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Venkatash was caught by police with the help of CCTV footage in the area. | Photo Credit: Representative Image
Key Highlights Husband, wife kill 4 senior citizens before robbing them Two of the victims were the relatives of the accused Police arrest accused with the help of CCTV camera
Bengaluru: In a shocking incident, a cab driver and his wife murdered four senior citizens after robbing them in an attempt to repay their bank loan.
Police have now arrested the couple for the murders which took place in the last four months. The accused have been identified as 30-year-old Venkatesh and 21-year-old Arpita.
According to a report, the cab driver had taken Rs 10 lakh loan but did not have any means to pay it. According to Mahadevapura police, the couple decided to commit the crime to pay their debt.
The couple, who is married for three years, has a one-and-a-half-year-old baby. The accused Venkatash used to work for an app-based cab aggregator.
Police say the accused used to target senior citizens who either did not have kids or used to live without their children.
According to police, the accused couple was an avid watcher of crime serials and probably took inspiration from them.
"The first target of Venkatesh and Arpita was an elderly couple in Bengaluru on October 16. Following further investigation, we came to know that the two had also murdered another aged couple in KR Pet area of Mandya district," the report quoted DCP (Whitefield) MN Anucheth as saying.
On October 16, the accused killed a 63-year-old retired employee Chandregowda and his 55-year-old wife Lakshmamma in RHB Colony in Garudacharpalya.
Venkatesh was caught by police with the help of CCTV cameras in the area. The accused was a distant relative of the victim Lakshmamma.
Arpita and Venkatesh decided to target the elderly couple after seeing Lakshmamma's jewellery at a marriage function a month ago.
Police said the accused met the elderly couple frequently at their home to gain their confidence. Later, the two accused visited their house and killed the couple after robbing their jewellery, silver items and cash.
Gold sale after murder
The two accused then sold the looted gold for Rs 8.6 lakh at Shri Dhanalaxmi Jewellers in Malleswaram.
The police arrested the accused on Saturday in Dakshina Kannada district. The two had taken shelter at the house of Venkatash's friend.
Police said the accused had also killed another elderly couple - Gundegowda and his wife Lalithamma - in a similar fashion. Venkatesh was also related to Lalithamma. After killing the couple, the two fled with Rs 2,000 cash and 60 grams of jewellery.
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A Rockland resident who pled guilty to racketeering charges was sentenced today to 27 months in prison.
Daniel Pagano is a captain in the Genovese Crime Family, said Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Pagano and fellow Rockland County resident Michael Palazzolo, whom federal officials termed an associate of the Genovese Crime Family, were charged in August 2014 with participating in a racketeering conspiracy by, among other crimes, committing extortion and loan sharking and operating an illegal gambling business.
SEE: Rockland Man Admits Role as Capo Pagano had previously been convicted of racketeering conspiracy and served a term of over eight years in prison, and was sentenced today as a repeat offender. The judge also included a term of three years of supervised release, and ordered Pagano to pay a fine of $5,000 and forfeiture of $2,000.
"Pagano's conviction and sentence reinforce a simple truth: if you join the mob and choose a life of crime, you end up behind bars," Bharara said. Here's the full text of his statement:
Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced today that DANIEL PAGANO, a Captain of the Genovese Organized Crime Family of La Cosa Nostra (the "Genovese Crime Family") was sentenced to a term of 27 months in prison for his leadership role in the Genovese Crime Family.
PAGANO pled guilty to participating in a racketeering conspiracy in March 2015 and was sentenced today before by U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said: "Danny Pagano, a Captain in the Genovese Crime Family, has been sentenced today for his leadership role in a racketeering conspiracy. Pagano's conviction and sentence reinforce a simple truth: if you join the mob and choose a life of crime, you end up behind bars." According to the Indictment and other documents filed in this case, and statements made during the plea and sentencing proceedings: The Genovese Crime Family is part of a nationwide criminal organization known by various names, including the "Mafia" and "La Cosa Nostra" ("LCN"), which operates through entities known as "Families." The Genovese Crime Family operates through groups of individuals known as "crews" and "regimes," most of which are based in New York City. Each "crew" has as its leader a person known as a "Caporegime," "Capo," "Captain," or "Skipper," who is responsible for supervising the criminal activities of his crew and providing "Soldiers" and associates with support and protection. In return, the Capo typically receives a share of the illegal earnings of each of his crew's Soldiers and associates, which is sometimes referred to as 'tribute.' DANIEL PAGANO is a Caporegime or Captain in the Genovese Crime Family. | 1,269,701 |
use it in either the bath or a shower steamer. This aromatherapy bomb is lavender-scented and lovely. It’s time to grab some candles, put on some relaxing music, fill up the tub with some steamy water, heck maybe even toss in some flower petals and grab a book to read.
All Purpose Salve – Mellow Root Herbals (contains beeswax)
This all-purpose salve is great for dry skin, it has very few ingredients. I am always on the lookout for products with few ingredients and products that I can actually pronounce all the ingredients. This one hits the mark, it also has a nice herbal scent and I think we all need some moisturizing products in our lives.
Strawberry Honeysuckle Solid Perfume – Live Beautifully
I love the taste and smell of strawberries and honeysuckle reminds me of being a kid and helping my mom in the garden when I was younger. I would take the honeysuckle flowers and suck out the nectar, at that age I didn’t realize I was stealing food from the bees. I like to think they were okay with sharing. The scent of this perfume is delicious and delicate. I’ve been an avid user of solid perfume and perfume oils for several years, glad to add a new one to the collection.
Beeswax Wraps Set of Two – Mind Your Bees (contains beeswax)
This item got me super stoked, I have been wanting to buy reusable wraps for food and to get rid of plastic wrap. The wraps come in a two pack with fall themed designs and are a lovely accent to this box.
Book of the Season: Kiss the Ground: How the Food You Eat Can Reverse Climate Change, Heal Your Body, & Ultimately Save the World.
I am an avid reader and I love books about health, nutrition, holistic healing, gardening, how to save the planet, etc. So once again, I’m convinced that this Earthlove box was made just for me. This book is right up my alley and I can’t wait to read it.
I highly recommend this box to all earthlings, lovers, dreamers, philosophers, hippies, vegans, beegans, readers, writers, tea lovers, chocolate lovers, foodies, wizards, sorcerers, witches, etc. The list goes on and on. The boxes are sent out quarterly, if you subscribe annually it is $54.95 per quarter and quarterly it is $59.95 per quarter. Shipping is free in the US, $20 flat rate for Canada, and $35 flat rate internationally.
Do you want to save 10% off the Earthlove Box?! Yes you do! Use my code at checkout to save: SIMPLYSYN10.
Product discussed here was provided at no cost in exchange for my honest review.
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their group, also masked, did speak to reporters. One of them, a Soviet army veteran in his fifties, assured me that the men were in “high spirits” and that they had sufficient training. Another man, probably in his thirties, told a television reporter that many of their supplies and equipment had been donated. When asked about negotiations and a possible truce, he retorted, “There’s no truce! You hear me!? No truce!”
There were plenty of photo-ops that afternoon. A little girl, about four years old, offered the troops a box of Roshen chocolate bars, produced by the company President Petro Petroshenko owns. A crowd of photographers tried to get the best shot of her holding up these candy bars in front of an unmasked man in black posing with a rifle. Journalists took photos of battalion members embracing their girlfriends, wives, and fiancées just before they were to board the two busses waiting for them.
I managed to speak with the mother of one of the departing soldiers. Not shedding a tear, remaining calm all the way through the ceremony, she told me simply, “We have to defend our homeland, and that’s it!” Still, she asked that her name not be mentioned. “In wartime, it’s better to be anonymous,” she said, smiling. As the men boarded the busses, I saw her engaging in small talk, apparently with her daughter-in-law, who told her that she had tried to make her husband a farewell cake with red-and-black icing (the colors of the OUN flag), but the red turned out pink.
Amid the banter, the tears, the silent pauses between friends, the long embraces with lovers, and the haggling over Maidan politics among the elderly, no one wanted to talk about what was coming next. The general mood suggested that negotiations were an illusion and that war was on, but no one wanted to predict what Russia plans on doing. Still, one bystander told a commander that if Chechen fighters from Russia engaged in all-out war, many of the men there would not come back.
The rain that had briefly let up for the ceremony was back on again as the busses started leaving, accompanied by the singing of the Ukrainian national anthem by a dozen people, mostly elderly men and women. The small talk and laughter exchanged between soldiers and the crowd had pushed back the air of uncertainty, but I couldn’t stop crying when I went to get coffee afterward. Very soon, what had happened on Sofiia Square could become either one more chapter in these young men’s lives, or their last. It all depends on how brutal the war on Ukraine’s eastern front becomes.
William Risch, associate professor of history at Georgia College, is author of The Ukrainian West: Culture and the Fate of Empire in Soviet Lviv (Harvard University Press, 2011). He’s currently volunteering at the Ukraine Crisis Media Center. | 1,269,703 |
6 Best Rooftop Cafes & Bars in Hoi An Vietnam
Da Lat Wine
While wine won’t be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about Vietnam, there is one small mountain town that makes it! Da Lat Vietnam is known for it’s coffee, strawberries, and delicious red wine. The popular drink here won’t stack up to many other counties in the world, but it can be a nice change from beer. Also, coming it at just a $3-4 USD a bottle it’s very affordable.
→ Destination Da Lat: A Guide to Vietnam’s Most Underrated Town
What to Eat in Vietnam for Dessert
Coconut Ice Cream
Every night market that we went to and many of the restaurants serve creamy coconut ice cream. Made with a mix of condensed milk and coconut cream, this might have been one of the thickest and most delicious ice creams we’ve had! It’s also a fun dessert that’s perfect to grab while looking at all the other Vietnamese street food the markets hold.
Kem Bo
No Vietnam food guide would be complete without one of the most unique and popular desserts in the country. Kem bo is a tasty mix of of ice cream and avocado, with something crunchy sprinkled on top.
Where to Eat in Vietnam: Kem Bo, Nha Trang
Frozen Cream
Just like the coconut ice cream, the night markets have taken over the shaved ice cream game. While this might not be traditional Vietnamese street food, they certainly make it their own with tropical flavors and unique toppings. The best part is watching them shave the cream off and roll it in some incredibly creative ways.
Flan
You might associate this sweet and yummy dessert with Europe, but get ready for a flan overload in Vietnam. In the dessert game Flan is considered one of the best Vietnamese dishes, and is sold everywhere from street carts to restaurants. You can get it traditional as shown below, or even served inside a coconut!
Where to Eat in Vietnam: Dua Ben Tre 190, Da Nang
We hope our complete breakdown of what to eat in Vietnam got your appetite going! Have any questions about our Vietnam food guide, or want to share your own favorite traditional Vietnamese food? Leave us a comment at the bottom of this post!
Safe Travels,
Brigitte & Jake
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Where to Stay in Vietnam
Make sure to check out all our individual posts below for hotel recommendations, and more info on the best Vietnamese dishes we loved from each city. You can see the latest prices here for hotels!
*By booking through our website we receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. This allows us to continue our travels and keep providing great content to our readers! You can also bookmark this link for all your future stays*
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Explore More of Vietnam with Us
Northern Vietnam
Central Vietnam
Southern Vietnam | 1,269,704 |
The ability of people, with no established links to an area, being able to make planning objections which impede development needs to be called into question, especially after reports have emerged that Apple is reconsidering its €850 million data centre in Athenry.
This is the view of Independent Galway county councillor Jim Cuddy, who is calling on the Minister for Housing and Planning, Eoghan Murphy, "for not being proactive on planning and development issues" and for failing to address the "real issues which impede planning and development".
Last week, Bloomberg reported that Apple was "losing patience" with the delay in granting planning permission for the proposed data centre - a delay which has now run for two and a half years - and is considering shelving the project. The Government has denied that Apple is losing commitment, with Independent Alliance TD Séan Canney saying: "Apple have expressed their concerns in the delays which is understandable but the bottom line is Apple are still committed to the project in Athenry."
Cllr Cuddy alleged that the delay was the result of "questionable objections" and said it was an example of " why people should not be able to lodge objections to planning applications which do not directly affect them". An article in The Irish Times noted: "We shouldn’t blame the handful of individuals who have sought a judicial review of the planning permission in the High Court (the source of much of the delay ). They are simply making use of the system as it stands...but any planning system that facilitates such egregious delays in making final decisions on major investment projects is clearly defective."
The Oranmore based councillor has written to Minister Murphy, outlining three areas of concern he believes are affecting planning across County Galway: people with no links to an area being able to make objections; the inability of people to secure planning in a sustainable manner in the countryside, if they have not grown up in the area; and the need for people to be informed personally, if their land is to be the subject of a change in zoning.
In his letter to the Minister, Cllr Cuddy also outlined his concerns regarding legislation for one-off rural housing, which, he argues, "prevents people building houses which are considered to be urban-generated". He said: "The fact the EU have already deemed Ireland’s planning policy in this area to be in breach of EU legislation, and given the unprecedented housing shortage, you would think the Minister would make it a priority to address this matter."
The Galway County Council unanimously passed a motion calling on the Minister to change legislation regarding urban-generated housing earlier this year, but only an acknowledgment has been received on this vote.
"If this Minister is serious about addressing housing and planning issues," said Cllr Cuddy, "he should be addressing the real issues on the ground. These are the issues which are cropping up again and again across the country and which are holding back planning, housing, development and job creation. I will be continuing to raise these matters with the Minister and Department officials until some real action is taken." | 1,269,705 |
2012, and found that in 67 per cent of crashes involving pedestrian injuries and fatalities, pedestrians had the right of way.
In about 19 per cent of cases, pedestrians didn’t have the right of way, and in 14 per cent the right of way wasn’t determined.
The results of a similar Star analysis were less conclusive, but still found pedestrians had a right of way in a plurality of serious collisions.
The analysis used similar methodology to the Toronto Public Health study, but looked only at police data for crashes that caused major or fatal injuries to pedestrians, and covered a longer time period, between 2007 and 2018.
The Star analysis showed that in about 45 per cent of serious or fatal pedestrian collisions, the pedestrian had the right of way. In about 25 per cent, the pedestrian didn’t have the right of way, while the remaining 30 per cent the right of way couldn’t be determined.
Serious collisions mainly occur during bad driving conditions
While analysis from several sources has established pedestrian collisions increase around late November when daylight hours grow shorter, crashes that kill or seriously injure pedestrians are by no means confined to periods when driving conditions are poor.
The police statistics show three-quarters of serious pedestrian collisions between 2007 and 2018 happened when the road conditions were dry, and more than half, or 54 per cent, occurred during daylight hours.
Only about 17 per cent occurred in periods outside of daylight hours when the road conditions were listed as either wet or affected by slush, snow or ice.
“When driving conditions are bad, especially in the winter, you do get minor fender benders, but (drivers) are going slowly and they’re very observant,” Black said.
Under more favourable conditions, drivers may “get this false sense of security and they relax. That’s when things can happen.”
Reducing traffic congestion improves road safety
Mayor John Tory has emphasized two main goals for his administration’s road policies: easing traffic congestion, and making streets safer through Vision Zero, which he has backed at council.
At times he’s argued the two efforts go hand in hand, and that fighting gridlock will also lead to safer streets.
“I think the congestion we have in this city makes people often drive in a way that is unsafe, because they quickly try to pull around traffic when somebody pulls over just to get a coffee,” he said in a Jan. 14 interview with CP24.
Raktim Mitra, an associate professor at Ryerson University’s School of Urban and Regional Planning, said he’s not aware of any literature linking traffic congestion with injuries to pedestrians or other road users, and recent research “indicates that the severity of pedestrian injury is statistically lower in congested conditions.”
Ben Spurr is a Toronto-based reporter covering transportation. Reach him by email at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter: @BenSpurr | 1,269,706 |
With familiar names finally qualifying for the Fortnite World Cup and some other notables barley missing the cut. Week 7 was one for the books.
Photo Credit: Reverse2K
The second to last weekend of the Fortnite World Cup solo qualifiers concluded this weekend, with NAE coming down to the wire yet again. Some heavy hitters were left wondering what they could have done better to vault over that final threshold for the qualification spot.
Here are our takeaways from week seven of NAE.
Reverse2K Dominates
Photo Credit: ProSettings
Going into Sunday’s finals, Malachi “Reverse2k” Greiner placed in or around the top one hundred in previous solo qualifiers but never quite found his footing. Opposed to his duo competition where he is teaming up with Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, where the pair have narrowly missed qualification placing 14th and seventh in their previous two outings. Sunday was a new day for Reverse2K, one where he discovered his solo form that we witnessed during the Summer Skirmish where he captured a total of $86,000.
Throughout the day Reverse2K looked poised to take home a qualification spot, with a one kill victory early on, he carried this momentum into further games. Captivating a nine elimination victory followed up by a seven elimination victory all but solidified his ticket to New York.
Reverse looks to secure himself a double qualification this coming weekend in duos, Ninja and himself look to elevate their game past the threshold they have seemingly been stuck at in recent weeks.
Nate Hill loses out on a tight finish
Photo Credit: FaZe Clan
With the queue times closing at exactly 7pm EST Sunday, the race for the final qualification spots was in full effect. With Danny “Dubs” Walsh and Turner “Tfue” Tenney already qualified, others were vying for the seventh and eight spots which would secure their qualification.
Nate Hill was amongst one of these players looking to make the final push for qualification, In his closing match, Nate mustered an eight elimination second pace finish off the backhand of questionable loot. His closing result propelled him into qualifying territory but now he was forced to anxiously wait for everyone else’s matches to conclude.
Unfortunately for Nate, the odds were not in his favor. A four-way tie was the end result of the closing matches between; Nate Hill, Thiccboy Luneze, Fatch and Chenkinz. All tied with 58 points the Fortnite World Cup uses victory royal’s as the first tiebreaker method, Nate was on the wrong end of the stick Sunday, ultimately being kicked out of qualification territory and finished just behind the pack.
NAE has produced some of the qualifiers best moments and the heartbreak and anguish Nate expressed to his stream once his miss fortune was all but confirmed truly displays what the World Cup means to these players.
[zombify_post] | 1,269,707 |
says Smith. “They didn’t look like [they would] crumble at the time. But they lost their pilot and navigator.”
Since American Stan Kroenke took a majority shareholding, Arsenal have added an analytics component to its transfer market strategy. The club now study a matrix for each target, with an algorithm telling them not to offer more than a certain amount if the player does not score on all criteria under analysis: pass, sprint, shot, assist and goal. The book discusses the purchase of Chicago-based data company StatDNA, which outsources its number crunching to a warehouse in Cambodia. So the employees of South East Asia are providing the data on which the club’s spending decisions are about to be based.
Arsenal use StatDNA to confirm or disprove pre-conceived ideas about their targets, though Leicester City proved in the £5.6m purchase of N'Golo Kante – arguably the ultimate ‘Moneyball’ transfer of recent years that they can be used to generate targets. Leicester looked at metrics such as most interceptions, tackles and forward passes per 90 minutes across Europe's top leagues. Then they profiled statistics relevant to Leicester's playing style, such as turnover of possession and 'ball recoveries’. Kante’s name just kept cropping up.
Many English clubs are still surprisingly uneducated on possible overseas hunting grounds, claims Smith, citing this as another place where agents come into play. “I’m amazed how the clubs in some cases lack international expertise,” he says. “We’ve had an island mentality [in this respect.] It’s the one single spend that can send a club spiralling out of control and yet the football authorities don’t meaningfully speak to the agents or ever seem interested in doing so.”
Smith bridged the £1.2m difference in price between Arsenal and Zenit for Arshavin (Getty Images)
British clubs’ awareness of players in Ukraine, South East Asia and the United States of America (where the game generates a strong mentality suited for the Premier League) is not what it might be, he says. It is his view that the gaps in knowledge are particularly significant among the top flight’s smaller clubs. “I wonder, for instance, if Brighton come up [to the Premier League] will they know what is happening in some corners of the world, or will they have people to help?”
Arsenal’s January 2009 pursuit of Zenit St Petersburg's Andrei Arshavin bears out the agent’s part in a desperately convoluted international business. Smith tells how he subtly engaged Uzbekistan-born Arsenal shareholder Alisher Usmanov to see the deal through, though the struggle to agree a price with the Russians was so protracted that Smith ultimately bridged the £1.2m gap on price between the two clubs himself in the dying hours of the winter window. He gambled on the club compensating him when the dust had finally settled. | 1,269,708 |
FILE - In this Dec. 7, 2016 file photo, election workers recount votes on Flint ballots, as they begin the process of a statewide recount at the Genesee County Administration Building in Flint, Mich. (Jake May/The Flint Journal-MLive.com via AP)
FILE - In this Dec. 7, 2016 file photo, election workers recount votes on Flint ballots, as they begin the process of a statewide recount at the Genesee County Administration Building in Flint, Mich. (Jake May/The Flint Journal-MLive.com via AP)
DETROIT (AP) — At least 31 people could face criminal charges after voting twice in Michigan in the fall election, an official said Thursday.
Separately, the state Bureau of Elections said human error, not fraud or equipment failure, caused mismatches between the number of ballots cast in some Detroit precincts and the number of voters.
The agency’s investigation followed a partial statewide recount of the presidential race, which raised questions about the safeguarding of ballots in Detroit. A judge stopped the recount after three days, although officials said it would not have changed President Donald Trump’s slim victory in Michigan over Hillary Clinton.
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Before the recount was halted, there was an attempt to recount ballots in 263 Detroit precincts. But 68 precincts didn’t qualify because the number of ballots didn’t match the number of people who showed up to vote.
Some ballots, for example, were left in a tub below an electronic tabulator and not transferred to a secure box on election night. In one polling place, there were 300 voters but only 50 properly sealed ballots.
While many precincts couldn’t be part of the recount, all ballots cast on Nov. 8 still were part of the final official result.
“There was no pervasive fraud in our audit of Detroit,” said state elections director Chris Thomas, who instead cited “widespread performance issues” related to a lack of sufficient training for poll workers.
He said his elections staff looked at 136 precincts and was able to balance the number of ballots and voters in 65 and greatly reduce mismatches in others.
Thomas also reported that 31 Michigan residents voted twice, first with an absentee ballot and then in person. Their names were turned over to the attorney general’s office for possible prosecution. Voting twice, or even attempting to do so, is a felony.
“It’s not acceptable,” Thomas said.
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Fourteen of the 31 were in Detroit. Officials believe Detroit poll workers didn’t catch the double votes because they weren’t given an updated list of voters who had used an absentee ballot.
It’s not known which candidate got the votes. Ballots are anonymous.
“There are processes in place to stop this. In these 31 cases, they didn’t work,” Thomas said.
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Follow Ed White at http://twitter.com/edwhiteap | 1,269,709 |
dissolution,” he wrote. “I have suffered very little pain from my disorder; and what is more strange, have, notwithstanding the great decline of my person, never suffered a moment’s abatement of my spirits. I possess the same ardour as ever in study, and the same gaiety in company.”
Gliding his mind’s eye over one of Hume’s most poignant lines — “It is difficult to be more detached from life than I am at present.” — Dr. Sacks considers the paradoxical way in which detachment becomes an instrument of presence:
Over the last few days, I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts. This does not mean I am finished with life. On the contrary, I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight.
Such intensity of aliveness, Dr. Sacks observes, requires a deliberate distancing from the existentially inessential things with which we fill our daily lives — petty arguments, politics, the news. With his characteristic mastery of nuance, he points to a crucial distinction:
This is not indifference but detachment — I still care deeply about the Middle East, about global warming, about growing inequality, but these are no longer my business; they belong to the future. I rejoice when I meet gifted young people — even the one who biopsied and diagnosed my metastases. I feel the future is in good hands.
Decades after his beloved aunt Lennie taught him about dying with dignity and courage, Dr. Sacks lets this lesson come abloom in his own life. True to the defining enchantment of his books, he turns his luminous prose inward, then outward, and in a passage that calls to mind William Faulkner’s sublime living obituary, he exits this world — the world of writing and the world of life, for the two were always one for Dr. Sacks — with a breathtaking epitaph for himself:
I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.
Gratitude is a bittersweet and absolutely beautiful read in its entirety. Complement it with Dr. Sacks on the life-saving power of music, the strange psychology of writing, and his story of love, lunacy, and a life fully lived, then revisit my remembrance of Dr. Sacks’s singular spirit. | 1,269,710 |
March 19, 2018 at 6:55 pm
Cate Blanchett proudly announced she and Sandra Bullock paid top dollar for collagen boosting facials made using the stolen foreskins of baby boys
Ever question why the ancient barbaric practice of circumcision still happens to half the baby boys born in America, while it’s been done away with in most of the rest of the world?
One reason is that America is ruled by the almighty dollar.
Not only do hospitals charge parents up to $3000 to rip off the most sensitive part of their sons’ bodies, they can turn around and sell those foreskins for up to $100,000 each to companies like SkinMedica – who use baby foreskin to create their skin care product – sell their foreskin facial creams for $150 an ounce.
Actress Cate Blanchett revealed this week that Oprah is not the only one whose youthful skin is thanks to the torture and mutilation of baby boys.
The 48-year-old star told Vogue Australia that she and Sandra Bullock went into a New York clinic to get $650 “penis” facials.
The magazine quietly removed references to the facial since the article was published on March 13, but not before several publications had picked up the news.
“Sandy and I saw this facialist in New York, Georgia Louise, and she gives what we call the penis facial,” Blanchett reportedly told Vogue.
“It’s something — I don’t know what it is, or whether it’s just cause it smells a bit like sperm — there’s some enzyme in it so Sandy refers to it as the penis facial.”
In an interview with the Daily Mail, facialist Georgia Louise explained ‘penis facial’ has become the ‘street name’ in Hollywood for the procedure because the serum is developed using stem cells from the foreskins of baby boys.
“It’s a tremendous treatment but the street name for it is hilarious,” said Louise, who has treated stars including Emma Stone, Katy Perry, and Alexander Wang at her salon.
“Poor Cate,” she added. “I don’t know how she’s going to cope with all the reaction.”
The stem cells are collected from the foreskin during circumcision, harvested using a centrifuge and then exported to the salons, where a facialist uses a micro-needling technique to pump the stem cells into the skin to stimulate collagen production.
“Studies show the youth of the cells activate aging cells, giving them a new lease of life to make more collagen, which makes the skin plump and smooths out wrinkles,” the Daily Mail reports.
For anyone looking for great skin care that doesn’t involve torturing infants and stealing their body parts, this stuff is amazing: | 1,269,711 |
Several months later, though, Trump arrives to bitter disappointment from his biggest fans in Israel. In his first talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February, he asked him to “hold back” on settlement construction. The embassy hasn’t been moved yet—nor will it, at least in the near future. A group of settlers asked to meet with Trump on his visit, and were quickly rebuffed. Instead, there is enthusiastic talk from Washington about reviving the defunct peace process and striking what Trump calls “the ultimate deal” with the Palestinians.
Trump’s about-face has become a gnawing political headache for Netanyahu, who, according to people close to him, spent the past few weeks in a state of mild panic, worried that his right-wing allies will blame him for the mercurial president’s metamorphosis. “The question is not Trump. The question is Benjamin Netanyahu,” Bennett told me. “I think we’re blowing it, this huge opportunity to form a new policy.”
As ever, the crisis stems from Netanyahu's conservatism—a prime minister known as “Mr. Status Quo” does not want to take dramatic steps in the occupied territories. Though he remains skeptical of a two-state solution, he fears the diplomatic consequences of a major push to expand settlements. He showed up for that first White House meeting without his own diplomatic plan. The Palestinians moved aggressively to fill the void, both in direct talks and through their Arab allies in Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf. Critics say Netanyahu hasn’t pushed on the embassy issue, either; Fox News reported last week that he even privately urged Trump not to move it, out of fear of the consequences. (His office denied the report.)
For now, at least, things will move slowly. Trump is not expected to announce a new round of talks, while plans for a trilateral meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were quickly scuttled. Both sides are instead focused on small-bore items. The Palestinians have presented Trump with an economic wish list, including new industrial zones and a resort on the Dead Sea. The Gulf states have offered Israel its own economic incentives in return, like overflight rights for the national carrier, El Al.
And there is good reason to believe Trump’s pursuit of a deal will quickly flounder. The Palestinians are hopelessly divided between the militant faction Hamas and the secular Fatah, the latter of which is led by Abbas, an unpopular octogenarian whose mandate expired eight years ago. Just four of Israel’s 20 ministers openly support a two-state solution. Though the White House has claimed otherwise, a century-old national and religious conflict is no simple real-estate deal.
If Trump gets both sides to the table, however, their talks will soon turn to serious issues. Here, he will run into trouble. Even a quiet construction freeze in the West Bank would be divisive for Netanyahu’s coalition, to say nothing of plans to evacuate settlements or divide Jerusalem. | 1,269,712 |
Once upon a time, there were two little girls, who lived in a house in the middle of the woods with their father. One day, he went into town as usual, and came back with a wife. The wife did not like the daughters; the daughters did not particularly like her either. Still, they made an uneasy peace with her.
Until, one day, the cold came. It was a quick cold, but a biting one—and it killed every fresh crop, every growing field, every unprotected living thing it touched. There was no harvest—and no food.
Things got worse and worse. The larders emptied out, and the girls went to bed hungry every night. When Younger Sister cried from the pain in her stomach, Older Sister sang quiet songs to her, and wove stories of their true mother. Neither of them remembered her; but where there was no memory or truth to be had, fairytale was enough.
One morning, their father stirred them from their beds, and told them to follow him into the woods. They were going to gather firewood, he said—but before they left, the birds chirped to Younger Sister, “Take heed! Take heed! Fill your pockets with stones! Leave a trail!”
Younger Sister did so, and as their father led them deeper and deeper among the towering trees, she trailed the stones behind them, white and pearly against the dark loam of the forest floor. Then, she looked up—and their father was gone. They were lost. But Younger Sister found the trail of stones and guided them back to their cottage. Their father’s face was filled with mixed relief and shame, but they could see the fury in their stepmother’s face. The next morning, they were awoken even earlier, and herded out to the forest too fast to keep with them anything more than a crust of bread. Younger Sister crumbled it behind her to leave a trail; however, when once again, their father vanished and they were left alone in the forest, she turned behind her to see nothing but the birds eating the crumbs she’d left.
“Why do you betray me like this?” she cried. But it was too late. They were lost.
Older Sister closed her eyes. She turned in a circle, trying to feel the winds, the earth under her feet. Then she opened her eyes and took Younger Sister’s hand.
“What are we going to do?” Younger Sister asked.
Older Sister looked down at Younger Sister. They were all each other had left in the world. Even if they could make it back to their home, she realized, it wasn’t home any more. They were no longer welcome.
“Survive,” she said. She squeezed Younger Sister’s hands and strode into the dark.
There was nowhere else to go but forward.
<– Chapter 1.10 Chapter 1.11–> | 1,269,713 |
Syria's Bashar al Assad is "deluded" if he thinks his forces will retake all of the country from rebel fighters, the US said, after the president claimed in an interview that victory was just a matter of time.
While vowing to win the war, Assad said the involvement of regional players in the conflict would mean "the solution will take a long time and will incur a heavy price.
"We have fully believed in negotiations and in political action since the beginning of the crisis. However, if we negotiate, it does not mean that we stop fighting terrorism," Assad told the AFP news agency in an interview published on Friday.
"The two tracks are inevitable in Syria: first through negotiations and second through fighting terrorism."
READ MORE: Assad vows to retake Syria 'without hesitation'
Assad's comments came as world powers agreed on a "cessation of hostilities" on Friday in an attempt to halt the nearly five-year Syrian war that his killed an estimated 250,000 people and driven millions from the country.
The agreement falls short of a formal ceasefire, since it was not signed by the main warring parties - the opposition and government forces.
Will Syria's war be won or lost in Aleppo?
The United States reacted to Assad's interview with disdain on Friday.
"He's deluded if he thinks that there's a military solution to the conflict in Syria," deputy State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters.
"All we're looking at - if the Syrian regime continues the fighting - is more bloodshed, more hardship and, frankly, a greater hardening of positions on either side."
Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from Turkey's Gaziantep on the Syrian border, said Assad's comments were in stark contrast to ones he made months ago with his forces pinned down by rebels - until Russia came to his aid with air operations in late September.
"Clearly the Syrian president is speaking from a position of strength," said Khodr. "Ever since the Russians intervened militarily, the balance of power shifted in the favour of the government and they're continuing those advances. The opposition is on the retreat."
READ MORE: Russian PM warns of world war if troops sent into Syria
Meanwhile, Russia continued its military campaign in support of Assad on Friday, just hours after the international call for a cessation of hostilities.
Activists told Al Jazeera at least 18 people were killed in suspected Russian air strikes in the northern suburbs of Homs province.
Another week of fighting would give Syria's government and its Russian, Lebanese and Iranian allies time to press on with the encirclement of Aleppo, Syria's biggest city before the war, which they are now on the verge of capturing.
They are also close to sealing the Turkish border, a lifeline for rebel territory for years.
Those two victories would reverse years of insurgent gains, effectively ending the rebels' hopes of dislodging Assad through force, the cause they have fought for since 2011 with the encouragement of Arab states, Turkey and the West. | 1,269,714 |
ANAHEIM – Hollywood crews have descended on Disneyland to shoot scenes for the upcoming Walt Disney Pictures’ “Tomorrowland.”
Crews will be shooting all day Tuesday and Wednesday at the It’s a Small World attraction.
The movie will star George Clooney, who plays an inventor in the science-fiction mystery. But the 52-year-old Oscar winner won’t be on set, Disneyland officials said.
All of the filming will take place in the area of It’s a Small World, already closed to park visitors, said Kevin Rafferty Jr., a Disneyland spokesman. Visitors will also find the Disneyland Railroad, which passes behind It’s a Small World, closed for the shoot, he said.
“Guests won’t be able to see any of the filming,” Rafferty said.
Additionally, the “Mickey and the Magical Map” stage show, next to It’s a Small World, will be canceled both days, he said. Mickey’s Toontown will remain open, but guests will be redirected around the makeshift movie set. Filming will be completed before the park opens on Thursday.
On Monday, film crews were erecting tall, blue screens and had brought in lighting and other equipment around It’s a Small World, which has been closed since the end of the winter-holiday season for the removal of Christmas decorations.
Curious park guests snapped some pictures and asked park employees for details.
“It’s really cool that they’re going to film a movie here,” said Heather Ramirez, 42, an annual pass holder from Buena Park. “Too bad George (Clooney) won’t be here. I would have come back tomorrow just for a chance to see him.”
“Tomorrowland” stars Clooney as grizzled inventor Frank Walker. It’s being touted as one of the big releases for 2015. It co-stars Hugh Laurie, from TV’s “House.” Clooney, Laurie and the other actors have filmed scenes over the past few weeks in Vancouver, Canada and Valencia, Spain. The movie shares its name with the futuristic-themed lands found at Disney’s various theme parks.
(It’s a Small World is in Fantasyland.)
Last year, crews and Tom Hanks shot scenes over several days on Main Street, U.S.A. for “Saving Mr. Banks.” Only two other sanctioned movies have shot at least some scenes at Disneyland: 1962’s “40 Pounds of Trouble,” starring Tony Curtis, and 1996’s “That Thing You Do” starring Hanks.
Officials had not said whether crews would return to the park to shoot additional scenes of “Tomorrowland.”
Contact the writer: 714-704-3773 or [email protected] | 1,269,715 |
Lid lifted on Iraq rights violations: report
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Iraq – It was found in a Human Rights Report released on Monday that the rights of Iraq’s most vulnerable citizens, especially women and detainees, are being routinely violated with impunity. After conducting research in seven cities across Iraq in 2010, the 102-page report “At a Crossroads: Human Rights in Iraq Eight Years After the US-lead Invasion” represents the reality of vulnerable groups in Iraq while pleading for the government to protect the rights of these groups to amend its penal code and all other laws that discriminate against women and violate freedom of speech. The report also urges Baghdad to open independent and impartial investigations into all allegations of abuse against detainees, minorities, and journalists. “Eight years after the US invasion, life in Iraq is actually getting worse for women and minorities, while journalists and detainees face significant rights violations. On Monday, Iraq is at a crossroads – either it embraces due process and human rights or it risks reverting to a police state,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
According to Human Rights Watch, the 2003 invasion caused a chaos that has exacted an enormous toll on Iraq’s citizens as the deterioration of security has resulted in a return to some traditional justice practices and religiously inflected political extremism, which have had a deleterious effect on women’s rights, both inside and outside the home. It has been reported that militias promoting misogynist ideologies have targeted women and girls for assassination, and intimidated them to keep them from participating in public life.
“Increasingly, women and girls are victimised in their own homes for a variety of perceived transgressions against family or community honor. Trafficking in women and girls in and out of the country for sexual exploitation is widespread”, Human Rights watch said.
Journalism is also, according to Human Rights watch, a hazardous occupation in Iraq, despite the fact that security improvements since 2008 have lead to a lower rate of murdered media workers.
“Extremists and unidentified assailants kill journalists and bomb their offices. Increasingly, journalists find themselves harassed, intimidated, threatened, detained, and physically assaulted by security forces attached to government institutions or political parties. Senior politicians are quick to sue journalists and their publications for unflattering articles”, Human Rights Watch reported.
It was reported that despite government passing laws in an effort to protect some of its marginalized communities, it has failed to protect those most at risk, resulting in many fleeing the country with no intention to return thus threatening Iraq’s indigenous population.
“Iraq’s future as a democratic society based on respect for fundamental human rights will in large part depend on whether Iraqi authorities will adequately defend those rights,” Stork said. “To do so, Iraqi authorities need to establish a credible criminal justice system meeting international standards with respect to torture, free expression, and violence against women and other vulnerable people in Iraq’s society.” - IOL Reporter | 1,269,716 |
to research and produce an informed answer, thus sidestepping the GIGO problem of relying solely on the size of crowds. Short for “Garbage In, Garbage Out,” GIGO is a computer science term borrowed by the predictive forecasting industry to rate the quality of data used in making financial predictions. While it’s possible to get more accuracy in any forecast simply by casting the information net wider, incentivizing participants in that net discourages random guessing and encourages more informed predictions.
Finally, Cindicator takes its aggregated smart data and runs it through an artificial intelligence system known as a neural network. This further sharpens the predictions.
“When making predictions, one method of crowdsourcing opinion is to deploy the wisdom of the crowd. This means that, looking at a diverse range of opinions on a given issue, you take the ‘average’ response, in theory giving a more accurate prediction than any individual — no matter how knowledgeable — could provide,” Cindicator said on the project’s homepage. “At Cindicator, we went further and used a diversity of data science methods, incorporating statistical science and machine-learning methods to improve the accuracy of our predictions.”
Cultivate Labs
Finally, Cultivate Labs offers blockchain predictions as a service to its clients, including LG and Broadspectrum. Cultivate bills its service as a user-fitted solution for nearly every predictive need, from U.S. elections to sports to business strategies.
These services are offered at several levels. Both TinyCast and AlphaCast are free for personal or public forecasts, while the Cultivate Forecasts product is geared toward the professional market and offers three- to six-month trials for prospective clients.
Shaping the Future
It’s ironic that blockchain technology, which is pushing into new boundaries in nearly every technological field, is also now being used to predict what those fields will do. The flavors and depth of prediction vary, from Augur’s open-source, catch-all platform to Cindicator’s narrow focus on financial markets. But the ramifications for this kind of predictive ability are obvious. Roles now filled by analysts and polling specialists are giving way to a new kind of decentralized information gathering. This promises to not only be faster and more accurate but also less concentrated.
For instance, in U.S. presidential elections, most news coverage tends to focus on a few big-name polling companies. In 2016, these polling companies fell relatively flat when it came to predicting the eventual win of Republican candidate Donald Trump. As a result, the media coverage surrounding the election was confused – and, at least in some cases, fairly inaccurate. A blockchain-based system would have grabbed granularity unavailable to traditional pollsters, and it would have taken any question of bias away via its autonomous and decentralized nature.
Figuring out what’s going to happen next in blockchain technology is almost always a difficult proposition. How appropriate it is that blockchain aims to solve that problem itself.
References | 1,269,717 |
Longtime Trump ally and Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy joins a growing right-wing effort to revive the career of disgraced Fox News host Bill O'Reilly.
For two decades, Fox News stuck by Bill O’Reilly as its top line star. He weathered controversies from openly racist remarks to allegedly inciting the murder of an abortion doctor.
But what finally did him in and led to Fox belatedly firing him was the revelation earlier this year that the right-wing media darling is a serial sexual predator whose misconduct, dating back to 2002, cost $13 million in sexual harassment settlements, several involving O'Reilly's coworkers. Donald Trump defended O'Reilly, saying O'Reilly "is a good person," and that he didn't "think Bill did anything wrong."
Since then, we've learned of a sixth settlement, worth $32 million, that Fox knew about when it renewed O'Reilly's contract earlier this year.
But now one right-wing pro-Trump media owner wants to put him back on the air permanently.
Politico reports that Chris Ruddy, the CEO of Newsmax, is meeting next week with O’Reilly to discuss hiring him for a new show.
“We don’t think Bill O’Reilly’s career is over,” said Ruddy. “He does have a market. We’re very interested and exploring looking at that. He’s a significant talent.”
Ruddy is a friend of Trump’s, who is referred to as the “Trump Whisperer.” Under his leadership, Newsmax has been heavily aligned with Trump.
The idea of bringing O’Reilly back on the air is as outrageous as it revealing. In recent weeks, Newsmax, along with Fox News and other right-wing media outlets, have used the sexual misconduct scandal surrounding Harvey Weinstein as an opportunity for virtue signaling and finger-pointing. The same networks that excused Trump's admission of sexual misconduct gleefully used the Weinstein scandal to attack liberals, ignoring their own complicity in similar cases.
Getting O'Reilly off the air was a hard won triumph for both his victims and for women more broadly. But GOP media figures have fought since then to drag O’Reilly back into national relevance, with Sean Hannity bringing him onto his show for an interview.
Ruddy's willingness to give a whole new show to an accused serial sexual predator is symptomatic of a larger problem.
When the accused can be connected to liberals or the Democratic Party, Republicans and right-wing media say the pervasive problem of sexual assault should be taken seriously. But when it involves one of their own, they not only stay silent — they actually advocate for the accused.
Republicans refuse to distance themselves from O’Reilly for the same reason they refuse to distance themselves from the sexual predator now sitting in the Oval Office: Because for them, "family values" is nothing but a slogan, and party principles are nothing more than politically convenient talking points. | 1,269,718 |
Headey
Salary: $500,000 per episode
Estimated Net Worth: $9 million
Headey’s $9 million net worth might be lower than some of her cast members, but it’s nothing to be underestimated. The actor, who plays Cersei Lannister, is included in the show’s $500,000-per-episode deal for season 7 and 8, making her salary for the past two seasons an impressive $6,500,000. Along with Game of Thrones, Headey has starred in Fighting with My Family, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. She has also done a voiceover for a Mercedes A-Class campaign.
Maisie Williams
Salary: ~$150,000 per episode
Estimated Net Worth: $6 million
Williams, who plays Arya Stark, is in what The Hollywood Reporter calls the “B” tier of Game of Thrones, meaning that her per-episode salary is less than those in the “A” tier, who are the five actors above. It’s also unclear what Williams’s salary was for season 7 and season 8. It was last reported by Celebrity Net Worth that her pay was $150,000 per episode, but that was before the negotiations for season 7 and season 8, which is what led to the “A” tier’s salary increase from $300,000 per episode for $500,000 episode for the final two seasons. Along with Game of Thrones, Williams has also starred in Doctor Who, as well as 20th Century Fox’s 2019 X-Men film, The New Mutants, which accounts for her $6 million net worth. Williams also has her own social media app, Daisie, with film producer, Dom Santree. The two also have a producing company called Daisy Chain Productions.
Sophie Turner
Salary: ~$150,000 per episode
Estimated Net Worth: $6 million
Turner, who plays Sansa Stark, joins Williams in the “B” tier of Game of Thrones. (The tier also included Natalie Dormer, who played Margaery Tyrell, who was killed off in season 6.) It hasn’t been confirmed what Turner is making for season 7 and season 8. But for the past seasons, she was making the same salary as her “B” tier costars: $150,000 per episode. Of course, that was before negotiations for season 7 and season 8, so we expect a significant pay raise for Turner to explain her impressive $6 million net worth, according to Celebrity Net Worth. (Her “A” tier costars went from $300,000 to $500,000 for the final two seasons.) Along with Game of Thrones, Turner has also starred in X-Men: Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix (in which she plays the lead). She is also the face of Wella hair care. | 1,269,719 |
Image caption The Rain Room has been described as a "cocooning experience" by its creators.
Most of us have been caught in a torrential downpour and wished we could make it stop, but how would it feel to have the power to control the weather?
Rain Room, a new 3D exhibition at London's Barbican Centre marries art, science and technology to do just that.
Despite standing in a space filled with drops of falling water, visitors remain dry, as the water halts above them.
Its creators have described it as "a social experiment" which "extracts behavioural experiences".
"We wanted to give people the cocooning experience of being immersed in a 3D rain room and watch their reaction," Hannes Koch told the BBC.
Koch met Florian Ortkrass and Briton Stuart Wood in 2005 while studying at the Royal College of Art in London and together they formed Random International.
As well as audience participation, science and technology play a big part in bringing their experimental exhibition to life.
Gravity effect
With several 3D sensory cameras fixed to the ceiling of the Rain Room, every person who walks into the 100 square metre space is recognised.
Image caption Florian Ortkrass, Stuart Wood and Hannes Koch met at London's Royal College of Art.
As they move around "slowly", the rain stops overhead.
"If you run around you'll get wet because while the sensor picks up the movement, gravity limits the speed of the drops falling from the ceiling," explained Koch.
The artists said he and collaborators hoped the experience would give people a sense of "playful empowerment".
"By your sheer presence you can control the rain."
The installation has been designed to create an intimate atmosphere of contemplation.
"There's no distractive sound, you are very close [to the rain] and it is beautiful as it becomes hypnotic and the sound of the rain is extremely calming.
"Behavioural experiences"
"It is very different to having an umbrella as you don't have the sound of the rain battering on the umbrella," said Koch."
This is not Random International's first experiment with visitor participation.
Its 2008 exhibition, Audience, used motorised mirrors to respond to the individual facing them with each viewer becoming the subject of the exhibition.
"It has been interesting and a lot of fun for us to watch people, as this kind of installation piece extracts behavioural experiences," said Koch.
"In the Rain Room, shy people may wait to see others' reaction and may act quite cautiously, while more excitable visitors will just rush in."
If the Rain Room is filled with participants, the "collective power of the crowd stops the rain", which Koch admits may limit the experience.
"We have recommended to our hosts that a little crowd control may be required to give people the full experience."
Rain Room at The Curve runs until March next year. | 1,269,720 |
Doctor Who's new composer has spoken out for the first time about revamping one of the most famous theme tunes in the universe.
Speaking exclusively to Digital Spy at a launch for the new series, Segun Akinola promised that his version of the Doctor Who theme would be a reinvention, but with classic elements that fans recognise.
David Shoukry BBC
Above: Doctor Who's new composer Segun Akinola
"Without giving too much away... when you have such an iconic theme, it's really important not to mess that up, to give it the attention and reverence that it deserves," he said.
"But also, [it's important] to be brave with it, and understand that it's not just a case of pulling out exactly the same thing. So it was really a juggling act of bringing out something slightly different, but also starting from the original place."
Related: Doctor Who's move to Sunday nights was "very much" a decision made by BBC "high-ups"
Akinola described reinventing Ron Grainer and Delia Derbyshire's original classic theme as a "big challenge", but "a lot of fun" and "such a rewarding experience".
A BAFTA Breakthrough Brit and graduate of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Akinola will write the music for all 10 episodes of Doctor Who's new series, replacing long-time composer Murray Gold.
BBC
He found out he'd got the job "around Christmas time last year", revealing how the life-changing call from showrunner Chris Chibnall interrupted a spell of festive shopping. "I was actually in Tesco!" Akinola told us. "I got this call from Chris... and I got the job.
"I was there buying some mulled wine for my wife and I, to have a Christmassy kind of evening, but I just ended up walking up and down the aisle a few times, because it was just such a surreal and crazy experience!
"It was amazing to be considered, and amazing to get the job, and it's been just such a fun opportunity. Everyone, the whole team, has been brilliant and really supportive."
Chibnall recently revealed that Akinola's version of the theme won't open the first episode of the new series, 'The Woman Who Fell to Earth': "You'll have to wait till episode two to see [the new titles and theme] in situ," he told Doctor Who Magazine. "Episode one starts a little differently."
Doctor Who, starring Jodie Whittaker as the new Doctor, begins Sunday, October 7 on BBC One.
Want up-to-the-minute entertainment news and features? Just hit 'Like' on our Digital Spy Facebook page and 'Follow' on our @digitalspy Instagram and Twitter account.
This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io | 1,269,721 |
Great News!
The Heritage Lottery Fund have awarded Cornish feminist theatre hub Scary Little Girls in partnership with us at The Heroine Collective, a 50k grant to bring a hugely important piece of feminist heritage into public access.
We’re embarking on an 18 month project to interview The Greenham Women who formed the Greenham Common Peace Camp between 1981 and 2000. The Peace Camp was established to protest nuclear weapons being placed at RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire.
Were you a Greenham Woman? Do you have any stories about Greenham? Do you have friends, colleagues, family members who were at Greenham?
We want to hear from you!
You can get in touch via email – hello (at) greenhamwomeneverywhere.co.uk and you can also join the conversation using the hashtag #HLFGreenham.
More info…
Women from all over the world braved every weather and indignity to live together in order to protest peacefully and creatively about the threat to humankind from the nuclear arms race. In a time before the internet and mobile phones, the women and their supporters managed to organise thousands for actions like “Embrace the Base” in 1982, in which 30,000 women held hands around the edges of the common.
Though it was the largest demonstration in modern history, we have relatively little information about life on camp. For the first time, we’ll be looking at the truths behind the tabloids, the anecdotal details, the political strategies, and we’ll be bringing the heritage right into the hands of the public.
While the camp was based in Berkshire, the women came from all over the world to attend. We’ll be collating these women’s oral testimonies through detailed interviews, taking photographs, and making video documentation for a specially designed website.
Additionally, we’ll be touring the country with a pop-up exhibition aiming to help spread the word about the heritage. The research will have a permanent home at The Women’s Library in London, and also at Kresen Kernow, Cornwall’s new archive centre.
We’re working with 10 volunteers on the project. The volunteers will be trained in a variety of skills, and have the chance not only to meet the women themselves, but to contribute to a project which brings previously side-lined history into the spotlight, making it available for generations of people to come.
We do hope you can offer us support with spreading the word about what’s happening in your part of the country, and helping attract attention to the importance of the project!
The project is supported by The Heritage Lottery Fund South West, The University of The West of England in Bristol, Cornwall Council, Falmouth University, The Women’s Library at The London School of Economics, The East End Women’s Museum, Goldsmiths University of London, The Hypatia Trust, The Feminist Library, the UK Parliament Vote 100 Project and Dreadnought South West. | 1,269,722 |
Credit: CC0 Public Domain
The first ever integrated nanoscale device which can be programmed with either photons or electrons has been developed by scientists in Harish Bhaskaran's Advanced Nanoscale Engineering research group at the University of Oxford.
In collaboration with researchers at the universities of Münster and Exeter, scientists have created a first-of-a-kind electro-optical device which bridges the fields of optical and electronic computing. This provides an elegant solution to achieving faster and more energy efficient memories and processors.
Computing at the speed of light has been an enticing but elusive prospect, but with this development it's now in tangible proximity. Using light to encode as well as transfer information enables these processes to occur at the ultimate speed limit—that of light. While as of recently, using light for certain processes has been experimentally demonstrated, a compact device to interface with the electronic architecture of traditional computers has been lacking. The incompatibility of electrical and light-based computing fundamentally stems from the different interaction volumes that electrons and photons operate in. Electrical chips need to be small to operate efficiently, whereas optical chips need to be large, as the wavelength of light is larger than that of electrons.
To overcome this challenging problem the scientists came up with a solution to confine light into nanoscopic dimensions, as detailed in their paper Plasmonic nanogap enhanced phase change devices with dual electrical-optical functionality published in Science Advances, 29 November 2019. They created a design which allowed them to compress light into a nano-sized volume through what is known as surface plasmon polariton. The dramatic size reduction in conjunction with the significantly increased energy density is what has allowed them to bridge the apparent incompatibility of photons and electrons for data storage and computation. More specifically, it was shown that by sending either electrical or optical signals, the state of a photo- and electro-sensitive material was transformed between two different states of molecular order. Further, the state of this phase-transforming material was read out by either light or electronics thereby making the device the first electro-optical nanoscale memory cell with non-volatile characteristics.
"This is a very promising path forward in computation and especially in fields where high processing efficiency is needed," states Nikolaos Farmakidis, graduate student and co-first author.
Co-author Nathan Youngblood continues: "This naturally includes artificial intelligence applications where in many occasions the needs for high-performance, low-power computing far exceeds our current capabilities. It is believed that interfacing light-based photonic computing with its electrical counterpart is the key to the next chapter in CMOS technologies."
Explore further Light-based computer hardware that can compete with silicon
More information: "Plasmonic nanogap enhanced phase-change devices with dual electrical-optical functionality" Science Advances (2019). Journal information: Science Advances "Plasmonic nanogap enhanced phase-change devices with dual electrical-optical functionality"(2019). advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/11/eaaw2687 | 1,269,723 |
ious for cash payments was £537.80 per bitcoin, which is quite a bit higher than the £520 per bitcoin if paying via bank transfer, and greater still than the £517.18 displayed on the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index at the time.
Some say they are attracted to the service as it allows consumers to remain anonymous, because their bank accounts aren’t involved. However, given that the service can’t be used without first registering with one of the bitcoin companies listed above, customers don’t actually remain completely anonymous.
Warne said that, regardless, the service will appeal to those who want to buy bitcoins without involving their bank in any way.
He said: “It’s not really about getting bitcoins anonymously. It’s more about getting them without needing to rely on any other institutions.”
He added:
“Some people don’t have bank accounts, have unsuitable bank accounts or simply don’t want to associate their bank account with bitcoins, so this is perfect for them.”
According to research by Social Finance, more than 1.5 million adults in the UK are unbanked (do not have access to a transactional bank account), so I can see that there is a sector of society that would find this service extremely useful.
If/when it becomes available in countries where the majority of the population is unbanked, I can see the service really starting to take off.
Upcoming developments
Currently the barcodes featured on the payment slips are single use only, however, ZipZap is working on creating a system that will produce a reusable barcode. This will enable customers to ‘top up’ their bitcoin wallet with funds without having to go online each time to confirm their payment.
“A lot of people are put off investing in or purchasing bitcoin as they see the process as too complicated. ZipZap aims to change this, making it easier and faster for people to swap their money for bitcoins,” said Eric Benz, VP of business development at ZipZap.
He went on to say his company aims to roll out the cash-for-bitcoins service globally, though ZipZap wouldn’t confirm which territories will be next, or when.
The company is also looking to expand its service so that people can exchange their funds the other way around, swapping their bitcoins for cash over the counter.
As for developments set to take place specifically here in the UK, Warne (of Bittylicious) hinted that the service could soon also be available for altcoins, such as litecoin and peercoin.
“Although not available yet, there’s no reason why the altcoins on Bittylicious shouldn’t be available for cash too in the near future,” he explained.
What do you make of the cash-for-bitcoins service? Would you use it? Let us know in the comments.
Cash image via Flickr. | 1,269,724 |
alternatives include Apex, Claudia, Sparta and more.
Show me the code
You’ve seen the architecture, let’s look at some code. I’m going to use the Serverless Framework and NodeJs.
The first step is to define the infrastructure using the Serverless Framework. To do this I created a new service.
serverless create --template aws-nodejs --path emoticon-faceswap
Infrastructure
This creates a folder containing a configuration file named serverless.yml. The functions and infrastructure for my service is defined here.
This configuration creates my faceswap Lambda function and S3 bucket. The Lambda function will be invoked when an object is created in the uploads/ folder.
Code
Every Lambda function has a handler that serves as the entry point. I set the handler for my Lambda function to src/faceswap.handler in serverless.yml. This is a combination of the file path src/faceswap.js and the function to invoke in that file handler.
Each handler function has three parameters:
module.exports.handler = (event, context, callback) => {
...
// Use callback() and return information to the caller.
}
Event : Data relating to the event. In this case it will contain information about the file that was created in S3
: Data relating to the event. In this case it will contain information about the file that was created in S3 Context : Lambda runtime information
: Lambda runtime information Callback: A normal node callback that you can use to return an error or result.
For my project the Lambda function needs to perform three tasks.
Getting images from the S3 event Call the Rekognition API Process the images and save the results.
You can view the code that calls Amazon Rekognition and processes the images on GitHub.
The final step is to deploy the project and test it. To deploy the project I ran the following command.
sls deploy --stage your_stage_name
I then uploaded images from Pexels to S3 and checked the results.
Photos from Pexels
This was a really fun project to build. Building a project project like this is the best way to learn. It will help you understand event driven architectures and how to create Serverless systems.
Where can I learn more?
There are lots great resources available for you to learn more about Serverless.
I hope post has inspired you to look at Serverless. There are lots of great use cases to try. A HTTP API, Chatbot or Alexa Skill are just a few projects to try.
If you have any questions about this project or Serverless in general you can contact me on Medium or Twitter. I’ll be running a workshop at ServerlessConf Austin if you want to meet me in person.
Tags | 1,269,725 |
DECEMBER 3--A careless FBI agent investigating a notorious Russian spammer inadvertently rifled through the e-mail account of an innocent person due to a typo on a federal search warrant application, court records show.
As part of a probe into the malicious “Mega-D” botnet, FBI Special Agent Jason Pleming in late-July filed for a search warrant to seize Google records associated with two e-mail addresses reportedly used by suspect Oleg Nikolaenko. Pleming identified one of the addresses as [email protected].
Federal Magistrate Judge William Callahan approved Pleming’s request, and in mid-August Google turned over a CD containing e-mails from the [email protected] gmail.com account. The only problem was that Nikolaenko’s e-mail address was actually [email protected] gmail.com. Pleming had dropped an ‘n’ from the address when he submitted a sworn affidavit to Callahan.
The disclosure of this embarrassing boner came three months later when Pleming, presumably with his badge between his legs, sought another search warrant from Judge Callahan. In an October 29 filing, Pleming noted that, “The email address [email protected] gmail.com is owned and used by someone other than Nikoalenko.”
The original warrant granted Pleming and fellow agents permission to seize highly personal account information, including “stored electronic communications (including retrieved and unretrieved e-mail for Gmail subscribers) and information concerning subscribers and their use of Gmail services, such as account access information, e-mail transaction information, and account application information.”
The identity of the owner of the ddarwin account is unknown, and they did not respond to a TSG e-mail seeking comment about the FBI search of the account. In fact, it is not clear whether the individual was even apprised that that their Gmail account was searched by the FBI.
Upon realizing his mistake, Pleming reported that he “stopped reviewing the emails from [email protected] and consulted with the prosecutor assigned to the case. We decided that to seal the emails from [email protected] and to seek an new search warrant for the correct email address at a future date.”
Pleming, who did not return calls from a TSG reporter, does not detail how much time transpired before his gaffe was discovered. Though he did note that an “initial review” of the ddarwin account “reflected emails that appeared to be related to Nikolaenko.” Subsequently, a “more thorough review” revealed that “those emails were ones which were misdirected and intended for [email protected] and that the email address [email protected] is owned and used by someone other than Nikolaenko.”
Nikolaenko, who was once reportedly responsible for a third of the spam clogging the Internet, was indicted last month on a federal felony charge. The owner of [email protected] presumably remains at large. (1 page) | 1,269,726 |
"We are in every way trying to go back to original technique and hand the movie back to the fans," said Reitman, noting that his team painstakingly researched techniques used in the 1984 original film, directed by his father Ivan Reitman, for the movie's first teaser.
Let’s put aside, for a second, the hopefully accidental sexism in the Juno reference, which is as likely to be a reference to the tone of the movie as it is the gender of the protagonists and potential swipe at the Feig movie. Although it’s worth remembering that Juno was nominated for four Academy Awards, including best picture, so maybe a Juno version of the franchise wouldn’t be a bad thing.
For that matter, let’s ignore Reitman’s other comments during the same interview that he “consider[s] myself the first Ghostbusters fan” who “want[s] to make a movie for my fellow Ghostbusters fan,” and instead ask this simple question: Why is Reitman saying this? That the 2016 reboot of the franchise underperformed at the box office is hardly a secret, and so some course correction should be expected. But “hand the movie back to the fans” seems a little over the top, at least.
For one thing, it suggests that Ghostbusters has at some point been taken away, somehow, from the fans, which is clearly untrue; the two original movies remain available to be viewed at any point by anyone who wants to, even if they may not entirely stand up to the nostalgia many have for them in the cold light of day (Ghostbusters II, especially). Even if taking the comment less literally, it’s a curiously gatekeeper-ish concept: When, exactly, was the franchise taken away? How? And from whom?
Was it the 1986 animated TV show The Real Ghostbusters, which took the concept from its live-action roots — and slightly edgy comedy — by transforming the whole thing into a kid-centric sitcom? Was it any of the multiple comic book takes on the idea, from the 1980s Now Comics series based on The Real Ghostbusters to the current IDW comics? Perhaps it was the just-announced Hasbro toy that crosses Ghostbusters with the Transformers property, bringing giant robots into the whole shebang?
Perhaps Feig’s Ghostbusters weren’t the ghoul-finders moviegoers were looking for, but is it really going to be the case that audiences would prefer to see a slavish recreation of a movie from three decades earlier?
After his comments sparked backlash online, Reitman tweeted Wednesday night, "Wo, that came out wrong! I have nothing but admiration for Paul and Leslie and Kate and Melissa and Kristen and the bravery with which they made Ghostbusters 2016. They expanded the universe and made an amazing movie!"
Sony has the new Ghostbusters film dated for July 10, 2020. Hear the chat, below.
Feb. 20, 7:08 p.m. Updated to include Reitman's tweet. | 1,269,727 |
We are super excited to be part of the big announcement of the new Family Night promotion by Ovation Brand restaurants. Ovation Brand restaurants include Old Country Buffet, Ryan’s, HomeTown Buffet, Country Buffet, and Furr’s. Each of these restaurant chains will be participating in a series of Family Nights every Thursday from 5-8pm throughout August 31, 2017. Each night will feature a book from the great book series Night Night by Amy Parker. During the promotion, kids eat for $1.99 with the purchase of a regular priced adult or senior meal.
Schedule of Events:
July 27 – Night Night, Farm
– Night Night, Farm August 3 –Night Night, Mommy
–Night Night, Mommy August 10 – Night Night, World
– Night Night, World August 17 – Night Night, Train
– Night Night, Train August 24 – Night Night, Daddy
– Night Night, Daddy August 31 – Night Night, Pajamas
*Activities may vary by location.
This is a great way to gather up the family and spend some great quality time around the dinner table. Ovation Brand restaurants are a great way to get homestyle meals without having to slave over the stove. If you are back to school already then this is a great way to grab a yummy meal and have some family fun on a busy Thursday. As a mom, I am always happy when I can have fun with my family and not have to cook!
The Giveaway:
Ovation Brands Restaurants was nice enough to give us a prize package to giveaway to one of our lucky readers to celebrate this great promotion. One winner will win a set of Night Night books and 4 free buffet passes (good at any Ovation Brand Restaurant) so you can enjoy a meal with your family. Entrants must be 18 or older and US residents to be eligible to win! Entries will be accepted until 8/15/2017 so you have time to enjoy the promotion before it ends.
Ovation Brand Night Night
*Disclaimer: This giveaway is sponsored by Ovation Brands. If for some reason the sponsor fails to send the prize or is unable to Parenting In Progress is not responsible for supplying the prize or the value of the prize to the winner.
Find your local restaurant HERE & get to a family night for lots of fun!
Disclosure: Parenting In Progress receives products in order to conduct reviews. No monetary compensation was provided unless noted otherwise. All opinions are 100% my own. Some posts may contain affiliate links that I receive commission or payment from in exchange for referrals. In the event of a giveaway, the sponsor is responsible for delivery of the prize, unless otherwise noted in the posting. I only recommend products or services I personally use and believe will be a good fit for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 225: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising” | 1,269,728 |
Spoiler warning: Do not read on unless you’ve seen “The Walking Dead” Season 6 finale, titled “Last Day on Earth.”
If you sensed some animosity toward “The Walking Dead” on Twitter on Sunday night, you weren’t imagining it.
Social-media analytics company Canvs found that the final scene of the show’s season 6 finale drew overwhelmingly negative reactions from viewers on Twitter. According to the company, which analyzes the emotional content of social-media messages, more than 70% of all reactions on Twitter during the closing moments of the episode expressed feelings such as “crazy,” “dislike,” “hate” and “upset.” “Love” accounted for only 15.2% of all reactions, “good” for only 6.4%.
Fans of the zombie-apocalypse drama had been bracing for a principal character to die with the introduction in the finale of Negan, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, a major villain from the comic book on which the AMC series is based. But when said death arrived, it was unclear which character was on the receiving end of a fatal beating from Negan’s barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bat. The scene was shot from the character’s POV, leaving his or her identity a mystery.
Fans were less than thrilled. In contrast, a majority of responses to the previous season finale’s last moments included emotions such as “love,” “excited,” “good” and “happy,” with “hate” accounting for only 10.4% of reactions.
Speaking to reporters Monday morning, executive producer and showrunner Scott M. Gimple addressed fan backlash to the finale.
“I ask people to give us the benefit of the doubt that it’s all part of a plan, all part of a story,” he said. “I truly hope that people see [the season 7 premiere] and they feel it justifies the way we’ve decided to tell the story. That is the way it is in our minds. I know what [the season 7 premiere] is and I feel that it delivers on what [the season 6 finale] sets up.”
The finale came months after the show appeared to kill the character of Glenn, played by Steven Yeun, then revealed him weeks later to be alive — a move that angered many fans.
Prior to the closing moments of Sunday night’s episode, reactions to the episode on Twitter had skewed positive. For the entire 90-minute finale, the most common emotion expressed on Twitter was “love” at 18.2%, followed by “crazy” (17.7%), “excited” (9.0%), and “afraid” (8.3%). Those emotions were also the most dominant that Canvs measured over the course of season 6. | 1,269,729 |
did not commit a single innocent mistake. Rather she participated in an elaborate fraud conspiracy along with her consultant that was ongoing for three years …. The appeal is dismissed."
Case No. 2: Fake university history
While Zhang pretended to work at a fictitious job in order to fake her presence in Canada, a younger permanent resident pretended to attend a Canadian university, when in fact, she was getting her schooling overseas.
Xiaojia Zheng, 28, also attempted to appeal her removal order on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
Immigration department documents obtained by the CBC show Zheng came to Canada at the age of 18 in 2006. Five years later she applied for a permanent residency card "with a falsified history of study which made it appear as though she resided in Canada when she did not."
Zheng claimed she first attended Langara College in Vancouver, then later the University of Calgary, from 2006 to 2010, when in fact she had been attending the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom followed by King's College of London during much of the same time period.
In short, she pretended she was studying and residing in Canada when in reality she was living in England.
Testimony 'not credible'
Zheng's new immigration advisor, Sophia Huang-Cummings, blamed the misrepresentation on "Sunny" Wang and his company Wellong International, hired by Zheng's father.
"I know she made a mistake," Huang-Cummings told Zheng's IRB hearing. "I know her father made a mistake to hire the wrong person…she actually was complete[ly] trust[ing] her father. Who will not trust the father?"
But in reviewing Zheng's appeal last month, Immigration Appeal Division adjudicator Larry Campbell found while "[Zheng] stated that even though she has taken several years of post-secondary education in English — up to the master's level — she did not read the forms that she signed."
Campbell concluded "[her] testimony was not credible."
"I find that whether directly or through willful blindness, [she] committed the misrepresentation and was not an innocent victim of her parents and the consultant."
Canadian baby
Complicating matters, Zheng did return to Canada long enough to give birth to a child.
Zheng's daughter is now almost one year old, and since she was born here, is a Canadian citizen.
But Larry Campbell ruled there's no reason the child couldn't leave Canada with Zheng, noting Zheng's husband lives in China.
"It is generally in the best interests of the child to be with both parents" he writes in his decision. "…the child is very young and would be able to adapt to living in China with her parents…"
Huang-Cummings says Zheng left Canada for China shortly after losing her appeal. The rejection of Zheng and Zhang's appeals do not bode well for other former clients of "Sunny" Wang, who have also filed appeals of their removal orders. Their cases will be heard over the next several months. | 1,269,730 |
subtle, some roaringly overt—to demonstrate his obsessive need for surveillance and supervision over his cable fiefdom. It feels clunky when there’s an entire scene dedicated to watching him oversee cameras installed in every square foot of the Fox News offices (only to get annoyed when the contractor expresses discomfort at installing them in the bathrooms); much better are the moments other characters glance worriedly at the omnipresent lenses on their way in and out the door, or the brief moment when Ailes enters his bedroom after a long day and we see a massive panic room-style security door slide shut behind him.
In the background of all these juicy media power struggles, however, is the much darker and distasteful story of Ailes’ sexual exploitation of the women in his orbit. What starts as a lighthearted observation about his outdated views on gender politics (his farewell speech to his CNBC staffers in ’95 references a “hot as a pistol” reporter he hired) soon pivots into outright criminal territory, as we see him harass or outright demand sexual satisfaction from women working for him, under threat of career suicide should they fail to go along. For the first half of the show, this is primarily conveyed via his encounters with Fox News exec Laurie Luhn (an excellent Annabelle Wallis), which begins with elegantly composed intimations of menace (flashes of her leaving his hotel room and so on) but soon shifts into blunt depictions of his coercion and sexual degradation of her, resulting in psychological torture that spanned two decades. These moments leave all understatement behind, shoving the audience’s face squarely into the horrific humiliation of these encounters. The scenes feel like the series indulging in the same cheap exploitation theatrics as the faux-news service it’s chronicling—they’re even shot like a horror movie. Mission accomplished: Ailes was a monster.
By the time Naomi Watts shows up as Gretchen Carlson, the on-air personality who would eventually lead the charge against Ailes’ vile behavior, the characterizations are clear, and the series’ effective combination of elegant media storytelling and salacious sexual nightmares has locked into its rhythms. The Loudest Voice blends West Wing-style operatics with a darker narrative about power most corrupting those who were already corrupt, and if it lacks Sorkin’s gift for whip-crack pacing, its excellent cast and dependable focus on the machinations of backroom deals keeps it fleet and engaging. As the show depicts Fox News steadily abandoning all public pretense of “fair and balanced” reporting over the years, in favor of conspiracy theories and wild-eyed racial animus, it’s clear what the series thinks actually happened to Ailes: His body may have died in 2017, but his vindictive, childish, aggrieved-victim spirit lives on in the cable channel that still propels his dangerously inflammatory culture-war rhetoric into the hearts and minds of millions who, in being told how to feel, are increasingly assured it’s okay to express that outrage with a little violence. | 1,269,731 |
can also always use PowerShellGet (available in WMF 5.0) to find modules with DSC Resources:
# To list all modules that tagged as DSCResourceKit Find-Module - Tag DSCResourceKit # To list all DSC resources from all sources Find-DscResource
Please note only those modules released by the PowerShell Team are currently considered part of the ‘DSC Resource Kit’ regardless of the presence of the ‘DSC Resource Kit’ tag in the PowerShell Gallery.
To find a specific module, go directly to its URL on the PowerShell Gallery: http://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/< module name > For example: http://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/xWebAdministration
How to Install DSC Resource Modules From the PowerShell Gallery
We recommend that you use PowerShellGet to install DSC resource modules:
Install-Module - Name < module name >
For example:
Install-Module - Name xWebAdministration
To update all previously installed modules at once, open an elevated PowerShell prompt and use this command:
Update-Module
After installing modules, you can discover all DSC resources available to your local system with this command:
Get-DscResource
How to Find DSC Resource Modules on GitHub
All resource modules in the DSC Resource Kit are available open-source on GitHub. You can see the most recent state of a resource module by visiting its GitHub page at: https://github.com/PowerShell/< module name > For example, for the xCertificate module, go to: https://github.com/PowerShell/xCertificate.
All DSC modules are also listed as submodules of the DscResources repository in the xDscResources folder.
How to Contribute
You are more than welcome to contribute to the development of the DSC Resource Kit! There are several different ways you can help. You can create new DSC resources or modules, add test automation, improve documentation, fix existing issues, or open new ones. See our contributing guide for more info on how to become a DSC Resource Kit contributor.
If you would like to help, please take a look at the list of open issues for the DscResources repository. You can also check issues for specific resource modules by going to: https://github.com/PowerShell/< module name >/issues For example: https://github.com/PowerShell/xPSDesiredStateConfiguration/issues
Your help in developing the DSC Resource Kit is invaluable to us!
If you’re looking into using PowerShell DSC, have questions or issues with a current resource, or would like a new resource, let us know in the comments below, on Twitter (@PowerShell_Team), or by creating an issue on GitHub.
Katie Keim Software Engineer PowerShell DSC Team @katiedsc (Twitter) @kwirkykat (GitHub) | 1,269,732 |
Andy Warhol, Traci Lords, Joan Rivers and Pee-Wee Herman, and bands like Thelonious Monster, Fishbone, and a new rap act from New York City called Beastie Boys performed. Beasties’ contentious onstage meltdown brought a young sound designer named Mario Caldato, Jr. out of the crowd to offer the services of his superior sound system. Caldato would become an important part of the Delicious Vinyl creative braintrust as the label’s in-house engineer. “Without Mario we would have never gotten anything done,” Dike said years later.
After Dike and co-promoter Jon Sidel pulled the plug on Power Tools, Dike and Ross founded Delicious Vinyl in 1987. After producing Tone-Loc’s follow-up smash “Funky Cold Medina,” Dike and Ross had another million-selling single in Young MC’s “Bust A Move,” one of the most credible and endearing hip-hop songs to ever cross over to the upper echelon of the pop charts. The label released lauded, Afro-centric hip-hop albums by Def Jef, and realized Dike’s dream of adding a heavy rock act to the label by signing Masters Of Reality away from Rick Rubin’s Def American Recordings.
Dike then lent his sampling skills to Beastie Boys’ sophomore opus Paul’s Boutique (Capitol, 1989), abetted by the production work of Dust Brothers Mike Simpson and John King. Initially a commercial flop, Paul’s Boutique has been exonerated into lasting classic status. “The album was a complete and utter failure at the time,” Dike said in 2014. “It didn’t sell shit! But it got mind-blowing reviews, which I think is better for me in the long run.” The album is the last major release bearing Matt Dike’s production credit.
Matt Dike left Delicious Vinyl in 1992, relinquishing sole ownership to Michael Ross, who retains ownership to this day. Living in a mansion in Echo Park that allegedly once belonged to silent film star Fatty Arbuckle, Dike retreated from public life. Journalist Dan LeRoy, in his 33 1/3 book on Paul’s Boutique, noted that Dike had fallen so far from view that his surname was misspelled “Dyke” in the liner notes to Beastie Boys Anthology: Sounds of Science (released in 1999).
In recent years, Dike expressed surprise that the records he’d made years earlier have endured, and continue to delight new generations of music fans around the world. “It’s mind-blowing. I just wanted to have as much fun as possible!”
Matt Dike passed away at home after a brief illness, with his brother Lane and sister Vikyana at his side. He is survived by his siblings, and his nephew Matthew.
–Peter Relic | 1,269,733 |
CHARLOTTE, NC – Cam’s right arm isn’t right. With the Panthers all but eliminated from playoff contention, the team is sitting their franchise quarterback down due to a sore shoulder.
That signifies it’s Taylor’s time in Carolina now.
The Panthers announced Wednesday afternoon that Taylor Heinicke, ODU’s all-time leading passer, will start in place of Cam Newton on Sunday vs. the Falcons. Newton will sit out the final two games, according to multiple reports.
It will be the first career regular season start for Heinicke. Newton did not practice on Wednesday, handing all the first-team reps over to Heinicke.
“I liked how the guys rallied around him today in practice. I thought those things were great,” Rivera said. “I like the fact that Cam was right there too during every play, talking about what was going on. It’s a good situation right now.
In Monday’s 12-9 home loss vs. New Orleans, Carolina’s sixth straight defeat, Panthers’ franchise quarterback Cam Newton completed just 16-of-29 passes for 131 yards. As noted by Panthers.com, his passer rating (52.5) and completion percentage (55.2) were both season lows. Newton completed just one pass that traveled more than 10 yards past the line of scrimmage – a 17-yarder to Curtis Samuel midway through the first quarter.
During his press conference Wednesday, Panthers head coach Ron Rivera said Newton will remain on the 53-man roster, saying “crazy enough things can happen,” in reference to a potential playoff appearance for Carolina.
“It was a very good conversation with Cam, and he understood,” Rivera said. “He understood our thinking behind this and he’s disappointed, he’s frustrated. You know him; he wants to play. This is one of those things that, you know, we had a great conversation with him and he understands going forward.”
According to 538.com, Carolina (6-and-8) has less than a one percent chance of reaching the playoffs.
After the loss Monday night, Newton admitted he’s struggling with an injured throwing shoulder. “You do any and everything to make sure your body is at peak performance,” Newton said. “From cardio, treatment, practice, film, cardio, treatment, practice, film. It’s been repetition. I think it’s disheartening to me because there’s so much invested time put in. Obviously my arm hasn’t allowed me to do a lot of practice. I’ve been on a pitch count for a long time, but at the end of the day, it is what it is. That’s not a scapegoat. That’s not something that I want people to bail me out on. It’s just something that is reality.” | 1,269,734 |
“Duck Dynasty” dad Phil Robertson gave a chilling and gruesome speech at a prayer breakfast that revealed his complete ignorance about atheism.
Phil Robertson‘s comments are usually controversial, and Friday’s were no exception. The “Duck Dynasty” dad was the keynote speaker at the Vero Beach Prayer Breakfast in Florida, where the faithful paid up to $100 a plate to hear him speak. Photos of the event show hundreds in attendance.
And speak he did.Â
Robertson, who claims HIV/AIDS is God’s punishment, revealed his extreme ignorance of atheism and pushed his chosen religious belief that right and wrong are Judeo-Christian concepts that atheists neither adhere to nor understand.
To do so, Robertson told a disturbing and hopefully hypothetical tale of a family of atheists who were victims of violence.
UPDATE:Â Phil Robertson Rants At Prayer Breakfast: Liberals Are Worse Than Hitler, Stalin, And ISIS
“Two guys break into an atheist’s home,” Robertson’s gruesome tale begins. “He has a little atheist wife and two little atheist daughters. Two guys break into his home and tie him up in a chair and gag him. And then they take his two daughters in front of him and rape both of them and then shoot them and they take his wife and then decapitate her head off in front of him. And then they can look at him and say, ‘Isn’t it great that I don’t have to worry about being judged? Isn’t it great that there’s nothing wrong with this? There’s no right or wrong, now is it dude?’â€
“Then you take a sharp knife and take his manhood and hold it in front of him and say, ‘Wouldn’t it be something if this [sic] was something wrong with this? But you’re the one who says there is no God, there’s no right, there’s no wrong, so we’re just having fun. We’re sick in the head, have a nice day.’â€
“If it happened to them,†Robertson concluded, “they probably would say, ‘something about this just ain’t right.â€
One local news report states that Robertson was “well-received.”
Here’s the audio – caution:
Liberty University, where Ted Cruz announced his presidential campaign Monday, is listed as a sponsor of the Breakfast.
Last month, Robertson was given a “free speech” award for the anti-gay and racist comments he made to GQ magazine in 2013.
Â
Image via Facebook
Hat tip and audio: Right Wing Watch | 1,269,735 |
I’m going to come right out and tell you something that almost no one in the maritime industry understands. That includes mariners, executives, managers, insurers, dock workers, for certain – fisherman, and even many (most) rescue professionals:
It is impossible to get hypothermic in cold water unless you are wearing flotation, because without flotation – you won’t live long enough to become hypothermic.
Despite the research, the experience, and all the data, I still hear “experts” touting – as wisdom – completely false information about cold water and what happens to people who get in it. With another season of really cold water approaching, I feel compelled to get these points across in a way that will change the way mariners behave out there on (or near) the water. What follows is the truth about cold water and cold water immersion. I know that you think you know all there is to know about hypothermia already (and maybe you do), but read ahead and see if you aren’t surprised by something. When the water is cold (say under 50 degrees F) there are significant physiological reactions that occur, in order, almost always.
You Can’t Breathe: The first is phase of cold water immersion is called the cold shock response: It is a stage of increased heart rate and blood pressure, uncontrolled gasping, and sometimes uncontrolled movement. Lasting anywhere from 30 seconds to a couple of minutes depending on a number of factors, the cold shock response can be deadly all by itself. In fact, of all the people who die in cold water, it is estimated that 20% die in the first two minutes. They drown, they panic, they take on water in that first uncontrolled gasp, if they have heart problems – the cold shock may trigger a heart attack. Surviving this stage is about getting your breathing under control, realizing that the stage will pass, and staying calm.
You Can’t Swim: One of the primary reasons given by recreational boaters when asked why they don’t wear a life jacket, is that they can swim. Listen up, Tarzan; I swam for a living for the better part of my adult life, and when the water is cold – none of us can swim for very long. The second stage of cold water immersion is called cold incapacitation. lacking adequate insulation your body will make its own. Long before your core temperature drops a degree, the veins in your extremities (those things you swim with) will constrict, you will lose your ability control your hands, and the muscles in your arms and legs will just flat out quit working well enough to keep you above water. Without some form of flotation, and in not more than 30 minutes, the best swimmer among us will drown – definitely – no way around it. Without ever experiencing a drop in core temperature (at all) over 50% of the people who die in cold water, die from drowning perpetuated by cold incapacitation.
(Read the entire article at gCaptain.com) | 1,269,736 |
Most people wonder what are the secrets of being a good speaker. What do they need to do to become a confident speaker? There are a lot of things that one can learn from attending spoken English or spoken language classes but in general when it comes to self learning my advise is to shift focus from speaking to Listening.
Forget about speaking, concentrate on listening. Listen carefully. Observe people who speak well. Go to Ted videos. Listen. The more you listen the more you prepare. Now, copy the best practices of those great speakers: Tone of voice, pitch, pauses, volume, speed etc. It will not happen in a day, it may take several days, but day by day you will improve. Have faith and trust yourself.
Another important thing regarding verbal communications is
* Avoid saying the first thing that comes to your mind. * Even avoid the second thing that comes to your mind. * SAY THE THIRD.
This simple tip will immensely help you in all facets of your life, be it career, relationships, business. The first thing you say is often on impulse and reflexive based on preconceptions, hatreds, ignorance, and whatever. The second thing is often a reverse of the first, and may be equally suspect but in the opposite direction. The third thing will be more balanced, perhaps more creative, certainly far more thoughtful. Blurting is one of the most damaging traits in almost any setting. If it requires a few extra seconds for you to do the Third Thing, so be comfortable doing it. Take a pause and be comfortable with silence. People with discernment will notice, understand, and admire you for it. Having said that h ere are the six sins of communication which you should try to avoid:
Gossip
Never Gossip. This is the first sin of communication. Gossiping results into nothing. You will waste time, energy and efforts by talking about people, things and situations which you cannot change or influence.
Negativity
Never Condemn, Criticize or Complain. Spreading negativity will get you nowhere. Concentrate on creating a positive environment. Talk about how a problem can be solved or accept the fact and move on. Don't let the negativity linger around you for long.
Excuses
Don't make excuses. Take ownership when required. Hiding behind excuses will escalate the original issue and it will become worse than before. Be open to discuss the issues, face it with a brave heart and open mind. Have an attitude of problem solving.
Lying
Never lie. You will need to lie a thousand times to hid one lie. Eventually someone smart will catch your lie, you will be embarrassed and ashamed. It takes courage to be truthful. Be courageous.
Dogmatism
Don't let success go into your head. Arrogance will lead to your downfall. Have an attitude of gratitude. Share your knowledge and success. Stay away from unnecessary strictness and inflexibility. | 1,269,737 |
Appleは、「iPhone」や「iPad」向けのApp Storeから、マルウェアに感染したアプリを多数発見し、削除した。
感染したソフトウェアは、「Xcode」の偽装版を介してApp Storeに混入した。Xcodeは、「iOS」や「Mac」システム向けアプリの開発に使用されるAppleのプログラムだ。
この問題を最初に報告したセキュリティ企業のPalo Alto Networksによると、アプリ39本が「XcodeGhost」と呼ばれるマルウェアの被害に遭っており、これには株式取引や銀行取引に使用されるアプリも含まれるという。
Appleは、感染したアプリをApp Storeから削除したと述べた。
Appleの広報担当者は米CNETに対し、「偽装されたソフトウェアで開発されたと当社が認識しているアプリをApp Storeから削除した」と述べた。「当社は開発者が必ず正式なバージョンのXcodeを使用してアプリを開発し直すよう開発者と連携している」（Apple）
Appleは、感染したアプリの数を明らかにしていない。Palo Alto Networksによると、5億人を超える月間ユーザーを擁するメッセージングアプリ「WeChat」も感染していたという。WeChatの開発元であるTencentは、古いバージョンのWeChatを使用しているユーザーのみ、影響を受ける可能性があると述べた。 | 1,269,738 |
Palestinian nationalist Balad was the last to join the reunited Joint List of Arab parties before September polls.
Israel’s four Arab political parties have formally announced a decision to join forces in September’s election, in a move aimed at boosting turnout among the minority that comprises a fifth of the country’s population.
The four parties are the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (known as Hadash-Ta’al), Arab Movement for Renewal, United Arab List and the Palestinian nationalist Balad.
Balad was the last party to announce late on Sunday night that it would join the reunited Joint List of Arab parties, months after infighting fragmented the political alliance.
Ayman Odeh, head of the Hadash-Ta’al party, said on Monday that the reunited parties could now address the “great challenge” facing the country’s Palestinian Arab minority.
Israeli electoral polls published last week projected that the Joint List could become the third-largest party in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, after the September 17 polls.
The four factions first united in 2015, earning 13 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. But infighting later split the Joint List into two parties, which only won a combined 10 seats amid low Arab turnout in April’s election. Around 49 percent of Palestinian citizens of Israel cast ballots, down from 64 percent in the 2015 election.
In earlier comments made at a press conference on Saturday, Odeh said that only if they teamed up the four Arab parties would have a chance to “overthrow the right-wing government”.
“Only if we are united can we prevent racism, annexation and the destruction of democracy,” he said.
Palestinian citizens of Israel make up 20 percent of the Israeli population, and have long complained of being the victims of state racism. According to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, the government has at least 60 laws that discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel in various sectors ranging from education to housing and property ownership.
September vote
Israel faces an unprecedented repeat election in September after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a majority coalition government. Instead, his ruling Likud party advanced a bill to dissolve parliament and cause an election for the second time in 2019.
The Joint List merger came days before this week’s deadline for political parties to finalise their line-ups before the vote.
Last week, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and the left-wing Meretz party announced the formation of the Democratic Union coalition with the goal of beating Netanyahu, who became Israel’s longest-serving prime minister earlier this month.
Former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, who assumed the leadership of her New Right party last week, is negotiating a union with a constellation of religious nationalist parties headed by Education Minister Rafi Peretz.
The New Right party failed to win enough votes in April’s election to enter the Knesset. | 1,269,739 |
C308 and CETME 20rd Surplus 308 Magazine, VG, Used. 4-247 Your Price: $4.95 quantity price each 10+ $3.95 50+ $2.95 100+ $1.95 Enter Quantity Desired: Availability: (In Stock) Product Overview
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Reviews Surplus military issue 308 cal. magazines for the Century C308 rifle, and CETME rifles. 20rd steel mags, Spanish manufacture, in very good condition, will show some wear. ATTENTION: The following locations have magazine restrictions; please check for your local law and regulations before placing an order.
California- No mags over 10rds without a high-cap mag permit.
Connecticut- No mags without an FFL or State Permit, 10rd Limit.
Hawaii- No handgun mags over 10rds.
Massachusetts- No mags over 10rds.
Maryland- No mags over 10rds.
New Jersey- No mags over 10rds.
New York State- No mags over 10rds.
Chicago- No mags over 15rds.
Cook County, IL- No mags over 10rds.
Washington DC- No mags over 10rds.
Colorado- No rifle or handgun mags over 15rds or shotgun mags over 8rds.
Vermont- No long gun mags over 10rds or handgun mags over 15rds.
Note: Firearms shipping to states with a magazine ban will ship with no magazine(s). MANUFACTURER:
Weight: 0.65
Condition: Used
CUSTOMER REVIEWS: Would you like to review this product? Owners are invited to do just that. Place an order for this product and we'll send you an invitation to review in 14 days. Total Reviews: 164 by mike s. Date Added: Thursday September 03, 2020 Decent surplus mags. Solid but very dirty. Functioned well.
Rating: [ 4 of 5 stars!] by Benjamin Z. Date Added: Saturday August 01, 2020 These stayed clean over the years for the most part. Cannot see any rust or pitting on first inspection. Plenty of cosmoline. Good mags
Rating: [ 5 of 5 stars!] by Barry J. Date Added: Friday July 24, 2020 Good magazines.
Rating: [ 5 of 5 stars!] by Tim D. Date Added: Wednesday July 15, 2020 Great original mags, clean up well and function great, and quality products!!!
Rating: [ 5 of 5 stars!] by Stephen K. Date Added: Tuesday July 14, 2020 I ordered 4 magazines, all are in great condition. One of the 4 looks almost brand new, very little wear at all, the other 3 have minimal wear which is what I expected and wanted for my build.
Rating: [ 5 of 5 stars!] | 1,269,740 |
When human activity in biodiverse forests is uncontrolled, the survival of plants, animals and other micro-organisms is at risk.
In a bid to secure Zambia's Chisamba Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA), a safe haven for endangered vultures, BirdWatch Zambia (BirdLife Partner) has educated farm owners, managers and workers who operate within the IBA on why it is important to protect natural habitats from man-made threats.
The Chisamba IBA in Zambia covers an area of 55,000 hectares and more than 72% of it falls within private farms. Activities like cattle ranching, game farming, dairy farming and crocodile farming attract hundreds of vultures to the farms, where the birds benefit from large trees that offer suitable perching, roosting and breeding sites. The large privately owned commercial farms also offer a safe haven for vultures that are attracted by the waste from meat processing, and the harvesting of crocodiles.
Much of the Chisamba IBA land falls within local and national forests and serves as home to Zambia's only true endemic bird species, the Zambian Barbet Lybius chaplini. However, encroachment by human settlement, fuelwood and charcoal production are threats to conservation efforts in the area.
BirdWatch Zambia is working to secure 4,000 hectares of the Chisamba IBA for the benefit of vultures and natural ecosystems in general. They have engaged in dialogue with private farm owners in Chisamba to create a Vulture Safe Zone (VSZ) in the properties within the IBA. The initiative recognizes the movement of vultures from one farm to another depending on the feeding opportunity.
An education and awareness campaign around the area has also targeted school children and their parents who either own, manage or work in farms in the area. The campaign and dialogue seek to change local perceptions about vultures and also influence farm management practices.
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“They [vultures] are ugly birds that spoil good meat,” said Chanda, a Chisamba secondary school child residing in a cattle ranch within the zone before attending the campaign.
After learning about the environmental importance of vultures through the project, Chanda now describes vultures as “lifesaving birds”.
Through this project, BirdWatch Zambia has established and sustained strong relationships with private land owners to facilitate consistent research on vultures and several other bird species within the area.
BirdWatch Zambia will hold a survey in 2017 to establish the population of vultures in the Chisamba IBA and perform mapping and geo-referencing of breeding sites. Tagging to improve an understanding of vulture movements is also on schedule.
Chisamba is Zambia’s closest IBA to the main city Lusaka, which is about 97km away. This proximity has made it easy for BirdWatch Zambia staff based in the city to monitor and tour the various farms.
| 1,269,741 |
As Twitchy told you yesterday, the Atlantic raised more than a few eyebrows with their piece suggesting that adoption is “more emotionally distressing than termination.”
This opinion piece in the New York Times makes the Atlantic’s take look almost warm and fuzzy by comparison:
Pregnancy is dangerous; abortion can be lifesaving, writes Dr. Warren Hern, a provider of late abortion services in Colorado. https://t.co/5lw6Z48459 — New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) May 21, 2019
We’re honestly not sure what to say.
What in heaven’s name is this ridiculous headline by @nytimes?!? pic.twitter.com/LOptp5QaRQ — Obianuju Ekeocha (@obianuju) May 21, 2019
The pro-abortion crowd is not just anti-science… they are quite literally beyond parody. pic.twitter.com/EUtqEb7s88 — Steven Crowder (@scrowder) May 21, 2019
Here’s a @nytimes op-ed claiming that “abortion saves lives,” written by Warren Hern, who specializes in performing abortions late in pregnancy when many fetuses could survive after delivery. pic.twitter.com/k6OmrI2LZ2 — Alexandra DeSanctis (@xan_desanctis) May 21, 2019
We shudder to think about how many times this alleged “physician” has violated the Hippocratic Oath.
Dr. Hern is a ghoul — Joe Smith (@joesmithactual) May 21, 2019
That’s not an understatement:
1. The author here is Warren Hern who makes his living aborting 3rd trimester babies. We infiltrated his clinic.https://t.co/uiH3tDX9ha 2. He wants to save lives? About that… he also wrote an article claiming human species is a cancer infesting Earth.https://t.co/Vm2aetzh6C https://t.co/hXw0iYaTMW — Steven Crowder (@scrowder) May 21, 2019
This is not a man whose mission is to preserve life.
I’ve had many friends struggle to have kids. A few, in fact, are pregnant right now with their “rainbow babies”—really, miracles babies. Pregnancy to them—and many women—is a beautiful thing, not a burden. Regardless of where you stand on abortion, this headline is grotesque. https://t.co/weZJpPXjCm — Gabriella Hoffman (@Gabby_Hoffman) May 21, 2019
Unbelievable — ann (@silverann9) May 21, 2019
Is there a word for being furious but also nauseated? — Angela (one of many) (@angelaisms) May 21, 2019 | 1,269,742 |
<mat-form-field class="example-full-width"> <textarea matInput placeholder="Content" formControlName="content" [errorStateMatcher]="matcher"></textarea> <mat-error> <span *ngIf="!articleForm.get('content').valid && articleForm.get('content').touched">Please enter Content</span> </mat-error> </mat-form-field> <div class="button-row"> <button type="submit" [disabled]="!articleForm.valid" mat-flat-button color="primary"><mat-icon>save</mat-icon></button> </div> </form> </mat-card> </div>
Finally, open and edit `src/app/edit-article/edit-article.component.scss` then add this lines of CSS codes.
/* Structure */.example-container { position: relative; padding: 5px; }.example-form { min-width: 150px; max-width: 500px; width: 100%; }.example-full-width { width: 100%; }.example-full-width:nth-last-child(0) { margin-bottom: 10px; }.button-row { margin: 10px 0; }.mat-flat-button { margin: 5px; }
Integrate, Test and Run the Complete Nestjs, Fastify, MongoDB and Angular 8 Web Apps
To integrate the Angular 8 application into the Nestjs/Fastify application, open and edit `src/main.js` then add this import.
import { join } from 'path';
Add this line before the port listener line.
app.useStaticAssets({ root: join(__dirname, '..', 'client/dist/client'), prefix: '/', });
Next, make sure the MongoDB server is running then build the Angular 8 application.
cd client ng build --prod
The Angular 8 build should be located in `client/dist/client` folder. Next, back to the root of Nestjs folder then run again the Nestjs application.
npm start
Open the browser and go to `http://localhost:3000` and you should see this application.
That it's, the complete step by step tutorial of building a web app using Nestjs, Fastify, MongoDB and Angular 8. You can find the full source code in our GitHub.
If you don’t want to waste your time design your own front-end or your budget to spend by hiring a web designer then Angular Templates is the best place to go. So, speed up your front-end web development with premium Angular templates. Choose your template for your front-end project here.
That just the basic. If you need more deep learning about MEAN Stack, Angular, and Node.js, you can take the following cheap course:
Thanks! | 1,269,743 |
If photographer Gabriele Galimberti has learned anything photographing children around the world with their favorite toys, it’s that kids, no matter their circumstances, love to play.
Galimberti was working on a separate project documenting couch surfers for the Italian magazine D, la Repubblica when he got the idea to make portraits of children with their most prized possessions. All the children he photographed in his book, Toy Stories: Photos of Children From Around the World and Their Favorite Things, are somehow connected to the couch surfers who hosted him. “I think my work just shows how different we are in the world, how differently we can live, and how differently our children play depending on where they are born,” he said via email.
For three years, Galimberti photographed children in 58 countries from the U.S. to India to Iceland. In each case, he arranged the toys in highly organized patterns. It was the same technique he used in another series he worked on concurrently, “Delicatessen With Love,” in which he photographed grandmothers with the ingredients from their signature dishes. “I always do the arrangements by myself,” he told Slate last May via email. “Actually, I don’t remember why I took the first photo like this. I like geometry. My photos are always geometric so it comes natural for me to make order.”
In some countries, Galimberti saw mammoth collections of miniature cars, action figures, and airplanes that reflected the special interests of their owners. Elsewhere, he met children with just a single, cherished stuffed animal. In a Zambian village, Galimberti met a group of children who had no toys of their own but found fun playing with a box of sunglasses they found along the side of a road. Regardless of where he was in the world, Galimberti’s method of gaining the kids’ trust was the same. “I simply played with them,” he said. “I always had my phone with me, and I had the photos of the children I photographed before on it. Sometimes it was just enough to show them the other photos to convince them to pose for me. I was really surprised to see how easy it was for children to understand my project.”
Kids have a reputation for being clingy when it comes to their toys, but Galimberti found that for the most part it wasn’t too hard to get the kids to relinquish them so he could set them up for the photo. “Generally speaking, I can say that it was easier in the poorest countries. Rich children tend to be more possessive of what they have, even if they usually have a lot more toys than children in poor countries,” he said.
Toy Stories: Photos of Children From Around the World and Their Favorite Things is available from Abrams Image beginning Tuesday.
Correction, March 24, 2014: This post originally misspelled the Swiss city of Lausanne. | 1,269,744 |
まで13回飛んだ、アポロ計画のかなめ｢サターンV型ロケット｣（低軌道11万8000kg、月軌道4万7000kg）で、Falcon Heavyは2番目（低軌道6万3800kg、静止遷移軌道なら2万6700kg）になります。
でもSpaceXは民間企業なので、コストやリスク分散を考えブースターやフェアリングなどの再利用や、大きいエンジンではなく中くらいのエンジンを量産して束ねるなどをした、まったく違うアプローチで開発されたロケットなのです。
新たな宇宙市場の幕開け
これから｢Starship｣とその下段に合体する｢Super Heavy｣が量産されたら、Falcon Heavyがどこまで運用されるかわかりません。ですが、いま現在で最大積載量がもっとも大きいこのFalcon Heavyが、今まで打ち上げられなかった重さの衛星や、辿り着けなかった場所、達成できなかった早さ、届けられなかった数といったハードルを比較的安価に、そして安定して超えることが出来るようになったので、新たな宇宙市場が開かれた、といっても過言ではありません。
ということで、兄貴もSpaceXチームに向けてお祝いのツイートを投稿しています。
♥️?? SpaceX team??♥️ — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 2019年4月12日 | 1,269,745 |
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a sizable entourage have arrived for his first official state visit to Israel. The six-day Middle East tour will include stops in the West Bank and Jordan.
Harper's plane left Ottawa on Saturday evening, with six cabinet ministers on board, along with 30 business people and community leaders.
Harper and his wife, Laureen, were greeted by Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's foreign affairs minister, and by Vivian Bercovici, Canada's ambassador-designate to the Jewish state.
"The total delegation is probably about 250," said the CBC's Terry Milewski from Jerusalem. "That includes the RCMP and the media of course [and] about 21 rabbis by my count, some presidents of various companies also, who are paying their own way. It's a big, big delegation."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made an official speech to the Canadian delegation calling Harper "a great friend of Israel and the Jewish people."
Netanyahu praised Harper for standing by Israel on issues including Iran's nuclear program, and terrorism.
"You have shown great moral leadership when it comes to fighting terrorism," said Netanyahu. "When it comes to anti-Semitism, you've stood up unabashedly at the sight of Israel and the entire Jewish people."
Harper said he would deliver a longer speech later in his visit but stood up briefly to say "how delighted" he and his wife Laureen are to be in Israel.
The aim of Harper's visit, said Milewski, is multi-fold.
"Expansion of the existing free trade agreement with Israel [is on the agenda], also a transport agreement and funding for a research institution," Milewski said.
Key elements of the trip will be a meeting with the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, in the West Bank.
"Mr. Harper is anxious to show that his support for Israel is not entirely one-sided," said Milewski, who added that Harper will be bringing the promise of funds to build more courthouses and other projects in the West Bank.
Harper's Schedule Monday: Meets with Mahmoud Abbas and addresses the Knesset. Tuesday: Meets with Israel's President Shimon Peres and attends dinner in his honour. Wednesday: Tours holy sites, gets an honourary degree from Tel Aviv University and heads to Jordan. Thursday & Friday: in Jordan.
Harper will address Israel's parliament, the Knesset, on Monday, making history as the first Canadian prime minister to do so. It will be the prime minister's first visit to Israel since being elected to the post in 2006.
On Tuesday, he will be the guest of honour at a reception dinner in Jerusalem and 400 people will reportedly attend.
His spokesman Jason MacDonald said Harper will promote commercial relations during his visit, as well as peace and security in the region, when he meets Israeli leaders and, later in the week, the king of Jordan, where Harper will be visiting a Syrian refugee camp. | 1,269,746 |
Adult film star Stormy Daniels said in a lie-detector test that she had unprotected sex with Donald Trump in 2006.
Her answers about her encounter with Trump were deemed largely "truthful" by the person conducting the test.
Daniels is in a legal battle with Trump's team, which her representatives have said used physical threats to intimidate Daniels.
The adult-film actress Stormy Daniels passed a 2011 polygraph test in which she said she had unprotected sex with Donald Trump, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The lie-detector test took place around the time that Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, was exploring selling the story of her affair with Trump to Life & Style Magazine. The test focused on whether she had had "vaginal intercourse" with Trump in July 2006 after the pair met at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, California.
Daniels answered "yes" when asked whether she had sex with Trump, and her answer was deemed "truthful" by the investigator conducting the test. She also said her encounter with Trump had been unprotected, an answer that was also deemed "truthful."
Although Daniels said Trump had promised her a spot on his reality show "The Apprentice," the veracity of her claim was deemed "inconclusive" by the investigator. Polygraphs are generally not admissible in court, and federal law bars private employers from using them to hire.
Daniels is currently suing Trump to void a $130,000 nondisclosure agreement that she signed about the alleged affair, claiming that the agreement was not valid because Trump himself never signed it. But Trump, who has denied the affair, is now seeking $20 million in damages from Daniels, accusing her of violating the agreement 20 times.
Attorney Michael Cohen Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP
The payout to Daniels was made by Trump lawyer Michael Cohen shortly before Trump's 2016 presidential victory. Cohen claims it did not violate campaign finance laws because it came out of his own pocket and was not connected to the campaign.
"People are mistaking this for a thing about the campaign," Cohen told Vanity Fair. "What I did defensively for my personal client, and my friend, is what attorneys do for their high-profile clients. I would have done it in 2006. I would have done it in 2011. I truly care about him and the family — more than just as an employee and an attorney."
Daniels's lawyer has accused Cohen of engaging in "bullying tactics" to keep her from speaking out about the alleged affair. The Wall Street Journal reported that when Life & Style contacted Trump's team for comment on Daniels's story in 2011, Cohen called Daniels's manager Gina Rodriguez.
"He said, 'You tell Gina if she ever wants to work in this business again then she needs to call me immediately,'" Rodriguez's husband Greg Deuschle said, according to the Journal.
Daniels's lawyer told MSNBC on Friday that Daniels had been threatened with physical harm if she talked about her interactions with Trump. | 1,269,747 |
Neolithic stone axes that date back 5,000 years have been discovered by archaeologists at an ancient site in Orkney. Along with these axes, tools, bones, and around 30,000 fragments of pottery were also recovered.
The site where the axes were found is known as the Ness of Brodgar, and researchers have asserted that this spot is by far one of the most immense Neolithic sites in all of Northern Europe, with a huge amount of artifacts having been recovered from it over the years, according to the BBC. After digging a trench, archaeologists made their discovery very close to the Loch of Stenness.
The Archaeology Institute of the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) and the Ness of Brodgar Trust are both working in collaboration to completely excavate the site where the axes were recovered.
An Australian student who happened upon one of the Neolithic stone axes in Orkney has called it “an object of beauty,” and the axes have shown some signs of wear and tear from previous and repeated use in the past. However, the axes are still incredibly well-preserved, and archaeology student Therese McCormick admitted that she was absolutely “astonished” by the “sheer quality of workmanship” that would have gone into making these stone axes.
Two stone axes have been uncovered at the Ness of Brodgar, a Neolithic settlement made up of monumental stone buildings on Scotland's island of Orkney. https://t.co/gTxwaLnl2K pic.twitter.com/U7qhsLQAUQ — Archaeology Magazine (@archaeologymag) August 9, 2018
The stone that was used for constructing these Neolithic axes is known as a Gneiss stone and may have been chosen partly for its banding which is very light-colored and natural. After the stone had been chosen, the ax was then constructed and meticulously polished at the end of the process.
Nick Card, who is the site director in Orkney, noted that one of the Neolithic stone axes that archaeologists had found showed evidence that it had been used for actual work rather than for ceremonial purposes.
“It is nice to find pristine examples of stone axes, but the damage on this one tells us a little bit more about the history of this particular axe. The fact that the cutting edge had been heavily damaged suggests that it was a working tool rather than a ceremonial object.”
Card also explained that due to the nature of the construction of the buildings that would have once stood on this site, it is very likely that the axes were used to help build the timber joists that would keep the roofs in place.
“We know that the buildings in the complex were roofed by stone slabs so this axe was perhaps used to cut and fashion the timber joists that held up the heavy roof.”
After the recovery of the two Neolithic stone axes that were found in Orkney, excavation will be continuing at the site. | 1,269,748 |
– Empress of Ice x 4, Commander P.R.O.M.P.T. x 4, Deny x 4, Alchemite x 4
– Dormant One x 4, Horrors of War x 4, Graven Geist x 4, Cryptcurse Knight x 4
– Hero of Legend x 4, Martyred Saint x 4, Clash of Steel x 4, Moonrise Elder x 4
– Bounty of the Magus x 4, Violet’s Caress x 4, Vampire Prince x 4, Primordial Cockatwice x 4
– Mordrom’s Gift x 4, Uruunaz the Merciless x 4,Vampire Queen x 4, Journey Into Nightmare x 4
– Prince Zakkaz x 4, Soulspeaker Revenant x 4, Midnight Gatherer x 4, Underworld Crusader x 4
– Auspex of Lanupaw x 4, Locket of Reflection x 4, Into the Unknown x 4, Acolyte of Shoku x 4
– First of the Host x 4, Eternal Bastion x 4, Merry Caravan x 4, Pippit Pal x 4
– Twilight Archon x 4, Scales of Twilight x 4, Day Rider x 4, Blight Knight x 4
– Lorenzo the Wyrmsinger x 4,Dreamweaver Ancient x 4, Locke of the Pack x 4,Communion of Wax x 4
– Dreamcall x 4, Lixil, Heartsworn x 4, High Joltage x 4, Dread End x 4
– Spectral Oak x 1
– Angel of Foresight x 4
– Lady Cassandra x 4, Moment of Glory x 4
– The Crowd Roars! x 4, The Wrath of Zakiir x 4
– Storm of the Century x 4, Cloud King x 4, Storm Cloud x 4
– Prospero, Sylvan Enchanter x 4, Orson’s Dream x 4, Wildwood Beastcaller x 4, Scourgecrag Witch x 4
– Darad, the Scourgeblade x 4, Ninja Training x 4, Leeching Burrower x 4, Fungal Monstrosity x 4
– Slithering Marauder x 4, Spectral Assassin x 4, Cerulean Sky Mage x 4, Lady Devonshire x 4
– Legendary Chests (Set 1) x 50
– Legendary Chests (Set 3) x 50
– Legendary Chests (Set 5) x 50
– Cardboard Tube Samurai Mercenary, Aethynia Mercenary, Mooof Mercenary, Monkey of the Nine Tails Mercenary, Mephistophelius Mercenary
– Gax, The Sly Roller Mercenary, Portensio Of Avon Mercenary, Brosi Buk Mercenary, Scion of Uruunaz Mercenary, Zoltog Mercenary
– Convocation 2013/2014 Packs x 5
– Convocation 2015 Packs x 10
– Convocation 2016 Packs x 40 | 1,269,749 |
trail “opposition research.”
In excerpts of an interview with Kremlin-funded RT news, Veselnitskaya defended the meeting at Trump Tower. She also contended she was the victim of a “disinformation" campaign organized by Browder, and that “If the Senate wishes to hear the real story, I will be happy to speak up and share everything I wanted to tell Mr. Trump.”
The entire scope of the 2016 meeting, Browder says, may never be ascertained.
“We don't really know,” he said, accusing Veselnitskaya of routinely lying in numerous public statements. “And because the Trump team has constantly changed their story, we can't really believe what they're saying, so we really don't know what happened in those meetings.”
Postponed FARA hearing
Browder was in Washington to testify at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing scheduled for Wednesday that was to examine Russian lobbying activities and compliance practices under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The hearing, in which individuals Veselnitskaya brought to Trump Tower for the July meeting might have been discussed, was postponed late Tuesday.
“None of the lobbyists [who participated in the Russian-sponsored campaign to repeal the Magnitsky Act] were registered as foreigners,” Browder said. “That was the original topic of the hearing that was scheduled several months ago by Senator [Charles] Grassley, because he was concerned about enforcement of the law.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Ia., and the panel's ranking Democrat, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, preside over Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch's confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill, March 22, 2017. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Ia., and the panel's ranking Democrat, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, preside over Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch's confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill, March 22, 2017.
“Since then there has been a spectacular political scandal connected to meetings of Natalia Veselnitskaya and Rinat Akhmetshin at Trump Tower with Donald Trump, Jr. Those issues have created a whole new set of witnesses who could show up to discuss foreigners lobbying in America. And I think that senators decided that they wanted to invite more people and address these broader issues.”
On Thursday, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary announced that it has rescheduled the FARA hearing and combined it with a hearing on attempts to influence U.S. elections.
Asked his opinion of FARA compliance, Browder said the Trump Tower was meeting emblematic of the law's shortcomings.
“At the moment, there's no consequence for somebody not disclosing that they're working as a foreign agent. That has to change,” he said. “The anti-Magnitsky campaign that took place last summer is a stark example of how this type of stuff works. This particular story will probably end up with some strengthening amendments to the law.” | 1,269,750 |
Microsoft and Temboo, a New York-based Internet of things (IoT) programming specialist, have teamed to help businesses keep an eye on their IoT sensors.
Power BI, Microsoft's cloud-based business intelligence platform, supports the Temboo Streaming service, which dynamically generates the code required to link sensor data to cloud services. Now, in addition to analyzing business metrics, enterprises can use Power BI's real-time visualization capabilities to monitor their IoT deployments and extract insights.
"We increasingly live in a world in which everything emits data, presenting new and exciting opportunities for those who can harness it," said James Phillips, corporate vice president of Microsoft Power BI, in a statement. "Temboo Platform users can now stream data directly into Microsoft Power BI where it can be visualized and monitored in real-time, and analyzed using rich visual and natural language exploration capabilities."
In a company blog post, the Power BI team at Microsoft explained that cloud-based code virtualization technology that powers the Temboo platform "automatically generates production ready code across multiple programming languages for software and hardware developers." That capability not only streamlines the process of incorporating IoT data into an organization's cloud-enhanced IT environment, but also enables developers to get a leg up on their IoT applications.
"You can easily connect your hardware to the internet using the auto-generated code and copy/pasting into your IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics)," wrote the group. "Once connected, Temboo's platform allows you to perform more than 2,000 actions with your device."
In a separate post published on the Temboo Blog, the company explained how its Streaming service can be used to create full-featured IoT apps.
"Streaming is a nice complement to the Conditions features we added to IoT Mode last month, which allow you to use the same visual interface to specify how you want your hardware to trigger and respond to the Choreos that you are running," stated the company. Choreos, or Choreographies, are reusable code shortcuts that developers can string together to create workflows. "Taken together, these features let you use IoT Mode to quickly and easily generate code for complete, production-ready IoT applications that handle data and connect devices to the cloud."
Microsoft isn't the only tech giant to feature integrations with Temboo's IoT platform.
Temboo Streaming also supports Google's newly updated BigQuery analytics engine, which is now available from European data centers and ingests up to 100,000 rows per second per table. It can be used to program microcontrollers from Texas Instruments and Arduino, but the company plans to broaden support for more devices and data services soon.
"It's very important to us that people who are working with Temboo are able to choose the tools and services that they want to work with," said Trisala Chandaria, co-founder Temboo, in an April 14 launch announcement. "By keeping Streaming open, we think we've kept the value front and center in IoT Mode." | 1,269,751 |
The seminal Torrance craft brewery, Strand Brewing Co., turns 4 this month, and its attention to detail and drive to bring fresh local beer to the South Bay has not only made Strand a successful operation, but has helped develop the craft beer culture in Los Angeles.
Owners Rich Marcello (the exuberant face, and mouth, of the operation) and Joel Elliott (the taciturn brewmaster) have seen the Los Angeles craft beer scene blossom as their brewery’s production and distribution have expanded, and the pride they have in their beer -- and their place as L.A. brewery trailblazers -- is equaled only by their modesty.
The partners are quick to credit others for the brewery’s success -- the bar owners and beer buyers who took a chance on Strand’s first kegs and who have continued to support the brewery, the fervent local supporters that fill the taproom every weekend, and the other brewers who helped Strand survive its first year.
But Marcello knows that the ultimate proof is in the glass, and he says the company’s ethos of “premium handcrafted ales and outstanding customer service” is the driving force behind everything they do.
Elliott adds that their biggest goal isn’t to grow into a regional brewery or to ship a thousand cases a month, but to help develop beer culture in Los Angeles in a positive way. “Part of Strand is bigger than just a beer or a brewery,” he tells me. “It’s part of the culture. It’s going to last.”
Marcello, a new father, equates the brewery’s first few years to childhood: “I really feel like... we gave birth to this brewery, and [as with a child] the first year you’re just hoping you don’t kill it. Then [year] two and three it was trying to get away from us and we had to try to corral it in and make sure it didn’t run into traffic. Now at four, I think it’s developing its personality and what it may eventually become.”
To celebrate the brewery’s birthday, they have created a special anniversary brew; Harvest Ball is a delicate and nuanced Belgian wit beer brewed with local oranges that flaunts the idyllic climate of the South Bay.
The brewery is also hosting an anniversary party Saturday at the Torrance tasting room. From noon until 8 p.m. there will be special beer releases, casks and surely a big turnout of the craft fans that have made the South Bay the premier beer destination in Los Angeles.
Strand Brewing Co., 23520 Telo Ave., Torrance, (310) 517-0900.
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RECIPES: Soups to get you through the chill | 1,269,752 |
Activist and writer Ijeoma Oluo is the latest to suffer for Facebook’s inability — or perhaps unwillingness — to improve its reporting and moderation infrastructure. After receiving hundreds of racist and threatening messages in response to a joke she made on Twitter, Oluo began posting screenshots when it was clear that days of reporting did nothing. Facebook’s response was to suspend her account.
You can read Oluo’s account of things here, including some screenshots of the type of abuse she was receiving. Twitter, she said, was responsive. Facebook, not so much.
Facebook later reinstated her account, calling the suspension a “mistake.” I’ve asked the company for the rationale behind the suspension.
We talked with another activist recently, Leslie Mac, who like Oluo spoke out on racism using the platform, and like Oluo was suspended from it. It happened to Shaun King, too, after he posted a racist email he received.
The pattern isn’t hard to figure out: when a person (often a person of color, often a woman, often both) is singled out by popular accounts and pages for something they’ve said or done, the mob descends. Abusive messages, comments and tweets arrive by the truckload — and while the target can only block and report so fast, groups of hundreds or thousands can flag a post or account so voluminously that it is taken offline.
Sure, that’s a “mistake.” The way the entire system Facebook has established for moderating the global conversation is a mistake. It is, at the very least, fundamentally flawed and inadequate.
Facebook and other platforms love to talk about the empowering nature of a one-to-many platform. They fail to address the problem that occurs when the platform is inverted and becomes many-to-one. There isn’t really a solution for the constant dogpiles that occur when someone incurs the wrath of an entire contingent of highly vocal abusers. Just let it happen and then sweep the “mistake” under the rug with the rest of them.
I happened to hear about Oluo’s situation by chance, but no doubt this is happening to many groups and many people whom I would never hear about. Are you one of them? Have you experienced this?
Maybe the mistake is people thinking these platforms are able to protect them at all. If so, the echo chamber will intensify as Facebook and other services may find themselves hosts to chilled speech under the de facto sway of countless angry mobs.
Facebook confirmed the content takedowns and suspension as mistakes on the part of its moderation team. They later sent a statement saying “We’re very sorry about this mistake. We allow discussions of racism but do not allow people to harass or attack others on Facebook.” It seems they got it backwards in this case!
I’ve also asked Oluo for more information and will update the post if I hear back. | 1,269,753 |
James B. Nelson
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Last week, a crew of about two dozen workers assembled the massive rolling stage that The Killers and Violent Femmes used for the first big gig at Milwaukee's Fiserv Forum.
The Milwaukee Bucks hired the workers to put together the stage, a routine part of the pre-concert preparation. The workers were non-union, and that's drawn the ire of Local 18 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.
Members of the union work at Summerfest and the various ethnic festivals at Maier Festival Park, the Marcus Center, Wisconsin State Fair and various Wisconsin Center District venues.
They were not hired for work at the Bucks' previous home, the BMO Harris Bradley Center, nor have they been offered assignments at Fiserv Forum.
The union has attempted to discuss work at the new arena with the Milwaukee Bucks, but hasn't had much success, said Tom Gerferich, business manager for Local 18, which has about 100 members.
"We've been face-to-face a few times, but I wouldn't call them discussions," he said.
That dispute has led to picketing by union members and supporters, including a large showing of several dozen people at the Fiserv Forum grand opening Aug. 26. The union has displayed a large inflatable rat at several of its arena protests.
They returned a few days later when the Democratic National Committee came to Milwaukee. The city is a finalist for the 2020 DNC national convention, and the arena is a central part of the plan to attract the event.
Big difference in wages
The Bucks say that the decision to use non-union stagehands is a matter of economics. They've agreed to pay a starting wage of $12.50 an hour for arena workers and promised that the pay would bump up to $15 within a few years.
Union workers doing the same work would be paid a little more than $20 an hour, Gergerich said.
Gergerich said he met with Bucks senior vice president Alex Lasry in advance of the arena opening. Lasry offered the union a meeting with Bucks President Peter Feigin and arena general manager Raj Saha, on the condition that the picketing end, Gergerich said.
That offer didn't sit well with the union, he said. "There was nothing of any substance going on," Gergerich said.
Feigin said the Bucks are paying arena workers fairly and isn't pleased with the union's actions.
"This has been exceedingly aggressive," he said. "I think everyone chooses their tactics. This is not the way that we like to do business."
The Bucks have said the union is free to organize the stagehands currently employed by the team.
Gergerich said Thursday that there has been no further contact with Bucks management. Feigin indicated that was likely to remain the case.
"There are hundreds of people who are very happy with what we do," Feigin said. | 1,269,754 |
The South Australian Government has backed down on a key part of its push to crack down on illegal cannabis use, and will no longer push for jail terms for cannabis possession.
At the election, the Liberals promised to launch a "war on drugs" and Vickie Chapman — now Attorney-General — promised to bring penalties for cannabis in line with other drugs like ecstasy and heroin.
That meant maximum prison terms of two years, and a quadrupling of fines from $500 to $2,000.
Cannabis possession was decriminalised in South Australia in 1987, and the most common penalty for possessing less than 25 grams is a $125 fine.
Attorney-General Vickie Chapman said the decision was made after considering the public response, and the opposition from within parliament.
She said it was important to make sure other elements of the bill were not delayed or blocked.
"We didn't get 100 per cent — we got 90 per cent, we're happy with that," Ms Chapman said.
"The Cabinet has confirmed that they're supporting that because it's just so important.
"We've got reforms in relation to obviously commercial manufacture. We've also got important reforms on penalties, including personal use."
While the Government is backing down on prison terms, it will still push ahead with other measures in the bill, including increasing fines and only allowing offenders to go to the drug diversion program twice in a four-year period.
An ABC Adelaide social media poll on 'What should South Australia do to regulate cannabis use?' had more than 18,000 people voting in favour of decriminalisation and 723 people voting in favour of stronger penalties.
Bill would not have passed parliament as it was
The Government's move to increase prison terms faced opposition from Labor and the Greens, along with legal and medical circles.
The Law Society said the changes would clog up an already busy justice system, while health experts questioned whether the penalties would decrease use.
Deputy Opposition leader Susan Close said Labor did not support putting people in prison for possession of cannabis.
"The community does not want to see our jails full of people simply for possessing cannabis," Dr Close said.
"We would need to go after the big guys in organised crime and not fill jails up with young people who have tried a joint."
Likewise, Greens MLC Tammy Franks said she was glad the Liberals had "backed away from that stupid policy".
She said it was the biggest "over-reach" in the bill but not the only one.
"Quadrupling fines for personal use also has no evidence base to it other than revenue raising," Ms Franks said.
"We'll be testing that in the Upper House."
Increasing fines for cannabis possession was a recommendation of deputy coroner Anthony Schapel in his 2017 findings into the murder of 18-year-old Lewis McPherson by Liam Humbles in 2012.
Police issued Humbles with a drug diversion notice because he said cannabis in his possession was for personal use. | 1,269,755 |
stories, as well, one might expect the architecture and environment to reveal more about the apocalypse itself. But this world feels empty in a way that isn’t based on any disaster—just a lack of character.
Traversing the wilderness can be rewarding when you stumble upon wildlife or a new vantage point from which to survey the swath of swaying trees. But active settlements, government checkpoints, and other relics of the old world are devoid of the beating heart that typically makes exploration so exciting. Coupled with repetitive mission design, these environments all begin to bleed together, losing any impact the narrative tries to afford them.
As an action game, Days Gone blends stealth, third-person shooting, and close-up brawls. Scouring the world for scraps, you’re able to craft weapons, ammo, and items to boost Deacon’s stamina. Corpses can be looted for the same kind of rewards, making every kill important. Progression is doled out slowly through skill points and XP, as a way to encourage players to poke around every corner of the open world.
Loose things to pick up and piece together are scattered as far as the eye can see, but I still felt I was always behind on what I needed most. Though I almost always beat away Freakers with a baseball bat or lead pipe, when I needed to draw my shotgun, I only had a few shells. The same goes for health kits; I was rarely taking hits but could only collect one or two bandages when I was in danger. Resources are pooled together in one place and called on for a variety of reasons. My motorcycle constantly needed maintenance after a long trek, dipping into my reserves. That sort of diversion depleted the amount of material I had left to craft ammo and repair weapons, so suddenly I was running low on all supplies just after driving from one waypoint to another. Some games might try and spin this as a brutal, oppressive take on the post-apocalypse, but it just comes off as boring and unsatisfying.
Playing Days Gone should feel more invigorating. I was never won over by the story’s mediocre presentation enough to care about any of the (admittedly few) characters. I was intrigued by the mystery of the shadowy NERO corporation, but even exploring those abandoned outposts quickly became a chore. Facing down a horde of undead monsters felt clunky and overbearing thanks to layers of weapon menus and restrictive resources. In motion, the game feels like a flashy tech demo; capitalizing on the design of the DualShock controller for intuitive menu controls and responsive user interfacing. There is no denying that Days Gone is visually impressive, heightened by expressive motion capture and a lifelike wilderness. The signs of life that should make for a great experience are all there. But in every shining sunset, detailed human face, and open clearing, I couldn’t find any shred of soul.
2/5
Days Gone is available for PlayStation 4 on April 26. This review was written based on a copy of the game provided by the publisher. | 1,269,756 |
gameplay reason for it. The Tanooki Suit, in this game, doesn’t let you actually fly. What it does is let you glide down slowly by flapping your tail. This is an attempt to solve one of the fundamental problems of 3-D jumping games: Landing in the right place. With the extra finesse of the Suit, it’s a little easier to land accurately.
That’s all well and good, you may be asking, but what if you don’t have the suit? As it turns out, you probably will: The leaf-shaped power-up items that grant you the power are scattered from hell to breakfast across 3D Land ‘s levels. And if you do take damage and lose the power, you can hold an item in reserve and access it by tapping the touch screen.
You can also shoot fireballs by collecting a Fire Flower, and if you want, you can swap back and forth between fire and flight, just as long as you don’t get hit or collect a different reserve item.
So yes, Mario will likely spend a good deal of this game in a hot, sweaty, fur suit. Just imagine how that will smell by the time World 8-4 rolls around.
3D Land is divided up into some number of Worlds, each of which contains at least four standard levels and a boss encounter. We’ve seen in screenshots that some of these levels will take place aboard an airship, although I didn’t get to play any of those. What I did get to play was a more straightforward raid on a Koopa castle, the basics of which will be familiar to anyone: Dodging fireballs, jumping lava pits and finally squaring off against the big man himself. In this level, it was as simple as dodging his fireballs, running past him and jumping on a switch to send him into the lava — a 3-D, somewhat more complex version of the level-ending fights from the first Super Mario Bros.
What took me by surprise was the first time I found a pair of sightseeing binoculars, the sort of thing you’d find on top of a tall landmark in a big city. Standing in front of them, I found myself peering out in first-person at the rest of the level that I’d have to play, getting a little preview of what was ahead. Eventually I tracked down a Toad who was hanging out by a flagpole, and when I zoomed in on him he saw me and started acting out what I was supposed to do once I got there — take a running leap off the staircase and jump for the top of the pole.
In later levels, if I spotted Toad through the binoculars he’d throw out a Star Coin, one of the collectibles that are scattered in the levels in hard-to-reach places. I’m guessing finding and using these will become more difficult but more rewarding as the game gets harder.
3-D Or Not 3-D | 1,269,757 |
of female sexuality is used as the inciting incident for a series of murders.
Other than the violence itself, there are several other things to note here when it comes to Billy's actions. The first is that not once does he seek any kind of revenge on his father, even though it does, as they say, take two to tango. Sidney's mother wasn't the only one involved in their affair. His father was equally responsible for the event that precipitated his mother's departure, but it is Sidney's father he attempts to frame, Sidney's friends and family he murders, and Sidney whom he torments. His father is unscathed throughout the entire ordeal.
Then there's the fact that throughout the entire film, Billy is pressuring Sidney to sleep with him. Initially, this can be seen as just another way the film attempts to play into the tropes of its genre. Virgins don't die in horror movies, therefore Sidney needs to face the pressure to lose her virginity in order for it to work. To Stu, this also likely plays into the way Billy has convinced him the murders are supposed to go. The point is to kill people like they do in the movies, so if they're going to kill Sidney in the end, then Sidney can't be a virgin when it happens. For Billy, though, the motivations are much more sinister (yes, more sinister than murder). The entire plot of the film revolves around Billy's feelings about her mother having sex with his father. In a twisted way, sleeping with Sidney, turning her from a symbol of purity to another sexualized woman, makes her more like her mother, more like the thing he actually hates. By having sex with her, he not only gives himself further opportunities to derive pleasure from this entire twisted situation, but he turns Sidney into a surrogate, allowing him to murder her mother all over again.
The Scream franchise actually takes this whole obsession with female sexuality to another level later on when, in the third installment, the killer is revealed to be Sidney's secret half-brother her mother had abandoned years before giving birth to her. Scarred by his own abandonment, and enraged by their mother's continued affairs, her brother followed their mother around, recording evidence of those affairs in a devious attempt to destroy her. He succeeded, too, as we learn that it was he who told Billy of her affair with his father, an act committed with the hope that it would spur Billy on to murder her.
With that final reveal the franchise lays the murders of dozens of innocent people over three films -- not to mention the ongoing psychological torture of Sidney AND supporting characters like Gale and Dewey -- squarely at the feet, not of the actual murderers, but of Sidney's mother and her inability to keep her legs closed.
These movies are known for having some great, kickass female characters, and they have endured in a generation of horror fans for a reason. But despite their continued popularity and their contributions to the longstanding tradition of the Final Girls, the Scream franchise really says a lot more about men, power, and their twisted view of the female libido. | 1,269,758 |
with English."
One of the schools in question, Sunshine Montessori Primary and Nursery School, is run by DMK president Stalin's daughter Senthamarai Sabarisan. It is one of the most expensive and exclusive schools in Chennai. There have been allegations that students are fined for speaking in Tamil at the school. Such is the duplicity of the DMK.
Enhanced job opportunities was the justification given for the introduction of English, to which Karunanidhi responded, "English is not even spoken in many countries. In countries like Russia, Germany, Japan and China, their own languages are used as the official and teaching languages." He was right, he always knew the right things to say, but neither he nor any other Dravidian party leader has done anything to introduce Tamil as a medium of instruction in higher education, effectively depriving lakhs of students every year an equal opportunity to access higher education.
There have also been no efforts to encourage businesses operating in Tamil Nadu to adopt Tamil. Some examples of how businesses can be encouraged to adopt Tamil are: Machinery manuals, factory floor manuals, receipts and invoices, accounting, labels on packaged products, medicines, medical test reports and such to be in Tamil and providing legal support for the same. Thus with the linkages cut off at the higher education and employment levels, Tamil has become fairly useless for earning one's livelihood, forcing parents to opt for English education for their children. And so, if Tamil becomes irrelevant, it shall be due the policies of Dravidian parties geared towards generating private profits at public cost and due to their lack of vision and effort.
The DMK's high-volume opposition is only to further the ruse of being the protectors of Tamil and Tamilians. From their point of view, it is cheaper to oppose Hindi compared to opposing English or helping Tamil grow and any dividend that comes of it shall be profitable.
The BJP is to be blamed for handing them the issue on a platter. With the party's usual lack of sophistication it has made it appear, at least in Tamil Nadu, that Stalin forced the Central government to change its Hindi imposition policy. Even if there is no real opposition to Hindi in Tamil Nadu, in issues where there is opposition to the Central government or BJP, a section of voters will believe that Stalin might be the man to stand up to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This issue has been a win for the DMK and loss for the BJP.
However, as the politics of this issue plays out, it remains that Tamilians are not opposed to Hindi and they have no notions that Hindi will wipe out Tamil. The language has been chugging along just fine since its proto-Dravidian origins 7,000 years ago in Mehrgarh, Pakistan and shall continue to do so, if not for the Dravidian parties.
The author is deputy editor at Tamil newspaper Dinamalar
Also read: BJP clueless about South; Tamil Nadu doesn't see value in being compelled to learn Hindi, writes DMK's Manuraj S
| 1,269,759 |
Normally, Chattanooga-area residents have to wait on the weather to provide a chance to snowboard, just as Josiah Brower did when about an inch of snow fell at the Lookout Mountain Golf and Country Club in December 2010. This weekend, Shaun White wannabes can put their skills to the test with the Chattanooga Rail Jam competition in the parking lot at Mellow Mushroom Waterside.
IF YOU GO What: Chattanooga Rail Jam When: 4-10 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 23 Where: Mellow Mushroom Waterside, 2318 Lifestyle Way Admission: Free but a $5 donation to Tennessee RiverKeepers is good for one drink ticket Phone: 423-892-6767 Website: http://railjamsignup.pgtb.me/fGqzpb
Nevermind the predicted high of 57 degrees. A snowstorm will hit Chattanooga on Saturday, Feb. 23, but this cold front will get no farther than the Mellow Mushroom parking lot in East Brainerd.
For Chattanooga Rail Jam, the city's first snowboarding competition, 6 tons of snow is forecast, and periodic "storms" will blow through to keep this mini snowboard park ready for action.
"We're building a jump-off ramp that's 10 feet high," says Steve Gilbert, owner of Dodge City Ski Shop on East Brainerd Road. "(Competitors) will slide down, make a jump and snowboard across the rail."
Dodge City is a co-sponsor of the event, along with Mellow Mushroom Waterside. The Waterside Lifestyle Center is off Shallowford Road between I-75 and Gunbarrel Road.
Up to 25 snowboarders will vie for first-, second- and third-place prizes, which include a Sweetwater 420 Fest VIP vacation and prize packs from Dodge City, Mellow Mushroom and Red Bull.
Gilbert says only experienced snowboarders will be allowed to compete, but he expects the event will draw a fair share of spectators who'll want to try out his shop's virtual ski machine, which teaches the basics of skiing and snowboarding before would-be enthusiasts hit the slopes.
For most area residents, resorts in the mountains of North Carolina and West Virginia are the most common destinations for winter sports, along with Cloudmont Ski Resort in Mentone, Ala.
"Many of my skiers have learned to ski or snowboard there (at Mentone)," Gilbert says.... "It's a great place to go down and learn."
Scheduled from 4 to 10 p.m., the Rail Jam also will feature music by Rosedale Remedy and Baby Baby.
The event is a fundraiser for Tennessee RiverKeeper, which works to protect the Tennessee River and its tributaries from pollution. Attendees who offer a $5 donation to the organization will receive a drink ticket for a free premium draft beer or vodka.
Contact staff writer Lisa Denton at ldenton@times free press.com or 423-757-6281. | 1,269,760 |
UPDATE: Pa. Sen. Folmer resigns day after being charged with possession of child pornography
One of three child pornography images found on the cell phone of state Sen. Michael Folmer depicted a “very young” girl performing oral sex on an adult man, investigators say.
That image and others agents of the state attorney general’s office claim were found on his private phone could send the senator to prison if he pleads guilty or is convicted of the charges he faces.
The most serious charge lodged against the Lebanon County Republican is a second-degree felony, possession of child pornography. That carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine.
Folmer also is charged with a third-degree felony, criminal use of a communications facility, which allows for a maximum punishment of up to 7 years in prison and a $15,000 fine.
Actual sentences are imposed after judges consider factors including the person’s criminal record, or lack of same, remorse, and willingness to undergo counseling. In some cases, defendants who plead guilty in child porn cases have received probation sentences.
However, someone who is convicted of or pleads guilty to a possession of child porn charge is required by law to register with state police as a sex offender for 15 years.
According to arrest papers filed by Special Agent Gordon Goodrow, the AG’s investigation of the 63-year-old Folmer began in February after the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received a report from the social media platform Tumblr that suspected child porn had been uploaded onto Folmer’s account on Dec. 28, 2017.
State and federal agencies both have computer investigative agencies that monitor the internet for child porn feeds and for those who download such files.
The next several months of the Folmer investigation involved the filing of subpoenas and the receipt of responses from providers including Yahoo, AT&T and Comcast.
Goodrow said that last month he and another agent staked out Folmer’s Lebanon home as part of the effort to tie him to the illegal download.
On Tuesday, agents armed with a search warrant raided Folmer’s home while other agents simultaneously confronted the senator at his Lebanon office. Folmer agreed to return home and surrender his iPhone, Goodrow said.
After being read his Miranda rights, Folmer agreed to speak with investigators without having an attorney present, Goodrow said. Folmer “stated that he had been dealing with some personal problems/issues and that he received child pornography through his Tumblr blog,” the agent wrote.
Two more child porn images were found during a search of Folmer’s phone, Goodrow said.
The senator remains free on $25,000 bail. A preliminary hearing on his case is scheduled for later this month before District Judge Thomas M. Capello.
Thanks for visiting PennLive. Quality local journalism has never been more important. We need your support. Not a subscriber yet? Please consider supporting our work. | 1,269,761 |
Show caption A Garda spokesman said: ‘All 16 parachutists made their jump from the craft. However, witnesses then saw the aircraft crash shortly afterwards.’ Photograph: Ben Whitley/INPHO/REX/Shutterstock Ireland Pilot and 7-year-old boy killed in plane crash in County Offaly, Ireland The light aircraft ‘came vertically down’, minutes after 16 parachutists jumped Mattha Busby Sun 13 May 2018 23.59 BST Share on Facebook
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A man and young boy were killed when a plane crashed in Ireland, minutes after 16 parachutists jumped from the aircraft.
The pilot, believed to be from the UK, and a seven-year-old local boy were onboard when the plane went down in bog land in County Offaly on Sunday afternoon.
The cause of the crash remains unknown and an investigation is underway.
A Garda spokesman said: “All 16 parachutists made their jump from the craft.
“However, witnesses then saw the aircraft crash shortly afterwards. There were two people on board, the pilot and a seven-year-old boy.”
The light aircraft left the Clonbullogue Airfield – operated by the Irish Parachute Club – at around 2:25pm, before the plane was found in a bog 2km away from the airport.
“It just came vertically down,” said Jimmy Slattery, who was walking his dog near Clonbullogue, in comments reported by the Irish Times from the scene of the crash.
“There was no wavering in it or anything, flat out, the engine roaring. When it got near the tree line, I heard a thump then and that was it, that’s all I can say. That’s all I know. I thought he was actually doing a stunt and I was waiting for them to pull out but it never happened, sadly.”
He then called 999 and waited at the scene to direct the emergency services to the crash site.
“It was loud, very loud as if it was taking off, that sort of a roar,” he said, describing the moment the aircraft crashed “like a torpedo” from the sky.
It is understood that the Air Accident Investigation Unit used digging machinery in an attempt to remove the aircraft from the bog because the impact of the crash had driven it into the ground.
Members of the Civil Defence, Offaly Fire Services and Garda were first to attend the scene, along with local residents.
Edenderry-based independent Councillor Noel Cribbin told the Irish Times that the whole community is in a state of shock at news of the accident.
“The Irish Parachute Club is over 20 years in Edenderry and run to the highest standards, so it was a big shock to hear of an accident of this type,” he said. | 1,269,762 |
"Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys."
There are a lot of truly badass moments in the Bible, but one of the most incredible comes in 2 Kings. We're talking 2 Kings 2:23-24 specifically, when the prophet Elisha runs into some snotty kids on his way to Bethel. Here's the original King James version:
23And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.
24And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.
Here's a more modern translation:
23 From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” 24 He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.
Holy shit! Two bears ripping apart FORTY TWO kids because they called Elisha a baldy! That is some righteous anger of the Lord business here. Jehova was not fucking around. This is the sort of disproportionate response intended to send a very serious message to those who would dare mock the follically challenged. Especially should they be in the service of the Lord.
I mean, forty two kids. You would think just one or two kids getting mauled to death by a bear would be enough to get the point across. It's obvious that God operates like Malone in The Untouchables: the Chicago way! They make fun of one of yours, you maul forty two of theirs!
You would think that somebody would have made a real movie out of this by now, but I'm not aware of Elisha: Bear Mauling From The Lord having been actually made. In the meantime, enjoy these interpretations of the event. I especially like the short; I found a couple of funny recreations online, but this one has the most artistry, best gore and nicest music.
Here's a nice version by DeviantArt user Panistheman
I quite like this old timey one, because Elisha is just so pissed at the kids. He don't give a fuck. It's unclear if the artist had ever seen a bear, though.
This one is AWESOME because it pretty much represents the whole scene as a horror story, with Elisha as the villain. Which, really, is what it is.
This has been your Badass Bible Study. | 1,269,763 |
alone, the Crimson reported, three tutors faced threats of dismissal; 13 tutors threatened to quit in protest; and one Winthrop staffer stepped down, allegedly under pressure from Sullivan and Robinson.
Most of the 11 other Harvard residential communities have had one or two house administrators in the decade since Sullivan became a faculty dean, the Crimson reported; Winthrop House has had nine – a turnover that staff attributed to the challenging environment that left some in tears, after being asked to do tasks for the faculty deans beyond their purview, such as personal errands and grocery shopping, according to the article.
Meanwhile the controversy over his defense of Weinstein has spawned disputes between Sullivan’s supporters and critics.
In recent weeks, the angry rift exploded into public view. At one point, students staged an occupation of Winthrop House to “reclaim it as a safe space” for survivors of sexual assault.
A married couple who work as resident tutors in Winthrop House sued the faculty dean of another house alleging she defamed them in e-mails and texts she had circulated about them. The couple also filed a police report over an incident in the Winthrop dining hall with Mudannayake, and Leontire, their lawyer, threatened to file a harassment complaint against her.
In the defamation case, Leontire has subpoenaed five Harvard faculty members or students, including a reporter for the student newspaper from whom he has demanded all communications regarding Sullivan.
The Crimson is resisting the subpoena, saying its reporter is not a party to the case.
Leontire, a friend of Sullivan’s who worked side-by-side with him on the legal team that got former New England Patriot Aaron Hernandez acquitted of double murder charges, did not respond to a request for comment Saturday.
Mudannayake said the events show “open retaliation” from Sullivan defenders for her vocal opposition.
Khurana, meanwhile, called the decision to not keep Sullivan and Robinson on as faculty deans “a regrettable situation and a very hard decision to make. I have long admired your Faculty Deans’ commitment to justice and civic engagement, as well as the good work they have done in support of diversity in their House community.”
Sullivan and his wife were the first African-Americans appointed faculty deans in 2009; another African-American dean has been named since that time.
In an interview with the New Yorker in March, Sullivan said that he believes that some of the attacks against him may be racially motivated. In that interview, he also resisted criticizing students for their activism against him, instead faulting the administration for responding to it.
“It’s in the nature of students to protest,” he told the New Yorker. “The adults in the room, however, do not have to react in the way that they have.”
Stephanie Ebbert can be reached at Stephanie.Ebbert @globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @StephanieEbbert | 1,269,764 |
and dig into the letters posted on lineand to engage in deep, informed discussion with the Party and others concerning these vital questions of ideological and political line. Come to the presentations which will be sponsored by Revolution Books*and organize discussions...with your comrades and friends.
This article and the letters need to find their way into the hands of many people from revolutionaries in the U.S. and others who have been following the developments in Nepal, to immigrants and students from abroad, including from South Asia, to the international communist movement. It needs to get out into the areas of the citiesfrom the ghettos and barrios to the campuses and scenes of intellectual fermentand among people of all strata where the revolutionary and communist movement is developing. It needs to reach all those who are searching for a way out of this horrorand the path to real liberation. And, it is an opening for those who are searching for such answers to find out what communism really is and how human society could be organized in a whole different way. This issue of Revolution needs to reach these people and moreand this article and the letters it introduces need to spread throughout society and the world on the Internet.
This line struggle further underscores the historic importance of the Manifesto from the Party, Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage. As that Manifesto says, the international communist movement is at a crossroads. It confronts the question of whether to be, as the Manifesto puts it, a vanguard of the future or residue of the past? The line struggle which is carried out in depth in these letters is both situated within this larger world context and is also a concentration of it. And it is vital for all to engage with this Manifesto...as they study and wrestle with the two-line struggle in relation to the revolution in Nepal. As this issue of the paper gets distributed among all kinds of people, this Manifesto needs to accompany it. With the defeat of the revolution in China and the restoration of capitalism in that country, the first stage of communist revolution in the world ended. And Bob Avakian, Chairman of the RCP, has led in scientifically summing up that experience, building on the monumental achievements and critically summing up the shortcomingsand, on that basis, bringing forward a new theoretical framework for carrying forward communist revolution in the world. This synthesis, as concentrated in this Manifesto, urgently needs to be engaged by all who see the horror of the world the way it is and burn for a different future, free of exploitation and oppression. It represents a source of hope and daring, on a scientific foundationfor masses the world over.
* For events in New York, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area: http://www.revcom.us/revbooks Related Link: http://www.revcom.us Digg this del.icio.us Furl Reddit Technorati Facebook Twitter << Back To Newswire
English Italiano Deutsch This page can be viewed in | 1,269,765 |
Toyota Racing Development is unveiling its next generation family of TRD Pro off-road trucks for 2019 at the Chicago Auto Show, bringing performance features like high-tech suspension components to the entire lineup, a new 4Runner roof rack and an air intake snorkel to the Tacoma.
The entire TRD Pro family — the Toyota Tundra, 4Runner and Tacoma — gets aluminum-bodied 2.5-inch TRD Fox Internal Bypass shocks. They're tuned for the specific characteristics of each vehicle by TRD engineers and offer improved dampening for on- and off-road driving situations. The Fox shocks replace the external bypass tubes typically used on off-road race vehicles to manage damping pressure by compactly incorporating multiple bypass zones inside of the shock absorber, offering a cushioned, plush ride while still providing for bottoming resistance. They also combine high-temperature shock fluid and nitrogen gas pressure to handle bumps and reinforce the seals.
Front shocks are also paired with specially tuned TRD springs, which add to ride comfort and give each TRD Pro truck an aggressive, higher stance for the trail. The rear Fox shocks pair with a piggyback reservoir to hold extra oil volume, which helps maintain peak damping performance during extreme use. Each model features a distinct rear spring configuration, and TRD dust boots feature in the front and rear to help keep out dust and dirt.
The Tacoma TRD Pro has a 1-inch wider track in both front and rear for added stability. It also gets a larger front sway bar, updated front skid plate with TRD red lettering and TRD exhaust accented with a new black chrome tip. Inside, Entune Premium JBL Audio, integrated navigation and app suite all come standard, and there are TRD Pro-branded floor mats and leather-trimmed seats, among other features. Also available is what Toyota is calling the TRD Desert Air Intake, a.k.a. a snorkel, to help keep dust and dirt out of the 278-horsepower, 3.5-liter V6 engine's air intake during off-road use.
The Tundra TRD Pro gets new LED fog lights and headlights, a new grille and new hood scoop, plus new 18-inch BBS forged-aluminum, five-spoke satin black wheels. There's a dual TRD Pro exhaust, again with the black chrome tips, and TRD Pro branding appears on the rear quarter panels and throughout the interior. A moonroof is optional.
There's an extra inch of front lift on the TRD Pro 4Runner compared to other grades, plus nearly 1 inch of additional wheel travel and a nearly 1-inch wider track front and rear. It also gets a new roof rack, a blacked-out grille and projector-beam headlights with smoked trim.
The TRD Pro series goes on sale in the fall with a choice of three colors for each vehicle: super white, midnight black metallic or voodoo blue, the latter exclusive to TRD Pro.
Related Video: | 1,269,766 |
OTTAWA -- Former federal cabinet minister and London, Ont., mayor Joe Fontana has been named recipient of an award he may not want to accept.
Fontana is the winner of the 2015 federal Teddy Waste Award, a dubious honour bestowed on individuals and governments each year by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
The former Liberal MP was convicted last June of breach of trust, fraud and uttering forged documents after a contract was altered for his son's 2005 wedding and Fontana submitted the $1,700 invoice to the House of Commons for reimbursement, claiming it was for a function with the federal finance minister.
While $1,700 is hardly the largest amount of money misspent by a Canadian politician, Canadian Taxpayers Federation national director Aaron Wudrick said the awards -- gilded china pigs --are subjective.
And the most outrageous part, said Wudrick, is that, despite being convicted of fraud, Fontana continues to collect his pension.
"Despite intentionally forging documents to defraud taxpayers, Fontana retains his annual $122,000 MP pension, courtesy of the taxpayer," Wudrick told an Ottawa news conference.
Ontario's Ministry of Energy got the nod for the provincial Teddy for spending $1 billion to install 4.8 million so-called smart meters in homes in a program that has been beset with troubles.
The province's auditor general has found cost overruns that could double the initial price. Hundreds of thousands of the electronically monitored power-consumption meters have been unable to transmit data. Several dozen have caught fire.
Halifax Councillor Brad Johns won the municipal award for buying a $25,000 robotic Christmas tree.
And the federation gave its Lifetime Achievement Award to Vancouver's TransLink, for more than a decade of waste and tax hikes.
The Teddy is named after Ted Weatherill, a former federal bureaucrat who was fired in 1999 for submitting lavish expense claims, including a $700 lunch for two.
Wudrick acknowledged Wednesday that government waste in Canada appears to be endless and it's doubtful that the federation's annual award have stopped much, if any, of it from happening.
But shining a spotlight on waste keeps politicians and bureaucrats on their toes, he said.
"We're tough on all government waste, but sometimes the best way to strike a nerve is to tell some of the most absurd stories," said Wudrick.
"Sadly, the capacity for government to dream up new ways to waste money seems infinite."
Other nominees included Public Works and Government Services Canada for spending $65,000 to repurchase a bulldozer it had confiscated and sold for just over $5,500, rather than destroying it as originally ordered by a court. Eventually, the bulldozer was destroyed anyway.
Former Alberta Premier Alison Redford was also cited for the remodelling of a penthouse apartment. Just the plans for the alterations, which included an $832,000 Zamboni storage shed and skating rink that was never built, cost the province's taxpayers $173,000. | 1,269,767 |
(CNN) Energy Secretary Rick Perry confused the relationship between the fundamental forces in an economy while extolling the Trump administration's embrace of the coal industry, economists said.
"Here's a little economics lesson: supply and demand. You put the supply out there and the demand will follow," he said Thursday, according to Standard & Poor's Taylor Kuykendall.
DOE Rick Perry at coal plant:"Here's a little economics lesson: supply and demand. You put the supply out there and the demand will follow."
The former Texas governor made the comment while speaking with employees at a coal-fired power plant in Maidsville, West Virginia. A message left by CNN with Perry's office Friday was not returned.
Thank you to the dedicated coal workers at Longview Power Plant in West Virginia pic.twitter.com/5UxY5oJxt8
But economists pushed back on Perry's statement Friday.
"It's an old assertion named Say's Law and it's wrong. It's that simple," said Doug Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, a center-right think tank. "Supply does not automatically create its own demand."
"There are two separate entities that have their own determinants and then they interact to deliver prices," he added.
The late French economist Jean-Baptiste Say argued that supplying beyond demand never occurred because demand would always match the supply. But Holtz-Eakin, a former Congressional Budget Office director, said that is a misunderstanding of basic economics.
"Maybe not everyone takes economics. And I know for a fact not everyone passes it," he said.
Adele Morris, policy director for Climate and Energy Economics at the Brookings Institution, said Perry's words "really don't make any sense."
"What he seems to be suggesting was that if suppliers supplied more, then people would demand more," she said. "Well, suppliers don't control demand, they control supply."
There is no debate among economists about the law of supply and demand, said Morris, a former senior economist at the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress.
"There is debate about the disconnect about what the administration is telling coal workers and their communities and the truths about the markets, so they're weaving a story and telling people in coal reliant areas that they have the power to revive the coal industry," she said.
President Donald Trump and his administration have regularly heralded a boom in coal jobs, despite experts saying otherwise.
Columbia University study estimates the coal industry lost roughly 60,000 jobs since the end of 2011 and hundreds of thousands since the 1920s, as larger proportions of the world's energy production are coming from other, cleaner sources like solar and natural gas.
Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu hit Perry over his remarks on Twitter.
"Dear Rick Perry: If you put lots of 35mm film out there, will demand follow? NO. That's not how capitalism works. Stop lying to coal workers," the California lawmaker tweeted. | 1,269,768 |
This weekend I started playing the original Resident Evil again, using the remastered edition that Capcom released a couple years ago. I haven’t touched the game since I played it on my friend’s PlayStation all the way back in 1997, when he introduced it as the third or fourth exhibit in the case he was building for his console being better than our mutual friend’s Nintendo 64 or my own aging PC.
“In addition to greater third-party support, which you can read about here,” he said (and I kid you not, he actually had a couple issues of EGM and GamePro folded open to the relevant passages), “the PlayStation can do FMV and has more mature, more realistic games.”
If you remember that original edition of Resident Evil for the PS1, you know exactly the kind of breathtaking, hard-cut contradiction I was about to encounter between my friend’s estimation of Resident Evil and the game as it actually existed outside the mind of a console war Jacobin. The vaunted FMV was a grainy fever dream in which a group of hair models were menaced by a group of rubber dog masks in what looked like a municipal park.
And then we got into the main game itself, with its awkward scene blocking around clunky 3D models and legendarily bad voice acting. It was onion-like in its layers of camp, and I was cracking up by the time we got to the first zombie reveal.
Yet there was something undeniably compelling about the game after you got past the cheesiness of these early scenes and made allowances for Resident Evil’s poor translation and frustrated cinematic ambitions. Resident Evil was a game that I would find myself laughing at, and then for a few minutes the campiness would fade away and I’d find myself frozen in terror, scrabbling at the controls trying to get into a room with a save point before something killed me.
The version of Resident Evil I’m playing now isn’t the one I remember, even allowing for the vastly improved visuals. And it’s almost certainly more faithful to the original Japanese release’s tone and intent, since so much of what gave Resident Evil its quirkiness was a mangled localization. Nevertheless, I find myself slightly affronted every time a perfectly harmless piece of incidental dialogue has replaced a famous line-reading catastrophe.
I miss the version of Resident Evil I’ve kept in my head all these years, the one that played such a key role in a series of friendship-ending arguments over game consoles. I miss it the same way I miss the way adventure game would hitch as you’d hear the CD drive spin-up, heralding your successful completion of a puzzle or a newly unlocked conversation option. I miss all the odd, immersion-shattering ways that games could struggle and fail in their efforts to achieve more than the technology and infrastructure of the time could really support. There was an earnestness to that awful US version of Resident Evil that perfectly fit its time and context. | 1,269,769 |
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday his administration will consider creating a permanent law allowing dispatch of the Self-Defense Forces overseas, a comment that could lead to a further rift between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner, New Komeito.
The move would allow the government to send the SDF on overseas missions by bypassing Diet debate and without having to re-enact special legislation each time.
“We’d like to consider in detail what form it should take, a permanent or special law. We need to have thorough consultations and coordinate with the ruling coalition,” Abe told the Upper House Budget Committee.
In a historic move, Abe’s Cabinet on July 1 reinterpreted the war-renouncing Constitution to allow Japan to exercise the long-prohibited right to collective self-defense.
New Komeito had long been cautious about expanding the SDF’s role, but it eventually conceded and approved the reinterpretation of the Constitution to enable the use of the right to collective self-defense, allowing Japan to come to the aid of an ally under armed attack.
The Cabinet approval also expanded SDF activities in peacekeeping operations and scrapped the geographical restriction of so-called noncombat zones, allowing the SDF to engage in operations where actual combat is not taking place.
Despite the landmark decision on collective self-defense, the administration needs to prepare the legal groundwork to accommodate the change by revising more than 10 laws, including one on SDF operations. The permanent legislation will be one of the bills that Abe’s government plans to submit to the ordinary Diet session early next year.
The war-renouncing Article 9 and its defense-oriented posture have long limited SDF activities.
Even when the SDF has been sent overseas, their missions have been strictly limited to logistical support, and the government had to pass temporary legislation for each SDF mission sent abroad.
In 2001, the administration of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi enacted laws that lasted for a limited period of time only, to enable the SDF to refuel U.S. military vessels taking part in the war in Afghanistan. The government also passed a similar temporary law in 2003 in order to dispatch SDF personnel to Iraq to engage in reconstruction efforts there.
Permanent legislation would allow the government to decide to dispatch the SDF at any time because it would no longer require enactment of temporary legislation.
The July 1 policy change on collective self-defense will be reflected in revised U.S.-Japan defense cooperation guidelines due out by the end of the year, Abe said, after Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera and U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel agreed on the plan in Washington on Friday.
On Tuesday, Japan and the United States held talks at the vice-ministerial level in Tokyo on a review of the defense cooperation guidelines, last revised in 1997. Onodera and Hagel confirmed that a mid-term progress report will be compiled as early as September.
Information from Kyodo added | 1,269,770 |
The senators cited a 2008 law mandating that the president provide Congress with a detailed explanation of his decision to fire Atkinson, who defied Trump last year when he turned over to lawmakers a whistleblower complaint that led to the president’s impeachment.
Last weekend, Trump defended the firing of Atkinson, calling him a “total disgrace” over his handling of the whistleblower complaint, which detailed Trump’s conversations with Ukraine’s president. Atkinson was required by law to transmit the complaint to the House and Senate intelligence committees.
In his letter informing lawmakers of Atkinson’s termination, Trump said only that he had lost confidence in Atkinson. That wasn’t enough for the senators.
Michael Atkinson, former intelligence community inspector general. | J. Scott Applewhite, File/AP Photo
“As supporters of the Inspector General community, and as advocates for government transparency and accountability, it is our responsibility to confirm that there are clear, substantial reasons for removal,” the senators wrote, asking for an explanation no later than April 13 and citing a 2008 Senate report about ensuring that watchdogs “are not removed for political reasons.”
The lawmakers also accused Trump of going around Congress when he placed Atkinson on administrative leave when he fired him, effectively sidestepping the mandatory 30-day notice to the congressional intelligence panels.
“By placing the IG on 30 days of administrative leave and naming an acting replacement, the administration has already effectively removed that IG and appears to have circumvented Congress’s role in this process,” the senators wrote.
They added that the purpose of the 30-day requirement was “to provide an opportunity for an appropriate dialogue with Congress in the event that the planned transfer or removal is viewed as an inappropriate or politically motivated attempt to terminate an effective inspector general.”
Democrats have condemned the firing as a dangerous abuse of power and act of political retribution, while some Republicans have criticized the move as unwarranted.
Trump has adopted an aggressive posture toward inspectors general, most recently criticizing the Health and Human Services Department’s watchdog over a report that revealed medical supply shortages and coronavirus testing issues across the country. The president also removed the acting Pentagon inspector general, Glenn Fine, from his post shortly after he was named to lead a watchdog panel overseeing implementation of the $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief package that Congress approved last month.
In their Wednesday letter, the senators said inspectors general should “only be removed when there is clear evidence of wrongdoing or failure to perform the duties of the office, and not for reasons unrelated to their performance, to help preserve IG independence.”
In addition to Grassley, two Republicans signed the Wednesday letter: Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah, who both criticized Trump’s posture toward Ukraine. Romney was the only Republican to vote to convict the president in his impeachment trial.
The Democratic signers were Gary Peters of Michigan, Mark Warner of Virginia, Ron Wyden of Oregon, Dianne Feinstein of California and Jon Tester of Montana.
| 1,269,771 |
The dotard has been showing such manly strength and resolve on the world stage lately – ceding Syria to the Russian and Turks, ending sanctions to one of the worst actors in the 2016 election interference scheme, and meekly allowing those same Russians to violate the Monroe Doctrine and place offensive weapons In Venezuela – that North Korea and Rocket man have chosen this exact moment to give the orange idiot the old one finger salute.
AP News
“SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea said Thursday it will never unilaterally give up its nuclear weapons unless the United States first removes what Pyongyang called a nuclear threat. The surprisingly blunt statement jars with Seoul’s rosier presentation of the North Korean position and could rattle the fragile trilateral diplomacy to defuse a nuclear crisis that last year had many fearing war. The latest from North Korea comes as the United States and North Korea struggle over the sequencing of the denuclearization that Washington wants and the removal of international sanctions desired by Pyongyang. The statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency also raises credibility problems for the liberal South Korean government, which has continuously claimed that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is genuinely interested in negotiating away his nuclear weapons as Seoul tries to sustain a positive atmosphere for dialogue. The North’s comments may also be seen as proof of what outside skeptics have long said: that Kim will never voluntarily relinquish an arsenal he sees as a stronger guarantee of survival than whatever security assurances the United States might provide. The statement suggests North Korea will eventually demand the United States withdraw or significantly reduce the 28,500 American troops stationed in South Korea, a major sticking point in any disarmament deal…. ….But North Korea for decades has been pushing a concept of denuclearization that bears no resemblance to the American definition, with Pyongyang vowing to pursue nuclear development until the United States removes its troops and the nuclear umbrella defending South Korea and Japan. In Thursday’s statement, the North made clear it’s sticking to its traditional stance on denuclearization. It accused Washington of twisting what had been agreed on in Singapore and driving post-summit talks into an impasse.”
Of course none of this is surprising and, indeed is entirely predictable to everyone but the dotard and his brain dead followers.
This statement would only be instructive if it led to a complete dismissal of the idea among drumpf’s followers that the Singapore Summit would lead to any sort of compromise by North Korea on its Nuclear Weapons program. The U.S. is not going to fold its nuclear umbrella over North Korea because that would necessarily cripple our deterrent capabilities as regards China and Russia. Outside of a comprehensive agreement on disarmament, which is desirable but not likely, among the four parties that have nuclear capabilities in Eastern Asia, North Korea will keep on building nukes.
But drumpf’s acolytes will happily consume any happy horesh** he lays before them, so the admin, and its mouthpiece Fox News will try to find a way to spin this announcement as a win. | 1,269,772 |
AUSTIN, Texas – Aiming to diminish anti-Muslim attitudes in America, Austin churches are taking part of a new banner campaign to show support to their Muslim neighbors and promote mutual understanding between people of different faiths.
“These banners are something simple, concrete and visible, and we hope they will lead to many, many acts of mutual understanding and compassionate work among people of different religious faiths,” the Rev. John Elford said at the late April launch party for area churches when his congregation, University United Methodist Church, unveiled its banner, My Statesman reported on Sunday, May 15.
Elford was talking about a half-dozen red and white signs raised by University of Texas-area churches, proclaiming, “We stand with our Muslim neighbors.”
The campaign, titled “The Banner Project”, is sponsored by the nonprofit Interfaith Action for Human Rights.
Raising the first banner at the Congregational Church of Austin, parishioners marched to the Nueces Mosque down the street to be sure that the Muslim community supported the project.
At the mosque, they attended an open house where they shared a meal next to rooms where Muslims wash and pray.
“We didn’t want to be presumptuous,” Rev. Tom VandeStadt, pastor at Congregational, said.
After the mosque visit, 14 other churches and synagogues have since raised signs.
The timing of the campaign was very important, coming amid increasing anti-Muslim rhetoric in presidential election primaries.
A recent report by the Southern Poverty Law Center found that 40 percent of educators are hesitant to teach about the election in class because of those messages.
“It is very clear to me that being a bystander to hatred and intolerance makes it possible for hatred and intolerance to grow,” Bonnie Tamres-Moore said.
Classes on Islam
The efforts were extended to University-area churches, including University United Methodist, which will offer classes on Islam this fall to ensure that Muslim students feel welcome and supported.
Elford said the campaign comes down to “love thy neighbor.”
“Growing up, I kind of thought that was pretty much a noncontroversial statement and that anybody would accept that,” he said.
“But you find that in the midst of all that we’re seeing around us, that we need to be reminded to love our neighbors.”
Muslims make up 1% of America’s 322 million population, according to Pew Research center.
Anti-Muslim sentiments have reached an all-time high after the rise of the so-called Islamic State, formerly known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Moreover, the Republican presidential candidates, such as Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson, have added to increasing anti-Muslim sentiments.
Trump’s views on immigration have sparked controversy nationwide, especially his proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the US. | 1,269,773 |
The United States has just started renegotiating its free trade deal with Canada and Mexico, but President Trump is already warning the talks may fail.
"Personally, I don't think we can make a deal because we have been so badly taken advantage of," Trump said during a rally in Arizona on Tuesday night. "I think we'll end up probably terminating NAFTA at some point."
Officials from the U.S., Canada and Mexico met in Washington last week to officially start renegotiating NAFTA, the deal that has bound the three economies together since 1994.
Related: Why hasn't Trump used his'sledgehammer' on trade?
Trump frequently blasted NAFTA on the campaign trail, labeling it "the worst trade deal" in U.S. history and blaming it for the loss of manufacturing jobs in America's Rust Belt.
But after taking office, Trump agreed to renegotiate the pact rather than moving to kill it straight away. He made the decision in April after talking to the leaders of Canada and Mexico.
Terminating NAFTA would be "a pretty big shock to the system," Trump admitted. He warned, though, that it could still happen if he is "unable to make a fair deal."
Related: Day 1 of NAFTA talks: 'This agreement has failed'
Negotiations between the three countries got off to a tense start last week.
"For countless Americans, this agreement has failed," U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said at a news conference. "We cannot ignore the huge trade deficits, the lost manufacturing jobs, the businesses that have closed or moved because of incentives, intended or not, in the current agreement."
He noted, though, that NAFTA has benefited many Americans, such as farmers, and said the U.S., Canada and Mexico have a strong friendship.
"I personally don't think you can make a deal without a termination, but we're going to see what happens, OK?" Trump said Tuesday night. "You're in good hands, I can tell you."
It was unclear if his comments were a negotiating tactic, an off-the-cuff nod to his supporters or a serious prediction of the outcome of the talks. But the words are unlikely to help the atmosphere at the negotiations, whose future rounds are due to take place in Mexico and Canada in the coming months.
Related: Renegotiating NAFTA -- in 14 easy steps
A great deal is at stake. Millions of jobs and thousands of companies rely on NAFTA. U.S. consumers benefit hugely from free trade, but many factory workers say they've gotten a raw deal, with their jobs outsourced to Mexico.
Mexican and Canadian leaders have framed their aims as "modernizing" NAFTA to better reflect how trade works now, including adding guidelines for e-commerce.
"The issue is not tearing apart what works, but rather making our agreement work better," Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo Villarreal said last week.
-- Patrick Gillespie and Eric Bradner contributed to this report. | 1,269,774 |
might also be interested in the crypto market but don’t necessarily want to open a different trading account to get access to it. A listed crypto company would, therefore, make it easier for them to invest through the channels that they are already used to.
Finally, a reverse merger can help a crypto company gain access to a different market by acquiring a controlling share in a shell company that is located in a different country. Again, this is beneficial if the organization is established in a country where regulators are pushing back on IPO applications from crypto companies, as is the case in Hong Kong.
Three of the world’s biggest manufacturers of cryptocurrency mining rigs — Bitmain Technologies, Canaan Creative and Ebang International Holdings — have all logged IPO applications to get listed on the HKEX. None of them have yet been approved, with HKEX’s chief executive, Charles Li Xiaojia, citing volatility, the absence of regulation and inconsistency in business offerings as the main reasons:
“If a company made billions of U.S. dollars through Business A, but suddenly said it will do Business B without showing any performance, or said Business B is better, then I don’t think the Business A featured in their application will be sustainable.”
However, Argo Mining, a smaller cryptocurrency mining subscription company, successfully applied for an IPO on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in August 2018. They raised 25 million British pounds (close to $33 million) in their public offering, with a firm valuation of 47 million pounds (around $61.5 million) directly after the IPO.
Beneficial in theory, but will it pay off?
In theory, there are many benefits for crypto companies to take this backdoor listing strategy, especially in a bear market. But its effectiveness to be profitable in reality will depend on factors unique to each case, many of which relate to the status, financial health and investor perception of the public shell company that it is invested into.
If we just look at the performance of the reverse IPO mentioned above, the numbers would suggest that the strategy is not paying off as of yet, although these are by no means the only blockchain and crypto-related companies that have followed the backdoor listing process.
The share price of Leap Holdings Group Ltd. dropped more than 53 percent from HK$0.39 ($0.05) to HK$0.18 ($0.023) per share since its reverse IPO with OKC Holdings Corp, while Novogratz’ Galaxy Digital suffered similar losses, from 2.30 Canadian dollars ($1.75) per share price in August 2018 to CA$1.38 ($1.05) per share at the end of January 2019 — a drop of 40 percent.
On the other hand, Pantronics holdings saw very slight gains of 6.5 percent from HK$3.08 ($0.39) per share in August 2018 — when they entered the reverse merger with Huobi Global — to HK$3.28 ($0.42) per share on Jan. 30, 2019. | 1,269,775 |
So far this year, lawmakers in at least five states have introduced legislation to prohibit the practice of shackling pregnant inmates.
The shackling of pregnant women who are incarcerated or detained is a practice that is permitted in most states.
Handcuffs via Shutterstock
Lawmakers in several states have recently introduced bills banning the practice of shackling pregnant women who are incarcerated or detained during labor and delivery.
As of 2010, there were more than 200,000 women incarcerated in federal, state, and local facilities. In state prisons, one in 25 female inmates are pregnant when admitted, and one in 33 are pregnant when admitted to federal prisons. There are currently 18 states that have laws either prohibiting or restricting the shackling or restraining of pregnant inmates.
So far this year, lawmakers in at least five states have introduced legislation to prohibit the practice of shackling pregnant inmates.
Del. Mary Washington (D-Baltimore City) introduced HB 27 into the Maryland House of Representatives, and the House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on the bill Tuesday.
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Washington told Rewire that she first became aware of the issue while meeting with activists from Power Inside, an organization in Baltimore that serves women affected by gender-based violence and oppression. While speaking with formerly incarcerated women, Washington heard stories of pregnant women who had been subjected to the practice. “One of challenges that these women face is that they are permanently scarred, emotionally and in some ways physically, from being restrained during pregnancy and during birth,” she said.
Washington drafted the legislation after reviewing laws banning the practice in other states, consulting with students at the University of Maryland Law Clinic, and working with Power Inside and the ACLU. Last year, Washington introduced a bill based on this work that passed the house, but it became “extremely watered down.” It also faced resistance from law enforcement and the state corrections agency.
Washington said that support from the general public has been limited, which she believes is in large part due to the marginalized population that the law addresses. “When we imagine people as part of our correctional institutions, they lose their humanity,” she said.
Washington says this year’s bill is stronger and has support from hospitals and health-care practitioners, helping to frame the issue as one of public health.
Similar pieces of legislation have also been introduced in New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and Iowa. Sen. Janet Petersen (D-Des Moines) introduced legislation this year; she too met with resistance after sponsoring a similar bill last year. “Sometimes issues that you think should be a slam dunk are the hardest to get passed,” said Petersen.
Meanwhile, at the federal level, push-back over incidents in which undocumented pregnant women were restrained during labor and delivery recently led to the inclusion of a provision in the omnibus spending bill signed by President Obama to ban the practice of shackling pregnant women detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. | 1,269,776 |
An Organic Farm Under Threat
Azure Farms is a working, Certified Organic farm located in Moro, Central Oregon, in Sherman County. It has been Certified Organic for about 18 years. The farm produces almost all the organic wheat, field peas, barley, Einkorn, and beef for Azure Standard.
Sherman County is changing the interpretation of its statutory code from controlling noxious weeds to eradicating noxious weeds. These weeds include Morning Glory, Canada Thistle, and Whitetop, all of which have been on the farm for many years, but that only toxic chemicals will eradicate.
Organic farming methods – at least as far as we know today – can only control noxious weeds—it is very difficult to eradicate them.
What's Happening?
Sherman County may be issuing a Court Order on May 22, 2017, to quarantine Azure Farms and possibly to spray the whole farm with poisonous herbicides, contaminating them with Milestone, Escort and Roundup herbicides.
This will destroy all the efforts Azure Farms has made for years to produce the very cleanest and healthiest food humanly possible. About 2,000 organic acres would be impacted; that is about 2.8 times the size of the City of London, England, and 1.5 times the size of the city center of Philadelphia that could be sprayed with noxious, toxic, polluting herbicides.
The county would then put a lien on the farm to pay for the expense of the labor and chemicals used.
Take Action Now
If you are concerned about where your food comes from, enjoy Organic and non-GMO food grown in the United States, and support organic farmers, contact Sherman County Court before May 22, 2017 (and preferably before May 17 when the next court discussion will be held).
Contact info:
Via email at [email protected] or… Call Lauren at 541-565-3416.
Raise your voice and speak up for you and your families and communities.
This proposed action is completely unreasonable and would destroy an organic farm and pollute a massive area. If enough voices that benefit from organic produce speak up, the county will understand that there are people that care about their food NOT containing toxic chemicals. And if the supporters of healthy food can have a louder voice than the supporters of toxic chemicals, every politician will listen. PLEASE take action today and share this message. Overwhelm the Sherman County representatives with your voice.
Take Action Today
Email or call Sherman County via email at [email protected] or call Lauren at 541-565-3416.
Thank you for all your support and well wishes so far.
Above all, please take action directly today. If you would like more information on this, feel free to add your name below and we will be in touch.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Nathan Stelzer
Azure Farm Manager | 1,269,777 |
A patent complaint that Segway filed with the US International Trade Commission in 2014 has resulted in a wide-ranging order banning "personal transporters" that infringe some of its patents.
On Wednesday, the ITC issued a general exclusion order banning several types of the self-balancing devices, often called "hoverboards." The case could affect the whole market, since a general exclusion order is the commission's most powerful remedy and can affect even parties not involved in the investigation.
There's also a limited exclusion order issued directly against the products of several Chinese companies sued by Segway. Only one of those companies responded and fought the case at all, while the others were in default.
The general ban applies to any device infringing US Patent No. 8,830,048, which could be a whole lot of products. The first claim of that patent describes a transporter with a drive, wheels, a "sensor for sensing the pitch of the user support," "yaw input," and a "control loop" for determining torque. Claim 2, also included in the exclusion order, describes the same thing, where the "user support" includes a handlebar.
Segway's complaint names 13 different companies. Five companies had their cases terminated by reaching settlements or consent orders with Segway. The companies that cut a deal are Ninebot, Robstep, Shenzhen Inmotion, Tech in the City, and FreeGo USA. Meanwhile, UPTECH, UP Technology, UP Robotics, FreeGo China, and EcoBoomer all defaulted and are subject to the order. Only one company, Roboscooters, defended itself but lost its case. (The Commission's Office of Unfair Import Investigations was also named as a party, which is supposed to represent the public.)
In an odd reversal, one of the companies Segway sued in 2014, Beijing-based Ninebot, actually purchased Segway in 2015. The merged company then apparently pushed ahead with this case against its rivals.
Once the full ITC has issued an exclusion order, the president has 60 days to decide whether to accept it—and it's rare that he blocks the order. President Barack Obama overturned an exclusion order against older iPhones, the first time that a president has used that power since the 1980s.
Enforcing an exclusion order isn't simple. Lawyers for the plaintiff will have to work with US Customs to get the order enforced. Microsoft won an exclusion order in 2013 and found it so difficult to enforce it ended up filing a lawsuit to demand compliance. The ITC has the power to ban imports of goods that are found to infringe US patents. ITC investigations tend to move forward faster than federal courts, and because they can ban imports, the commission essentially has the injunction power that federal courts now rarely exercise in patent cases.
Segway's original dorky-looking standing scooters never took off. At CES this year, the company rolled out a hoverboard that turns into a robot. Segway didn't respond to a request for comment from Gizmodo, which first reported the story. | 1,269,778 |
Story highlights Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy signed a bill into law that abolishes the death penalty
In last five years, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Illinois have repealed death penalty
California voters will decide the issue in November
Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy signed a bill into law Wednesday that abolishes the death penalty, making his state the 17th in the nation to abandon capital punishment and the fifth in five years to usher in a repeal.
The law is effective immediately, though prospective in nature, meaning that it would not apply to those already sentenced to death. It replaces the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of release as the state's highest form of punishment.
"Although it is an historic moment -- Connecticut joins 16 other states and the rest of the industrialized world by taking this action -- it is a moment for sober reflection, not celebration," Malloy said in a statement.
He added that the "unworkability" of Connecticut's death penalty law was a contributing factor in his decision.
"In the last 52 years, only two people have been put to death in Connecticut -- and both of them volunteered for it," Malloy said. "Instead, the people of this state pay for appeal after appeal, and then watch time and again as defendants are marched in front of the cameras, giving them a platform of public attention they don't deserve."
This month, lawmakers in the state's House of Representatives passed the bill by a vote of 86 to 63. The state Senate had approved it a week before.
State lawmakers first tried to pass a similar bill in 2009 but were ultimately blocked by then-Gov. Jodi Rell, a Republican.
Capital punishment has existed in the Nutmeg State since its colonial days. But it was forced to review its death penalty laws beginning in 1972, when a Supreme Court decision required greater consistency in its application.
A moratorium was then imposed until a 1976 decision by the high court upheld the constitutionality of capital punishment.
Since then, Connecticut juries have handed down 15 death sentences. Of those, only one person has been executed, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonpartisan group that studies death penalty laws.
Michael Ross, a convicted serial killer, was put to death by lethal injection in 2005 after he voluntarily gave up his appeals.
The state now has 11 people on death row.
Advocates of a repeal say that Connecticut's past law kept inmates -- who were often engaged in multiple appeals -- on death row for extended periods of time, costing taxpayers far more than if the convicts were serving a life sentence in the general prison population.
They also point to instances in which wrongful convictions have been overturned with new investigative methods, including forensic testing.
Opponents of the repeal had said that capital punishment is a criminal deterrent that offers justice for victims and their families.
In the last five years, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Illinois have repealed the death penalty. California voters will decide the issue in November. | 1,269,779 |
, purchased a handful of the phone cases for students for use during the 2016-17 school year, but opted not to continue using them this year.
“It just wasn’t something they felt was necessary to use again,” Strive spokeswoman Chyrise Harris said.
Other schools are excited about the possibilities of Yondr and are counting on giving teachers wide leeway on how to use them, whether as a deterrent that is dangled at the beginning of class or as a matter of course upon entering the room. Either way, the fact that kids get to keep the phones removes a measure of liability from the teacher or the school district.
“We might use them for kids during field trips, but really do not know,” said Ryan Kockler, principal of Montclair School of Academics and Enrichment, which is testing 30 Yondr bags this year.
Yondr CEO and founder Graham Dugoni said his company — which is mostly rental-based — is simply a facilitator. It’s up to the people who lease or purchase the bags as to how they want to use them.
“The cases are form-fitting and as soon as the phone goes into the case, two flaps at the top close and they’re locked,” he said. “The only way to unlock it is by tapping the case with one of the unlocking tools. It’s been constructed so they’re quick and easy to use, but also don’t block people’s signals.”
If a student is waiting to hear from a parent, or a parent from a babysitter at a concert, they could simply set their phone to vibrate and have it unlocked once that happens, Dugoni said.
Educators at the metro-area schools piloting Yondr said it is paid for with nontaxpayer classroom fees, or facility fees earned by renting building space, for example, for community sports functions.
While Comedy Works’ Curtis spent about $10,000 on purchasing Yondr bags and unlocking devices for her clubs, the company usually cuts deals with schools. A bulk order may place the cost closer to $20 per bag to purchase, or $2 per unit per day to rent.
Either way, the blissful calm that falls over an environment free of cellphones feels like a breath of fresh air, according to the teachers, comics and audience members who have experienced it. Much like banning cigarettes at comedy clubs — another fidgety and ultimately unhealthy addiction.
“I’ve seen people get really upset about (Yondr) and hear more and more people lying about needing to have their phones during shows,” said comic Christie Buchele, who performs at Comedy Works. “But even if people are lying, it has the intended effect, which is to force them to think about the habitual, mindless need to stare at their phones. I mean, I do it. Everybody does it.” | 1,269,780 |
Council is eyeing $36 million in potential federal transit cash for an ambitious express bus expansion that requires a pricey new garage.
The catch: local taxpayers would have to cover the remainder of the estimated $150-million cost of the so-called bus barn.
The federal government announced a $1.49 billion funding agreement with the province Tuesday that is expected to result in transit grants to Ontario cities based on ridership. Hamilton should qualify for up to $36 million under that formula.
The "critical" bus transit priority for Hamilton is a storage and maintenance garage, acting transit director Gerry Davis told councillors Tuesday.
The city's 10-year transit plan calls for 100 new buses to extend express service up and across the Mountain and to growing communities like Waterdown. But Hamilton's existing 200-vehicle garage on the Mountain is already out of room, said Davis, with the fleet slated to grow to 260 buses next year.
Right now, extra buses are being stored outdoors in park-and-ride locations and paved areas normally used to pile snow after winter storms. "Just getting those buses out of there during a bad snowstorm is going to be problematic," he said.
Until that space crunch is resolved, the service expansion plan "is basically on hold."
Hamilton originally asked Metrolinx for bus barn cash along with a request to fund light rail transit through the lower city. The province announced $1 billion for LRT last year, but has not agreed to fund conventional bus projects.
Now, the city is exploring the idea of applying for the maximum $36 million federal transit grant to help offset the cost of the garage, which would also include maintenance equipment, a refuelling depot and paint shop.
Davis told councillors an early $200-million building estimate has been slashed based on design changes and because the city is eyeing its own nine-acre property near a Wentworth Street North operations building.
The city actually bought the land last year as an option for a LRT maintenance facility, but project lead Metrolinx rejected the site as too far from the King-Main corridor line.
Some councillors expressed unease about the high cost of accepting the federal cash.
"What if (the grant) is approved and we can't come up with the rest of the funding?" asked Coun. Lloyd Ferguson. "Look at the angst LRT is causing around the table (and) it's 100 per cent funded."
City finance head Mike Zegarac said he would come back to council this fall — when cities must make their applications — with potential financing plans that include development charge cash and debt-financing of $7 million a year.
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Coun. Tom Jackson noted the city's existing Wentworth Street operations centre started life as a bus facility and asked if the city could simply retrofit that building instead.
That is possible, Davis said — but the move would require relocating other public works departments and the city's disabled transit (DARTS) fleet. | 1,269,781 |
Today we are here to learn about google machine learning. Google machine learning is a valuable tool to help engineers at Microsoft, Google and everywhere else make sense of the data. As we already know that, how much demand of the engineers those are using machine learning now a day.
Every software engineers, needs to better three things here.
Reduce the time you spend on programming Customize your product for a specific group of people Complete "Un-programmable tasks"
Reduce the time you spend on programming
For example I want to write a program to correct spellings, to do so I could do a lot of things and apply some rules of thumbs in such a manner that "e" before "j" and "u" before "o". And after a long week of hard work we may or may not be able to do these. On the other hand we can do this using machine learning tool / google machine learning to feed it some example and get a more reliable program in a small fraction of time.
Customize your product for a specific group of people
Use google machine learning to scale your product. For example I produce my English spelling character writing code by hand, and I got success to do that. Next what if I want to do this for one hundred most popular languages?
The answer is I would start from scratch to do all of these each languages and we take years of effort. But if I built this using google machine learning than it's not a big deal to move towards another language.
How to achieve this using google machine leaning
Just need to collect data in that language and feed that data into the google machine learning model. Remember this model is same as we have already used the data in our first approximation machine learning process of first language.
Complete "Un-programmable tasks"
Google Machine learning let you solve problem that as a programmer you have no idea how to solve it by hand. As a human being I am the ability to recognize human faces and understand their speech. But I do all of these subconsciously. If you ask me to write down the complete code of recognize human being, than I would be completely stuck. But using google machine learning these tasks are performed very well.
How?
I don’t need to tell the algorithm what to do or how to do. I only need to show the algorithm lots of examples and from that the tasks can be solved using machine learning.
Conclusion of google machine learning
Besides these three practical reasons for mastering machine learning there are some more reason that google machine learning change the way of thinking. In machine learning the focus shifts from the mathematical science to a natural science. We are making observations of un-certain world. We are running experiments and using statistics not logic to solve problems and analyzing results. The ability to think like a scientist will expand your horizons and open up new areas that you could not explore without machine learning. | 1,269,782 |
Following a report yesterday that US and UK spies hacked Dutch security firm Gemalto to track mobile phone users across the globe, the company says it has opened an investigation into the claims.
Allegations of the hack came from the latest documents leaked by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden and published by The Intercept yesterday.
According to the documents, the UK's surveillance agency GCHQ and the US' NSA teamed up in 2010 and 2011 to penetrate Gemalto's internal network and steal encryption keys that would allow the organisations to monitor mobile communications without the assistance of telecoms companies.
Gemalto produces embedded software on chips used in online banking and electronic identity authentication. It also makes up to two billion SIM cards each year, which are supplied to 450 wireless network providers across the globe and were the alleged chief target of the spy agencies' efforts.
The Dutch company issued a statement today saying it wasn't aware of the attack but that it couldn't confirm whether the allegations were true. The company also said it will also launch an investigation.
"The publication indicates the target was not Gemalto per se - it was an attempt to try and cast the widest net possible to reach as many mobile phones as possible, with the aim to monitor mobile communications without mobile network operators and users consent. We cannot at this early stage verify the findings of the publication and had no prior knowledge that these agencies were conducting this operation," the company said.
"We take this publication very seriously and will devote all resources necessary to fully investigate and understand the scope of such sophisticated techniques," it added.
Cryptography expert Matthew Green at the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute told The Intercept that while there were other ways to sidestep mobile security on 2G protocols, the encryption keys would have been "essential" to compromising 3G, 4G, and LTE protocols.
As the publication points out, the encrypted connection between a device and a mobile operator's network relies on keys stored in the SIM card inserted into the phone. Those keys are created by companies like Gemalto.
However, as Green notes, network operators are unlikely to be treating SIM cards as security tokens but rather as a tool to prevent people freeloading on their network. Consequently, that part of the supply chain is low-hanging, but extremely valuable, fruit for an attacker with the skill set and resources of a government agency.
The NSA's and GCHQ's alleged attack on Gemalto is just the latest European campaign the pair have reportedly teamed up on. Snowden documents also revealed an attack on Belgian telecoms operator Belgacom that was spearheaded by a sophisticated piece of malware called Regin.
GCHQ agents targeted Belgacom engineers through a spoofed LinkedIn page, using credentials it gathered to gain entry to the operator's internal systems.
Gemalto said that it has "detected, logged and mitigated many types of attempts over the years", however, at present it could not prove a link between those past attempts and the events reported yesterday.
Read more on this story | 1,269,783 |
Former Director of the CIA and NSA, General Michael Hayden stated stated on Wednesday “the original sin [of Hillary Clinton] is actually co-mingling the two accounts [private and work] and not using a government e-mail server.”
Hayden, appearing on “Morning Joe,” added the “NSA does this all the time against, I would suggest better defended targets” then where Hillary Clinton had her server.
Joe Scarborough: It’s been your job to protect classified material for a very long time. This morning you wake up and you find out that the Secretary of State, for several years, had classified documents going through a server that was in an apartment loft bathroom in Denver, Colorado. Can you even begin to tell us what you would have done if you found out someone working with you while you’re at the CIA had done this?
Michael Hayden: Well, let me turn that around, Joe and ask a slightly different question. What would I have done as the director of NSA against a foreign, foreign minister who had done that? I’d move heaven and earth to access the private e-mail account of a foreign minister. And I really go after an e-mail account in which the official and the unofficial e-mails were co-mingled. You put a very juicy target out there.
MSNBC Panel: How easy would that be?
Hayden: Well, frankly, not very difficult if you have the resources and talented people to go people to go after it. NSA does this all the time against, I would suggest better defended targets than we saw in the loft in the apartment in Denver. But Joe, I think the fundamental issue here is the sin here. And Ron, you’ve mentioned this, the sin here is the original sin. Alright, the original sin is actually co-mingling the two accounts and not using a government e-mail server. Look, there’s a big gray area that exists even in the unclassified government e-mail accounts. But you’re fire walled against most wrongdoing there by the fact you’re using a government account that has some protections to it. Once you remove that, I’m stunned that her staff allowed her to do that in 2009 given the unhappy outcome that was guaranteed once you started doing that.
Scarborough: Are you stunned that the State..
Mika Brzezinski: She said it was legal and that everything was above board.
Hayden: Number one, put legality aside just for a second, it’s stupid and dangerous. And now I would challenge…
Scarborough: Dangerous to whom?
Hayden: Dangerous to her and to the Republic and to American secrets. But Mika, I don’t even think it was legal. That has to be against policy. Look, most folks like me, I never had a smart phone until I left government because of the sensitivity of the information I would put on there even if it were unclassified. | 1,269,784 |
On 2nd of January 2018, Satyavijayi covered the story about how Rohingya Muslims are being settled down in several rural areas of West Bengal. Now months after the Satyavijayi story, new shocking developments about the situation are coming up.
Hindu Samhati founder, Tapan Ghosh had recently tweeted an image of a large number of Muslim people including woman and children. He claimed all the the people seen in the image are Rohingya Muslims and belong to one single family, that got shelter in West Bengal.
https://twitter.com/hstapanghosh/status/973990532878761984?s=20
We decided to dig more into the entire situation and in order to do so, we contacted Mr, Prasun Maitra, an advocate and leader of Hindu Samhati. What Prasum told us about the large scale Rohingya settlement that is going on in West Bengal, is both terrifying and worrisome.
Prasun told us that most of the Rohingya muslims are being settled in a rural village named Hardah, that is under Baruipur police station of South 24 Pargana district. He alleged that entire settlement of illegal Rohingya infiltrators in Hardah Village is being carried out under the name of a group named ‘Desh Bachao Committee’ led by Hosen Gazi. He further suggested that Rohingyas are being given regular lessons of Bengali language and expressed his concerns that in next census all of them will identify themselves as natives.
After receiving important information from Prasun Maitra, we proceeded to investigate about the so-called ‘Desh Bachao Committee.’ During our investigation we came across a leaflet of a program that was organized at Rohingya camp in Hardah Village by the same organization on 22nd February 2018.
The leaflet lists a total of 22 individuals as Chief guests in the program, this includes names like Soukat Molla (MLA of TMC from Canning East), Nirmal Mandal (MLA of TMC from Baruipur East), Shyamal Mandal (MLA of TMC from Canning West), and Arijit Sinha (SP of Baruipur).
https://twitter.com/me_sourish/status/974170484525776896?s=20
Rural areas of West Bengal like Ghutiari Sharif and Hardah are being filled with illegal Rohingya population under the nose of State Government and allegedly with their consent. Reports of Rohingyas illegally infiltrating and settling in various areas of West Bengal are floating around social media from quite a some time. Questions are also being raised at the intentions of Central Government as it is their duty to ensure Border Security Force prevents the cross border infiltration.
Top TMC leaders and administrative officials attending programs organized by ‘Desh Bachao Committee’ at Rohingya camps seem to indicate that the Mamata Banerjee Government is well aware of the Rohingya settlements and is probably supporting it.
Comments | 1,269,785 |
The reaction caught McCullough by surprise. He had attended several other graduations that weekend, including his son’s, and by the following Monday, he said, his speech felt like “three graduations ago.” He was not prepared for the avalanche of emails, interview requests, and even book deals that followed.
“I was floored. I thought I was speaking merely to the people sitting in front of me. I was aware of the grandstand full of friends and family. I was unaware that it was being videotaped,” said McCullough. “I was concerned that suddenly I became the story and we were taking away from the kids." But his ideas had clearly attracted interest, and last month, he published a book: You Are Not Special and Other Encouragements, which argues that the pressure to excel prevents students from taking chances and learning from failure.
***
Wellesley, Massachusetts is a special place. The town, home to Wellesley College, Babson College, and several other private schools, is affluent and well-educated. Former astronauts, famous writers, and brilliant scientists have all resided in Wellesley. The town is known for its excellent public school system, its many golf courses, and its proximity to downtown Boston.
The town also has a nurturing atmosphere in which children thrive. According to Boston Magazine’s “Best Schools in Boston 2013,” Wellesley High School’s students have a 98.3 percent graduation rate, and 95.1 percent earn a score of 3-5 on AP exams. Wellesley students’ SAT scores average a 623 in reading, 631 in writing, and 631 in math. These kids are born and bred for success.
That’s what worries McCullough. “If you remove from the kid the notion that every step is crucially important, all expectations are spectacular achievement, and allow him to operate free from adult scrutiny and be a regular kid and follow his interests, it makes for a much healthier educational attitude,” he said.
Since he first began teaching 26 years ago, McCullough says, priorities have shifted greatly. “[Students] have become ever more intent on assembling an impressive GPA... A ‘B’ is now understood to be an average grade. And because the grade is the point and to be average is to be a bit of a loser—everyone has to be high achieving.”
Today’s adults grew up with asphalt playgrounds, playing outside unsupervised until dinner. But today’s kids are strapped in car seats from birth, and McCollough sees his students slowly losing autonomy. “The kids now seem so directed and scheduled—they're tutored and coached and the degree to which parents are involved in their lives is … well, one notices,” he said. “They’re getting very little experience conducting their own lives and living with the consequences of their decisions. When they stumble, their parents step in, denying them very important formative experiences.” | 1,269,786 |
We've pooled the IGN offices and asked our editors with their experiences playing PlayStation VR launch and launch-window games. We asked them to define their comfort level, and we've pooled and summarized the results in the table below.
Comfort levels are characterized as "No Discomfort," "Some Discomfort," and "Strong Discomfort." Virtual Reality effects players in different ways, and these opinions are subjective and sometimes represent an average or aggregate of experiences from a very small group.
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Game
VR Sickness Comfort Level Review Link Batman Arkham VR
No Discomfort Review Battlezone
Some Discomfort Review Driveclub VR No Discomfort Review EVE: Valkyrie No Discomfort Review Harmonix Music VR
No Discomfort Review Headmaster
No Discomfort Review Here They Lie
Strong Discomfort Review Job Simulator
No Discomfort Review The Playroom VR No Discomfort Review PlayStation VR Worlds
No Discomfort Review Resident Evil 7 Demo Some Discomfort Review Rez Infinite
No Discomfort Review RIGS Mechanized Combat League
Some Discomfort Review Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration - Comfort Mode On No Discomfort Review Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration - Comfort Mode Off Strong Discomfort Review Superhypercube No Discomfort Review Tumble VR No Discomfort Review Thumper
No Discomfort Review Until Dawn: Rush of Blood
No Discomfort Review Wayward Sky
No Discomfort Review
Editor Comments
Battlezone: Battlezone's speedy action was fun in VR, but the constant circle strafing, sharp 180s, and acceleration made me feel a little dizzy. The "floatiness" of the tank I was controlling didn't help. -Chloi Rad
Here They Lie: Here They Lie’s surrealist elements — twisting hallways and buildings that change as you move through them, among other things — were really bad for my nausea. -Kallie Plagge
Resident Evil 7 Demo: Resident Evil 7's Beginning Hour demo is the one and only VR experience to ever make me legitimately motion sick, something that I don't ever get. Using a controller to walk around in first-person while freely looking around with the headset was uncomfortably jarring, and I had to sit down for about 30 minutes after to feel okay again. -Chloi Rad
RIGS Mechanized Combat League: On Friday I was overcome with feelings of general discomfort, nausea, and fatigue while playing Sony’s big-mech combat game, RIGS. Afterwards, I immediately needed to lie down and take a 20 minute nap. I tried to play it three more times and felt sick for the rest of the day. -Jose Otero
Rise of the Tomb Raider: Rise of the Tomb Raider VR can be a blast -- in one control mode. But in Free Mode, Lara's movement is so slow and smooth that it instantly nauseated me, and left me with a head and stomach ache for the rest of the day. -Jonathon Dormbush | 1,269,787 |
Just when you thought skywatching couldn't get any better this month - the Leonid meteor shower put on quite a show for us earlier this week, in case you missed it - space continues to deliver, this time with the 'Seven Sisters' themselves, the Pleiades star cluster.
Located in the Taurus constellation 430 light-years away, Pleiades is one of the closest star clusters to Earth, which means it's visible to the naked eye from almost any position on the globe. Dominated by super-luminous stars glowing an extremely hot shade of blue, Pleiades is one of the most beautiful things you can see in the night sky without a telescope, and on the night of Friday 20 November, it's set to reach its highest point in the sky before dipping back down beyond the horizon.
According to Bruce McClure at EarthSky.com, the Pleiades can be seen from as far north as the north pole, and even farther south than the southernmost tip of South America, and it will be shining from dusk till dawn every night through till the end of November.
If you're keen on spotting it, you just need to locate the constellation of Orion, which shouldn't be too tricky, because it's one of the most conspicuous and easily recognisable constellations you'll see in the night sky. You know that amazingly perfect line of three stars you see when you look up? That's Orion's Belt - which means you're right on track. Great job so far.
Run your eyes in a straight line up through Orion's belt, and don't stop still you find another constellation. This is the Taurus constellation, and you should be able to find the large "V" shape that makes up the bull's face. It contains a particularly bright star, called Aldebaran, which acts as one of his flaming eyes. "A bit past Aldebaran, you’ll see the Pleiades cluster, which marks the Bull’s Shoulder," says McClure.
You can see it in the image below:
bibliotecapleyades.net
If you can find yourself a nice dark spot away from the light of the city, you should be able to make out six or seven of the Pleiades's brightest stars among a duller cloud of stars numbering in the hundreds. Born from the same dust cloud just 100 million years ago, these stars have enjoyed fame in both science and mythology because of their unusually tight and bright arrangement.
"This gravitationally bound cluster of several hundred stars looms some 430 light-years distant, and these sibling stars drift through space together at about 25 miles (40 kilometres) per second. Many of these Pleiades stars shine hundreds of times more brightly than our Sun," says McClure.
I don't know about you, but that sounds like something I want to see for myself. While the best time to see the Pleiades is right now, because they shine all night long, they'll be visible all the way through to April next year. | 1,269,788 |
Social media has played an important role in Hong Kong’s anti-government protests over the past few days with protesters planning their moves via apps and mainland China users apparently blocked from learning about the unrest on multiple platforms.
Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets since Sunday, protesting a proposed government law to allow extraditions to mainland China. Opponents of the bill are worried about the growing influence of Beijing on Hong Kong, and the potential erosion of the partly autonomous city’s rule of law.
A number of messaging services including Telegram and Facebook-owned WhatsApp were being used by protesters to organize rallies.
The large-scale use of Telegram was revealed when one administrator of a 30,000 strong group on the platform was arrested, according to the South China Morning Post, citing his lawyers. The individual, Ivan Ip, was accused of conspiracy to commit a public nuisance. CNBC has reached out to Ip’s lawyers but has yet to receive a response.
Telegram and WhatsApp are encrypted and in theory should not allow third-parties to snoop on conversations.
Several other major social media platforms were used to broadcast what was going on the ground. There was an hour-long live stream on Twitter-owned service Periscope. Users also posted to their Instagram Stories. Even Twitch, a platform that hosts video gaming-related live streams, had content about the Hong Kong protests.
In Hong Kong, services like Google, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are all freely available but are blocked in mainland China by the country’s so-called Great Firewall.
That means people in mainland China are subjected to government controls on the information they can access.
On microblogging site Weibo, the term “let’s go Hong Kong” was blocked with the platform citing “relevant laws, regulations and policies” as the reason for not showing search results. The same search query on Tencent’s popular messaging app WeChat did not yield any results related to the protests.
Wechat has censored pictures of the protest in HK. Chinese people have no idea what’s going on just across the border #返送中 pic.twitter.com/8EQXvvcnZq — Pak Yiu (@pakwayne) June 12, 2019
Pak Yiu, a video journalist in China for news service AFP, posted a screenshot of him sending an image of the Hong Kong protests to a friend. His friend, however, said they could not see the image, potentially demonstrating how WeChat is blocking content related to the protests.
On Wednesday, messaging service Telegram said it had suffered what’s known as a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. This is when a number of computers try to overload servers of a company with bogus requests. The result is that the service could stop working or it may slow down considerably.
Pavel Durov, CEO of Telegram, said that the IP addresses behind the attack were coming mainly from China and it coincided with the Hong Kong protests. | 1,269,789 |
Greetings from Playtest HQ! The time has come for us to move on from the River Kingdoms, closing out Part 4 of Doomsday Dawn. Now we turn our attention north, to a land ruined by demonic powers. That's right, we're going to the Worldwound in Part 5, The Heroes of Undarin!
Now, I don't want to give away any spoilers, but for those of you who are playing, make sure to touch base with your GM, as they have very special instructions for you as to how you should make your character for this dangerous mission!
As a reminder to all of you playtesters out there, the surveys for all of the previous parts of Doomsday Dawn are still open. Once you and your group have completed playing Part 5, The Heroes of Undarin, make sure to take the following surveys! Your feedback is vital in making sure we get the game right for its final release!
Player Survey | Game Master Survey | Open Survey
If you have completed the Doomsday Dawn surveys, consider giving us your feedback in the general surveys for Ancestries, Classes, Rules, and the Bestiary. These surveys can be found on the Pathfinder Playtest landing page.
Update 1.4 - All About Ancestry
The past two weeks have been a real whirlwind for us in the design pit. In the two weeks since the release of Update 1.3, which brought some pretty big changes to the game, we've been hard at work on Update 1.4. While this one is much more modest in terms of scope, it nevertheless brings a pretty big change to your game: an overhaul of the ancestries!
The one thing we've heard mentioned over and over (as well as in our Ancestry Survey) is that many of you felt like the ancestries weren't quite giving enough at 1st level. We also saw a number of responses saying that taking a feat to be a half-elf or half-orc was too steep a price to pay. This update makes changes to the way that ancestries work, while also giving you some additional high-level ancestry feats to use in your game!
Starting with this update, when you make a character, you select not only an ancestry, but also a heritage from within that ancestry. Your heritage gives you additional physical characteristics based on your lineage, and your choice of heritage is in addition to the ancestry feat that you gain at 1st level. Half-elf and half-orc are now choices within the human heritage list, which means that you can play a character from one of these heritages, and still take a 1st-level feat from either of your parents as well!
So go grab Update 1.4! Those new feats might just give your characters a shot in the arm for the upcoming challenges they must face in the horrible, demon-infested lands to the north!
Jason Bulmahn
Director of Game Design
Join the Pathfinder Playtest designers every Friday throughout the playtest on our Twitch Channel to hear all about the process and chat directly with the team. | 1,269,790 |
VM as soon as data execution (find the max number from 8 million rows of each column) is triggered.
After the data is backed up and data execution is done, we dropped the tables generated by the scripts for testing data recovery from the backup. All the data execution, backup and recovery jobs happened simultaneously in all the SAP HANA VMs.
Single SAP HANA Database VM Backup and Recovery Performance
Firstly, we are comparing the single VM scenarios 2a and 2b, due to the write amplification caused by erasure coding, data execution performance is better and it has less impact when backing up data to RAID 1 VMDK than to RAID 5 VMDK.
Also the backup speed of to the VMDKs with RAID 1 is about 2.5 times faster than to the VMDKs with RAID 5 because data backup is write heavy workload, the backup speed of test 5a is around 322MB/s and from Virtual SAN backend perspective, the throughput reached 710MB/s.
With regards to the speed of data recovery, there’s almost no difference between 2a and 2b since the data recovery is read heavy workload and erasure coding has minimal impact on the performance. Both of the test cases recovered all the data in five minutes.
Backup and Recovery Performance of Four SAP HANA Database VMs
Secondly, let’s compare the test cases of VMDK on Virtual SAN with VMDK on external NFS datastore. We took the average value of the data across all four VMs.
The figure below illustrates these two configurations.
By looking at the average data execution time between 2c and 2d, we can easily see that having backup VMDK on the external storage has less performance impact on the database performance because backing up to Virtual SAN datastore increases the write heavy workload to Virtual SAN while processing the database workload. However, the backup and recovery speed is absolutely dependent upon the performance of that external storage, the average backup speed of scenario 2c (backup on Virtual SAN RAID 1) is more than 3 times better than that of scenario 2d while the recovery time in 2c is about 25% of that in 2d.
In short, it costs less backup and recovery time by using Virtual SAN but there is a performance impact on the production database. If database performance during backup and recovery is a concern, consider external storage for better database performance during backup and recovery operations.
However, if there’s no suitable external storage for backup and recovery, then utilizing a backup VMDK on Virtual SAN can shorten the backup and recovery window, which is an alternative way of designing data backup and recovery architecture.
Summary
In conclusion, VMware Virtual SAN is a great fit for SAP HANA. The performance results prove that Virtual SAN, even with the new 6.2 features enabled, can handle the workload. Moreover, Virtual SAN can also deliver a rapid backup and recovery platform for SAP HANA while still servicing the production database. Stay tuned for the upcoming comprehensive reference architecture. | 1,269,791 |
A Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) is a standard for proposing changes to the Bitcoin protocol, or in some cases a source for information for the Bitcoin community. Additionally, some BIPs are proposed changes to the BIP process itself.
BIPs can include consensus-critical changes (like soft fork and hard fork protocol upgrades) but also other changes that benefit from coordination across different Bitcoin software implementations, such as changes to the peer-to-peer layer or new backup seed formats.
Further Reading: What Are Bitcoin Forks?
Not all changes to a Bitcoin software implementation affect the Bitcoin protocol, however. For example, some changes make the code run more efficiently, or change the user interface. Such changes, therefore, do not require a BIP.
Who Created the BIP Process?
The BIP process was first developed and introduced by early Bitcoin developer Amir Taaki, who also created the first alternative implementation of the Bitcoin protocol: Libbitcoin. Taaki believed that the Bitcoin development process would benefit from becoming more structured and accountable.
Taaki submitted the first BIP (BIP 0001) on August 19, 2011, which described the BIP process itself. It was heavily based on the process for improving Python, a programming language, described in Python Enhancement Proposal 0 (PEP 0).
How Does a BIP Get Adopted (or Rejected)?
Every BIP starts as a draft, submitted by one or several authors. (Although, even before a BIP is a draft, it’s typically discussed more informally on the Bitcoin development mailing list, Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channels and/or other venues.)
As a draft, the BIP can be changed and improved by the author(s), based on community feedback. In the case of Bitcoin protocol changes, it will also require a reference implementation, in code. If the proposal reaches community consensus, it will be considered final.
Pictured below is the BIP process as taken from BIP 0001.
Adoption ultimately happens as developers implement the code that reflects the BIP, and users choose to download and run this code.
What Do BIP Numbers Mean?
BIP numbers are assigned by the BIP editor. The current BIP editor is Bitcoin Core contributor and Bitcoin Knots maintainer Luke-Jr. BIPs are numbered once the draft BIP meets some minimal criteria. For example, it must comply with some formatting requirements, and the proposal must be considered complete.
The BIP editor can reserve certain ranges of numbers for proposals around a common theme. But really, the numbering doesn’t matter.
Are BIPs Binding?
No, BIPs are not binding. In the end, developers decide what code to implement, and everyone decides for themselves which software they run on their computer, and even which software and protocol they consider to be “Bitcoin.”
Further Reading: What Is Bitcoin?
For a more detailed overview of the BIP process see BIP 0001. | 1,269,792 |
Tom Hiddleston is to follow in the footsteps of his good friend Benedict Cumberbatch and play Hamlet on the London stage.
The Thor and Night Manager star will take on one of Shakespeare’s best known roles to help raise £20 million to regenerate RADA’s Chenies Street site in London in a production that will run for just three weeks.
The adaptation will be directed by Hiddleston’s Thor colleague Kenneth Branagh whose Olivier Award-winning theatre company will join forces with RADA for the co-production. The play will be staged from 1st to 23rd September 2017 at RADA’s 160-seat Jerwood Vanbrugh Theatre..
“Hamlet presents almost limitless possibilities for interpretation,” said Hiddleston. “I can’t wait to explore them, with this great cast, at RADA. Kenneth Branagh and I have long talked about working on the play together, and now felt like the right time, at the right place. To be guided through it by him as a director, an expert and a friend, is our great good fortune.
“The performing arts exist to bring people together, not to break or keep them apart. I hope the funds raised by the production will help RADA continue to provide a wider field of equal opportunity to train actors, stage managers and technical theatre artists, from every background, to a standard of excellence and professionalism. We need to keep the doors open for everyone.”
“I believe Shakespeare and RADA are very good things,” added Branagh. “This production celebrates both. We bring actors, writers, directors and technicians from last year’s KBTC Garrick season, and team them with RADA graduates past and present, together with artists from the larger creative world to explore Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
“The play speaks as loudly as ever to our volatile world and we are proud to have Tom Hiddleston lead an exciting group of actors, as he plays the title role for the first time. This work has been in discussion and planning over a period of years. To find its expression at, with, and for RADA, is a privilege.”
Also appearing in the production are Ayesha Antoine (Rosencrantz / Bernarda), Lolita Chakrabarti (Queen Gertrude), Nicholas Farrell (King Claudius), Sean Foley (Polonius / Osric), Ansu Kabia (King Hamlet / Player King / Gravedigger), Caroline Martin (Horatia), Eleanor de Rohan (Guildastern / Marcella / Priest), Irfan Shamji (Laertes / Player Queen) and Kathryn Wilder (Ophelia).
A ballot for tickets will open at midday on 1st August and will close at 6pm on Sunday 6th August. Tickets will then be allocated at random with successful applicants given the chance to purchase a maximum of two tickets within the alloted 48-hour booking window. | 1,269,793 |
Google and other members of the Coalition for Better Ads are planning to implement standards which will harmonize the way ads work on both desktop and mobile. The “Better Ads Experience Program” will aim to drive positive user experiences and will impact the ad configurations of publishers.
Here is what you need to know about these new standards.
What Are The “Initial Better Ads Standards”?
Last year the Coalition released its “Initial Better Ads Standards”. This research was based on the survey responses of 25,000 web users, and aimed to identify the least preferred ad experiences on both mobile and desktop. The exercise identified a range of ad formats that frustrate users such as flashing ads, pop-up ads, and more. Check out the full list of least preferred ads for both desktop and mobile.
How Did Google Respond To The Standards?
After the standards were published, Google immediately put its weight behind them in a bid to protect ads and the “sustainability of the web ecosystem”. Google announced that from early 2018 onwards, Chrome would block all ads on websites that failed to be compliant with the standards.
In a second update after the release of the “Better Ads Experience Program”, Google announced that from February 15 onwards Chrome will block all ads on sites that have a “failing” status in its Ad Experience Report for over 30 days.
What Is The “Better Ads Experience Program”?
The program is a “voluntary initiative for industry participants to improve the online ad experience for consumers and promote marketplace adoption of the Better Ad Standards”. Details about the program, including the registration process, fees, and other details, will be released in January.
Details around the project are still somewhat unclear, despite The Coalition for Better Ads releasing its framework for the program in December. Essentially, publishers can opt in to become a “Certified Company” and join a whitelist of websites. Publishers on this list must abide by the standards and feature just a small percentage of the blocked ads.
How Do Publishers Become Compliant?
Questions remain about prices, frequency of assessments, or how long it may take for publishers to appeal against a block. The release of new information in January may offer clarification.
In the meantime, Google has provided the “Ad Experience Report” tool which can help publishers to assess their compliance with the standards on their verified properties.
It is critical that publishers begin to become compliant with the standards. In a Google support thread, a Google employee stated that while Google would prefer to simply block only noncompliant ads, this is technically infeasible. This means that if a publisher features a single noncompliant ad, they run the risk of having all ads on their site blocked.
What’s Next?
Keep your eyes open for additional information that will be released in January.
Marfeel will keep you updated with the latest developments, so be sure to subscribe to the latest news from the blog using the form below. | 1,269,794 |
the yellow vest movement hovers at around 40%, a far cry from nearly 75% last November.
Mr. Macron’s current approval rating, at 37%, is at its highest level in more than a year.
“In a certain way, the [yellow vests] were very good for me,” Macron told Time magazine in late September, “because it reminded me who I should be.”
A ‘great’ debate
In response to the movement, Mr. Macron embarked on a monthslong “Great National Debate” this year. He attended hundreds of town hall meetings across the country and debated with people as they aired their grievances to the man so many had billed as an “elitist” and “president of the rich.”
When he unveiled the 2020 budget plans late last month, Mr. Macron pledged nearly $10 billion in tax cuts to households and another $1.2 billion in cuts to businesses. That is in addition to $5.5 billion in tax cuts already promised to some 12 million households earlier this year.
The spending has pushed France’s public debt to nearly 100% of gross domestic product. To make up the lost revenue, Mr. Macron wants to revamp the state-funded pension system, which takes up 14% of public spending. This, too, has been met with fierce resistance from unions across the country’s transportation and health care sectors. More than 40% oppose the reform.
Those numbers should be considered a warning, Mr. Cautres said.
“Macron cannot afford a second crisis …,” the researcher said. “You can only get one crisis in your mandate.”
Even so, the French unemployment rate stands at around 8.5%, its lowest in over a decade and down from 9.5% when Mr. Macron took office in May 2017.
Looking ahead, yellow vest advocates say they want more official civic engagement.
The movement ran candidates in European Parliament elections in May. Despite winning less than 0.6% of the vote, some yellow vest backers hope to do better in the upcoming municipal elections in March.
The collective “yellow vest citizens” last month presented a list of candidates for the municipal elections in Paris, led by Thierry Paul Valette, one of the movement’s best-known figures.
“The movement has always said it needs to be structured to be effective,” said Mr. Valette, adding that the municipal elections could be a chance to organize.
“We must show the country that we are engaged,” he said. “So many of our grievances come from being shut out of local politics for too long. We need to turn that discourse around. And what better way to do that than to show up on the political stage?”
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Copyright © 2020 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission. | 1,269,795 |
Man charged with Int'l District homeless camp shooting A 29-year-old man is accused of shooting a man in the stomach during an argument in Seattle
King County prosecutors charged a 29-year-old man last week with shooting a man in the stomach during an argument at an International District homeless encampment. King County prosecutors charged a 29-year-old man last week with shooting a man in the stomach during an argument at an International District homeless encampment. Photo: GENNA MARTIN/SEATTLEPI.COM Photo: GENNA MARTIN/SEATTLEPI.COM Image 1 of / 92 Caption Close Man charged with Int'l District homeless camp shooting 1 / 92 Back to Gallery
King County prosecutors charged a 29-year-old man last week with shooting a man in the stomach during an argument at an International District homeless encampment.
Thuc Van Nguyen was charged Dec. 12 with first-degree assault for allegedly shooting a 30-year-old man in front of several witnesses and remains jailed on $750,000 bail.
Cops were called about 10:27 a.m. Dec. 7 to 611 12th Avenue South, the location of the Seattle Indian Health Board building, which overlooks a nearby tent encampment located on 10th Avenue South, Seattle police reports say.
RELATED: Renton PD: Mom zip-tied family, executed teen daughter
An employee at the Seattle Indian Health Board told cops that his office bears a view of the camp and he saw five men arguing beneath his office window. He claimed one of the men pulled out a handgun and fired one shot. The employee ducked down to the floor and when he peered out the window again, all the men were gone.
Police soon detained three suspects from an SUV near the scene and a witness who saw the shooting up close identified one of the men, Nguyen, as the shooter.
Police arrested Nguyen for investigation of assault, as well as a King County felony warrant.
A search of the SUV yielded a.380 Ruger semi-automatic handgun protruding from beneath the passenger seat, where Nguyen sat when he and his associates were stopped by police.
RELATED: Man who kept child pornography 'fairy house' in woods gets 9 mos. in jail
Staff at Harborview Medical Center called 911 about 12:27 p.m., claiming a man walked into the emergency room with a gunshot wound to the stomach.
When interviewed the police, the victim repeatedly changed his story about where he was shot, but his appearance matched the victim description provided by witnesses, according to Seattle police.
He claimed he was jumped by several people, shot and hit with a metal bar. Investigating officers recovered a crowbar from the shooting scene.
The victim refused to discuss the assault with police and claimed he did not see the shooter.
SeattlePI reporter Lynsi Burton can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @LynsiBurton_PI. Find more from Lynsi here. | 1,269,796 |
Part of the reason babies are so unpleasant to deal with is that they don't know how to sleep. They haven't synced their internal clocks to the daily rhythms the rest of us use.
Recently an enterprising Australian Redditor going by the handle “andrew_elliott” had a new baby with his wife, and got the idea of quantifying the child's first few months of life using the Baby Connect iPhone app.
Using the app, he built a comprehensive database of his daughter's sleep and wake cycles for every single day of the first six months of her life. Being an industrial designer by trade he decided to take a crack at visualizing that data last month. The results, below, are stunningly beautiful. It’s the highest-ranked post of Reddit's data visualization forum, r/dataisbeautiful.
Using computer-assisted design software, Elliott drew the story of the dawn of his daughter's life, told in one continuous thread: a visualization representing six months of her sleep and wakefulness — dark blue for asleep, yellow for awake. The spiral begins at the interior of the circle, marking her birth. It then wraps outward as she gets older — each full revolution of the circle represents one 24-hour day, meaning that midnight is at the top of the “clock” and noon is at the bottom.
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You can see chaos near the center of the circle, as the baby alternately woke and slept during the day, night, and everything in between. “It was terrible going through that stage,” Elliott recalled.
Shortly thereafter, however, you can see things start to sort themselves out. The upper right hand side of the circle, representing night time, begins to stay consistently dark blue. The rest of it turns mostly yellow, with dark blue streaks here and there representing naps.
Elliott told me that he and his wife (mostly his wife, if we're being honest) were assiduous about tracking the baby's sleep with the app. Plus, the baby had an unfortunate case of reflux, which meant that she had a hard time falling asleep laying down and hence was almost always in her parents' arms for naptime.
Elliott's experiment is an example of the general patterns in human sleep and wakefulness outlined in the illustration below, which comes from the neuroscience website “The Brain from Top to Bottom.”
Newborns alternate rapidly between sleep and wakefulness. As they get older, those sleep cycles begin to consolidate. By toddler age a child may get by on one or two naps a day. Heading into late childhood and early adulthood, naps tend to vanish altogether (for some of us at least).
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Each newborn is different, of course, especially when it comes to sleep. Some, like Gwyneth Paltrow's perfect little angel, are sleeping through the night by 6 weeks of age. Others evidently never get the knack of it — not even by age 7. | 1,269,797 |
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“Same day loans” are cash loans that may be processed the same day you apply. Usually, you get the funds by the next business day. So, the key meaning of same day loans expression is: a borrower gets the reply on the same day, while the account itself is credited within 24 hours.
Some payday lenders may deposit the cash loan on same day of approval. Nevertheless, this option is subject to special conditions like you should be approved, verified and have all papers signed before noon. So, one could even receive money in one single day, but this is never guaranteed.
Now you know the process of getting online payday loans – from choosing the amount and filling in the form, to receiving the money. Getting a cash advance online is a quite simple task, mainly because it demands less paperwork and least requirements. No profound document revision makes it quick and easy. However, the number one issue for payday advances is being sure that you will repay it. Otherwise, you may end up paying high fees and thus getting into debt trap.
Why Choose Same Day Loans 365.org
After reading all steps and information about payday loans, decide if that’s affordable. If your choice is positive, we encourage to apply through our service, since we do our best to make your experience satisfying. Taking out online payday loans is a serious step, so better choose a reliable partner, who can help you succeed. Read our foremost advantages below. | 1,269,798 |
【1月27日 AFP】中国政府は26日、初の「北極政策白書」を発表し、北極海航路「氷上シルクロード」建設に向けた構想を打ち出した。中国政府が北極圏での自国の役割についての明確な見解を示したのは初めて。
北極圏は中国から遠く離れているものの、原油や天然ガスの資源が豊富な上、貿易航路として利用できることから、同国にとっての重要性が増している。同白書には、習近平（Xi Jinping）国家主席の野心的な経済圏構想「一帯一路（One Belt One Road）」を北方に拡大する計画などが記されている。
白書では、「氷上シルクロード」の建設は関係諸国との協力の上で進めたいとの意向を明記。北京で記者会見した孔鉉佑（Kong Xuanyou）外務次官によると、中国は現在、ロシアとこの構想について協議を行っている。
孔外務次官はまた、中国が北極圏での大規模な天然ガス採取を目指しているとの見方を否定。同白書ではその代わりに、「航行の自由」追求が前面に押し出されている。(c)AFP | 1,269,799 |
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