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SoftBank's $100 million diversity and inclusion fund makes its first bet … in health Vitable Health
SoftBank's Opportunity Growth Fund has made the health insurance startup Vitable Health the first commitment from its $100 million fund dedicated to investing in startups founded by entrepreneurs of color.
The Philadelphia-based company, which recently launched from Y Combinator, is focused on bringing basic health insurance to underserved and low-income communities.
Founded by Joseph Kitonga, a 23 year-old entrepreneur whose parents immigrated to the U.S. a decade ago, Vitable provides affordable acute healthcare coverage to underinsured or un-insured populations and was born out of Kitonga's experience watching employees of his parents' home healthcare agency struggle to receive basic coverage.
The $1.5 million commitment was led by the SoftBank Group Corp Opportunity Fund, and included Y Combinator, DNA Capital, Commerce Ventures, MSA Capital, Coughdrop Capital, and angels like Immad Akhund, the chief executive of Mercury Bank; and Allison Pickens, the former chief operating officer of Gainsight, the company said in a blog post.
"Good healthcare is a basic right that every American deserves, whoever they are," said Paul Judge, the Atlanta-based Early Stage Investing Lead for the fund and the founder of Atlanta's TechSquare Labs investment fund. "We've been inspired by Joseph and his approach to addressing this challenge. Vitable Health is bridging critical gaps in patient care and has emerged as a necessary, essential service for all whether they're uninsured, underinsured, or simply need a better plan for their lifestyle."
SoftBank created the opportunity fund while cities around the U.S. were witnessing a wave of public protests against systemic racism and police brutality stemming from the murder of the Black Minneapolis citizen George Floyd at the hands of white police officers. Floyd's murder reignited simmering tensions between citizens and police in cities around the country over issues including police brutality, the militarization of civil authorities, and racial profiling.
SoftBank has had its own problems with racism in its portfolio this year. A few months before the firm launched its fund, the CEO and founder of one of its portfolio companies, Banjo, resigned after it was revealed that he once had ties to the KKK.
With the Opportunity Fund, SoftBank is trying to address some of its issues, and notably, will not take a traditional management fee for transactions out of the fund "but instead will seek to put as much capital as possible into the hands of founders and entrepreneurs of color."
The Opportunity Fund is the third investment vehicle announced by SoftBank in the last several years. The biggest of them all is the $100 billion Vision Fund; then last year it announced the $2 billion Innovation Fund focused on Latin America.
Mike Cagney is testing the boundaries of the banking system for himself — and others
Founder Mike Cagney is always pushing the envelope, and investors love him for it. Not long sexual harassment allegations prompted him to leave SoFi, the personal finance company that he cofounded in 2011, he raised $50 million for new lending startup called Figure that has since raised at least $225 million from investors and was valued a year ago at $1.2 billion.
Now, Cagney is trying to do something unprecedented with Figure, which says it uses a blockchain to more quickly facilitate home equity, mortgage refinance, and student and personal loan approvals. The company has applied for a national bank charter in the U.S., wherein it would not take FDIC-insured deposits but it could take uninsured deposits of over $250,000 from accredited investors.
Why does it matter? The approach, as American Banker explains it, would bring regulatory benefits. As it reported earlier this week, "Because Figure Bank would not hold insured deposits, it would not be subject to the FDIC's oversight. Similarly, the absence of insured deposits would prevent oversight by the Fed under the Bank Holding Company Act. That law imposes restrictions on non-banking activities and is widely thought to be a deal-breaker for tech companies where banking would be a sidelight."
Indeed, if approved, Figure could pave the way for a lot of fintech startups — and other retail companies that want to wheel and deal lucrative financial products without the oversight of the Federal Reserve Board or the FDIC — to nab non-traditional bank charters.
As Michelle Alt, whose year-old financial advisory firm helped Figure with its application, tells AB: "This model, if it's approved, wouldn't be for everyone. A lot of would-be banks want to be banks specifically to have more resilient funding sources." But if it's successful, she adds, "a lot of people will be interested."
One can only guess at what the ripple effects would be, though the Bank of Amazon wouldn't surprise anyone who follows the company.
In the meantime, the strategy would seemingly be a high-stakes, high-reward development for a smaller outfit like Figure, which could operate far more freely than banks traditionally but also without a safety net for itself or its customers. The most glaring danger would be a bank run, wherein those accredited individuals who are today willing to lend money to the platform at high interest rates began demanding their money back at the same time. (It happens.)
Either way, Cagney might find a receptive audience right now with Brian Brooks, a longtime Fannie Mae executive who served as Coinbase's chief legal officer for two years before jumping this spring to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), an agency that ensures that national banks and federal savings associations operate in a safe and sound manner.
Brooks was made acting head of the agency in May and green-lit one of the first national charters to go to a fintech, Varo Money, this past summer. In late October, the OCC also granted SoFi preliminary, conditional approval over its own application for a national bank charter.
While Brooks isn't commenting on speculation around Figure's application, in July, during a Brookings Institution event, he reportedly commented about trade groups' concerns over his efforts to grant fintechs and payments companies charters, saying: "I think the misunderstanding that some of these trade groups are operating under is that somehow this is going to trigger a lighter-touch charter with fewer obligations, and it's going to make the playing field un-level . . . I think it's just the opposite."
Christopher Cole, executive vice president at the trade group Independent Community Bankers of America, doesn't seem persuaded. Earlier this week, he expressed concern about Figure's bank charter application to AB, saying he suspects that Brooks "wants to approve this quickly before he leaves office."
Brooks's days are surely numbered. Last month, he was nominated by President Donald to a full five-year term leading the federal bank regulator and is currently awaiting Senate confirmation. The move — designed to slow down the incoming Biden administration — could be undone by President-elect Joe Biden, who can fire the comptroller of the currency at will and appoint an acting replacement to serve until his nominee is confirmed by the Senate.
Still, Cole's suggestion is that Brooks still has enough time to figure out a path forward for Figure — and if its novel charter application is approved, and it stands up to legal challenges — a lot of other companies, too.
We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google. Here's what it says
On the evening of Wednesday, December 2, Timnit Gebru, the co-lead of Google's ethical AI team, announced via Twitter that the company had forced her out.
Gebru, a widely respected leader in AI ethics research, is known for coauthoring a groundbreaking paper that showed facial recognition to be less accurate at identifying women and people of color, which means its use can end up discriminating against them. She also cofounded the Black in AI affinity group, and champions diversity in the tech industry. The team she helped build at Google is one of the most diverse in AI, and includes many leading experts in their own right. Peers in the field envied it for producing critical work that often challenged mainstream AI practices.
A series of tweets, leaked emails, and media articles showed that Gebru's exit was the culmination of a conflict over another paper she co-authored. Jeff Dean, the head of Google AI, told colleagues in an internal email (which he has since put online) that the paper "didn't meet our bar for publication" and that Gebru had said she would resign unless Google met a number of conditions, which it was unwilling to meet. Gebru tweeted that she had asked to negotiate "a last date" for her employment after she got back from vacation. She was cut off from her corporate email account before her return.
Online, many other leaders in the field of AI ethics are arguing that the company pushed her out because of the inconvenient truths that she was uncovering about a core line of its research—and perhaps its bottom line. More than 1,400 Google staff and 1,900 other supporters have also signed a letter of protest.
Many details of the exact sequence of events that led up to Gebru's departure are not yet clear; both she and Google have declined to comment beyond their posts on social media. But MIT Technology Review obtained a copy of the research paper from one of the co-authors, Emily M. Bender, a professor of computational linguistics at the University of Washington. Though Bender asked us not to publish the paper itself because the authors didn't want such an early draft circulating online, it gives some insight into the questions Gebru and her colleagues were raising about AI that might be causing Google concern.
Titled "On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?" the paper lays out the risks of large language models—AIs trained on staggering amounts of text data. These have grown increasingly popular—and increasingly large—in the last three years. They are now extraordinarily good, under the right conditions, at producing what looks like convincing, meaningful new text—and sometimes at estimating meaning from language. But, says the introduction to the paper, "we ask whether enough thought has been put into the potential risks associated with developing them and strategies to mitigate these risks."
The paper
The paper, which builds off the work of other researchers, presents the history of natural-language processing, an overview of four main risks of large language models, and suggestions for further research. Since the conflict with Google seems to be over the risks, we've focused on summarizing those here.
Environmental and financial costs
Training large AI models consumes a lot of computer processing power, and hence a lot of electricity. Gebru and her coauthors refer to a 2019 paper from Emma Strubell and her collaborators on the carbon emissions and financial costs of large language models. It found that their energy consumption and carbon footprint have been exploding since 2017, as models have been fed more and more data.
Strubell's study found that one language model with a particular type of "neural architecture search" (NAS) method would have produced the equivalent of 626,155 pounds (284 metric tons) of carbon dioxide—about the lifetime output of five average American cars. A version of Google's language model, BERT, which underpins the company's search engine, produced 1,438 pounds of CO2 equivalent in Strubell's estimate—nearly the same as a roundtrip flight between New York City and San Francisco.
Gebru's draft paper points out that the sheer resources required to build and sustain such large AI models means they tend to benefit wealthy organizations, while climate change hits marginalized communities hardest. "It is past time for researchers to prioritize energy efficiency and cost to reduce negative environmental impact and inequitable access to resources," they write.
Massive data, inscrutable models
Large language models are also trained on exponentially increasing amounts of text. This means researchers have sought to collect all the data they can from the internet, so there's a risk that racist, sexist, and otherwise abusive language ends up in the training data.
An AI model taught to view racist language as normal is obviously bad. The researchers, though, point out a couple of more subtle problems. One is that shifts in language play an important role in social change; the MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, for example, have tried to establish a new anti-sexist and anti-racist vocabulary. An AI model trained on vast swaths of the internet won't be attuned to the nuances of this vocabulary and won't produce or interpret language in line with these new cultural norms.
It will also fail to capture the language and the norms of countries and peoples that have less access to the internet and thus a smaller linguistic footprint online. The result is that AI-generated language will be homogenized, reflecting the practices of the richest countries and communities.
Moreover, because the training datasets are so large, it's hard to audit them to check for these embedded biases. "A methodology that relies on datasets too large to document is therefore inherently risky," the researchers conclude. "While documentation allows for potential accountability, […] undocumented training data perpetuates harm without recourse."
Research opportunity costs
The researchers summarize the third challenge as the risk of "misdirected research effort." Though most AI researchers acknowledge that large language models don't actually understand language and are merely excellent at manipulating it, Big Tech can make money from models that manipulate language more accurately, so it keeps investing in them. "This research effort brings with it an opportunity cost," Gebru and her colleagues write. Not as much effort goes into working on AI models that might achieve understanding, or that achieve good results with smaller, more carefully curated datasets (and thus also use less energy).
Illusions of meaning
The final problem with large language models, the researchers say, is that because they're so good at mimicking real human language, it's easy to use them to fool people. There have been a few high-profile cases, such as the college student who churned out AI-generated self-help and productivity advice on a blog, which went viral.
The dangers are obvious: AI models could be used to generate misinformation about an election or the covid-19 pandemic, for instance. They can also go wrong inadvertently when used for machine translation. The researchers bring up an example: In 2017, Facebook mistranslated a Palestinian man's post, which said "good morning" in Arabic, as "attack them" in Hebrew, leading to his arrest.
Why it matters
Gebru and Bender's paper has six co-authors, four of whom are Google researchers. Bender asked to avoid disclosing their names for fear of repercussions. (Bender, by contrast, is a tenured professor: "I think this is underscoring the value of academic freedom," she says.)
The paper's goal, Bender says, was to take stock of the landscape of current research in natural-language processing. "We are working at a scale where the people building the things can't actually get their arms around the data," she said. "And because the upsides are so obvious, it's particularly important to step back and ask ourselves, what are the possible downsides? … How do we get the benefits of this while mitigating the risk?"
In his internal email, Dean, the Google AI head, said one reason the paper "didn't meet our bar" was that it "ignored too much relevant research." Specifically, he said it didn't mention more recent work on how to make large language models more energy-efficient and mitigate problems of bias.
However, the six collaborators drew on a wide breadth of scholarship. The paper's citation list, with 128 references, is notably long. "It's the sort of work that no individual or even pair of authors can pull off," Bender said. "It really required this collaboration."
The version of the paper we saw does also nod to several research efforts on reducing the size and computational costs of large language models, and on measuring the embedded bias of models. It argues, however, that these efforts have not been enough. "I'm very open to seeing what other references we ought to be including," Bender said.
Nicolas Le Roux, a Google AI researcher in the Montreal office, later noted on Twitter that the reasoning in Dean's email was unusual. "My submissions were always checked for disclosure of sensitive material, never for the quality of the literature review," he said.
Dean's email also says that Gebru and her colleagues gave Google AI only a day for an internal review of the paper before they submitted it to a conference for publication. He wrote that "our aim is to rival peer-reviewed journals in terms of the rigor and thoughtfulness in how we review research before publication."
Bender noted that even so, the conference would still put the paper through a substantial review process: "Scholarship is always a conversation and always a work in progress," she said.
Others, including William Fitzgerald, a former Google PR manager, have further cast doubt on Dean's claim:
Google pioneered much of the foundational research that has since led to the recent explosion in large language models. Google AI was the first to invent the Transformer language model in 2017 that serves as the basis for the company's later model BERT, and OpenAI's GPT-2 and GPT-3. BERT, as noted above, now also powers Google search, the company's cash cow.
Bender worries that Google's actions could create "a chilling effect" on future AI ethics research. Many of the top experts in AI ethics work at large tech companies because that is where the money is. "That has been beneficial in many ways," she says. "But we end up with an ecosystem that maybe has incentives that are not the very best ones for the progress of science for the world."
Daily Crunch: Slack and Salesforce execs explain their big acquisition
We learn more about Slack's future, Revolut adds new payment features and DoorDash pushes its IPO range upward. This is your Daily Crunch for December 4, 2020.
The big story: Slack and Salesforce execs explain their big acquisition
After Salesforce announced this week that it's acquiring Slack for $27.7 billion, Ron Miller spoke to Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield and Salesforce President and COO Bret Taylor to learn more about the deal.
Butterfield claimed that Slack will remain relatively independent within Salesforce, allowing the team to "do more of what we were already doing." He also insisted that all the talk about competing with Microsoft Teams is "overblown."
"The challenge for us was the narrative," Butterfield said. "They're just good [at] PR or something that I couldn't figure out."
Startups, funding and venture capital
Revolut lets businesses accept online payments — With this move, the company is competing directly with Stripe, Adyen, Braintree and Checkout.com.
Health tech venture firm OTV closes new $170M fund and expands into Asia — This year, the firm led rounds in telehealth platforms TytoCare and Lemonaid Health.
Zephr raises $8M to help news publishers grow subscription revenue — The startup's customers already include publishers like McClatchy, News Corp Australia, Dennis Publishing and PEI Media.
Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch
DoorDash amps its IPO range ahead of blockbuster IPO — The food delivery unicorn now expects to debut at $90 to $95 per share, up from a previous range of $75 to $85.
Enter new markets and embrace a distributed workforce to grow during a pandemic — Is this the right time to expand overseas?
Three ways the pandemic is transforming tech spending — All companies are digital product companies now.
(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.)
Everything else
WH's AI EO is BS — Devin Coldewey is not impressed by the White House's new executive order on artificial intelligence.
China's internet regulator takes aim at forced data collection — China is a step closer to cracking down on unscrupulous data collection by app developers.
Gift Guide: Games on every platform to get you through the long, COVID winter — It's a great time to be a gamer.
The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch's roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you'd like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.
Mike Cagney is testing the boundaries of the banking system for himself — and others
We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google. Here's what it says
Daily Crunch: Slack and Salesforce execs explain their big acquisition
India's Reliance Jio Platforms to sell $750 million stake to Abu Dhabi Investment Authority
Hong Kong fintech Qupital partners with eBay to provide financing for sellers
Ransomware gang is auctioning off victims' confidential data
Uncategorized6 months ago
India's Reliance Jio Platforms to sell $750 million stake to Abu Dhabi Investment Authority
Uncategorized5 months ago
Hong Kong fintech Qupital partners with eBay to provide financing for sellers
Tech News6 months ago
Ransomware gang is auctioning off victims' confidential data
Tech News6 months ago
Walmart employees are out to show its anti-shoplifting AI doesn't work
Tech News6 months ago
Google and Walmart's PhonePe establish dominance in India's mobile payments market as WhatsApp Pay struggles to launch
Tech News6 months ago
NetApp to acquire Spot (formerly Spotinst) to gain cloud infrastructure management tools
Tech News6 months ago
Fast-growing Madison Reed is eyeing men's hair next; "We're going to blow the doors off that market"
Tech News6 months ago
Why we can't count on carbon-sucking farms to slow climate change


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The National Trust has been offered Nuffield Place, the 1930s home of William Morris, Viscount Nuffield, the owner of the Morris Motor Company. The Trustees of the National Trust have agreed to fund an endowment, on condition that the property is able to pay for itself within five years. We now need to raise an additional £600,000 in order to put appropriate staff and visitor facilities in place.
Lord Nuffield began his business making and repairing bicycles in 1895, with a starting capital of £4. He designed his first car in 1912 and was one of the first British carmakers to produce cars for the masses. By 1937 Morris Motors was the largest car manufacturer in Europe.
Much of Lord Nuffield's fortune went to good causes in healthcare, research and education. During his lifetime he gave away £30 million, the equivalent of £11 billion today.
One of the institutions he founded, Nuffield College, Oxford, was given his house after his death in 1963. Nuffield College has now decided that the National Trust would be better placed to care for the house and open it to the public.
The majority of Lord and Lady Nuffield's furniture is still in the house, making it an early-to-mid-twentieth-century time capsule. Lord Nuffield loved clocks and he installed a miniature workshop in a cupboard in his bedroom where he would relieve his insomnia by doing delicate mechanical work.
More about the house and the appeal can be found here.

subset: commoncrawl


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French poet, touted as the most influential romantic writer of the 19th Century, Victor Marie Hugo, and his thoughts on:
These two haves of God, the Pope and the emperor.
God became a man, granted. The devil became a woman.
Obstacles to Fame
You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea. It is the cloud which thunders around everything that shines. Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats. Do no bother yourself about it; disdain. Keep your mind serene as you keep your life clear.
Death Penalty
You insist on the example [of the death penalty]. Why? For what it teaches. What do you want to teach with your example? That thou shalt not kill. And how do you teach thou shalt not kill? By killing.
A day will come when there will be no battlefields, but markets opening to commerce and minds opening to ideas. A day will come when the bullets and bombs are replaced by votes, by universal suffrage, by the venerable arbitration of a great supreme senate which will be to Europe what Parliament is to England, the Diet to Germany, and the Legislative Assembly to France.
One resists the invasion of armies; one does not resist the invasion of ideas.
Nothing is stronger than an idea whose time has come.
To put everything in balance is good, to put everything in harmony is better.
Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled. Of that divine tear and that human smile is composed the sweetness of the present civilization.
There shall be no slavery of the mind.
I represent a party which does not yet exist: the party of revolution, civilization. This party will make the twentieth century. There will issue from it first the United States of Europe, then the United States of the World.
To love is to act.
The need of the immaterial is the most deeply rooted of all needs. One must have bread; but before bread, one must have the ideal.


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Date(s) - 12/16/2020
6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
Normandale Lutheran Church
These no cost support groups provide a time for caregivers to meet others in the same situation, offering the opportunity to learn from each other and develop a mutual support system. Our facilitators have had formal training through the Alzheimer's Association. In conjunction with this group, the Center for Healing & Wholeness will provide additional resources and referrals for caregivers.
There are two aspects to the group: Education done by the Alzheimer's Association, and your choice of attending a General Caregiver Support group or a support group specifically for Adult Children. Click on 2015-2016 Education Series for specifics including brief descriptions of the topics that will be presented at group education.
This service is free and open to our entire community. If you would like further information, contact Jeanne Schuller at 952-977-9362 or e-mail her at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Amazon.com has been redefining the way you buy books for ages now — and next up, they may be publishing the books you read, as well. Amazon Publishing just launched its fourth and biggest imprint, Montlake Romance. And the company has already said it plans to move beyond romance into other genres, including science fiction.
Thus far, Amazon's publishing operations have mostly been geared towards moving into niches that are harder for traditional publishers to compete in, including an imprint focusing on manifestos and one focusing on translated works. Thanks to Amazon's detailed data on its customers' purchases and reviews, the company is uniquely positioned to market niche books to its customers.
And Amazon has already signalled that it's aiming to reel in some big-ticket authors — the company already put in a competitive bid to publish Amanda Hocking, the paranormal romance author who became a self-publishing success story. (The winning bid for Hocking's novel was $4 million from St. Martin's, so Amazon's bid may well have been in the millions also.) So don't be too surprised if you start to hear some major buzz about science fiction books published by Amazon in the next few years. [Publishers Weekly and the Guardian]


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Filed right under "Things I'd never do but kind of wish I would" is this art stunt/project by Washington D.C. based artist Bryan Lewis Saunders. A little while back, Saunders took a ton of different drugs and drew a portrait of himself while under the influence of each one. Sure, coke and pot are here, but so are Butalbitals, a dilaudid/morphine cocktail, and a snort of computer duster. Holy hell.
This amazing and, frankly, disturbing feature at Cultso shows all of the self-portraits Saunders made, and it's harrowing, fascinating, and totally worth checking out.
Would you ever consider doing something like this? Do you think you could find the energy to draw a self-portrait after taking a bunch of dilaudid and morphine? Do you think this was maybe just an excuse to do lots of drugs? Oh, and what games will you be playing this weekend?
Feel free to talk drugs, or whatever else, here or over in the Talk Amongst Yourselves forum. Have a wonderful weekend, one and all.
Artist Takes Every Drug Known to Man, Draws Self Portraits After Each Use [Cultso, Thanks Audrey!]


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People typically buy small crossovers because they offer extra room, a taller ride height, and often all-wheel drive over small sedans and hatches. Driving dynamics aren't usually a priority. So how do you explain the Audi RS Q3?
I'll forgive you if you forgot that there's an RS version of Audi's smallest crossover, the Q3; the base car won't even go on sale in the U.S. until later this year. We aren't slated to get the RS version. But unlike, say, the 2015 Audi S1, would we even want this car?
In the latest video review from XCAR, Alex Goy praises the RS Q3's ludicrous 310 horsepower 2.5-liter five-cylinder engine, its ability to move from zero to 60 mph in a brisk 5.2 seconds, and its luscious noise. He's glad it exists, but he also wonders if it waters down the RS brand a little bit.
Is there a point to putting so much power into a small crossover? Who's supposed to buy this thing? Much as we gripe at Audi for not sending some of their best offerings stateside, maybe we could live without this one.


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The Early Childhood comprehensive Systems (ECCS) Plan was developed by public and private partners across the state and published in 2006. The ECCS Plan included recommendations for a "governance structure" that could help to bring together an Early Childhood Comprehensive System.
The Ready to Read, Ready to Learn Task Force Plan recommended a commission, council, public-private consortium, or other entity to implement Task Force recommendations.
Recommendations from the Governor's Summit on Early Learning in 2007 called for the development of a public-private entity to oversee and coordinate early learning activities.
The first meeting of the Interdepartmental Early Childhood Coordinating Council was held in August, 2007.
The Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007, Sec. 642 B included a requirement that, "The Governor of the State shall designate or establish a council to serve as the State Advisory Council on Early Childhood Education and Care for children from birth to school entry".
In 2010, the Interdepartmental Early Childhood Coordinating Council (IECCC) was re-designated as the Alaska Early Childhood Coordination Council (AECCC)
The first meeting of the AECCC was held on May 2, 2011.


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A Sandwich a Day: The Meatball Sandwich at Potato Chips Deli in Los Angeles
A different sandwich profiled every single day.
East Coast versions of popular foods always seem to go through some sort of prism before reaching Los Angeles. There's our skewed West Coast version of pizza, of course, but even simple things like soft serve ice cream find a way to be different out here. Sandwiches, for better or worse, are in the same category—always fussed with.
At Potato Chips Deli on Stanley Avenue, between Beverly and Melrose, you'll find sandwiches that are an old-school exception to LA's normal subversions. The small deli, owned by longtime Angeleno Steve Arroyo, was originally open on Beverly Boulevard proper, before closing in favor of an upscale taqueria outpost by the same owner. But, sensing the neighborhood loss of good East Coast-style deli sandwiches, Arroyo reopened Potato Chips around the corner earlier this spring.
Now the neighborhood just east of Fairfax has more than corned beef and pastrami to rely on. Potato Chips' menu is all classic: A sopressata, capicola and mortadella Italian sub, a simple roasted turkey breast with shredded iceberg lettuce, and a straightforward eggplant parm.
Then there's the Meatball Sandwich ($10), a saucy, crunchy rendition of the East Coast deli stalwart. Loosely packed chuck beef meatballs are ground in-house and served with plenty of provolone and a slightly sweet red sauce. Instead of tough, long-sitting beef meatballs or the gigantic, salty grey orbs that can find their way into less exacting versions, the meatball sub at Potato Chips is both simple and well-executed.
The only real difference from what you might expect is the crusty bread. It's a house-baked version of a soft Italian loaf, but with a thin, crunchy exterior. If anything, the bread is an upgrade from the thick, overly dense hoagie rolls that are often encountered at lesser delis.
At Potato Chips Deli, it's (thankfully) all about the sandwiches. You won't find a cold case full of pre-packaged sides, just bagged chips from Wise and Utz and chocolate chip cookies for dessert. The small deli space demands simplicity; it's a lesson that lots of other sandwich shops in Los Angeles could learn from.
All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.


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Danish tennis player Caroline Wozniacki said she was drawing comfort from fellow Liverpool football club fans in her first public comments since golfer Rory McIlroy announced their wedding had been called off.
The 25-year-old Northern Irishman issued a statement on the eve of the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, saying he was not ready for marriage.
"It's a hard time for me right now," former world No. 1 Wozniacki said on Twitter on Thursday.
"Thanks for all the sweet messages! Happy I support Liverpool right now because I know I'll never walk alone," she added in reference to the famous anthem of the five-time European soccer champions.
Serena Williams also offered her support, writing "I'll always walk with you. #friendsforever"
McIlroy is a lifelong fan of Liverpool's arch-rivals, Manchester United.


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Each year in Canada and the U.S., MCC relief sales offer a chance for fun while raising millions of dollars for MCC's relief, development and peace work around the world. Click here to find out when and where they are.
Sales include auctions of quilts, furniture and other items and activities for children. Listen to local music or dig into delicious Mennonite specialties like farmer sausage in Manitoba, verenika in Kansas or strawberry pie in Pennsylvania. Some sales have fundraising runs, bicycle rides or other sporting events.
Make a difference by bidding in an auction or buying a slice of pie. Or explore how you could donate an item for auction, help prepare and serve food or give your time on the day of a sale.
Many relief sales also participate in My Coins Count (formerly Penny Power), a powerful way to show children that they can make a difference in the world.


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Hacking the Melbourne Grand Organ
The Melbourne Town Hall Organ is the largest instrument in the southern hemisphere with almost 8 thousand pipes plus bells and drums. The instrument is retrofitted with a MIDI system by SSOS. This system can send and receive note information on separate channels for each manual as well as CCs for controlling swell. The stops are opened and closed using sysex messages which is the complicating factor when working from within Live. The system I ended up devising was a combination of Max for Live devices recreating the stops of each manual which would send sysex messages over to a separate Max patch via UDP/OSC. This patch would then forward the messages to the instrument. In this way we were able to step around Live's sysex limitations.
The two musicians were both running live, James using his EWI and a live MIDI looping setup to control the four top manuals of the organ and Tristan controlling the pedal manual with a rockband keytar and also running drums and percussion out to the PA. The note information from the two musicians was passed over to myself, also running live and VIZZable where I was able to visualise the note information, mix that with a live camera and send the resulting video out to two projectors, piping through mad mapper and quartz composer along the way.
The biggest hurdle we had to overcome was with the organ getting stuck notes. The organ would stick on a particular note and we'd need to turn it off and on to get it going again, a process that took five to ten minutes. This turned out to be caused by flooding the organ with too many sysex messages in too short a time. By cueing the messages and then emptying the list at a steady rate we were able to open and close stops reliably.
The end result of all of this coercing of old and new technology was a 40 minute improvised audio-visual set intended to bemuse and perplex.


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Inspired by Catholic Intellectual tradition, the University of St. Thomas educates students to be morally responsible leaders who think critically, act wisely and work skillfully to advance the common good.
The Office of Academic Affairs provides leadership and oversight in the pursuit of the University's mission.
The Office is directly responsible for strategic academic vision, accreditation and assessment, budgeting and finance, faculty staffing, academic support services, curriculum, records, and academic centers.


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Asset information management
Improve maintenance by access to critical asset information
A clear picture and detailed knowledge of your installed base is a solid foundation for a proactive maintenance strategy. Relevant and automatically updated asset information allows you to improve the operations process continuously. The combination of data from plant operations and processes creates information that enables you to decide on measures to reduce plant costs, enhance plant availability and increase compliance.
The right information at the right time
Whether you need to find information to improve spare part management, trace instrument history records of key events or monitor criticality, up-to-date asset information is always available quickly. Web-based tools allow you to manage operational information at any time or place. Combined with plant asset management software and customized services, these tools enable you to optimize your daily maintenance tasks.
Up-to-date device data around-the-clock and through the entire life cycle of your installed base
Minimized plant downtime and errors with effective monitoring of your installed base
Comprehensive asset information for reliable planning
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Virtual learning delivered on a global scale
MIT Sloan Executive Education faculty member Bob Pozen on maximizing your productivity.
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It's kind of amazing that these two have never been captured in the same photo together. I totally looked. Nothing. Give it time.
As always, it is not about the destination but the journey.
No. 1 Brett Favre
Threw another season-ending interception.
Inspired full-page newspaper ad encouraging his return.
Became a grandfather.
Teased by Daulerio, in a shocking move that destroyed what were once known as respectable news-gathering techniques.
Unretired anyway.
Garnered more pageviews on one post than this site did in its first two months of existence.
Turned 41.
What more can be said? You have seen Brett Favre's penis.
No. 8 Ines Sainz
Harassed by New York Jets.
Somehow avoided Clinton Portis and 52 other packages.
Broke Femtern's heart (but got her a job).
Commented upon by Jen Sterger.
So, who makes the semifinals? Brett Favre or Ines Sainz?
Polls are open until Wednesday morning.


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Before she became electro-pop artist Grimes, Claire Boucher spent 11 years of her youth in Vancouver twirling her way toward a life in ballet. Then she discovered Goth music, shaved her head and, as she says, became "a bad kid."
"The shaved head – it was a huge problem in ballet," she says. "I thought I was gonna end up being some kind of homeless person. I didn't see music in my future. I didn't see anything in my future, really."
She got it together by the time she was 18, though, and went off to study at McGill University in Montreal. She majored in philosophy and psychology with a double minor in Russian language and electro-acoustics; the latter course of study was her way of indulging an ever-present but never actively pursued interest in music.
"I stopped enjoying school, mainly because I realized that the last thing I wanted was to have a job sitting at a desk," she says. "I'd hang out with my friends, everyone chilling out, and one guy would be recording stuff. He'd say, 'I need some girl background vocals on this track,' and I'd volunteer. It was instant gratification, positive affirmation. 'Hey, you can sing.' I would watch my friends using the software to create tracks. It didn't seem complicated, and I had this lightbulb moment: I can do this!"
Boucher used a computer as her band, initially building tracks that featured her tentative vocals atop glitchy textures and kick-drum dance beats.
"I didn't own any instruments and wasn't really able to play anything," she says. "I didn't see the point of getting instruments if I could make fake guitars and drums on the computer. It has more possibilities: you turn the sub bass up, create a sine wave, and play with the wave form."
Her first show at a friend's loft space in Montreal might've been enough to abort the careers of most wanna-be performers.
"I don't remember much, because I was completely blanked-out drunk I was so nervous," she says. "I tried to play my entire show on ukulele, the only instrument I could find. This was before I found out about samplers. It was a notably terrible show. I played for 10 minutes, but I realized I could do better. And eventually I did. It was bad, but anything was better than what I was doing at the time, which was writing grants and working at the school radio station."
She started developing an act when she bribed a friend to give her some technology lessons. "Kyle was homeless, living in a band's jam space, and I traded him two cans of chick peas and some olive oil in exchange for teaching me how to use a sampler. What was strange about that experience is that Kyle had no idea what olive oil was until that day."
Kyle taught her well. "The thing about music is it's not an obscure pursuit, it's a very natural thing for human beings to do," Boucher says. "Once you put in the effort, the learning curve is very fast."
She learned by doing. Boucher took gigs anywhere she could find them, playing shows in basements, lofts and bars with no monitors, and became more demonstrative and assertive as a singer and dancer behind her keyboards and sampler. "I was really poor and desperate," she says. "I was driven by the idea that I had no other options."
She self-released a couple of albums in 2010, which expanded her audience. The next year she recorded the album that would become her 2012 4AD debut, "Visions," in her bedroom with a keyboard, computer, computer interface and microphone – a few hundred dollars worth of gear. "Visions" was soaked in the ambiance of that room: dark, danceable, introspective, unsettling.
"I thought I'd put the album out with friends, but labels started talking to us," she says. "We went with 4AD because it was the only label that never asked me to change anything artistically. Everyone else wanted to change something about the record or my appearance. There was an assumption that I wanted to be a major-label pop singer and these label people wanted me to work with a quote-unquote 'real' producer. That was upsetting to me because that's what I assumed my job was."
Even though she's now got a prominent label supporting her music with a presumably larger budget to make recordings, Boucher says she won't buy in completely. She'd rather make her next recording at home.
"I'm against spending money to record," she says. "And the record I'm working on now won't cost me much at all."
She has one indulgence in mind, though: "I'll get a nice microphone."
Grimes: 9 p.m. Tuesday at Metro, 3730 N. Clark St., $18; metrochicago.com.


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This Coffee Cake is adapted from Pioneer Woman's Food from my Frontier cookbook. The recipe is also on her website. It's made with lots of instant coffee in it so it's really a Coffee Cake, not the plain type of coffee cake. The instant coffee you use in this cake really influence the flavour so it's best you use one that you like. I used UCC Instant Coffee Blend No.117 left behind by my parents which has this sour-ish aftertaste (which is why I don't like drinking instant coffee!) and it didn't impart a rich coffee flavour to the cake.
I halved the recipe and made the cake in a 6″ round pan, and I'm not sure if that has any impact on the texture of the cake but I'm not crazy about it. It could also be due to the one-bowl mixing method.
The coffee icing is a new update to the icing she used on her blog post. She creamed the butter in that one while this one the butter is melted. Again, I halved the recipe but used only 1/4 of the powdered sugar as it was too sweet when I tasted it. I had to add unsweetened cocoa to make it less sweet and that's why my icing is darker in colour compared to hers. (The second sign that her sweets recipes will be too sweet for my taste is from her latest blog post where she said she found Starbucks' lemon poppyseed 'delightful and delicious' while I found it too sweet with the icing to finish!)
Coffee Icing
(From Food from my Frontier)
3/4 cup butter
2 T instant coffee
4 T half-and-half
4 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Melt the butter in a saucepan and add in the instant coffee. Stir it together, then add the half-and-half and whisk to combine. Turn off the heat and add in the powdered sugar and vanilla. Whisk till the sugar has dissolved and the icing is smooth. Let it cool for 5 minutes. Drizzle the icing over the cake.
What I think of the cookbook? Well, I wouldn't buy it as I found three of the recipes that I would make from it on her website. She also gives more instructions there as she's not restricted by space. However, if you're a fan of Pioneer Woman and you're always making her recipes, this cookbook will be convenient. She has included new recipes as well as updates to some of her old ones. This Coffee Cake, for instance, has been updated with a creamy (cream cheese) filling between the layers and a different icing. There are also awesome pictures of her family and farm throughout the book with humorous captions. If you love PW, you'll love it!


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So, farewell then, Napster.
The company founded by Shawn Fanning - who named it after his close-crop haircut, apparently - when his peer-to-peer file-sharing app of the same name took off, is no more.
The firm that now owns it, Rhapsody, will fold the online music shop that Napster became into its own store, in the US at least.
Napster the software debuted in 1998, but was jumped upon by the music industry - in particular by its militant wing, the Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA) - and closed down by a US appeals court judge in 2001.
The following year, its assets were acquired by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann, but the reformed company quickly collapsed into bankruptcy.
Pr0n company Private Media Group briefly acquired the name, but the moniker and the software eventually ended up in the hands of software firm Roxio, in November 2002. Roxio went on, in May 2003, to buy PressPlay, a music subscription service started by Sony and Universal, and eventually relaunched it as Napster.
But its decision to offer music for rent rather than sale - subscribe and download as many tracks as you like, but they'll stop playing if you stop paying - proved a lot less popular than Apple's buy-and-download model.
Napster hobbled on, launching internationally in 2004, before being acquired by US retail giant Best Buy in September 2008 for a mere $121m.
Rhapsody - itself a music rental service, founded by erstwhile Apple rival Real Networks - bought Napster off Best Buy last month. Given the death of the name, Rhapsody clearly acquired Napster for its customer list, not its brand.
What of Napster UK? Will it go too? We're still waiting to hear from it, and we'll let you know when we do. ®


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Last-Minute Discounts on NYC Cooking Classes
Every week we spotlight a dozen cooking classes sold through our partner CourseHorse to take in the weeks ahead. Some of the most popular classes CourseHorse offers sell out way in advance, but cooking schools like the Institute of Culinary Education and the Brooklyn Kitchen are now offering deals on last-minute-availability seats exclusively through us. Want a sweet deal on a cooking class? Here are three classes with discounted seats.
Want To...
- A crash course in eating and food shopping in New York. $45 (normally $50). Home Cooking New York, Tuesday, November 5th, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
- Learn to cook duck. $90 (normally $100). Home Cooking New York, Thursday, November 7th, 7:00 to 9:30 p.m.
- Mix hot boozy drinks for cold weather. $31.50 (normally $45). Pioneer Works, Saturday, November 16th, 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.
Seats expected to sell out quickly. See more on CourseHorse.
All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.


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World's Strangest Fast-Food Items
Would you like fries (or onion rings or chicken tenders) with that?
The magicians at fast-food chains come up with all sorts of edible creations--each one a little less likely than the last. The San Francisco Weekly lists ten of the world's weirdest, including the White Castle "chicken ring," a Tuna Pie (erk) at Jollibee in the Philippines, and Pita Snacks from Jack in the Box.
But are these really the strangest ones out there? I think Domino's Bread Bowl Pasta definitely qualifies. The Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme, too. And there's always McD's--looking beyond our own borders, McDonald's in Hong Kong has served seaweed-flavored French fries; New Zealand, a Quarter Pounder topped with egg and beetroot; and in the Philippines, sweet tomato pasta with hot dogs is sold as "McSpaghetti."
What's the strangest fast food item you've ever seen?
All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.


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Tapestry Weaving, Uncategorized
A New Technique of Expanding a Beading Project by Joe Dennard, Mirrix Owner
One of my projects, a contemporary reproduction of an antique Native American tobacco bag, developed a problem.Well, I should confess, it was my problem and doing. In preparing the layout for this project, the borders were too small for the embellishment border treatment. Hence, the problem: I did not allow enough beadwork to support the border textile binding. My options to attach the binding were very limited, and not satisfactory.
The solution was to weave 5 more beads on both sides of the beaded bag. The piece was still on the Mirrix loom, thank goodness! Adding the additional warp threads was easy. Tie the additional warp thead on to the warping bar and start adding the warp threads in the usual manner. Since there was a side thread to attach to, only 5 warp threads were added. Actually, added 6, with the outside warp thread doubled for strength and protection. On the original bead weaving there are double threads on the outside warp right side.
The first photo shows the progress I made in weaving on one side of the tobacco bag along with the added warp threads in the background. The second image shows a close up of the beaded piece and the back warp threads. Image 3 is the start of weaving one line of 5 beads to the original piece. Image 4 shows the needle picking two beads from the original weaving, and going through them through the back side of the bead. See the needle behind the warp threads. The needle and beading thread are pulled through, and 5 beads are added on the
thread. Image 5 shows the new added beads with the needle passing through them on the front side of the beaded matrix. In image 6 you can see the needle passing through a couple additional beads for the next pass of added beads. Pull the thread through with the estimated same tension as the original weaving.
In image 4, there are two beads which were the connection to the original weaving, in image 6 you can see there are four beads. It is not critical on an exact number but between 2-5 beads gave a good spread of tension on the added weaving. After 5 lines, there was a regular technique involved to solve this problem. Surprisingly, it has moved quite quickly with no glitches. But, I would rather have done this in one piece originally. All future projects will be examined even more closely before starting.
This add-on bead-weaving technique could also be used to add larger sized beads on the sides of various beaded projects. For example, adding two lines of size 8 beads to a bead woven of size 11 beads. This could be very attractive with cylinder beads. The size of the larger added beads will not line up with the small beads, but the attachment could be through the double warped outside threads on both sides. With my next bead project which lends itself to this technique, I will send images to Claudia for distribution. The stability, strength and flexibility of the Mirrix loom enables a weaver to expand the decorative
presentation of finishing techniques.
I thought my experience might be of benefit to all Mirrix loom weavers. Hope you don't have to use this technique, but if you should, it is not that difficult. If it were not on the Mirrix loom, I don't know what my solution would have been, i.e. thanks Claudia!
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One Comment
This is stunning! I look forward to seeing the piece finished!
I also made a few errors on the piece I am working on and had to add 2 rows, but thankfully it was on the inside of the split, so I didn't have to add threads. You did a seamless 'fix'! Nice work!


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Main Line Xpress
Posted by admin on May 17, 2016 in home | 0 comments
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (CNN) - Country music duo Brooks & Dunn are planning to share the concert stage for the first time in 10 years with a new tour.
Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn announced an 18-date U.S. tour beginning in May.
"The memories of playing live are what have kept the fire burning for us," Brooks said. "Performers who have had the kind of nights like we've had with our fans can never really let that go. Live is where we're most at home, and it's gonna feel good to be back in the saddle; let's rodeo! We'll see y'all out there on the trail."
The musicians are known for their many chart-topping hits like "Boot Scootin' Boogie," "My Maria" and "Red Dirt Road."
The duo released the album "Reboot" in 2019, which reached No. 1 on the Billboard U.S. Top Country Albums in April.
You can view a list of dates and venues here. Ticket information is expected to be released at a later date.
Copyright 2020 CNN. All rights reserved.


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MONT VERNON, N.H. (AP) — Residents of a rural New Hampshire town have voted to rename a fishing and skating spot that's been called Jew Pond since the 1920s.
The 104-33 vote Tuesday night allows the board of selectmen to ask the U.S. Board of Geographic Names to officially change the Jew Pond moniker, which appears on a 1968 map but not on any town signs.
"I don't know if it was meant to be offensive or not, but if people are offended by the name I don't see why we shouldn't change it," Bill Davidson, who has lived in Mont Vernon for 13 years, said Tuesday.
But 34-year resident Lawrence Rondo and his wife, Annette, disagreed. "Changing it is stupid. People just like to stir up trouble," Rondo said. Added his wife, "People are too sensitive today."
Mont Vernon town health officer Rich Masters pushed for the vote after the name appeared in a news report about an algae bloom at the pond.
"I, frankly, find it to be inappropriate, disrespectful to some people," he said, "and I feel it needs to be changed."
But for many long-time residents, the effort is a lot of fuss over a small, manmade body of water that no one cares much about.
"It's much ado about very little," resident Tom McKinney said at Tuesday's meeting.
Over the years, the pond, near the center of town, has been called by many names, including Carleton Pond. A nearby sign says Carleton Park Recreation Area, though that refers to the land rather than the pond itself. The pond originally was named Spring Pond, said Masters, because the owners of a hotel there created it by digging up a spring to irrigate their golf course. They made clear in a brochure that Jewish guests were not welcome.
The rest of the story is a bit murky, but it's generally believed that the body of water became Jew Pond when two Jewish businessmen from Boston bought the hotel. They intended to make the pond bigger and rename it Lake Serene, town officials say.
Mont Vernon Historical Society member Zoe Fimbel, who has lived in the town for 31 years, said there's nothing bigoted about the Jew Pond name. She said it was more about longtime residents in the 1920s being annoyed by out-of-towners trying to turn the pond into something it was not.
"It's too bad it's gotten to be such an issue when it's never even referred to or portrayed in a negative way," she said. "It's more like, 'It's the Jew's Pond. The new man in town.'"
Still, resident Kevin Schmidlein thought the name should be changed. "If we're going to be known for something, I'd rather it be for something other than this," he said on Tuesday.
The town, about 35 miles southwest of the state capital, Concord, has Jewish residents, but census data don't indicate how many. The only synagogue Masters said he knew about is in Nashua, about 15 miles away. Proposed new names for the pond include Carleton Pond and the original Spring Pond.
No name was chosen on Tuesday. Members of the board of selectmen are expected to decide that sometime in the future.
Mont Vernon votes to change name of Jew Pond
MONT VERNON, N.H. (AP) — Residents of a rural New Hampshire town have voted to rename a fishing and skating spot that's been called Jew Pond since the 1920s.


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Last night, Barack Obama tried to take control of the narrative on one of the scandals that have rocked his administration by announcing that IRS Commissioner Steve Miller had resigned by request of Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. As it turns out, Miller was leaving in a month anyway, but the outgoing IRS chief took the time to note that the wrongdoing was limited to two IRS employees in the Cincinnati office, who had already been "disciplined" — which directly contradicts the Inspector General's report, which shows managerial involvement since March 2010 at least, and coordination between multiple offices and units. The report also notes that at least 300 applications got improperly obstructed, and the number is likely much higher than that.
Fox 19 in Cincinnati reports that the number doubled yesterday evening to four IRS employees, and that they're not terribly interested in martyrdom (via Twitchy):
FOX19 has exclusively learned that as many as four people may be the first Cincinnati Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees to face disciplinary action, and possibly even criminal charges, for allegedly targeting Tea Party and Liberty groups applying for non-profit status.
On Wednesday, the IRS announced that it had pinpointed two employees at the agency's Cincinnati office for being 'primarily' responsible. …
One of FOX19's two sources went on say that these four IRS workers claim "they simply did what their bosses ordered." FOX19 reported on Tuesday that the report by the Office of Inspector General states that senior IRS officials knew agents were targeting Tea Party groups as early as 2011.
In fact, according to that report, Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax exempt organizations, was told on June 29, 2011 that groups with 'Tea Party', 'Patriot' or '9/12 Project' in their names were being flagged for additional, and often burdensome, scrutiny.
Did I say 300 organizations? According to the report, Reps. Jim Jordan and Darrell Issa now put that number closer to 500. If it was just these four agents, they'd have to have been rather, er, productive. Besides, if it was just four agents in one office, Lerner wouldn't have spent two years trying to massage the process to make it look less partisan — she would have told the four to knock it off in 2011, and the IRS chief counsel would have insisted on it when notified in August 2011.
Why might Lerner have been motivated to let the harassment continue? Maybe the connections at her husband's law firm might provide an answer:
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) official who apologized for targeting conservative nonprofit groups for extra scrutiny is married to an attorney whose firm hosted a voter registration organizing event for the 2012 Obama re-election campaign, praised President Obama's policy work, and had one of its partners appointed by Obama to a key ambassadorship.
IRS Exempt Organizations Division director Lois G. Lerner, who has been described as "apolitical" in mainstream press coverage of the IRS scandal, is married to tax attorney Michael R. Miles, a partner at the law firm Sutherland Asbill & Brennan. The firm is based in Atlanta but has a number of offices including in Washington, D.C., where Miles works.
The 400-attorney firm hosted an organizing meeting at its Atlanta office for people interested in helping with voter registration for the Obama re-election campaign.
This is not the first of Lerner's connections to the president to surface. Earlier this week The Daily Caller reported that Lerner personally signed the tax-exemption approval for a shady charity run by Obama's half-brother, after an inexplicably brief one-month application process.
The reason Miller claimed that the two-maybe-four employees had already been disciplined was to head off potential criminal charges. That step would get them talking about who ordered the targeting of conservative groups. Two of the employees in that office — who may or may not be among that supposedly rogue group — will testify to Congress on Monday, and that may give us a more credible account than two IRS agents wreaking havoc for three years — with management aware of the problem for two of those years — without being reined in until after the election.


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This sub-program is closed to further registration.
4701 Doyle StreetBuilding FEmeryville, CA, US 94608
Description: Gym Tumblers is for students who are ready to follow a coach's instruction without their parent. This class begins to educate students on gymnastics vocabulary and the function and safe utilization of each individual piece of equipment. Students begin to learn what muscles they are developing with each exercise and how to properly execute skills that will prepare them for Olympic gymnastics. Students achieve a comfort level with individual skills through repetition and encouragement.
4701 Doyle Street. Bldg F
Emeryville, CA 94608
Tel. 510.655.1265


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Nvidia has rolled out its first nForce 7-series chipset, this one targeting Intel processors and supporting the GPU maker's new three-way SLI technology.
Nvidia's nForce 780i SLI
The nForce 780i SLI supports Intel's one-, two- and four-core desktop processors on a frontside bus (FSB) clocked at between 533MHz and 1333MHz. The chipset hooks the CPU up to two channels of DDR 2 memory running at up to 1200MHz - if the memory's certified to Nvidia's Extended Performance Profile (EPP), otherwise it'll be clocked at up to 800MHz.
The chipset has 62 PCI Express (PCIe) lanes at its disposal, so it's capable of host three x16 connectors, though interestingly only two are PCIe 2.0 compatible - the third is plain old PCIe 1.0. Boards based on the 780i can also offer up to five PCI slots.
Asus' P5N-T: 780i SLI based
Three-way SLI allows users to connect three GeForce 8800 Ultra or 8800 GTX graphics cards - both older, 80nm parts rather than shiny new 65nm 'G92' chips like the 8800 GT and the new 512MB 8800 GTS.
The 780i can host up to ten USB 2.0 ports, two Gigabit Ethernet connectors, two parallel ATA drives and six 3Gb/s SATA drives.
Nvidia's nForce 750i SLI
Nvidia also introduced the 750i SLI, a board designed to support just two simultaneously connected graphics cards via its 26 PCIe lanes. It too supports a 1333MHZ FSB, but the DDR 2 memory link is limited to 800MHz.
The 750i can handle eight USB 2.0 ports, four parallel ATA peripherals and four 3Gb/s SATA drives. It has one Gigabit Ethernet port.
Expect board announcements from all the usual suspects to follow forthwith. And look out for Register Hardware's nForce 780i review later this week.
Related Reviews
• Nvidia G92-based GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB
• Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT


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Weather Blog: More Wet Than White
Thank you for stopping by the Weather Watch 12 Blog! A prolonged January thaw is underway. Daytime highs will gradually warm this week as the snowpack in our area begins to shrink. Find out when highs jump into the 40s, and when rain, yes rain, enters the forecast.
Let's start with a beautiful sunrise photo from Gail K in Waukesha. The thin veil of mid and high clouds provided for a colorful sunrise Monday morning. If you have a weather photo to share please post it to the ULOCAL section of WISN.com It's easy! Just email your photo to email@example.com and it will post automatically. Thanks Gail!
Highs to start the week will climb into the mid to upper 30s. Gusty winds keep the 'feels like' or wind chill value in the teens to mid 20s through Tuesday. Even though the thaw is underway, you may still need a heavy coat to keep the blustery breeze away.
The average high in Milwaukee is now 29 degrees, meaning highs for much of the week will stay 7 to 16 degrees above average!
A storm system will arrive Thursday with a good chance for precipitation. As Meteorologist Mark Baden likes to say, this system 'looks more wet than white'. With mild air in place rain is likely Thursday into early Friday. The RPM or Futurecast computer model is shown below. This shows rain at 6am Thursday pushing into the Midwest. The rain should arrive in southeast Wisconsin anywhere from midday to late afternoon. We will fine tune the arrival time in the next 24 hours.
Temperatures in the 40s will keep this from being freezing rain in our area, certainly good news.
Colder, more typical January temperatures will return to the area by Sunday. Then, one of the coldest airmasses we experience this month should arrive next week.
For the latest weather information watch WISN 12 News, and for updates throughout the day follow me on Twitter @jnelsonweather
Have a great day!
Jeremy Nelson


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UNDATED, - It's been 100 years since Europe's major powers, and their colonies and dominions, went to war, but the passage of time has done little to settle the debate about who or what was responsible for the First World War.
Prof. Michael Neiberg of the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., said some blame those who held political power at the time, and their divergent systems of government, while others insist it's difficult to assign blame at the feet of any one culprit.
"If anybody goes looking for simple causes, they're going to either be disappointed or they're going to reduce the history so much that it won't make sense anymore — 1914 was an unbelievably complicated world," said Neiberg.
Europe was a divided region in August 1914. Britain, France, and Russia formed the Triple Entente, while Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy made up the Triple Alliance.
Many view the assassination on June 28, 1914, of Archduke Franz Ferdinand at the hands of a Serbian nationalist as the spark that ignited the conflict.
The heir to the Austrian throne and his wife were gunned down in Sarajevo.
About a week later, Austria-Hungary received a pledge from Germany, known as the "blank cheque," for any support necessary to deal with Serbia.
But on July 21, Russia, an ally of Serbia, warned Austria-Hungary against taking action against the Balkan state. Nonetheless, just two days later, Austria-Hungary presented Serbia with an ultimatum and set a 48-hour deadline.
Serbia's response was rejected, and Austria-Hungary declared war July 28.
On July 31, Russia mobilized its troops, and the next day Germany declared war on Russia. Within days France, Belgium and Britain were bought into the war.
Historian Margaret MacMillan, a professor at the University of Oxford and author of The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914, said the decisions — made or not made — in those final days are significant in order to understand the conflict's origins.
"When you get right down to the summer of 1914, you have to look at the human decisions and the human errors that were made, and I think, until very, very late on, they could have avoided a war, and they could well have passed through 1914, another moment of crisis, and not had a war," she said in a recent interview.
In her book, MacMillan explored why a century of relative peace didn't endure in Europe considering there had been no major continental conflicts since 1815.
MacMillan said tensions were escalating between the two power blocs, and some nations wanted to expand their territory at the expense of others, especially in the Balkans. Russia was growing and developing with speed, which worried Germany.
Heightened nationalism existed in Europe, as well as a "psychological drift" in which decision-makers thought war could be useful, she added.
"Whenever there was a crisis, there'd be talk of a general war in a rather sort of casual way," she said. "You know, people would say, 'when the war comes,' rather than 'if a war comes,' and so I think you get a sort of psychological acceptance, in some circles, that war might be something good."
Systems of government also complicated matters. In Britain, cabinet had to approve a declaration of war, while in Germany and Russia, the kaiser and the czar, respectively, had sole authority over foreign policy and the military. As a result, power was concentrated in the hands of people who weren't necessarily fit to wield it, MacMillian said.
Prof. William Philpott of King's College London says the lack of an international body that was monitoring global conflicts also contributed to the chain of events.
"There was no collective security model that we had firstly in the League of Nations after the war, and later in the United Nations, restraining or at least tempering that sort of international crisis," he said.
What should have been a regional war in the Balkans, therefore, became a widespread European conflict, Philpott said.
Russia was humiliated during a crisis in Bosnia in 1908, and a dispute over Morocco in 1911 exposed a growing rivalry between France and Germany, he said.
But war could still have been averted had it not been for Austria-Hungary's stance against Serbia, he said.
"So in some ways it's the nexus of policy between Austria and Russia with Serbia caught in the middle that is the significant factor, I think," he said.
Philpott said Russia could have accepted that Austria was right, and Serbia was wrong, over the assassination of the archduke, and opted against backing Serbia so strongly. But there were forces in Russia who felt Serbia needed support.
Neiberg, of the U.S. Army War College, said the archduke's assassination didn't worry many major powers but the reaction of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia created problems.
The assassination made Austria-Hungary the victim, not the aggressor, he said.
"They make up their minds that the circumstances the assassination created gives them the perfect cover to launch a pre-emptive war," said Neiberg. "The second problem is that instead of telling them not to do it, the Germans encouraged them to do it."
The true crisis was sparked when Austria-Hungary presented Serbia with the ultimatum, said Neiberg.
"July 23 is the real bombshell," he said. "It's why we call this period the July Crisis, and not the June Crisis. So when everybody sees that ultimatum, then they know how serious the situation in Europe is."
Then Russia mobilized, Neiberg said, leaving Germany believing it could do what it needed to do to defend itself. The average German citizen honestly believed Russia was threatening invasion.
And so Germany mobilized its armies to defend itself against Russia, but seven of eight German field armies invaded Belgium, France and Luxembourg under war plans developed years earlier.
"Once you get Britain and France in it, you get the full force of the British and French empires. You get everything from Vancouver to Cape Town to Sydney to Auckland to India. You get all of that in," he said.
The crisis unfolded "unbelievably quickly" over the span of a week, Neiberg added. That was by design as Austria-Hungary forced the timetable forward.
MacMillan doubts historians will ever settle the debate of what or who is to blame for the First World War, and that's probably for the best.
"We shouldn't be trying to tell even schoolchildren that there is just a simple explanation of the war," she said.
"I think we should tell them that ... there's a discussion, and that it's all right to have different views on what happened in history. Some things you just won't get a consensus."


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Members of the Warren Conservation Commission discussed their efforts to refocus on the Riverside Park management plan with town officials Tuesday night, including the possibility of imposing a dog ban on the town-owned land.
Mad River Path Association (MRPA) executive director Autumn Fourshee told the Warren Select Board members that the MRPA "is really tackling dogs, and one thing we're thinking is disallowing dogs at the park."
Fourshee said the discussion comes in part due to complaints from
abutting landowners about dogs coming onto private property and the
abundance of waste not properly disposed of.
In addition, Fourshee said the MRPA has been investigating the idea of creating a "leashless dog area" or dog park at the town-owned property near the Kingsbury bridge.
"Obviously we can't just disallow dogs," she said.
The town-owned parcel was selected in part, according to Fourshee, because the liability would be assumed by the town on their Vermont League of Cities and Towns insurance.
Select Board chair Andy Cunningham asked, "What does a dog park look like?"
Fourshee said that the park would look like whatever the town wanted it look like; typically, she said, they are fenced-in areas with posted signage detailing the rules of the park including proper dog waste disposal.
Select board member Matt Groom asked how the potential park would be funded.
"There could be grants. There a lot of enthusiastic dog people in The Valley that are willing to fund-raise," she said.
Select board member Kirsten Reilly said, "Riverside is a nice place to go with everybody, including dogs."
Cunningham questioned the appeal of a dog park: "I don't know if I'd ever be caught dead in a dog park. There's still got to be a reason to go there and I don't get it overall."
Conservation Commission member Margot Wade said they are just "looking for some guidance" from the select board as they refocus on updating the Riverside Park management plan.
Reilly suggested putting a questionnaire that addressing dog-related issues in the ballot on Town Meeting day.


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Preliminary Flood Risk Assessment (PFRA)
The PFRA is a high level screening exercise that compiles information on significant local flood risk from past and potential floods
Hampshire County Council is required under The 2009 Flood Risk Regulations to prepare a Preliminary Flood Risk Assessment (PFRA) for Hampshire.
For some areas of the country where flood risk is greater, this is the first stage in a process which will lead to plans being submitted to the European Parliament. However, in Hampshire, there are no areas judged to be of national significance by the Environment Agency.
The only historic nationally significant flooding event identified by the Environment Agency data and Hampshire County Council's own flood records is the groundwater flooding event which occurred in the winter of 2000/2001. This affected over 700 properties across 76 parishes.
The PFRA will help identify which areas should be prioritised for Surface Water Management Plans which will in turn inform the Local Flood Risk Management Strategy.