salvation where there is no true faith, and, since this faith is divinely enabled, it is without doubt bestowed by his free generosity. Where there is true belief through true faith, true salvation certainly accompanies it. Anyone who departs from true faith will not possess the grace of true salvation.” Source: Fulgentius, On the Incarnation, 1; CCL 91:313. 30. Bede (673-735): “Although the apostle Paul preached that we are justified by faith without works, those who understand by this that it does not matter whether they live evil lives or do wicked and terrible things, as long as they believe in Christ, because salvation is through faith, have made a great mistake. James here expounds how Paul’s words ought to be understood. This is why he uses the example of Abraham, whom Paul also used as an example of faith, to show that the patriarch also performed good works in the light of his faith. It is therefore wrong to interpret Paul in such a way as to suggest that it did not matter whether Abraham put his faith into practice or not. What Paul meant was that no one obtains the gift of justification on the basis of merits derived from works performed beforehand, because the gift of justification comes only from faith.” Source: Cited from the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (ed. Gerald Bray), NT, vol. 11, p. 31.
Riku Profile Blog Joined June 2009 United States 1019 Posts Last Edited: 2011-11-23 19:04:00 #1 Faris (Final Fantasy V) After being dragged to an anime convention (Sakura-Con in Seattle) by friends and feeling utterly left out due to not having a costume. I decided to make a costume for the next convention. I decided to cosplay Faris, as I had just played FFV and loved her character. Also, I thought she looked like an utter badass in the trailer. My mother always loved making me costumes and offered to make the jacket if I put together the rest of the costume. I was 14 at the time, I believe, and had absolutely no sewing experience, so I hand stitched all of my armor. With glue, paint, gems and patience I created the armor, skirt, belt and boot accessories (not pictured, they didn't stick on well). I loved working on the costume, but put too much faith in the strength and usefulness of superglue. I later learned that other glues actually work better (my favorite being Modge Podge). + Show Spoiler + Ino (Naruto) Yes, I did that. I always justify that I cosplayed Ino before Naruto was popular, it was back before you could even buy the headbands and before so much as an ounce of filler-episode. I helped designed the outfit, but my mother did most of the sewing. My mom watched Naruto more than I did, so this outfit was more for her than it was for myself. + Show Spoiler + Haruko (FLCL) This outfit was probably my most popular one. Also, at the time, I think it was the hardest to make. I hand-dyed and modified the gloves, he material the dress is made out of is enough to make one scream and I forgot the white undershirt at home. I wore this at Anime Evolution (Vancouver, B.C.). However, it did provide me with an excuse to buy a pink wig, which I absolutely love and based my next costume off of! This was also the only costume I had a good set of professional photos for, a photographer kidnapped me! + Show Spoiler + Aries (Fairy Tail) With Anime Evolution coming up again, I was unsure of what costumes to do! My mom and I had decided we'd make two, but which two was the question. We had both been reading Fairy Tail and really enjoyed the manga. I looked at Erza, the ass-kicking armor-clad beauty, but figured it would be way too much work with making two costumes! My mom then found some super shiny, super soft white fur and we decided on Aries, the innocent, helpless Celestial Spirit. Her coloring is rather vague, but a common version has her with pink hair and pink accessories. Due to the fact I already had a pink wig, we went with that version. This is the SOFTEST COSTUME EVER! I just can't stop touching myself when I wear it, so I really love it. + Show Spoiler + Bikini Aries (Fairy Tail) Upon seeing there was a cosplay swimsuit contest at Anime Evolution, my mom immediately ran to the nearest fabric store, grabbed some white fur and made me a bikini in just a few minutes. My mom seems to have a love of showing me off, so I humored her and actually had a ton of fun in the contest! The crowd Q&A was definitely my favorite part, I really cracked them up! It might not be the best put-together costume, but it got some public attention! + Show Spoiler + Ruka Souen (Vampire Knight) I wanted to do this costume purely because I love their uniforms. Seriously, I would have loved to go to a school with such awesome outfits! This was all my mom, she made this while I was off at college. + Show Spoiler + Alexstrasza (World of Warcraft) This costume I did 100% by myself. The armor took WEEKS and involved many painful hours of gluing and using random objects in my room to hold the armor in place while it dried. However, all of the blood, sweat and love I put into this costume really makes it my favorite and I am so glad it was received so well! + Show Spoiler + Puck (Midsummer Night's Dream) This is my version of Puck, as I discussed before in previous blogs. As we decided Oberon's faeries would be animal-like, I decided the trickster Puck would best be portrayed as a raven. The costume overall wasn't too difficult. I made most of it from scratch except for the jacket, which I made out of a black jacket I got at a thrift store. The paldrons were the most difficult part! Those feathers were so hard to sew in! + Show Spoiler + Nidalee (League of Legends) This is undoubtedly my most well-known costume, though perhaps not in the Starcraft community. I play League of Legends quite often and my favorite character is Nidalee, the Bestial Huntress. While I generally use one of the in-game skins for her, I decided to make my costume for PAX Prime 2011 the original Nidalee skin. Working with the fur was surprisingly difficult, in order to sew it, I had to "shave" along all of the seams with scissors! It took an extremely long time. However, this is one of my most comfortable costumes by far. Everything stays in place and I have a lot of freedom of movement. Plus, with the fur and foam, I can sit on or squish or bump any part of it without fear of damage. The only annoying part to wear was the wig. It is extremely heavy and makes my scalp sore and requires adjusting after a few hours. + Show Spoiler + Not a very flattering picture, but it's with Tryndamere (the president of Riot, the company that makes League of Legends): Not a very flattering picture, but it's with Tryndamere (the president of Riot, the company that makes League of Legends): Baneling (Starcraft 2) My very first post on the Team Liquid forums was to inquire as to what kind of Starcraft cosplay I should make for Blizzcon 2011. One person requested a baneling cosplay and I really liked the idea, being a Zerg enthusiast myself. This was by far the most open cosplay I have ever done. Without much references and no idea how to approach the costume, I had to ask around for a lot of advice. Eventually, I figured out how to make a wire-cage for the butt. I was very proud of my design, it looked absolutely wonderful on paper, but it came out looking much skimpier than I planned. My favorite part of this costume is the spine because it was 100% my idea and I think it looks really badass. + Show Spoiler + Renegade Talon - Female (League of Legends) Riot would not allow me to enter my Nidalee costume in their Halloween costume contest, so I had to come up with another costume idea. At the time, my second most played champion was Talon and I was particularly fond of his Renegade skin. In just a few days, I cut, sewed, painted and glued together a costume. While it could use extra details and improvements, I think it came out quite well for my time constraints and a few people have requested the cloak from me! + Show Spoiler + For more pictures of most of these costumes, check out With another year, I have quite a few more costumes to add to my costume list!After being dragged to an anime convention (Sakura-Con in Seattle) by friends and feeling utterly left out due to not having a costume. I decided to make a costume for the next convention. I decided to cosplay Faris, as I had just played FFV and loved her character. Also, I thought she looked like an utter badass in the trailer. My mother always loved making me costumes and offered to make the jacket if I put together the rest of the costume. I was 14 at the time, I believe, and had absolutely no sewing experience, so I hand stitched all of my armor. With glue, paint, gems and patience I created the armor, skirt, belt and boot accessories (not pictured, they didn't stick on well). I loved working on the costume, but put too much faith in the strength and usefulness of superglue. I later learned that other glues actually work better (my favorite being Modge Podge).Yes, I did that. I always justify that I cosplayed Ino before Naruto was popular, it was back before you could even buy the headbands and before so much as an ounce of filler-episode. I helped designed the outfit, but my mother did most of the sewing. My mom watched Naruto more than I did, so this outfit was more for her than it was for myself.This outfit was probably my most popular one. Also, at the time, I think it was the hardest to make. I hand-dyed and modified the gloves, he material the dress is made out of is enough to make one scream and I forgot the white undershirt at home. I wore this at Anime Evolution (Vancouver, B.C.). However, it did provide me with an excuse to buy a pink wig, which I absolutely love and based my next costume off of! This was also the only costume I had a good set of professional photos for, a photographer kidnapped me!With Anime Evolution coming up again, I was unsure of what costumes to do! My mom and I had decided we'd make two, but which two was the question. We had both been reading Fairy Tail and really enjoyed the manga. I looked at Erza, the ass-kicking armor-clad beauty, but figured it would be way too much work with making two costumes! My mom then found some super shiny, super soft white fur and we decided on Aries, the innocent, helpless Celestial Spirit. Her coloring is rather vague, but a common version has her with pink hair and pink accessories. Due to the fact I already had a pink wig, we went with that version. This is the SOFTEST COSTUME EVER! I just can't stop touching myself when I wear it, so I really love it.Upon seeing there was a cosplay swimsuit contest at Anime Evolution, my mom immediately ran to the nearest fabric store, grabbed some white fur and made me a bikini in just a few minutes. My mom seems to have a love of showing me off, so I humored her and actually had a ton of fun in the contest! The crowd Q&A was definitely my favorite part, I really cracked them up! It might not be the best put-together costume, but it got some public attention!I wanted to do this costume purely because I love their uniforms. Seriously, I would have loved to go to a school with such awesome outfits! This was all my mom, she made this while I was off at college.This costume I did 100% by myself. The armor took WEEKS and involved many painful hours of gluing and using random objects in my room to hold the armor in place while it dried. However, all of the blood, sweat and love I put into this costume really makes it my favorite and I am so glad it was received so well!This is my version of Puck, as I discussed before in previous blogs. As we decided Oberon's faeries would be animal-like, I decided the trickster Puck would best be portrayed as a raven. The costume overall wasn't too difficult. I made most of it from scratch except for the jacket, which I made out of a black jacket I got at a thrift store. The paldrons were the most difficult part! Those feathers were so hard to sew in!This is undoubtedly my most well-known costume, though perhaps not in the Starcraft community. I play League of Legends quite often and my favorite character is Nidalee, the Bestial Huntress. While I generally use one of the in-game skins for her, I decided to make my costume for PAX Prime 2011 the original Nidalee skin. Working with the fur was surprisingly difficult, in order to sew it, I had to "shave" along all of the seams with scissors! It took an extremely long time. However, this is one of my most comfortable costumes by far. Everything stays in place and I have a lot of freedom of movement. Plus, with the fur and foam, I can sit on or squish or bump any part of it without fear of damage. The only annoying part to wear was the wig. It is extremely heavy and makes my scalp sore and requires adjusting after a few hours.My very first post on the Team Liquid forums was to inquire as to what kind of Starcraft cosplay I should make for Blizzcon 2011. One person requested a baneling cosplay and I really liked the idea, being a Zerg enthusiast myself. This was by far the most open cosplay I have ever done. Without much references and no idea how to approach the costume, I had to ask around for a lot of advice. Eventually, I figured out how to make a wire-cage for the butt. I was very proud of my design, it looked absolutely wonderful on paper, but it came out looking much skimpier than I planned. My favorite part of this costume is the spine because it was 100% my idea and I think it looks really badass.Riot would not allow me to enter my Nidalee costume in their Halloween costume contest, so I had to come up with another costume idea. At the time, my second most played champion was Talon and I was particularly fond of his Renegade skin. In just a few days, I cut, sewed, painted and glued together a costume. While it could use extra details and improvements, I think it came out quite well for my time constraints and a few people have requested the cloak from me!For more pictures of most of these costumes, check out http://www.facebook.com/pages/Riku-Kitty/170236112994841 Creative Director, CEO at Stumbling Cat, Writer for Broken Joysticks - Twitter: @RikuKat
Former defence minister and six others accused over 2002 bombing that killed 15 people, mostly babies and children A Spanish judge today opened preliminary investigations into claims that a bomb attack on Gaza in 2002 warranted the prosecution of a former Israeli defence minister and six senior military officers for crimes against humanity. Judge Fernando Andreu agreed to investigate the deaths of 15 Palestinians, mostly babies and children, who died when the Israeli air force bombed a target in Gaza City. He named the former defence minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer, the former defence chief-of-staff Moshe Ya'alon, the former air force chief Dan Halutz, and four others. Andreu, an investigating magistrate at the national court in Madrid, said evidence presented to his court showed the seven men may have committed the sort of crimes against humanity which Spain was bound by international laws to prosecute. The magistrate accepted that the aim of the 2002 attack had been to kill Saleh Shehadeh, who he described as a suspected leader of "the terrorist group called Hamas". But the Israeli air force appeared to have dropped such a huge bomb on Shehadeh's house that it was inevitably going to kill many other innocent people living nearby, Andreu said. Israeli authorities had not replied to his request for information on the case after the Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights presented a writ in the victims' names last April. "These events can and should be investigated by Spanish courts, especially as there has been no reply at all to this court's request for relevant information from the state of Israel," he said. "Between 11.30pm and midnight on July 22 2002, a one-tonne bomb was dropped by an Israeli air force F-16 on the al-Daraj neighbourhood of Gaza City," Andreu said in a court document laying out the evidence presented to him. "The objective was the house of Salah Shehadeh, suspected of being a Hamas leader, and the intention was to kill him. "Salah Shehadeh's house took a direct hit from a highly powerful bomb, even though it was situated in one of the world's most densely populated residential zones," he said. Most of the victims represented in the case were related to a Mr Mattar, who lived in the house next door. "The two houses were less than two metres apart," the magistrate said. "As a result of the attack his home was destroyed and seven members of his family were killed." Fifteen people, including Shehadeh, died and a further 150 were said to have been injured. Andreu is acting under a doctrine that allows prosecution in Spain of alleged crimes against humanity or crimes such as terrorism or genocide, even if they are committed in another country. Spanish magistrates have used the doctrine to pursue a number of current or former government leaders, but convictions or extraditions have been rare. Spain's national court, which has tried and jailed human rights abusers from Latin American countries in recent years, has become a first stop for people wanting to bring cases under international human rights laws. Israel's former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: "It's absurd; Israel is fighting against war criminals and they are charging us with crimes? There is nothing more ridiculous and absurd than them accusing us, a democracy legitimately protecting itself against terrorists and war criminals, of these crimes; it is absurd and makes a mockery out of international law."
Officials say a 16-year-old boy is "lucky to be alive" and unharmed after flying from California to Hawaii stowed away in a plane's wheel well, surviving cold temperatures at 38,000 feet and a lack of oxygen. "Doesn't even remember the flight," FBI spokesman Tom Simon in Honolulu told The Associated Press on Sunday night. "It's amazing he survived that." The boy was questioned by the FBI after being discovered on the tarmac at the Maui airport Sunday morning with no identification, Simon said. A 16-year-old boy flew from California to Maui, Hawaii, on a Hawaiian Airlines flight by stowing away on the plane's wheel well. (Chad Slattery/Hawaiian Airlines Inc./The Associated Press) "Kid's lucky to be alive," Simon said. Simon said security footage from the San Jose airport verified that the boy from Santa Clara, Calif., hopped a fence to get to Hawaiian Airlines Flight 45 on Sunday morning. The boy scaled the fence under the cover of darkness and remained undetected as he crossed the airport ramp, San Jose airport spokeswoman Rosemary Barnes said. San Jose police say they will be reviewing whether charges are warranted against the boy. The child had run away from his family after an argument, Simon said. Simon said when the Boeing 767 landed in Maui, the boy hopped down from the wheel well and started wandering around the airport grounds. "He was unconscious for the lion's share of the flight," Simon said. The flight lasted about 5½ hours. Hawaiian Airlines spokeswoman Alison Croyle said airline personnel noticed the boy on the ramp after the flight arrived and immediately notified airport security. "Our primary concern now is for the wellbeing of the boy, who is exceptionally lucky to have survived," Croyle said. A photo taken by a Maui News photographer shows the boy sitting upright on a stretcher as authorities get ready to load him into an ambulance. Simon said the boy was medically screened and found to be unharmed. Concerned about perimeters His misadventure immediately raised security questions. A congressman who serves on the Homeland Security committee wondered how the teen could have sneaked onto the airfield at San Jose unnoticed. "I have long been concerned about security at our airport perimeters. #Stowaway teen demonstrates vulnerabilities that need to be addressed," tweeted Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat who represents the San Francisco Bay Area's eastern cities and suburbs. Barnes said Mineta San Jose International Airport's security program exceeds federal requirements, but no system is 100 per cent secure. Airport police were working with the FBI and the Transportation Security Administration to review security at the facility as part of an investigation, Barnes said. "Our concern is with this young boy and his family. Thank God he survived and we hope his health is OK," she said. Officials at Kahului Airport referred questions to the State Department of Transportation, which did not return a phone call seeking comment. A TSA spokesman who declined to be named referred questions to the FBI and airport authorities. The boy was released to child protective services and not charged with a crime, Simon said. 23.8% survival rate In August, a 13- or 14-year-old boy in Nigeria survived a 35-minute trip in the wheel well of a domestic flight after stowing away. Authorities credited the flight's short duration and altitude of about 25,000. Others stowing away in wheel wells have died, including a 16-year-old killed after stowing away aboard a flight from Charlotte, N.C., to Boston in 2010 and a man who fell onto a suburban London street as a flight from Angola began its descent in 2012. According to the FAA, between 1947 and 2014 — including this most recent incident — there have been 94 flights involving 105 people who stowed away. "Of those, 80 died and 25 survived. The 80 people who died represent 76.2 per cent of the 105 and the 25 people represent a 23.8 per cent survival rate," an FAA spokeswoman said in an email to CBC News. "The last fatality was found at Dulles International Airport in February 2014. The flight travelled from Johannesburg, South Africa, on Feb. 12, 2014 and then on to Dakkar, Senegal, and landed at Dulles on Feb. 14, 2014," the FAA said.
DRIVING winds and rains have caused havoc around Dorset and the New Forest. A number of homes and businesses in Poole were without power after high winds brought a tree down onto electricity lines. Residents in the Bloxworth Road area of Poole reported hearing a number of explosions around 11am. Police and Dorset Fire and Rescue Service attended the scene, close the junction of Bloxworth Road and Scott Road. They found a tree had fallen onto power lines, leaving a number of homes without electricity Some businesses at Poole’s Tower Park complex also reported losing power. Southern Electric Power Distribution spokesman Samantha O’Connor, said: “We would like to apologise to the residents of Bloxworth Road in Poole for the interruption to their supplies. “This is due to a tree that has landed on our overhead line near Bloxworth Road. “Our engineers are carrying out the repairs and hope to restore supplies as soon as possible.” The footpath at the junction of Scott Road and Bloxworth Road has been blocked off. Burger King was one of the Tower Park businesses to lose power for around an hour after the incident. However, they were back in business by lunchtime. A Fiat Punto and a Land Rover were in collision on the A31 near Corfe Mullen after a tree fell onto the Land Rover during the storms. The A350 was closed for ten miles both ways between Shaftesbury and Durweston after a tree fell onto power cables. Rossmore Library has been closed until further notice due to high winds damaging the roof of the building. South West Trains reported a fallen tree on the line at Brockenhurst at around 11.20am. Operations staff removed it and the line reopened at around 1.45pm. Dorset Police said the weather around the county was “fairly severe” overnight and its control room received a number of reports of fallen trees blocking roads. One driver had a lucky escape when a tree came crashing down onto his Silver Honda CRV as he travelled along the B3081 past Sixpenny Handley at 6.52am. The vehicle, registered to a Fordingbridge man, was recovered and the road cleared at 8am. A Dorset Police spokesman said the vehicle sustained a “severe amount of damage” in the incident but the driver escaped uninjured. The first weather-related call was made to police at 2.34am about a tree down outside the Red Lion Hotel at Winfrith Newburgh, just past Dorset Police HQ. The tree was pruned back by police officers to allow vehicles to pass. At 4.50am a tree had blocked both lanes of the A30 at Henstridge. Officers from the local authority attended and dealt with the tree. An hour later police were called to a tree down in Piddle Lane in Cerne Abbas. At 6.14am the road between Verwood and Three Legged Cross was completely blocked by a large tree that had come crashing down. The road was cleared an hour later. Other trees were reported down at 7.11am at Duntish near Dorchester, 7.16am at Triscombe in Beaminster, 7.21am at East Stoke and 7.39am on Longbury Hill Lane in Gillingham. Dorset Fire reported trees down on Wimborne Road in Tarrant Rawston and Kingsmill Road in Stalbridge. A spokesman said a wall had also collapsed in North Road in Upper Parkstone. Millhams Tip has been closed due to high winds. • Have you any stories or photographs relating to the weather? If so please contact newsdesk@bournemouthecho.co.uk or text 80360 starting your message with BE.
Update: Police Stood Back as Trump Supporters Were Assaulted, Robbed and Spit On by Pro-Hillary Mob Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was in Minneapolis Friday night for a fundraiser held at the city’s convention city that was besieged outside by violent liberal protesters. Trump supporters attending the rally were punched, spit on and robbed while Trump’s Secret Service motorcade was blocked by protesters who jumped on one of the vehicles. Update: Protests at Donald Trump event turn unruly late. Police: No arrests, minor damage. https://t.co/T6fT3A7dk1 pic.twitter.com/RbJLBZK024 — Star Tribune (@StarTribune) August 20, 2016 Now this… The Trump supporters said the police stood back at they were assaulted, robbed and spit on. No arrests were made. PJ Media reported: A week ago in Minneapolis, Republican donors attending a Trump fundraiser were assaulted, robbed and spat upon by a violent leftist mob as they were leaving the event. Attendees say that even though there was a strong law enforcement presence at the convention center downtown where the fundraiser was held, they were not afforded any police protection when coming to and leaving the event — and even more incredibly, there were no arrests. Many people who attended the event told Fox 9 that police seemed to back down from intervening, but the Minneapolis Police Department insists there was no stand-down order. Read the rest here.
Yes, you’ve all thrown away your lunky old CRT monitors, in favour of sleek ultra-thin LCD displays. And, you thought you’d never see another one again… But this CRT display has a twist! It’s round. It’s small at just 3 inches diameter. And it’s awfully cute. Last year, I was approached by a dedicated flight simulation enthusiast, who needed a radar indicator to use in a fighter cockpit replica. The indicator should employ a CRT, for the most realistic look. Could Oscilloclock design and construct such a display? It didn’t take much convincing! Diverging only temporarily from building clocks, I took up the challenge to create my first raster-scan CRT display unit. In the ensuing months, difficulties sprang forth from every direction in the project, but ultimately I was able to avoid a diraster (sic) and deliver a functional assembly: See more related videos on my YouTube channel The Setup The key component of this setup is a new prototype VGA Board that converts a VGA signal into analogue X and Y outputs. Both analogue intensity and binary blanking outputs are provided. The X and Y outputs drive an Oscilloclock, while the binary blanking output drives the blanking amplifier in a Blanking isolation, heater, and HV supplies are provided by a It all looks so easy! But. Astute readers will recall from other posts that every Oscilloclock project involves sleepless slumbers, horrific hair-pulling, and forgotten family members. Let’s see what caused me grief this time… Challenge: How to get a BRIGHT raster scan? TVs and monitors use raster scanning to display images. The electron beam moves continuously and rapidly across the screen in a predetermined pattern, while the beam is turned on and off at the right locations to generate an image. This is actually quite bad for me. To see why, pretend you are a graffiti artist, painting a circle on a wall. Normally, you would just move your arm in a circle, and paint. This is effective. You could get a thick circle in just one or two iterations. Now instead, try a raster scan: move your arm across, back, down a little, across, back, down a little, across, back, … , and press the paint button at just the right places to draw bits of the circle. Your circle will start out very light, and it will take you many, many iterations of the raster scan to get a nice dark circle. The brightness vs. DEFLECTION trade-off The CRT is just like your spray can: the electron gun streams electrons at a limited rate. If the beam is moved in a fast raster scan pattern, the number of electrons hitting a given spot of the screen at once is limited, and this To offset this limited electron flow, CRTs in real computer monitors apply a very high voltage (often 10-20kV for monochrome monitors) as post-deflection acceleration (PDA). After the beam is deflected, the electrons are greatly accelerated by this potential, and they smash into the screen with incredible force. The sheer speed of the electrons offsets their small number, and this creates an immensely bright spot. Unfortunately, most of the cute 3″ CRTs available in quantity today do NOT have this post-deflection acceleration. Indeed, the customer hoped to use the general-purpose non-PDA type 3RP1A, as it is widely available. But a raster-scanned image on this tube would be quite faint. And to make matters worse, the customer required a bright trace even with a green-colour acrylic filter applied! The constraints here did NOT look promising. But I rarely give up. I decided to configure the Power Board to deliver 2kV to the deflection plates, which is nearly double what most circuits supply for this tube. This would forcefully accelerate the electrons to a great extent; maybe even enough to get a bright trace? But there is always a catch! Without PDA, the beam gets accelerated before it exits the deflection area. Due to electron inertia this means that the beam can’t be bent as easily, and the image gets smaller. To offset this, a much larger signal is required to deflect the beam sufficiently to reach the edge of the CRT screen. Could my poor Deflection Board deliver a signal with enough magnitude? Reflecting on Deflection Let’s review the 3RP1A’s specifications below, and see just what is needed! Running at 2kV, and taking the worst end of the range, the X-axis deflection plates (“Deflecting Plates 1-2”) require a whopping 198V signal to deflect just ONE inch from centre! For our 3″ screen, we need 1.5 times 198 = +/-300V (approx), to deflect the beam from centre to either edge of the screen. This is a big problem; the then-standard Oscilloclock Deflection Board could just barely deliver +/-200V before losing linearity. To make matters worse, it turns out we actually need to deflect more than 1.5″ from centre! Take a look at the diagram below of the raster image I wanted to display, as it appears via an 800×600 VGA signal. See how much dead space there is, particularly at the left and right sides? This space is specified in the VGA standard as sync pulse, front porch, and back porch timings, to allow time for the display circuitry to prepare for processing each line. A further complication (can there be more?) is that we want to display a circle in 800 x 600 (a 4:3 aspect ratio), on a round screen (a 1:1 aspect ratio)! After converting all the above dimensions into a 1:1 aspect ratio, and expressing in inches for convenience, we arrive at this: Stuck – But NOT beaten! And THUS we conclude that the beam must travel a maximum of +2.525″ to the right, and -3.325″ to the left, to make the actual radar image’s circle travel +/-1.5″ and touch the edge of the screen. And a -3.325″ deflection on the X axis (“Deflecting Plates 1-2”) at 198V/inch equates to no less thanOh, my poor, poor +/-200V Deflection Board… After hours of fretting, I hit upon a brilliant idea. Here are the facts: Looking at the VGA diagram, most of the dead space is in the X direction. The Y direction has very little dead space. Looking at the CRT specs, the deflection is more sensitive at “Deflecting Plates 3-4” than at “Deflecting Plates 1-2”. This is because 3-4 are closer to the electron gun than 1-2, and at that location the electrons are moving more slowly. Because the closer plates 3-4 are more sensitive, nearly all oscilloscopes apply the VERTICAL signal to these plates. And blindly following this convention, I, too, was planning to assign the Y output to these plates. BUT in a VGA display, neither vertical nor horizontal signals are high frequency! And, the two signals have the same amplitude (0-5V), so deflection sensitivity doesn’t really matter. So wow! Hang convention – Why not apply the troublesome X output, which needs way more deflection than Y in order to overcome the dead space, to the more sensitive plates 3-4? And then simply rotate the tube 90 degrees! Let’s do the math again… 3.325″ deflection on the X axis using the more sensitive (“Deflecting Plates 3-4”) at 140V/inch (worst case) equates to -466V! This is a fantastic improvement over -658V. But it’s still much more than the +/-200V my Deflection Board could deliver…. Healing the Deflection Board Oops – I’ve run out of space for this post – and you, dear reader, have run out of patience. Keep your eyes pealed for Part 2 – where we’ll take a look at the basic circuit of the Deflection Board, try to understand WHY it wouldn’t track more than +/-200V linearly, and finally see how I resolved the limitation. Challenge after challenge after challenge!
We’ve all been here before. The feeling of self-doubt, uncertainty, fear, pain, confusion. One minute I was excited to be the greatest fighter in the world. The next minute, I was wondering if boxing was even the right thing for me. I gave up on myself a thousand times. I hated my jab, hated my footwork, even hated my own boxing style. I lost all confidence in my own abilities. The sport I had fallen in love with had become my greatest enemy. I was all but permanently retired from boxing when a light shined at the end of the tunnel. It turns out: failure can be the greatest thing to ever happen to you. FACT: many people actually reached great success AFTER failure. Here’s how I reached absolute failure within 6 months of boxing… 1. Excitement Getting started in boxing, living the fantasy… I’d have to say all failure starts with excitement. You have to be excited about something to ever really “fail” at it. My first day of boxing was one of the most exciting days of my life. I hadn’t even stepped foot in the gym and already I was thinking, “Man, everyone is going to be amazed by my natural power!” I had seen enough Rocky movies and watched enough fights. I had never boxed before but I certainly didn’t consider myself a beginner. In my mind, I was only a few months away from bobbing and weaving like Mike Tyson. The first day of training couldn’t gone any better. I was able to follow all my trainer’s instructions with perfect form. The jab, the cross, the hooks, uppercuts, all the footwork. My trainer said my technique was perfect, and my power & speed INCREDIBLE. Considering that other more experienced fighters were watching me, I was turning out to be every bit as good as I had imagined. I couldn’t wait to come back the next day. I couldn’t wait to buy my own gloves. I eagerly accepted my new identity as a boxer. Not just any boxer, but one of the greatest of all time. 2. Realization Losing fights, getting embarrassed, realizing you’re not as good as you thought… Everyone gets humbled at some point in boxing. Sometimes it happens when you get shown up by an old trainer, or even more embarrassing—get beat up by a girl. My humbling moment came at the hands of Rigoberto, a 20-year old middleweight. He was a cousin of one of the pros in the gym and easily outweighed me by 15-20lbs. But still, I made up the betting odds to be in my favor. It wasn’t that I saw him as some sort of handicapped opponent, it’s just that I was disillusioned to think I was better than him. This is why people tell you ego can be the most dangerous thing to a man. The first round started with me controlling the center and pushing the pace. I walked him down and threw numerous combinations from all angles. I didn’t land everything but I did connect and I definitely was the more aggressive fighter. He seemed to be confused by my speed so I let him have more of it. The more passive he got, the more confident I grew. And as more punches landed, my confidence had swollen like a giant hot air balloon. In that second round, the giant hot air balloon was popped. He let me chase him onto the ropes where he pulled his head slightly away from my right hand and came back with a huge counter right. When I jabbed, he jabbed harder. When I blocked his jab, his right hand came around my guard. When I tried to block his jabs and rights, his left hook battered my ribs. At one point he rolled under my wide hook and threw a short right straight into my stomach. My body shook in pain and I thought I was going to barf. I didn’t remember the Rocky Movie to be this painful. I didn’t want to be Rocky anymore; I wanted to protect myself. I cowered up in fear as Rigoberto slipped left and right and rolled under all my counters. Deadly hooks and crosses punished me for every missed jab. Any surface exposed on my head was found immediately. My gloves made a terrible umbrella in preventing his punches from raining down on me. My trainer had seen enough and stopped the match. He took off my headgear and told me to warm down. He didn’t tell me that I did good or did bad. He didn’t say, “Nice try.” All I heard was, “You’re done.” A lot of people were watching this sparring match; in awe of the mismatch (many of them, fans of my previous battles). My little brother was there to see me slay this giant Mexican dragon, but instead saw me stopped in 2. And just like that, my ego came crashing down like a burning fighter jet. 3. Fatigue Getting tired of boxing, mentally and physically… I started to get tired of boxing. I don’t know if it was mental or physical at first, but it ended up as both. My body was getting nagging injuries. My shoulders were always the first to tire out and my lower back was stiff. I always felt handicapped during sparring matches; always feeling like I could have won the match had only I been 100% healed. It wasn’t only that I never showed up at the gym 100% physically ready anymore, I was never 100% mentally ready either. Everything bothered me. The gloves didn’t feel right, the headgear was always too loose. My hand-wraps and shoelaces kept coming undone. I swore the universe had conspired to give me a stomach ache and calf cramps before every sparring match. Although I was still one of the hardest working fighters in the gym, I wasn’t excited about boxing anymore. I trained because I had to, not because I wanted to. Sometimes when I lost count of my sit-up reps, I just rounded up the number and finished. Sparring, for the first time in my life, was starting to feel painful. 4. Insecurity Self-doubt, damaged confidence… I secretly hated everything about my style. My jab always tired out my left arm. My head movement was never fast enough. I always had the worst endurance and I HATE HATE HATE when someone slips my jab. When my opponents slipped my punch, I felt I was too slow. When my opponents hurt me with a punch, I felt I had no chin. When my opponents outworked me in the ring, I felt I had no endurance. When my opponents ate my punch and countered back, I felt I had no power. Maybe I wasn’t meant to be a boxer. Maybe I’ll never be great because I don’t have the natural talent or athletic genes. The more I trained, the worse I felt about myself. Maybe boxing’s just not for me. 5. Quitting Slowed progress, not getting any better, skipping training… It didn’t matter how hard I trained, I just couldn’t get any better! The harder I tried, the harder I failed. Everything worked fine on the mitts but never in sparring. I will still making the same dumb mistakes, getting caught by the same counters, and beat up by the same people. My patience broke when I saw beginners getting better than me. It really hurt to see other beginners picking up things so naturally without being taught. They had such great balance and endurance even with so little training! It got to a point that I didn’t even want to BE in the same ring as these “beginners”. I started skipping training days and then weeks at a time. I wasn’t man enough to admit to myself that I had quit boxing. I simply made excuses to myself that I was too busy. School, work, friends, life. All sorts of things get in the way when you’re purposely avoiding something. The greatest failure of all is never admitting to yourself that you failed. Failure is the beginning (of greatness), not the end I thought quitting would plunge me into the darkness forever. That I would never again catch up to my initial greatness, that I would never live up to high expectations I had for myself. But actually, I realized the opposite. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. And if you walk towards that light, you’ll find a new sun…and a new world, and a new life. You start to realize quitting isn’t the end. Actually, it’s the beginning…of a whole new you. That’s what success really is: creating a whole new you, OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER a million times. And you can’t really make a whole new you until you quit and give up on your old self. Because the truth is, you were never that good to begin with. And it takes the realization of knowing how shitty you really are in order to grow beyond that. You have to realize how terrible you are, to grow beyond that. Failure was one of the best things that could have ever happened to me. I came back a month later with a clearer goal, to get better at boxing for myself. I stopped caring about beating others, or having the hardest punches, or doing the most sit-ups. All I did was listen to my trainer and put in the work. No complaints, no self-judgement, no ego. I relearned all my boxing techniques and became one of the best fighters in the gym again in less than ten weeks. So go ahead: Get angry AND QUIT. Give up on yourself. Then come back and do everything right, and succeed beyond your wildest imaginations. I’ve given up on myself enough times to know that the way I feel doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is my technique, my training, and my strategy. On my worst days, I say to myself, “You’re a piece of shit” and then get right back to work. Now it’s your turn. How many times have you quit already? Read the other parts of this series:
Because it is preposterous to insist that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel, the political clique opposed to the United States’ recognition of this plain fact—that is, almost all of the western foreign policy establishment, journalists, commentators, former Obama and Clinton administration officials, European politicians and bureaucrats, United Nations cretins, and so on—settled on a different strategy to oppose it. They fearmongered. In unison, they predicted violence, killing, terrorism, rioting, protests, instability, blowback, and general catastrophe if President Trump followed through on his campaign pledge (and the campaign pledge of many presidents before him). One sensed that most of these warnings were dishonest—issued not as genuinely believed analysis of what would happen, but as an attempt at scaring the administration out of pulling the trigger. Having spent decades insisting the United States cannot recognize Jerusalem until the Palestinians, Europeans, et al agree, a Trump announcement would not just embarrass but suggest the impotence of an entire political community. So there was much more on the line than whether the Middle East would plunge into chaos – there was the vanity, prestige, and power of a group of people who have exercised a great deal of control over Middle East foreign policy for decades. The real danger for this group wasn’t so much the announcement itself. It was that Armageddon would not follow it. Which is exactly what has happened. Yes, there have been protests and a few instances of violence. But nothing close to what opponents presented as the risks of the president merely uttering the words "Jerusalem is the capital of Israel." This is the same group of experts, of course, that just a couple of years ago reassured the world that the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran would not set the region on fire. Yet the rise of an aggressive, acquisitive, uncontained Iran, fueled by its liberation from sanctions and billions in cash, has been the real story of instability, violence, and blowback in the region. From Yemen to Lebanon, virtually every armed conflict in the Middle East today has one thing in common: Iran. So the recent record of our foreign policy and media elites is as follows: when they predict catastrophe, there is none; and when they predict harmony and goodwill, there is catastrophe. To see just how hysterical and wrong they were about Jerusalem, take a look at the tweets below, from the days leading up to Trump’s announcement, and decide for yourself. They’re from a who’s who of journalists, analysts, and former Obama and Clinton administration officials. Jerusalem is a tinderbox waiting for a match. What's the compelling US interest in recognizing Jerusalem as Usrael's capital? https://t.co/zTur194iVB — Aaron David Miller (@aarondmiller2) December 3, 2017 In order to cater to his political base, Trump appears willing to: Put US personnel at great risk; Risk C-ISIL momentum; Destabilize a regional ally; Strain global alliances; Put Israeli-Palestinian peace farther out of reach. https://t.co/chbrHUez2Z — Ned Price (@nedprice) December 6, 2017 Can’t think of another warning this dire stemming from an American action—a reckless and crassly political one at that. https://t.co/DlZPeCIVOh — Ned Price (@nedprice) December 6, 2017 Just got this in my in box from Ayman Odeh, leading Arab Israeli member of parliament: "Trump is a pyromaniac who could set the entire region on fire with his madness. — Susan Glasser (@sbg1) December 5, 2017 A dismal week for US diplomacy: First we boycott the UN conference on migration at a time 1 of every 100 people in the world is uprooted; then we change US policy re Jerusalem in a way that could well introduce yet another source of violence in Middle East https://t.co/bGYoBEaLF8 — Richard N. Haass (@RichardHaass) December 5, 2017 Don’t underestimate Trump’s desire to disrupt the status quo on Jerusalem on the theory that out of crisis can come an opportunity. He should beware: Jerusalem is a dangerous place to test a theory. https://t.co/UPEJI4Mttd — Martin Indyk (@Martin_Indyk) December 3, 2017 Trump seems to view all foreign policy as an extension of a patchwork of domestic political positions, with no regard for the consequences of his actions. https://t.co/uNKfy1vfaG — Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) December 5, 2017 Then why cause an international crisis by announcing it? https://t.co/Bvgo6lqtbt — Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) December 8, 2017 In addition to making goal of peace even less possible, Trump is risking huge blowback against the US and Americans. For no reason other than a political promise he doesn't even understand. https://t.co/NxJU1NeIDZ — Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) December 6, 2017 Worth noting that the consulate is roughly a block from the Old City so even going to work could be dangerous. But diplomats will because thousands of Americans may need their help. https://t.co/Lx2PMlewG0 — Moira Whelan (@moira) December 5, 2017 If there is any nuance to the President’s message on Jerusalem he needs to get out there with it publicly now! This is not a story you want leaking out & dictated by other voices. Otherwise, there will be protests/riots/violence by the time he says anything — Ilan Goldenberg (@ilangoldenberg) December 5, 2017 The President is rolling the dice with the safety of US diplomats because of domestic political concerns. https://t.co/4HNwDqPeDC — Ilan Goldenberg (@ilangoldenberg) December 5, 2017 Looks like something is happening. Hold on tight while the President generates a potential international crisis for no good reason https://t.co/VYuuUZ2sec — Ilan Goldenberg (@ilangoldenberg) December 5, 2017 The President is putting American diplomats at risk because he doesn’t want to sign a piece of paper that contradicts an unrealistic campaign promise https://t.co/nLwROTAU20 — Ilan Goldenberg (@ilangoldenberg) December 5, 2017 Funny – when I testified to Congress last month and warned of the possibility of serious unrest should the embassy be moved absent a final status agreement, a number of congressmen acted as if I was crazy to predict or be worried about such a thing https://t.co/uvTNSDJbGX — (((Michael Koplow))) (@mkoplow) December 5, 2017 I am strongly confident that this embassy announcement will lead to real violence, and just as strongly hopeful that I have never been more wrong about anything. — (((Michael Koplow))) (@mkoplow) December 5, 2017 https://twitter.com/juliamacfarlane/status/938099199501062144 Great takedown by @GershomG of possible U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as capital of Israel. https://t.co/r8clWQgF5p — Rob Malley (@Rob_Malley) December 5, 2017 Striking coda to thread on Trump's Jerusalem move from Mideast expert @Katulis: Pray https://t.co/mEf6KrPVQt — Anne Barnard (@ABarnardNYT) December 5, 2017 Right now there are several good people committed to protecting US national security working hard trying to mitigate the risks of Trump's statement on Jerusalem tomorrow — Brian Katulis (@Katulis) December 5, 2017 And, in fairness, here is someone who got it right – a reporter for Haaretz, the far-left Israeli daily.
Johnny Kemp leaves behind a hitmaker's legacy. The Bahamian-born R&B singer, whose 1988 tune "Just Got Paid" went to No. 1 and was later covered by 'N Sync, was found dead in Jamaica on Thursday morning, his body floating off a beach in Montego Bay, Jamaican police told reporters. Cause of death has not yet been determined; he was 55. Authorities said that he arrived in Jamaica on a cruise ship. He had been scheduled to perform on a voyage associated with the Tom Joyner Morning Show; and a rep for cruise organizer Reach Media told The Root today that the death did not occur onboard. "We have received confirmation that Johnny Kemp has passed away. We do not have any other details. We can confirm he was not on the ship for the Tom Joyner Foundation Fantastic Voyage Cruise," Reach said.
Xiaomi has announced a limited edition variant of the Redmi Note 4. Called Lake Blue, this light blue variant will only be available in the top of the line 4/64GB variant starting September 4, 12PM. The Lake Blue isn't just another variant but part of the initiative to clean up the lakes in the city of Bengaluru in India. Over the years the city has lost many of its lakes to encroachment and in the very recent past, existing lakes have become victim of pollution due to industrial waste. Xiaomi's 'Wake the lake' project is part of the nation's overall Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Initiative) but will focus on cleaning the lakes in Bengaluru (where Xiaomi India is based) and work with the local government to plant more trees, setting up benches, setting up solar lights, outdoor fitness center with children's play area and toilets around the Kempambudhi Kere lake.
NEW YORK, Aug. 1, 2017 – Atlanta Dream guard Brittney Sykes today was named the WNBA Rookie of the Month for games played in July. The seventh overall pick in WNBA Draft 2017 presented by State Farm led all rookies in scoring for the month with 17.8 points per game, good for third overall in the Eastern Conference and eighth in the WNBA. Sykes also paced first-year players in rebounding (5.3 rpg), three-pointers made (15) and minutes (30.6 mpg). She topped Eastern Conference rookies in three-point field goal percentage (.385). Sykes scored in double figures in all 11 games in July, extending her streak to 13. The first three 20-point performances of her career came in three consecutive games from July 18-25. On July 19, she scored a career-high 27 points, including 12-of-13 from the free throw line, handed out a career-high five assists and grabbed four rebounds in a 100-96 overtime loss to the Washington Mystics. Other highlights of Sykes’ month included: July 2 vs. New York: Finished with 19 points and nine rebounds in an 81-72 win over the Liberty. Finished with 19 points and nine rebounds in an 81-72 win over the Liberty. July 18 vs. San Antonio: Scored 20 points (9-of-10 free throws) in 26 minutes in an 88-75 victory against the San Antonio Stars. Scored 20 points (9-of-10 free throws) in 26 minutes in an 88-75 victory against the San Antonio Stars. July 25 vs. Phoenix: Scored 20 points and grabbed a career-high 13 rebounds in a 99-91 overtime win over the Mercury. For the season, Sykes is averaging 12.2 points and 4.0 rebounds in 22.3 minutes. She has started 12 of 23 games for Atlanta, which is 10-13. The 2017 WNBA regular season runs through Sept. 3. For more information on the WNBA and game tickets, fans may visit www.wnba.com.
I recently talked with some Linux developers about what the best laptop is for serious programmers. As a result I checked out several laptops from a programmer's viewpoint. The winner in my book? The 2016 Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition. I'm in good company. Linus Torvalds, Linux's creator, agrees. The Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition, for him, is the best laptop around. sjvn Torvald's requirements may not be yours though. On Google+, Torvalds explained, "First off: I don't use my laptop as a desktop replacement, and I only travel for a small handful of events each year. So for me, the laptop is a fairly specialized thing that doesn't get daily (or even weekly) use, so the main criteria are not some kind of "average daily use", but very much "travel use". Therefore, for Torvalds, "I end up caring a lot about it being fairly small and light, because I may end up carrying it around all day at a conference. I also want it to have a good screen, because by now I'm just used to it at my main desktop, and I want my text to be legible but small." The Dell's display is powered by Intel's Iris 540 GPU. In my experience it works really well. The Iris powers a 13.3 inch display with a 3,200×1,800 touchscreen. That's 280 pixels per inch, 40 more than my beloved 2015 Chromebook Pixel and 60 more than a MacBook Pro with Retina. However, getting that hardware to work and play well with the Gnome desktop isn't easy. As Torvalds explained in another post, it "has the same resolution as my desktop, but apparently because the laptop screen is smaller, Gnome seems to decide on its own that I need an automatic scaling factor of 2, which blows up all the stupid things (window decorations, icons etc) to a ridiculous degree". The solution? You can forget about looking to the user interface. You need to go to the shell and run: gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface scaling-factor 1. Torvalds may use Gnome, but he's never liked the Gnome 3.x family much. I can't argue with him. That's why I use Cinnamon instead. He also wants "a reasonably powerful CPU, because when I'm traveling I still build the kernel a lot. I don't do my normal full 'make allmodconfig' build between each pull request like I do at home, but I'd like to do it more often than I did with my previous laptop, which is actually (along with the screen) the main reason I wanted to upgrade." Linus doesn't describe the features of his XPS 13, but my review unit was a high-end model. It came with dual-core, 2.2GHz 6th Generation Intel Core i7-6560U Skylake processor and 16GBs of DDR3 RAM with a half a terabyte, PCIe solid state drive (SSD). I'm sure Torvalds' system is at least that well-equipped. Some features you may care about aren't on Torvalds' list. "What I don't tend to care about is touch-screens, because my fingers are big and clumsy compared to the text I'm looking at (I also can't handle the smudges: maybe I just have particularly oily fingers, but I really don't want to touch that screen). I also don't care deeply about some 'all day battery life', because quite frankly, I can't recall the last time I didn't have access to power. I might not want to bother to plug it in for some quick check, but it's just not a big overwhelming issue. By the time battery life is in 'more than a couple of hours', I just don't care very much any more." Dell claims the XPS 13, with its 56wHR, 4-Cell Battery, has about a 12-hour battery life. It has well over 10 in my experience. I haven't tried to run it down to the dregs. Torvalds also didn't have any trouble with the Intel Wi-Fi set. The non Developer Edition uses a Broadcom chip set and that has proven troublesome for both Windows and Linux users. Dell technical support was extremely helpful to me in getting this problem under control. Some people have trouble with the XPS 13 touchpad. Neither I nor Torvalds have any worries. Torvalds wrote, the "XPS13 touchpad works very well for me. That may be a personal preference thing, but it seems to be both smooth and responsive." Still, while Torvalds likes the XPS 13, he's also fond of the latest Lenovo X1 Carbon, HP Spectre 13 x360, and last year's Lenovo Yoga 900. Me? I like the XPS 13 Developer Editor. The price tag, which for the model I reviewed was $1949.99, may keep you from reaching for your credit card. Still, if you want to develop like one of the world's top programmers, the Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition is worth the money. Related Stories:
We, Rabbis from across the country, call on our elected officials to exercise moral leadership for the protection of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. Since its founding, the United States has offered refuge and protection to the world’s most vulnerable. Time and time again, those refugees were Jews. Whether they were fleeing pogroms in Tzarist Russia, the horrors of the Holocaust or persecution in Soviet Russia or Iran, our relatives and friends found safety on these shores. We are therefore alarmed to see so many politicians declaring their opposition to welcoming refugees. Last month’s heartbreaking attacks in Paris and Beirut are being cited as reasons to deny entry to people who are themselves victims of terror. And in those comments, we, as Jewish leaders, see one of the darker moments of our history repeating itself. In 1939, the United States refused to let the S.S. St. Louis dock in our country, sending over 900 Jewish refugees back to Europe, where many died in concentration camps. That moment was a stain on the history of our country – a tragic decision made in a political climate of deep fear, suspicion and antisemitism. The Washington Post released public opinion polling from the early 1940’s, showing that the majority of U.S. citizens did not want to welcome Jewish refugees to this country in those years. In 1939, our country could not tell the difference between an actual enemy and the victims of an enemy. In 2015, let us not make the same mistake. We therefore urge our elected officials to support refugee resettlement and to oppose any measures that would actually or effectively halt resettlement or prohibit or restrict funding for any groups of refugees. As Rabbis, we take seriously the biblical mandate to “welcome the stranger.” We call on our elected officials to uphold the great legacy of a country that welcomes refugees.
Comic Jon Stewart attacks WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange By David Walsh 7 December 2010 Comic Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, the satirical US news program and talk show, went out of his way November 30 to attack WikiLeaks’ co-founder Julian Assange and the exposure of American government conspiracies around the world. In the eight-and-a-half-minute segment, Stewart downplayed the explosive WikiLeaks material, cynically made fun of Assange’s name―of all things―and generally made light of revelations that have produced a major crisis for US imperialist diplomacy. Assange is presently the subject of an intense international campaign of persecution spearheaded by US authorities. He faces phony sexual assault charges in Sweden and calls from the American ultra-right for his assassination. That Stewart chooses this moment to broadcast a demeaning and dismissive routine at Assange’s expense is an act, if nothing else, of extraordinary cowardice. By his comments, Stewart solidarized himself with the US and other powerful states and the global media in their campaign to demonize and, if possible, eliminate, one troublesome individual. Stewart has had his good days in the past, attacking Bush administration officials and Wall Street’s media mouthpieces. He may still have some ahead of him, but his general trajectory is increasingly toward the establishment. Stewart and his Comedy Central colleague, Stephen Colbert, maintain a following among young people in particular. In the giant vacuum that is American political life, their brand of disrespect and ridicule gains a relatively easy hearing. The departure of George W. Bush from the White House and the arrival of Barack Obama have helped bring out the relative poverty of their humor and overall outlook, as so much of their criticism of the Bush administration was of a superficial, “cultural” character. Stewart’s large “Rally for Sanity” October 30 in Washington was dominated by political and social complacency and empty calls for moderation, very much in tune with the White House and the Democratic Party’s 2010 election campaign. Stewart, in his address to the rally, faulted ultra-right and liberal commentators alike for the present tense political atmosphere, suggesting that while their over-the-top rhetoric “did not cause our problems … its existence has made solving them that much harder… If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.” The Daily Show host’s malicious comments about Assange ran along the same lines. He began November 30: “The release of many embarrassing and possibly damaging diplomatic cables has introduced the world to a new super-villain, WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange.” On the one hand, Stewart sought to make fun of those outraged at Assange, but only from the point of view of underscoring the supposedly unrevealing and unsurprising character of the WikiLeaks revelations. Moreover, the monologue on Assange was interspersed with crude comments, which had nothing to do with the subject at hand, satirically or otherwise, but had the aim of lowering the tone as much as possible. The Daily Show segment on WikiLeaks made reference to some of the cables’ content, but generally to their most obvious and harmlessly embarrassing elements, i.e., the publication of US diplomats’ opinions about various world leaders. In one of the brief video sequences, a CBS newsman noted that an Italian official had described the WikiLeaks exposures as “a diplomatic 9/11.” Stewart followed up indignantly, “Then he’s a ----- idiot. … I’ll give you, it’s diplomatic mischief night maybe, but most of the ---- in there is nonpolitical chitchat and things we already knew.” Stewart went on: “Transparency is a good thing, government wrongdoing should be ferreted out. Although, just because something is secret doesn’t necessarily mean it’s nefarious.” In sum, “an interesting yet less explosive and less than searing indictment.” After a few comments on video from Assange, about the latter’s personal satisfaction in “crushing bastards,” Stewart addressed the WikiLeaks founder directly: “I think you are underestimating how cynical Americans are about our government already. We’ve engineered coups in Chile, Iran, Guatemala etc. … We sell weapons to our enemy’s enemy who somehow always then becomes our enemy and forces us to defend ourselves from our own weapons. That happens a lot. … “It takes a lot to unimpress us. You should really read up about the ---- we already know about us. So unless in these WikiLeaks we’re going to find out that the aliens from Area 51 killed Kennedy? Stop with the drama.” Truly remarkable! The chronically self-satisfied Stewart―who earns how many hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars a year for acting as one of American society’s official court jesters?―lecturing an individual who has put his neck on the line in the interest of exposing imperialism’s crimes to stop dramatizing himself! The remainder of the segment was devoted to a would-be comic debate between Stewart and one of his mock correspondents, Aasif Mandvi, in which the latter took the position, presumably linked to Assange and WikiLeaks, that “everyone has the right to know everything about everyone” and cited positively the invasive airport scanning as an example of that. Delivered the soft lob from Mandvi about the scanning, Stewart replied: “That’s not transparency. Transparency is about being open to the public on important issues and processes so that the public can make informed decisions.” Mandvi later asserted pompously that the WikiLeaks’ revelation was “basically our generation’s Pentagon Papers.” Stewart responded, “The Pentagon Papers exposed blatant lies about how the government got us into the Vietnam War, how they continued to mislead us about the war’s progress, even the most cynical reading of these documents, I don’t think rises to that indictable level.” Mandvi dismissed this airily with, “It’s not meant to, it’s about the beautiful anarchy of information. It shows that what the government says in private is not necessarily what it says in public.” This of course permitted Stewart to return to one of his favorite and most cynical themes: “But who doesn’t know that? That seems like a relatively banal point to be made.” The exposed cables have shed light, in fact, on filthy US operations around the globe, from warmongering against China, coordinating lies with the dictator of Yemen, covering up Saudi support for terrorism, participating in war crimes in Sri Lanka, to weighing the usefulness of a coup in Pakistan, and much more. In their scope and weight, the WikiLeaks are more damning than the Pentagon Papers. WikiLeaks has helped bring to public attention the way in which catastrophic events, such as wars and coups, are prepared and organized by the imperialist powers. This is what has outraged the various regimes and has set in motion the campaign to close down WikiLeaks and destroy Assange. Through his unserious and dishonest attempt to discredit Assange and WikiLeaks, Stewart has only disgraced himself. Anyone who looks to the Daily Show as a politically oppositional beacon is looking in the wrong direction.
Instead of going after both the tablet and smartphone with a newly-improved touch-enabled version of Ubuntu Linux , Canonical will be focusing its efforts in 2013 on smartphones. While the smartphone interface is clearly based on Ubuntu's Unity interface, it's not just the same old desktop shrunk down to a smartphone. According to Canonical, the smartphone Ubuntu will use "all four edges of the screen for a more immersive experience. Ubuntu uniquely gives handset OEMs and mobile operators the ability to converge phone, PC and thin client into a single enterprise superphone." “We expect Ubuntu to be popular in the enterprise market, enabling customers to provision a single secure device for all PC, thin client and phone functions. Ubuntu is already the most widely used Linux enterprise desktop, with customers in a wide range of sectors focused on security, cost and manageability” said Jane Silber, Canonical's CEO in a statement. “We also see an opportunity in basic smartphones that are used for the phone, SMS, web and email, where Ubuntu outperforms thanks to its native core apps and stylish presentation.” This new version of Ubuntu will be "aimed at two core mobile segments: the high-end superphone, and the entry-level basic smartphone, helping operators grow the use of data amongst consumers who typically use only the phone and messaging but who might embrace the use of web and email on their phone. Ubuntu also appeals to aspirational prosumers who want a fresh experience with faster, richer performance on a lower bill-of-materials device." At the same time, this isn't just a smartphone operating system. Jono Bacon, Ubuntu's community manager, added on his blog. that "Ubuntu for phones is not just limited to just the Operating System on the phone screen itself. Ubuntu also has the technology, as demonstrated with Ubuntu For Android, to boot a full Ubuntu desktop from the phone when it is docked with a screen. This provides a complete Ubuntu experience in your pocket, for both your phone and your desktop, with a clean consistent look across both screens, and with all your content available on your phone and desktop using Ubuntu One. This is revolutionary." The Ubuntu handset interface will include the following features: 1. Edge magic: thumb gestures from all four edges of the screen enable users to find content and switch between apps faster than other phones. 2. Deep content immersion - controls appear only when the user wants them. 3. A beautiful global search for apps, content and products. 4. Voice and text commands in any application for faster access to rich capabilities. 5. Both native and web or HTML5 apps. 6. Evolving personalized art on the welcome screen. Bacon added, "The design and implementation of the phone is beautiful You can immediately tell it is Ubuntu; the Unity mobile experience looks clean and consistent with the desktop and touch is stunningly integrated. The Ubuntu for phones experience is designed to make all your phone content easier to access and your apps more immersive – every edge has a specific purpose, making all your apps, content and controls instantly accessible, without navigating back to the home screen every time. It’s a uniquely, beautifully converged experience." For better or worse, Canonical will also be offering "compelling customization options for partner apps, content and services. Operators and OEMs can easily add their own branded offerings. Canonical’s personal cloud service, Ubuntu One, provides storage and media services, file sharing and a secure transaction service which enables partners to integrate their own service offerings easily." This offering isn't aimed for smartphone modders Instead, it's for OEMs and carriers. "Canonical makes it easy to build phones with Ubuntu. The company provides engineering services to offload the complexity of maintaining multiple code bases which has proven to be a common issue for smartphone manufacturers, freeing the manufacturer to focus on hardware design and integration. For silicon vendors, Ubuntu is compatible with a typical Android Board Support Package (BSP). This means Ubuntu is ready to run on the most cost-efficient chipset designs." Bacon added, "To be quite clear, this announcement is not for a physical Ubuntu Phone that you can purchase yet. The announcement is for the Ubuntu for phones platform that we are presenting to handset operators and OEMs as a solution that they can bring to market. The Ubuntu phone offers great performance on handsets with a low bill of materials, while opening up new opportunities for phone and PC convergence at the top end of the market. This is no mockup or flash demo though; this is a real platform, and you have to see it in action…it really is stunning." That said, according to Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu and VP of Products at Canonical, "Users with unlocked phones, starting with Galaxy Nexus phones, will be able to run Ubuntu." Shuttleworth also believes that "Canonical is uniquely placed with a single operating system for client, server and cloud, and a unified family of interfaces for the phone, the PC and the TV." And that, “We are defining a new era of convergence in technology, with one unified operating system that underpins cloud computing, data centers, PCs and consumer electronics." Specifically, Shuttleworth, in a press conference, said that eventually "a single Ubuntu image will be able to run with a smartphones, tablet, TV, or desktop face." He hopes that this universal version will be available in April 2014 with Ubuntu 14.04. In a press conference, Shuttleworth added that he's well aware that smartphones is a "hotly contested" area but he believes that Ubuntu has unique advantages for both end-users and developers. "We have ample evidence of interest from both carriers and OEMs." Shuttleworth added that Ubuntu for Android will ship in 2013 will ship from a brand-name phone vendor. Ubuntu for smartphones is expected to ship in the last quarter of 2013 or first-quarter of 2014. Canonical will be showing off this new spin on Ubuntu at CES in the next few days. Related Stories:
The Ravens have announced that they signed wide receiver Brandon Stokley to a one-year deal, confirming a Sun report from Saturday night. Stokley was expected to practice with the Ravens today at M&T Bank Stadium. Stokley, 37, is an established possession receiver who caught 45 passes for 544 yards and five touchdowns last season for the Denver Broncos. Stokley could provide a reliable route-running presence and sure hands for a receiving corps that lost veteran wide receiver Anquan Boldin via an offseason trade to the San Francisco 49ers following a contract dispute and tight end Dennis Pitta to a season-ending fractured and dislocated hip. The Ravens also have an injury situation with wide receiver Deonte Thompson, sidelined with a left foot-ankle injury. Following practice Saturday, Ravens receivers coach Jim Hostler acknowledged the challenge the Ravens are facing without Boldin and Pitta. "You take our top two inside guys out of the equation, there’s going to be some pressure," Hostler said. "Guys are going to have to step up. Guys are going to have to do things that they’ve never done before. They’re going to have to carry the team. They’re going to have to make plays in critical situations. That’s where we’re at. We’ve got a lot of guys outside. We’ll be fine. We can run. We’ve got a lot of speed. "We’ve just got to find those couple guys inside that can go in there on third down and make plays in critical situations to move the chains. And that’s where we’re at – we’re trying to discover those guys. We’ve got a couple that we’ve got that are working, that are good players. Nobody knows them. So until they do it, we’re going to be answering that question the rest of the year.” Stokley was drafted by the Ravens in the fourth round of the 1999 NFL draft and caught a 38-yard touchdown pass in a Super Bowl XXXV victory over the New York Giants. Stokley was a fan favorite during his first stint in Baltimore. Stokley has 384 career receptions for 5,224 yards and 39 touchdowns in 14 NFL seasons. Stokley has also played for the Indianapolis Colts, Seattle Seahawks and New York Giants. During the 2004 season with the Colts, Stokley caught a career-high 68 passes for 1,077 yards and 10 touchdowns. awilson@baltsun.com twitter.com/RavensInsider
Like most people in need of major surgery, Rodney Haning, a retired telecommunications project manager and avid golfer, has a few questions for his doctors. He wonders, for example, exactly how the planned treatment is going to alleviate his condition, a severe tremor in his left hand that has, among other things, completely messed up his golf game, forcing him to switch from his favorite regular-length putter to a longer model that he steadies against his belly. Related Content Brain Implants May Be Able to Shock Damaged Memories Back Into Shape “Can anyone tell me why this procedure does what it does?” Haning asks one winter afternoon at UF Health Shands Hospital, at the University of Florida in Gainesville. “Well,” says Kelly Foote, his neurosurgeon, “we know a lot, but not everything.” The vague answer doesn’t seem to bother Haning, 67, an affable man who has opted for the elective brain surgery. And it’s hard to fault Foote for not going into greater detail about the underlying science, since he is, at that very moment, boring a hole in Haning’s skull. “Can you hear the drill?” Foote asks his patient as he presses the stainless steel instrument against bone. When Haning, whose head is immobilized by an elaborate arrangement of medical hardware, asks why it doesn’t hurt to have a dime-size hole drilled in his skull, Foote calmly explains that the skull has no sensory nerve receptors. (The doctors numb his scalp before making the incision.) The two continue to chat as Foote opens the dura—“It’s the water balloon that your brain lives in,” he says. “It’s sort of like a tough leather, for protection”—and exposes Haning’s brain. Deep brain stimulation, or DBS, combines neurology, neurosurgery and electrical engineering, and casual conversations in the operating room between doctors and their wide-awake patients are just one of the surprises. The entire scene is an eerie blend of the fantastic and the everyday, like something from the work of Philip K. Dick, who gave us the stories that became Blade Runner and Total Recall. During surgery, DBS patients are made literally bionic. Tiny electrodes are implanted in their brains (powered by battery packs sewn into their chests) to deliver a weak but constant electric current that reduces or eliminates their symptoms. DBS can improve a shaky putting stroke; it can also help the disabled walk and the psychologically tormented find peace. More than 100,000 people around the world have undergone DBS since it was first approved, in the 1990s, for the treatment of movement disorders. Today, besides providing relief for people with Parkinson’s disease, dystonia (characterized by involuntary muscle contractions) and essential tremor (Haning’s problem), DBS has been shown to be effective against Tourette’s syndrome, with its characteristic tics, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Add to that a wave of ongoing research into DBS’s promise as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and other neuropsychiatric conditions, as well as early signs that it may improve memory in Alzheimer’s patients. Suddenly it’s one of the most exciting treatments in modern medicine. With seemingly millions of potential DBS patients, it’s easy to imagine a future where brain implants may become as common as hip replacements. As co-directors of the UF Center for Movement Disorders and Neurorestoration, Foote and neurologist Michael Okun are at the forefront of the DBS field, refining operating techniques and establishing a rigorous standard of care that attracts patients from around the country and the world. Since teaming up at UF in 2002, Okun and Foote have done nearly 1,000 DBS procedures together and grown their two-man effort into an interdisciplinary program with more than 40 staffers, including eight neurologists, a psychiatrist, a neuropsychologist and physical, speech and occupational therapists. The treatment, for patients whose symptoms aren’t sufficiently controlled by medication, carries the usual risks associated with neurosurgery, including stroke and infection. Side effects range from headaches to speech and memory problems, and, in some cases, seizures. But Okun says more than 90 percent of their patients rate themselves as “much improved” or “very much improved” on standard postoperative outcome scales. In the 12 years since they joined forces, Okun and Foote have seen DBS evolve, in Okun’s words, “from crazy, to kind of cool but not completely accepted, to accepted.” Okun, 42, recalls: “When I first got hired here, my chief said to me, ‘You’re a nice kid, you’re a polite kid, but don’t embarrass us.’” Together, Okun and Foote breached the wall that has forever separated neurology and neurosurgery—blew it to smithereens, actually—and formed a partnership that defies tradition as it advances the science of DBS. While it might sound logical to the layman—of course neurology and neurosurgery go together—it’s hard to overstate how very differently the two disciplines have been practiced. And perceived. Foote, 48, whose smile comes easily and often, captures the old thinking with an old joke: “What’s the difference between neurology and neurosurgery? Well, both types of doctor treat people with disorders of the central nervous system. And if there’s something you can do about it, it’s neurosurgery. If there’s nothing you can do about it, it’s neurology.’” It’s all too true that neurologists have had to deal with more than their share of incurable conditions with unknown causes. Multiple sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s disease, myasthenia gravis. The list goes on, and watching Okun at work in the OR during a DBS procedure, it’s as if he’s out to make up for all those decades of frustration in the specialty he loves. “Mike has a very surgical personality,” says Foote. “And I am much more of a neurologist than most neurosurgeons.” * Okun and Foote met as residents at UF in the 1990s. Foote grew up in Salt Lake City and was in high school there when, in 1982, the town produced the biggest medical story in the world at the time—the saga of Barney Clark, the first human recipient of a permanent artificial heart, the Jarvik 7. The operation was performed at the University of Utah, and though Clark died after 112 days, Foote’s fascination with the case endured. He earned a degree in materials science and engineering at the University of Utah, intending to become an inventor of artificial organs. He entered medical school at Utah, where two things changed his course. First, he realized that biological solutions such as improved antirejection therapies, not mechanical organs, were the future of transplant medicine. Second, he did his neurosurgery rotation and saw the brain for the first time. “What could be more fascinating than the brain?” he asks. Okun’s path was also turned in medical school. Though he majored in history as an undergraduate at Florida State University, he made a late decision to go to med school and become a “black bag doctor,” a general practitioner caring for families and making house calls. “Then I got my first introduction to the brain,” he recalls, “and I said, ‘This is really cool.’” Twenty years later, his enthusiasm is fresh as he describes his neurological satori. “A lot of people were saying all these pathways and everything are really complicated, and they just wanted to get through the class and get a grade. But to me it made perfect sense. You could localize diseases and networks within the brain and figure out where things were and actually make a difference.” Later, as Okun’s interest in movement disorders grew, he realized he had been exposed to them his whole life. “The Jews have some of the highest incidences of movement disorders,” says Okun, who grew up in a Jewish family in West Palm Beach, Florida. “If you go to temple you see it, a lot of people are blinking, they have tics, they have tremors. One of the reasons I was fascinated by this field is I would look back and remember seeing people shaking and shuffling and thinking to myself, ‘Why is that?’” He knows the answer to that question now. “There’s an abnormal conversation going on between different regions of the brain,” he explains. DBS interrupts those abnormal conversations. The challenge for Okun and Foote is to identify the tiny spot in each patient’s brain where the electrodes will do the most good, to locate, amid the cacophony of a hundred billion chattering neurons, the specific neural network that is causing the patient’s problem. “Location is everything,” says Okun. “A couple of millimeters in the brain is like the difference between Florida and California.” Before setting up shop at UF, Okun and Foote both studied with DBS legends. Okun trained at Emory University with neurologist Mahlon DeLong, who pioneered the “brain circuit” approach to understanding and treating movement disorders. (DeLong is one of six 2014 recipients of a $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, created last year by Mark Zuckerberg and other Silicon Valley leaders to recognize major achievements in medical science.) Foote, after completing his residency, went to Grenoble, France, where he worked with Alim-Louis Benabid, who developed DBS as a treatment for Parkinson’s and performed some of the first procedures in the early 1990s. Foote then joined Okun at Emory, where the two continued their DBS training with DeLong and neurologist Jerrold Vitek. Now, as the two of them try to better understand and manipulate neural circuitry, they are working in what could be called a golden era in brain science. Each week seems to bring news of another advance, like a report in January from England affirming the effectiveness of transcranial magnetic stimulation as a treatment for acute migraine, which followed reports about the successful use of the non-invasive procedure for depression and some symptoms of schizophrenia. And research interest is booming too, as evidenced by the ambitious, multidisciplinary White House BRAIN Initiative. DeLong, after four decades studying the functional organization of the brain and neuromodulation, has never seen anything like it. “The pace of change and discovery is just unprecedented,” he says. “We’re forging really great advances in almost every disorder you look at, for both neurology and psychiatry. And this will pay off.” * Surgeons, as a rule, do not like sharing power. The stereotype of the domineering OR general is rooted in the simple fact that cutting open human bodies is a high-risk business and someone needs to be in charge. Foote, tall and commanding in his scrubs, gladly cuts against this expectation in his collaboration with Okun. He treats the neurologist as an equal partner in the procedure, a co-operator, to be exact, though the neurologist does not scrub in or get near the sterile field that surrounds the opening in the patient’s skull. Okun, several inches shorter than Foote, is focused and intense in the OR, a forceful presence from the moment he enters, though he doesn’t say much at first. On this day, he is too busy studying the computer screen where Rodney Haning’s MRI is being compared with a brain atlas that Okun, Foote and other UF colleagues created with data from the dissection of dozens of postmortem brains; because every brain is slightly different, matching structures in Haning’s brain with the atlas helps the doctors map their targets. Standing side by side, Okun and Foote discuss their planned approach, pointing to familiar landmarks, which are outlined on the screen in bright red, green, yellow and blue. When the skull has been opened, Foote slowly feeds a microelectrode on a hair-thin wire down into Haning’s brain. This is not the lead that will be permanently implanted in the brain; rather, it’s a kind of electronic advance scout, a radio receiver that picks up and amplifies the electrical signals of individual brain cells, while canceling out ambient electrical noise. As the probe moves deeper into the brain, the sound of the cells fills the OR, like static from deep space. Okun, who has taken up his position at the patient’s side, manipulates Haning’s left arm and fingers, and strokes his arm, chin and lips, triggering electrical activity in the brain. As he does this, he listens to the screech of individual neurons—their electrical signatures—as they are pierced by the microelectrode. With his trained ear, Okun distinguishes between normal neurons and the abnormal neurons that are causing Haning’s tremor, and he guides Foote to their target, a malfunctioning network of cells located in Haning’s thalamus, near the center of his brain, about four inches down from the hole in the top of his head. “That’s a tremor cell,” he says at one point. “Can you hear it?” Keeping movement disorder patients awake during DBS procedures makes it possible to track the effects of the surgery in real time. One of the quirks of the treatment is that the operation itself alters brain tissue and interrupts the abnormal signals, reducing the patient’s symptoms before the current is even turned on. (This temporary effect is an echo of past practice; years ago, before DBS, surgeons treated movement disorders by creating tiny lesions in the brain.) Several times over the course of his operation, Haning uses his left hand to draw spirals on a clear plastic clipboard that is held up for him. His first spiral, made before the procedure begins, is jagged, unsteady. His last one is smooth, the work of a tremor-free hand. As the operation winds down, with the lead in place in Haning’s brain, a pleased Okun tosses Foote a compliment. “Kelly, I don’t know how you did it, but you’re all hand,” he says, referring to the way Foote hit the target area, the circuit that was causing the tremor in Haning’s left hand. “Imagine that,” Foote replies, deadpan. * DBS isn’t an option for everyone. It offers hope to selected patients who, despite expert medical management, remain disabled by their symptoms. While it usually works, it is hardly a panacea. It’s brain surgery, after all, arguably the most invasive of all invasive procedures. And besides the usual surgery risks, it requires follow-up outpatient surgery every four years to replace the battery pack. But it has showed itself as an effective and generally safe treatment for many, including Rodney Haning. With those successes, Okun and Foote, like other leaders in the field, are looking beyond movement disorders. That’s why they added the word “neurorestoration” to the name of their UF treatment center, and why they are already performing experimental DBS procedures on patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette’s syndrome and Alzheimer’s disease. Similar DBS research is going on at academic medical centers across the country. DBS has even attracted attention from DARPA, the research arm of the Department of Defense, which is launching a five-year effort specifically targeting four neuropsychiatric conditions—PTSD, major depression, borderline personality disorder and general anxiety disorder—as well as traumatic brain injury, addiction and chronic pain. It’s a dreadful and daunting list. It evokes a universe of suffering even as it speaks to the promise inherent in every successful DBS procedure: If we can do this, then perhaps we can do that. Faced with the challenge to take DBS further, Okun and Foote offer a measured view of the state of their art. “Right now, our understanding of the circuitry in the brain is fairly rudimentary,” says Foote. The technology is “pretty crude,” especially when compared with the human brain, with its 100 billion neurons and an estimated 100 trillion synapses. In the past, Okun explains, the big debate in the field was whether DBS worked by inhibiting abnormal circuits or exciting other brain activity. Both sides ended up being right: The neurons closest to the implanted leads are inhibited by the electrical current, while axons leading away from the targeted cells are stimulated. In addition to these changes, says Okun, in the last few years we’ve learned that DBS also alters brain chemistry and blood flow, and even leads to the growth of new brain cells. And recent studies using electroencephalography show that DBS causes what Okun calls “neurological oscillations,” disease-specific changes in the electrical wave patterns that ripple through the brain. In Parkinson’s disease, for example, DBS suppresses the beta wave, while in Tourette’s syndrome, it stimulates the gamma wave. Okun and Foote have seen firsthand the power of their “pretty crude” technology to affect mood and emotion. They even filmed it and presented it to an audience as part of a talk they gave in 2012. In the video, a woman undergoing a DBS operation to alleviate her debilitating obsessive-compulsive disorder beams with joy and laughs when, during the normal course of the successful procedure, Okun and Foote “tickle” a region near her nucleus accumbens, a part of the brain associated with pleasure, reward, motivation and other complex phenomena. “Describe what you’re feeling right now,” Okun says. With an ecstatic smile on her face, in a voice giddy with joy, the woman replies, “I feel happy.” It’s an extraordinary moment, and a powerful demonstration of DBS’s potential as a treatment for disorders like major depression. It’s also unsettling, a peek into a possible future where human happiness is the product not of the experiences and relationships that make up a life, not even of mood-altering medications, but of an elective surgical procedure, a face-lift for the brain. Okun and Foote are acutely aware of the ethical issues raised by their DBS work. They have adopted a guiding principle that defines their goals and proscribes anything that might be considered outside the bounds of proper medical practice: The purpose of DBS, they insist, is to alleviate pain and suffering. It’s a clear standard. The question is, will it endure over time as the specialty continues to evolve? Standing just outside the OR after Rodney Haning’s operation, still in his scrubs, his surgical mask dangling from his neck, Foote tries to imagine a day when healthy, normal people will choose to undergo DBS in order to enhance their lives. He understands the appeal. Referring to early results from Alzheimer’s research, he says, “What if we were able to make people remember better? Who’s not going to want that?” But it’s still brain surgery, he argues. “Can you imagine,” he says, “if I take a perfectly normally functioning human being who wants to have some enhancement, and I do an operation, and I hurt them, and they end up a not perfectly normally functioning human being? Imagine the liability there.” He can’t see how the surgical boards and the FDA would ever allow such a thing. Of course, “If it ever got to the point where it was essentially risk-free,” he says, “then you would let the line go a little further, probably.” Foote ponders that idea as the subject of cosmetic surgery comes up. Sixty years ago, plastic surgery, a technically challenging specialty with one of the longest training regimens in medicine, was centered on the treatment of facial trauma and disfigurement. Today, ordinary people think nothing about undergoing multiple cosmetic procedures to make themselves more attractive, and surgeons are happy to perform them. “That’s actually a really good analogy,” Foote says. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. If you’re not dysfunctional, should you be able to get functional surgery? And I think DBS is going to be a similar battleground.” He hesitates a moment, then finishes the thought. “And we will ultimately cave in. Just like we did with cosmetic surgery.” This is a revelation for him, and not a good one. “I hadn’t really gone that far in my head, but now that I think about the whole cosmetic surgery thing... yeah... goddamn.” Foote returns from the future and his mood brightens immediately when he’s asked how it feels to watch patients like Haning leave the OR smiling and waving their tremor-free hands. “It’s still a rush,” he says, “every single time.” * A few days after his operation, Rodney Haning is back home in the Villages, the Florida golf community where he lives with his wife, Barbara Jo. He’s been practicing in his den with his favorite putter, looking forward to a busy spring and summer playing the game he loves. He’s tired from the surgery, but feels stronger every day. His tremor is gone, and he hasn’t experienced any side effects from the ongoing treatment. Except for the small scars on the top of his head (his golf hat will cover them when he’s back on the course), there are no signs of his recent adventure in the OR. “I’ve got absolute trust in those guys,” he says of Okun and Foote. “I thought it was real neat during the operation when he said ‘That’s your tremor right there.’ It’s surreal, that’s why I was chuckling every now and then.” He pauses, recalling the details. Then, with a laugh: “There was a hole in my head.”
The tiresome canard about how “sex(ism) sells” has been dealt with in a number of ways. Empirical studies demonstrate no correlation between a film or video game’s sexist/sexual content and its marketplace success, and we have evidence that suggests that among game industry doyens, this notion may simply be a classic case of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Industry analysis tells us that video games led by female characters receive a paltry 40% of the marketing budgets of male-led games; when such games fail to sell as well as their more lavishly supported competitors, the results are then used as empirical proof of the subjective view that saw them underfunded in the first place. Circular reasoning par excellence. But now, at least in the world of roleplaying gaming, the idea that sex and sexism sell is taking another hit from the opposite direction: we now have proof that games that resist sexist caricatures and that prominently feature women as strong and fully human characters can actually succeed where games more mired in outdated thinking have failed. Shadowrun Returns, a video game based on the popular pen-and-paper RPG, and Pathfinder, a high fantasy Dungeons & Dragons-style game, are not only popular but profitable. Shadowrun Returns, and its recently released sequel Shadowrun: Dragonfall, was noteworthy for being a successfully crowdfunded, independent enterprise. Its seed money came from a Kickstarter campaign that won it 1.8 million dollars—1.4 million more than the developers originally asked for. It was not, in any sense, billeted as a feminist or LGBT-positive game, necessarily, but it was also not sold to gamers as a misogynist masculinity-simulator grinding over an economy of objectification. It was sold as a strategic, turn-based roleplaying game, based on a beloved franchise, that just so happened to have excellent writing—and the beneficiaries of that writing happened to be a wide assortment of fascinating women and queer characters of all backgrounds. Shadowrun: Troll Women and Dark Cybernetic Angels Shadowrun’s cyberpunk, near-future universe was one that always dwelled in the comfortable embrace of decidedly queer shadows. Set in a world where a cataclysm in the early 21st century unleashed magic and the trappings of fantasy on an unsuspecting Earth, the action of your campaign takes place after Elves, Orks, and Trolls have settled into the geopolitical landscape of a darker, more dangerous world. Of special note to me in the new video game franchise has been the way in which the game takes politics very seriously, weaving it into gameplay and the world itself. Dragonfall is set in the “Berlin Free State”—an anarchist hyper-collective that now rules one of Europe’s largest cities. The explorations of ideology here may not pass muster in a political science classroom, but you as a player are still asked to think critically—in both Returns and Dragonfall—about issues like racism, class, the complex lives of multiracial people, misogynist parental abuse, capitalism, religious fanaticism, and privilege. This game—a heady mixture of everything that is supposed to be market poison, according to conventional wisdom—sells well, and has achieved critical acclaim. Goodness knows it’s claimed a not-insignificant share of my busy life. The women who star in this game would hardly seem out of place in a queer community, for one thing, and are not limited to the classic archetypes of femininity in fantasy games; women here are healers, and heavy weapons experts—they are lithely small, and mountains of muscle who help your party break through walls or stuck doors. It is dreadful that Harebrained Schemes, the development house behind the Shadowrun video games, should have to be praised for remembering women are people—this ought to be the baseline for all narrative fiction—but credit where it’s due in our current society. To say nothing of this being yet another nail in the coffin of the idea that games must not feature such women for fear of scaring away the “core demographic” (i.e. young white hetero/cis men). Pathfinder: Dethroning a Dragon Pathfinder traces a similar path—presenting women and LGBTQ (T-inclusive!) folks as people, and then profiting handsomely. In the world of pen and paper roleplaying games, Dungeons & Dragons was the undisputed king, one of the few such games that had held pride of place in the public consciousness, even among lay people who never touched a board game. D&D became to the public what World of Warcraft was for massively multiplayer online games: the Ur example of the genre and medium. And now Pathfinder is outselling it. There are a number of reasons for this, but it is safe to surmise that its profoundly humanising portrayal of women and LGBTQ people certainly did it no harm. Dungeons & Dragons, perhaps still wearing the psychic scars of a bruising culture war in the 1980s over whether or not it was “satanic” and “bad for children,” is notoriously gunshy these days about sex—a notion that unjustly encompasses LGBT people. Pathfinder offers all the delightfully familiar tropes of D&D style roleplaying: magic, dragons, kingdoms, bards, clerics, Elves, Dwarves, and then some. But it is significantly less ossified and constrained by the demands of a tradition stretching back to the 1970s. There was far less to undo or remake when Pathfinder debuted in 2009; it started from the ground up as a more inclusive fantasy universe where, shockingly, transgender people were permitted to exist alongside the dragons and the wizards. The recent Pathfinder Adventure Path (ready made roleplay campaigns complete with setting, story, and character details) The Worldwound Incursion by Amber Scott prominently featured a trans woman archer married to a half-Orc paladin who also happened to be a woman, with subsequent installments co-starring a male cleric whose affections tended towards other men. Much as in Shadowrun women fill a variety of roles in this plot. The Crusader Queen Galfrey, a monarch with armour and a sword who knows how to use them, leads the battle against a demonic invasion; the goddess Iomedae who inspires her wears a similarly battle-hardened but righteous mien; the elegant goddess of dreams, Desna; a succubus warrior who struggles valiantly to redeem herself from evil (disproving biological essentialism while she’s at it), and more. What’s not to like? Some Pathfinder artwork does continue to trend towards the cheesy side, sadly, with some women featured wearing armour or robes with certain swathes of them strategically removed. But on balance the game features a rich setting which does not deny, elide, or minimise the existence of meaningfully strong, and humanely portrayed LGBTQ and female characters, dethroning its venerable and conservative rival in the process. So much for sexism selling.
Arizona Military and enviros align in Arizona’s public lands debate Demand for housing, recreation and energy development means military bases could lose essential buffer land. For 30 years, Jim Uken served as a fighter pilot in the Air Force, stationed in places like Germany, Iceland and Bahrain. After he returned to U.S. soil, he joined the Department of Defense as director of the Air Force’s range management office of the Barry M. Goldwater military training complex in southwestern Arizona. During his 12 years there, Uken became familiar with the ins and outs of the sensitive desert land he managed. He oversaw range residue removal efforts — sending trainees to collect rubble from target practice. He watched owls and turkey vultures fly across the border between the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and the range. And he helped in one of the military’s most notable conservation programs to date — bringing back the endangered Sonoran pronghorn from the brink of extirpation. The pronghorn, pushed out of former habitat areas by development, first sought out the range as a refuge of last resort during the drought in the early 2000s. Air Combat Command Unit But Uken also saw the impact Sonoran pronghorn could have on military operations. Crews monitored target areas for the species, and on days when they spotted pronghorn, tactical target practice was shut down. As the animal’s population increased, more and more incidents occurred, seriously impeding training programs. Such encroachment on military operations, created by development near bases, is increasingly a problem in Arizona, especially in the Sun Corridor — the megapolitan area that runs from Nogales to Prescott, where population is projected to hit 9.1 million by 2040. The associated demand for housing, recreation, solar and wind energy, and mining means military bases could lose essential buffer land and corridors to those other uses. Military training depends on extensive, battlefield-realistic landscapes, especially open desert areas that mimic conditions in the Middle East. In Arizona, designated military bases make up only four percent of the landmass — but pilots practice in airspace corridors that cover roughly 52 percent of the state. If encroachment on those corridors contributes to base closures or mission relocations, that threatens military readiness and the $9 billion military economy. A recent report from the Sonoran Institute, a community-focused nonprofit, recommends ways that military commands can protect their operations by reducing the threat of encroachment, especially through the conservation of publicly-owned land — thus aligning two values often seen as opposing. The Department of Defense has often worked out development details on private land near bases with local officials to ensure projects won’t conflict with military operations. But on multiple-use lands managed by the state and the federal government, military interests aren’t always fully considered. Of particular concern, the report says, is acreage managed by the Arizona State Land Department in trust. More than 150,000 acres of that land lie within two miles of a military facility and there are few ways for the military to prevent development, short of purchasing it or getting voters to approve its transfer. Moreover, this land is often rich in minerals and other resources, making it especially vulnerable to a change in use. Federal public lands near military bases aren’t necessarily safe, either. Since 1962, more than 2.4 million acres of federal land in Arizona has been transferred to private ownership. In some cases, exchanges, like those near Luke Air Force Base, have paved the way for residential development. Sonoran Institute Permanent protection of buffer lands can shield military facilities from such encroachment, which can take many forms – like light pollution that hinders the Flagstaff naval observatory. While direct threats like housing development have the most impact, there are indirect ramifications, too. For example, outside disturbances, like construction projects, can result in the spread of invasive species onto military facilities, changing the character of the battlefield, and in some cases, development projects like solar panels create a “lake effect,” mimicking water, which attracts birds that interfere with flight operations. Two days after the Sonoran Institute report was released, Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Arizona, reintroduced a package of three public land bills. The bills would establish two National Conservation Areas and two Special Management Areas in the Sonoran Desert west of Phoenix and designate 3,325 square miles of the Santa Cruz Valley as a National Heritage Area, among other things. "This bill helps preserve important wildlife lands outside (the Barry Goldwater Range, Luke Air Force Base and other facilities), which in turn helps the military avoid costly endangered species mitigation measures if wildlife are potentially pushed into smaller and smaller pockets of land,” Uken told The Wilderness Society. In addition to permanent conservation actions, the Sonoran Institute report, which will be publicly discussed at meetings across the state this month, advocates tools such as inter-agency coordination, memorandums of understanding and joint land-use studies. Such alternatives are important, given that not everyone sees the benefit of public lands to the military mission. In Nevada, Republican Rep. Cresent Hardy criticized Obama’s recent designation of Basin and Range National Monument, arguing the site could impede military exercises in the Nevada desert. The monument lies under the airspace of the Nevada Test and Training Range, with nearly 20,000 aircraft missions flown in the area in 2014. When asked whether monument designation might impair military efforts, however, Ian Dowdy, program director at the Sonoran Institute responded “show me the proof,” saying there was no record of an actual negative impact. If anything, the relationship between conservation and the military is mutually beneficial. “There’s a quote out there,” recalls Mike Quigley, Arizona State director for The Wilderness Society. “‘A country worth defending is a country worth preserving.’” If the U.S. military fights for public lands, it will ultimately benefit the mission — and conservation — in the long run. Gloria Dickie is an editorial intern at High Country News. Follow @GloriaDickie
One of Greece's oldest and well-known football clubs, Panathinaikos F.C. have made moves to enter the Esports industry, the organization announced Thursday. In the announcement, Panathinaikos F.C. have yet to sign any players into their Esports division, but the organization has interests in several major titles which include: League of Legends, Counter-Strike, FIFA, and Dota 2. This club joins a growing list of football organizations in Europe who have ventured into the world of Esports with varying levels of investments such as Paris-St.Germain, Schalke 04, Manchester United, and Valencia CF. On Twitter, this announcement was well received by members of the Greek Esports community such as ex-H2K ADC Forg1ven and AD FINEM eSports: Panathinaikos (along with Olympiakos the most historical athletic brands in Greece) announced today its entrance onto eSports. GL! — FORG1VEN (@FORG1VENGRE) December 29, 2016 Great news for the greek eSports scene. Panathinaikos, one of the most historical GR teams announce eSports section. We wish them GL ! https://t.co/LopC7728kI — AD FINEM (@adfinemesports) December 29, 2016 Image credit: Panathinaikos F.C.
turned 50 on November 2. On a television show to mark the occasion, where he took questions from some of his 16 million Twitter followers, Khan minced no words. "It is stupid… it is stupid to be intolerant and this is our biggest issue, not just an issue… religious and not being in this country is the worst kind of crime that you can do as a patriot," he told the host, The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which was about to wrap up its shrill campaign for the Bihar elections, launched a scathing attack on the superstar. Cyberspace hardliners went into overdrive. Kailash Vijayvargiya, a party heavyweight from Madhya Pradesh, infamously said that Khan's soul was in The film fraternity fractured into two camps. Top television anchors queued up to interview him, and those who didn't get a slot got busy trashing him on prime time. In the hysteria that ensued, a Tweet by leader went unnoticed: "Khan's comments came after ED notice." ED is the acronym for the Enforcement Directorate, the finance ministry arm that looks into violation of foreign exchange rules. ( BOLLYWOOD’S BUSINESS INTERESTS ) Lekhi's insinuation left nothing to the imagination. As Khan did not respond to that Tweet, it is difficult to tell if the had indeed provoked his outburst. (A few days later, made a similar point and drew the ire of the lot that had trashed Khan.) Lekhi at least got the sequence of events right: late in October, Khan was summoned by the to its south Mumbai office. Under its scanner are some overseas financial entities with links to Khan. Specifically, the is examining if there were certain unrecorded transactions done through these entities. To unravel Khan's overseas business, one has to rewind to 10 years ago when Londoner Richard James Moore floated a real estate company called Winford Estates in Surrey. In March 2007, he sold it to Raja Sherbaz Khan, a property dealer. Nine months later, Khan acquired control of this company when he bought its solitary share from the property dealer for an undisclosed amount. Khan bought the share through Though mentioned in some records as a United Kingdom company, is registered in Guernsey, a sparsely populated island in the English Channel. Known for its light taxes and easy regulation, Guernsey is a hub for private equity funds and other investment vehicles, and earns much of its national income from their activities. Its people are still debating between independence and a dominion status under the British crown. Till then, it is a "dependency". Filings in the Guernsey company registry show that Red Chillies International's registered office is at New Port House, 15 The Grange, St Peter's Port. It had capital of £50,000, according to the summary of capital and shares, on January 1, 2008. Khan's flagship, Red Chillies Entertainment, based out of Mannat, his sea-facing Mumbai bungalow, owned 49,999 shares in this company and Guernsey-based Island Nominees owned one share. While initially was classified as a non-regulated company, returns filed in December 2012 show it was reclassified as a "financial product" company and its mandate was "creative arts and entertainment activities". Subsequent filings classified it as "financial product company, licensed resident agent". When Khan acquired Winford Estates, its net worth was in the negative. The money it owed to its creditors (£14.9 million) exceeded its assets (£14.5 million). Returns filed with Companies House of the United Kingdom show Winford Estates has since then morphed into a company with a strong net worth: for the year ended March 2015, it had assets of £19.67 million and its bank loans stood at £7.8 million. Khan also seems to be sitting on significant gains on account of exchange rate gains as the pound has strengthened from Rs 60 to Rs 100 during the period. The Enforcement Directorate suspects that Khan used this structure for some real estate transactions in Dubai in 2008, the surpluses of which were not accounted for. Winford Estates' filings show that in 2008, the company extended its accounting year, which till then used to end in September, to March 2009. The notes to its financials for the period ended March 2009 under the head "going concern" remark that the company "is supported by loans given by the parent company We understand that there is no immediate plan to call for the repayment of this loan". In response to emails sent last week, the spokesperson said Khan goes through all questions and answers them personally, and sought a week's time since the star would be busy all week in his upcoming film Dilwale's promotion. Subsequent reminders did not elicit any response. Is this a witch hunt launched by the BJP-led government? Has the Hindutva brigade found a soft target in Khan, who is known to be friends with the Gandhi family? Actually, this is the second time Khan has faced questions from the Enforcement Directorate. In 2011, when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance was in power, it had summoned Khan to explain the share allotments of his company, Knight Riders Sports, which owns Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Kolkata Knight Riders. The Enforcement Directorate had commissioned an audit by Mumbai-based chartered accountant Chokshi & Chokshi to determine whether shares allotted to Khan's business partners, actor Juhi Chawla and her husband, Jay Mehta, were undervalued, which resulted in foreign exchange losses. This is what happened. On January 24, 2008, then IPL commissioner Lalit Modi announced that "Khan, joining hands with Chawla and Mehta, won the bid for the Kolkata team for $75.09 million". Filings with the Union ministry of corporate affairs show that Knight Riders Sports was incorporated in February 2008 with (9,900 shares) and Khan's wife, Gauri, (100 shares) as the promoters. On March 7, 2009, Knight Riders Sports allotted 10.99 million more shares to Red Chillies Entertainment, 4 million shares to Chawla and 5 million shares to The Sea Island Investment, a Mauritius outfit owned by Mehta through Bermuda-based The Mehta International. All shares were allotted at Rs 10. According to the findings of Chokshi & Chokshi, first reported in March, when the shares of Knight Riders Sports were issued to The Sea Island Investment, the fair value of each share should have been between Rs 70 and Rs 86. However, the equity shares were issued at Rs 10 a share. "This simply means that shares sold to The Sea Island Investment were undervalued," the audit report said. The matter did not end here. In February 2010, Knight Riders Sports restructured itself when the 11 million shares held by Red Chillies Entertainment and Gauri Khan were transferred to " jointly with Gauri Khan". A month later, Chawla transferred the 4 million shares she held to The Sea Island Investment. All these transactions were at par. The audit report by Chokshi & Chokshi said for the transfer of shares from Chawla to The Sea Island Investment, the fair value should have been between Rs 83 and Rs 99. The difference in valuations of the shares between the date of allocation to Chawla and the date on which she sold these to The Sea Island Investment could lead to capital gains tax implications, according to the Enforcement Directorate. Emails sent to Chawla and Mehta's offices remained unanswered. Both are learnt to have submitted their response to the Enforcement Directorate earlier this year. In its response, Knight Riders Sports contested the method followed by Chokshi & Chokshi for calculating the value of the shares. The company had used the "net asset value" method, also prescribed under the Foreign Exchange Management Act, but the Enforcement Directorate argued the shares should have been valued using the "profit earning capacity" method. Knight Riders Sports and Khan said this method could not have been applied to the start-up company that was in its early years and hence its earning capacity was uncertain. Four years after the probe started, closure is nowhere in sight. Khan has ventured into other businesses as well. After the initial success at IPL, Khan had started a television production business called Idiot Box. He had chosen journalist Samar Khan to head this venture. But this folded up after trying its hands in some television serials and talk shows, one of which was hosted by Preity Zinta. When contacted, Samar said he was no longer associated with the venture and would not want to talk about Khan or his ventures since it was "too long ago". For Khan, the business partner of choice seems to be Chawla - the two have also done films together. In the initial years, Chawla's brother, Sanjiv, was a director of Knight Riders Sports, along with Mehta and Gauri. In April 2010, Sanjiv suffered brain haemorrhage and was hospitalised. The firm relieved him from the board two years later. Knight Riders Sports recorded his death in March 2014 in its last annual report and remembered his contributions. Dreamz & Filmz was Khan and Gauri's first venture with Chawla. This company, which distributed films, has been amalgamated into Red Chillies Entertainment. Arclightz & Films, in which Chawla and Khan hold 25 per cent each (with Enzo Pictures owning the remaining 50 per cent), is into film production and made a loss of Rs 3.17 lakh in 2013-14. In addition, Khan and Gauri own Tuscany Properties, a realty company with paid-up capital of Rs 1 lakh. This company, which made losses in 2011-12 and 2012-13, had fixed assets (land and building) worth Rs 46 crore, funded largely by unsecured loans from the Khans.
Intro This evaluation is the third in our Pascal TITAN X series. We have just compared it with the GTX 1080 and found that the TITAN X was generally 20-30+% faster, depending on the resolution. This time we want to compare the last generation 28nm Maxwell TITAN X with the new 16nm Pascal version. Nvidia claims that the Pascal TITAN X is at least 60% faster than the Maxwell TITAN X, and we want to see how much improvement that Nvidia has made since March 17, 2015 when the Maxwell TITAN X launched. We will include all 25 games of our benchmark suite, and we have added a new 3440×1440 WQHD resolution to our standard 3840×2160 and 2560×1440 benching resolutions. We have dropped 1920×1080 as it is meaningless for such powerful cards as the TITAN X. The new TITAN X is Nvidia’s fourth GeForce GPU based on 16nm Pascal architecture. It is much faster than the GTX 1080 – formerly the world’s fastest video card. The TITAN X is premium-priced starting at $1200, $200 more than the Maxwell TITAN X, and it is only available directly from Nvidia. Besides being the world’s fastest video card, the Pascal TITAN X is also a hybrid card like the Maxwell version that are well-suited for Single Precision (SP) and Deep Learning compute programs. We received a TITAN X for evaluation from Nvidia together with a 3440×1440 ACER Predator X34 (2K/21:9) G-SYNC display. The Predator X34 is a top-rated 34″ WQHD S-IPS display, and it is an excellent match for the TITAN X. Popularly called “2K”, super-widescreen WQHD displays are rightly becoming popular, and we are going to bench top gaming video cards regularly at this resolution instead of at 1920×1080. Part 4 of our TITAN X mini-series will be posted by this weekend, and it will also use our entire 25 game benchmark suite devoted to overclocking the new Pascal TITAN X, and Part 5 will be devoted to Compute and to Deep Learning TITAN X benchmarks. If we can get another GTX 1070, we will compare the TITAN X with GTX 1070 SLI. Instead of repeating all of the same information in last week’s TITAN X introduction, we are going to highlight the differences between the Pascal and the Maxwell TITAN X. The Pascal TITAN X is based on GP102 whereas the Maxwell version is based on GM220. The Pascal TITAN X has a total of 12 billion transistors and 3584 CUDA cores, and it comes equipped with 12GB of GDDR5X whereas the Maxwell TITAN X has 8 billion transistors, 3072 CUDA cores, and 12GB of GDDR5. Pascal’s CUDA Cores have evolved over Maxwell’s to become more efficient, and you can check out our Nvidia GTC 2016 wrap-up article for the details in our Pascal Deep Dive. The Pascal TITAN X also features Peak Single Precision performance – 11 TFLOPs FP32 (32-bit floating point) – and also has a new instruction set for deep learning inference that the Maxwell TITAN X lacks, 44 TOPS INT8. Both cards feature 12GB of memory for scientific applications and also for extreme resolutions in gaming. Here are the key differences between the Maxwell and the Pascal TITANs. Even though they are both aimed at scientists and researchers, both of the TITANs are still gaming cards, and the new TITAN X supports all of the same new features that Nvidia’s Pascal architecture brings. Pascal delivers high clock speeds while using relatively little power – the new TITAN X runs over 1.5 GHz with a TDP of 250W. Pascal’s 16nm manufacturing process allows the TITAN X to perform faster than Maxwell generation GPUs giving it a huge performance lead over the older TITAN X. Our testing platform is Windows 10 Home 64-bit, using an Intel Core i7-6700K at 4.00GHz which turbos to 4.4GHz for all cores as set in the ASRock Z7170 motherboard’s BIOS, and 16GB of G.SKILL DDR4 at 3000MHz. The settings and hardware are identical except for the cards being tested. Today, we are featuring all 25 games of our benchmark suite, and we are also including four DX12 games – Ashes of the Singularity, Hitman, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and Total War Warhammer – plus Futuremark’s recently released DX12 benchmark, Time Spy. Specifications Here are the specifications for the Maxwell TITAN X: Here are the full specifications for the Pascal TITAN X: How does the Maxwell TITAN X compare with its predecessor? From the specifications alone, we see that the Pascal TITAN X is considerably faster than its Maxwell predecessor. To confirm this and to show how much faster, we are going to look at 25 games to compare the performance of the GTX 1080 with the TITAN X. We are also adding a new feature to BTR’s reviews – percentages of increase between the two video cards. We will explain how we calculate our percentages in the “Test Configuration”. For this evaluation, we are going to concentrate on comparing the performance between the two TITAN Xes. AMD’s flagship, the Fury X, is generally slower than the Maxwell TITAN X, and it is consistently beaten by the GTX 1080 in all the benchmarks that we have run. AMD is pinning their hopes on next year’s big chip, Vega. Let’s check out the test configuration.
A bill expanding the permissible uses for medical marijuana in Delaware has stalled in the state Senate. The bill failed to win Senate passage Tuesday after several lawmakers noted that they were told after a committee hearing last month that it would be amended to address concerns from the medical industry about some of its provisions. No amendment was added, however. The bill adds debilitating anxiety to the list of conditions and illnesses for which medical marijuana can be prescribed. The anxiety definition includes generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and social anxiety. The bill also removes the requirement for a psychiatrist to sign an application for someone seeking to use medical marijuana for post-traumatic stress disorder. Instead, any physician would be allowed to verify the application. Despite the setback, Delaware lawmakers are still rolling out legislation that could make recreational cannabis legal for adults over the age of 21. The House Revenue and Finance Committee overwhelmingly approved a plan last week to legalize adult-use marijuana. House Bill 110 will likely move to a full house vote sometime next month. GoFundMe for Philly Students in Tour Bus Crash Gov. John Carney has remained silent on the issue, but invited advocates and patients to a roundtable discussion in April. He told those present that he was "there to listen" and will carefully consider all perspectives before making any decision on pursuing recreational cannabis legislation. All of this could be in question, however, after President Donald Trump appeared to backpedal on his support for medical marijuana, which he touted during the presidential campaign season. In a signing statement issued earlier this month, Trump objected to a provision that prohibits the federal government from interfering in state-run medicinal cannabis programs. States were essentially given autonomy to enforce their own pot laws in a memorandum issued by former Deputy Attorney General James Cole in 2013. The memo shifted enforcement priorities from the federal level to local law enforcement. But current Attorney General Jeff Sessions is already taking the opposite approach. He instructed federal prosecutors to crack down on drug offenses and created a task force to toughen up on enforcement. Copyright Associated Press
With oil prices in free fall, the more oil-rich OPEC member states, which chiefly depend on oil exports, are revising their projected revenues for their upcoming budgets downward and placing spending cuts on their agendas. Iran, as one of the top holders of energy resources in the world, is no exception, and senior officials have recently said it has suffered over $100 billion in revenue losses over the oil nosedive. Already hit with years of Western sanctions over its nuclear program, the government of President Hassan Rouhani now finds itself facing a new source of pressure since oil prices have fallen 60% from their June 2014 peaks. In its proposed budget for the upcoming Iranian calendar year, which begins March 21, the government initially proposed a spending scheme based on the crude oil price of $72 a barrel. But with the continued slump in the energy markets, this figure was later lowered to $40 per barrel. For comparison, last year's budget was calculated assuming $100 per barrel of oil. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, as the world's largest producer of crude oil and another OPEC member, has similarly admitted that the precipitous fall in oil prices since June will leave Riyadh with its first budget deficit since 2011. Some in Iran have lashed out at Saudi Arabia, accusing it of conspiring with the West to keep oil prices low in a bid to put more pressure on Tehran. On Jan. 13, Rouhani also warned that any countries contributing to the fall in global oil prices would regret the move and warned that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait would suffer alongside Iran. For years, Iranian leaders have called for reduced reliance on oil, but the country has so far failed to see the dream realized, despite lowering its dependence on petrodollars and increasing its non-oil goods sales overseas. According to Iran's Customs Administration, the country's non-oil exports increased to $35 billion during the first eight months of the current Iranian year. The figure indicates a 20% increase compared with last year's corresponding period. As Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said, the country's oil industry could even weather crude oil prices as low as $25 per barrel. Tehran recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the National Petrochemical Company (NPC). The foundation of petrochemical industry in Iran, which dates back to 1964, resulted in the construction of the fertilizer unit of Shiraz Petrochemical Complex and the establishment of the National Petrochemical Industries Company. The country's petrochemical industries, which enjoy abundant hydrocarbon reserves, soon began to develop. Their production capacity reached 5 million tons before the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Following the revolution and during the eight years of war with Iraq, the Iranian industry went into recession. It was, however, revived after the war during the presidency of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and reached its peak in terms of investment and development during the tenure of Reformist President Mohammad Khatami. Addressing a conference on the half-century-old Iranian petrochemical industry, Zanganeh pointed out that the Oil Ministry is seeking both foreign and private financing for Iran’s petrochemical projects. He went on to criticize the former government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and stressed that the halting of investment in the country's petrochemical industry during his presidency was the result of "mismanagement and not the sanctions." In addition to Iran’s oil exports, the country’s petrochemical industry was also struck with US-led sanctions. But under the Geneva interim agreement, signed by Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany in November 2013, the embargoes on Iran’s manufacturing and petrochemical industries were suspended. The results were immediate: The export of petrochemical goods, which after oil are Iran's second-largest source of income, saw a sharp increase. According to Abbas Shari Moqaddam, the deputy oil minister and NPC president, Iran, which now plans to raise its petrochemical exports to $12 billion this year, has exported approximately 12 million tons of petrochemical products worth some $9 billion during the first nine months of the current Iranian year. The figure was a little above the $8 billion exported in the same period last year. Pointing to the current production capacity of 60 million tons, the NPC head added that the country's total capacity would increase to some 70 million tons per year once the unfinished petrochemical projects become available next year. With the technological advancements in oil and gas hydrocarbons, "The value of produced products could increase by 10-20%," said Saeed Razmkhah, an Iranian expert on the oil and petrochemical industry in Tehran. He believes that Iran could use the petrochemical industry to both increase its revenues and cut the country’s reliance on crude oil. Razmkhah added, "Diversity of products, providing raw materials to thousands of factories and downstream workshops and creating job opportunities and fetching hard currency revenues have placed this industry in a prominent position in the country's economy." Apart from attracting investment, which still looms as a major hurdle in the materialization of some goals in Iran's petrochemical industries, most of these industries have already been operating below their full output capacity due to the shortage in required feedstock. Oil Ministry officials have promised to resolve this shortage within the next few months. With some energy experts predicting that oil prices will average below $60 per barrel in 2015, officials hope to attract enough investment for the country's petrochemical industries, which have been described as key to the government’s stated policy of maintaining a “resistance economy.” Experts now believe Iran’s petrochemical industries will become an alternative economic engine and a platform for development. They also stress that for Iran, with a population of some 80 million, and also the developing economies of its neighboring states, the country's petrochemical industries could play a key part in jolting the economy out of its slump and bringing about growth Rouhani had promised in his election campaign.
We all have our gut sense of when a game is lost. We look at the clock and calculate the number of minutes remaining and goals required, then work out if our team can plausibly come back. But when is a game truly lost, or won? What’s a safe margin at three-quarter time, or half time? It turns out that, on average, a team wins nearly 90% of the time if it’s up by three goals at three-quarter time. A three-goal break at half-time results in a win 85% of the time, while teams go on to win 75% of the time if they are up by three goals at the first break. I’ve calculated these figures using every AFL/VFL game from 1897 to 2016. A natural question at this point might be: do games from the late 19th century really tell us much about the odds of a comeback in 2016? Has the likelihood of a comeback changed over time? The probability of winning a game from a given half time margin has been remarkably stable over time. The only significant difference we found was for the first era of VFL football, from 1897 to 1919. In that period, an early lead counted for more – teams that were up by three goals at half time went on to win about 92.5% of the time, while the average for the other eras is just short of 85%. The probability of winning a game, given a particular margin at half time, has been remarkably stable between 1920 and 2016. The chart below shows, for each season in AFL/VFL history, the likelihood of a team coming back to win after being 18 points down at half time. Each dot is a particular season, which the black line shows the trend. The figures bounce around a bit, but the trend is quite flat. Given the stability of the trend, we use all games from 1920-2016 to calculate our main charts, below. So far, we’ve looked at the average probability of coming back from a given margin. But the average conceals a big difference – the difference between home teams and away teams. If two teams are drawn at half time, the home team goes on to win 55.4% of the time. Home teams are more likely to come back from a given deficit and more likely to defend a given lead. The graph below shows the probability of a comeback for a home or away team at each of the breaks. You can see that, on average, an away team needs to be up by about a goal at three-quarter time just to have a 50% likelihood of winning the game. For finals, we’ve looked at it a little differently. Rather than breaking it down by the designated ‘home’ and ‘away’ teams, we’ve split the stats up according to the state of the game. If both states are playing in their home state, or neither is playing in their home state, we’ve termed it a ‘neutral’ final. For finals where only one team is playing out of their home state, you can see that the host team is much more likely to win from a given margin at any of the breaks. However, the relationship between the margin at the breaks and the final result is more uncertain when it comes to finals between interstate teams, as we don’t have as many of them as other types of games. Next time you’re watching the footy and wondering whether your team is likely to win, you can consult these graphs. The two final graphs, the key graphs, will be posted on this easily-accessible page, which we’ll update with some more information soon. Note: These figures make no adjustment for teams’ quality.
Studied Muay Thai here on and off for three years. Moved to Lexington and tried out multiple gyms looking for training of similar quality. Don't waste your time looking elsewhere like I did. There isn't another gym to be found that can combine the decades of experience Sifu Scott has with combat sports. But he isn't just skilled himself at what he teaches, he is also an adaptive and exceptional teacher. You'll see this when taking classes taught by his former students that have been recognized by the Thai boxing association and turned instructors themselves. The prices for training at this gym are spot on for the area but in my opinion they are an absolute steal compared to what you get out of the experience at AFS.
All Ruby Podcasts by Devchat.tv RR 401: Environment Variables & Ruby with Jesus Castello Sponsors Sentry use code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry small plan TripleByte offers a $1000 signing bonus Panel Dave Kimura Eric Berry Charles Wood Joined by special guest: Jesus Castello Episode Summary In this episode, Jesus Castello, a ruby developer who has been programming since he was 10 years old. He has been a Ruby Developer for 7 years. He teaches Ruby and has a Youtube channel and website. — discusses with the panel his post about Environmental Variables. Jesus teaches what an environmental variable is, and then together Jesus and the panel discuss the uses of environmental variables. One specific topic they go into detail on is credentials and the master… avdi.codes SIGAVDI #44: Goat Cheese Edition Hello Friends, I'm having trouble writing this today. I'm already two days late, and I feel completely uninspired. Spring has been sputtering hesitantly to life around here. Here is a flower of some sort from my front garden. While I was working with Betsy Haibel on her Asynchronous JavaScript course I got curious about what some of the patterns would look like in Ruby. Specifically, I wanted both to understand Promises better, and figure out whether they were also necessary in a language like Ruby that has built-in Fibers (short answer: nope). I spent a lot of the past week writing and re-writing Ruby demo code to explain various async patterns like demultiplexing, Reactor, Promises, and… Ilija Eftimov When and Why to use a Least Frequently Used (LFU) cache with an implementation in Golang Over the years, people involved in computer science and engineering have worked really hard on optimisations of various natures. Given that we live in a world with limited resources, humanity has always worked on ways to optimise the costs and speed literally everything. In software engineering, I would argue, the most popular approach to performance improvement is caching. While there are various applications of caching, depending on the area of software engineering, the idea behind caching is quite simple: store data that is often needed/used in fast structure/storage so it can be retrieved very fast. In fact, caches have to be fast along two dimensions: Ensuring that as many of the… Martian Chronicles, Evil Martians’ team blog Better web video with AV1 codec Learn how to instantly improve online viewing experience for your users by embracing the new AV1 video format that is already supported by Chrome and Firefox. This short guide will also show how to replace your GIF’s with videos, using AV1 or H.264, to make your files twenty to forty times smaller. Author: Andrey Sitnik, Author of PostCSS and Autoprefixer, Lead Front-end Developer at Evil Martians The bets are placed. Both YouTube and Netflix have named AV1 a video codec for the future: Google’s video service is already using it on TestTube (new, experimental features for YouTube). Netflix has been calling AV1 “our primary next-gen codec” for a while now. At Evil Martians, we have… avdi.codes Things I’ve Misunderstood About Promises Since I've been mucking about with JavaScript more, I've discovered that for some reason the Promise pattern is a profoundly unintuitive one to me. In my quest to accurately model their semantics in my mind, I've read through the A+ spec and written a couple of partial Promise implementations of my own. I still don't feel like I've completely nailed it down. Here is an incomplete list of my misunderstandings (so far) about Promises. Promises are not boxes that values appear in. Promises are not really about values at all. Promises are also not about the work. Or about managing work. They are a signaling mechanism off to the side of the work. Promises aren't about giving you something to… Riding Rails Rails 6.0.0 beta2 released We’re marching one step closer to the final release of Rails 6 with this second beta. We’ve fixed a bunch of issues and added a few minor features, but the big change is switching to Xavier’s new Zeitwerk library for handling autoloading. It’s a big, structural change to how we require dependencies at runtime, and it should remove a bunch of the legacy warts, and the weird gotchas. Xavier wrote up a long piece on it you should check out. Otherwise things are much the same as they were with the first beta. I encourage you to read the release notes for that to understand the big picture of 6.0. You can peruse all the 532 commits we’ve made since the first beta. We are still kinda on track… Passenger - Phusion Blog Passenger 6.0.2: Community makes everything better Version 6.0.2 of the Passenger application server has been released. This release contains many community provided patches, and bugfixes which would only have been possible with the diagnostic help of our users. So we'd like to say thank you very much to everyone who contributed! Most notably, this release allows you to disable the prefix added to your app's logs when they are written to Passenger's log. Passenger 6, introduced Generic Language Support, or: the ability to support any and all arbitrary apps. Disable app log prefix Passenger 6.0.2 has a new option to disable prefixing application logs with "App PID stdout". Apache: PassengerDisableLogPrefix Nginx: passenger_disable_log_prefix … GH-1915 is now resolved. Updates… RubyGuides 7 Interesting Ruby Code Examples One way to learn new Ruby tricks, patterns & methods is to read code others have written. But where do you find interesting code worth reading? We have many open source projects, and coding challenge sites that allow you to see the solutions from other developers once you submit your own. In this article: I […] The post 7 Interesting Ruby Code Examples appeared first on RubyGuides. Don't miss your free gift here :) Passenger - Phusion Blog Bringing HBB into the Retro-Future For the last while we haven't been able to build native extensions for the latest versions of Ruby (2.5 and later) because they simply do not build on Centos 5. As some of you may know, we build our Ruby gem's native extensions and precompiled binaries for Linux using the oldest possible OS. We do this because while libc is backwards compatible, it is not forwards compatible. You can use an executable or library built against an old libc on a new system but not an executable or library built against a new system on an old system. Since CentOS 5 is ancient in OS terms (first release was in 2007), that's what we were using up until now. I began the process of upgrading the Binary Automation… Valentino Gagliardi Back To The Basics: How To Generate a Table With JavaScript (vanilla) What it takes to generate a table with vanilla JavaScript? Let’s find out in this tutorial! It’s always a good time for refreshing your JavaScript skills: manipulating the DOM with the native API is a topic that comes up a lot in technical interviews. In the following tutorial we’ll see what it takes to generate a table with vanilla JavaScript, without resorting to any library or framework. How to generate a table with JavaScript: what you will learn In this tutorial you will learn how to: generate a table with JavaScript use the native DOM API for manipulating the table How to generate a table with JavaScript: requirements To follow along with this tutorial you… Kir Shatrov How I forgot my laptop and stayed calm What do people typically forget in an airplane’s seat? Glasses, headphones, tablets, phones? Flying to Moscow on Saturday, I forgot my laptop in the seat pocket next to me. I’ve only realized that when already unpacked in my apartment. I’ve thought that I’ve already taken out the laptop, which is the reason why it’s not in my backpack, but after looking through unpacked things, I didn’t find it. That left the only reason: that I forgot it onboard of British Airways after hacking some code of the flight. If that happened to me a couple of years ago, I would have panicked and declared it as the worst moment of the year. But this time I’ve started laughing and texted my friends “believe… Code with Jason How I write characterization tests What characterization tests are and what problem they solve Let’s say I come across a piece of code that I want to refactor but unfortunately a) I don’t understand what it does and b) it’s not covered by tests. Refactoring untested code I don’t understand that’s not tested is risky business. But how can I write tests for the code if I don’t even know what it’s supposed to do? Luckily there’s a technique called Characterization Testing, which I first discovered from Michael Feathers’ book, which makes solving this challenge pretty straightforward and easy. I’m going to show you how I do it. What I’m going to show you Below is a chunk of code I found in an old project of mine. The two methods… Karol Galanciak - Ruby on Rails and Ember.js consultant Messages on Rails Part 1 - Introduction to Kafka and RabbitMQ Microservices, Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and in general, distributed ecosystems, have been on hype in the last several years. And that’s for a good reason! At certain point, The Majestic Monolith “pattern” might start causing issues, both from the purely technical reasons like scalability, tight coupling of the code if you don’t follow Domain-Driven Design or some other practices improving modularity, maintenance overhead, and also from organizational perspective since working in smaller teams on smaller apps is more efficient than working with huge team on an even bigger monolith which suffers from tight coupling and low cohesion. However, this is only true if the overall… Andy Croll Secure Your Rails Staging Environment with HTTP Basic Authentication A sensible approach to testing features before you ship them to customers is to use a staging environment that closely resembles your live, customer-facing, production application. It’s important to make sure that only people inside your organisation can use this testing environment, since it might contain broken features (hopefully not!) or private, production-like, data. Instead of… …leaving your staging environment open for anyone who finds it on the wild Internet. Use… …the basic HTTP authentication in Rails to secure the whole application from non-authorised users… class ApplicationController < ActionController :: Base http_basic_authenticate_with name: ENV [ "HTTP_BASIC_USER" ], … Code with Jason How to make your organization attractive to engineering talent The battle for engineering talent Virtually everywhere I’ve ever worked has always been desperate for good engineers. The bottleneck has never been “we don’t have enough money to hire as many engineers as we want”, the bottleneck is always on the supply-of-good-engineering-candidates side. Good engineers of course tend to be not only employed but very well paid and well-taken-care-of in just about every way. It seems like most job ads I see these days tout unlimited PTO, catered meals, etc.—things that I never would have dreamed of when I got my first real programming job in 2005 but that are practically table stakes now. In order to get a good engineer to leave his or her current well-paid… GoRails Screencasts How to Deploy Rails to Production on Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver Deploying Rails to production for the first time can be confusing and daunting. We'll walk through every step of the process and show you how to setup a production Rails server from scratch. https://victorafanasev.info/ First thing to do after creating a new VPS server: setup deploy user and enable SSH-key authentication only 1) Create on the remote server a deploy user: # on the server, as a root user $ adduser deploy $ adduser deploy sudo 2) Make sure that you can login to the server as a deploy user without password prompt: It assumes that you have ssh keypair already ( ~/.ssh/id_rsa and ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub ) on your desktop. # on the desktop $ ssh-add $ ssh-copy-id deploy@deploy_server_ip # Now try to login to the server as deploy user: $ ssh deploy@deploy_server_ip If it didn’t work, and you get message like Permission denied (publickey) , it seems like password authentication disabled by default on your server (which is a good thing actually). Login to the server as a root again, then login to … Riding Rails Zeitwerk integration in Rails 6 (Beta 2) The second beta of Rails 6 is about to ship, and includes Zeitwerk integration. While Rails 6 final is going to have proper documentation about it, this post will help understanding this feature meanwhile. Highlights You can now robustly use constant paths in class and module definitions: # Autoloading in this class' body matches Ruby semantics now. class Admin :: UsersController < ApplicationController # ... end All known use cases of require_dependency have been eliminated. Edge cases in which the autoloaded constant depended on execution order are gone. Autoloading is thread-safe in general, not just for the currently supported use cases… Also, applications get some performance benefits for the same price: Autoloading a constant no longer involves walking autoload paths looking for a relative match in the file system. Zeitwerk does one… EquiValent Visualized desktop workspaces flow In this article I will show you what is in my opinion the most productive way how to work with your desktop environment. It is about using existing tool currently available in most of the operating systems called workspaces Desktop Workspaces are designed to hold multiple applications in different contexts. Point I’ll try to make is about how you organize and access these applications in relation to their responsibilities in the most productive way. In order to present you this flow I’ll show you how I use workspaces in daily professional life. Here is a quick video Demonstration (youtube) Every workspace is dedicated to single purpose In my daily setup I use 6 workspaces which… Drivy Engineering From translator to developer After working as a teacher and translator for several years, Emily embarked on a new phase in her career by learning a different kind of language: programming. Emily has worked at Drivy for the past year and a half as a Full-Stack Engineer, after attending the intensive Le Wagon bootcamp in Paris. Here, she shares how she began coding and what life is like for a developer at Drivy. If you’re considering a career change to become a software engineer, hopefully Emily’s story will inspire you to go for it. What were you doing before you became a software engineer? I studied modern languages and translation, and after university worked as a teacher and translator. My freelance translation… Semaphore A Reality Check About Cloud Native DevOps John Arundel is a consultant and author of Cloud Native DevOps with Kubernetes. We spoke with John on how adopting DevOps destroys walls, builds bridges, and influences company cultures for the better. You’ve just co-authored (with Justin Domingus) a book entitled “Cloud Native DevOps with Kubernetes: Building, Deploying, and Scaling Modern Applications in the Cloud.” From the description of the book, it looks like it can take you from zero to hero in building and scaling apps the Kubernetes way. What do you think makes this book stand out from other books on the topic available on the market? It’s the book that Justin and I wish we’d had when we started trying to deploy real apps on… EquiValent Cinnamon workspaces for productivity development This TIL note is related to article Visualized desktop workspaces flow How to Setup Cinnamon DE workspaces and keyboard shortcuts (instructions how to install Cinnamon DE on Ubuntu 18.04 are at the bottom) step 1 - increase the number of workspaces default numper of workspaces in Cinnamon is 4 (I need 6) gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.wm.preferences num-workspaces 6 step 2 - Shortucuts for switching workspaces Menu > Keyboard > Shortcuts Tab > Workspaces > Direct Navigation Set "Switch to workspace 1" to be "Super+1" "Switch to workspace 2" to be "Super+2" "Switch to workspace 3" to be "Super+3" "Switch to workspace 4" to be "Super+8" "Switch to workspace 5" to be… Dustin Zeisler The Power of Ruby Structs I invite you to explore beyond ActiveRecord models and into the world of PORO (Plain Old Ruby Objects). These are the building block of any Object Oriented Language and especially Ruby. I’m going to focus on Value Objects, which holders of some collection of data or attributes. The collection could model a person, an account, an address, or more abstractly an error, and many more. You should keep in mind as a general principle that these objects should have a well-defined purpose or identity and contain no more information than what is needed. A simple and common way to pass around a collection of attributes is with a Hash. It’s flexible for taking any number of key-value pairs created… Greater Than Code 118: A Piece of Luck with Jessica Kerr Jessica Kerr talks about being the property of a situation, the interpretation of luck and the psychology of scarcity, physics, the ways people tend to undervalue code, and defining "done" in software development. Are you truly involved in the developer communities you work in and sell to? Are you seeing the value in the events you are a part of? DevRelate.io can help! Developer and Community Relations as a Service: we speak developer! Learn more at DevRelate.io or email us at info at DevRelate.io! Panelists: Jacob Stoebel \| Sam Livingston-Gray \| Jamey Hampton \| Jessica Kerr Links: 01:50 - Jess’s Superpower: Being a Property of a Situation Karl Popper 04:25 - The Interpretation of… OmbuLabs Blog Refactoring with Design Patterns - The State Pattern In this series of code refactoring posts we are discussing how design patterns can be used to make our Ruby code beautiful, maintainable and clean. Today I want to talk about a pattern that can be very useful when we need to control the flow of a set of events of our objects: The State Pattern a.k.a Finite State Machine. As a developer it is common to see objects changing their state. At the beginning managing the state of an object can be as simple as having some boolean attributes where you can check if the object is in state A or B. But when the complexity increases you can end up with a number of states that are difficult to manage without breaking the SOLID principles. That is where… Scott Watermasysk Bugs are Inevitable. Your Response is What Matters Bug, defects, delays, etc will always happen. With good practices, you can minimize them, but they will always exist. You can however control how you respond to them. This message from WASD is exceptional. Accept fault Apologize Provide details and supporting information. All Ruby Podcasts by Devchat.tv RR 400: Celebrating a Milestone - Ruby Rogues 400th Episode Sponsors Sentry- use the code “devchat” for $100 credit Triplebyte CacheFly Episode Summary In this 400th episode of Ruby Rogues, the panelists - Dave Kimura, Andrew Mason, Eric Berry, Charles Max Wood talk about themselves, their backgrounds, things they are working with, their journey and perspectives on life in general. Eric has been a developer since 1998 and is working on Ruby on Rails since 2008. He talks about his current company – CodeFund, an ethical advertising platform that helps open-source developers generate a recurring passive income which encourages them to maintain existing software as well as contribute to additional projects. Dave is currently in a… Everyday Rails 7 reasons why learning SQL is still important for Rails developers Active Record abstracts away much of the need to use SQL on a daily basis. But understanding what's going on behind the scenes is still important. Here's how understanding SQL can make you a better Rails developer. Julia Evans Organizing this blog into categories Today I organized the front page of this blog (jvns.ca) into CATEGORIES! Now it is actually possible to make some sense of what is on here!! There are 28 categories (computer networking! learning! “how things work”! career stuff! many more!) I am so excited about this. How it works: Every post is in only 1 category. Obviously the categories aren’t “perfect” (there is a “how things work” category and a “kubernetes” category and a “networking” category, and so for a “how container networking works in kubernetes” I need to just pick one) but I think it’s really nice and I’m hoping that it’ll make the blog easier for folks to navigate. If you’re interested in more of the story of how I’m… Julia Evans !!Con 2019: submit a talk! As some of you might know, for the last 5 years I’ve been one of the organizers for a conferences called !!Con. This year it’s going to be held on May 11-12 in NYC. The submission deadline is Sunday, March 3 and you can submit a talk here. (we also expanded to the west coast this year: !!Con West is next week!! I’m not on the !!Con West team since I live on the east coast but they’re doing amazing work, I have a ticket, and I’m so excited for there to be more !!Con in the world) !!Con is about the joy, excitement, and surprise of computing Computers are AMAZING. You can make programs that seem like magic, computer science has all kind of fun and surprising tidbits, there are all kinds… Drivy Engineering Rails 6 unnoticed features Rails 6.0.0.beta1 is out and you may have already tested it. We all have heard about the main features such as multi-database connectivity, Action Mailbox & Action Text merge, parallelized testing, Action Cable testing etc. But there’s also a ton of other cool features that I found interesting. Requirements change With each major release comes new requirements, starting with Ruby which is now required with a minimal version of 2.5.0 instead of 2.2.2 for Rails 5.2. Our databases also get an upgrade with 5.5.8 for MySQL, 9.3 for PostgreSQL and 3.8 for SQLite. Webpacker as default Webpacker has been merged in Rails 5.1 and provides a modern asset pipeline with the integration of Webpack for… Appfolio Engineering Microbenchmarks vs Macrobenchmarks (i.e. What's a Microbenchmark?) Sometimes you need to measure a few Rubies… I’ve mentioned a few times recently that something is a “microbenchmark.” What does that mean? Is it good or bad? Let’s talk about that. Along the way, we’ll talk about benchmarks that are not microbenchmarks and how to pick a scale/size for a specific benchmark. I talk about this because I write benchmarks for Ruby. But you may prefer to read it because you use benchmarks for Ruby - if you read the results or run them. Knowing what can go wrong in benchmarks is like learning to spot bad statistics: it’s not easy, but some practice… Valentino Gagliardi React Hooks Tutorial for Beginners: Getting Started With React Hooks (2019) In this React hooks tutorial you will learn how to use React hooks, what they are, and why we’re doing it. Here I am, writing a React hooks tutorial for you. I decided to wait until hooks got finally released before dropping this post. Together we’ll learn React hooks step by step, with a look at how the same logic would be implemented with ES6 classes. Enjoy the reading! React Hooks Tutorial for Beginners: what you will learn In the following tutorial you’ll learn: how to use React hooks how the same logic would be implemented in React class components React Hooks Tutorial for Beginners: requirements To follow along with the tutorial you should have a basic… RubyGuides Understanding Boolean Values in Ruby What is a boolean? A boolean is a value used in a logic statement to say if something is considered true or false. This can be used to make decisions. In Ruby we don’t have a Boolean class, but we have boolean objects! We have true & false. Which are the singleton objects of TrueClass […] The post Understanding Boolean Values in Ruby appeared first on RubyGuides. Don't miss your free gift here :) Depfu Grouping all updates together Of course if we start thinking about reducing the amount of PRs, we also have to consider that doing individual updates might not be the best solution in all situations. If there is one thing we’ve learned so far at Depfu, it’s that every team works differently. Every project – be it open source or in-house – is in a different situation. And the teams working on these projects all have their unique way of working and constraints. While we love to be be opinionated and have sensible defaults, we also love listening to customers. And quite a few have told us that grouping updates into a single, recurring PR instead of individual updates is what they prefer. So today we’re giving everyone… Hi, we're Arkency Patterns for asynchronous read models in infrastructure without order guarantee When we focus on the model in CQRS architecture, we put most effort into write model. Not only this is the place where the business operations are implemented and breakthroughs in understanding domain are happening – we also consider it the part of the implementation where we should put a lot of our technical attention to. Different implementations of aggregates? Persistence in the model or not? Messaging? Different kinds of transaction boundaries and transaction guarantees between multiple databases? All of these are exciting topic, but read model part, often considered as an easy job for “junior” developers also pose challenges in implemention. In ideal scenario, read models are… EquiValent Duck Typing in Rails Article is still in progress, I’m planing to release it by end of the weak In programming there is a powerful concept called “Duck Type” Duck typing in computer programming is an application of the duck test—”If it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck” Wikipedia So here is an example Ruby code: class A def aa 'aa' end end class B def call(a) a.aa end end class C def aa 'cc' end end class D end a = A.new a.aa # => 'aa' c = C.new c.aa # => 'cc' d = D.new d.aa # NoMethodError (undefined method `aa' for D:Class) B.new.call(a) # => 'aa' B.new.call(c) # => 'cc' B.new.call(d) # NoMethodError (undefined method `aa' for… Honeybadger Developer Blog Going deep on UUIDs and ULIDs A chance conversation let me to the realization that the world of unique identifiers is larger and more wondrous than I ever could have imagined. In this post we discuss five types of UUIDs and their upstart cousin, the ULID. We explore what makes each of them special and when they may be particularly useful. GoRails Screencasts Symbols vs Strings Ever wondered what the difference between Symbols and Strings were? Why would we use one over the other when most languages only have strings? Ruby Inside - Medium What’s coming to Rails 6.0? Rails 6.0 will be released soon and it’s packed with many features that both smaller and bigger applications will benefit from, as it feels like many improvements around speed and scalability were introduced in Rails 6. I’ve read through the CHANGELOGs of all Rails parts (ActiveRecord, ActionPack, ActiveSupport, etc.) and picked some of the features that I found the most interesting. Two new additions to the Rails family are Action Mailbox and Action Text that come straight out of Basecamp. Active Record Add basic API for connection switching to support multiple databases Connection switching support has been on my list for a long time, I’ve used the Octopus gem a few times before as well, but… Drivy Engineering Handle disabled mobile data setting on iOS For an unknown reason, a significant number of users disable the mobile data for our iOS app. This is not a problem when they are booking a car from their couch at home with Wi-Fi, but can quickly become a major issue when they try to unlock their Drivy Open car in the street. At this specific moment, there is very little chance that they remember they disabled this setting, so it very often leads to a call to Customer Services that could have been avoided. Drivy's settings with mobile data switched off Drivy's settings with mobile data switched off If we do nothing about this, the users’s resquests would always fail when not on Wi-Fi, and they would see a default error. In our case, they would see the message “An error… Ilija Eftimov Golang Datastructures: Trees You can spend quite a bit of your programming career without working with trees, or just by simply avoiding them if you don’t understand them (which is what I had been doing for a while). Now, don’t get me wrong - arrays, lists, stacks and queues are quite powerful data structures and can take you pretty far, but there is a limit to their capabilities, how you can use them and how efficient that usage can be. When you throw in hash tables to that mix, you can solve quite some problems, but for many of the problems out there trees are a powerful (and maybe the only) tool if you have them under your belt. So, let’s look at trees and then we can try to use them in a small exercise. A touch… Depfu Grouping updates by type Continuing our quest on reducing the amount of PRs: What if grouping or bundling updates together does make sense for certain types of dependencies? We recently shipped a few options for you to try that on your projects: We think of these as strategies you can use to reduce the amount of PRs you get from Depfu. By default we will continue to send individual PRs, but depending on how you structure and treat your dependencies, we think it makes sense to give you the option to update certain types of dependencies together. Grouping development dependencies While updating dev dependencies might be as much or more work as production dependencies in some cases (test frameworks come to… Greater Than Code 117: Wholeness and Separation What does it take to create safe conversations in our organizations, and in our global world? What does “safe” even mean? In this episode, the panelists get into a philosophical discussion about the dynamics of human relationships, differences in paradigm, and how to improve our ability to see one another. Are you truly involved in the developer communities you work in and sell to? Are you seeing the value in the events you are a part of? DevRelate.io can help! Developer and Community Relations as a Service: we speak developer! Learn more at DevRelate.io or email us at info at DevRelate.io! Panelists: Janelle Klein \| Rein Henrichs \| John K. Sawers Links: Virginia Satir Hierarchical… Depfu Grouping updates from monorepos We’ve been on a quest lately: How can we reduce the amount of PRs Depfu creates, while still keeping your app up-to-date? One of the more obvious avenues to explore is grouping updates together. While we are still convinced individual PRs are easier to assess and to merge, there are a few situations where grouping makes sense. The first one I want to talk about is monorepo libraries. JavaScript vs Ruby In the JavaScript ecosystem it’s quite common to have many smaller packages, all coming from a single monorepo. Some prominent examples are React and Babel. These frameworks are split up into several individual packages, but they’re always getting released at the same time and with the… Scott Watermasysk Better Jekyll Excerpts When you use the built-in excerpt feature, Jekyll returns the first paragraph of text. It does this by looking for something called the excerpt_separator. The excerpt_separator defaults to , which is ideal for most short posts. Back in my LiveWriter days, it would use an HTML comment like <!--more--> to designate where to break for an excerpt. Jekyll supports this as well. In your _config.yml file you can add: excerpt_separator : <!--more--> Unfortunately, this now means that on every post, you need to enter <!--more--> , even if you are OK with the default of the first paragraph. The alternative is to add excerpt_separator: <!--more--> for each post you want to control the excerpt. … dry-rb news dry-view 0.6.0, an introductory talk, and plans for 1.0 Last month we released dry-view 0.6.0, a very special release that made huge strides towards the system’s overall completeness. With 0.6.0, dry-view should now offer everything you need to write better organized views in Ruby. From here, our goal is to take dry-view to version 1.0. So please give this release a try! Your feedback at this point will help ensure 1.0 is as polished as possible. If you’re new to dry-view, or would like to see its new features presented in context, then you’re in luck! My talk from RubyConf AU (which took place just last week!) is a nice and tidy, 20-minute package explaining dry-view’s rationale and how everything fits together: I’d also invite you to take… JRuby.org News JRuby 9.2.6.0 Released The JRuby community is pleased to announce the release of JRuby 9.2.6.0 Homepage: http://www.jruby.org/ Download: http://www.jruby.org/download JRuby 9.2.x is our new major version of JRuby. It is expected to be compatible with Ruby 2.5.x and stay in sync with C Ruby. JRuby 9.2.0.0 is our first release for 2.5 support. If you do find issues then report them on using our issue tracker at http://bugs.jruby.org. We also encourage users to join our IRC channel (#jruby on Freenode) and mailing lists. You may also follow @jruby on Twitter for updates. Highlights: 52 issues fixed for 9.2.6.0 Github Issues resolved for 9.2.6.0 #5597 - "Useless" warnings have file as "null" #5596… Honeybadger Developer Blog Honeybadger and Slack - Error Monitoring Awesomeness – Part Deux Honeybadger and Slack have partnered up again and have been hard at work pushing error monitoring to the limit. Why? Because bugs and exceptions don't rest, and neither do Honeybadger and Slack. We’ve rebuilt the Slack integration. avdi.codes SIGAVDI #42: Ultimate Answer Edition Hello friends, I spent last week on the tropical island of Anguilla with a bunch of software luminaries. My life is sometimes surreal. At the moment though, I'm looking out on a chilly, thick fog up here at Fair Pavilion. I can't see the sun. This matches my internal climate pretty well. The world has sharp edges, and my journey seems to be one of exposing ever greater surface area to it. This is fine. “This is fine”. My friend Jessica says this a lot. It has been seeping into my personal vernacular lately. To me it represents a whole philosophy of life, strongly at odds with how I once lived. “This is fine” is the choice to accept a situation exactly as it is, without… Julia Evans Networking tool comics! Hello! I haven’t been blogging too much recently because I’m working on a new zine project: Linux networking tools! I’m pretty excited about this one – I LOVE computer networking (it’s what I spent a big chunk of the last few years at work doing), but getting started with all the tools was originally a little tricky! For example – what if you have the IP address of a server and you want to make a https connection to it and check that it has a valid certificate? But you haven’t changed DNS to resolve to that server yet (because you don’t know if it works!) so you need to use the IP address? If you do curl https://1.2.3.4/ , curl will tell you that the certificate isn’t valid (because it’s… Andy Croll Be Careful Assigning to has_one Relations Most of the time, when building relationships between models, you typically use has_many and belongs_to . There are some circumstances where a has_one relationship is more appropriate. However, the behaviour of has_one has some quirks that make it a little trickier to deal with. When you assign a new instance of an associated model to its has_one model the existing instance is removed from the association and causes a permanent change to be written to the database. This happens whether the new model is valid or not. Read about this side effect of the generated #association= method in the Rails documentation. Instead of… …directly assigning a new object to a has_one object’s #association= … Scott Watermasysk Michelle Obama On Startup Pricing On startup pricing, Michelle Obama famously said, …our motto is: when they go low, we go high A post on Indie Hackers reminded me of this quote: So, I’m thinking if I should try offering an email service, similar to Google Apps, but more affordable.. Just raise prices has been the rallying cry in the bootstrap community for the last couple of years, but this is a different topic. When competing with large entrenched competitors competing on price is almost always the wrong strategy. Founders, especially those who were developers, grossly underestimate what it takes to build and support something. Google could easily run Google Apps for nothing (they did for a long time). The… Code with Jason Page Objects in Rails The challenge of keeping test code clean The hardest part of a programmer’s job isn’t usually figuring out super hard technical problems. The biggest challenge for most developers, in my experience, is to write code that can stand up over time without collapsing under the weight of its own complexity. Just as it’s challenging to keep a clean and understandable codebase, it’s also challenging to keep a clean and understandable test suite, and for the same exact reasons. If I look at a test file for the first time and I’m immediately able to grasp what the test is doing and why it’s doing it, then I have a clear test. The test has a high signal-to-noise ratio. That’s good. The opposite… Ruby – AWS Developer Blog Introducing Transaction Support in aws-record Introducing Transaction Support in aws-record The aws-record Ruby Gem is a data mapper abstraction layer over Amazon DynamoDB, a key-value and document database that delivers single-digit millisecond performance at any scale. Recently, support for transactions was added to DynamoDB. DynamoDB transactions simplify the developer experience of making coordinated, all-or-nothing changes to multiple items both within and across tables. Transactions provide atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability (ACID) in DynamoDB, enabling you to maintain data correctness in your applications easily. Today, we’re launching support for DynamoDB transactional find and write operations directly from a… Honeybadger Developer Blog Avoiding Junk-Drawer Classes in Ruby Because Ruby is an object-oriented language, we tend to model the world as a set of objects. We say that two integers (x and y) are a Point, and a Line has two of them. While this approach is often useful, it has one big problem... Scott Watermasysk Unlimited Software Does Not Exist In software, nothing is unlimited. You can market and sell your product without any limits, but when it comes to computing, there are always limits. One such limit, bit me in the ass yesterday. KickoffLabs uses recursive queries in a couple of places. These are great because they can often limit hops back and forth to the database. Generally, they recurse two or so levels deep. Unfortunately, a customer (or customer’s customer) managed to go many levels deep….and you probably guessed it by now, without any limits. Furthermore, one of these queries generates more related recursive queries. The green in the picture is database work. It was not the number of queries causing the problem,… The way is long but you can make it easy on me Getting the most mileage out of Docker and Rails Hi Folks, Recently I was working with a friend on their Rails app, which had been fully wrapped in a docker-compose setup. They were quite rightly asking me questions about the best way to do things like run the server, run tests, migrate the database and other common Rails tasks. While I’ve seen a number of different ways of Dockerizing Rails in development, my preferred way is not to Dockerize my Rails app itself. In development I prefer to use Docker to manage any complex dependencies my application has, leaving my app running bare on my machine. When it comes to production time, that's the ideal place to Dockerize your application. Let's look at why! It starts with the "Rails Way" The… Greater Than Code 116: Healing Organizational Trauma with Matt Stratton In this episode, Matt Stratton discusses incident response communication, leading by example, the way we should be handling postmortems, and telling the hero’s story vs the story of the people. If you like Greater Than Code, you should check out The Transatlantic Cable Podcast from Kaspersky Lab. They look at cybersecurity issues that affect everybody, and also make sure the podcast fits into your busy day, by keeping them to 20 minutes or less. Check it out and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Panelists: Janelle Klein \| Coraline Ada Ehmke \| Jessica Kerr Special Guest: Matt Stratton: @mattstratton Matty Stratton is a HumanOps Advocate at PagerDuty, where he… BigBinary Blog Resolve foreign key constraint conflict while copying data using topological sort We have a client that uses multi-tenant database where each database holds data for each of their customers. Whenever a new customer is added, a service dynamically creates a new database. In order to seed this new database we were tasked to implement a feature to copy data from existing “demo” database. The “demo” database is actually a live client where sales team does demo. This ensures that the data that is copied is fresh and not stale. We implemented a solution where we simply listed all the tables in namespace and used activerecord-import to copy the table data. We used activerecord-import gem to keep code agnostic of underlying database as we used different databases in… OmbuLabs Blog Using Google Calendar for Account Management At Ombu Labs, we like to split our time between working on our own products, open source and client projects. Our own products include everything from OmbuShop, an e-commerce platform, to FastRuby.io, a Ruby on Rails upgrade service. In terms of open source, we recently created Audit Tool and are constantly searching for more projects to contribute to. We also work on a variety of interesting client projects, and with our current team size, like to take on two to three of them at a time. As an Account Manager, it can get hectic trying to manage all of this. Google Calendar can be a serious help. Using Multiple Calendars In order to manage the different types of projects we work on at … Ruby Magic by AppSignal Unraveling Classes, Instances and Metaclasses in Ruby Welcome to a new episode of Ruby Magic! This month's edition is all about metaclasses, a subject sparked by a discussion between two developers (Hi Maud!). Through examining metaclasses, we'll learn how class and instance methods work in Ruby. Along the way, discover the difference between defining a method by passing an explicit "definee" and using class << self or instance_eval . Let's go! Class Instances and Instance Methods To understand why metaclasses are used in Ruby, we'll start by examining what the differences are between instance- and class methods. In Ruby, a class is an object that defines a blueprint to create other objects. Classes define which methods are available on any… Scott Watermasysk What Are Shorts? And Why You Should Use Them Too. There are few things lamer than blogging about blogging, but this is a subject I think is very important. In my virtual circles, Twitter has killed blogging. I do not believe Twitter did it on purpose. Twitter is simple, and you can reach a lot of people quickly. And despite all the negative energy around Twitter, it still the place where I learn the most on a daily basis. What concerns me about blogging’s demise is how much information vanishes after a couple of minutes. You can like it, but good luck finding in the future. What I am trying to do instead is something I am calling shorts. A short is a post that is either small enough to live inside a tweet or has enough formatting… Ruby Pigeon Dream Code First Let’s consider two software development workflows. Their outcomes differ in many ways, but in this article I just want to focus on code quality. Workflow #1: Straight to the implementation Look around the codebase for existing places that will need to be changed. Change and add code until the new functionality works, doing manual testing. Think about refactoring, but decide against it, because it’s working, and you’ll have to manually test everything again if you make changes. Write some tests to cover the new code. Refactor some of the code, without breaking the tests you just wrote. This workflow does not involve design. Changes are made haphazardly until the implementation… Drifting Ruby Screencasts What the RegEx? In this episode, we look at different ways to use pattern matching with Regular Expressions in Ruby. Scott Watermasysk Simplifying Shorti's Api If you are not familiar, Shorti is my API only simple URL shortener. The source is on GitHub. Initially, all of the API endpoints returned JSON. JSON is convenient, and the tools around it are great these days. However, I did notice that in my primary use cases it was adding some unnecessary steps, especially when using it with shell scripts. Since it is a relatively new project, I thought it was best to fix this now. I made a change that now checks the HTTP ACCEPT header. If it is application/json , the API will return JSON. If it is anything else, it will return plain text. def is_json_request? request . accept == "application/json" end What is nice is that you can now simply… Bundler Blog December 2018 Bundler Update Welcome to the December 2018 monthly update! In December, Bundler reached two huge and exciting milestones. First, Ruby included Bundler for the first time ever, including Bundler 1.17.2 in Ruby 2.6. Special thanks are due to @hsbt for years worth of work integrating Bundler into the ruby-core test suite and keeping everything working and up to date. Second, Bundler shipped version 2.0! It’s a big milestone, and the Bundler team is very excited to adopt a yearly major release cadence, to better match Ruby itself. Bundler gained 55 new commits, contributed by 7 authors. There were 225 additions and 63 deletions across 21 files. Interested in contributing to Bundler? We always welcome… RubyGems Blog December 2018 RubyGems Updates Welcome to the RubyGems monthly update! As part of our efforts at Ruby Together, we publish a recap of the work that we’ve done the previous month. Read on to find out what updates were made to RubyGems and RubyGems.org in October. rubygems.org news In RubyGems.org news, lead RubyGems.org maintainer @dwradcliffe completed porting the production RubyGems.org deployment to use Kubernetes! This didn’t cause any user-facing changes, but makes it easier for others to develop locally, and will help us with our efforts to avoid downtime. Another major development was enabling two factor authentication, a Google Summer of Code project that can greatly improve the security of logging in and… Scott Watermasysk My Mac Mechanical Keyboard Search Short Version I enjoyed using both the Das Keyboard and WASD Code V3. The smaller size and backlighting would have been enough to push the WASD ahead, but the rollout and Windows requirement of the V3 was too much to overlook. In the end, I kept the Das Keyboard and returned the other two. The models I tested Das Keyboard 4 Professional (MX Blue) Matias Mini Tactile Pro (ALPS) WASD Code V3 87-Key (MX Blue) Sadly, there are not many “real” Mac choices for mechanical keyboards. Apple.com lists none. Most of what comes up on Amazon are ‘retro’ which is not the same a mechanical. Apple makes lion share of profits in the hardware space, but the number of units is still quite small. … RubyGuides Ruby Comments Explained! You can use a Ruby comment to add information to your code that may be helpful for you or other developers. The most common type of comment is the single-line comment. Here’s the syntax: # I like apples & oranges Notice three things about this: The comment starts with a pound (#) symbol We put […] The post Ruby Comments Explained! appeared first on RubyGuides. Don't miss your free gift here :) Valentino Gagliardi How to Test a Django Application: the Thought Process Behind Testing In the following tutorial you’ll learn how to test a Django application and the thought process behind testing and refactoring When it comes to backend my tools of choice are Django and Python. Speed of development (particulary useful for rapid prototyping) and the excellent test coverage I can get almost out of the box are the major boons for me. I use Django for training aspiring developers too and when I run a workshop I don’t go straight to the “right implementation”. What I like instead is guiding newcomers through the initial “working implementation” to refactoring into a more complex application. In this tutorial you’ll build a small application with the exact same… The Bike Shed 186: Let's Duplicate Stuff On this week's episode, Chris is joined by Daniel Colson, developer in our New York studio and current maintainer of all things FactoryBot. Chris & Daniel discuss Daniel's work as maintainer of one of thoughtbot's most popular open source projects and some of the parallels to thoughtbot's consulting work. They then discuss a bit more on the specifics of FactoryBot and what's in store for upcoming versions. To round out the conversation Daniel and Chris also dig into some of the testing related best practices and patterns common to thoughtbot projects, linting and formatting tools, and even dip into the age old discussion around single quotes vs double quotes (just a tiny bit). f…
Abstract There is a major resurgence of interest in brown adipose tissue (BAT) biology, particularly regarding its determinants and consequences in newborns and infants. Reliable methods for non-invasive BAT measurement in human infants have yet to be demonstrated. The current study first validates methods for quantitative BAT imaging of rodents post mortem followed by BAT excision and re-imaging of excised tissues. Identical methods are then employed in a cohort of in vivo infants to establish the reliability of these measures and provide normative statistics for BAT depot volume and fat fraction. Using multi-echo water-fat MRI, fat- and water-based images of rodents and neonates were acquired and ratios of fat to the combined signal from fat and water (fat signal fraction) were calculated. Neonatal scans (n = 22) were acquired during natural sleep to quantify BAT and WAT deposits for depot volume and fat fraction. Acquisition repeatability was assessed based on multiple scans from the same neonate. Intra- and inter-rater measures of reliability in regional BAT depot volume and fat fraction quantification were determined based on multiple segmentations by two raters. Rodent BAT was characterized as having significantly higher water content than WAT in both in situ as well as ex vivo imaging assessments. Human neonate deposits indicative of bilateral BAT in spinal, supraclavicular and axillary regions were observed. Pairwise, WAT fat fraction was significantly greater than BAT fat fraction throughout the sample (Δ WAT-BAT = 38%, p<10−4). Repeated scans demonstrated a high voxelwise correlation for fat fraction (R all = 0.99). BAT depot volume and fat fraction measurements showed high intra-rater (ICC BAT,VOL = 0.93, ICC BAT,FF = 0.93) and inter-rater reliability (ICC BAT,VOL = 0.86, ICC BAT,FF = 0.93). This study demonstrates the reliability of using multi-echo water-fat MRI in human neonates for quantification throughout the torso of BAT depot volume and fat fraction measurements. Citation: Rasmussen JM, Entringer S, Nguyen A, van Erp TGM, Guijarro A, Oveisi F, et al. (2013) Brown Adipose Tissue Quantification in Human Neonates Using Water-Fat Separated MRI. PLoS ONE 8(10): e77907. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0077907 Editor: Chin-Tu Chen, The University of Chicago, United States of America Received: June 20, 2013; Accepted: September 13, 2013; Published: October 30, 2013 Copyright: © 2013 Rasmussen et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: Funding for this project was supported by National Institutes of Health grants RO1 MH-091351 to CB, RO1 HD-065825 to SE, and R21 DK-098765 to SE and CB. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Introduction There is a major resurgence of interest in brown adipose tissue (BAT) biology consequent to relatively recent discoveries that BAT persists into adulthood and appears to play a protective role against obesity/adiposity risk and metabolic dysfunction [1]–[3]. The nature of BAT as a specialized heat-producing and energy- expending tissue and its role in neonatal thermogenesis has long been established. However, very little is known about BAT characteristics in early life such as amount, activity, change over time, as well as its immediate and long-term implications for obesity/adiposity and metabolic function. These questions require the development of reliable and valid non-invasive methods to perform quantitative BAT imaging in newborns, infants and children. In adults, the predominant imaging modality for BAT has been positron emission coupled with computed tomography (PET/CT) due to it’s ability to image active BAT metabolism alongside composition using Hounsefield unit attenuation. However, because PET/CT utilizes an ionizing source of radiation, it is not suitable for research use in pediatric populations. Despite it’s ability to only morphologically characterize BAT, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been identified as the “next major advancement” in imaging BAT, particularly in pediatrics [4]. In contrast to the uni-locular adipocyte composition of white adipose tissue (WAT), BAT has multi-locular adipocytes, is mitochondria-rich, and capillary-dense. Consequently, the ratio of water to fat is greater in BAT relative to WAT, making it ideally suited for multi-echo water-fat MRI techniques. Fat protons resonate at a frequency 3.5 parts per million higher than water, enabling BAT to be spectroscopically [5] differentiated from WAT. Multi-echo water-fat MRI takes advantage of the frequency difference, or chemical shift, by observing the contributions of differing phase on the overall signal [6]–[8]. Multi-echo water-fat MRI has localized rodent interscapular BAT (iBAT) [9], [10] and demonstrated increased water content between in vivo and post mortem states [11]. Rodent BAT volume quantification, derived from T2-weighted imaging with and without fat suppression, has further validated associations between iBAT and total weight [12] and between fat fraction and total weight [13]. Collectively, these studies demonstrate that rodent BAT has an MR signature unique from WAT. Literature on quantitative BAT imaging in infants is very limited. Thermographic techniques have been used to quantify BAT heat generation in infants [14]. However, while thermography is reflective of BAT function, it does not provide quantitative information about BAT deposition. Three of the earliest MRI applications to measuring BAT are clinical case reports. The first report [15] in a single subject using T2-weighted imaging found abnormally large and clinically relevant BAT deposits extending from the lower neck to axillary regions. The second report in a post mortem infant used multi-echo water-fat MRI [16] and validated multi-echo water-fat MRI-based identification of BAT with CT and dissection. A third report identified an interscapular BAT depot in eight post mortem infants using MRI and verified the depots as brown fat using histological and biochemical analysis [17]. More recently, two studies have demonstrated the feasibility of using MRI to detect in vivo BAT deposits. These reports [18], [19], in 2 and 12 infants respectively, found lower in vivo BAT fat fractions relative to WAT and discrete deposits containing a high concentration of both adipocytes and water (consistent with BAT) in the supraclavicular fossa. The goal of the present study was to assess the reliability of in vivo multi-echo water-fat MRI for quantification of BAT depot volume and fat fraction in human infants and characterize BAT deposition throughout the neonate torso. The protocol was first validated by in situ and ex vivo fat fraction comparison in rodents. Identical methods were then applied to neonates, in vivo, establishing normative measures of BAT depot volume and fat fraction throughout the torso. Two aspects of reliability were assessed and are reported here: test-retest reliability of the MRI data acquisition (in the same neonate), and intra/inter-rater reliability of BAT depot volume and fat fraction quantification (across subjects). Methods Rodent Imaging of BAT This study was executed according to the recommendations found in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. The protocol was approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the University of California at Irvine. Six two-month old Sprague-Dawley rats (250–275 g) were imaged post mortem simultaneously in a sealed and decontaminated container. Deposits of iBAT were then excised from the interscapular region along with WAT deposits from the perirenal region. The excised tissue was placed in glass tubes and immediately imaged. All imaging occurred within a three-hour period of animal sacrifice to minimize post mortem effects on the tissue. MRI was performed on a Siemens 3 T Tim Trio system (VB17 software) using a 12-channel head coil. Scans were conducted using a vendor-supplied chemical-shift two-point 3D gradient echo [20] Dixon method (TR = 7.47 ms, TE1/TE2 = 2.45/3.675 ms, NA = 16, BW/pixel = 977 Hz, FA = 10, Matrix = 512×320×160, 0.97×0.97×1 mm, Scan Time = 3 min 2 s). Neonatal Imaging Infant imaging was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of California at Irvine, and all parents provided informed, written consent. After feeding and soothing to the point of sleep, neonates were placed in a CIVCO beaded pillow (www.civco.com), covering body and head, that becomes rigid under vacuum providing a comforting swaddle, motion prevention and hearing protection when used in conjunction with standard foam earplugs. A pediatric specialist throughout the duration of scans observed neonates, monitoring for heart rate and oxygen saturation via a pulse oximeter attached to the foot. Scans were aborted in all cases of wakefulness within the neonate. The entire protocol included T1-weighted, T2-weighted, diffusion tensor and functional imaging of the brain. Of the 25 subjects who were initially imaged, 3 were excluded prior to analysis due to fat/water swapping arising from the ambiguity of phase greater than 2π [21], [22] in the regions that contain BAT depots identified in this work (supraclavicular, axillary, spine), resulting in a final sample of 22 subjects (9 males and 13 females). All infants were from healthy pregnancies with no known obstetric, birth or current health complications. In terms of race/ethnicity approximately one half of the study sample was Non-Hispanic White (N = 13), whereas the other infants were either Hispanic White (N = 6) or Hispanic of other race (N = 3). The mean infant age at assessment was 23.6±11.7 (±SD) days and ranged from 11 to 56 days. Subjects were imaged during natural sleep using a combination of a 12-channel head receive coil and a posterior neck coil. An anterior neck coil was added to increase the signal to noise ratio when infant size could accommodate it (N = 17). The field of view was defined as just superior to the lower jaw down to the lower abdomen, with a fixed size. Imaging parameters were matched to the rodent imaging parameters, albeit with a single average resulting in a shorter scan time to minimize in vivo motion artifact. Image Processing and Segmentation Voxelwise fat fraction (FF) maps were created from water and fat separated volumes (Figure 1) derived directly from the Siemens operating system, a feature readily available on most clinical platforms. The ratio of fat to the combined signal intensity from both fat and water used in this work is a fat signal fraction based on a two-point excitation incapable of accounting for the multiple peak resonances of fat and indirect dipole-dipole coupling. Hand drawn ROIs were used to extract FF from excised tissue samples and post mortem BAT regions (Figure 2). Thresholds for classifying BAT were determined based on a receiver operator characteristic analysis of the ex vivo samples. At an upper threshold of 60% FF, BAT was correctly classified 99% of the time with a WAT false positive of less than 10%. At a lower threshold of 20% FF, BAT was correctly classified 99.9% of the time. PPT PowerPoint slide PowerPoint slide PNG larger image larger image TIFF original image Download: Figure 1. Example Water, Fat and Fat Signal Fraction Images. Example images of water (left) and fat (middle) separation based on the opposed-phase imaging are shown. Fat signal fraction (right) is defined as the ratio of fat to the combined signal from fat and water. Moderate fat fraction values indicate BAT depots in the supraclavicular/axillary region (white arrows). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0077907.g001 PPT PowerPoint slide PowerPoint slide PNG larger image larger image TIFF original image Download: Figure 2. Fat Fraction in Rodent. Measured fat fraction in rodent demonstrates differentiation in fat fraction between white and brown adipose tissues. (A) In situ and ex vivo samples of BAT (brown adipose tissue) and WAT (white adipose tissue). (B) Single slice fat fraction map of ex vivo tissues in glass vials. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0077907.g002 Neonate BAT masks were created for visualization based on the following voxel attributes: 1) total signal greater than two standard deviations (SD) above the entire image mean (including background noise), 2) fat signal greater than one SD below the entire image mean, and 3) FF greater than 20% with no upper bound. Fat fraction values were overlaid on in-phase volumes to highlight individual differences in BAT depot volume, distribution and composition between subjects (Figure 3). PPT PowerPoint slide PowerPoint slide PNG larger image larger image TIFF original image Download: Figure 3. Fat Fraction In Three Planes. Three-plane view of BAT (brown adipose tissue) in a participant with relatively large (bottom row) and small (top row) deposits. Arrows in the axial and coronal views indicate supraclavicular/axillary BAT. Arrows in the sagittal view indicate bilateral spinal BAT deposits. Underlay volume is the in-phase echo. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0077907.g003 BAT and WAT deposits were segmented (Figure 4) and quantified for depot volume and fat fraction in all subjects using a semi-automated intensity-based process [23]. BAT was segmented in ITK-SNAP (www.itksnap.org) by applying a threshold filter limiting FF values between 20% and 60%. Seed points for active contour segmentation were manually placed in deposits close to lateral processes along the spine and in supraclavicular, and axillary regions. Seed bubbles of 3 mm were used to roughly cover these areas while avoiding any subcutaneous WAT partial volume regions. Supraclavicular ROIs were limited to four seed points per side, axillary to four seeds per side, and one seed per side on each vertebrae, ensuring consistent definition. Vertebral ROIs were limited to the first five thoracic vertebrae (T1–T5) in order to maintain well-defined and consistent boundaries for definition between raters. The active contour evolution was iterated until the contours were visually covered by label, between 40 and 60 iterations. Iterations were constrained to 50 in the more heterogeneous supraclavicular and axillary regions to avoid bleeding into neighboring voxels. WAT was segmented using the fat-only image and thresholding for values above the lowest quartile. A single seed of 5 mm was placed in the subcutaneous nuchal area of the neck to avoid regions contaminated by fat and water signal swap. The active contour evolution was iterated 100 times. Mean FF and total depot volume were computed for each of the three segmented BAT regions and one nuchal WAT region. An additional ROI mask containing the union of supraclavicular and axillary regions was also assessed to account for the occasionally ambiguous border between the supraclavicular and axillary regions. PPT PowerPoint slide PowerPoint slide PNG larger image larger image TIFF original image Download: Figure 4. Neonatal Segmentations. BAT (brown adipose tissue) segmentations in the neonate. From left to right: sagittal view of semi-automatic segmentations of spine T1–T5 (green), coronal view of supraclavicular (magenta) and axillary (red) ROIs, the 3-dimensional render of ROIs used in this manuscript, a 3-dimensional render of all voxels that fit the BAT criteria used in this manuscript for visualization (rust color). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0077907.g004 Results Rodent Ex Vivo Imaging In the rats, mean excised BAT and WAT voxel FFs were significantly different (p WAT-BAT <10−5). Ex vivo iBAT FF (43.7±7.8% SD) was 30% lower than perirenal WAT FF (73.3±10.4%) (Figure 2). Excised WAT tissue was found to have a larger spread in FF values as well as a relatively asymmetric distribution (skewness = −0.85) as compared to that of BAT tissue (skewness = −0.27). The apparent gamma-like distribution of WAT is due to the limit on the maximum value observed. Rodent In Situ Imaging In all 6 rodents, iBAT regions were qualitatively identifiable between the scapulae. Subcutaneous adipose tissue deposits were not accurately resolved due to the lower limit on spatial resolution for this protocol. The larger and more isotropic perirenal WAT deposits were easily identified. In situ relative to ex vivo FF differences were 0.8% and 5.4% in iBAT and WAT respectively (p WAT-BAT <10−5, iBAT FF = 43.0±14.1%, WAT FF = 67.9±15.6%). However, in situ compared to ex vivo measurement of iBAT FF showed a nearly two-fold larger standard deviation (SD in situ /SD ex vivo = 1.81). Human Neonate Imaging All 22 infants showed strong evidence for BAT deposits in spine, supraclavicular, and axillary regions (Figure 3). Spine, supraclavicular, axillary and union BAT region (Figure 4) fat fractions and depot volumes are reported in Table 1. Depot volume was more variable than FF in all regions, with the greatest depot volume variability found in supraclavicular BAT. Subcutaneous nuchal WAT had a mean FF of 67.7±4.6%. BAT and WAT FF means were significantly differentiated, pairwise, in vivo (Δ WAT-BAT = 38%, p<10−4). In all four regions, FF was significantly positively correlated with depot volume (R spine = 0.84, p spine <10−3; R sc = 0.50, p sc <.05; R axillary = 0.70, p axillary <10−3; R union = 0.56, p union <.05). PPT PowerPoint slide PowerPoint slide PNG larger image larger image TIFF original image Download: Table 1. Summary of Brown Adipose Tissue Depot Volume and Fat Fraction. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0077907.t001 Acquisition Test-Retest Reliability Fat fraction maps derived from two independent acquisitions of a single participant were visually indistinct from one another. The highest intensities found in the fat fraction difference map were limited to the exterior border interface of fat/air and a small region within the hand containing a phase swap artifact. The mean residuals between scan and re-scan were 2.7% in BAT, 2.6% in WAT and 2.8% across the entire image. Voxelwise fat fractions were strongly correlated with one another in all segmented BAT voxels (R BAT = 0.94), subcutaneous nuchal WAT voxels (R WAT = 0.88) and all remaining voxels (R ALL = 0.99). The mean fat fraction difference between BAT and WAT was 18-fold greater than the mean residual between scans, suggesting a high level of BAT/WAT tissue differentiation repeatability from scan to scan. Inter and Intra-Rater Reliability Inter- and intra-rater measurements of regional BAT depot volume and FF showed a high degree of reliability for all four ROIs examined in this study (Table 2). Spinal and supraclavicular/axillary union BAT depot volumes had the highest degree of between-rater reliability, followed by the supraclavicular region. Despite assessments being performed 2 weeks apart, intra-rater reliability was found to be slightly higher than inter-rater reliability. With the exception of axillary fat fraction, inter- and intra-rater performance of fat fraction characterization exceeded that of depot volume quantification. The supraclavicular/axillary union and bilateral spinal regions were seen to be the most robust to rater differences. The predominantly high intra-class correlations (Table 2) demonstrate the ability of the applied segmentation method to reliably measure BAT FF and depot volume in infants. PPT PowerPoint slide PowerPoint slide PNG larger image larger image TIFF original image Download: Table 2. Inter- and intra-rater reliability results. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0077907.t002 Discussion This study examined the reliability of a non-invasive method for infant BAT imaging based on imaging in rodents and a relatively large cohort of neonates. Previous findings were replicated by demonstrating that multi-echo water-fat MRI-based BAT FF is significantly lower than WAT FF in both rodents (Δ WAT-BAT 30%) and neonates (Δ WAT-BAT 38%). Neonatal BAT deposit fat fraction and depot volume were quantified using MRI in supraclavicular regions, axillary regions, and bilaterally along the spine. The study findings show high BAT scan/re-scan and segmentation (fat fraction and BAT depot volume) reliability. The BAT imaging protocol used in this study was validated in rodents by demonstrating that WAT and BAT tissues significantly differ in FF. Recent studies have established, albeit with limited data, that FF in BAT deposits are comparable between rodents and humans. The measured rodent BAT FF in our study (43%) is in tight concordance with previous observations [13]. To the best of our knowledge, only 3 published reports exist of human neonate BAT FF: the first was a post mortem infant with a measured fat fraction of 42% [16], the second was limited to two neonate subjects with fat fractions of 39% and 52% [18], and the third had an infant age range from birth of up to six month with an average of 38.2% BAT fat fraction [19]. Closer inspection of infants of similar age in the third report suggests a range of FF from 20–40% (with an average of approximately 30%). These numbers overlap with the means and ranges observed in our report (BAT FF,Range = 22–40%, BAT FF = 30.2%). Finally, one study [11] reported a 10% increase in FF from the in vivo to post mortem state in rodents. Our findings support this observation, with supraclavicular BAT deposits for in vivo neonates having an average fat fraction of 29% compared to the post mortem fat fraction of 43% observed here in rats. The significant decrease in FF from the in vivo to the ex vivo state might be a physiological consequence of the perfusion that occurs in functioning BAT [26], contributing to the overall water content in BAT FF measurements. Fat fraction as a relative measure is less susceptible to rater interpretation than volume measurements. BAT deposits are surrounded by a number of soft tissues, making their borders difficult to consistently define without a standardized protocol. Only 2 of the 4 previously published neonatal BAT MRI studies provide quantitative data on BAT depot volume. The first identified a unique iBAT deposit in 8 post-mortem infants with a mean (SD) of 3.6 mL (2.4). The second quantified a supraclavicular BAT volume of 17.4 ml in a single post mortem neonate. While this value is greater than the highest value observed here, the difference might easily be accounted for by a difference in age at scan (roughly 10 weeks on average). It should also be noted that current fat fraction methods fail to account for potential partial voluming of WAT interspersed into BAT depots, introducing an ambiguity to the true volume of BAT available for thermogenesis. Assuming uniform function and distribution of BAT, volume is important in the calculation of overall energy demand by the tissue. That means, more BAT volume equates to more available tissue for thermogenesis and consequently energy expenditure. Prior literature has focused only on the supraclavicular/axillary regions of BAT in the human neonate. Our work measures other BAT deposition sites based on prior evidence from PET/CT and/or post mortem dissections. BAT deposition was consistently observed in three areas roughly corresponding to medial shoulder (supraclavicular), an area connecting the axilla to the inner shoulder (axillary), and bilaterally along the spine. The borders between the distribution in the axillary regions and those within supraclavicular regions were difficult to differentiate in some subjects. The spinal deposits along the transverse and articular processes in the spinal column were often accompanied by deposition around the vertebral body and the spinous process. For consistency, only the deposits along the transverse and articular processes were segmented in this study and limited to vertebrae T1–T5. The BAT regions described here were sometimes accompanied by a bilateral distribution extending up the neck, but were not segmented due to their inconsistent presence. All neonate BAT regions identified in this study are concordant with regions identified in adult PET studies [1]–[3], [27]. Recent documentation of in vivo BAT in infants [19] more fully characterizes the fat fraction in the supraclavicular fossa and describes the low fat fraction region extending into the nape of the arm. A clinical report more fully describes the axillary deposit seen in the neonate.13 In early reports the spinal region is discussed as the predominant site of heat production in the neonate [28], [29]. All of these regions are visible in PET/CT studies, with more pronounced signs of metabolic activity in the supraclavicular regions. It is not known to what extent the regions examined in these studies overlap, and what influence post mortem effects may have had on previous attempts at detecting BAT throughout the torso. An assessment of various aspects of reliability was performed in order to validate the consistency of the methodology used here. Spinal adipose deposits present with clearly delineated borders resulting in a high degree of measurement reliability within and between raters. Supraclavicular regions posed a more significant challenge for segmentation routines due to the presence of other soft tissues and a relatively ambiguous border between the supraclavicular and axillary areas. Each of these regions on their own showed a high degree of reliability within a rater, but was found to be more rater dependent when compared to the union of supraclavicular and axillary regions. In order to minimize rater bias it is our recommendation based on these observations that in the absence of clear definable anatomical boundaries the combined region including the axillary be used in association studies. As is the case for any newly developing field, there is more to be done in the area of neonatal BAT imaging. We have demonstrated reliable methods that are readily available to researchers. More sophisticated, but less clinically accessible, methods of quantifying the proton density fat fraction are capable of accurate quantification of water and fat by using multiple echoes (3+) to model multiple fat peaks, T1/T2/T2* relaxation and other potential confounds [30]. Despite the increased accuracy extra echoes affords in water-fat separation, multiple methods have demonstrated the capability of dual-echo methods in discriminating BAT from WAT in humans [17], [31]. Because PET/CT presents unnecessary risks to healthy pediatric populations, water-fat MRI is currently the most viable solution for in vivo quantification of BAT composition. MRI methods, however, have yet to provide a direct measurement of BAT activity and thermogenesis in neonates as do PET/CT and thermography, respectively. Furthermore, multi-echo water-fat MRI does not differentiate between active and inactive BAT, a potential confound when considering the biological importance of BAT activity. Current MRI modalities capable of this may include imaging the perfusion associated with BAT activation using Arterial Spin Labeling or applying methods established for Blood-Oxygen-Level-Dependent changes in rodents [32] under norepinephrine administration or humans under cold exposure [33]. Two major obstacles prevent temperature challenges in assessing BAT function in neonates: 1) safely and reliably exposing neonates to standardized cold conditions, and 2) detecting small in vivo signal changes induced by BAT activation brought on by cold condition administration. Diffusion Tensor Imaging may also present an interesting avenue for descriptive work due to its known ability to demonstrate diffusion in adipose tissue [34] as well as the ability to co-locate the nerve endings needed for norepinephrine innervation of BAT [35]. Finally, hyperpolarized 13C imaging has recently been used to monitor BAT activation in rodents under norepinephrine injection by measuring the metabolic conversion of pre-polarized [1-13C] pyruvate [36] and shows great promise in BAT activity detection. Our study imaged, identified, quantified and examined the reliability of BAT composition in neonates. Currently, little is known in humans about the developmental determinants of BAT and the changes in BAT mass during the first years of life. Given the suggestion that early reductions in BAT deposition may continue throughout life [37] and may be related to the onset of obesity, localizing and quantifying BAT depot volume and fat fraction in newborns and infants may help us arrive at a better understanding of the underlying early developmental risk factors for obesity and metabolic dysfunction. The application of these methods holds promise towards this goal and therefore has important implications for health and disease risk over the individual lifespan. Acknowledgments This work could not have been accomplished without the assistance and talent of the many individuals responsible for coordinating and executing the family visits. We thank Dr. James Fallon for providing us the benefit of his invaluable anatomical knowledge. Author Contributions Conceived and designed the experiments: PW SE CB JMS. Performed the experiments: SGP TvE JMR. Analyzed the data: JMR AN. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: AG DP FO. Wrote the paper: JMR PW.
In what is likely to be the final attempt to close the minimum five year gap between the current shuttle retirement date and debuting of Ares/Orion manned flight capability, NASA has presented an expansive shuttle extension study to lawmakers within the past couple of days. The study outlines the costs, risks, benefits and impacts for adding shuttle flights to expand the manifest to 2012 or 2015. Shuttle Extension still a possibility: Although a number of layoffs have already begun in shuttle related areas, extension remains a possibility, even though the upcoming release of the next NASA budget on Thursday will not include any language that reflects the intent to pursue either of the two extension options. This is due to the budget submission only being the first step of the process, where the President proposes, and the Congress disposes. They key decision point will come later in the budget process, which ultimately will decide the forward path for not only the United States’ dominance in space, but also the fate of large section of the space program’s workforce. That key decision will relate to additional funding, as opposed to the status of the Constellation schedule due to numerous assessments beng undertaken. The “Final” Study: Presented to lawmakers on Friday night, the NASA extension study – titled “Impacts of Shuttle Extension. Pursuant to Section 611(e) of the NASA Authorization Act of 2008” – has been late in arriving at the halls of power in Washington, DC, but impresses with its depth of content and objectivity. Prefaced by an Executive Summary – which mirrors the language of former NASA administrator Mike Griffin, who was firmly against extending the operational life of the shuttle program past 2010, the study opens by citing safety concerns and impacts to the Constellation Program. “It is important to note that Shuttle extension would require several billion dollars in additional funding above what is currently in the FY 2009 budget runout to avoid delaying IOC (Initial Operational Capability) of the Ares I/Orion vehicle,” noted the Executive Summary of the study, which has been acquired by L2. “Otherwise, the gap between the two capabilities would simply be shifted out, not shortened, delaying the development of a unique domestic capability for both ISS crew transport and rescue and exploration missions beyond low-Earth orbit.” The opening summary also notes the NASA’s independent Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) recommendation against extension, which the study claims was presented “recently” – although this appears to be outdated, as it cites: “ASAP strongly endorses the NASA position on not extending Shuttle operations beyond successful execution of the December 2008 manifest, completing the ISS.” The aforementioned comments appear to match those initially presented in an opening extension study which outlined several options for expanding the manifest. However, this latest “Final” study immediately moves into a more favorable – whilst objective – overview of the possibility of adding flights to reduce the gap. The two study options: Two clear options – noted as Case 1 (to 2012) and Case 2 (to 2015) – are presented in the study, the first of which adds three flights to the current manifest, resulting in the retirement of the shuttle in 2012. The below content concentrates mainly on the 2012 option. The Case 1 option would cost $4.7 billion in additional funds, which the study warns would have to come via new funding, as opposed to draining Constellation’s budget. It also acknowledges recent ‘get-wells’ in adding flights, such as the part builds of at least two new External Tanks at the Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF), added to the refurbishment of ET-122. “Case 1 would add three flights and extend the Space Shuttle through 2012. Case 1 would use the existing inventory of External Tank components but would require additional Solid Rocket Booster material and other procurements,” outlined the study “Unless billions of dollars are added to NASA’s budget, Case 1 would extend the transition time between Space Shuttle retirement and Constellation’s initial operations because the funding for the extension would need to come from Constellation and the funding reductions would greatly slow Constellation development. “Case 1 would require that approximately $4.7 billion be added to the NASA budget or redirected to the Shuttle from other NASA programs through FY 2012. This estimate includes all costs associated with adding three flights and flying through 2012, and assumes no significant schedule slips within the Shuttle manifest and no changes to the existing (2015 IOC) Constellation baseline. “The cost estimate includes all costs associated with maintaining production, sustaining engineering, and critical workforce skills needed to safely fly out this scenario. Again, these additional costs are not included in the NASA budget. The “assumption” that Orion’s IOC date will remain at 2015 is an unknown variable at this time, with the current PMR process currently showing zero confidence in achieving that target. Several efforts are underway – and/or proposed – to find solutions to funding and disconnect issues related with Constellation’s schedule, although lawmakers at last week’s House appropriations panel hearing were informed by NASA managers that assessments are still continuing on the status of the long-term schedule, and that additional funding would not solve the gap – due to long-lead development constraints. The second option – extending the shuttle program to 2015, involving a schedule of up to 23 missions (including STS-125, and onwards) between now and the middle of the next decade – is deemed less favorable, based on the estimated cost of $14 billion in additional funding, and the unavoidable impacts on Ares V. This options works on a three flights per year schedule, with three flights added to the manifest if Orion 2 is delayed. Interestingly the study also cites the potential of a privately developed crew transportation system – likely created via a COTS-D (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services) contract. “Bounding Case 2 would maintain a capability to fly three missions per year through 2015, or a total of 13 beyond 2010,” noted the study. “This capability, along with international partner transportation capabilities, would be available to support the ISS, either through the baseline planned Orion IOC in 2015 or earlier if a crew transport capability supplied by a private U.S. commercial enterprise were viable before 2015. “Case 2 could only potentially eliminate the interval between Space Shuttle and Constellation operations if about $14 billion were added to NASA’s budget through FY 2015. “Extending Space Shuttle operations to 2015 would introduce serious challenges to the existing schedule for the Constellation Program’s Ares V lunar capability and might not allow for any “retooling” period between the last flight of Shuttle and the first flight of Ares I/Orion. However, Case 2 would preserve the facilities, workforce, and infrastructure for a heavy lift capability. “NASA does not believe Space Shuttle operations can be extended this long without severe budget and operational impacts that would effectively postpone Constellation development indefinitely. The $14 billion cost estimate for Case 2 includes all costs associated with flying through 2015, and assumes no changes to the existing (2015 IOC) Constellation Program baseline. “The cost estimate includes all costs associated with maintaining production, sustaining engineering, and critical workforce skills needed to safely fly out this scenario. These additional costs are not included in the NASA budget.” The NASA study further expanded on the cost estimates for extension later in the presentation, adding that the costings are based on post-2010 savings on the current shuttle budget – such as via the reduction in the planned flight rate; and increases in production efficiency – but it does not take into account post-retirement costs. Extra funding equates to minor Constellation impacts: NASA admits that the additional funding of $4.7 billion – spread over three years – would allow a reduction in the gap by the full two years, with only minor impacts to the Constellation Program, impacts NASA claims could be mitigated. Again, Case 1 – extending to 2012, is favored over extending to 2015, due to the unavoidable conflicts the five year extension would have on the handover of facilities earmarked for Ares V work. “NASA assessed the impacts of both extension cases on the ISS and Constellation baseline programs. If $4.7 billion in additional funds were provided, Case 1 had only minor negative impacts on planned Constellation baseline milestones, which NASA believes could be mitigated,” the study noted. “Case 1 benefited ISS by providing three additional missions to the ISS and additional crew rotation, although it did not reduce the need for the purchase of Russian Soyuz vehicles for crew rescue purposes. “Case 2 had more significant impacts on planned Constellation milestones independent of additional funding from other parts of NASA. In particular, flying the Space Shuttle beyond 2012 would delay handover of some facilities critical to the Ares V program including areas of MAF, Pad A at KSC, which Constellation plans to reconfigure for Ares V; and the A2 test stand at the Stennis Space Center, which Constellation plans to use for J-2X engine development.” Manifest replan – OMDP requirements: Should the US government approve the additional funding to allow for an extension, the shuttle schedule would be slightly realigned after STS-128 flies to the ISS this August. STS-131 and STS-132 would also remain in their scheduled timeframe. “Both Case 1 and Case 2 would fly the current manifest, as scheduled, through STS-128 (17A), currently scheduled to launch August 2009. Maintaining the near-term manifest through these flights would stabilize ISS crew rotations on Space Shuttle,” the study outlined. “ISS missions 19A and ULF 4 would fly in the same general time period as shown on the current manifest to support ISS logistics for a six-person crew. “Pursuing Case 1 would foreclose the possibility of additional flights beyond 2012 without significant additional cost and technical risk due to the closure of flight hardware production contracts no longer needed to complete hardware already in production. Case 2 would preserve the capability to fly beyond 2012 to no later than 2015, if required.” As previously noted in extension studies, plans have always rotated around flying two orbiters on the additional flights to 2012. For Case 1, those flights would be tasked to Atlantis and Endeavour, with Discovery retiring after flying the AMS payload to the ISS on proposed – but not officially baselined – STS-134 mission, at least according to the manifest graphic for a 2012 extension. “Case 1 would require no new External Tank production through 2012. It would require an extension to the Orbiter Maintenance Down Period (OMDP) 5.5 year interval requirement for Atlantis/OV-104; Discovery/OV-103 and Endeavour/OV-105 have sufficient margin to fly out the manifest through 2012. The Case 1 manifest rephases some flights from the current manifest.” The reference to the OMDP requirement – when an orbiter is required to standdown for around a year in order to undergo major overhaul work – is due for Discovery after the proposed STS-134 mission. Given she would only be ready to return to flight status after 2011, her operational lifetime will come to an end after STS-134 based on Case 1. The Program Requirements Control Board (PRCB) already extended the orbiter’s flight duration inbetween OMDPs to a length of eight flights and five and a half years – instead of the previous three years, installing “mini OMDP” work to be carried out in the Orbiter Processing Facilities (OPFs) during processing flows. This ultimately allowed for the stay of execution for Atlantis, after she was previously scheduled to be retired in 2008, at the conclusion of STS-125 – pre-slip, and another effort on increasing the OMDP interval – likely based on interim priority work inbetween processing flows – would be likely be required for Atlantis and Endeavour. Challenges with extension: The study continues by citing the need for a standdown period between the end of shuttle operations and the start of Constellation – though the study fails to specify if the Constellation date refers to Orion’s IOC date. “There will need to be cessation in operations between the Space Shuttle and Constellation. This operational reconfiguration period is necessary to allow time to prepare for the next phase of space exploration,” the study noted. “Facilities that are needed for both Space Shuttle and Constellation operations need to be modified, key workforce needs to be retrained on Constellation systems (ideally while their Space Shuttle operations experience is fresh), and Constellation production and operations processes need to be exercised. “For these reasons, NASA estimates that a minimum of approximately 18–24 months of reconfiguration time is needed to enable an orderly transition from Space Shuttle to Constellation operations while minimizing disruptions to the workforce with critical skills. “NASA identified issues that presented major and minor obstacles to achieving the proposed Space Shuttle manifest cases, ISS key milestones, and Constellation key milestones. “Major issues are those that need considerable program attention or funding to resolve that is outside the span of control for the program. If not adequately resolved, these issues could prevent NASA from executing its programs as proposed. Minor issues are those for which mitigation currently exists or that can be resolved with a minimum of additional work or funding.” Listed as minor issue, the Orbiter Project – based at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) – referenced the “certification” of the orbiters for flying through to 2012. “In its 2003 report, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) recommended that, if NASA chose to fly Shuttle Orbiters beyond 2010, the Agency should develop and conduct a vehicle certification at the material, component, subsystem, and system levels to determine if Orbiter hardware was being processed and operated within qualification and certification limitations. “The Space Shuttle program performed a review of the vehicle certification and the certification verification assessments during return to flight (RTF) to assure the vehicles could fly through 2010. “At the time of this initial review, NASA Shuttle managers decided that a complete vehicle recertification would not be necessary to fly past 2010; however, under the Case 1 scenario, NASA would need to reassess the certification packages and material review of the critical components on the Orbiter to ensure there were no time and cycle or material age-related issues or other potential safety considerations. “NASA would also ensure that the vehicle continues to operate within the constraints and requirements defined by its current certification. Required inspections and testing during vehicle processing would provide.” The Orbiter Project also referenced the delay to the Orion Docking Hardware in the event of an extension to 2012, but also noted a potential solution. “If the Shuttle Program were extended beyond 2010, Orbiter-ISS docking hardware, the Androgynous Peripheral Assembly System (APAS), would not be available for handover to the Orion Project in January 2010. This would delay the development of the Orion ISS docking system. “To address this delay, the Orion Project would likely re-evaluate a previously studied alternate to develop the docking system using a common berthing mechanism instead of the Shuttle APAS interface. Potential delivery of this docking adapter to ISS by the Shuttle might also be evaluated.” On the NASA civil servant workforce, the transition of employees from SSP to Constellation – based on the current scenario of shuttle retirement in 2010 – would be interrupted. Again, the Orbiter Project believes this issue can be mitigated. “The Constellation Program is anticipating that, as Shuttle retires, SSP civil servant workforce will transfer to Constellation to support exploration. Extending the Shuttle would alter the profile of this workforce transfer. “NASA engineering and operations teams currently support both programs, so NASA anticipates that there would continue to be significant synergies between the two programs that would mitigate this risk.” Safety Risks and Mitigation: Often cited by former NASA administrator Mike Griffin as a reason against extending the shuttle manifest, the risk of losing an orbiter during a mission is examined by the study. “The latest Space Shuttle probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) indicates that the single mission risk for loss of crew and vehicle (LOCV) is 1 in 77; stated another way, there is a 98.7 percent probability of safely executing each flight. “NASA has conducted a number of PRAs for the Space Shuttle since 1987, and the average risk of LOCV has remained fairly consistent over that time. This risk is predicted to remain consistent over the remaining life of the program. The primary drivers for LOCV are, in order of the magnitude of their contribution to the overall risk: micro-meteoroid/orbital debris (MMOD), ascent debris, and Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) malfunctions. “In addition, NASA will continue to evolve its PRA tools to address anomalies encountered during flight operations. By monitoring anomaly trends across different categories (for example, by whether an anomaly is due to design issues, age, operations or procedurally-induced effects, or unknown or random phenomena), NASA gains both near-term insights into Space Shuttle performance opportunities for potential safety improvements during ongoing operations as well as longer-term benefit in applying experience-based risk models to future programs like Constellation. “For Case 1, flying 12 missions (current manifest, plus AMS, plus three additional flights) would result in a higher cumulative risk of catastrophic failure due to more flights, when compared to the current nine mission baseline. The Shuttle PRA calculates the probability of LOCV during a nominal mission to be between 1 in 45 and 1 in 130 per mission with 90 percent confidence. This number contains many assumptions.” Those assumptions are expanded on in depth later in the study, with the threat of LOVC expanding in the event of extending the program to 2015, due obviously to the additional flights Case 2 calls for. However, the PRA numbers also require adjustment on both sides of the spectrum when taking into account the increasing age of the orbiters, but also the numerous safety improvements that have been – and will continue to be – made on the vehicles. “NASA’s safety and mission assurance strategy emphasizes the need for rigorous program and independent safety reviews, as well as continual safety improvements throughout a program’s life cycle. Improvements to both processes and hardware are made for each Space Shuttle flight, and NASA will continue to invest in prudent safety enhancements through the last mission. “Recently, these have included analyses of composite overwrap pressure vessels (COPVs), thermal protection systems, and structural components from Space Shuttle Columbia. These analyses provide NASA engineers with insight into the performance of Space Shuttle systems under extreme conditions and performance data on flight systems which are normally inaccessible during regular and major maintenance processing flows. “In addition, instrumentation that was recently added to the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Motors and crew cabin as part of the Constellation Program’s development activity has provided useful data to help refine existing Space Shuttle engineering models.” Also aiding the PRA numbers are additional “safety investment opportunities”, which were identified by the Columbia Crew Survival Investigation Report, several of which have already been implemented – including installing improved inertial reels on the crew restraint straps and providing an upgraded crew survival radio with GPS tracking. “NASA is evaluating several other enhancements that could be implemented before 2010, including a GPS personal locator beacon; improved seatbelts and retention straps; increased head and neck protection; and improved supplemental oxygen,” the study continued. “If Shuttle were extended beyond 2010, several other safety improvements would be assessed for implementation. These include conformal crew helmets; battery powered intercoms; automatic parachute deployment; and automatic helmet visor closure during depressurization. “NASA’s cost estimates for Space Shuttle extension include approximately $20M per year, starting in FY 2010, to continually evaluate and implement these and other potential Shuttle safety enhancements. SSP would also work closely with the Orion Project to identify opportunities to use the Space Shuttle as a testbed to evaluate safety enhancements to Orion seats and crew equipment.” Procurements with contractors for extension: In the event of an extension, procurement offices at Johnson Space Center and Marshall Space Flight Center reviewed the requirements associated with six of the Space Shuttle prime contracts to determine the impact of extending the SSP. “All of the contracts reviewed would require a procurement action to extend performance to 2012 and beyond. To extend the contracts, NASA would have to complete a master buy submission, a Procurement Strategy Meeting (PSM), a complete Request For Proposal and subsequent negotiation, and a contract instrument. “Three of the six – the Space Program Operations Contract (SPOC) and the SSME (Space Shuttle Main Engines) and ET contracts – would not require additional justification for other than full and open competition (JOFOC), while the other three would require new JOFOC authority. “Extension of the contracts would require a length of contract Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) deviation which needs approval by the HQ Office of Procurement. Two of the contracts, Reusable Solid Rocket Motor (RSRM) and ET, would have a potential for an Undefinitized Contract Action (UCA) to assure availability of long-lead materials. In addition, there are other, small activities which would be accomplished with procurement activity to extend performance. “Most of the contracts currently include special provisions for human capital retention which would have to be renegotiated since the current provisions were timed for a program end in 2010. The exception to this is the imaging contract with Neptec because this contract does not contain a retention provision.” Summary: The study also produced notes on the evaluations relating to 2015, with respect to risk, safety, OMDPs, and impacts to Constellation – with the latter proving to be far more serious in relation to both Ares I/Orion and especially Ares V. However, the more favorable 2012 extension option (Case 1) received additional notes of support, not previously seen in extension study presentations. However, once again, NASA insists that the additional $4.7 billion must be new money, as opposed to being switched from the Constellation Program. If new funds were forthcoming, NASA claim – and again for the first time – the extension of the shuttle could actually benefit the Constellation Program. “Extending SSP could provide ancillary benefits for the ISS and Constellation programs, assuming that the $4.7 billion needed to extend SSP aren’t taken from those programs. The Space Shuttle provides upmass capability to the ISS and the only significant downmass capability from the Station. This downmass capability could enable the U.S. to expand science and basic research aboard the Station and to support future exploration. “Until replacement crew and heavy-lift capabilities are available, the Space Shuttle is also the only vehicle that can, if necessary, carry out some ISS repairs and large component replacements in the event they are necessary, although NASA is pre-positioning spares on the Space Station prior to 2010 retirement to mitigate this need. “Because the Space Shuttle can provide ISS crew rotation, extension might also provide the U.S. with greater flexibility in negotiating with Russia for Soyuz purchases; however, the U.S. would still require the Russian Soyuz to provide emergency crew return from ISS. “The additional Space Shuttle missions could potentially benefit the Constellation Program by providing a limited opportunity to use the Shuttle as a platform for testing the Constellation Program hardware, software, and new operational principles in the combined environments of space. Another key item is the support for the International Space Station – especially if its operational lifetime is extended to the proposed date of 2020. “The Space Shuttle provides unique capabilities in support of the ISS program. From an ISS perspective, extending Space Shuttle operations would provide some additional (but currently unfunded) opportunities for increased utilization, while at the same time mitigating some of ISS’ operational risks. “The Space Shuttle’s large carrying capacity (with a cargo bay measuring 15 x 60 feet and capable of carrying approximately 35,000 pounds to the ISS) means that it can deliver payloads that no currently available vehicle in either the U.S. or international partner inventory can deliver. “Extending the Space Shuttle beyond the current manifest would create more opportunities for flying experiments within the large pressurized Multi-Purpose Logistics Modules (MPLM), or carrying oversized research payloads or additional pressurized and unpressurized elements. It is important to note, however, that none of this research is currently funded.” While the Station will be supplied with hardware via the $3.5 billion Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract, awarded to Orbital and SpaceX, the downmass capability of shuttle is also noted in the study. Any extension option would still work side-by-side with the CRS partners. “The Shuttle is also currently unique in being able to return large, failed orbital replacement units (ORU) to Earth for detailed failure analysis. Overall, ISS hardware continues to perform well on orbit, and NASA is pre-positioning hardware and supplies on the ISS with Space Shuttle before 2010. “If Station operations continue past 2015 and no new capability to return ORUs emerges, additional Shuttle flights beyond 2010 could be used to fly these ORUs and therefore reduce overall operational risk to the ISS program,” the study adds. “Extending Shuttle operations, however, is no substitute for commercial providers of primary cargo and (eventually) crew transportation capabilities to the ISS once these capabilities are available.” A large amount of work would be required if extension receives the necessary funding, especially in coordinating the eventual transition from shuttle to Constellation. However, the reference to Constellation acceleration is now a moot point, as the ability to advance the IOC date for Orion is now longer viable. “Given the fact that Space Shuttle and Constellation draw upon a largely common pool of workforce skills, production capabilities, operational facilities, and budget resources, efforts to extend either Space Shuttle or accelerate Constellation would likely impact, to some extent, capabilities that are critical to the success of the other (though some of these impacts can be mitigated through additional coordination). “Additional analysis would be required to fully identify the mutual dependencies, key decision points, shared resource strategies, and cost impacts of a strategy that incorporated elements of both extension and acceleration.” Ultimately, there will be a gap between shuttle retirement and Orion’s manned debut. The question remains how long a gap the US government wishes to place on its human space flight capability via the near-term and downstream budget levels. “Available budget resources essentially compel a cessation in operations between the Space Shuttle and Constellation, as reflected in current national space exploration policy. “From a strategic perspective, U.S. leadership in human space flight space will be demonstrated by both ensuring robust ISS operations after the retirement of the Shuttle and developing a space transportation system capable of supporting exploration activities on the Moon and beyond.” L2 members: Documentation – from which most of the above article has quoted snippets – is available in full in the related L2 sections, now over 4000 gbs in size.
Just when you think you know someone near and dear, they go and surprise you all over again. It's been some 12 years since Shadow of the Colossus' original release, and one remaster and a fresh new remake later it's lost absolutely none of its ability to awe. This is a game whose power hasn't diminished one iota in all that time, and in Bluepoint's exquisite remake it's a game with the capacity to spring a surprise or two, no matter how familiar you are with the original. Not that anything has changed, per se, with the PlayStation 4 remake proving resolutely faithful to the 2005 original. It's been built from the ground up, but everything's just as you remembered it, and everything's just where you'd expect to find it. Guide protagonist Wanda up the cliffs as you make your way to the first colossus and there's that same clumsiness in his animations as he stumbles and fumbles for grip. Mount your horse Agro and there's that same slight unease in your motion, and there's that same eerie emptiness to be found out in the wilds beyond Mono's tomb. And yet, when you encounter that first colossus - surely one of the most iconic gaming moments of the 21st century - it's like experiencing it all anew. That fur is denser and more detailed as it glistens in the light cast by Shadow of the Colossus' downbeat sun, and it all feels a little more alive in 4K and HDR enabled by a PlayStation 4 Pro. It's all enough to make you wince that little bit more when you plunge the blade into its skull having climbed the beast's back. I don't think anyone's ever doubted that Shadow of the Colossus is one of the all-time greats, but this remake makes sure this is now an open-and-shut case. What's remarkable, returning to Team Ico's game, is how its open world remains singularly brilliant and utterly refreshing when taken in a modern context. It's pointedly free of objective markers, NPCs and distractions. You've nothing but its own beauty to keep you occupied. And what beauty it is. Moss sitting atop dark lakes, mournfully quiet meadows and a blanket of thin cloud overhead, forests which are thick with ferns. Shadow of the Colossus was always a striking looking game, but this is something else entirely. There are options and some minor embellishments - there are a variety of visual filters available and you can adjust the motion blur effect, though the camera still moves in lurches, just as it did in the original. The controls, while tweaked, aren't necessarily graceful, though I've always felt that was kind of the point of Shadow of the Colossus, a game in which the real majesty is preserved for those beasts themselves while you blunder and bludgeon your way around them. And in those imperfections there remains a game that's not for everyone, but miss the chance to play it afresh when this remake comes out next February at your peril. Games this powerful come very rarely, and to get to experience it afresh all over again is something very special indeed.
xAPI: A Year In Review Every day the community and buzz around the Experience API (xAPI) continues to grow larger, stronger, and for good reasons. We are doing incredible work together! The adoption of xAPI has increased significantly this year. While we don't have the exact numbers (yet) on the size of adoption around the world we often hear about specific case studies as well as a wide range of innovative global implementations of xAPI. As we close the curtain on 2016 and prepare for the new year, we would like to highlight some key projects, achievements, and progress made on the xAPI. Updates to DoD Policy 1322.26 In January, ADL Initiative funded two Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) efforts in begin research in support of updating the DoDI 1322.26 (2006), which previously only addressed the delivery, development, and management of SCORM ® content. The new policy updates empower DoD Services to adopt xAPI and specifically focuses on the following areas: Reaffirms ADL Initiative as authority on learning tech standards for DoD Directs DoD to implement distributed learning interoperability specifications and standards recommended by ADL Initiative Formally charters the DoD ADL Action Committee (DADLAC) as an oversight body for distributed learning requirements in the DoD In September, the new DoDI updates were submitted for legal review. The new DoDI 1322.26 is progressing through the formal issuance coordination process and we expect it to be officially signed and published in early 2017. In the meantime, a companion resource is already available as a living document and draft at . Vocabulary Companion Spec & Primer Starting in 2015, the xAPI community formed a working group to begin looking at how we could improve our semantic practices for creating and publishing identifiers, vocabulary, and profiles for xAPI. All the use cases, assets, materials, and other resources produced by the xAPI Vocabulary Working Group are archived here. The contributions of this working group were substantial and led to the creation of a Vocabulary Companion Specification and Primer in February 2016. In a nutshell, these documents provide guidance for bridging the gap between vocabulary resource identifiers in xAPI with the semantic approaches afforded by the Resource Description Framework (RDF), and suggests using JSON-LD as a format for xAPI profiles. Following this new guidance provides improved meaning, multilingual translation, discovery, and reuse of xAPI vocabulary terms. It also opens up new opportunities for federated search, dynamic look-up of vocabulary data within authoring applications, improved learning analytics, machine learning, and adaptive learning capabilities supported by intelligent agents and other systems. Profile & Vocabulary Publishing Research After the release of the Vocabulary Companion Specification and Primer, ADL Initiative implemented an open source semantic web application for querying and reusing xAPI vocabularies. The application works when xAPI profiles have vocabularies that are expressed and published as linked data representations. This prototype application has an open endpoint for SQL-like queries (http://xapi.vocab.pub/sparql) for both constructing and saving queries, and for returning the results in a variety of different data formats. It also provides a faceted search interface (http://xapi.vocab.pub). Some example xAPI profiles' vocabularies are available here. A second phase of this research will begin in 2017, when we will look to improve the curation and publishing process while consolidating and centralizing all xAPI profiles and vocabulary into one linked-data system or registry. In addition, future and related BAA research focused on improving the semantic interoperability of xAPI might also influence this work as we research the potential of a more powerful, ontology-based information model. New Published Profiles ADL Initiative worked with several communities of practice during the past year to publish profiles and their vocabularies based on the new guidance provided in the companion Vocabulary Specification. Some of the profiles published this year include cmi5, SCORM, AcrossX, medbiquitous virtual patient, serious games, and video. While some of these profiles are still a work in progress, we expect their unique characteristics to help inform future research on a refined profile schema, conformance, and profile statement validation. Also, we expect to begin more profile hardening and testing in military network environments in 2017. Learning Record Store (LRS) Conformance and Certification Research Following gaps identified during the policy updates to DoDI 1322.26, new research efforts began on xAPI LRS Conformance and Certification in July. These research efforts engaged the xAPI community to produce a refined xAPI LRS Conformance Requirements document. This new requirements document was informed by the xAPI community through interviews, meetings, and a public requirements management board. The research will continue in 2017 with a focus on certification requirements and processes. xAPI and Caliper Alignment Research ADL Initiative joined the IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS GLC) as a contributing member in early 2016. Both ADL Initiative and IMS GLC expressed a renewed interest to work together and collaborate on learning technology standards and research areas of mutual interest. ADL Initiative and members from the xAPI community participated in the xAPI and Caliper Review in August and again in November to discuss potential areas of alignment as part of the quarterly IMS meeting. The outcome resulted in a summary comparison of the two specs and potential areas of future collaboration. We expect to continue this collaboration with IMS on xAPI and Caliper in 2017 and will be looking at harmonizing xAPI profiles and Caliper metric profiles while looking for other potential areas of alignment. xAPI Launch Server Demo We researched xAPI Launch to enable a learner to track experiences from any learning resource without some out-of-band method to add LRS credentials to the content, and without asking the user to input these credentials into some untrusted third-party system. It protects a learner's identity, but it also ensures that statements which claim to be part of an experience really came from that experience. xAPI Launch can be used when there is no LMS or other management system in place to facilitate the launch and initialization of xAPI-enabled content. New Version of xAPI Specification 1.0.3 We released version 1.0.3 of the specification in September, which resulted in several updates and improvements. The key change involved grouping the specification into three sections for improved readability. Improvements to the consistency of the terminology used were also made. You can find the newest version of the specification here on GitHub. LRS Test Suite Candidate Release We announced the candidate release of the xAPI LRS Test Suite in November. The LRS is the component that receives, stores, and provides access to xAPI statements. The LRS Test Suite provides a way to verify whether an LRS correctly implements all the mandatory server-side requirements in the xAPI specification, and it serves as a central registry for conformant LRS products. We incorporated the xAPI LRS Conformance Requirements and are grateful to the community for providing input to the research efforts around conformance and certification. Community Projects & Resources There were several events, projects, research efforts, and resources produced by the community at large. The list below is by no means exhaustive, but illustrates several of the noteworthy efforts we were either involved in or directly heard about this year: Wow! What a busy year! We've accomplished a lot this year and made a ton of progress together. None of this would be possible without the collaborative input and contributions from the ADL community and our partnerships. We are extremely grateful for these relationships and would like to close by saying "THANK YOU," and we look forward to collaborating with you in 2017!
School Board Chairman Rocky Papasodora declined to elaborate on the board's decision, deferring official comment to the Leech Lake Tribal Council, however in a split decision on Superintendent Crystal Redgrave's resignation, Papasodora cast the deciding vote to accept the resignation. The votes were cast after a three-hour executive session. Principal Cheryl Poitra's resignation also was accepted by the board, with three voting yes, one no vote and one member remaining silent. Both Poitra's and Redgrave's resignations were submitted May 6, a day after a student walkout. The board also passed a motion to terminate high school Dean of Students Gerry Hoyum. Special Education Coordinator Pam Walker will be acting as interim superintendent. Recent personnel concerns come after the school, located on the Leech Lake Reservation and Chippewa National Forest land, has become a prime example of how schools funded by the Bureau of Indian Education need more money. High school students get off the bus to walk into their school—a "pole barn" originally built to be used as an auto mechanic and bus garage, where students and faculty are exposed to mold and fungus through the buildings faulty ventilation system. "This facility has severe structural and mechanical deficiencies and lacks proper insulation," Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Tribal Chairwoman Carri Jones testified Wednesday in Washington. "It does not meet safety, fire and security standards." Jones brought her concerns regarding before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee at the invitation of Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn. "At Leech Lake, the dire need to replace the Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig school is a symbol of one of the major challenges facing the Bureau of Indian Education," Jones said in her testimony. Jones said it is "vital" that action be taken to address deficiencies of schools in Indian Country and the focus on challenging physical conditions has taken away from recognition of academic achievements. Jones testified the school suffers from exposed wiring, lack of a proper communication system, roof leaks, rodents, uneven floors, poor lighting, sewer problems and lack of handicap access. "Every child deserves a safe place to learn," Franken said in an email to the press. "But it's unjust to expect students to succeed academically if we fail to provide them with a proper environment to achieve that success." Franken said he saw the "rundown conditions" at the Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig school and invited Jones to Capitol Hill to tell the students' story. Franken, along with U.S. Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., and U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan, D-Minn., whose district covers the Leech Lake Reservation, toured the school last month. Approximately a dozen high school students walked out of class May 5 in protest of recent administration-level changes, including dismissal of their dean of students and teachers. Among the students' demands was the removal of Redgrave and Poitra. In an interview after the May 5 protest, Redgrave called the students exercising their rights "commendable" and said through teamwork the school would work through the issue internally. It has yet to be confirmed if Redgrave and Poitra were asked to resign or if they submitted resignation letters, but the Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig school is advertising to fill a superintendent and a principal vacancy on its website. Attempts to contact Redgrave and Poitra were not successful. Messages left for Jones and other members of the tribal council were not returned. The Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig school is operated by the LLBO and governed by the School Board. It is one of 63 schools funded by the BIE. Jones said in her testimony the BIE has a $1.3 million construction backlog. "We appreciate the difficult decisions facing the BIE, but our kids should not be the ones forced to shoulder this burden," Jones testified Wednesday. Also on Thursday, Kline chaired a House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing to examine the federal government's mismanagement of Native American schools that included testimony from Dr. Charles M. "Monty" Roessel, director of the BIE. Student walkouts are part of what created the school. In 1975, 70 students from Cass Lake schools participated in a walkout resulting in the creation of the Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig School. The Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig school was named for a local Ojibwe who lived in the Leech Lake area at the turn of the century. Translated into English, the name means "Hole in the Day." The school was founded as an alternative school with 35 students from the Leech Lake Reservation. School enrollment has grown into the hundreds and students who live near, not only on the reservation, make up the student body. Jones acknowledged in her testimony that students have withdrawn from the school and transferred to other schools due to the school's unsafe surroundings.
The Yoga 3 Pro, one of the Lenovo machines running the flawed software Lenovo has acknowledged that a piece of bloatware on a huge number of its laptops and desktops devices called Lenovo Accelerator Application is insecure and leaving users open to attack. Lenovo admited to the problem in a security advisory and it urged users to remove it "A vulnerability was identified in the Lenovo Accelerator Application software which could lead to exploitation by an attacker with man-in-the-middle capabilities. The vulnerability resides within the update mechanism where a Lenovo server is queried to identify if application updates are available," it said. "Lenovo recommends customers uninstall Lenovo Accelerator Application by going to the 'Apps and Features' application in Windows 10, selecting Lenovo Accelerator Application and clicking on 'Uninstall'." Lenovo describes the Accelerator Application as being used to "to speed up the launch of Lenovo applications" but ultimately it is a pointless bit of bloatware that many laptop vendors installed on their machines. Lenovo can have no excuses for not being aware of this issue as last year it was racked over the coals for a piece of software called Superfish that was found to be inherently insecure. The firm's CTO promised lessons would be learnt from the issue. Other vendors affected This all came to light earlier in the week when security firm Duo Security that identified 12 vulnerabilities across laptops built by some of the biggest laptop vendors such as Dell, HP, Asus, Acer and Lenovo. The problems relate to the bloatware that vendors put on laptops. "The OEM software landscape is complicated and includes a depressing amount of superfluous tools for vendor support, free software trials, and other vendor-incentivised crapware. Some apps do nothing more than add a shortcut to launch your web browser to a specific site," the company said. "The experience is annoying to most people for a number of reasons. In addition to wasting disk space, consuming RAM, and generally degrading the user experience, OEM software often has serious implications for security." "Every time something like this happens we are reassured that the offending vendor of the day cares deeply about our security and privacy. Unfortunately, a cursory analysis of most OEM software reveals that very limited, if any, security review was performed," said Duo. "It's well known in the security research community that OEM software is a vulnerability minefield, but finding them is not particularly exciting. But that's also why OEM software has remained a major security problem. "So we decided to dig deep to find out just how bad the issue is, and provide recommendations for consumers to protect themselves against the security gaps and annoyance that bloatware presents." The report explained that Dell has a high-risk vulnerability called eDellroot, which we have covered before. The security firm said that the threat involves certificate best practices or, as we assume, certificate worst practices. HP has two high ranking flaws that can enable arbitrary code execution and five lesser vulnerabilities. Asus and Lenovo have one high-risk vulnerability each, again risking arbitrary code execution, while Acer has two and Asus has one medium severity local privilege escalation flaw. The 10 devices tested were Lenovo Flex 3, HP Envy, HP Stream x360 (Microsoft Signature Edition), HP Stream (UK version), Lenovo G50-80 (UK version), Acer Aspire F15 (UK version), Dell Inspiron 14 (Canada version), Dell Inspiron 15-5548 (Microsoft Signature Edition), Asus TP200S and Asus TP200S (Microsoft Signature Edition).
Meghan Boone (Georgetown): Millennial Feminisms: How the Newest Generation of Lawyers May Change the Conversation about Gender Equality in the Workplace. Women make strides in business ownership: The growth rate of new businesses remains stalled, but the share of women-owned firms has climbed. The slow death of the secretary: A job that once gave a woman a middle-class life is fading away. Amber Akemi Piatt on how life as a waitress too often means low pay and sexual harassment. Jimmy Chulu (Copperstone): A Feminist Perspective that Poverty is Gendered: Do Women Have Lesser Access to Resources in Comparison with Men? Mike Isaacson on workers, women and revolution: From inequality to solidarity. Catherine Rampell on why college hasn’t closed the gender wage gap. One reason for the gender pay gap: You’re speaking it. From ThinkProgress, Bryce Covert on how the gender wage gap goes all the way to the top; on the lifelong effects of the gender wage gap; and on how there’s no way for women to escape the gender wage gap. From Wired, Anne-Marie Slaughter on how the gig economy can actually be great for women. Max Ehrenfreund on how Social Security penalizes working women. How do you make sure generous paid leave doesn’t backfire on women? Focus on men. Less work, more time: Madeleine Schwartz on how feminists shouldn’t just call for a better balance between waged work and housework, between work and work — we should do the unimaginable, ask for more time. Claire Cain Miller on the 24/7 work culture’s toll on families and gender equality. Elizabeth Bruenig on liberating women from full-time work. Joni Hersch (Vanderbilt): How Opting Out Among Women With Elite Education Contributes to Social Inequality. Rebecca Greenfield on one reason women aren’t getting the promotion: They don’t want it. Danielle Paquette on how political beliefs affect what women want in the workplace. Women start out as ambitious as men but it erodes over time, says researcher Michelle Ryan. Jeff Guo on the “Lean In” case for giving women preferential treatment in the workplace. A feminism where “Lean In” means leaning on others: Gary Gutting interviews Nancy Fraser, author of Fortunes of Feminism: From State-Managed Capitalism to Neoliberal Crisis. Stop asking working moms about “having it all” — and women, stop answering. Women can’t have it all because the game is rigged: Work-life balance is a myth — it’s time for women to stop blaming themselves and start demanding change. Hire more women today: Fredrik deBoer on how we can’t expect personal integrity and male feminism to solve workplace gender inequality. Justin Wolfers on how even famous female economists get no respect (and more). Natalie Kitroeff and Jonathan Rodkin on how the real payoff from an MBA is different for men and women. Computer science now top major for women at Stanford University. Silicon Valley V.C. firm can’t find any women: The problem is you, not him. Saying the right things, doing none of them: Former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao says the tech industry is out of excuses for its discrimination problems. The women of Hollywood speak out: Female executives and filmmakers are ready to run studios and direct blockbuster pictures — what will it take to dismantle the pervasive sexism that keeps them from doing it? Jessica Goldstein goes inside the “secret meeting” to solve gender inequality in Hollywood.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:01 am, May 25th, 2016 - 18 comments Categories: class war, housing, national, paula bennett, poverty, same old national, spin, the praiseworthy and the pitiful, you couldn't make this shit up - Tags: housing crisis Paula Bennett sought leave yesterday to make a personal explanation to Parliament so that she could correct an answer that was, how do you say, incorrect. She said this: In response to a supplementary question asked during question No. 5 on 10 May, I said in relation to the $41.1 million for emergency housing in Budget 2016 that: “The new 3,000 places will be for anyone—individuals or families—who has a genuine need for emergency accommodation.” I should have said that the funding will be for 3,000 places, and that some of those will be new and some will go to the many emergency housing providers that require dedicated ongoing funding so that they can keep their doors open. I am not sure her explanation was correct either. Because the $41 million is spread over four years and is mostly going to social housing providers to essentially make sure that existing beds are kept available. There is no proof that any new beds will be created. And it is typical of this Government that it will spin the funding of chronically underfunded social services to keep them operating as a solution for homelessness. Of course it was all a regrettable mistake and misspeak by Paula. But she said this the next day in a press release: The bulk of the $41.1 million of new operating funding will be used in two ways: The Ministry of Social Development will contract NGOs to provide about 3000 emergency housing places each year. about 3000 emergency housing places each year. A new emergency housing Special Needs Grant to support individuals and families with the cost of emergency housing for up to seven days if they are unable to access a contracted place. The new places will be available to anyone who can demonstrate they have a genuine need for emergency housing.” Perhaps she is an itinerant inveterate misspeaker. When you read the press release your heart lights up with joy. Hosanna National is going to put some serious money into the homeless crisis. Maybe they have seen the light. But the problem is that there is so much wriggle room in what Bennett said. And when you read it carefully with the benefit of understanding subsequent events you realise that things are not as swimmingly wonderful as she said. If you parse the statement it is clear that not all of the money is going to be spent on homeless kiwis. But the first reading suggests there will be 3,000 new beds for homeless people created. And it is so frustrating how vague this government is with some figures yet how precise it is about others. For instance ask them what measure there is for children live in poverty and they will say something like this: Ask how many homeless there are and they will say about 500 are on the WINZ waiting list as if that is an answer. But they know precisely how many beds will be made available by their spend although the figure is overstated. National has made a practice of trotting out figures that help its spin but ignoring statistics that show that things are going wrong. Paula has by making her personal statement apologised to Parliament for misleading it. Maybe she should apologise to the people of New Zealand for doing the same. And to the homeless for failing to do anything about their plight. Share this: Twitter Facebook Reddit
In the marketing literature, the concept of experience has been investigated in different contexts including consumption experience, product experience, aesthetic experience, service experience, shopping experience and customer experience. Recently, a concept has been presented that spans across these various contexts: that is “brand experience”. It can be defined as subjective, internal consumer responses such as sensations, feelings, and cognitions as well as behavioral responses evoked by brand related stimuli that are parts of a brand design and identity, packaging, communications and environment. Brand experiences can be positive or negative, short-lived or long-lasting. Moreover, brand experience can positively affect consumer satisfaction, brand loyalty and brand associations. Brand experience is empirically distinct from other branding concepts including brand attachment, brand involvement and customer delight. Most importantly, the concept of brand experience includes various dimensions: a sensory dimension, which refers to the visual, auditory, tactile, gustative, and olfactory stimulations provided by a brand; an affective dimension, which includes feelings generated by the brand and its emotional bond with the consumer; an intellectual dimension, which refers to the ability of the brand to engage consumers’ convergent and divergent thinking; and a behavioral dimension, which includes bodily experiences, lifestyles, and interactions with the brand. Depending on how many of these dimensions are evoked and the intensity of the stimulation, the resulting brand experience can be more or less intense. There are three types of consumers: 1) Holistic consumers, 2) Utilitarian consumersand 3) Hybrid consumers. Holistic consumers seem to be interested in all aspects of brand experience. On the other extreme, there are utilitarian consumers who don't give importance to brand experience. Hybrid consumers are in between holistic and utilitarian and further categorised into three groups: hedonistic consumers, who attach importance to sensorial gratification and emotions; action-oriented consumers, who focus on actions and behaviors; and inner-directed consumers, who focus on internal processes such as sensations, emotions, and thoughts. Potential outcome variables may include customer delight, consumer loyalty, and word-of-mouth now-a-days. Based on this insight marketers may develop differentiated experiential strategies and tactics. Such as; to reach inner-directed consumers marketers could focus on intriguing thoughts, and to reach hedonistic consumers they should stress the emotional appeal of their offers. Many brand communications and selling approaches are no longer focused only on functional features and benefits of the brand now days but on differentiated and unique experiences that different brands provide to consumers. So in order to develop high brand equity and long lasting consumer associations with brands, marketers must need to focus on brand experience strategy by adding emotional appeal to their brands messages.
New sensing technology could improve our ability to detect diseases, fraudulent art, chemical weapons and more The technology (depicted above) consists of a thin film of silver or aluminum that acts as a mirror, and a dielectric layer of silica or alumina. The dielectric separates the mirror with tiny metal nanoparticles randomly spaced at the top of the substrate. Credit: Qiaoqiang Gan. BUFFALO, N.Y. – From airport security detecting explosives to art historians authenticating paintings, society’s thirst for powerful sensors is growing. Given that, few sensing techniques can match the buzz created by surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). Discovered in the 1970s, SERS is a sensing technique prized for its ability to identify chemical and biological molecules in a wide range of fields. It has been commercialized, but not widely, because the materials required to perform the sensing are consumed upon use, relatively expensive and complicated to fabricate. That may soon change. An international research team led by University at Buffalo engineers has developed nanotechnology that promises to make SERS simpler and more affordable. Described in a research paper published today in the journal Advanced Materials Interfaces, the photonics advancement aims to improve our ability to detect trace amounts of molecules in diseases, chemical warfare agents, fraudulent paintings, environmental contaminants and more. “The technology we’re developing – a universal substrate for SERS – is a unique and, potentially, revolutionary feature. It allows us to rapidly identify and measure chemical and biological molecules using a broadband nanostructure that traps wide range of light,” said Qiaoqiang Gan, UB assistant professor of electrical engineering and the study’s lead author. Additional authors of the study are: UB PhD candidates in electrical engineering Nan Zhang, Kai Liu, Haomin Song, Xie Zeng, Dengxin Ji and Alec Cheney; and Suhua Jiang, associate professor of materials science, and Zhejun Liu, PhD candidate, both at Fudan University in China. When a powerful laser interacts chemical and biological molecules, the process can excite vibrational modes of these molecules and produce inelastic scattering, also called Raman scattering, of light. As the beam hits these molecules, it can produce photons that have a different frequency from the laser light. While rich in details, the signal from scattering is weak and difficult to read without a very powerful laser. SERS addresses the problem by utilizing a nanopatterned substrate that significantly enhances the light field at the surface and, therefore, the Raman scattering intensity. Unfortunately, traditional substrates are typically designed for only a very narrow range of wavelengths. This is problematic because different substrates are needed if scientists want to use a different laser to test the same molecules. In turn, this requires more chemical molecules and substrates, increasing costs and time to perform the test. The universal substrate solves the problem because it can trap a wide range of wavelengths and squeeze them into very small gaps to create a strongly enhanced light field. The technology consists of a thin film of silver or aluminum that acts as a mirror, and a dielectric layer of silica or alumina. The dielectric separates the mirror with tiny metal nanoparticles randomly spaced at the top of the substrate. “It acts similar to a skeleton key. Instead of needing all these different substrates to measure Raman signals excited by different wavelengths, you’ll eventually need just one. Just like a skeleton key that opens many doors,” Zhang said. “The applications of such a device are far-reaching,” said Kai Liu. “The ability to detect even smaller amounts of chemical and biological molecules could be helpful with biosensors that are used to detect cancer, Malaria, HIV and other illnesses.” It could be useful identifying chemicals used in certain types of paint. This could be helpful detecting forged pieces of art as well as restoring aging pieces of art. Also, the technology could improve scientists’ ability to detect trace amounts of toxins in the air, water or other spaces that are causes for health concerns. And it could aid in the detection of chemical weapons. The National Science Foundation supported the research in a grant to develop a real-time in-vivo biosensing system. Gan shares the grant with Josep M. Jornet and Zhi Sun, both assistant professors of electrical engineering at UB. Gan is a member of UB’s electrical engineering optics and photonics research group, which includes professors Edward Furlani, Natalia Litchinitser and Pao-Lo Liu; and assistant professor Liang Feng. The group carries out research in nanophotonics, biophotonics, hybrid inorganic/organic materials and devices, nonlinear and fiber optics, metamaterials, nanoplasmonics, optofluidics, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), biomedical microelectromechanical systems (BioMEMs), biosensing and quantum information processing.
Especially in the early stages of rehabilitation the amount of work you do has a big impact on the outcome of your injury or operation. I personally cant wait to see VR implemented in hospitals. Imagine when people wake up from surgery they are treated with a plethora of games that they can play to pass the time, but that also measure pain, range of motion etc. Tracking activities and quality of movement. The Nintendo WII was adopted in a lot of carefacilities in my country, but they didn’t see much use. One of the reasons is that the quality of motion that the Wii offered wasn’t sufficient to give a proper rehabilitation experience. With the vive and oculus we can do so much more in terms of games. Not only that, but we can track how much the patient is training and the quality of their motion. All delicious data for a physical therapist. With the VR technology of today the tracking has become so much better. This allows developers to create even more engaging games that assure the quality of what the patient is doing. Our dev lab have just gotten our hands on the Vive Tracker and cant wait to see what stuff we will come up with. Physical therapists everywhere Another great thing we wil be seeing in the near future is Remote training and follow up . When its time for a follow up the patient just puts on his or her headset and a physical therapist appears right beside them. With the announcement of the vive focus and other stand alone headsets we are closer than ever to having physical therapists pop up in the virtual space. Think of it. A patients has been sent home after an operation with a headset. When its time for a follow up the patient just puts on his or her headset and a physical therapist appears right beside them. Here they can have a conversation about how the rehab is going. The physical therapist can review the data gathered from the patients rehab games and assess where to go from there. I think that especially in rural areas this will make a world of difference. Simulation and teaching The potential for teaching both physical therapists and patients in VR is enormous. Having the ability to teach patients in virtual reality in the art of pain management, wound management and other things will be invaluable. It will increase the patients ability to take care of them selves and in turn help their recovery time. What I think is amazing about teaching with VR is not only the fidelity and immersiveness of the experience but also the ability to repeat lessons ad infinitum. If you combine this with a gamification we could be on the verge of a patient knowledge revolution. Big data on movement. To be honest. This one of the things I’m most excited about. Just like fit bits are predicting when we will have a heartattack, I think once we start gathering movement data on different diagnosis’ things will start getting interesting. The prospect of our VR games being able to present the therapist with different diagnoses based on how the paitent moves is incredible. I cat wait for our VR rehab games to become intelligent. It’s all up to the developers The way I see it, there’s a very bright future in store for physical therapy (and a whole lot of other fields). But we can root for technology and all its wonders until the cows come home. It wont mean a thing unless the developers make it easy and a joy to use. Physical therapists, hospitals and other places wanting to implement this technology want to see applications that benefit them, not hinder them. So to all the developers reading this, remember to talk to both therapists and patients if you want to work out. If you liked the article don’t forget to leave a like and recommend. If you are interested in VR and physical therapy follow us on instagram or facebook @goniovr Jesper Aggergaard Physical therapist
A pack of dogs is undermining the status of Delhi's international airport as a world-class terminal. Complaint boxes at the Delhi airport are overflowing with complaints of dogs bites from within the airport premises and passengers are now questioning its status as the world's best airport and ability to handle the situation. As many as 12 dog bites have been reported in the recent past. Since January, airport authorities have received four complaints of dog bites on email. With no clear policy or regulations on handling wildlife in and around the airport, officials find their hands tied. The private consortium, Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), which manages the Delhi airport, wrote to the chief secretary of Delhi, recently, after it received a complaint from a young woman, who was bitten by a stray dog outside terminal three (T3), while she was waiting to receive her relatives. "I came to receive my relative when I was attacked by a dog. It bit my hand. As a result, instead of receiving my relatives I had to rush to hospital. The incident ruined my entire night and caused mental trauma. How can an airport, which claimed to be world-class, tackle this menace?" she wrote in her complaint. "The south Delhi municipal corporation relocated 21 dogs but they returned back again. According to a survey, there are at least 40 dogs in the vicinity of Delhi airport. T3 is creating a global image but the presence of dogs and other wildlife may seem mystifying to many tourists," DIAL wrote in its letter to the Delhi government. DIAL is yet to receive a reply from the Delhi government on the letter. Although, the south Delhi municipal corporation often sterilises dogs near the airport, it doesn't offer passengers or officials any respite. "When a passenger is bitten by a dog, we cannot tell her or him that the dog was sterilised. The passenger immediately blames the airport staff and sometimes even threatens to sue us," an airport official said. Availability of food waste outside the terminal is the major reason behind the presence of stray dogs. According to sources, DIAL recently held a meeting with the animal welfare board of India and is in touch with some NGOs to tackle the stray menace. "The problem is rampant but, unfortunately, we don't have control over it. Ultimately, the passenger suffers. The concerned stakeholders are working together to address the issue but the problem is quite deep routed," spokesperson for DIAL said. First Published: May 31, 2015 23:35 IST
My awesome match got me a bag of Tim's cascade chips. They were jalapeño favored and highly tasty. The snow pea crisps are easily addictive (I wonder if they come in a wasabi flavor). The shrimp flavored chips were very fishy -- I found them similar to Funyuns -- only fishy. I enjoyed them. Pocky is actually available in specialty asian markets in the Jackson area. I eat those often. The Hi-Chews were my favorite thing of all. My roommate and I devoured them. Better than mamba. I would say they tasted "fresh" in comparison. The violet crumble was my 2nd favorite. I hope they sell those on Amazon. I'm waiting on trying the TimTams until I can use your recipe. I loved the whole package, and am grateful to feel a connection with someone on the opposite side of the country. Also, thanks for the letter than described them. It was very thoughtful, and made for a great day! Cheers my friends!
1 of 3 Ben Margot/Associated Press The injury bug arguably hit Arizona harder than it hit any other team in the National League last year. A.J. Pollock and Paul Goldschmidt both missed significant time with fractured hands. Mark Trumbo was sidelined for most of the season with a stress fracture in his foot. It's tough to produce many runs without your top three offensive players for most of the season. Ace pitcher Patrick Corbin also missed the entire season after he underwent Tommy John surgery. With Corbin gone, Josh Collmenter led the team in wins with 11. That was not what D-Backs fans expected. However, this season, with the exception of Corbin, the majority of the big-time contributors are healthy again. Goldschmidt, Pollock and Trumbo are all expected to be ready for the 2015 season. Pollock and Trumbo especially have impressed this spring. Trumbo is hitting .385 with two home runs and 11 RBI, while Pollock is hitting .365 with nine RBI and three stolen bases. And Arizona fans know that it should be only a matter of time before Goldschmidt starts smashing the ball again. With the offense completely healthy, the pitching staff will also welcome back Daniel Hudson and David Hernandez (projected to return in May). Therefore, there is reason to be optimistic that the team will enter 2015 healthier than it was in 2014.
Lin-Manuel Miranda photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images, Chance the Rapper photo by C Brandon/Redferns via Getty Images Hamilton creator/star Lin-Manuel Miranda and the Roots' ?uestlove (executive producer of the Hamilton soundtrack) have announced The Hamilton Mixtape—a forthcoming all-star collection of remixes and covers. It's coming later this year and will feature Chance the Rapper, Busta Rhymes, Common, Regina Spektor, Ben Folds, and Queen Latifah, Vanity Fair reports. "People are coming out of the woodwork, knocking on the door," ?uestlove said in an interview with Vanity Fair. Half the songs are cover versions of songs in the show, and the others are interpolations—we'll take some of this, some of that, and make something new out if it." Miranda says he won't appear on the compilation, saying "the goal is to keep this inspired by the original." Hamilton's soundtrack recently won the Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album. Read "How Hamilton Sets the Stage for the Future of History" on the Pitch. Watch the Hamilton cast perform "Alexander Hamilton" at the Grammys:
World Of Beer Asks Interns To Eat, Drink And Hop Around Globe World of Beer, a Tampa-based bar and restaurant chain, is looking for interns willing to travel the globe, tasting beer and documenting their experiences across social media for four months. DAVID GREENE, HOST: Good morning, I'm David Greene with a pretty enticing offer - beer internship. STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: Sounds like you might be interested in applying, David. GREENE: Yeah, probably better hours, Steve. Well, anyway, World of Beer, a Tampa-based bar and restaurant chain, is looking for interns, specifically interns willing to travel the globe, tasting beer and documenting their experience across social media. As to what job skills one learns after four months of beer drinking, well, that might depend on what exactly they remember. You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
Pundits don’t have to be right about everything — in fact, if you write a newspaper column and you never make a prediction that turns out wrong, you’re not taking enough risks. They do, however, owe it to the public to make enough effort to get basic facts right. (Note to readers: having a different theory about how the economy works than the one you prefer is not an error of fact.) So Jonathan Chait directs me to this doozy from, alas, Martin Feldstein: Obama has said that he would favor a British-style “single payer” system in which the government owns the hospitals and the doctors are salaried but that he recognizes that such a shift would be too disruptive to the health-care industry. Single-payer, as anyone who has paid the least bit of attention to the health care debate knows, means a system like Medicare, in which the government pays the bills. It absolutely does not mean a British-style system — and Obama definitely didn’t advocate anything of the sort. One possibility is that Feldstein really is that ignorant of the health-care basics; if so, he has no business writing an op-ed on the subject, just as he had no business writing an op-ed on climate change policy. (Yes, I write about subjects on which I’m not an expert — but I do my homework first.) The alternative possibility is that Feldstein knew that he was saying something false, but did it anyway in the hope of scaring his readers. I don’t know which is worse. I do know that if I misstated the facts like this in the Times, I’d be required to publish a correction. Will the Post require that Feldstein retract his claim?
The man who Mark Wahlberg viciously assaulted when he was a teenager said he forgives the actor for the 1988 crime and also revealed Wahlberg did not leave him blinded in one eye during the attack, as was previously widely reported. Wahlberg was arrested and spent 45 days in jail for crimes that included beating Hoa Trinh, a Vietnamese immigrant. Wahlberg tried to steal cases of alcohol from a man, Thanh Lam, at a convenience store. He used racial slurs during the robbery and beat Lam over the head with a stick before fleeing the scene. That's when he encountered Trinh, who he also assaulted, punching him the face. NBC reports that despite shouting a bunch of racist, vile shit at his victims, Wahlberg claimed race had nothing to do with attack. A court disagreed because OBVIOUSLY RACE HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH THAT SHIT: Court documents indicate that in Boston, on April 8, 1988, Wahlberg attacked two Vietnamese-American men, knocking one man — Thanh Lam — unconscious with a five-foot-long wooden stick, and punching another — Hoa Trinh. Investigators noted Wahlberg made several unsolicited racial statements about "g—ks" and "slant-eyed g—ks" at the time. He was arrested, charged with attempted murder, convicted of assault, and served 45 days in prison. Wahlberg was 16-years old, admitted to being intoxicated, and insisted race had nothing to do with his crime. But his assault conviction was accompanied by another, for contempt for court. That stemmed from a series of attacks he committed two years earlier, chasing and hurling rocks and racial epithets at African-American school children. A court prohibited him from assaulting, threatening, or intimidating anyone because of race or national origin; the 1988 investigation found him in violation of the order, meaning the court believed race did play a role in the attacks on Lam and Trinh. Wahlberg was tried as an adult for the crimes against Trinh and Lam and given a two year jail sentence with 21 months suspended. He only served 45 days before being released. Recently, Wahlberg has been working hard to get a pardon for those crimes so he can win an Oscar for his new role in The Gambler this year get a concessionaire license for his Wahlberg's burger chain. (Another terrifying theory being floated is that Wahlberg wants the pardon so he can someday become a cop.) The Daily Mail tracked down Trinh, one of the victims in the 1988 attack. For more than two decades, the story of Wahlberg's attack on the men included reports that he had beat Trinh so severely he left him blind in one eye. Trinh (who was born Hoa Trinh but now goes by "Johnny") told the Daily Mail that part isn't true—he was already blind in his eye before the attack: In his first ever interview since the attack Johnny Trinh revealed to Mail Online he was already blind in one eye after being injured while fighting the Communists in the Vietnam War. While Wahlberg's unprovoked assault left him shaken it did not cause any lasting damage. 'I was not blinded by Mark Wahlberg,' said 59-year-old Vietnamese-born Trinh. 'He did hurt me, but my left eye was already gone. He was not responsible for that.' Advertisement Trinh also told the Daily Mail he had no idea the man who attacked him went on to be one of the most famous movie stars in the world. He said he would like to meet Wahlberg personally and tell him he forgives him. Trinh said he hopes Wahlberg gets the pardon he is seeking for his past crimes. "He was young and reckless but I forgive him now," said Trinh. "Everyone deserves another chance... He paid for his crime when he went to prison," he said. "I am not saying that it did not hurt when he punched me in the face, but it was a long time ago." Others are not so eager to forgive Wahlberg or stand quietly by as the government pardons someone who already got off fairly easy (a two-year sentence that turned into 45 days is pretty light). An Asian American activist group called 18 Million Rising wants the governor of Massachusetts to turn down the pardon request (emphasis theirs). Now, over 25 years after these horrific crimes, Wahlberg is petitioning the Massachusetts State Parole Board and Governor Deval Patrick to pardon his hate crime conviction. Wahlberg claims that he is a changed man, and no longer the person he was in 1988 when he shamelessly shattered the lives of two Asian men. But Wahlberg's pardon isn't an attempt to erase this part of his life and wipe the racial slate clean. It's all about business. Advertisement A hashtag on Twitter called #nopardonmarkwahlberg is filled with people who also object to the pardon request.
Greyhound Canada is trying to pull passenger service out of parts of rural B.C. — again threatening bus service that in many parts of Canada is the only reliable ride in or out of town. It's not a new threat. For years the Dallas-based bus company has cried poor, and some experts say maybe it's time to let Greyhound go the way of the Sears printed catalogue and rethink rural transportation that's so crucial to many, especially First Nations communities, seniors and young people. Back in 2009 Greyhound demanded $15-million in government aid, threatening to cut passenger service in Manitoba and northwestern Ontario, on unprofitable rural routes. Most routes survived but experts say it's time to look at gaping holes in the fabric of Canada's transit system that stop people from easily reaching family and supports. "These connections are vital to keep people healthy," says David Snadden, the University of British Columbia's rural health chair. Riders from Saskatoon to Thunder Bay echo his concerns, but often feel the bus is the only affordable option for travel. Complaints are rife. There was even a case last year when two teens were forced off a bus headed for Alberta and left stranded at a truck stop near B.C.'s infamous Highway of Tears, causing outrage. Sisters Chelsie and Jessie Kazakoff, 12 and 16, were told to get off a Greyhound bus and left at a remote B.C. gas station in the middle of the night, where they waited for hours for help in 2016. (Vanessa Aubichon) Half-empty at 4 a.m. But for many, Greyhound is the only ride. Every day at 4 a.m. PT a half-empty Greyhound bus arrives in New Hazelton, B.C., before heading west to Prince Rupert, then looping back on the way to Prince George — when it's on time. It's not perfect, but the town between Smithers and Terrace would have no daily service without this bus. "I'm surprised they're even going to let this happen," said Scott Swiednicki, the owner of the local Greyhound depot and Sears outlet in the 700-person town. He plans to fall back on his work as a tattoo artist, which he says is more lucrative. Greyhound shuttles 3.5 million passengers a year to 1,100 Canadian locations. It's the biggest bus operator in the country. A bus ticket from Vancouver to Toronto is about $300, and one from Vancouver to Whitehorse about $360. Greyhound, the biggest bus operator in Canada, shuttles 3.5 million passengers a year to 1,100 locations, many of them rural. (CBC) The bus service says competition from ride services and local transit are hurting business on northern routes. On Aug. 10 the company applied to the B.C. Passenger Transportation Board to pull services to northern parts of the province. "We can no longer operate the unsustainable routes," said Stuart Kendrick, senior vice-president of Greyhound Canada. This sparked concern. "This is a vast area of the North, and it is concerning that people may be left without a bus service there," B.C.'s Transportation Minister Claire Trevena said. If approved, northern B.C. would no longer have Greyhound service extending from Prince George to Prince Rupert, between Victoria and Nanaimo, and as far north as Whitehorse, Yukon. That includes a stretch of Highway 16, known as the Highway of Tears, where many Indigenous women have either disappeared or been found dead since 1970. Highway 16 near Prince George, B.C., has earned the grim nickname Highway of Tears because so many women and young girls have disappeared on it, or been killed. (Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press) "It's expensive on Greyhound but it's worth it. You don't have to worry about going missing," says Lyle Heldson of Prince George, who says he would be forced to hitchhike to see family with no Greyhound service, despite new public transit buses on 370 kilometres of the highway. Need a better ride But Greyhound doesn't always earn praise. Earlier this year Northern Ontario riders complained about the company's "disregard" for customers, describing how a missed connection to Sudbury left one woman left to "sit, ponder and rot" in Blind River for nine hours. Social media is rife with such tales. New Hazelton's ticket agent deals with gripes in person. He says the bus to town rarely leaves with more than 15 passengers. Perhaps it's the 4 a.m. pickup time and service cuts. Lyle Heldson says he uses Greyhound to visit his family northwest of Prince George, and if bus service ends his only option will be to hitchhike. (Andrew Kurjata/CBC) "If that's not an ungodly time in the morning to catch the bus I don't know what is," said Swiednicki, who blames Greyhound, in part, for its business troubles. "The roads are long here. The winters are brutal. The ridership is low." Transit plan needed But Snadden wonders if one bus in the middle of the night is adequate for any Canadian centre. "We have many people who may not be able to drive or where the winter roads are just too scary for them," said Snadden. He believes rural transit needs reinventing. He saw Scotland get creative years ago — borrowing a Swiss idea — and converting postal delivery trucks into coaches, so that people could ride along with the mail. While that may not work in Canada's vast landscape, he says Greyhound's exit could leave the horizon wide open to find new ways to stitch up bits of the country, linked often only by a thin line of grey pavement, with or without the bus company.
Spirit Tracks Original Soundtrack The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks has been considered one of the greatest handheld Zelda titles of all time – however, Nintendo never released an official soundtrack for this game. To compensate, Zelda Universe has pooled its resources together and created the Spirit Tracks Original Soundtrack, a polished compilation of all the music from The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. A great deal of work went into creating the professional soundtrack release you see below. This soundtrack just wouldn’t be possible without… Keith Alagha (aka silver-hero), who contributed all of the high-quality music rips that make up the soundtrack, and gave them all lovely fade-outs when desperately needed; Jason Rappaport, who organized, tagged and named all the tracks, as well as created the album artwork for the project; And of course, Nintendo and the brilliant Koji Kondo, Toru Minegishi, Asuka Ota, and Manaka Tominaga who spent their days composing and rendering the music we love. We hope that everyone who downloads this soundtrack enjoys the music of Spirit Tracks!
~TheoDaRulah ( Member ) Full Name: Atlas (Real Name:Theodore) User Title: Anthro Artist Registered since: Sep 7th, 2015 03:57 Current mood: hot Artist Profile: HELLOOOOO MOTHERFUCKERS! Welcome to my tiny page! I am Theodore, but you can call me Atlas, or Atty (Everyone calls me that these days...). Teddy has also been a nickname people use for me as well (Though this kinda gets me blushy, honestly) I am an artist who aims to go with graphic design and stuff in my life, since i am passionate about art (No, don't focus on my submissions, you'd be surprised by the amount of work that's in my sketchbook... May post that soon tho.) I am a kinda awkward guy, but i try to be cheerful, that's about it. (Also a big perv. You should remember that. Dirty jokes are my game! B3) My fursona is Atlas, of course. He is a nephelim bunny (Half-demon) and he is quite nice for one! But when he speaks REALLY FUCKING LOUD, expect rudeness. That's his lovely alter ego, Incubus. :P I am a and I am . I could say i am a person that is very emotional.I am cheerful as much as i can, and maybe have a very cartoonish personality according to others (That MIGHT be because a lot of cartoons), and i have been characterised as silly. If you want to approach me, do go on, i am all ears. ^^ My DeviantArt profile is this one in case someone wantsa to see how I progressed:http://theodarulah.deviantart.com/ Note that there will probably be my newest art here,as the Atlas that is as a core design here,is not used in past pics,as he was quite different.Hope you have a fun time! Statistics Page Visits: 2239 Submissions: 191 Comments Received: 285 Comments Given: 548 Journals: 11 Favorites: 97 Accepting Trades
Just a day before Microsoft Corp. drops support for Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), the company announced on Monday that people running some versions of Windows 7 can "downgrade" to the aged operating system for up to 10 years. The move is highly unusual. In the past, Microsoft has terminated downgrade rights -- which let customers replace a newer version of Windows with an older edition without paying for two copies -- within months of introducing a new operating system. While few consumers may want to downgrade from Windows 7 to XP -- unlike when many mutinied against Vista three years ago -- businesses often want to standardize on a single operating system to simplify machine management. Monday's announcement was the second Windows XP downgrade rights extension. Microsoft originally limited Windows 7-to-Windows XP downgrades to six months after Windows 7's release, but it backtracked in June 2009 after a Gartner Inc. analyst called the plan a "real mess." Instead, Microsoft later said it would allow downgrades to Windows XP until 18 months after the October 2009 debut of Windows 7, or until it released Windows 7 SP1. In either scenario, XP downgrade rights would have expired sometime in 2011, perhaps as early as April. On Monday, Microsoft again changed its mind. Users running Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate will now be able to downgrade to Windows XP Professional throughout the entire life cycle of Windows 7. "Our business customers have told us that the removing end-user downgrade rights to Windows XP Professional could be confusing," said Microsoft spokesman Brandon LeBlanc, in an entry on the company blog. Windows 7 Professional won't be fully retired until January 2020; the Ultimate edition will be put out to pasture five years earlier, in January 2015. Although Microsoft said it made the change to simplify the work in tracking licensing rights for PCs, the continued popularity of Windows XP may have had something to do with it. At Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), which opened Monday in Washington, D.C., a company executive acknowledged that 74% of business computers still run XP. The downgrade rights are available only from OEM copies of Windows 7, those that are pre-installed by computer makers.
2002 studio album by Boards of Canada Geogaddi is the second album by Scottish electronic music duo Boards of Canada, released on 13 February 2002 by Warp. It has been described as pursuing a darker variation of the style established on their previous releases. The album received critical acclaim upon release,[3] and reached number 21 on the UK album charts. It appeared on 2002 "best of" lists by publications such as Mojo, NME, and The Wire.[4] Background [ edit ] The album was described by group member Michael Sandison as "a record for some sort of trial-by-fire, a claustrophobic, twisting journey that takes you into some pretty dark experiences before you reach the open air again."[5] Compared to their previous releases, the duo aimed to record a project “with more facets, more detail and a kind of concentrated recipe of chaotic little melodies,” as well as something “more fuzzy and organic.”[5] He claimed that the title is a combination of different words with a particular significance but that they wanted listeners to decide on their own interpretations.[6] The band recorded over 90 tracks for the album, ultimately choosing 23 based on how well they fit the project.[5] Sandison stated that much of the album features acoustic instrumentation, though it may not be immediately evident.[5] They received the idea to make the track time total 66 minutes and 6 seconds from Warp Records president Steve Beckett, his reasoning being to joke around with listeners and imply the Devil had created the album.[7] The album has been noted for featuring references to numerology and cult leader David Koresh of the Branch Davidians.[8] Release [ edit ] The album is available in three formats: Standard jewel case CD packaging, limited edition hardbound book packaged with a CD and extra artwork enclosed, and a triple record package.[9] Side F of the vinyl package, with the track "Magic Window" (which consists of nearly two minutes of silence), is uncut and contains a visible etching of a nude nuclear family.[9][10] The artwork of the album carries a distinct kaleidoscopic motif. The limited edition version comes with a 12-page booklet exhibiting artwork.[11] Geogaddi was first released in Japan on 13 February 2002.[12] Geogaddi was released by Warp on 18 February 2002 in Europe.[12][13] It has been released on compact disc, vinyl, digital download and as a limited edition compact disc.[13] Reception [ edit ] Geogaddi holds a score of 84 out of 100 from review aggregate site Metacritic based on 21 critics' reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[3] Kitty Empire of NME praised it as "easily the electronic album of the year" and “a meeting of the natural with the digital, [...] eerier than ever before,” as well as "deliciously saturated with the recurring motifs which have marked them out as an individual voice in electronic music."[17] Mark Richardson of Pitchfork wrote that “the Boards have implemented their trademark tools on Geogaddi, but in the service of a slightly gloomier vision,” noting that they “have always had a disorienting cast to their music, [...] but where the warbles once seemed designed to evoke the sensation of strained memory, the distortions now have a disturbing undercurrent.” He ultimately called it “a very accomplished album packed with great music."[18] Pascal Wyse of The Guardian characterized it as "the band's own reticent blend of electronic melancholy, always organic and beautifully crafted," but noted that the listener’s enjoyment “just depends whether you want to go into that much detail.”[23] It appeared on several end of year "best of" lists by publications such as Mojo,[24] NME,[25] and The Wire.[26] Trivia [ edit ] "Beware The Friendly Stranger" is used as the background music for the animated web series Salad Fingers. "Gyroscope" and "You Could Feel The Sky" appeared in the soundrack of the documentary "Until the Light Takes Us" by Aaron Aites. "Gyroscope" was also in the end credits of the horror movie Sinister by Scott Derrickson. Track listing [ edit ] All tracks written by Marcus Eoin and Mike Sandison. No. Title Length 1. "Ready Lets Go" 1:01 2. "Music Is Math" 5:23 3. "Beware the Friendly Stranger" 0:39 4. "Gyroscope" 3:35 5. "Dandelion" 1:17 6. "Sunshine Recorder" 6:14 7. "In the Annexe" 1:24 8. "Julie and Candy" 5:32 9. "The Smallest Weird Number" 1:19 10. "1969" 4:22 11. "Energy Warning" 0:37 12. "The Beach at Redpoint" 4:20 13. "Opening the Mouth" 1:13 14. "Alpha and Omega" 7:04 15. "I Saw Drones" 0:29 16. "The Devil Is in the Details" 3:55 17. "A is to B as B is to C" 1:42 18. "Over the Horizon Radar" 1:10 19. "Dawn Chorus" 3:57 20. "Diving Station" 1:28 21. "You Could Feel the Sky" 5:16 22. "Corsair" 2:54 23. "Magic Window" 1:48 Total length: 66:06 Japanese bonus track No. Title Length 24. "From One Source All Things Depend" 2:10 Total length: 68:16 Personnel [ edit ] Boards of Canada [ edit ] Michael Sandison – performer Marcus Eoin – performer Technical [ edit ] Peter Campbell – cover photograph Michael Sandison – producer, artwork, photography Marcus Eoin – producer, artwork, photography Charts [ edit ]
Hoping to battle back attacks from foreign countries and rogue hackers alike, President Donald Trump on Thursday commissioned a full review of the country’s digital defenses — and began the process of soliciting the tech industry’s cyber security expertise. In a wide-ranging executive order signed earlier this afternoon, Trump prescribed a host of studies: He wants to take a closer look at the way government spends money on computers and technologies, for example, while putting in place new policies to deter the likes of China or Russia from launching a major cyber attack against the United States. With it, though, Trump also tasked his government to work alongside tech and telecom giants and other companies to figure out ways to “improve the resilience of the internet and communications ecosystem,” particularly to guard against botnets and denial-of-service attacks. Together, they’ll work to produce a report due next year. Trump’s long-awaited executive order comes months after he pledged at Trump Tower that he would craft a cyber security strategy 90 days after taking office. But the president ultimately blew that deadline, a misstep that generated immense criticism given that Trump had discussed hacking so much on the campaign trail — usually in the context of blasting China, the Obama administration or Hillary Clinton, whose emails had been exposed by hackers. Politics aside, however, there’s still great concern in Washington that the country has failed to safeguard its computers and networks — including classified information — from theft. Many grew especially fearful in 2015, after Chinese hackers breached the Office of Personnel Management — essentially, the government’s HR department — in an attack that affected roughly 21.5 million workers. To that end, Trump pledged in his order Thursday that he would “hold heads of executive departments and agencies ... accountable for managing cyber security risk to their enterprise.” In recent years, the government has tried to improve its cyber security posture. Congress has sought to boost federal spending on cyber security, for example, while making it easier for companies to share information about emerging digital threats. And former President Barack Obama commissioned a number of efforts over his two terms to harden the government’s digital defenses, including improving the cyber security of critical infrastructure, like power plants and water pumps, from potential attacks. Trump’s order builds on that work. It orders a review to determine the effects of a “prolonged power outage associated with a significant cyber incident,” and what can be done to address it, and it explores the cyber security of the Defense Department and the way it addresses threats to its supply chain.
Jefferson Davis statue’s removal comes amid cheers and protests as mayor says: ‘We must remember all of our history, but we need not revere it’ Early on Thursday morning, workers in New Orleans removed a statue of the Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, the second of four monuments slated for removal in a contentious, months-long process that has sparked protests on both sides. 'If I had my gun on me, I'd shoot him': the civil war over statues in New Orleans Read more As the statue was lifted from its perch on a grassy median along one of the city’s main thoroughfares, a cheer went up from some of the dozens of protesters who had been pushing for the monument’s removal. It was then lowered behind trucks encircled around the monument’s base and out of view of the media. Removal of the statue – a larger-than-life image of Davis atop an ornate granite pedestal roughly 15ft high – follows recent protests at the site by supporters and opponents of the monuments. City officials had refused to give advance public notice of the work because of threats of violence against contractors and workers involved in the effort. The statue was unveiled in 1911. Dozens of protesters both supporting the monuments and calling for their removal stayed up overnight to watch the proceedings. The demonstrators, separated by metal barriers set up by the police, heckled each other from opposite sides of the barricade. About 50 police officers encircled the monument and kept watch on the protesters. As preparation for removing the Davis statue, workers had wrapped the torso in a green wrapping and then placed a harness attached to a crane around the statue. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Protesters clash as the monument is removed. Photograph: Jonathan Bachman/Reuters The New Orleans mayor, Mitch Landrieu, who first urged the city council to remove the monuments in 2015, praised the effort in a news release. “These monuments have stood not as historic or educational markers of our legacy of slavery and segregation, but in celebration of it,” he said. “I believe we must remember all of our history, but we need not revere it. “To literally put the Confederacy on a pedestal in some of our most prominent public places is not only an inaccurate reflection of our past, it is an affront to our present, and a bad prescription for our future. We should not be afraid to confront and reconcile our past.” Late last month, the first structure – a 35ft-tall granite obelisk known as the Liberty Place monument – was removed by masked workers under cover of darkness. The obelisk was a tribute to whites who battled a biracial Reconstruction government installed in New Orleans after the civil war. Also slated for removal are a bronze statue of the Confederate general PGT Beauregard on horseback, completed in 1915, which sits atop a stone platform at the entrance to the city’s largest park and museum of art; and a statue of Gen Robert E Lee. The Lee statue is the most prominent of the four. Unveiled in 1884, the likeness of Lee stands atop a 60ft column in the center of a traffic circle on historic St Charles Avenue. Monument supporters say each of the statues weighs tons and they feared moving the ageing icons could result in significant damage. The council voted to remove the monuments in 2015 – part of the national response after nine black parishioners were shot to death by an avowed racist at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, earlier that year. But the process of removing the statues was tied up for months in a court battle. New Orleans is a predominantly black city of nearly 390,000. The statues were erected well before the civil rights era, which brought African Americans to political power. The city council, now majority black, voted 6-1 to take the monuments down. Landrieu, a white Democrat, was elected in 2010 and re-elected four years later with strong biracial support.
Our evidence comes from two Department of Housing and Urban Development demonstration programs: Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing and Welfare to Work Vouchers. Both were designed to test whether housing choice vouchers—that is, subsidies that allowed participants to choose where they live—propelled low-income households into greater economic security. But a new study co-led by myself; Evelyn Blumenberg from the University of California, Los Angeles; and Casey Dawkins from the University of Maryland suggests there is at least one group that may need help to drive more, not less: low-income residents of high-poverty neighborhoods. We're driving less. Adjusted for population growth, the number of vehicle miles driven per year has dropped 8.9 percent since peaking in 2005 . We're also buying fewer cars . While driving will accelerate as the economy improves, many Americans would rather not have to drive so much. Taken together, data sets from these studies allowed us to examine neighborhood quality, neighborhood satisfaction, and employment outcomes for almost 12,000 families from 10 cities: Atlanta, Augusta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Fresno, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, and Spokane. The results? Housing voucher recipients with cars tended to live and remain in higher-opportunity neighborhoods—places with lower poverty rates, higher social status, stronger housing markets, and lower health risks. Cars are also associated with improved neighborhood satisfaction and better employment outcomes. Among Moving to Opportunity families, those with cars were twice as likely to find a job and four times as likely to remain employed. For more than a century, cars have signified status. The importance of automobiles arises not due to the inherent superiority of driving, but because public transit systems in most metropolitan areas are slow, inconvenient, and lack sufficient metropolitan-wide coverage to rival the automobile. More research is needed to determine if the relationship is causal or associative, that is, whether the car is the catalyst or if there is something deeper at work, of which the car is simply one manifestation. Cars are expensive to purchase and to maintain, even more so for families with severely limited resources. A low-income household that is somehow able, inclined, or afforded the opportunity to buy a car might also do many other things to get ahead. Motivation, opportunity, or both could be key. Yet our current findings are enough to raise important questions. For example, should government welfare programs facilitate automobile access or ownership? In some states, a car would push families over the asset limit for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, making those families ineligible for help. There are also environmental considerations. How might we balance the apparent benefits of car access for disadvantaged families with serious concerns about climate change and the need to reduce automobile emissions? Car-sharing in locations and at price points that are accessible for the working poor could be part of the solution. For more than a century, cars have signified status. They became emblems of freedom. And by the 1950s, shortsighted transportation planning made them a necessity in many communities. Even as highly educated millennials and baby boomers fantasize about car-free cities, car access is still indispensable for many families seeking safety and economic security. Top image: spirit of america /Shutterstock.com This post originally appeared on the Urban Institute's Metrotrends blog, an Atlantic partner site.
CNET I've been feeling a little disturbed lately. Slightly insane things are happening all around me and nothing seems to make sense anymore. So I thought I'd seek out some information about psychopathy, in the hope of making myself feel better -- or at least understood. Somehow, I stumbled upon an article on The Week that disturbed me even more. In casual style, it wondered which professions contained the greatest number of psychopaths and which ones had the fewest. Honestly, I thought engineers would be somewhere near the top of the list. The ones I know are intense creatures, prone to excessive rational thought and irrational action. They believe they can solve everything, yet don't see that in their own lives, they have solved very little. I expected, therefore, that they would at least be higher up the psychopathic scale than, say, clergymen. I was disabused. The data comes from a book by Kevin Dutton called "The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success." Already knowing that engineers are not in the Top 10 of psychopathic tendencies, you might think that Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, and their ilk are extremely well-adjusted beings. You might also think that cheerleaders' uniforms are designed by Chanel. The occupation with the highest proportion of psychopaths is CEO. Is it possible that though most engineers are middling in normality, the ones who rise to CEO are dangerously bonkers? I fear it may be the case. Somehow, the need to grab power all for yourself might be revelatory. It's fascinating, though, which other professions are on the list. Just behind CEOs come lawyers. The jokes do write themselves sometimes. Third on the list is media. Please, lower thy cudgel. This specifically refers to TV and radio media. We're looking at you, Sean Hannity and Jon Stewart. Lower down we find salesperson (naturally), surgeon (they're mostly nuts), and then, well, journalist. That last one is probably a typo. Police officer, clergyperson, chef (good Lord, yes), and civil servant round out the Top 10. Engineers don't find themselves in the Top 10 list of the least psychopathic, but I feel sure they can live with that. This is a slightly more expected list. It features care aide, nurse, therapist (are you kidding? all the ones I know are loopy in the extreme), craftsperson, beautician/stylist, charity worker, teacher, creative artist, doctor (oh, they're so different from surgeons), and accountant (what?). Those who try to explain such results offer that the least psychopathic professions deal with feelings and involve deep human connection. Accountants? It is said that psychopaths are entranced by professions in which there is access to power and a distance from feelings-based actions. Perhaps engineers, while bathing in rational action, still aren't moved by power itself. Or perhaps this data needs to be updated to reflect the new, new world and all who sail in it.
Force Grey: Lost City of Omu adds Joe Manganiello and Deborah Ann Woll to the cast and Nathan Stewart (@nathanbstewart) and Bart Carroll (@bart_carroll) share what it was like being in the room with all that crazy talent. Watch Force Grey: Lost City of Omu on twitch.tv/dnd Mondays at 5pm PT, and catch up on the old episodes in the collection here. Lore You Should Know – Matt Sernett (@Sernett) discuss who Volo (of Volo’s Guide to Monsters fame) is and where he came from. Watch Dragon Talk recordings live on twitch.tv/dnd Mondays at 2pm PT! Here’s a guide to when each segment on the podcast begins: 00:00 – Intro with Greg Tito (@gregtito), Shelly Mazzanoble (@shellymoo) + Nathan & Bart! 19:28 – Lore You Should Know – Volothamp Geddarn 35:55 – Interview with Nathan Stewart (@nathanbstewart) and Bart Carroll (@bart_carroll) ~01:10:30 – Outro with Greg, Shelly, Bart and Nathan Subscribe to the Official D&D Podcast on iTunes, on Google Play, or wherever you get podcasts. Watch Dragon Talk recordings live on twitch.tv/dnd Mondays at 2pm PT! If you’re interested in submitting your artwork to be considered for use with D&D, send five images to artdrop@wizards.com. Here’s video of the interview segment from today’s podcast: Nathan & Bart interview: Lore You Should Know segment: Nathan Stewart Nathan is the Director of Dungeons & Dragons and oversees the talented team of wizards who deliver amazing adventures for millions of fans around the world. He joined Wizards of the Coast in 2012 to help lead the franchise into the future by expanding the brand blueprint into videogames, movies and new entertainment. Previously, he has worked on other big game brands like Xbox, Grand Theft Auto, Madden Football, Pac-Man and more. You can watch Nathan’s Fireside chats on the first Friday of each month on twitch.tv/DND. Bart Carroll Bart Carroll has been a part of Wizards of the Coast since 2004, having worked with the Star Wars, G.I. Joe, Magic: the Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons brands through the years. He’s also been a D&D player since 1980 (with fond memories of coloring the illustrations in his 1st Edition Monster Manual), and is thrilled that his current role includes the D&D website and Dragon+. His favorite monster is the brain in a jar. You can find Bart on Twitter. Host Bios Greg Tito Greg Tito has had weird and long career as an Off Broadway stage manager, a playwright, a theater carpenter, a secretary, an RPG designer, a games journalist, and now a PR/Marketing person. He has loved Dungeons & Dragons ever since 1985 when he found an old copy of the AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide on his brother’s bookshelf and he honed that love of fantasy storytelling in the dark streets of Sasserine by way of the Upper West Side gaming group he joined in 2004. He moved his family (wife + two young kids) to Seattle in 2015 to work on D&D and he’s never looked back. You can find Greg on Twitter.
The Canadian Press HALIFAX -- A wayward pig named Kevin Bacon has been safely returned to his owner, thanks to a couple of bemused police officers who found the portly animal waddling "footloose and fancy free" down a residential street. Members of the Halifax force were called to an area around Russell Street in Dartmouth on Tuesday after people out for a walk came upon the potbellied pig and notified police. Constables Nick Webber and Cody Schultz approached the happy looking animal as he munched grass on someone's front lawn. "He was lovely -- he was very happy to see them and very friendly and wasn't scared to see them," said police spokeswoman, Const. Dianne Woodworth. "He's adorable." When asked about the demeanor of the pig -- named for the star of the 1980s movie Footloose -- Woodworth chuckled and said, "I think he was just excited to be out front. You could say he was footloose and fancy free." She said Bacon was not in any danger and was following the rules of the road by staying on the sidewalk, adding that he hadn't ventured far from his home after likely escaping from his backyard. She said the officers didn't have a hard time rounding him up, making the apprehension of Bacon likely a first for the force. "We've had deer loose in the city and even a moose, but not a pig that I'm aware of," she said with a laugh. A picture posted on the force's Facebook page showing one of the officers reaching out to the pig generated more than 1,200 likes and dozens of comments, including one from a woman who said, "Good thing they found Kevin before he became Chris P Bacon lol!" Another said, "You guys literally live in the most bizarre city in Canada I swear." The pig was safely returned to its owner. But the force clarified Thursday that a photo of the pig apparently peering out the rear window of a police vehicle was not Kevin Bacon, but a different errant pig.
Black voters bolstering Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails County GOP in Minnesota shares image comparing Sanders to Hitler Holder: 'Time to make the Electoral College a vestige of the past' MORE’s bid for the Democratic nomination expect her to deliver results if she wins the White House. Prison reform, education and increasing black employment are among the issues that black leaders have raised with Clinton as they have pledged their support. ADVERTISEMENT Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) said members of the Congressional Black Caucus have spoken to Clinton about anti-poverty legislation sponsored by Rep. James Clyburn, who delivered a crucial endorsement for the former secretary of State in the days before her big win in South Carolina’s primary. “She has said that she will support that strongly, and we think she’ll have a strong chance of getting that through,” Cleaver said in an interview with The Hill, adding that Clinton “embraced it quickly, which is extremely important to us.” If Clinton wins the presidency, she’ll owe a part of the victory to black voters, who have largely been the difference in her primary fight against Bernie Sanders Bernard (Bernie) SandersSenate Dems seek to turn tables on GOP in climate change fight Bernie Sanders Town Hall finishes third in cable news race, draws 1.4 million viewers Woman to undecided Biden: 'Just say yes' to 2020 bid MORE. Clinton built her delegate lead by sweeping the South, largely because of the black vote. NBC exit polls show that Clinton trounced Sanders 81 to 18 percent among African-Americans in Florida, where she won a huge victory. In Cleaver’s home state of Missouri, she also fared much better than the Vermont senator among black voters, winning 67 percent. Given that context and Clinton’s stated desire to take action on income inequality and jobs, it’s easy to imagine the Clyburn legislation — which has drawn support from Republicans — being moved in the first 100 days of a Clinton administration. Clyburn’s bill would direct at least 10 percent of federal spending on discretionary programs to communities where at least 20 percent of the population has lived below the poverty line for at least the last 30 years. While many of those districts have poor white populations as well, the bill could help black Americans struggling in the economic recovery. Black leaders who have backed Clinton will be looking for more, however. Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) said he hopes the former first lady addresses “inadequate jobs, inadequate housing and inadequate education” in black communities. He’d also like to see diverse appointments not just at the Cabinet level but at the sub-Cabinet level and in the judicial system. “I believe she gets it,” Hastings added of Clinton’s understanding of concerns within the black community. “I think she’ll listen to me and [Congressman] Charlie Rangel, [Congressman] Bobby Scott Robert (Bobby) Cortez ScottTop Dems blast administration's proposed ObamaCare changes Virginia congressional delegation says it's 'devastated by’ Richmond Turmoil The Hill's 12:30 Report: AOC unveils Green New Deal measure \| Trump hits Virginia Dems \| Dems begin hearings to get Trump tax returns MORE, those of us who had been around, and I think she would spend some time in the communities.” Cleaver, a longtime Clinton supporter who endorsed her in the 2008 presidential primary, said he sat down in a Des Moines hotel room with the Democratic front-runner to talk about issues that black voters want the next president to focus upon. “I can’t say I laid out an agenda, but by the time the general election begins, that’s when we start speaking very specifically about what we’d like to see her champion,” Cleaver said. “No one is going to be hesitant to be candid. She’s trying to win the primary election and this may not be a good time for one particular group to demand things.” Clinton is hoping that black voters keep her on top in New York’s primary on April 19. On Sunday, she made stops at three African-American churches in New York City to highlight her work and her husband’s work when he was president. The effort hit a major speed bump last week when Bill Clinton William (Bill) Jefferson ClintonKasich fundraises off 2020 speculation Inviting Kim Jong Un to Washington Howard Schultz must run as a Democrat for chance in 2020 MORE got into a public argument with protesters in the Empire State over the 1994 crime bill he signed into law. As protesters chanted “black youth are not superpredators,” he defended the legislation, arguing the protesters were “defending the people who killed the lives you say matter.” Bill Clinton a day later said he regretted the comments, but Sanders has sought to make them an issue. Independent observers say the remarks hurt Hillary Clinton, but that reservoirs of goodwill for the Clinton years will help the former first couple weather them. “That comment will make it harder to woo younger African-Americans to her side,” said Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons. “But I think older African-Americans remember how bad things were at the time.” A Quinnipiac University poll late last month showed that African-Americans in New York support Clinton 66 percent to 31 percent for Sanders. Clinton in some ways is following in the steps of Barack Obama Barack Hussein ObamaChicago's next mayor will be a black woman Obama portraits brought more than 1 million visitors to National Portrait Gallery in first year With low birth rate, America needs future migrants MORE in forming a coalition of support in the Democratic primary. In 2008, the then-Illinois senator, not Clinton, benefited from black support because many in the community wanted to help elect the first black president. Obama was under pressure after his election to do something for the black community, and there are critics who argue he did not do enough. “Historians are going to have a field day trying to juxtapose how in the era of the first black president, the bottom fell out for black America,” talk show host and frequent Obama critic Tavis Smiley said late last year on Fox News. “Black people were still in many ways politically marginalized, socially manipulated and economically exploited.” Obama frequently talked in his first term about how he wanted to be the president for all Americans — not just black Americans. In some ways, that situation arguably put him in a more difficult position upon entering the White House than Clinton would find herself in. Clinton would at least not face critics guessing that a position to help black America was being taken because of her race. Cleaver and Hastings say that despite some misgivings over the crime bill and welfare reform, black voters have good memories of the Clinton years that are now helping the former first lady. “A large part of it has to do with Bill Clinton,” Hastings said. “They were a team. And people know they will be a team. “What people saw in Bill Clinton was a person who was sensitive to their needs,” Hastings said. “Black folks would be really happy if she accomplished 75 percent of what her husband did.” Clemmie L. Harris, a visiting assistant professor at the Center for African American Studies at Wesleyan University, said some in the black political class feel as though they had greater access to the White House under Clinton then they did under Obama. With a new Clinton presidency, they hope it will “return to that level of opportunity.”
Star Wars fans were getting a bit confused about the upcoming Han Solo film (Picture: Lucasfilm/20th Century Fox/REX/Shutterstock) Star Wars chief Kathleen Kennedy has cleared up some confusion about Han Solo’s name. Captain Marvel trolls prompt Rotten Tomatoes to remove early review option It all got started with Disney CEO Bob Iger, who revealed some teasers about the upcoming Han Solo origin film. Speaking at the University of Southern California, Iger said that fans would see how Han met ‘a certain Wookiee’ and ‘discover how he got his name.’ Fans took this as a suggestion that, after all this time, it would be revealed that Han Solo isn’t actually called Han Solo. But Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm, has waded in to chill the fans out. She told MTV: ‘There’s more to Han Solo’s name, but it’s not that it’s not his name. It’s obviously his name. It will always be his name.’ So that’s cleared that up! Although the fallout from Han Solo actually being called something else would be interesting to watch… Advertisement Advertisement Harrison Ford reprised his iconic role for The Force Awakens, but in the prequel it will be Alden Ehrenreich taking it on. Alden Ehrenreich (centre) is playing a young Han Solo (Picture: Star Wars/Disney) The currently untitled film, directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, also stars Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover, Woody Harrelson and Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Star Wars will be back in cinemas in December with The Last Jedi. MORE: John Boyega says the ‘love is potent’ between Finn and Poe in Star Wars 8 and he’s read your filthy fanfiction MORE: Disney teases Star Wars Land is coming in 2019 and we’re not sure we can wait that long
While Cosmopolitan has always claimed feminist leanings, we know that really it’s always been about attracting the male of the species. Cosmo launched in 1972, and has been peddling the same strange mix of empowerment and insecurity ever since. Although we doubt the magazine nowadays would include the word ‘anachronistic’ (Quentin Crisp, September 1981) or feature a sanitary towel ad that advises you to ‘hustle through your period’, the core aim of keeping and catching that man has always been a constant. Here, we take a look into the archives and make some cheap jokes about magazine content that was produced before we were even born. 1. Be a Cosmopolitan Girl Ok, so you’re not obsessed with men, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t need to spend vast amounts of time and money to make yourself more interesting to them, while retaining the requisite amounts of insecurity (unlike those swanky Playboy guys) to keep you buying Cosmo every month. 2. Exercise in the Office Take off your bra, ride your desk chair (ooh er!) and not only will you stay skinny, but if your boss catches you in the act, you could be in for a very sexy appraisal. Call us cynical, but this whole feature seems to be geared towards getting your boss to bang you. 3. Be the Perfect Wife That means being able to eat and eat and still look sensational, btw. And being a first-class cook. And, according to Max (not pictured), possessing ‘a human quality of aliveness’ (we think that means y’know, breathing) 4. Say One of These in Bed Lines include ‘Sleeping with you is like spending a week in Marrakesh’ (sweaty and expensive), ‘Where do I sent the cheque?’ (We think this means that the guy is so good at sex that he could be a gigolo, but tbh we’re really not sure) and ‘to think I once thought I was frigid.’ Yeah. 5. Be Sensual A Cosmo quiz from January 1973 entitled ‘How Sensual Are You?’ includes the above hypothetical scenario, demonstrating how even the most life endangering of circumstances can provide pulling opportunities. 6. Do Some Naked Dancercise (but only if you’re sexy) Flares optional. In the words of Cosmo, ‘don’t call them strip teasers, these girls are dancers who are beautiful enough to take their clothes off in public.’ Oh, what’s that? We’ll put our shirts back on, then. 7. Buy him a Dachshund He’ll be so happy that he’ll take his clothes off and straddle it. 8. Wear Windsong Not an unpleasant symptom of undiagnosed IBS, it turns out, but an expensive perfume with a most unfortunate name. 9. Tape your hair to your head… …while sucking a lollipop. It might look as though you’re recovering from a lobotomy but . . . Oh. You are recovering from a lobotomy. 10. Recreate Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe No caption really needed. ‘Pick a secluded spot,’ advises Cosmo. Otherwise the flares and perm combos sported by your gentlemen companions may lead to arrest under the Sexual Offences Act. 11. Sit like a girl, not like a man Being a feminist is, admittedly, a rather sedentary endeavour (we’re sitting down now, FYI) 12. Read the Dictionary Go on, it’s only a little one. Plus, as we all know men value women for their minds. He can’t even see the furry lingerie and seductive posture: he’s too busy thinking about your massive vocabulary. 13. Follow These Tips Before you know it, you’ll be a purple chess maestro cum human prawn platter. That should do it. 14. Get Thin Enough for a Thong Now you know whom to blame for that decade-long wedgie. 15. Multidate How come Craig David gets to make love by Wednesday (and for the rest of the week) when we have to meet Peter at the theatre and spend a day at the coast with Steve? It hardly seems fair. Bob looks like a hoot, though. Come to Mama. 16. Smock Around the Clock Reads: ‘you won’t have to fish for compliments – they’ll come naturally.’ Someone’s telling porkies. 17. Hate your body The print equivalent of America’s Next Top Model, where gorgeous looking women are bullied into a state of permanent self-loathing. Nice. 18. Don’t be a slut OK, so it doesn’t mean what we think it means, but Peter Lewis’ full page moan about how women are messy, slovenly and disorganised reeks of sexism, arbitrary gender norms, and, perhaps worst of all, observational humour (aren’t women silly) Shudder. 19. Wear Paper panties Nothing says romance like disposable knickers. 20. Live in This Flat Where better to bring your beau back to than a living room that looks like it’s been vomited on by an eighties children’s television presenter with a penchant for millions sweets and then spunked on by a My Little Pony? 21. Be Nonchalant Oh this old thing? I always sport hold ups and an orange kimono while taking tea with tradesmen. 22. Don’t put on weight Genuinely disturbing, and perhaps even more so when you consider that the early eighties saw Cosmopolitan take a much more feminist slant. It’s sad that some genuinely groundbreaking journalism has been let down by ads such as this. Putting it alongside articles with titles such as ‘Sexist Chat to Avoid’ and features by Paula Yates about women’s lib just undermines the whole endeavour. This ad, worthy as it is of the 1950s, actually appeared in March of 1982. As for the poetry: we’ll let that speak for itself. 23. Don’t laugh at his failed erection We love how ‘masturbate slowly while looking into his eyes’ and ‘suggest toasted cheese and tomato sandwiches’ are put on an equal pegging as ways of handling erectile dysfunction. If you find yourself in this situation, the choice basically boils down to ‘blind him with your muff’ or ‘distract him with food.’ 1 Way to Please a Woman: Keep her away from an article called ‘The most beautiful thing a man can do for a woman’, from the 1972 launch issue of Cosmo. IT’S FOR HER OWN GOOD. It’s a three page feature about Michael Parkinson’s vasectomy, and now we can’t stop thinking about his nutsack. Thanks, Cosmo.
Wow. I’m not really sure what else to say. Tonight, there were rumblings that Star Wars Battlefront 2 had taken away the ability to purchase crystals, which in turn can buy loot boxes, on the PS4, Xbox One and PC versions of the game, just hours before its global launch. It could have been an error, but DICE quickly came out with a statement to say that it was not. Here’s DICE GM Oskar Gabrielson, who published this in a blog post tonight: “Our goal has always been to create the best possible game for all of you – devoted Star Wars fans and game players alike. We’ve also had an ongoing commitment to constantly listen, tune and evolve the experience as it grows. You’ve seen this with both the major adjustments, and polish, we have made over the past several weeks. But as we approach the worldwide launch, it's clear that many of you feel there are still challenges in the design. We’ve heard the concerns about potentially giving players unfair advantages. And we’ve heard that this is overshadowing an otherwise great game. This was never our intention. Sorry we didn’t get this right. We hear you loud and clear, so we’re turning off all in-game purchases. We will now spend more time listening, adjusting, balancing and tuning. This means that the option to purchase crystals in the game is now offline, and all progression will be earned through gameplay. The ability to purchase crystals in-game will become available at a later date, only after we’ve made changes to the game. We’ll share more details as we work through this.” This is the culmination of a week of absolutely brutal headlines for EA, DICE and Battlefront 2 (a few written by yours truly) as fans protested a large number of problems with the game’s progression system including it being: Tied to randomized loot boxes Full of high-cost, ultra-grindy unlocks Full of Star Cards that give significant power advantages In a game where credit earning is capped in arcade play More or less entirely based around getting people to buy loot boxes for clear advantages With this move, at least one aspect of this has been taken out of the equation. The Star Card system may still exist, and is full of upgrades that still seem unwise like flat damage, fire rate and health increases, but as of this time, you can no longer buy these upgrades for real-world cash, leveling the playing field at least somewhat. Earlier today, I wrote about the “emergency heart surgery” Battlefront 2 needed to save it, which included stripped the loot box progression system out of the game entirely and reworking it from scratch. That may not happen, but even still, the step of removing microtransactions from the game just hours before its worldwide launch is unprecedented, and I’m frankly astonished that EA/DICE took this drastic of a step so late in the game. Yes, they were tweaking prices and things as recently as a few days ago, but this, eliminating the central monetization mechanic of the game, is something else entirely. This is just unbelievable. What this does not necessarily mean is that microtransactions will be gone forever. It seems absolutely possible that they will end up returning to the game once DICE has figured out how exactly to reduce the grind or lower the cost of these boxes. It is also no guarantee that larger reworks are coming, like the elimination of the loot box progression system altogether, though if DICE is willing to go this far, I wouldn’t rule anything out at this point. This feels like a “Diablo 3 kills the Auction House” moment or “Xbox One changes all its policies” type of event. A truly monumental shift, and one spurred almost entirely by relentless fan pushback and anger. I guess part of me wants to give EA and DICE props for this, but above all else, it reinforces just what a total mess this launch has been. To do something this drastic this late only indicates that the game was wildly undertested, and the microtransaction idea was a terrible one that should have never made its way into the game in the first place. I have no idea where Star Wars Battlefront 2 will go from here. A loot box progression system is still not ideal even without the microtransaction component, but I have to believe we’ll hear some more info in the next day or two once everyone is done scrambling. This really is unprecedented, so grab your popcorn, and wait to see what happens next. Update: From VentureBeat, an indication that Disney might have gotten directly involved with the Battlefront 2 firestorm, and sparked this move: "Earlier today, Electronic Arts chief executive officer Andrew Wilson had a phone call with The Walt Disney Company chief executive Bob Iger about Star Wars: Battlefront II, according to sources familiar with the situation. A few hours after that call, and players are finding that the option to purchase the premium crystals currency is no longer working." If you liked this article, listen to our new video game podcast, Overworld, below. Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook. Pick up my sci-fi novel series, The Earthborn Trilogy, which is now in print, online and on audiobook.
Former US President Jimmy Carter visits the Arab neighbourhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem © Pool/Pool “At this moment, there is zero chance of the two-state solution,” said Jimmy Carter, giving his bleakest pronouncement yet on the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock to which he devoted much effort while President of the United States, and even more time since then. “These are the worst prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinians for years,” he said, adding that he didn’t think that Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, “has any intention” of making progress towards the goal, the thrust of international efforts for decades, of the creation of a separate state for the Palestinians alongside Israel. After John Kerry’s efforts as Secretary of State to broker a deal, which collapsed in the spring last year, the “US has withdrawn” from the problem, he reckoned. Carter, US President from 1977 to 1981, spoke to Prospect on the launch of his new book (his 29th), A Full Life: Reflections at 90, and just shortly before the operation that revealed he had cancer, and that it had spread. He is arguably the best recent case of a president who gained in stature after he left office, and this crisp survey of the arc of his life and passions shows why. It is a reminder of the strength of the moral views of someone described as “more of a missionary than a legislator”; his lack of fear in voicing them on the global stage, and his enduring lack of interest in political compromise. His controversial and uncomfortable presidency, after narrowly defeating Gerald Ford, was dogged by clashes with the Democrat-controlled Congress. Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, incredulous that the born-again Christian from Georgia stopped serving alcohol at the White House, and furious at how Carter, the former Governor of Georgia, put Georgians in key posts, became an insurmountable obstacle when the President refused on principle to reward potential supporters on Capitol Hill with bills containing “pork” (favours for local projects). That blocked many of his idealistic projects on energy, the environment and water, leaving the Egypt-Israel peace accords struck at Camp David as one of the landmarks of his time in office. But after losing to Ronald Reagan in a landslide (Iran’s revolutionary government adding to the humiliation by releasing the US embassy hostages hours after Carter left office), he founded the Carter Centre, which has sought to promote peace and health, and has retained for him a role in peace negotiations in the world’s conflicts. To those committed to human rights, this high purity has made him a hero (for which the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize was fit recognition); to those immersed in the realities of government, even his admirers, it made him a natural one-term president; to those in recent Israeli governments, it has put him beyond the pale. Of his books, this is among the most personal. As often happens in autobiographies from those who have achieved high office, the freshest parts are the earliest. His most absorbing details are on how to become a peanut farmer, the business he picked up from his father after he left the navy. He is eloquent on learning to carve an irregular furrow through an unbroken field with two mules at the age of 12; on how he made furniture for the family (his father’s estate, once shared among siblings, did not leave him with much); and how to pick the right peanuts (one field of a new variety called Virginia Bunch 67 got him through the 1954 drought). At other points, though, his survey of “a full life” leads to a jarringly concise shorthand, as in his remark that “Rosalynn and I had three sons while I was in the navy… I wanted to try again for a girl, and we had an off-and-on argument for the next 14 years, which I finally won. Amy was born late in 1967.” He also delivers his verdict on the world’s worst conflicts under the unmatchably laconic chapter headings of “Issues Mostly Resolved” and “Problems Still Pending”; the second category includes, no surprise, extended reference to the Middle East. In his 2006 book Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, Carter argued that Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian land was one of the leading obstacles to peace in the Middle East. Both the argument and the comparison with South Africa—even though, as he disingenuously insists, he did not refer to Israel in the title—won him few friends in Israel. When he visited Israel and the West Bank at the end of April this year, he says he did not bother to contact Netanyahu for a meeting, on the grounds that “it would be a waste of time to ask,” expecting that the request would be rebuffed as were previous ones. Israel’s Prime Minister “does not now and has never sincerely believed in a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.” “The Netanyahu government decided early on to adopt a one-state solution,” he said—meaning that Israel would retain control of the West Bank—“but without giving them [the Palestinians] equal rights.” Some Palestinians have now begun to demand that Israel give them the vote within that “single state,” one of several tactics they are employing as more come to share Carter’s conclusion that the “two-state solution,” still the professed international goal, is not going to happen. “They will never get equal rights [to Israeli Jews, within that single state],” he said, but adding that he would like a drive to give them “more equal rights.” Asked whether without a deal Israel was heading for apartheid, he said, “I am reluctant to use that word in a news article” but that there was real force to the argument because of the rising Arab population in the land that Israel controls. Either “Palestinians will have a majority in government”—something the Jewish state would not accept, he suggested, “or you deprive them of equal rights.” Nor would Israel’s government echo his support for the recent deal with Iran to curb its nuclear programme, which he described as “superb,” and “the best we can do and the only alternative to a conflict with Iran.” He has “complete confidence” in John Kerry, Secretary of State, he said, saying that he would reimpose sanctions if Iran breached the deal. But Obama now has to navigate the “big obstacle” of Congress to go ahead with the deal, although Carter said it was “my belief that Democrats would support it.” He hopes that the US’s “relations with Iran can improve.” He said he was not at this point worried about nuclear proliferation, but if Iran did acquire a nuclear weapons capability, then Saudi Arabia might well be moved to do so too. Israel, he said, had “at least 150 to 200” nuclear weapons, repeating “at least.” Israel, which is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has always refused to confirm or deny that it has nuclear weapons, but the universal assumption that it does has been a running sore in attempts to persuade the rest of the region not to acquire them. Carter first disclosed this figure of 150 in May 2008, in answer to a direct question I asked him at an event at the Hay-on-Wye book festival, and it remains the only public statement of the size of the arsenal (and therefore public acknowledgement of its existence) by a senior statesman who is unequivocally in a position to know. The US’s “diminishing influence” is “inexorable and steady,” he said. In the lifetimes of today’s adults “the US will remain the preeminent military power.” But “China and Russia and others will increase their influence in the United Nations and the world economy,” he said, and while this has not diminished his idealism, it has led him to recognise the limits on what the US can do. He had, for instance, met Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in April, as part of a delegation of the world’s elder statesmen concerned about the Ukraine crisis, and has a more nuanced approach than the Obama administration. While keen that the US take visible steps to deter Russia from destabilising more of Ukraine, or looking to the Baltics, he has called Russia’s annexation of Crimea “inevitable.” That is more tempered than the hot and cold swings of his presidency, where he both engaged in the second round of the SALT arms control talks, but then organised the US boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics after the 1979 Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan. It is also some way from Obama’s sharp-edged criticism of Moscow. Carter is now eloquent on the limits on US power which have so shaped Obama’s presidency. The 2003 Iraq invasion “was a clear mistake—a horrible mistake,” he said. “It has destroyed Iraq as a nation and opened up Iranian influence.” The US’s presence in Afghanistan, even if less controversial at its start, has been running for 13 years. US presidents no longer set out to “tell the truth and keep the peace,” he said. And its politics are deteriorating. “The massive quantities of dollars pouring into the political process have lost the essence of what made American democracy admirable.” “You need to raise $200-$300m” to run for Governor, Senator, never mind President, he said, and then the funders want their return on that afterwards. “When I ran we didn’t raise a nickel from outside.” The 2010 and 2014 rulings of the Supreme Court opening the gates to campaign donations from individual and corporate donors are “one of its biggest mistakes,” he said. Asked about the Hispanic influence on the US, he said “I am disappointed by the small percentage of Hispanics who go to the polls and vote.” The demographic shift “bodes well for the Democrats ultimately,” he said, given that most Hispanics currently vote Democrat (almost three quarters did so at the last election), although he added drily that the party had not decisively seen the benefit yet. About Obama he is more forthright. “There are 22 people in my family and they all voted for Obama over Hillary [Clinton]” in 2008, he said. “In some ways he has been successful,” he says; “I particularly approve” of his action to restore relations between the US and Cuba—which Carter had also tried when President. But apart from that, the Iran deal, and healthcare “I don’t think he has had notably historic successes.” This might seem harsh, in that even Carter’s warmest fans have had to pick carefully among the storms of his presidency to find clear wins. His praise is warmer, though, than for Hillary. He has said on US television that she is not “proven” as a politician, and has complimented John Kerry as Secretary of State for making efforts for Middle East peace that she, as Kerry’s predecessor, neglected to do. “She’s still got to get the nomination,” he points out, adding uncontroversially that he expects that she will indeed be the Democrat contender for the White House. If she is, however, he and his family will vote for her, he adds. On that point, at least, he appears prepared to compromise, for the sake of his lifelong loyalty to the Democratic cause. 13688344005c766299bc8e19.51403495
I am afraid Professor Stephen Hawking, writing in the Guardian, is once again wrong in his characterisation of government policy towards the NHS. Jeremy Hunt can attack me all he wants – but he is wrong to say the NHS is working \| Stephen Hawking Read more He does not deny that it has record funding or record numbers of doctors and nurses, but describes these as a “distraction”. Such figures surely are crucial evidence if he is arguing, as he did last weekend in a speech at the Royal Society of Medicine, that the direction of the NHS is heading towards a US-style insurance system. Such systems – which he seems to now concede are not government policy – rely on individuals, and not the state, paying for their healthcare. If that was the direction of travel, the state would be spending less, not more, on the NHS. Likewise, more individuals would be taking out private medical insurance – again, the opposite is the case. Although there was indeed a small rise last year, overall there has been a dramatic drop in private medical insurance since 2009. Professor Hawking’s suggestion that the NHS adopting accountable care organisation models in some parts of the country is a step towards an insurance-based system is also incorrect. On the contrary, in many ways these models weaken the “internal market”, or purchaser-provider split, to allow integrated and joined-up care. We want to encourage this because it will improve the quality of care, meaning less resources are used up in complex contract negotiations. But this has absolutely nothing to do with the funding model of the NHS, which will remain a single–payer taxpayer-funded system free at the point of use – and should do forever as far as I’m concerned. I have said many times that I don’t believe staff have ever worked harder. We are doing all we can to support them I do not accept his comments about the misuse of statistics, although inevitably in the heat of an industrial relations dispute there will be many such accusations hurled from both sides. To decide that one piece of research is the most credible is not “cherrypicking”, as Hawking suggested – it is doing what you have to do when researchers disagree. But regardless of which research you back, none of us can bury our heads in the sand on the issues surrounding weekend care in hospitals. Most doctors in their hearts would rather a loved one was admitted mid-week than at the weekend. Let’s remember that the drive towards better standards of care across the week came not from politicians but from clinicians, led by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. To ignore their findings would be a betrayal of duty by a health secretary. Government policy is simply to make sure that four clinical seven-day standards, set by the Royal Colleges and ensuring patient access to consultants and diagnostic tests, are properly met. Finally, Professor Hawking suggests that I think everything is working well in the NHS. On the contrary, I have acknowledged time and again the great pressures doctors and nurses are under as we face up to the need for higher standards of safety and quality alongside the challenges of an ageing population. I have said many times that I don’t believe frontline staff have ever worked harder. We are doing all we can to support them with extra funding and extra clinicians. I believe we need still more staff to deliver the highest standards of care and reduce burnout pressures – and although it will take some time to feed through, last year’s decision to expand medical school places by 25% will make a big difference. NHS accused of keeping secret its plans to cut services Read more At the same time, we should recognise that despite pressures, staff have made real progress towards safety and quality with one of the lowest MRSA rates we have ever had, the four main hospital harms (pressure ulcers, falls, VTEs and UTIs) down 8% over three years and a transformed approach towards openness and transparency when things go wrong. They are doing a brilliant job in highly challenging circumstances. I admire and respect Stephen Hawking, and have offered to meet him to discuss these issues further, because I believe – whatever our disagreements – that we both believe in the NHS, and share a passion that it should be the safest and best healthcare system in the world. • Jeremy Hunt is secretary of state for health
It looks like Nutella, smells like Nutella and yet doesn’t quite taste like the famous Italian chocolate spread. Eastern European leaders are fuming after tests suggested that big Western brands use cheaper ingredients in food products sold in former communist countries. While Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov has slammed the practice as “food apartheid”, Czech Agriculture Minister Marian Jurečka declared in late February that the east was tired of being “Europe’s garbage can”. Borissov accuses EU of ‘apartheid’ over lower quality food in Eastern Europe Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov on Saturday (27 May) called an extraordinary cabinet meeting over two issues, one of them being the practice of big companies to market the same brands of products with big differences in quality between Eastern and Western Europe. Recent government-backed studies in Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic indicated that many items sold with identical packaging were of superior quality in richer neighbouring European Union countries. Lower quality of same food brands in Eastern Europe raises eyebrows Big companies are selling better food in Austria than they sell in Hungary, even though the brands are supposed to be the same, the Hungarian government said yesterday (16 February). The findings prompted Bulgaria last month to carry out its own tests. A team of chemists in Sofia spent the last few weeks diligently measuring, filtering and analysing samples of popular items like butter, cheese, sausages, chocolate, baby puree and soft drinks. On 28 June, the national food watchdog confirmed there were discrepancies with at least seven out of 31 products bought from the same food chain stores in Bulgaria, Germany and Austria. Bulgaria to pressure EU over food quality discrepancies https://t.co/aAlCfIqyUH pic.twitter.com/xWUglDT9rJ — euronews (@euronews) June 29, 2017 A chocolate dessert had less milk and cocoa than its German counterpart, for instance, although this did not have a major impact on taste, according to the national food safety agency. Soft drinks purchased in Bulgarian supermarkets contained sweeteners, while those in Austria were prepared with sugar. “Many of these deviations are considered minor from the viewpoint of (European Union) regulations,” the agency’s chief Damyan Iliev told Bulgarian media on Wednesday. “But Bulgarian consumers are being misled in that they believe they are buying the same product when in fact they are not.” The experts also noted that 16 of the tested products were sold at higher prices in the EU’s poorest member state than in Germany and Austria, with baby purees twice as expensive. Slovak study fuels concerns about lower quality food in Eastern Europe A new study carried out by the Slovak government has found significant quality differences in the same products sold in Slovakia and Austria. ‘Eastern anxiety’ The controversy has struck a raw nerve in the region where Western foods used to be a luxury that could only be bought with foreign currency in special shops. The issue perfectly encapsulates “the Eastern European anxiety about becoming second-class citizens” in the bloc, Bulgarian political expert Ivan Krastev wrote in the New York Times earlier this month. It feeds into fears over an emerging “two-tiered Europe”, in which big nations like Germany push for greater EU integration while ex-eastern bloc members demand more sovereignty, Krastev wrote. Visegrád readies attack against 'double standards' for food The leaders of the Visegrád Group (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary) are meeting today (2 March) in Warsaw to discuss, among other things, food quality in Central and Eastern Europe. The firms, however, argue that recipes are merely tweaked to suit local palates and point out that the practice doesn’t break any rules. Under EU directives, companies are free to change a product’s ingredients from one member state to another as long as they are clearly listed on the packaging. But that has done little to cool boiling tempers. “I don’t see how substituting good chocolate for the cheapest local one will adapt better to my taste?” fumed Bulgarian mother-of-two Yana Mihailova. The 46-year-old said she always stuffs her luggage with jars of chocolate spread whenever she travels abroad. “The price is higher but it’s totally worth it — there’s definitely much more cocoa in there,” she added. While the Bulgarian tests did not mention any actual brands, Hungary’s food authority in February named food giants Ferrero and Coca-Cola among the culprits. The agency said the version of Nutella sold in Budapest appeared to be “less creamy” than the Austrian version. Food agency: international brands sold in Bulgaria are of lower quality than in Western Europe. Affected are baby food, juices, dairy& more pic.twitter.com/vuwIkPto7Z — Jasper Neve (@JasperNeve) June 28, 2017 The aroma of Coca-Cola was seemingly “less rich, less complex” in Hungary while the flavour of Nestle’s Nesquik cocoa powder was “more harmonious and intense” in Austria. The government of populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a fervent critic of Brussels, accused the EU of double standards over the findings. The battle is a “war horse” for populist governments wanting “to prove that the European Union is incapable of guaranteeing the equal treatment of its citizens”, according to analyst Antony Galabov of the New Bulgarian University. Bulgarian MEP compares two-speed EU to apartheid Bulgarian MEP Peter Kouroumbashev (S&D) has compared ideas for a two- or multi- speed EU, advocated by the European Commission, to apartheid, arguing that such projects would ultimately destroy the Union. Some consumers see the tests as an important step in the east’s emancipation. “It’s good that Bulgarians finally try to shake off their mentality of second-class people who put up with being fed with lower quality food,” Lyudmila Pavlova, 40, told AFP while queueing in the supermarket.
Looking for news you can trust? Subscribe to our free newsletters. For a man dogged by allegations of racist comments and actions, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) managed to make it through the first day and a half of confirmation hearings to be the next attorney general without many fireworks. That changed on Wednesday afternoon, when three of Sessions’ African American colleagues in Congress testified against him. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.); Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a civil rights icon who nearly died fighting for African American voting rights; and Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, all gave testimony in opposition to Sessions. They told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Sessions’ record on everything from voting rights to mass incarceration made him unfit for the office of attorney general. It is customary for members of Congress to testify first in congressional hearings, but committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) scheduled the three members for the end of the hearings. That discrepancy was not lost on the three testifying members. “To have a senator, a House member, and a living civil rights legend testify at the end of all of this is the equivalent of being made to go to the back of the bus,” said Richmond, to a smattering of applause. Booker spoke first of the three, saying that although senators typically support one another, he found that tradition pitted against “what my conscience tells me is best for my country.” In his remarks, Booker said Sessions’ record shows he will not adequately protect the rights of minorities. “Sen. Sessions has not demonstrated a commitment to a central requirement of the job: to aggressively pursue the congressional mandate of civil rights, equal rights, and justice for all,” Booker said, according to prepared remarks. “In fact, at numerous times in his career, he has demonstrated a hostility toward these convictions, and has worked to frustrate attempts to advance these ideals.” His closing line was a play on a line often used by President Barack Obama, that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice. But Booker’s version had a key difference. “The arc of the moral universe does not just naturally curve toward justice,” he said. “We must bend it.” The country needs an attorney general, he said, who would bend it. Lewis invoked his fight for voting rights in Alabama, where he endured a near-fatal beating on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. He described Alabama’s evolution from a segregated place where he and Sessions both grew up under Jim Crow to ground zero of the successful fight for voting rights. He wondered whether Sessions’ repeated calls for “law and order” today mean what they did before the civil rights movement, when that language represented a regime of segregation and oppression. “The forces of law and order in Alabama were so strong that to take a stance against this injustice we had to be willing to sacrifice our lives,” Lewis said. When civil rights activists sacrificed themselves physically in Alabama—sometimes with their lives—President Lyndon Johnson and Congress responded by passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, he noted. “We made progress, but we are not there yet,” he said. “There are forces that would take us back to another place.” He added, “We need someone who will stand up, speak up, and speak out for the people that need help.” The most pointed language came from Richmond. He spoke directly about the choice facing the senators, and particularly the Republican members who appear to have no reservations about confirming Sessions. “Simply put, Sen. Sessions has advanced an agenda that would do great harm to African American citizens and communities,” he said. Richmond offered a warning to the senators. “If you vote to confirm Sen. Sessions, you take ownership of everything he may do or not do,” he said. “Each and every senator who casts a vote to confirm Sen. Sessions will be permanently marked as a co-conspirator in an effort to move this country backward, toward a darker period in our shared history. So I ask you all, where do you stand?” The testimony from these three members of Congress was interspersed with input from two pro-Sessions witnesses, both black attorneys who have worked with Sessions. But Booker, Lewis, and Richmond made it clear to the Senate Judiciary Committee that a vote for Sessions is one that virtually every black member of Congress opposes.
Well, this is a little out of the blue. Apple has just outed a new iPod touch that falls in behind its existing 2012 models. We're hesitant to call this the sixth generation, as it's more of a stripped down variant of what's already available. Not many of the specs have changed: the dimensions are identical, you're still getting a 4-inch Retina display, and the same dual-core A5 processor hums away inside. While the new model still has the front-facing FaceTime HD camera, it's lost the 5-megapixel main shooter, and a little bit of weight, to boot (0.06 ounces). Storage capacity has taken a hit, however. The other iPod touch comes in 32GB and 64GB varieties and a number of colors, but this new model sports just 16GB of storage and only comes in silver. Those lesser specs come at a lesser price, and you can snag one from Apple's online store now for $229, with retail locations getting it tomorrow. We reckon this won't be the only Apple product people'll be talking about today. Prepare for the cheaper iPhone rumor to make the rounds again. Update: Reader Brandon wrote in to point out that Apple dropped the wrist strap and loop from the refreshed iPod touch. Will it be missed?
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Another one of those helmet-ejecting swings sent Hanley Ramirez twirling to his knees yesterday. Ramirez injured himself on the gigantic sixth-inning hack, received a visit from the trainer and then finished the at-bat with a flyout to right field. He remained in the game to play defense at first base through the seventh before he left the Red Sox’ 4-0 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays with right side soreness. In the eighth, Travis Shaw shifted from third base to first, with Marco Hernandez taking over at the hot corner. In his lone at-bat in the ninth, Hernandez struck out as the No. 5 hitter behind David Ortiz. “Side got really tight,” Ramirez said. “I talked to (manager) John (Farrell) and we’re just trying to prevent something big. He told me that we’re not going to put your season on the line. Take care of that and be ready to go (tomorrow, when the Sox play at home against the Los Angeles Angels).” Ramirez was hurt swinging through a 94-mph fastball “just trying to hit a grand salami,” he said. About the following swing, when he flew out on a 2-1 pitch, Ramirez said, “I was a little bit scared to swing. I was like, ‘I don’t want to take any risks.’ ” Despite an 0-for-3 in the series finale, Ramirez is hitting .286 with four homers over his last 15 games. Prior to that, he hit .186 during a 24-game homerless drought. “I’ve been seeing the ball better,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for that moment. I kept working and finally it came.” Ortiz slows Ortiz appears to be slowing down. Fortunately for the Red Sox, they’ve never relied on the designated hitter’s speed. Farrell said he’s noticed the obvious, that Ortiz has been running much slower recently compared to the moderate speed he showed on the basepaths early in the season. The 40-year-old has been jogging especially slowly out of the batter’s box on grounders and hasn’t been pushing himself too hard from base to base. “There have been some times where it’s maybe not been what we saw early in the season,” Farrell said. “The one thing is, we’ve charted the total bases to date and particularly it’s the doubles, the two-base running, that really taxes him.” Ortiz went 1-for-4 (ninth-inning single) with four runners left on base in the loss. It was his 66th start in 78 games, and the Sox have routinely rested him about once a week due to ongoing soreness in his feet, ankles and heels. “We know this will be an ongoing maintenance situation,” Farrell said. While Ortiz, hitting .336 with a 1.103 OPS, is almost certainly going to make the All-Star team, the Red Sox are hoping he limits his action during the festivities. Ortiz told WEEI.com that he would not participate in the Home Run Derby. “He’s having a hell of a year,” Farrell said. “If it turns out he doesn’t participate in the Home Run Derby, I think that’s probably music to all of our ears. But at the same time, he’s earned the right to enjoy and experience that opportunity in San Diego as much as anyone.” Hole in rotation The Red Sox aren’t yet saying who will replace Eduardo Rodriguez in the starting rotation after he was sent to Triple-A Pawtucket following Monday’s loss, but Farrell has declared when it will happen. Utilizing today’s off day to give the starters an extra day of rest, Farrell will deploy a new fifth starter on Sunday in the series finale against the Angels. Farrell said Tuesday that the schedule of available pitchers in Pawtucket would factor into the decision. That could signal the major league debut of Aaron Wilkerson, a 27-year-old right-hander who was pitching in an independent league as recently as 2014. Since his promotion from Double-A Portland to Pawtucket, Wilkerson has a 2.20 ERA with 49 strikeouts to just 10 walks in 41 innings. Like Rodriguez, Wilkerson also pitched Monday and would go on regular rest on Sunday. The Red Sox have few other options. Roenis Elias was on the mound for Pawtucket yesterday, making him unavailable for Sunday, while Henry Owens, who is walking 6.2 batters per nine innings this season, is scheduled to pitch for the PawSox tomorrow night. Holt close; Young not While the Red Sox expect to get one of their injured position players in utility man Brock Holt (concussion) back from the disabled list tomorrow night, there was some grim news on another of the injured. The results of Monday’s MRI on outfielder Chris Young’s injured hamstring were not good. “(The MRI revealed) probably, maybe a little bit more injury to the hamstring than the physical exam in the training room,” Farrell said. “What that means in terms of duration for the DL at this point is still unknown.” Holt started the season as the left fielder and was replaced primarily by Young while on the DL. During an eight-game rehab assignment with Pawtucket, Holt went 8-for-25 with two doubles, five walks and five strikeouts. However, he was still experiencing concussion-related issues.
Thousands of Detroit children exposed to lead or copper contaminated water By Nancy Hanover 19 April 2016 On Friday, school officials announced that nearly one third of recently tested elementary and middle schools in Detroit Public Schools (DPS)—just 60 miles from the Flint, Michigan, lead poisoning disaster—are contaminated with either lead or copper in the drinking water. Fifteen schools registered lead-in-water samples greater than the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) current safety threshold of 15 parts per billion (ppb); and eight had more than the 1,300-ppb level set for copper. The highest lead levels were found during first-draw samples at drinking fountains at Ronald Brown Academy (1,500 ppb), Moses-Field Elementary-Middle School (280 ppb) and Carver Academy (83 ppb). The sample at Ronald Brown Academy—showing 100 times the EPA lead standard—was taken from a drinking fountain labeled “Pre-K.” No level of lead is considered safe to ingest. It is a neurotoxin that causes irreversible brain damage and assorted behavioral problems for children. Older children and adults can suffer a broad range of problems including stomach and abdominal pain, headaches, and miscarriage. Copper is known to cause liver damage and kidney disease. Altogether 19 DPS schools, of the 62 tested beginning at the end of March, have registered toxic contamination. One school, Sampson Webber Middle School, had no clean water available at all last Friday. DPS plans to test its remaining 31 buildings over the next two weeks. The startling results prompted Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, in charge of the Detroit Health Department, to advise that all children in the city under six years of age be tested for lead poisoning, according to the Detroit Free Press. “The 15 [parts per billion] is the actionable limit,” he told the newspaper. “But ideally, we want no lead in the water. The most important thing is to make sure that kids are no longer getting the water and that the kids themselves are getting tested.” “I was definitely upset to learn that there was lead and copper in the water of DPS schools,” Dorothea, the mother of two children in Detroit schools, told the World Socialist Web Site. “Currently, my children attend the old Northern High school. My children both have disabilities. My youngest daughter has been suspended on multiple occasions due to behaviors. These suspensions continue, and her behaviors have gotten worse. “I am curious if the escalation in her behaviors are related to possible lead ingestion. My older daughter has disabilities that impact her physically, emotionally and socially. It is my understanding from her teachers that she has become disinterested in learning. She already suffers with ADHD and more. Could this disinterest be coming from possible lead ingestion? “I plan to have both of my children tested because so many of the older schools have high lead traces. It is my understanding that lead can cause so many negative health impacts in learning and in proper development.” Dorothea also referred to the little-known fact that US federal law does not require all school systems to test the water being delivered to students, despite the well-documented and irreversible brain damage caused by lead, as well as other dire consequences from other dissolved metals. Astoundingly, about 90 percent of schools in the US do not test their water and are not required to if they use municipal services, according to a report in Russia Today. Outrage over the mass lead poisoning in Flint has led to belated calls in the Michigan legislature for stricter limits on lead in drinking water. Governor Rick Snyder, who bears a large share of the responsibility for the city’s calamity, has now sought to cover his tracks by calling for a 10-ppb ceiling by 2020. In fact, 10 ppb is already the standard of the World Health Organization and therefore most of the world. Detroit Health Department officials responded to the DPS crisis by demanding a full mitigation plan in 15 days and a 90-day action plan going forward. It is well established that schools in older buildings using lead delivery pipes are most likely to have contaminated water. However, many schools simply cannot afford to replace the antiquated pipes. Michigan is one of several states that provide zero dollars for building infrastructure updates—any revenues needed to rehabilitate aging buildings must be raised from hard-pressed individual homeowners through additional property tax levies. “The water is bad because of poor maintenance in the school buildings,” Dorothea agreed. “Look at Spain! Those kids have gone through so much,” she said, referring to the elementary school that became notorious for its terrible conditions during the teacher walkouts last January. The building has a leaky roof and a broken school yard, and had its gym sectioned off from school due to pervasive mold—and this week it has been identified has having lead in the water. Dorothea said similar problems were plaguing Northern. “The roof continually leaks. There are plumbing problems in restrooms, leaks in the small gym, mold in classrooms. Many times the heat does not work in the winter. Staff and students are walking around with their coats on. There is poor inside and outside maintenance. This all creates safety concerns. Not only that, rodents are coming out.” School district authorities attempted to put a positive spin on the lead-in-water crisis in Detroit schools by saying that the district was being “proactive” in conducting tests, pledging to bring in more bottled water and post warnings regarding drinking from bathroom sinks. After the first two schools tested positive for metal contaminants, the DPS emergency manager, Stephen Rhodes, issued a complacent statement emphasizing that schools provide “8 oz. bottles of water for students to drink with meals and throughout the day.” Finally, the “transition manager” tried to offload responsibility by saying the “main place for exposure [to lead] is in the home due to lead-based paint that is damaged and peeling. This is especially true in cities that have older housing stock such as Detroit. …” Such official apologetics for the role of the Democrats and Republicans and the profit system itself are wearing thin. Dorothea said, “The governor is the lead person here. He appoints the emergency manager. They brought in [DPS Emergency Manager] Darnell Earley, someone not familiar with education. “It is my understanding that state law mandates we send our children to school. Failure to do so means a parent can face truancy charges, penalties and even jail time. State law states our school system must ensure the health, safety and wellbeing of our babies when they are in the schools’ care. How could they do this? “Could the deplorable conditions account for these low achievement levels? Parents are damned if they do and damned if don’t send children to school. What a government!” she concluded. There is mounting evidence that crumbling infrastructure in American schools is creating a national health and safety problem. In March, sinks and water fountains at 30 of 66 schools in Newark, New Jersey, were ordered to be shut off after testing indicated they were delivering unsafe water. The high lead levels were known about as far back as six years ago, according to the New York Times, but they were generally dealt with by adding water filters or replacing faucets. An elementary school in Ringle, Wisconsin, tore out its drinking fountains more than 10 years ago and decided to start buying bottled water for its students (at a cost of $1,000 a month), because replacing the pipes was far more costly, according to the Associated Press. Pennsylvania, Maine and New Jersey have been cited as having the greatest numbers of schools with unsafe drinking water. Among schools and day care centers operating their own water systems, EPA data analyzed by the Associated Press showed 278 violated federal lead levels at some point during the past three years. About a third of those had lead levels at least double the federal limit. Yanna Lambrinidou, president of Parents for Nontoxic Alternatives and a colleague of Virginia Tech’s Marc Edwards, added that under EPA guidelines, schools and day care centers are legally entitled to report that an entire building is safe even if an individual drinking fountain is above the threshold. By far, most cases of lead-in-water within schools arise from aging buildings with lead pipes, older drinking fountains and water fixtures with parts made from lead. A recent study entitled State of Our Schools: America’s K–12 Facilities explains that an abysmal support level for educational building and maintenance has resulted in a $46 billion per year shortfall in critical upkeep or new construction to keep US schools at recognized building standards. State of Our Schools estimates that it would take an investment of $145 billion to provide safe and healthy schools across the country. The low priority, under capitalism, of children’s health and education is demonstrated by the fact that this seemingly large sum represents only some 14% of the US military’s annual budget. The author also recommends: Newark, New Jersey schools shut off lead-poisoned drinking water [11 March 2016] Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.
Ken Dilanian, The Associated Press WASHINGTON -- The FBI director on Thursday criticized the decision by Apple and Google to encrypt smartphones data so it can be inaccessible to law enforcement, even with a court order. James Comey told reporters at FBI headquarters that U.S. officials are in talks with the two companies. He accused the companies of letting people put themselves beyond the law's reach. Comey cited child-kidnapping and terrorism cases as two examples of situations where quick access by authorities to information on cellphones can save lives. Comey did not cite specific past cases that would have been more difficult for the FBI to investigate under the new policies, which only involve physical access to a suspect's or victim's phone when the owner is unable or unwilling to unlock it for authorities. An FBI spokesman Thursday was not able to immediately clarify Comey's remarks. Both Apple and Google announced last week that their new operating systems will be encrypted, or rendered in code, by default. Law enforcement officials could still intercept conversations but might not be able to access call data, contacts, photos and email stored on the phone. Even under the new policies, law enforcement could still access a person's cellphone data that has been backed up to the companies' online-storage services. They could also still retrieve real-time phone records and logs of text messages to see whom a suspect was calling or texting, and they could still obtain wiretaps to eavesdrop on all calls made with the phones. Comey's criticisms closely tracked complaints earlier this week by Ronald T. Hosko, a former FBI assistant criminal division director who wrote in The Washington Post that Google's and Apple's policies would have resulted in the death of a hostage in a recent North Carolina kidnapping. The newspaper subsequently corrected Hosko's claims after concluding that the new encryption systems would not have hindered the FBI's rescue of the kidnap victim in Wake Forest, North Carolina. In that case, the FBI pulled telephone records associated with the number used to contact the victim's family for the ransom demand, retrieved other connected toll records and eventually obtained a traditional wiretap to eavesdrop on the kidnappers' conversations and locate and rescue the victim. The only telephone physically seized in the North Carolina case belonged to a woman accused in the plot, after the hostage was already rescued. Authorities had tried to seize the cellphone from one of the alleged plotters, Kevin Melton, but he smashed it to pieces inside his prison cell on April 9, roughly four hours before the FBI rescued the victim in an Atlanta apartment. A spokeswoman for Apple and spokesman for Google did not immediately return phone messages from The Associated Press. Google previously said in a statement that its Android phones have offered encryption for three years, but it was being turned on by default in the next release of its operating system. -With files by AP writer Jack Gillum

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