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For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis, the election, and more, subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter.
The Wall Street Journal’s Devlin Barrett has the latest from his disgruntled sources at the FBI who are hell-bent on proving that the Clinton Foundation is corrupt:
Much of the skepticism toward the case came from how it started—with the publication of a book suggesting possible financial misconduct and self-dealing surrounding the Clinton charity. The author of that book, Peter Schweizer—a former speechwriting consultant for President George W. Bush—was interviewed multiple times by FBI agents, people familiar with the matter said. …In February, a meeting was held in Washington among FBI officials, public-integrity prosecutors and Leslie Caldwell, the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division…Following the February meeting, officials at Justice Department headquarters sent a message to all the offices involved to “stand down,” a person familiar with the matter said. …The FBI had secretly recorded conversations of a suspect in a public-corruption case talking about alleged deals the Clintons made, these people said. The agents listening to the recordings couldn’t tell from the conversations if what the suspect was describing was accurate, but it was, they thought, worth checking out. Prosecutors thought the talk was hearsay and a weak basis to warrant aggressive tactics, like presenting evidence to a grand jury, because the person who was secretly recorded wasn’t inside the Clinton Foundation.
Holy crap. The field agents got started on this because they read Clinton Cash, the latest in a 25-year stream of books insisting that the Clintons are our era’s Borgia family. Then they got even more interested because some guy—literally just some guy—was recorded blathering about the foundation.
This is what Hillary Clinton has faced ever since 1992. It started in Arkansas, where this kind of character assassination is basically just political sport, and then got exported to Washington, DC, when Bill Clinton ran for the presidency. There’s nothing in Schweizer’s book except yet another CDS victim1 insisting that if two things happened at the same time, somehow the Clintons were responsible for it and he’s got the proof right here!
And now it turns out the FBI is full of middle-aged white guys who apparently read the book, listen to lots of Rush Limbaugh, and just know that if they look a little harder they’ll find the one Jenga brick that causes the whole Clinton edifice to finally collapse. Jesus Christ.
1Clinton Derangement Syndrome. | 3,100 |
ivism does not offer a real alternative. Capitalism is a modernist economic system and progressivism is a modernist palliative—not an alternative.
The only real alternative to capitalism is something along the lines of what Jefferson envisioned. This is similar to the vision of the Catholic distributivists, such as Belloc and Chesterton, and to the third way of the Protestant economist Wilhelm Röpke. The foundation of such a system is widespread property ownership and decentralized government.
I should point out here that the Greek word oiconomia means household management. Wall Street is not the economy. The economy is how you provide for yourself and your family and how you treat your neighbors in the process. It’s becoming increasingly difficult, however, to provide for ourselves when our savings are devalued by government policies and our small farms and businesses are regulated within an inch of their lives to the advantage of big corporations.
I’d like to conclude with some comments concerning the Protestant, Wilhelm Röpke. These are made by Ralph Ansel in a very good article he wrote:
For a Protestant who holds the situation created by the Reformation to be one of the greatest calamities in history, he must have difficulty finding his religious home either in contemporary Protestantism, which in its disruption and lack of orientation is worse than ever before, or in contemporary post-Reformation Catholicism. All he can do is to reassemble, in himself, the essential elements of pre-Reformation, undivided Christianity. And in this, I think I am one of a company of men whose goodwill, at least, is beyond dispute.
We know of course that undivided Christianity does not need to be, indeed cannot be, reassembled because it already exists within the Orthodox Church. But this passage is a reminder that the solution to modern man’s economic dilemmas lie not in modernism, but in the faith and life once delivered to the Saints.
Orthodoxy, alone, is capable of offering not only a critique of modernity, but of pointing us to real solutions. We cannot bear the witness to the truth that the world needs, however, as long as we continue to try to make peace with political and economic systems that, by their very nature, undermine the faith we hold and the life we endeavor to lead.
And now may our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, through the intercessions of St. Innocent of Alaska and of the Blessed Elder Sophrony Sakharov, have mercy upon us all and grant us a rich entrance into His eternal Kingdom. | 3,101 |
We can’t understand this idea about Juan Mata not fitting into the Manchester United team, if he joins the club.
Gary Neville was the main protagonist in the argument when asked what he thought of the potential Manchester United signing. He said:
‘The first question, I think, is where are you going to play? Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie are up top if they are fit so where are you going to play him? Are you going to play him off the left or off the right?
‘Maybe they have to change the philosophy and maybe that’s what David Moyes is thinking. Maybe he wants to play narrow wide players and maybe a three in midfield.
Yes, Mata could play as number 10 or wide of a narrow 3 in a 4-2-3-1. But to suggest that Manchester United would have to change their style completely, in order to accommodate him, hugely undervalues the quality of the player.
Who says he can’t play in central midfield next to Micheal Carrick? He has all the attributes to be a sensational central midfielder in the Xavi/Iniesta mould – Mata’s a bit of both.
The Spaniard is a sensational passer of the ball, long and short. He reads the game beautifully and can control the entire tempo of a match. Everything should go through him. He also scores goals – lots of them. So what’s the problem?
The obvious argument is that he doesn’t have the physical presence or tackling ability to play in the centre of the park. Rubbish. Was Paul Scholes a man mountain who was able to tackle? No. He was a diminutive player who won more red cards than balls in the tackle. And, lest we forget, Scholes also began his career as a forward. The tackling, shackling job can be given to Micheal Carrick leaving Mata to control possession, orchestrate attacks and generally ‘run tings’ from the middle of the park – just like Scholes did.
Manchester United wanted Cesc Fabregas in the summer. He’s exactly the same sort player as Mata and Moyes would have had no qualms at all with playing Fabregas in the middle of the park.
So for us, Mata is the long awaited answer to Paul Scholes. A goal scoring midfielder of pure class, vision and technique.
Moyes simply has to play Mata as his creative midfielder in the middle of the park.
Follow us on Twitter @soccersweep10 | 3,102 |
Police came to know about the incident when the girl managed to flee her employers’ house and report the matter at the local police station. Police came to know about the incident when the girl managed to flee her employers’ house and report the matter at the local police station.
A 17-year-old girl has been rescued by Delhi Police after she was allegedly assaulted and raped by multiple men inside her employer’s home in southwest Delhi, police said. The girl was trafficked from West Bengal by a couple who promised her a comfortable life in the capital. Police came to know about the incident when the girl managed to flee her employers’ house and report the matter at the local police station.
The employers, Rahul (40) and his wife Rota (35), were arrested by police under IPC section 370, which pertains to trafficking, and various sections of the POCSO Act at Vasant Kunj (North) police station. They have been sent to 14-day judicial custody.
“The girl was counselled by a local NGO and sent to a shelter home in Delhi. She will be sent home when the child welfare committee deems fit,” said a senior police officer. A medical test confirmed rape, police said. The accused reportedly made contact with the girl around a month ago in West Bengal. The couple offered her a job at their house for around Rs 7,500 a month.
“The girl was initially told that she would have to look after their dog and do household work,” the officer said.
When she landed in Delhi, she found that the couple’s behaviour had drastically changed as they started verbally abusing her. “When she protested, the couple started assaulting her,” the officer said. Later, they started inviting men over to their place who allegedly raped the girl. “The girl put up a fight but was locked inside a room and assaulted by the couple, following which she was allegedly raped by an unidentified man,” the officer said.
The girl told police that right after the incident, she had tried to flee but the couple locked her inside the house. She also told police that the couple had invited multiple men over to the house who took turns to rape her. Police are yet to ascertain the identity of the men. Several teams have been formed to make further arrests, police said.
📣 The Indian Express is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@indianexpress) and stay updated with the latest headlines
For all the latest Delhi News, download Indian Express App. | 3,103 |
Manitoba broke 21 hot weather records Thursday, with the mercury climbing to 35.2 C in Winnipeg alone, making it the warmest place in Canada.
The previous warm weather record for Winnipeg was May 5 in 1926, when it was 31.7 C.
Carberry, Carman, Dauphin, Deerwood, Fisher Branch, Grand rapids, Gretna, McCreary, Melita, Morden, Pilot Mound, Pinawa, Portage South, Roblin, Shoal Lake, Sprague, Swan River, Victoria Beach and Wasagaming also all set warm weather records, with many most of those areas hitting temperatures in the 30s.
Then and now
Brandon : New record: 34.3 C Old record (1934): 31.7 C
: Dauphin : New record: 34.4 C Old record (1918): 31.7 C
: Fischer Branch : New record 34.5 C Old record (1987): 25.5 C
: Gimli : New record: 33.8 C Old record (1987): 26.3 C
: Gretina : New record: 35.1 C Old record (2000): 26 C
: Melita : New record: 33.3 C Old record (1993): 28.2 C
: Pilot Mound: New record: 32 C Old record (1987): 27 C
Portage la Prairie: New record: 34.2 C Old record (1918): 31.7 C
Sprague: New record 33.6 Old record (1939): 32.8 C
Swan river: New record: 34.5 C Old record (1911): 30 C
Winnipeg (James Armstrong Richardson International Airport) New record: 35.2 C Old record (1926): 31.7 C
(James Armstrong Richardson International Airport)
Back to regular temps this weekend
The heat wave won't last long in Winnipeg, though; temperatures are expected to fall back to near-seasonal for the weekend.
"The upper level ridge that has brought record breaking heat and extremely dry conditions to Western Canada has now moved east into Manitoba," CBC meteorologist John Sauder explained.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday will see temperatures in the high teens, with a windy morning forecast for Friday.
"A cold front moves through here overnight; by Friday morning, 12 degrees with winds out of the north gusting to 60 km/h," Sauder said. | 3,104 |
It's common to want reports from Prometheus, such as how many requests failed over an entire month.
While PromQL has some calendar functions, it's designed more for doing math over arbitrary fixed time periods rather than time periods that vary over time due to business logic. Which is to say that as different months have different numbers of days, it's not possible to do monthly reporting directly in PromQL. However this is easy with a small bit of Python scripting:
import datetime import time import requests # Install this if you don't have it already. PROMETHEUS = 'http://localhost:9090/' # Midnight at the end of the previous month. end_of_month = datetime.datetime.today().replace(day=1).date() # Last day of the previous month. last_day = end_of_month - datetime.timedelta(days=1) duration = '[' + str(last_day.day) + 'd]' response = requests.get(PROMETHEUS + '/api/v1/query', params={ 'query':'sum by (job)(increase(process_cpu_seconds_total' + duration + '))', 'time': time.mktime(end_of_month.timetuple())}) results = response.json()['data']['result'] print('{:%B %Y}:'.format(last_day)) for result in results: print(' {metric}: {value[1]}'.format(**result))
This is intended to be run at the start of the next month local time (though all your servers run in UTC, right?), and will return the amount of CPU time each job used in the previous month. To do this we need to know when the month ended as we want to evaluate the query then, and how long the month was as that's the range to use. This will produce a result like:
December 2018: {'job': 'node'}: 120443.3696840266 {'job': 'prometheus'}: 29707.01091327252 {'job': 'pushgateway'}: 1600.0859740366413 {'job': 'alertmanager'}: 2398.4289547078656
This is obviously a very simple example to get you going. In reality you'd probably want to work from aggregated data via recording rule, and write this information to a database of some form for prosperity.
Want to get useful reports out of Prometheus? Contact us. | 3,105 |
bopictus (Diptera: Culicidae)", Journal of Medical Entomology 29 (3): 467-71. Literature review.
Moore, CG, DB Francy, DA Eliason and TP Monath (1988). "Aedes albopictus in the United States: Rapid spread of a potential disease vector", Jouranl of the American Mosquito Control Association, 4 (3).
O'Meara, GF, Evans Jr, LF, Gettman, AD, Cuda, JP (1995). "Spread of Aedes albopictus and decline of Aedes aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae) in Florida", Journal of Medical Entomology 32 (4): 554-62.
O'Meara, GF, Gettman, AD, Eveans LF Jr, and Scheel FD (1992). "Invasion of cemeteries in Florida by Aedes albopictus", Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association, March 1992, 8(1), 1-10.
O'Meara, GF, Evans LF Jr., Womack ML (1997). "Colonization of rock holes by Aedes albopictus in the southeastern United States", Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association, 1997 Sep, 13(3), 270-4.
Simard, Frederic, et al (2005). "Geographic distirubtion and breeding site preference of Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae) in Cameroon, Central Africa", Journal of Medical Entomology 42(5): 726-731.
This is the best article I have found on yellow fever. It answers the question of why far more people in a community catch yellow fever far more quickly, than they catch dengue. The answer is, they don't; 80% of a community may be struck by yellow fever at one time, and 90% by dengue, which is simply less deadly. With both viruses, transmission rates can depend on what mosquito is carrying it; if a mosquito that mainly bites people, like Aedes aegypti, is the carrier the virus hits far more people at a much faster rate.
Rogers, D.J. et al. (2006). "The global distribution of yellow fever and dengue", Advanced parasitology, 62: 181-220.
Contact me at [email protected] | 3,106 |
hit from Spectre patches
You can test performance after using our patches, but don't publish the results, say Intel's new license terms.
New Spectre variant 4: Our patches cause up to 8% performance hit, warns Intel
Intel's Spectre variant 4 patch will be off by default, but users who turn it on are likely to see slower performance.
Linux performance before and after Meltdown and Spectre fixes
The patches, as expected, brought Linux's performance down, but their impact has not been as bad as feared.
Oracle's latest Linux fixes: New Spectre, Lazy FPU patches beef up defenses
Oracle has new fixes available for Spectre flaws affecting Linux systems on Intel and AMD chips.
Spectre chip security vulnerability strikes again; patches incoming
A Google developer discovered a new way that a 'Spectre'-style check can be used to attack any computer running any operating system.
Are 8 new 'Spectre-class' flaws in Intel CPUs about to be exposed?
Reports are emerging of eight new 'Spectre-class' security CPU vulnerabilities.
Ex-Intel security expert: This new Spectre attack can even reveal firmware secrets
A new variant of Spectre can expose the contents of memory that normally can't be accessed by the OS kernel.
Microsoft to Windows users: Here are new critical Intel security updates for Spectre v2
Microsoft releases new Windows updates to address the Spectre variant 2 flaw affecting Intel chips.
Windows 10 on AMD? This new update plus Microsoft's patch block Spectre attacks
AMD has released microcode updates for Spectre variant 2 that require Microsoft's latest Windows 10 patch.
Intel: We now won't ever patch Spectre variant 2 flaw in these chips
A handful of CPU families that Intel was due to patch will now forever remain vulnerable.
Windows 7 Meltdown patch opens worse vulnerability: Install March updates now
Microsoft's Meltdown fix opened a gaping hole in Windows 7 security, warns researcher.
Intel's new Spectre fix: Skylake, Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake chips get stable microcode
Intel makes progress on reissuing stable microcode updates against the Spectre attack.
Got an old PC? Find out whether you will get Intel's latest Spectre patch TechRepublic
Intel has listed a range of CPUs released between 2007 and 2011 that will not receive a firmware update to help guard against Spectre-related exploits.
Class-action suits over Intel Spectre, Meltdown flaws surge CNET
Since the beginning of 2018, the number of cases has risen from three to 32. | 3,107 |
Nightmare Tide’s Open Beta has now begun on the Public Test Shard with the latest PTS Update.
To access the Public Test Shard, follow this information here.
To access the Plane of Water, click on your nearest Porticulum Master and click on the Plane of Water icon in the top-right of the Porticlum mini-map. Then click on the Luminous Passage porticulum in the bottom-left corner to begin your journey.
You can check out what is being added with the expansion here – this might give you some information on what to look out for on the PTS.
Table of Contents:
Points of Interest
Experience Bug
Mentoring Up
Common Questions
Points of Interest
A few key points of interest:
Atragarian Well in Goboro Reef has Savant Crafters.
Ghar Stations in Goboro Reef, Draumheim and Tarken Glacier have Nightmare Rift vendors and dailies.
You can also obtain Nightmare Rift lures in the RIFT Store -> Rifts -> Nightmare section.
Draumheim’s Margle Palace also has Savant Crafters as well as all notoriety vendors, dailies, new Raid Rift Lures/etc. It will also become the new 3.0 city hub.
Have fun all and be sure to report any bugs you see using the in-game feedback!
Experience Bug
Have negative exp when you’re on the PTS? Relog to fix it.
Mentoring Up
You can mentor up by right-clicking your Character Portrait (if you are not Lvl 65) and choose ‘Enable’ for ‘Sidekicking’. This will mean that you will mentor up to the highest level (or mentored level) player in your group.
So for example you might be in a group of 4 Level 60s. If the 5th player is Level 63 and you have Sidekicking enabled, you will mentor up to Level 63.
This should allow you to go to higher-level dungeons. However, only when manually entering – you won’t be able to mentor up for randoms.
This should allow you to make normal NT dungeons easier or to survive higher-level zones if you are a lower level. It should also allow you to – say – experience the Level 62 Glacial Maw dungeon as a Level 60 (as long as you are mentored up to Level 62 or above).
Common Questions | 3,108 |
( 5 out of 5) My first pistol - Sig P320 VTAC
by William from Hackettstown, NJ on February 19, 2020
I am a novice shooter and did a lot of research before deciding to buy the Sig P320 VTAC. Prior to purchasing the pistol, I went to a range several times with my cousin who is an avid shooter for most of his adult life. He taught me the basics of shooting and gun safety and I got some experience shooting various guns in multiple calibers from.22, 9mm,.45 acp and.357. I also shot an MPP AR-15 but I don't remember what caliber. Among his pistols, I shot S&Ws 9mm,.45 &.357 and Glock 9mm.
I performed best with his Glock but I was'nt a fan of the gun itself. I didn't like the way his S&Ws felt in my hand and I wasn't thrilled with their trigger on the 9mm. What originally led to me to try a Sig was hearing that they marginally beat out Glock for the Military contract. I figured that I tried the Glock, why not try a Sig I rented a P320 full size from the range and I shot as well as I did with the Glock but I liked the way it felt in my hand more. It just fits in my hand better.
Now, onto the VTAC. The Day/Night Sights are great. I hope never to have to use the night sights or it means I have an intruder in the house. I am fairly accurate within 7 yards with paper targets at the range to the head and chest. Probably means nothing in the real world under duress. I have shot a total of 250 rounds with this pistol so far with no sighting issues. It is an accurate pistol even for a novice like myself. I have shot less than 2,000 rounds of ammo since I started shooting in October of 2019. No misfires, no jams, and fired fine out of the box. I love the two-tone color scheme and VTAC engravings on the frame. The grip feels great and the gun fits in my hand perfectly. The gun has a solid feel but I don't feel like I'm carrying a sledgehammer like a stainless steel S&W.357. The pistol has good balance and weight feel to it.
I know I could have spent far less money for a gun but I didn't want to regret it just save a few hundred bucks and then waste time searching for a better gun. I got it right the first time and am really happy with this pistol. | 3,109 |
A well known Egyptian human rights lawyer who has suggested he may run against President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in elections scheduled for 2018 has been arrested and detained in a move critics say is politically motivated.
Khaled Ali, 45, was apprehended by police on Tuesday, and taken to al Dokki police station for questioning over a photograph from January in which he allegedly made an obscene gesture on the steps of a Cairo court house.
He was arrested on charges of “offending public decency” and kept at the station overnight. A prosecutor is due to decide whether to release Mr Ali on bail or extend his detention later on Wednesday.
Donald Trump shakes hands with Egypt President El-Sisi and pledges support to his regime
The lawyer denies the allegations against him and the authenticity of the photo.
Eight members of Mr Ali’s left-wing Bread and Freedom Party (BFP) have been arrested in the last two months on spurious charges ranging from “misusing social media to incite against the state“ and ”insulting the president“, Elham Eidarous, the party’s legal advisor, said in a statement.
”We are in a state of repression. Every now and then the state launches another attack,“ he said. ”This is happening to scare people from running for president or even considering alternatives."
Can Egypt's revolution stay the distance? Show all 2 1 /2 Can Egypt's revolution stay the distance? Can Egypt's revolution stay the distance? After 14 days of unrest, the protesting crowds were thinner yesterday morning, although numbers increased later in the day AP Can Egypt's revolution stay the distance? A public worker stands next to Egyptian army soldiers as the street is blocked by anti-Mubarak protesters, unseen, cutting his access to the Mogama, the main government service building, in a street leading to Tahrir Square AP
Egypt's interior ministry has repeatedly denied the arrests are politically motivated.
Mr Ali previously ran for president in Egypt’s 2012 election, held after the 2011 Arab Spring protests which overthrew incumbent autocrat Hosni Mubarak. The election was won by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood movement’s Mohamed Morsi.
In 2013, Mr Morsi’s government was toppled by a military coup led by General Sisi, who went on to win a presidential election in 2014.
Mr Sisi has been widely criticised by the international community for his bloody crackdown on members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other encroachments on citizens' human rights such as the freedom of speech and assembly. | 3,110 |
BAND UNVEILS NEW TRACK “LONESOME ANGEL” AS FREE DOWNLOAD
Acclaimed Portland, Oregon rock quintet Blitzen Trapper is set to release All Across This Land on October 2 via Lojinx in Europe (on Vagrant in the US). Blitzen Trapper has built a solid reputation as a band unafraid to take chances. By incorporating a vast array of influences, they have released albums that touch on indie folk/rock, roots, art rock, alt country, psychedelia and pop, while maintaining a sound that is distinctly Blitzen Trapper. On their new studio effort, the group’s years of experimentation and experience have come full circle, culminating in their strongest, most cohesive work to date with the career milestone, All Across This Land. View new the ALBUM TRAILER:
Blitzen Trapper may have experimented successfully with a multitude of styles; however, the band has been built on a strong foundation as, above all else, a ROCK band. Their live shows consistently reinforce that fact, and those who have experienced their performance would agree.
All Across This Land once again confirms that Blitzen Trapper possess the unique ability to create thoughtful, melodic, finely crafted songs on one hand, and deliver full throttle, infectious rock on the other. From the opening riff of the title track and first single, this is quite evident as it unfolds into a flurry of guitars, bass and drums. The band eases back as well by featuring some of lead singer and songwriter Eric Earley’s strongest writing yet, particularly on the semi-autobiographical “Mystery and Wonder”. The track’s reflective and nostalgic tone was inspired by the band’s beginnings, the chemistry that develops over time and the music they have created though the years. Another album highlight is “Lonesome Angel” with its easy ‘70’s AM radio feel.
While All Across This Land features some of Earley’s finest songs to date, the rest of his bandmate’s performances – Erik Menteer (guitar), Michael Van Pelt (bass), Marty Marquis (guitar/keys), Brian Adrian Koch (drums) – elevate each track thus taking Blitzen Trapper to their highest artistic peak yet.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blitzentrapper
Twittter: https://twitter.com/blitzentrapper
Instagram: https://instagram.com/blitzentrapper/ | 3,111 |
The answer to this question can vary widely depending on who you ask; but five reasons always make the top ten:
1. Cash Flow (normally number one in most surveys)
2. Poorly marketed (lack of or ineffectively marketed)
3. Incompetence (I prefer to say “one person is wearing too many hats”)
4. Poor location (another way of saying…poorly marketed)
5. A declining market (lack of innovative golf marketing tools)
What do these five reasons all have in common?
They all suffer the symptoms of a golf course grasping for its last breath with one single cure.
What is the cure for this plague of closures?
MMC® (www.golfmarketingmmc.com). MMC® can eliminate all five of these lethal elements from your golf course today by launching one (or all three) of our three no-risk/self-funding golf course promotions (https://www.golfmarketingmmc.com/no-risk-self-funding-golf-marketing-campaigns/).
MMC® has three no-risk/self-funding promotional campaigns, CASH (https://www.golfmarketingmmc.com/cash-promotion-page/), EFT (https://www.golfmarketingmmc.com/eft-promotion-page/) & ELITE AMBASSADOR (https://www.golfmarketingmmc.com/elite-promotion-page/) designed to increase rounds and drive up golf revenue.
Procrastination was another reason that frequently came up for the demise of some golf courses. Just do something and do it now. Hoping is not a business model; it’s a recipe for bankruptcy.
A properly executed golf marketing campaign is exactly what the Doctor (or bookkeeper) is ordering. You absolutely must market your golf course.
If you say “I want to market our golf course but we do not have the budget”; then you absolutely must market your golf course today, because had you launched an effective campaign last month you wouldn’t be uttering those words today.
For more free tips on growing the game, increasing rounds through golf course marketing, golf marketing, golf course campaigns, golf campaigns, professional golf membership sales and advancing your golf career visit us today @ www.golfmarketingmmc.com or call 904-217-3762. | 3,112 |
More than $380 million in Supplemental Security Income payments may have been improper, feds say
Getty Images
Bill Theobald | USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – More than 77,000 recipients of Social Security payments for the disabled or elderly may have been overpaid a total of $380 million because their cases have not been reviewed in more than a decade, federal investigators estimate in a report released this week.
An estimated 1.1 million recipients of Supplemental Security Income payments have not had their cases reviewed – called a "redetermination" – in more than 10 years because of budget limitations, the Social Security Administration’s Inspector General estimated.
That's about 13 percent of the nation's SSI recipients. A total of $51.4 billion in SSI payments were made to 8.2 million recipients in fiscal 2017. The agency completed 2.6 million determinations.
Redeterminations are scheduled annually if something is likely to have changed in the recipient’s life or once every six years if a change in circumstances is unlikely. The reviews look at factors such as income, resources and living arrangements that may affect a recipient’s eligibility.
At first, reviews were conducted every three years, but that was changed in the 1990s – in response to staff cuts – to every six years for those cases where a change in circumstances was unlikely.
Federal investigators mailed questionnaires to some of those people whose cases were selected for review. For some, a detailed analysis was conducted. The recipients who were found to have been overpaid had too much in assets or income or in-kind support, or some combination of factors.
In one example cited in the report, a South Carolina woman had not had a review since 2004 and was discovered to have received income from her common-law spouse, who had died in 2016. SSA recovered $9,531 in overpayments from her.
In response to the Social Security IG’s audit, the agency’s Office of Quality Review is now planning a similar study in which 400 cases will be reviewed. In those cases, a redetermination has not been conducted in more than 10 years.
In its response to the report, the Social Security Administration said it expected to complete 2.9 million redeterminations in fiscal 2018, which began Oct. 1, 2017.
This is not the first time the issue of overpayments of SSI has been raised. The Government Accountability Office designated SSI as one if its high-risk programs in 1997 after several years of reporting on several problems including overpayment detection and recovery practices. | 3,113 |
IndyCar will open its 2015 season in Brazil and end it at Sonoma.
In total, there will be 17 races at 15 different venues, including two events at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (the road course race May 9 and the Indianapolis 500 on May 24) and a doubleheader at Detroit’s Belle Isle Park (May 30-31).
The season will open at the Autodromo International Nelson Piquet circuit in Brasilia, a new event for the series. The other newcomer to the IndyCar calendar is the previously announced April 12 race at NOLA Motorsports Park outside New Orleans.
IndyCar will have six oval races and six on permanent road courses, plus four street circuits.
Among the changes:
The first road course to host a season finale since Mexico City in Champ Car in 2007;
A reduction in doubleheaders from three to one (Houston was dropped, Toronto is a single event due to a relocation because the city is hosting the Pan American Games in July);
The move of the Auto Club Speedway race, which had been the season finale the past three years, to June 27, and it’s a day race;
Milwaukee, Auto Club and Pocono Raceway getting their third different date in as many years;
No February race in Dubai despite efforts to make one happen.
The schedule:
March 8: Brasilia, Brazil (NBCSN)
March 29: St. Petersburg, Fla. (ABC)
April 12: Avondale, La. (NBCSN)
April 19: Long Beach, Calif. (NBCSN)
April 26: Birmingham, Ala. (NBCSN)
May 9: Indianapolis road course (ABC)
May 24: Indianapolis 500 (ABC)
May 30-31: Detroit doubleheader (ABC)
June 6: Fort Worth, Texas (NBCSN)
June 14: Toronto (NBCSN)
June 27: Fontana, Calif. (NBCSN)
July 12: Milwaukee, Wis. (NBCSN)
July 18: Newton, Iowa (NBCSN)
Aug. 2: Lexington, Ohio (NBCSN)
Aug. 23: Pocono, Pa. (NBCSN)
Aug. 30: Sonoma, Calif. (NBCSN)
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The CIA and the German intelligence service BND spied on Belgian diplomats for almost 30 years, using what has been described as “the most sophisticated Trojan horse in history,” it has been revealed.
The revelations come in a series of documents known under the title CryptoLeaks.
The Belgian foreign ministry between 1952 and 1980 used a sophisticated form of encryption to send communications from the ministry in Brussels to embassies worldwide and back again. The encryption was provided by machines made by the Swiss company Crypto AG.
What the Belgian government was not aware of, however, is that Crypto AG was owned jointly by the CIA and the intelligence service of first West Germany and then, after reunification, by the BND.
In other words, the spies were providing their targets with the means by which they could be spied on. And to rub salt into the wound, they were making the victims pay for the technology used against them.
To be clear, Belgium was not the only country to be spied on in this way by the secret operation known as Rubicon. But it was of particular interest given the different agencies housed here, including Nato and Shape on the military side, and the EU for commercial intelligence.
Elsewhere, Crypto AG made millions supplying governments and companies all over the world, including the revolutionary government in Iran, military juntas in Latin America, nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, and even the Vatican.
Ironically, Rubicon never managed to gain a foothold in the two great Cold War enemies of the time, China and the Soviet Union. Both countries suspected the Crypto AG technology might contain a back door to allow access to western intelligence. A suspicion which, it now appears, was justified in every detail.
Federal justice minister Koen Geens (CD&V) last week told parliament that the Belgian intelligence service had not been using Crypto AG machines in the last ten years of the operation, up to 1980. And while the matter was still being investigated, it was virtually certain state security had not been breached in the earlier years, either.
The R Committee, however, has decided to carry out its own investigation anyway. The Committee has independent oversight over both the military and the civilian intelligence services.
“The R Committee has begin an investigation of the Crypto AG affair,” said the committee’s chair, Serge Lipszyc.
“Was there an impact on Belgium? Did the government or the intelligence services use equipment from Crypto AG? And what did Belgian intelligence know about the secret operation at the time?”
Alan Hope
The Brussels Times
| 3,115 |
Seattle mayor says federal workers can wait to pay their city utility bills as shutdown continues Mayor Jenny Durkan signed an executive order Tuesday allowing impacted workers to defer payments
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan on Tuesday issued an executive order to allow impacted federal workers to delay paying their city of Seattle utility bills. Keep clicking for information on what happens during a partial government shutdown. less Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan on Tuesday issued an executive order to allow impacted federal workers to delay paying their city of Seattle utility bills. Keep clicking for information on what happens during a... more Photo: Lynsi Burton/SeattlePI Photo: Lynsi Burton/SeattlePI Image 1 of / 20 Caption Close Seattle mayor says federal workers can wait to pay their city utility bills as shutdown continues 1 / 20 Back to Gallery
Federal employees with city of Seattle utility bills will caught a break Tuesday when Mayor Jenny Durkan signed an executive order that will defer payments from workers impacted by the partial federal government shutdown.
Tuesday marked the 32nd day of the partial federal shutdown, the result of a standoff between President Donald Trump and Democrats over his demand that Congress approve $5.7 billion to fund a wall along the nation's southern border.
Many workers have been furloughed while others in essential services have been forced to work without pay.
RELATED: Washington: Even if you don't work for the federal government, the shutdown is affecting you
More than 54,000 federal employees work in Washington and roughly 11,000 of them have been furloughed or asked to work without pay.
"Every day that the crisis of the government shutdown continues, public servants in Seattle are forced to live without knowing if they can provide for their families – and Seattle is put at risk by the lack of federal services that we rely on, from earthquake monitoring to the Coast Guard to affordable housing support," Durkan said in a news release. "We are acting urgently to help support Seattle families being hurt by the Trump shutdown. But to truly help families and help Seattle, we need the White House to re-open the federal government today."
Durkan's order directed Seattle City Light, Seattle Public Utilities, the City Budget Office and the Human Services Department to have a plan together by Friday, according to the release. A phone number will be set up for impacted residents to call for eligibility and enrollment information.
RELATED: Alaska Airlines delays start of Paine Field flights due to government shutdown
In the Seattle area, a host of federal offices have been impacted by the shutdown, including NOAA, TSA, the FAA, USGS, the U.S. Attorney's Office and more. | 3,116 |
Gold Rush is less than a month away from the premiere of its groundbreaking 10th season, and everyone is ready to get back in the action. The beloved Discovery series is set to roll out new episodes starting with a two-hour premiere Friday, Oct. 11.
The action-packed series brings back Parker Schnabel, Tony Beets and Rick Ness for another season of hard work, drama and lots of gold. Will they walk away with a fortune or go home empty-handed? The Season 10 trailer, released exclusively by PopCulture.com, shows the mine bosses ready to take on the arduous task.
"I always knew I wanted to be a gold miner. Ever since my grandpa taught me how," Parker says at the start of the epic promo, celebrating 10 years of the series.
"For years now I've gone gold mining on my own," Rick also says on voiceover, as footage of him operating a massive truck over rough terrains.
"There's gold out there," Tony says. "And we're going to find it."
The clip also teased the drama ahead in Season 10, including mechanical problems and tensions within the crew.
"We're gonna have to buddy up somehow," Tony can be seen telling Parker after the video hints at drama ahead.
"Tell me one good reason I shouldn't tell you to go f—k yourself," Parker responds Tony in the tense moment.
The trailer then shows footage from several action-packed moments, including a plane seemingly landing wrong, a big forest fire and a big truck driving over the camera.
"Are you prepared to change Parker?" Another crew member tells the mine boss before he is seen sighing in frustration at the end of the clip.
As previously reported, the miners will be off to a troubling start this season when a "major crisis" strikes the Yukon after the water permits fail to come through as the price of gold spikes, bringing with it a big group of miners searching for their own treasure. With possible bankruptcy and families on the line, this might be the show's most high-pressured season yet.
Gold Rush Season 10 will kick off with a two-hour season premiere Friday, Oct. 11 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Discovery.
The series is produced for Discovery Channel by Raw Television, where Dimitri Doganis, James Bates, Mike Gamson, and Tom Sheahan are executive producers and Carter Smith is co-executive producer. For Discovery Channel, Carter Figueroa is executive producer and Greg Wolf is coordinating producer. | 3,117 |
Sun Life Asset Management Company, Inc. (SLAMCI) finished 2018 with flying colors as it was the most awarded asset management company at the Philippine Investment Funds Association (PIFA) 12thh Annual Awards Night recently held at the Tower Club, Makati city.
The company received 17 awards for its Sun Life Prosperity Funds. SLAMCI won top honors in five categories: the Sun Life Prosperity Phil. Equity Fund, Inc. topped the 3-Year Return-Equity Fund Category (Peso Denominated); the Sun Life Prosperity Money Market Fund, Inc. outperformed other funds in the 1-Year and 3-Year Returns-Money Market Fund Category; and the Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Advantage Fund, Inc. dominated the 3-Year and 5-Year Returns the Balanced Fund Category – Foreign Currency Denominated.
Meanwhile, the following funds placed second in their respective categories: the Sun Life Prosperity Balanced Fund, Inc. in the 1-Year Return-Balanced Fund Category (Peso Denominated); the Sun Life Prosperity Bond Fund, Inc. in the 1-Year Return-Bond Fund Category (Peso Denominated); the Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Advantage Fund, Inc. in the 1-Year Return-Balanced Fund Category (Foreign Currency Denominated); the Sun Life Prosperity Money Market Fund, Inc. in the 5-Year Return- Money Market Fund Category; and the Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Abundance Fund, Inc. in the 1-Year Return-Bond Fund Category (Foreign Currency Denominated).
Seven SLAMCI funds were also named third place: the Sun Life Prosperity Phil. Stock Index Fund, Inc. in the 1-Year Return-Equity Fund Category (Peso Denominated); the Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Abundance Fund, Inc. in the 3-Year Return-Bond Fund Category (Foreign Currency Denominated); Sun Life Prosperity GS Fund, Inc. in the 1-Year Return-Bond Fund Category (Peso Denominated); the Sun Life Prosperity Dollar Wellspring Fund, Inc. in the 1-Year Return-Balanced Fund Category (Foreign Currency Denominated); the Sun Life Prosperity Dynamic Fund, Inc. in the 1-Year Return-Balanced Fund Category (Peso Denominated); the Sun Life Prosperity Balanced Fund, Inc. in the 3-Year Return-Balanced Fund Category (Peso Denominated); and the Sun Life Prosperity Balanced Fund, Inc. in the 5-Year Return-Balanced Fund Category (Peso Denominated). | 3,118 |
Special Master must determine the scope and breadth of CCA’s recordings and whether they were regularly turned over to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, or if CCA just hands over their recordings of privileged information to the government on subpoena.
Finally, there must be a determination over whether Erin Tomasic, the prosecutor who signed the subpoena, and Kim Flanniagan, her supervisor, acted alone in this matter or whether this is standard operating procedure for Kansas’ U.S. Attorney’s Office. Punitive measures would be nice as well, but Fault Lines’ source didn’t seem to see any coming on the horizon.
“It’s hard enough as is to punish prosecutorial misconduct. I don’t see OPR** doing anything in this case, and it’s almost impossible to punish an AUSA,” said the source. “I walked away from a [six figure] per year salary there, the corruption’s so bad.”
Something needs to happen, and punitive measures taken against the federal prosecutors in Kansas who either participated in this incident, knew about it, or should have known. The attorney-client privilege is sacrosanct. It’s what gives clients the ability to speak to defense attorneys without fear of disclosure, punishment or retaliation for tell the truth. If outside parties are recording that information and turning it over to prosecutors, it constitutes a massive violation of not just ethical duties, but also a defendant’s rights under the Sixth Amendment. Using the information to influence another attorney to withdraw from a criminal case, even if related, would violate Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which prohibits disclosure of information before a grand jury absent very strict exceptions.
All eyes now rest on Kansas and the Special Master’s inquiry. Regardless of the circumstances, it’s hard not to hear the words of Johnny Cash echoing through Kansas federal courts.
Well you may throw your rock and hide your hand
Workin’ in the dark against your fellow man
But as sure as God made black and white
What’s done in the dark will be brought to the light
*Calls to Ms. Rokusek and Ms. Brannon were not returned as of publication.
**OPR is the Office of Professional Responsibility, the wing of the Department of Justice that oversees misconduct from its officials.
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| 3,119 |
Due to the world's obsession with San Francisco and its crazy rents, a story about one North Beach tenant's rent hike from $1,800 to $8,000 for a rent-controlled one-bedroom has made international headlines at this point. Indeed, some three-bedrooms in this city are renting for $8,000, even if this tenant's unit shouldn't be worth that, and indeed, SF's rent control laws are complicated however the landlord may in fact have a case here, and the tenant is also facing eviction on July 21. Nonetheless, Supervisor Aaron Peskin, in whose district this eviction is occurring, tells ABC 7 he thinks the rent hike is "preposterous," and he's working with the Rent Board to try to get the tenant's appeal decision to happen before the eviction deadline.
As we learned yesterday, this is a case of a rent-controlled unit in which the master tenant moved out a situation that would, in many cases, negate the original lease and allow a landlord to raise the rent to fair market value for any existing subtenants. 47-year-old video engineer Neil Hutchinson moved into the apartment in 2010 with two roommates, and the master tenant then moved out in July of last year. It may have taken a while for the landlord to discover this, but at some point Hutchinson was given a new lease to sign for $8,000/month, saying this was "fair market value."
Hutchinson argues that the original lease and rent-controlled rent should be extended to him, however that's going to be up to the Rent Board.
Tenants' rights are strong in San Francisco, and Hutchinson's attorney Mary Cathinewiederhold has filed a response to the eviction in superior court over what she says are "errors," and she's hoping to get a full hearing from a judge soon.
And it looks like this landlord may have a shady history dating as far back as 2007, according to this Yelp page with a one-star rating. This image from a tenant showing landlord Sophie Lau as a defendant in small-claims suit includes a note, "Sue her in small claims! She usually loses." Other reviews cite dangerous living conditions, loss of power, poor maintenance of the property, and plenty of negative interactions with Lau.
And from one 2013 review, "Don't get fooled by the beautiful hardwood floors and the great location. This place is a hellhole!!!"
Previously: North Beach Tenant Facing Eviction After Rent Increase From $1,800 To $8,000 | 3,120 |
A Toronto-area hospital said that the medical records of a second group of new mothers may have been inappropriately accessed in a major privacy breach first identified in the spring.
In May, Rouge Valley Health Services said that two former staff members had accessed names, addresses and phone numbers of approximately 8,300 mothers who were patients at Rouge Valley Centenary campus.
On Wednesday, Rouge Valley Health Services said they'd learned that information about new mothers treated at the Ajax-Pickering campus may also have been disclosed to an unidentified company, a spokesperson said Wednesday.
Mothers who had babies at Rouge Valley Centenary between July 9, 2009 and April 5, 2014 were alerted by mail that two employees inappropriately gained access to their medical files, and may have shared their information with a company that sells Registered Education Savings Plans (RESPs).
In a statement posted online on May 28, a Rouge Valley representative said that lists of information including patients' names, room numbers, doctors' names, the sex and names of the babies, length of stay and type of accommodation were inappropriately accessed. Health card numbers may also have been disclosed, though Rouge Valley said there is no evidence to suggest that they were.
A letter sent to one of the affected mothers said that the employees responsible for disclosing the information are no longer working for Rouge Valley. The employees' access to patient information has been terminated, and police have been contacted.
A month later, a proposed class-action lawsuit was filed against Rouge Valley in late June when information about the breach first surfaced, alleging the information was sold to an investment firm. The lawsuit is seeking damages of $300 million for the breaches between 2009 and 2013.
The lawsuit alleges that the employees who disclosed the information were paid in exchange for the information. The allegations have not been proven in court.
In addition to the potential sale of records, an online statement posted Aug. 8 by the hospital warned that a baby photography service operating in birthing centres at Rouge Valley Centenary and Rouge Valley Ajax and Pickering were given similar lists of patient information up until early July 2014. The lists were used to approach new mothers in the hospital to offer photography services, and were shredded by the photographers.
Upon investigation, Rouge Valley has learned that information about new mothers who had babies at Rouge Valley Ajax and Pickering between April 2014 and early July 2014 may have been compromised, Rouge Valley public affairs director David Brazeau said.
Patients with comments or concerns can contact the Rouge Valley Patient Relations office at [email protected] or call 416-284-8131, ext. 4742. | 3,121 |
Four teams sit atop the league standings at 10-3: New England, Denver, Arizona and Green Bay. But by no means are they equal. For some insights on how to differentiate a good bet from a great one, we spoke with Ed Feng, founder of The Power Rank. Feng is a math whiz with a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Stanford, and he founded his site as a quant-driven way for the enlightened sports fan to make money on the game.
After this weekend, there will only be two games left in the NFL regular season. A handful of Super Bowl contenders have emerged, and from now on it's all about seeing which team will make it all the way. Being "good enough" doesn't matter anymore.
"I think Denver is incredibly underrated at this point in the season," Feng said. Despite some betting sites putting the Broncos' Super Bowl odds behind teams like the Patriots, Feng still considers them his favorite. Feng admits "the consensus among power rankings is that the Broncos are at the bottom end of elite teams," but his numbers suggest there's something to be gained by betting on them to win it all. His three main reasons are (1) pass offense, (2) pass defense and (3) the St. Louis game.
Read MoreCleveland's newest big-money sports hero isn't LeBron
Pass offense: "When I adjust for schedule, Denver's pass offense is better than last year." It's true that on a raw, unadjusted basis, the Broncos' yards-per-pass-attempt is down this year compared with last, but Feng said it's important to consider the change in their schedule. Last year, "they played the woeful NFC East," but this year their games have gotten tougher, putting them up against top pass defenses in Seattle and San Francisco in an NFC West-highlighted schedule.
Pass defense: "By signing Aqib Talib, they have gone from the 16th pass defense last season to second this season. That's a huge improvement." The numbers suggest that the improvement is mostly in the secondary, as "their sack rate hasn't changed much," going from 6.3 percent last year to 6.6 percent this year.
The St. Louis game: Even though the Broncos lost their road game to the Rams 22-7, Denver did out-gain St. Louis in total yards, 397 to 337. Feng said that "Denver only scored seven points because they went 0-2 on fourth down deep in Rams territory, and this was also the game that Emmanuel Sanders got hurt." | 3,122 |
If you bought Payday 2: Crimewave Edition on Xbox One, it’s been a frustrating couple of weeks. The game was released on June 16, yet many players continue to report it’s impossible to play the game with strangers. A patch has been promised for a long time.
The official Twitter account has sent apologies for weeks, but those don’t fix a game.
Publisher 505 Games told me there’s a patch they “hope” to release in the “coming days.”
“We’re aware there’s a number of users on XBO who are having connectivity issues on Crime.net,” said the company in a statement. “We’re testing the patch now and hope to have it released in the coming days! We identified three issues on connectivity on the XBO platform (which only impacts a small number of players)—to which the patch should correct any freezes and server drops in crime.net. We’re currently working with MSFT on testing the patch!
There are two major problems, though they seem related to one another. When trying to load up an online mission, the game constantly hitches for several seconds, and usually fails to connect you anyone to play with. If you’re playing with friends, it seems to work, but randoms? Nah.
Check out this video from Hades 343 to see how frustrating this has been since day one:
He’s not alone. You don’t have to look very far to find lots of folks upset about these issues.
As I poked around for this story, it became clear the Payday series has a complicated relationship with the console versions. How else do you explain a whole Facebook group dedicated to calling out the game’s developer for not supporting the console version enough?
And Kotaku has received several tips from readers understandably upset at Payday 2. One had a frustrating experience with Xbox customer support, who refused his request for a refund.
“We cannot issue a refund for the game as the issue is not directly caused by the Xbox Live Gold service but by the developer, Overkill Studios,” said the rep. “Please find the contact number or e-mail address from the website where you can send a complaint regarding the game. “
They were eventually able to get a refund from another customer support rep, thankfully.
Fingers crossed that Payday 2 fans on Xbox One can be properly heisting in the days ahead. | 3,123 |
Senator Doug Jones (D-Ala.) raised more large donations from Californians and New Yorkers than he did from Alabama residents, according to campaign finance reports on large individual contributors.
Only 12% of Jones’ first quarter fundraising came from large donors from his home state; in comparison, 17% came from California and 16% from New York, both of which combined account for a third of his funding by large donors, according to Alabama outlet Yellowhammer News.
“Another stark comparison to his paltry home-state percentage is the fact that $425,360 of Jones’s $1.6 million in total receipts came from PACs,” the outlet reported. “The PACs giving the most to Jones included Hawaii PAC, Follow the North Star Fund and Vermont’s Green Mountain PAC, along with many other leadership PACs of Democrat elected officials.”
“Out-of-state corporations and special interest groups were also prevalent throughout the list of PACs.”
Sen. Jones, who defeated Roy Moore in a wild 2017 special election, is considered the most vulnerable Senate Democrat up for re-election in 2020.
Interestingly, Jones raised more money from the UK than he did from Alabama in the fourth quarter of last year, Yellowhammer News also reported last month.
“Senator Doug Jones (D-Ala.) might just have more support in Birmingham, England, than Birmingham, Alabama,” the outlet quipped. “As first reported by Alabama Media Group, Jones raised more last reporting period from Americans overseas than from Alabamians.”
“In fact, he almost raked in more from people in the United Kingdom alone than Alabama.”
In February, the senator’s re-election committee apparently excluded Alabama votes from a Facebook ad that opposed President Trump’s border declaration, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
“As denoted by Facebook’s ad archives, Jones’s campaign was programmed to specifically target the news feeds of older individuals in Texas as well as the heavily liberal states of California, Massachusetts, and New York,” the outlet reported. “…The divergent ads showcase the tightrope Jones has to walk between the Democratic Party’s liberal base and his conservative state ahead of his 2020 reelection race.”
Norm Pattis joins Alex Jones and Paul Joseph Watson to give his take on the recent arrest of Julian Assange.
The Emergency Election Sale is now live! Get 30% to 60% off our most popular products today! | 3,124 |
UFC Lightweight Champion Frankie Edgar is 13-1-1, has defeated BJ Penn in consecutive fights and showed the heart of a champion against Gray Maynard at UFC 125 back on Jan. 1 of this year.
Melvin Guillard is not impressed.
The quick-handed and even quicker-mouthed 155-pound contender took to the airwaves last night (July 11) on MMAmania.com's feature presentation of Pro MMA Radio to dish the dirt on his place among the lightweight elite.
In other words, consider the division officially on notice.
"Right now it's my time to be champion," said Guillard, who pasted Shane Roller at UFC 132 last Saturday night (July 2) in Las Vegas to win his fifth straight fight and improve to 8-1 over his last nine.
But in order to be the man, he's gotta beat the man. Edgar is hoping to find "The Answer" to defeating Gray Maynard in the conclusion of their trilogy later this year.
An opponent he "barely got away from," according to Guillard:
"I feel like a lot of the guys at the top of the heap were overrated. The UFC will promote them harder so they'll get more of the attention... Me personally, I think Frankie Edgar is overrated. He beat B.J. Penn twice, I'll give the guy credit where credit is due, but he barely got away from Gray Maynard. He's the champ right now, but he's not a finisher. To me, a lot of the guys who aren't finishing fights are overrated. Nowadays you get a lot of bad judging, so who's to say these guys really won some of these fights they say they won. I just feel overall that best 155'er and I'm content with that."
Guillard has been vocal about touching gloves with Joe Lauzon when the promotion heads to Houston for UFC 136 later this year. While he tells Pro MMA Radio he'll fight "anyone they put in front of him," he considers Jim Miller his "money match" and a one-way ticket to a title fight.
Assuming he wins.
"The Young Assassin" has been doing a lot of talking. He's also been doing a lot of winning. Can the revitalized striker from Jackson's MMA back up all this talk? Or will he be exposed by the "overrated" guys at the top of the heap?
Where do you rank Guillard in this division? And do you agree with his remarks about Edgar?
Sound off! | 3,125 |
it in any bundles ever," Kyle said. "It takes some of the pressure off to be able to try new things and see what works and what doesn't."
Gunmetal Arcadia Zero launched exclusively for subscribers of the Humble Monthly Bundle in May of 2016, and was released for all on Steam in November. It also appeared in the Yogscast Jingle Jam 2016 holiday bundle. Kyle's not sure how much the prequel and its bundles helped market Gunmetal Arcadia's proper release, but he's confident it at least didn't undercut it, either.
"In the past, it was less about visibility among a number of games on the storefront so much as visibility among a number of games that were vying to be on the storefront. So there was still that competition..."
Even if pixel art platformers go out of style (again), Kyle may not abandon the retro world entirely. He has considered working on a project with deliberately PSone-style 3D visuals, right down to texture warping and other common quirks from Sony's first foray into consoles.
"I don't know if there's an underserved market, but it does feel like there's not a lot of competition in that space," Kyle said. "So if there is a market, it would probably be underserved."
Explicitly retro 3D games are no doubt dwarfed by their 2D counterparts at the moment, but games like Minecraft and Minor Key's own Eldritch have shown that audiences aren't necessarily averse to a low-poly 3D aesthetic.
To date, Eldritch has been Minor Key's biggest success by far, Kyle said. Part of that he chalks up to the game's inclusion on Steam before the Steam Greenlight floodgates opened up in a major way. And while the storefront is more competitive now, he's not sure that's necessarily a bad thing, nor is it really all that different from the way things were before.
"It's an interesting problem because there are lots of games and there will continue to be lots of games," Kyle said. "So the problem becomes one of visibility, which isn't a new problem, but it's becoming a more obvious problem. In the past, it was less about visibility among a number of games on the storefront so much as visibility among a number of games that were vying to be on the storefront. So there was still that competition in the past, but it was less visible to consumers, maybe, and probably less visible to developers as well. Overall, I would say Steam is in a better place than it has been in the past." | 3,126 |
Advanced stone tools and blades found at a site in India have made archaeologists question the origins and early evolution of humans outside Africa.
Over 7,000 artefacts were unearthed at Attirampakkam in southern India, some of which suggest a level of development known as “Middle Palaeolithic culture”.
Based on analysis of the tools, this culture appears to have emerged in India around 385,000 years ago, roughly the same time it developed in Europe and Africa.
The findings challenge the assumption that Middle Palaeolithic technology was brought to India between 46,000 and 140,000 years ago.
Crucially, it could also mean migration by modern humans out of Africa took place earlier than previously thought.
However, the researchers noted they were “very cautious on this point” because no human fossils were found with the tools.
Recently the discovery of a 200,000 year-old jawbone in Israel provided the earliest direct evidence of humans migrating out of Africa.
That discovery was described as “exciting” by experts as it pushed the date of human migration out of Africa back by up to 100,000 years.
Researchers at Tel Aviv University shed new light on early modern human evolution
However, the lack of human remains with the Indian tools means it is impossible to say for certain whether they were made by modern humans – Homo sapiens – or some other species of archaic human such as Neanderthals.
Professor Shanti Pappu of the Sharma Centre for Heritage Education said it is unclear whether the technology is the result of migration bringing in new ideas, or early non-Homo sapiens inhabitants of the region developing advanced tools in isolation.
The results of the study were published in the journal Nature.
Dr Michael Petraglia, an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, who was not involved in the research, said he did not think these tools provided enough evidence to push humanity’s departure from Africa even further back.
“I simply don’t buy it,” said Dr Petraglia, who specialises in early human evolution in Asia.
Instead, he agreed with the other option offered by Professor Pappu – that early, non-modern humans living in southern India developed the tool style without the need for input from outsiders.
The tools discovered at the Attirampakkam site show a range of complexities, and appear to show a development in style which could mean the more advanced Middle Palaeolithic tools were arrived at gradually. | 3,127 |
For some time now there have been rumors that AT&T was no longer interested in DIRECTV NOW. In recent months, AT&T has stopped talking about DIRECTV NOW like they used to. Even previously announced plans for DIRECTV NOW, like a DVR add-on for extra DVR storage, have never been released a year after the announcement.
AT&T already has two live TV streaming services: DIRECTV NOW and AT&T Watch TV. Now AT&T has announced plans to launch a third live TV streaming service later this year. This new so-called “thin” DIRECTV service sounds a lot like DIRECTV NOW. It will be a reduced cost live TV streaming that will be cheaper and offer fewer channels. The problem here is AT&T already has a service like that called DIRECTV NOW, but AT&T made it clear that this service is not DIRECTV NOW.
Just this week, AT&T’s CEO of Communications said that AT&T has a database of Americans who called for DIRECTV, but couldn’t get it. According to AT&T, this new service will let them “call them back up and say ‘We’ve got a great opportunity for you.’” This once again raised the questions about the future of DIRECTV NOW.
According to WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey on CNBC, AT&T plans to merge DIRECTV NOW into WarnerMedia. Later this year, WarnerMedia plans to launch a Netflix like streaming service for about $16 to $17 a month. AT&T reportedly plans to merge DIRECTV NOW into this service with a unified search and user interface.
Exactly what that means for the price of DIRECTV NOW is unknown, but it would likely mean a price hike. According to CNBC, this would give WarnerMedia subscribers access to live TV and WarnerMedia’s catalog of movies and TV shows along with exclusive originals.
John Stankey did use the word “eventually”, meaning it may not happen when WarnerMedia’s subscription service launches later this year. AT&T likely plans to merge DIRECTV NOW into WarnerMedia. This is probably the reason we have seen AT&T reduce focus on the service.
Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more news, tips, and reviews. Need cord cutting tech support? Join our Cord Cutting Tech Support Facebook Group for help.
Did you know we have a YouTube Channel? Every week we have a live Cord Cutting Q&A, and weekly Cord Cutting recap shows exclusively on our YouTube Channel! | 3,128 |
Buddhist leaders in New York City and around the world are warning the public to be cautious of the panhandling trend that takes advantage of the public’s image of Buddhist monks as harmless.
In many major cities around the world, men posing as Buddhist monks with shaven heads and monk’s robes harass passers-by for money and react angrily when confronted. According to CTV News, the problem has recently increased across New York City, particularly at tourist destinations including Times Square and the High Line public park.
Rev. TK Nakagaki, president of the Buddhist Council of New York, told CTV News the fake monks “are very aggressive and hostile if you don’t give them money.”
Last year, the panhandling monks were dubbed “holy terrors” and the “new squeegee men of New York” by the The New York Post, and according to The New York Times they are “ubiquitous” in the city. The problem grew to such an extent that Facebook pages such as “Fake Monks in New York City” were created to warn others of the issue. There have also been sightings of female panhandlers posing as Buddhist nuns.
According to multiple reports, the faux-monks approach pedestrians and ask them to sign a petition for peace before offering a medallion or bracelet and pushing for donations that will supposedly be donated to a temple in Thailand.
Reports of this type of panhandling began surfacing around 2012 and over the years there have been an increasing number of news stories about the impostors appearing in cities in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Cambodia.
In January 2015, The New Zealand Herald reported that, according to a woman who was trained to pose as a nun, a Chinese syndicate was behind the fraud. The woman had paid a fee of 10,000 renminbi (US$1613) to be trained and equipped as a fake Taoist nun, and a portion of the cash she collected was sent to the syndicate leaders.
The acts of the panhandling monks are seen as disrespectful to the Buddhism. Traditionally, Buddhist monastics accept donations of food they are offered while on on alms rounds.
There’s a simple way to spot a fake monk. A real monk will never aggressively beg for money.
If you see a fake monk aggressively panhandling you can register a complaint with the local police. In most cities police are unable to act unless they receive complaints from the public. | 3,129 |
Dukakis attempts to smother the health rumors by going on a three-mile “power walk,” with athletic socks pulled up high and swinging hand weights.
Other attacks kept coming. He was soft on defense. A Bush ad suggested Dukakis opposed practically all military spending and mocked images of Dukakis riding in a tank. He was soft on crime. He didn’t favor the death penalty. The attacks were relentless. “Shame on me for not effectively dealing with it,” Dukakis now says. “And I didn’t.” At the time, as Dukakis notes in the film, crime was high throughout the United States, but Massachusetts had a good record in dealing with crime and the homicide rate in Houston (Bush’s home town) was six times greater than that in Boston. “Why didn’t I say that?” he asks. “Well, I wasn’t going to pay any attention to the attacks.” Anti-Dukakis ads flooded the airwaves with a mug shot of the scary-looking and African American Willie Horton.
You get the picture. And so does Dukakis, who is refreshingly candid in the documentary. I’ll spare you a full recounting of the second debate, at which Dukakis botched a question about capital punishment when asked if he would favor the death penalty were his wife raped and murdered. To be polite, he was far too calm, abstract, and rational. (At that moment, I agreed to jump out of an airplane with a friend after the election was over.)
At the end of this well-made and insightful film, a reflective Dukakis says to Rabbe, “We didn’t do what, I’m sorry to say, you have to do in these campaigns. And that’s one of the great lessons of ’88, sadly. And that is you’ve got to anticipate the attack campaign. And you have to have a carefully thought-out strategy for dealing with it in advance of when it happens…I obviously made huge mistakes.”
They were mistakes that did not go unnoticed. Four years later, when Bill Clinton, a candidate quite vulnerable to attack ads, was the Democratic nominee, his campaign staff (including George Stephanopoulos, who had been a key Dukakis staffer) operated a war room designed to respond quickly to any assault. Clinton and his team had learned what Dukakis had not.
You can watch the full documentary here: | 3,130 |
'Every day that property of Jewish victims murdered in 1929 Hevron pogrom remains in Arab hands is a national disgrace,' says Yamina chief.
Yamina party chief Ayelet Shaked called on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Wednesday to permit Hevron’s Jewish community to build a housing project in an old marketplace which belonged to the city’s Jewish population prior to the 1929 riots.
Ahead of Netanyahu’s planned visit to Hevron, Shaked urged the Prime Minister to grant housing permits to a planned project in an abandoned wholesale marketplace.
“Enough delays,” said Shaked, “this is the time to build a Jewish neighborhood in Hevron – you have the power to do this.”
The former Justice Minister said that the property, which was owned by the Jewish community in Hevron prior the 1929 Arab riots, should be redeemed immediately.
“Every day that the property of those murdered in the 1929 massacre remains in the hands of the murderous Palesitnian mayor is a national embarrassment.”
The wholesale market in eastern Hevron, which sits adjacent to the Jewish neighborhood of Avraham Avinu, was owned by the local Jewish community in the early 20th century, but was seized by local Arab squatters after the Jewish community in Hevron was wiped out in the 1929 riots.
During the riots, in August 1929, local Arabs massacred 67 Jews in Hevron, wounded 60 more, and forced the survivors to flee the city. While some returned in the early 1930s, authorities from the British Mandate evacuated the remaining Jews from Hevron in 1936.
The wholesale market remained in Arab possession until the IDF cleared the property in 1994, after Kiryat Arba resident Baruch Goldstein shot and killed 29 Arabs in the Tomb of the Patriarchs, out of security concerns given the market’s proximity to the Jewish neighborhood of Avraham Avinu and fears of Arab reprisal attacks.
Local Jews reclaimed the wholesale market in 2001, turning the shops into makeshift apartments. Israel ultimately evicted them, however, in 2006.
Nine months ago, however, the Defense Ministry and Justice Ministry backed a legal opinion which would permit a Jewish housing project on the upper floor of the wholesale market, despite an earlier ruling which claimed Hevron’s Arab municipality had “protected tenancy” rights to the property.
Netanyahu is expected to visit Hevron Wednesday for an event marking the 90th anniversary of the 1929 Hevron Massacre. | 3,131 |
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If you’re tired of working with tech writers who don’t understand tech, finance writers who don’t understand finance, or outsourced people who require tremendous management overhead, it’s time to hire a real pro. | 3,132 |
Driverless vehicles will safely wiz through intersections at the full speed limit, according to researchers from Virginia Tech Transportation Research.
Autonomous vehicles will turn themselves over to an automated intersection controller, with the controller tweaking their trajectory to prevent crashes, explained Ismail Zohdy of Cairo, Egypt, a Ph.D. student in civil engineering at Virginia Tech, and Hesham Rakha, director of the Center for Sustainable Mobility at the transportation institute and professor of civil engineering at the university.
Driver behavior is considered to be the leading cause of more than 90 percent of accidents, so safety is the primary motivation for driverless vehicles. A driverless vehicle can much more accurately judge distances and velocities, and react instantly to situations that could cause an accident due to a delayed human reaction, the researchers say.
Proposed intersection traffic-control system
The proposed system considers the vehicles’ location, speed, and acceleration plus the surrounding environment, such as weather and intersection characteristics. An intersection controller would allow vehicles to keep moving, reduces the delay for each vehicle compared to traditional intersection control.
Intelligent transportation systems are an interaction of many complex entities that communicate with each other, such as vehicles, traffic signals, and advisory signs. Driverless vehicles would be capable of interacting with these other entities, according to the researchers.
In Zohdy and Rakha’s research, the intersection controller governs vehicles within 200 meters (218.7 yards) from the intersection. The vehicles report their physical characteristics, such as power, mass, speed, location, and acceleration. “The aim of giving complete authority to the controller is to overcome any selfish behavior by an autonomous vehicle and benefit all vehicles in the intersection zone,” said Zohdy.
“The controller determines the optimum speed and acceleration at each time step for every vehicle within the intersection zone by processing the input data through a real-time simulator/tool.”
The research was done based on a four-way intersection with one vehicle entering from each direction and moving straight through. It has since been expanded and tested on more congested intersections involving not fully deployed systems and comparing this type of control to traffic signal and roundabout control.
Zohdy and Rakha will also be testing their system on a roundabout on the Virginia Tech campus as part of the Connected Vehicle/Infrastructure University Transportation Center.
Their research on Optimizing Driverless Vehicles at Intersections, presented at the Intelligent Transportation Society World Congress in Vienna, won the Best Scientific Paper Award for North America (ITS stands for intelligent transportation systems).
Related Links | 3,133 |
Diesel fuel has leaked from a ruptured pipeline in Sarnia, Ont., and found its way into the St. Clair River, which provides drinking water to almost 170,000 people.
Sun-Canadian Pipe Line shut its ultra low sulphur diesel (ULSD) pipeline located one kilometre from river shore on Tuesday afternoon.
At the time, Sarnia police said no diesel fuel had got into the river. However, Sun-Canadian spokeswoman Melanie Paradis confirmed to CBC News on Wednesday that it had.
"There has been a limited release … into the river," Paradis said.
She didn't know how much of the fuel made its way into the water, nor did Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley.
According to the Sarnia Observer, Ontario's Technical Standards and Safety Authority said "the leak buckled the roadway, and the diesel surfaced on the road and entered a sewer drain."
Fellow company spokesman Sam Gorstein said the eight-inch pipe has "a pinhole-sized" leak and that the line was closed three minutes after it was discovered by the pipeline's electronic monitoring system.
He wasn't sure how much fuel is in the water but said "even one barrel is too much."
Bradley told CBC News that Sun-Canadian told city officials and first responders it thought the diesel was contained in a drain, but it did end up in the water.
Bradley said there was a sheen on the river in the area of Stag Island on Tuesday night. That's eight kilometres downriver from the leak.
The River and its watersheds cover over 335,000 hectares and are home to more than 170 000 people, many of whom rely on the river for drinking water.
Paradis said Sun-Canadian is working with Chemical Valley Emergency Control Organization to clean up the spill.
A Sun-Canadian media release said the company had deployed booms in the St. Clair River.
"To ensure the most effective mitigation of a limited release of ULSD into the river, Sun-Canadian has initiated comprehensive water sampling to determine the extent of the release and to measure the effectiveness of the cleanup efforts," the release said.
Bradley said the Ministry of Environment was also notified and attended the scene.
According to the Wallaceburg Courier Press, Wallaceburg, which is downriver of the leak, closed its water intake as a precautionary measure.
Sun-Canadian Pipe Line has been transporting refined petroleum products from Sarnia to marketing plants in London, Hamilton and the Toronto region for 60 years. | 3,134 |
Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP/REX
The tension between Tom Arnold and Mark Burnett boiled over into a physical altercation at Sunday’s Evening Before Emmy party, a fundraiser for the Motion Picture Television Fund.
Details of the incident are still unclear. According to a source with knowledge of the situation, Burnett and Arnold arrived at the event held at the Lawn at Century Park at around 9:30 p.m. As both men were walking into the event, a scuffle ensued. A source with knowledge of the situation said it involved shoving but it was unclear who made the first move. Arnold claimed Burnett tried to choke him.
Arnold has been publicly bashing Burnett for months over Arnold’s insistence that the producer is protecting President Donald Trump by refusing to release outtakes from “The Apprentice” in which Trump allegedly uses racial slurs and makes other disturbing comments. Burnett executive produced the series, and Trump hosted.
Arnold is hosting a reality series for Viceland dubbed “The Hunt for the Trump Tapes,” which premieres Tuesday.
Popular on Variety
According to a source, the scuffle was quickly broken up by security at the Evening Before event. Both men were allowed to enter the party after settling down.
Arnold is threatening to report the incident to Los Angeles police. Roma Downey, who is married to Burnett, said via Twitter that she received a bruise on her hand when Arnold “tried to ambush Mark and me.” Arnold responded with a threat to sue Downey for defamation.
The Evening Before party was packed with a who’s who of the TV industry. The incident happened quickly near the entrance to the expansive party space. One attendee who was within earshot of the scuffle said Arnold could be heard challenging Burnett regarding the outtakes of “Apprentice.”
Arnold tweeted later that documentary filmmaker Bryan Fogel, who won the feature documentary Oscar this year for “Icarus,” was with him during the scuffle and “has tape.”
Burnett, who is also chairman of MGM Television, and Downey could not immediately be reached for comment late Sunday night.
Burnett and MGM, which owns the “Apprentice” franchise, have asserted in the past that the studio does not have the legal right to release outtakes and unused footage from the show. Even if they could, it would be logistically difficult to make hundreds of hours of raw footage available for scrutiny. | 3,135 |
The B.C. NDP dropped Kelowna-Mission candidate Dayleen Van Ryswyk on the first day of the provincial election campaign over controversial comments made on a local media website.
"Earlier today, I was made aware of unacceptable comments made by Kelowna-Mission NDP candidate Dayleen van Ryswyk," NDP Leader Adrian Dix said in a written release. "I have accepted Van Ryswyk’s resignation. A new B.C. NDP candidate will be announced shortly."
He said mistakes happen, and that's how Van Ryswyk slipped through the vetting process despite posting comments on the internet blasting compensation paid to First Nations.
Dayleen Van Ryswyk resigned as the NDP's Kelowna-Mission candidate on Tuesday. (Facebook)
The news comes after the B.C. Liberal issued a press release Tuesday morning calling for Van Ryswyk’s resignation. The party released a series of controversial blog posts attributed to Van Ryswyk.
Some of Van Ryswyk's comments take aim at First Nations.
"It’s not the status cards, it’s the fact that we have been paying out of the nose for generations for something that isn’t our doing," reads one post on Castanet, an Okanagan area website. "If their ancestors sold out too cheap it’s not my fault and I shouldn’t have to be paying for any mistake or whatever you want to call it from my hard-earned money."
The posts also take aim at the French-Canadian community.
"Seems the only group of people universally hated around the world other than the Americans are the French and French-Canadians. The bigots are the French and not us," the blog reads.
"I’m getting so sick of having French stuffed down my throat. This isn’t Quebec. It’s western Canada. We speak English here. Why are we forced to have it at our western Canadian hosted Olympics?"
B.C. Liberal candidate Mary Polak called on Dix to fire Ryswyk.
"Clearly, these remarks are not becoming [of] a potential member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia … Adrian Dix should never have signed her nomination papers with these kinds of beliefs," she said in a written statement.
"Van Ryswyk has made unacceptable and hateful statements against First Nations and French speaking Canadians. There is no place in British Columbia for that type of language." | 3,136 |
crucially – the risks of investment in fundamental research and the corporate sector benefited from the energy riches in the continental shelf. In reality, this meant that a tiny minority of people in control of huge concentrations of capital were able to set up the North West Shelf Gas Project off the coast of Western Australia, near the Pilbara town of Karratha.
On September 4, 1984, West Australian premier Brian Burke formally opened the $27 billion Project, which was operated by a then little-known company called Woodside Petroleum. It began exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) in 1989. The Project has today become one of the largest LNG producers in the world. Woodside has become Australia’s largest natural gas producer, and one of the top 20 stocks in the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) by market capitalisation.
In return, according to Woodside’s own calculations in February 2017, the government received approximately $26 billion in royalties, excise and taxes from the North West Shelf Project since it began in 1984.
In contrast, Norway made better use of the oil and gas in its continental shelf. The Norwegian government owns two-thirds of the shares in Equinor, formerly known as the Norwegian State Oil Company. Equinor’s workers elect three of the 11 directors.
The Norwegian government created the Government Pension Fund Global in 1990 to invest Norway’s oil revenue. The Ministry of Finance owns the fund on behalf of the Norwegian people, and determines its investment strategy. The Fund had more than 9 billion kroner (almost $1.5 trillion Australian dollars) in 2019. This was a handsome investment for a country with less than six million people.
The Commonwealth should have insisted on equity in the North West Shelf Project at the very beginning, when share prices were affordable. It could have insisted on income-contingent loans in the same way that Australian students are required to pay back their university fees once their incomes exceed some amount. The Commonwealth could have insisted on a golden share of any patents that came out of subsidised research. These alternatives would reward inventors whilst also giving society some additional benefits.
But in Australia, in the absence of a nationally owned energy company, the “national interest” amounts to the socialisation of costs and risks, and the privatisation of profits.
Editor’s Note: As per the MW Top 40 Tax Dodgers and associated commentary, the industry is responsible for Australia’s most aggressive tax avoidance. The hydrocarbons riches, which belong to the people, have not been shared fairly. | 3,137 |
Anger is rising in the ethereum community towards F2Pool specifically which is accused of keeping eth’s capacity down by using a hardcoded gas limit instead of a flexible gas limit.
An r/ethtrader moderator, after stating F2Pool is damaging ethereum, asked all pools to use the following setting for geth: –gasprice 4000000000 –targetgaslimit 4712388, and for parity: –gas-floor-target 4712388 –gas-cap 9000000 –gasprice 4000000000.
The flexible gas limit adjusts capacity in line with demand, therefore the sort of backlogs ethereum experienced yesterday should not happen, said the moderator in one of the comments.
Pools, however, need to change their settings, but F2Pool has failed to do so, he said, damaging the network by causing backlogs in the process which should not happen.
F2Pool, moreover, is accused of prioritizing their own transactions during the Status ICO sale, jumping the queue over other investors in a way many see as reckless.
Although F2Pool currently has around 26% of the network’s hardware, none of it belong to them, with F2Pool so being a literal pooling of hardware by many small miners scattered across China and beyond.
They are a small operation with a handful of employees, but have often caused controversy, including during the DAO hardfork when they did not hold a miners vote and did not move even once the fork had been implemented by all other miners until they in effect had no choice.
Some suggest they are bitcoin maximalists, with indications they may be strong supporters of Bitcoin Core, while others look forward to Proof of Stake when validation is given to ethereum holders.
Proof of Stake, however, appears unlikely this year as ethereum is still waiting for the Metropolis upgrade, which includes a number of new features such as potentially Zcash like privacy.
After that upgrade goes through, which might be during autumn or winter, Proof of Stake is then to be deployed with perhaps optimistic estimates of summer next year.
These estimates may change in either direction, but as the Ethereum Foundation now holds nearly half a billion dollars worth of eth and other currencies, they may hire more developers to speed up the process.
However, blockchain talent is in very short supply currently while being in very high demand. Money, therefore, is unlikely to be the primary consideration, but skill, as we wait for the new generation to acquire the necessary blockchain knowledge with many universities now starting to consider offering courses. | 3,138 |
Senate Republicans rejected a bill that aims to stop suspected terrorists from legally buying guns, on Thursday. The vote came a day after at least 14 people were killed during the San Bernardino massacre in California by two suspects, including a woman said to have pledged allegiance to ISIS.
Forty-five senators voted for the bill and 54 voted against it. One Democrat, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, and one Republican, Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois, crossed party lines.
The measure would have denied people on the terrorist watch list the ability to buy guns.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who sponsored the legislation, argued that former President George W. Bush initially proposed the legislation in 2007, and the Obama administration also supports it.
“If you need proof that Congress is a hostage to the gun lobby, look no further than today’s vote blocking a bill to prevent known or suspected terrorists from buying guns and explosives,” she said. “Congress has been paralyzed by the gun lobby for years, while more and more Americans are killed in mass shootings. The carnage won’t stop until Congress finds the courage to stand up to the gun lobby and protect the nation.”
The NRA did not respond to a request on Friday for comment. But the gun rights lobby group told MSBC last month it wants to ensure that Americans who are wrongly on the terrorist list are are afforded their constitutional right to due process.
However, the bill would allow people to legally challenge a denial by the Justice Department to purchase a firearm, if they believe they were mistakenly placed on the terrorist watchlist.
The GOP-controlled Senate refusal to pass new gun control measures came weeks after the Washington Post reported that suspected terrorists had successfully purchased more than 2,000 guns from American dealers between 2004 and 2014, even though law enforcement is notified whenever someone on the FBI’s watchlist attempts to purchase a firearm.
Also on Thursday, the Senate failed to pass another bill that would have expanded background checks to gun show and online firearms sales. The measure would also prevents convicted felons and the mentally ill from having access to weapons.
The four Republican senators who are running for president — Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Lindsey Graham — all voted against both gun control measures.
Jessica Mackler, president of the American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic group, blasted the presidential hopefuls, saying that Americans should “keep in mind how their representatives addressed gun violence: cowering in inaction in the face of repeated, senseless tragedies in our communities.” | 3,139 |
Audi A4 vs BMW 3 Series Comparison Review
The center stack is mercifully clean and free of too much clutter, controls are easy to find and use, and the little details sprinkled through the cabin constantly remind you that you’re in a premium product. Nothing feels cheap in this Audi and it appears that no corners have been cut.
The best safety and driver assistants are also available, with blind spot monitoring, rear cross traffic alert, lane keep assist, collision avoidance, and adaptive cruise control with stop and go capability all working smoothly and confidently without being too intrusive.
The Competition
The S3’s most obvious competitor is the BMW M240i xDrive, although that other German is only available as a coupe. On paper, the BMW has a few obvious advantages — it’s powered by a turbo 3.0L six-cylinder engine that has a higher output (335 hp and 369 lb-ft of torque), has two more gears than the S3 for a total of eight, and costs a few thousand dollars less. As a result, it does the zero-to-60 mph trick in 4.2 seconds, a hair faster than the S3’s 4.7-second time. Fuel economy is pretty much a wash and they both require premium gas.
I’ll need to drive the two back-to-back to see which one is more engaging and better to drive, but for me, I would need the practicality of having four doors (my parents are just getting too old to comfortably get in and out of coupes and my very tall boyfriend might appreciate the extra doors to make child seat installation easier). I also prefer Audi’s infotainment setup over the BMW’s, and that bright, clear and configurable digital dashboard is also a big bonus.
The Verdict: 2018 Audi S3 Review
The 2018 Audi S3 is the perfect car for me (except for the fact that it doesn’t come with a manual transmission, but my boyfriend can’t drive stick and the auto is pretty great anyway). With the right mix of luxury, performance, practicality, and downright fun factor, the price Audi is asking for this sporty little sedan seems like a bargain. So many people told me that this car suits me, and I not only was I flattered by the compliment, but I’m also convinced that I need it in my life. And there’s no better endorsement for a car than that. Audi, take my money.
Discuss this article on our Audi Forum | 3,140 |
Transcript for Tabloids react to Prince Philip retirement
It before you Gao. Ad asking about another big story. Right where you are hard pair in London earlier in the week. Prince fill up for us now 95 years young announcement he's basically retiring August but the phrase we can we can use here. How big moment is that and how people there processing ballots in the fall app and that it. He he is night if you hide your young I look they heat looks fit and half aunt he turned 96 snacks not. I'm and he is a favorite of the press yeah I just punish you and you're on every cover of every newspaper. I'm here today it's is it dealing out good nation salutes to use our. This is the Daily Telegraph. Service with a smile that's your guy it's I like best you've got the sad. He's had his bell hop indicated that I like yeah. One light author it's. Oh might I write anything literally everywhere. I'm and I like that you've got think he's our Prince Philip retired after seven years of loyal service and that ship and we miss Jeff as a why he backed up favorite you're Easton I Keeneland but I. First seven here at imagine public service for seven here announced is gonna have to go it alone that we will see her. We actually saw her today with Prince William we will see her am alone more often well filthy him. At really make a bad. But he let his royal feet he's gonna take a break and I think everyone here in the UK Ellen particularly surprising that the coming that moment. With the court's going to and he he deserves a little bit of a break I think everyone agree if but he did have one last bet on which I well. Chair with you that when he went after yesterday are you standing down and if that well. I can't stand up for much longer and that's exactly why but I am love him. I'll always ready with a one liners. The pending the occasional group here in there along the way we should point out and seventeen years in service. Congratulations difference Philippine you know was still Valentine. Queen Elizabeth tackling and allow you look at real drag. Molly hunter live for us in London Pollack at the Sox you thanks line no problem on the and remember you can stay with abcnews.com. For continuing coverage of the French presidential runoff election that's happening Sunday. And LT a different kind of other stories check it out when you thanks for joining us for now I'm on the spot up the back here's that.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate. | 3,141 |
New mobile children’s clinic addresses gap in care for Las Vegas
Courtesy photo
At-risk Las Vegas-area children will have another option in securing medical care beginning this summer.
A fully operational mobile clinic will debut in a partnership between the Children’s Health Fund and Nevada Health Centers, and most important, it can’t turn a child away, says Randal Christensen, chief medical officer of Nevada Health Centers.
The mobile clinic, which will have the professional staff to help with everything from general check-ups to more intense medical needs, operates on an income-based sliding scale and also accepts insurance. But, with 19 percent of Nevada children living in poverty, according to the 2017 Annie E. Casey Kids Count report, it will serve a need for those who don’t have other health options.
“Many people don’t know that Nevada is a frontier state and that access to care is limited, especially for children and families living in poverty,” said Dennis Walto, chief executive officer for Children’s Health Fund. “To have a mobile clinic that is able to go out and deliver care to where children are is a big step toward acknowledging that we need to make children a priority and bring them the services that they need.”
Children’s Health Fund launched its first mobile medical clinic more than 30 years ago to help bridge the gap between children and access to necessary medical check-ups. The clinics are fully equipped examining rooms, waiting areas, nurse stations and a room for medical procedures.
The partnership between the nonprofit and Nevada Health Centers formed because the national nonprofit's strategies to reach vulnerable and underserved populations were designed to solve the same issues that many families in Nevada face. The clinic ensures access to high-quality health care to the state’s most disadvantaged children in areas that have high poverty, health provider shortages and transportation barriers, Christensen said.
The initial estimates on incremental reach via the Nevada program exceed an additional 3,700 children and approximately 14,000 provider visits per year, according to the 2017 state health fund report.
“They can identify any issues that may be causing them a failure to thrive,” Walto said. “Starting earlier on with making sure that the mom is engaged in her prenatal visits and post-birth making sure that children come in for their well-child checks and make sure that there is a consistent monitor on how that child is doing.”
The ribbon cutting will be in mid-May and Walto anticipates it will be operational within the following weeks. | 3,142 |
Update: Foxcatcher has now been moved to 2014, so the filmmakers “can have more time to finish the film” and it will no longer premiere at AFI Fest in November. Check out the original story below.
One of the last remaining fall films we had yet to see any footage from was Bennett Miller‘s Moneyball follow-up Foxcatcher, but thankfully today, that changes. The unsettling first teaser trailer for the film has landed, which sees Steve Carell not only undergo a wild physical transformation, but this character is far removed from any role he’s previously taken on.
Channing Tatum also stars in the true story, playing Olympic Gold Medal-winning wrestler Mark Schultz, brother of David Schultz (Mark Ruffalo), in the script written written by E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman. Carell takes the role of millionaire and schizophrenic John du Pont, who builds a wrestling training facility on his estate (called Team Foxcatcher) and eventually ends up going down a dark path. With a cast also featuring Vanessa Redgrave and Sienna Miller, check it out below, for what’s shaping up to be one of the year’s most-anticipated films.
Update: Sony Pictures Classics have requested the trailer be removed, but one can try their luck on Tumblr or Twitter or above, until it gets taken down.
FOXCATCHER is a psychological drama directed by Academy Award nominee Bennett Miller (MONEYBALL) and starring Golden Globe winner Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, Academy Award nominee Mark Ruffalo, Academy Award winner Vanessa Redgrave and Sienna Miller. The film was written by E. Max Frye and Academy Award nominee Dan Futterman. FOXCATCHER tells the story of Olympic Gold Medal-winning wrestler Mark Schultz (Tatum), who sees a way out from the shadow of his more celebrated wrestling brother Dave (Ruffalo) and a life of poverty when he is summoned by eccentric multi-millionaire John du Pont (Carell) to move onto his estate and train for the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Desperate to gain the respect of his disapproving mother, du Pont begins “coaching” a world-class athletic team and, in the process, lures Mark into dangerous habits, breaks his confidence and drives him into a self-destructive spiral. Based on actual events, FOXCATCHER is a gripping and profoundly American story of fragile men who pinned their hopes for love and redemption on a desperate obsession for greatness that was to end in tragedy.
Foxcatcher opens in 2014. | 3,143 |
Kevin Knox Struggled Mightily
Kevin Knox was compared to Jayson Tatum during the Knicks Thursday night game against the Celtics. However, in this game the only attributes Knox had that were comparable with Tatum was that they both have two arms, two legs, and a head on their shoulder. Knox finished with 15 points on Thursday night but shot just 5-15 from the field and 2-7 from three-point range. The Knicks only lost 82-75, but Kevin Knox still recorded a +/- of -12 while on the court.
Knox’s poor performance was masked by fellow rookie, and 36th overall pick in the 2018 Draft, Mitchell Robinson from Western Kentucky. Robinson scored 17 points on 8-10 from the field and notched a double-double by snagging 12 rebounds as well. Robinson also made the most of his 7’1” height and 7’4” wingspan by recording an impressive 6 blocks and 3 steals on the defensive side of the ball.
Jabari Bird Took Flight
Jabari Bird has a chance to earn himself a pretty sweet payday. The RFA has been playing surprisingly well in Summer League. On Thursday, he scored 13 points on 6-11 from the field, including a very acrobatic layup in semi-transition. Bird’s game revolves around his great leaping ability and four of his ten rebounds were on the offensive end. Half of them were tip-ins over the frontcourt players of the Knicks.
Jabari Bird has made a name for himself in the Summer League!pic.twitter.com/cflYWCxJ16 — Sports World (@OurSportsWorld) July 12, 2018
Semi Ojeleye was clearly given the green light for Boston, as he went 8-16 from the field and 4-9 from three-point range. Ojeleye struggled his rookie year on the offensive side of the ball, and it is clear that the Celtics are trying to force him to take shots to become comfortable with the three ball. If Ojeleye can develop that three-point shot, he will be a valuable 3-and-D player for the Celtics to turn to off the bench.
More NBA Summer League
Trae Young and Tyler Dorsey Lead Epic Comeback Over Pacers
Bruce Brown Leads Pistons Over Keita Bates-Diop’s Wolves
Jarrett Allen’s Double-Double Not Enough, Nets Lose to Rockets
Collin Sexton Shines, Justin Jackson Struggles in Matchup | 3,144 |
After rising 2% in April, the funding level of the 5,588 pension plans in the Pension Protection Fund’s (PPF) 7800 Index slid to 94.5% from 95.1% in May, as the aggregate deficit increased to £94 billion ($125.7 billion) at the end of the month, from £81.7 billion ($109.3 billion) at the end of April.
Total assets for the plans were £1.61 trillion, representing a 2.1% increase for the month, and a 3.5% rise over the year. At the same time, total liabilities were £1.7 trillion, an increase of 2.8% over the month, and a decrease of 1.1% over the year. The PPF said the monthly rise in asset values reflected the impact of higher equity and bond prices.
Among the plans in the index, 65.5%, or 3,659 plans, were in deficit at the end of May, while 34.5%, or 1,929 plans, were in surplus. This is compared to 65.1%, or 3,637 plans in deficit, and 34.9%, or 1,951 in surplus, at the end of April. At the same time last year, 71.3%, or 3,986 plans, were in deficit, while only 28.7%, or 1,602 plans, were in surplus.
Although the plans’ aggregate deficit widened in May, it is still 44% lower than it was at the same time last year, when the deficit for the plans totaled £167.9 billion. The funding level is also more than 4% higher than the 90.3% recorded in May 2017.
Among the plans that were in deficit, the aggregate deficit is estimated to have increased to £206.4 billion at the end of May, from £194.9 billion at the end of April. However, this is down 23% from the £252.1 billion reported at the end of May 2017. And among the plans in surplus, the aggregate surplus decreased less than 1% to £112.3 billion from £113.2 billion at the end of April, but was up 25% from the year-ago period when the surplus stood at £84.2 billion.
The PPF also reported that conventional 15-year gilt yields fell by 14 basis points in May, while index-linked five- to 15-year gilt yields fell by 11 basis points. Equity markets and gilt yields are the main drivers of funding levels, according to the PPF. | 3,145 |
A Burma court has jailed a New Zealand bar manager and two Burmese colleagues for two-and-a-half years for insulting religion by using a psychedelic image of Buddha wearing headphones to promote their bar.
The case comes amid a surge in Buddhist nationalism in Burma with monks forming groups aimed at promoting the country’s Buddhist character.
New Zealander Phil Blackwood, bar manager Htut Ko Ko Lwin and bar owner Tun Thurein had all pleaded not guilty. They were sentenced to jail with labour, the court said on Tuesday.
Rights groups condemned the verdict as an assault on freedom of expression and called for the trio’s release.
“The authorities are clearly trying to make an example with this case, but ironically all it has done is hurt the image of Burma and Buddhism,” said Matt Smith, executive director of the Bangkok-based group Fortify Rights.
Police bundled Blackwood out of court and into a vehicle after the verdict and he did not comment to reporters.
Some people have compared the case with recent remarks made by a prominent monk and Buddhist nationalist, Wirathu, who called a UN human rights envoy a “whore”.
A senior monk and an official in the religious affairs ministry told Reuters in January that Wirathu’s remark could harm Buddhism. He has not been charged.
At a hearing in December, Blackwood said he had not intended to offend Buddhism when he posted the image on the bar’s Facebook page to advertise a cheap drinks night.
He said he had removed the image and posted an apology when he realised it was being shared online and provoking outrage.
“These men expressed contrition for what they said was a mistake, but meanwhile extremists like Wirathu have incited violence in the name of Buddhism and publicly attacked a senior UN official with truly offensive remarks,” Smith said.
Burma’s semi-civilian government has lifted restrictions on freedom of speech, association and media, but reforms have been accompanied by a rise in Buddhist nationalism.
The main targets of the nationalist movement have been Muslims, who make up about 5% of Burma’s 53 million people. At least 240 people have been killed in sectarian violence since June 2012, most of them Muslims.
Parliament is due to debate laws, including regulations on religious conversions and interfaith marriages, which were initially proposed by a “committee to protect race and religion”, one of the main Buddhist nationalist groups associated with Wirathu. | 3,146 |
Gerald Anderson, waiter sues Hardee’s for firing him after ending affair with...
Gerald Anderson, a former fast food waiter is suing Hardee’s restaurant chain because they had the gall to fire him after he terminated a relationship he had with his female boss.
The discrimination suit alleges that his former boss, Danielle Dahlenburg pressured him into have sex with her, on the presumption it was part of the job requirement. Soon after ending the 2 month affair, the South Dakota fast food waiter was fired.
In court documents filed on February 5, Gerald Anderson asserts that he was subjected to ‘unwanted sexual advances, requests for sexual favors and sexual touching.’
Alleges the suit: ‘When she hired him, Dahlenburg told plaintiff that if he ‘applied’ himself and worked with her ‘on and off the clock’ he could advance to a management position,’
‘Dahlenburg led plaintiff to believe that his submission to her sexual advances was a condition of his employment and that he would be fired, or otherwise retaliated against, if he did not acquiesce.’
Anderson’s suit claims that he ended the relationship in October 2012 and was sacked about a week later.
His attorney, Sarah Baron Houy, claims the manager’s behavior was illegal under federal and state employment law.
‘The primary allegation that we have here is that his employment was conditioned upon his participation in a sexual relationship with his supervisor and that constitutes unlawful employment discrimination,’ she told Rapid City Journal.
Gerald Anderson first took his claims against the Northland Restaurant Group, operating as Hardee’s, to state and federal fair employment agencies, claiming the business violated anti-discrimination laws. The agencies said he had a right to sue.
He is now seeking unspecified punitive and compensatory damages for lost wages, benefits, attorney fees and other costs due to ‘humiliation and embarrassment’.
It is not clear if Dahlenburg, who is not named as a defendant in the suit, still works at the chain.
Hardee’s has yet to file a response to the lawsuit.
And then there were this comment on the web that made me wonder as well:
For the past 40 years women have been B!TC#IN about equal right and crying about men’s only clubs. It only seems right that the women get exactly what they demand and that s equal rights.
above image found here | 3,147 |
Mail kept moving Monday as Canada Post and the union representing 50,000 of its workers resumed contract talks and the post office withdrew a threat to lock out its workers.
Canada Post issued a brief statement that said it had withdrawn its lockout notice "which will allow both parties to focus their efforts on serious negotiations."
"We are also expecting the union to honour their repeated public statements that they have no plans to issue a strike notice," it said. "Assurance from both parties that the postal system will remain open for business while we negotiate will provide the certainty that Canadians and our employees are looking for."
The Crown corporation's news release followed a statement earlier Sunday from Labour Minister MaryAnn Mihychuk, who encouraged the two sides to continue discussions beyond a deadline of 12:01 a.m. ET today that Canada Post had set.
"I am pleased that there has been movement at the bargaining table and that progress is being made," the minister said.
"I remain hopeful that an agreement can be reached by the parties."
In a statement issued Monday, CUPW said the two sides are working long hours to reach new collective agreements.
"We remain committed to negotiating fair collective agreements, as we have since the beginning of this process," the union said. "We're encouraged that Canada Post now shares that perspective. We have no plans to issue a 72-hour notice."
Canada Post initially served a lockout notice to CUPW for last Friday, but later delayed the notice until Monday.
Canada Post said it intends to lock out its workers starting on Friday after months of negotiations have failed to make a labour deal between the postal carrier and its largest union. 2:33
Negotiations on wages, pensions
The two sides are far apart on two major issues — wages and pensions — after seven months of negotiations, including 60 days of conciliation talks and more than 30 days with federal mediators.
The union wants rural and suburban mail carriers to be paid by the hour, like urban letter carriers, rather than by how many packages they deliver.
Canada Post wants to change the pension scheme for new hires, moving them to a defined contribution plan instead of a defined benefit plan. Many private sector companies have moved to defined contribution plans because they reduce costs for companies and shift the risk for future payouts onto employees, who are no longer guaranteed a set return in retirement.
The pension proposal is one other public sector unions are watching closely. If Canada Post's proposal is adopted, it could signal the direction the government wants to take in future talks with other unions. | 3,148 |
Notice how in the first two sentences, the “slavery wasn’t that bad” sentences, the main subject of each clause is a person: slaves, masters, slaveholders. What those people, especially the slave owners, are doing is clear: They are treating their slaves kindly; they are providing adequate food and clothing. But after those two sentences there is a change, not just in the writers’ outlook on slavery but also in their sentence construction. There are no people in the last two sentences, only nouns. Yes, there is severe treatment, whippings, brandings and torture. And yes, those are all bad things. But where are the slave owners who were actually doing the whipping and branding and torturing? And where are the slaves who were whipped, branded and tortured? They are nowhere to be found in the sentence.
In another passage, slave owners and their institutionalized cruelty are similarly absent: “Families were often broken apart when a family member was sold to another owner.”
Note the use of the passive voice in the verbs “were broken apart” and “was sold.” If the sentence had been written according to the principles of good draftsmanship, it would have looked like this: Slave owners often broke slave families apart by selling a family member to another owner. A bit more powerful, no? Through grammatical manipulation, the textbook authors obscure the role of slave owners in the institution of slavery.
It may appear at first glance that the authors do a better job of focusing on the actions of slaves. After all, there are many sentences in which “slaves” are the subjects, the main characters in their own narrative. But what are the verbs in those sentences? Are the slaves suffering? No, in the sentences that feature slaves as the subject, as the main actors in the sentence, the slaves are contributing their agricultural knowledge to the growing Southern economy; they are singing songs and telling folk tales; they are expressing themselves through art and dance.
There are no sentences, in these excerpts, anyway, in which slaves are doing what slaves actually did: toiling relentlessly, without remuneration or reprieve, constantly subject to confinement, corporal punishment and death.
The textbook publishers were put in a difficult position. They had to teach history to Texas’ children without challenging conservative political views that are at odds with history. In doing so, they made many grammatical choices. Though we don’t always recognize it, grammatical choices can be moral choices, and these publishers made the wrong ones. | 3,149 |
A motion to study the Criminal Code's definition of when human life begins was defeated in the House of Commons Wednesday night.
Members of Parliament voted 203 to 91 against Motion 312, sponsored by Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth.
The private member's motion sought to set up a committee to study how the Criminal Code defines when life begins. The provision, in the homicide section of the code, says a child becomes a human being when it has fully left its mother's body.
Although Prime Minister Stephen Harper had opposed the motion and voted against it, some members of his cabinet voted in favour. Those included Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, Public Works and Status of Women Minister Rona Ambrose, government House leader Peter Van Loan, International Co-operation Minister Julian Fantino, Trade Minister Ed Fast, Intergovernmental Affairs Peter Penashue, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz, and National Revenue Minister Gail Shea.
Liberal MPs John McKay, Lawrence MacAulay, Kevin Lamoureux and Jim Karygiannis also supported the motion.
Labour Minister Lisa Raitt said she voted the way her constituents knew she would, against the motion.
Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth brought forward the motion to order a study on when human life begins. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)
"It's time to move on," she said. "My constituents knew that this was something the government would not be opening up."
Critics said the motion was an excuse to reopen the debate on abortion in Canada and set limits on the procedure. Woodworth had said he hoped having a debate would convince Canadians to oppose abortion.
After the vote, Woodworth said he thought some of his colleagues voted against the motion out of respect for Harper.
"I'm a great believer in democracy … and ultimately the House of Commons will respond," Woodworth said.
Woodworth said last week that he didn't expect the motion to pass. The Conservatives, NDP and Liberals treated it as a free vote, meaning MPs were not told how to vote on the motion.
The NDP accused the government of using a private member's motion to push an agenda it's afraid to tackle more officially.
Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae said the House reflected the will of Canadians that the issue is closed.
But Rae said that Ambrose's vote in favour of the motion reflects the divide within the Conservative caucus over abortion.
Woodworth said he was "grateful to [Ambrose] for reflecting the desire I have on this issue."
Read a recap of the live blog below - mobile users read it here. | 3,150 |
�th position in the “familyWallets” array. During the first iteration, we know that (i) is equal to 0. We can thus surmise that we want the first address in the list, as arrays always start at index 0. We then introduce a new call to “.transfer()” on the address we just captured. This is one relatively straightforward global method to transfer value that’s embedded within Solidity. It only takes one argument, the amount we want to send. Being the savvy programmers we are, we came prepared with a data structure that contains the information in question. Can you remember where we kept it? “inheritance[familyWallets[i]]” refers directly to the amount of inheritance we specified in the “inheritance” mapping for again, each element located in the i’th position in the “familyWallets” array. Since i= 0 on the first iteration, we want the inheritance of the first address in the list.
To summarize, this single line of code transfers funds from the contract’s address to a receiver’s address which is pulled from a list with an amount equivalent to that same address’ inheritance allocation.
Lines 40–42 is the function that gets called when gramps passes away. Here, we set the value of the variable we declared right at the beginning, “isDeceased”, to true. Notice the repeated use of “public” and “onlyOwner” keywords. Bearing that in mind, we can finally call “payout()” to send forth the capital.
For the keen eyed readers, you may be thinking “isDeceased” is redundant. Technically you’re correct. We could eliminate “deceased()” all together and change “private” to “public” & “mustBeDeceased” to “onlyOwner” in “payout()”. It would produce the exact same results. This switch simply aims to explore another means of implementation in which we practice utilizing modifiers. It’s common practice to make functions private and have them called by a public function elsewhere for security purposes.
And we’re done!
Actually, not quite…
This smart contract is complete, but how do we actually use it? Now we can harvest the fruits of our labour.
8. Contract Deployment & Interaction
Your screen should look like this: | 3,151 |
them," she says. "Minecraft is a perfect spot between the real world and more restricted games."
The transition from simulation to reality is complex, though. Avatars in games typically don't move like real people move, and game worlds are designed for ease and legibility, not fidelity to real life. Besides, the basics of how any agent, human or otherwise, builds their understanding of spatial reality remain something of a mystery.
"We're really at the very early stages of understanding how we could develop agents that develop meaningful internal representations of their environments, says Hofmann. "For humans, it seems like we make use of integrating the various sensors we have. I think linking various sources of information is one of the interesting research challenges that we have here."
"The Hallucinations of Sensing Machines"
When science finally figures out just how AI develops an internal representation of a given environment, people might be surprised at what form it takes. It may look like nothing ever seen before. "This may look very different from what actually happens in our brains," Hofmann says.
This should come as no surprise. Humans wanted to fly, but achieving it looked nothing like how birds fly. "We are inspired by how birds fly or how insects may fly. But what's really important is that we understand the actual mechanisms, how to create the right pressures, for example, or the right speed in order to lift an object off the ground."
And so it will be with AI. Computers already view the world in a fundamentally different way than humans. Take, for instance, recent work by London's ScanLAB Projects revealed how the laser-scanner "eyes" of an autonomous car might view a city. The results are utterly foreign, a "parallel landscape" of ghosts and broken images, urban landscapes overlain with "the delusions and hallucinations of sensing machines."
Likewise, as Google's recent showcase proved, AlphaGo understands the ancient game of Go in a way no human ever could.
What, then, will the world look like when viewed by the next generation of "sensing machines?" The models, methods, and technologies built out in algorithms by experience in virtual space—what will they see when applied to our cities, our parks, our homes? We're teaching AI to understand the world in more robust ways. Videogames can help these machines reach that understanding. But when that understanding comes, we might not recognize it.
Correction appended [4:45 P.M. PT 4/18]: A previous version of this story incorrectly spelled Katja Hofmann's name. | 3,152 |
Updated 8.34pm
THE NORMALLY UNFLAPPABLE Michael Noonan drew RTÉ into the debate over the sale of Siteserv this morning, as his post-Spring Statement interview with Sean O’Rourke became a little heated.
The Finance Minister, who gave a lengthy interview to the Radio 1 host, defended the Government’s response to Independent TD Catherine Murphy’s enquiries about the sale of Siteserv.
Noonan’s initial answers to parliamentary questions on the company from the Kildare TD had failed to indicate strain in the relationship between the Department and the IBRC.
However, Freedom of Information responses released after subsequent entreaties from Murphy showed that officials in the Department of Finance had raised concerns about how IBRC had handled a number of transactions, including the sale of Siteserv.
Asked by O’Rourke why he hadn’t been more upfront about the Siteserv concerns, the Minister insisted he had acted appropriately in response all of Murphy’s enquiries.
“It’s not a game of cat and mouse, but there are procedures there where TDs can get information,” Noonan insisted.
Asked whether he had adopted a ‘give them nothing’ approach, Noonan accused the host of “scraping the bottom of the barrel”.
“I mean, RTÉ isn’t great at disclosure,” he said, as the tone of the conversation became a little heated.
You’re sitting on reports for 12 months that you haven’t published yet – about analysis of the future of RTE… So get off the stage. Get off the stage.
Pressed again on the issue, the veteran Fine Gael minister insisted the information released in the FOIs constituted ‘background’.
“The was nothing in the files that added to the sum of the knowledge.
The files were about disagreement between us, and it was the department exercising its governance – and when the proper procedure was invoked via Freedom of Information, all the information was given out.
He said that Murphy had “followed the correct procedure” by using two options available to her to access information (Dáil questions and FOIs) and that “very precise, accurate” information had been given.
The Minister announced a review of the sale of Siteserv last week, in light of concerns over the IBRC’s handling of the deal.
This evening, RTÉ said: | 3,153 |
Auston Trusty, Derrick Jones, and Anthony Fontana.
However, a less discussed component of the “Pathway” is the development of coaching talent for the organization. Union Head Coach Jim Curtin, assistant B.J. Callaghan, and Bethlehem Steel Head Coach Brendan Burke all got their starts in the Union Youth program.
The Fred and Kleberson hires are indicative the Union’s commitment to rewarding top organizational talent has proven essential in recruiting top talent for the Academy.
Kleberson said, “[t]he coaching pathway influenced me a lot. I was talking to Jim and he told me he started with the kids…and I said why not me. I need to improve my English, I need to learn more about soccer in America. I know a lot about soccer, but I have time, and I think about my future, and I think here with the Union, I have a great chance in the future…to help the kids, to help the Union, and then who knows. I’m so happy to be here, to help kids…the kids here have good talent. The Union have a great program in place.”
Fred similarly is attracted by the Union’s proven success in developing coaches.
“In the beginning with Bethlehem, I didn’t expect to be here,” Fred said. “My goal was to play into my forties… but I had the opportunity to come here, and the past seven months I have grown so much into my coaching. It’s a different ‘Fred’ than the first day. There is an additional challenge to help the kids grow as a player and a mentor with the U12’s and U10’s now, and I have the goal to be a coach with the first team…I want to develop as a coach. Tommy Wilson, Earnie Stewart, Jimmy Curtin, that might be us one day.”
A Win-Win
Under the tutelage of Academy Director Tommy Wilson and Pre-Academy Director Iain Munro, Fred and Kleberson will have the opportunity to learn from coaching legends with unrivaled resumes in coaching and player development worldwide.
While they continue to grow as coaches, Fred and Kleberson will offer the Union Academy and Pre-Academy players a combined forty years of professional experience. With their addition to an already impressive staff, the youngest Union players will enjoy a world-class program in their quest to become a new generation of Philadelphia Union homegrown talent. | 3,154 |
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MIAMI, Florida –
It can sometimes be hard to admit when a mistake is made. It can be doubly difficult when the mistake costs millions to produce and leaves a following of fans unsatisfied and despondent. That is why James Manos Jr’s admission that he could have done better with the series’ ending was such a breath of fresh air to Dexter fans.
“Quite frankly, we screwed up. It was horrible, and we’re ready to make it right with a true final season” said Manos Jr.
The Dexter series pulled in millions of fans to its twisted storyline of a serial killer tied to a bizarre moral code. Throughout eight seasons, the show wowed audiences while keeping them guessing at every turn. Unfortunately, the final episode undid all the positive motion that the previous seasons had built. A ruined climax and a rather uninspired ending left many crying foul and wanting a redo. Now, unhappy fans will finally get their wish.
“To be honest, the ending was simply thrown together because we ran out of time,” said Manos Jr. “We were all dealing with a big bout of writer’s block by the end of the show’s run. We heard that Breaking Bad was putting Walter White in the Northwest forests. We thought it would be great to put our murderer there as well. Can you imagine? A forest battle between Walter White and Dexter Morgan? We thought it was going to be brilliant.”
Unfortunately for Manos, the AMC series turned away from its original concept and killed off Walter White in the final episode, leaving Dexter in the woods alone.
“Without warning, their ending was totally different. We were left hanging there with our murderer out in the forest with no antagonist. But it was too late to save the finale since ours was a week prior to their own. They screwed us, and in turn, we screwed the fans. So now we’ve simply got to do a true final season.”
Manos Jr. Stated the ninth season could begin as early as 2016. Fans are already starting the gossip mill on who will be the antagonist, with many clamoring for Jesse Ventura.
“At the very least, even if we screwed up again, I can promise this,” said Manos Jr. “we will definitely not just cut to black in the middle of a conversation. Sorry, Sopranos. You’re alone in that boat.”
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Comments
comments | 3,155 |
Sen. Dick Durbin Richard (Dick) Joseph DurbinTumultuous court battle upends fight for Senate McConnell focuses on confirming judicial nominees with COVID-19 talks stalled Senate Republicans signal openness to working with Biden MORE (D-Ill.) said Tuesday that the United States should accept 100,000 Syrian refugees, far outpacing the number the administration said last week that it will accept.
“What the administration has posed is modest: 10,000. Too modest,” the No. 2 Senate Democrat said. “As far as I am concerned, I believe we should be prepared to accept 100,000 — 100,000 Syrian refugees.”
Durbin's remarks come after White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the United States will accept at least 10,000 Syrian refugees during the 2016 fiscal year that starts next month.
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The senior Democrat’s comments echo those of 72 House Democrats who signed a letter to the White House calling for the United States to accept 100,000 Syrian refugees.
Durbin said that he visited one camp in Turkey that housed 10,000 refugees.
The humanitarian crisis in Syria has been under the political spotlight since a photo of a drowned three-year-old Syrian boy went viral earlier this month.
The Illinois Democrat referenced that photo, saying, “When I think of Syria and this humanitarian crisis, I think of the photo of that little boy.”
While Congress has tentatively backed doing more to help Syrian refugees, lawmakers are scarce on the details.
Senate Republicans have voiced skepticism about the affect such an influx would have on national security, with the push to increase the number of accepted Syrian refugees also dividing the Republican presidential field.
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The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as its counterpart in the House, are expected to dig into the refugee crisis, as well as broader Middle Eastern strategy, starting this week.
Democrats have also called for Congress to pass an emergency appropriations bill to help the State Department pay for vetting the additional Syrian refugees.
Durbin pushed back against criticism that the White House has contributed to the refugee crisis by not doing enough to overthrow the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, saying it is “fundamentally unfair” to Obama.
“This is a crisis which reflects the Arab Spring,” he said. “It reflects changes in the Middle East that have been going on for 30 years-plus, and no country has really come up with a good solution to stop the bloodshed and killing in Syria.” | 3,156 |
The US ambassador to Germany has accused Der Spiegel of years of unfair reporting on American affairs as the renowned magazine tries to recover from a "low point" in its history. The editorial staff has rejected his claims.
“While Spiegel’s anti-American narratives have expanded over the last years, the anti-American bias at the magazine has exploded since the election of President [Donald] Trump,” Ambassador Richard Grenell wrote in a letter to incoming editor-in-chief, Steffen Klusmann, published by the magazine on Saturday.
The envoy attacked the paper just days after Der Spiegel revealed that its young star journalist Claas Relotius had spent years fabricating details of his reports. His work for the magazine included vivid stories from places like war-torn Syria and Ukraine after the 2014 Euromaidan unrest. The story that ultimately got the fraudster exposed was his report from his recent trip to Arizona where he covered the tense situation across the US-Mexico border.
Also on rt.com Fraud ‘on grand scale’: Top journalist at reputable German magazine faked his stories for YEARS
The magazine apologized for the Relotius scandal, calling it “a low point in the 70-year history of Der Spiegel.” Ambassador Grenell, however, noted that the editors and the publication leadership share responsibility for the fake stories since they “clearly allowed this atmosphere and bias to flourish.”
Even before the shocking Relotius case, the paper espoused “blatant anti-Americanism” in its “seven years of unchecked writing,” the US diplomat argued.
As it stands, we do not have faith in Spiegel’s current fact-checking and editing process.
The American envoy also scolded the magazine for a “routine practice” of not contacting the embassy before running US-themed stories.
Also on rt.com Tanks on Maidan, president’s gold bath & more outrageous Ukraine fakes by disgraced Spiegel reporter
The paper rebuffed the allegation of treating the US unfairly. Speaking on behalf of the editorial team, deputy editor-in-chief, Dirk Kurbjuweit wrote that the magazine’s criticism of President Trump and his policies “does not amount to anti-American bias.”
Der Spiegel harbors no institutional bias against the United States.
“Anti-Americanism is deeply alien to me,” Kurbjuweit added.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! | 3,157 |
Series premieres Sunday
Media distribution service Crunchyroll announced on Wednesday that will stream the new Gintama anime series as it airs in Japan. The first episode will debut on Sunday, January 8 at 2:35 p.m. EST, and the stream will be available worldwide outside of Asia.
In Japan, the new series will switch to a late night timeslot, and will premiere on TV Tokyo, TV Hokkaido, TV Aichi, TV Setouchi, and TVQ Kyushu Broadcasting on January 9 at 1:35 a.m., and then will premiere on TV Osaka on January 10 at 1:05 a.m. The previous Gintama anime series aired on TV Tokyo and its affiliate stations at 6:00 p.m.
Chizuru Miyawaki returns from the fourth Gintama television anime to direct the new series, and Shinji Takeuchi returns to design the characters, but also serves as the chief animation director. Yumi Nakamura is credited for design. Nami Maniwa and Takayoshi Fukushima return as art directors, and Ritsuko Utagawa returns for color design. Yuki Teramoto is once again director of photography, and Tomomi Suzuki is the CGI director. Takeshi Seyama is in charge of editing. Audio Highs returns for the music, while Katsuyoshi Kobayashi returns for sound supervision. Shinji Takematsu is the sound director. Yoichi Fujita (first three Gintama anime, Gintama: The Movie ) is supervising the anime as he did for the fourth anime.
The four-member all-girls band ЯeaL will perform the opening theme song "Kagerō." RIZE (Shion no Oh) will perform the ending theme song "Silver."
Hideaki Sorachi began the original manga in 2004 and it continues to be ranked among the top-selling manga in Japan. Viz Media published the first 23 volumes in English. Shueisha published the manga's 66th volume in Japan on November 4, and the manga entered its final arc in July.
The manga inspired a television anime that premiered in 2006 and continued (with several extended hiatuses) until 2013. The latest Gintama television anime series premiered in April 2015, and ended in March. Crunchyroll streamed the series as it aired in Japan. The manga also inspired two anime films, including the "final" Gekijōban Gintama Kanketsu-hen: Yorozuya yo Eien Nare film that opened in 2013, and various OVAs and event anime. | 3,158 |
a series of travel bans aimed at curtailing who can enter the country, pushed to overhaul the legal immigration system and tried to crack down on so-called sanctuary cities that refuse to share information about illegal immigrants with federal authorities. He has also pushed for funding for his border wall.
The new numbers, which include the last months of the Obama administration, provide new ammunition to Trump critics who question the need to spend billions of dollars on a border wall if crossings are already dropping. But officials insisted the wall was still needed.
“Yeah, the traffic is down. That’s a good thing,” said Ronald Vitiello, the acting deputy commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. But, “to take the 1,000 arrests a day to say that we’re finished, it’s not stating what the facts are. We’re still arresting nearly 1,000 people a day coming across the border,” he said.
Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi saw it differently.
“The administration can try to twist these numbers into whatever they please,” he said. “But the fact remains that after unprecedented investments in border security over the last decade, the border has become harder to cross and fewer people are trying.”
Despite the overall decline in border arrests, the numbers have increased every month since May and many of those apprehended have been families and unaccompanied children.
The actual number of illegal borders crossings isn’t known because many people slip in undetected. Immigration authorities caught just over half of the people who illegally entered the U.S. from Mexico in 2015, according to a report commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security. That’s much lower than the success rate DHS had cited publicly.
South of the Arizona border in the Mexican town of Nogales, many of the deportees who were eating breakfast Monday at a dining room run by a nonprofit group had been picked up in the U.S. far from the border.
“We are seeing a lot of people now who have long established ties in the United States,” said Joanna Foote Williams, the Kino Border Initiative’s director of education and advocacy, as about 40 men and a few women ate eggs, refried beans and tortillas.
___
Spagat reported from San Diego. AP writer Anita Snow contributed from Nogales, Mexico. Follow Spagat and Colvin on Twitter at https://twitter.com/elliotspagat and https://twitter.com/colvinj | 3,159 |
(All A Cappella)
20. Mashup of “Bulletproof” by La Roux and “Release Me” by Agnes
21. “Don’t You Forget About Me” – Simple Minds
22. “F**k You” – Lily Allen (A Cappella)
23. Bellas Regionals – “The Sign” by Ace of Base, “Eternal Flame” by The Bangles and “Turn The Beat Around (Love To Hear Percussion)” by Glora Estefan (A Cappella)
24. “Right Round” – Flo Rida (A Cappella)
25. “Booty Wurk (One Cheek At A Time)” – T-Pain (A Cappella)
26. “Party In The USA” – Miley Cyrus (A Cappella)
27. “Blame It On The Boogie” – The Jacksons (A Cappella)
28. Mashup of “The Sign” by Ace of Base and “Bulletproof” by La Roux (A Cappella)
29. “Open Season” – High Highs
30. “Get You Off” – Stan Carrizosa
31. “Chelsea Dagger” – The Fratellis
32. Mashup of “Just The Way You Are” by Bruno Mars and “Just A Dream” by Nelly (A Cappella)
33. “Final Countdown” – Europe (A Cappella)
34. Treblemakers Finals – “Bright Lights Bigger City” by Cee Lo Green and “Magic” by B.o.B. (A Cappella)
35. Bellas Finals – Mashup of “Price Tag” by Jessie J, “Don’t You Forget About Me” by Simple Minds, “Give Me Everything” by Pitbull, “Just The Way You Are” by Bruno Mars, “Party In The USA” by Miley Cyrus and “Turn The Beat Around (Love To Hear Percussion)” by Gloria Estefan (A Cappella)
36. “We Came To Smash (In A Black Tuxedo)” – Martin Solveig feat. Dev | 3,160 |
A United States congressman is pushing for an end to Japan's annual whale hunt.
Congressman Matt Gaetz, a Republican from Florida, has put forward a resolution in the House of Representatives calling for an end to Japan's annual whale hunt, which he describes as a "slaughter on the seas".
Japan's whaling fleet returned in March from a hunt in the Southern Ocean with a catch of 333 minke whales on board.
Japan conducts its hunt under a loophole in International Whaling Commission regulations that allows for "scientific whaling".
"So many people in my district and around the world are starting to see the Japan whale hunt for what it is, and that it is a preposterous assertion of science but really simply something to facilitate the bloodlust for whale meat," Congressman Gaetz said.
Matt Gaetz (right) plans to raise the issue of whaling with Donald Trump as soon as he can. ( Twitter: mattgaetz )
He wants to see Japan's whale hunt used as a bargaining chip in trade negotiations with the US and he plans to raise the issue with President Donald Trump as soon as he can.
"I know the President well, I've worked with him prior to his time in politics. I am very grateful for the strong relationship I have with him," he said.
"I look forward to the chance to talk with him about this issue, we haven't spoken about it yet."
He said the security alliance between Japan and the US was separate from the discussion about whaling.
"My hope is that President Trump will continue to have a strong personal relationship with Prime Minister [Shinzo] Abe and that the US and Japan will continue to have an enduring economic and military relationship," he said.
"But as part of that relationship we have to be able to point out the ludicrous position Japan has taken that their whale hunt somehow facilitates science. That is not true and we've got to be honest about that."
He believes it is the right time to raise the issue because the Japanese Government is making decisions about whether to upgrade its whale fleet to conduct its annual hunt.
He said Australia had done its bit in the fight against Japanese whaling, and now it was time the US took up the task.
"The people of Australia have been fighting this fight largely alone on the global stage and I wanted to lend my voice and the voice of the United States congress to stop the Japanese whale hunt," he said.
Japan's Fisheries Ministry did not comment. The spokesman had not heard of Mr Gaetz or his resolution. | 3,161 |
Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan has at least one Vodafone connection and it's giving him (some) trouble. The service is apparently so bad that Big B had to tweet about it. That he did. The last time he did something like this - on Twitter - Samsung had to replace his faulty Note 7, with a Galaxy S7 (of course). Something very similar happened this time round as well.
VODAFONE WE HAVE A PROBLEM..!! ALL SEND MESSAGES COMING FAILED.. RECEIVING SMS BUT NOT GOING.. HHEEEELLLLPPPPP!!! Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) January 31, 2017
VODAFONE PROBLEM SOLVED... THANK YOU.. ALL SMS GOING THROUGH NOW.... BAAAADDDDUUUMMBBAAA...!! Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) January 31, 2017
Big B seemed to be having trouble sending messages. He was, however, able to receive messages. He tweeted about the same, and got a response from a service rep soon after that Vodafone was working on a fix. They did fix it ASAP, because why not? The Bollywood actor took to Twitter one more time to inform that all his SMS messages were going through now.
Interestingly, Reliance Jio was (also) quick to rise to the occasion, responding to big B's tweet saying it "would be happy to deliver a Jio SIM to him and activate it instantly through their Aadhaar based eKYC home delivery process." In fact, if you observe carefully, you'd notice it was among the first few handles to respond to Bachchan's tweet. Faster than Vodafone India, is what's important though.
Earlier, Bachchan had complained on social media after Samsung issued an update that limited the battery charging in the Note 7 to 60 per cent. "I have Samsung Note 7. Battery charge restricted to 60%. When will it allow me to go 100? Mr Samsung please respond! zara jaldi!" he had tweeted.
This was a bad PR for the Korean company. And it had to respond. When Bachchan had talked about his Note 7, Samsung was in the process of sending out replacement units for the Galaxy Note 7 that were earlier sent to the market. Soon, Bachchan too got the replacement, directly from Samsung. This made him happy and he was willing to forgive the Galaxy maker.
Also Read: Samsung replaces Amitabh Bachchan's Note 7 with Galaxy S7 | 3,162 |
, real, and will never be unbound. Our love is in our control and we have the power to create continually our love.
Abigale has provided for me the life I always wanted and never knew I needed. My wife is the person that helped me realize that I could have the courage, wisdom, and power to start being truly authentic without fearing the opinion of others. My journey with my wife isn’t without difference of opinion, arguments, and frustration, but includes comprehending that my wife makes my life and that her support and love assists me to guide myself and others genuinely. Without it, I wouldn’t fully comprehend and witness unwavering love and support apart from my parents and family.
Abigale taught me how being in love with someone feels. She made my heart become more alive and allowed me to finally be myself... 30 years in the making. With everything she provides me, I have to say that the most important thing for me is the fact she doesn’t pass any judgment on me or others.
Abby has helped me to express my bisexuality. By standing beside me as my wife, she reminds me daily to act in ways that make me most happy. She reminds me that if you love yourself, then others will see your love and provide their love, too. She has provided me encouragement to be myself, the wisdom to realize and accept that my bisexuality is part of the man she fell in love with, and the courage to be comfortable with all parts of what makes John Moore.
◊♦◊
I have had countless men reveal that I am so blessed to have a partner that accepts me for who I am without judgment. For this, I thank my wife every day for her unconditional love and support so I can be a truly bisexual man and embrace my authentic self. I, in turn, can provide her authenticity and even better security because I am finally my true self, and more secure.
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Men, long story short—be yourself and own all of you. Your partner will respect you and in turn, you will gain the power, courage, and wisdom to love unconditionally. Without my wife, I wouldn’t be able to be an advocate of bisexuals. With her unconditional love, I can stand here today to express to other bisexuals that life will go on and, owning your bisexuality needs to happen.
Thank you, Abigale.
◊♦◊
Photo: GettyImages | 3,163 |
National Republicans are pouring in money to sink ex-coal CEO Don Blankenship's GOP campaign for the Senate one week ahead of the Republican primary in West Virginia.
Mountain Families PAC, based out of Arlington, Va., is spending an additional $585,000 against Blankenship, according to filings made to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) over the weekend.
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The investment comes on top of the roughly $743,000 the group pumped into the race earlier this month, bringing their total spending against Blankenship to more than $1.3 million in roughly two weeks.
A bulk of the spending is going toward running TV ads against Blankenship, according to FEC records.
An ad, uploaded to YouTube late last week, knocks Blankenship over the Upper Big Branch mining disaster, where 29 miners were killed in an explosion. Blankenship was sentenced to prison for a year for conspiring to violate mine safety standards.
"Don Blankenship was about the money; West Virginia families paid the price," the ad's narrator says.
An earlier ad from the group compared Blankenship to "toxic sludge."
The group is also spending money on online advertising.
National Republicans haven't publicly aligned themselves with the outside group, but the PAC has deep ties to the party and its allies in Washington.
The influx of new money against Blankenship comes as the anti-establishment candidate appears to be fading into third place in recent polling.
A recent Fox News poll showed Blankenship with 16 percent support among Republican voters, behind Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Rep. Evan Jenkins Evan Hollin JenkinsWest Virginia New Members 2019 Republican Carol Miller holds off Democrat in West Virginia House race Trump to fundraise for 3 Republicans running for open seats: report MORE — who were at 21 and 25 percent, respectively.
The candidates are running for the GOP nomination to take on Sen. Joe Manchin Joseph (Joe) ManchinThe Hill's Morning Report - Sponsored by Facebook - Trump, GOP allies prepare for SCOTUS nomination this week Trump meets with potential Supreme Court pick Amy Coney Barrett at White House Names to watch as Trump picks Ginsburg replacement on Supreme Court MORE (D).
Blankenship has increasingly lashed out at McConnell, suggesting he believes the GOP leader is behind the effort to sink his candidacy.
"My run for the U.S. Senate offers voters an opportunity to begin draining the Swamp—this is why McConnell and the establishment are spending millions to defeat me," Blankenship said in a recent statement. | 3,164 |
Dying to see Beverly Hills: 90210 get a reboot? Here's some promising news!
ET’s Nischelle Turner caught up with Gabrielle Carteris (aka the nerdy Andrea Zuckerman on the beloved show), at the 2019 Screen Actors Guild Awards where confirmed that there's been meetings in recent days for the possible TV project.
“I can tell you that’s true,” she said when asked about the remake rumblings, however, when pressed on further details, she had only this to say: “I can’t say anymore then, you know, [that] if you loved us then, may you love us now.”
The 58-year-old TV veteran also gushed about the experience of getting to reunite with her former co-stars while teasing the possibility of a remake.
“You know what, I can’t even tell you how exciting is to be with my castmates,” she continued. “I love them so much and for us to have all these years -- we've had our children now and we've been doing our lives and we're coming together [and] I don’t know what it will look like right now. We'll have to see.”
While on the evening’s special silver carpet she acknowledged the excitement of celebrating SAG-AFTRA's 25th anniversary and how tonight is made all the more special by some of the attendees.
“25 years and we have some of the original first-time winners here tonight. I mean, having Tom Hanks and Jodie Foster, both of them here who won the first Actor awards, [is] crazy,” she explained, also noting why the SAG Awards stand out in a crowded awards season: “We love award season and all of them are so great. But all of the actors I talked to say this one is a little bit more special for them because they say it’s their peers saying, ‘Job well done.’”
Get more news from the 2019 SAG Awards below.
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Digital asset financial services firm BitGo has launched a new staking service for the clients who store their assets with its qualified custodian subsidiary BitGo Trust.
A press release published on Oct. 3 revealed that the new service will initially launch with altcoins Dash (DASH) and Algorand (ALGO), with more assets to be supported in the future.
Staking vs. mining
Staking is specific to proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchains and essentially allows network participants to earn a form of “interest” by depositing their tokens to both maintain the network and potentially earn rewards.
As opposed to proof-of-work blockchains like Bitcoin, nodes in a PoS network are engaged in validating blocks rather than mining them. A deterministic algorithm selects block validators based on the number of tokens a given node has staked in their wallet — i.e. deposited as collateral in order to compete to add the next block to the chain.
According to BitGo’s press release, rates of return will vary for each specific supported asset — from 7% up to as high as 13% for Algorand. The firm also notes that clients’ assets will be staked while being held in a secure and insured (up to $100 million) cold storage.
BitGo acquires infrastructure firm Hedge
According to the press release, BitGo has also acquired Hedge — a firm specializing in the development of staking infrastructure.
It is noted that the acquisition forms the core of the new BitGo Staking venture via the integration of Hedge’s advanced cryptographic deployments and specialist hardware devices, including hardware security modules. In a statement, BitGo CTO Ben Chan outlined:
“We need to provide our clients with the ability to use their assets in custody. Staking provides our clients with returns on their investments without ever moving their assets out of custody.”
As Cointelegraph reported previously, staking holdings in a PoS network can yield significant percentage returns. After staking their coins, however, investors cannot immediately free them up for trading and can therefore potentially miss out on cashing in on their investment at the optimal moment.
BitGo’s press release points to the lower energy requirements of PoS blockchains as opposed to those using mining-based PoW systems, as well as noting that the possibility to generate passive returns on holdings may help incentivize long-term HODLing of assets.
Just this month, major cryptocurrency exchange Binance launched a dedicated staking service. | 3,166 |
ceiling glass is used extensively throughout the house and helps to provide views, but it is the continuation of materials through the glazing lines that helps to break down the boundaries between interior and exterior.
Traditional window framing details have been replaced by frames that are concealed within the structure and behind the finish material, allowing the material to run unaffected from the interior to the exterior. This helps to dissolve the boundaries of the space. The removal of the structure from the building skin is also helpful, as columns are brought within the glazing line and can no longer reinforce the interior/exterior boundary. The horizontal planes that appear as independent volumes also help to confuse the boundary of the building. In some circumstances, it is even difficult to identify exactly where the window glass is located. The extent of glazing and the size of the house required a comprehensive approach to sustainability. All windows are glazed with argon filled, triple paned units. The glazing is also complimented by a thorough insulation approach. The primary heating system utilises radiant floor heating, which is used throughout the house and is assisted by a ground source geothermal system. The design also incorporates an advanced central heating and cooling system which is able to use the latent temperature of unused spaces to heat and cool areas that are occupied. The house has also been designed to make the most of passive solar energy.
The Chenequa Residence is a result of an amalgamation between the site, the building program, and the client. The building twists between the exiting trees and appears to grow out of the hill, yet it has been designed to perfectly suit the clients’ lives, values and tastes. With its generous use of natural materials, the Chenequa Residence does not fit the white box language that appears to be synonymous with contemporary residential architecture. Yet, the building is undoubtedly contemporary. Its wonderful geometry, its nearly complete transparency and its lightweight structure are a product of contemporary design and construction methods. Its clean lines and uncluttered spaces speak of a contemporary lifestyle. Yet at its heart, the Chenequa Residence is a home for a family.
A family who now can live in a house that celebrates and connects to the magnificent environment which surrounds it. The house provides connections to the exterior, but is warm, comfortable and inviting. In an increasingly urbanised world that celebrates an increasingly urbanised approach to architecture, the Chenequa Residence reminds us that human beings are innately tied to the natural world, and that providing access and connections to that world can ensure a rich and rewarding place for people to live.
Source: archdaily.com
Photographs: Cameron Neilson | 3,167 |
mooncryptid:
geekandmisandry:
nonviolentanarchistphilosophy: almightymanatee: there’s so much hate for it??? why?? 1. It’s useless 2. It isn’t scientific, it’s based on narrative and pushing an agenda.
3. The people who major in it go on to bitch about ‘the wage gap’, ‘the job market’, and ‘student debt’ when all of those are a product of their decision to get a useless diploma. 4. Imagine if there was a men’s studies class. Wouldn’t you laugh at anyone who majored in it? I would.
5.
1. Nope. Provide sources for this claim. 2. Incorrect. Provide sources for this claim. 3. Relates back to your need to prove these are useless diplomas. Provide sources. 4. There are men’s studies classes. Studies on masculinity are not new. Your apparently easy giggle reflexes have nothing to do with the argument. 5. This is not an argument, this is a picture. Taken from a Human Sexualities class.
2. - majoring in english, journalism, social work, education, music, etc, isn’t “scientific” either; those fields are all based on subjective beliefs (like, how should this classroom be managed? or, what makes this novel great?) like what’s the difference between a gender studies major talking about the wage gap and a music performance major talking about the relatively low hiring rates and salaries when compared to sports? both are things that these people have been educated in, and if you haven’t actually taken courses that talk about those things, or even educated yourself on the topics, you really have no authority to determine if the discussion is “useless” or not
3. - i’m an aerospace engineering major, and i talk about those things all the time. like, student debt kicks my ass and really shouldn’t exist in our society. but please, tell me how my student debt is my fault for my major (especially when it’s my ass keeping your ass in the air everything you fly american airlines)
4. - the discussion of masculinity in culture is talked about in basically any philosophy course. hell, my gsa does “men and masculinity” talks every month. men’s studies really isn’t as uncommon and silly as you think it is | 3,168 |
The entire reason music exists is because of its almost magical ability to push your buttons. An upbeat song gets you going, a sad song makes you cry and drink. But the more science studies music's effect on the human brain, the more bizarre things we discover.
5 It Changes Your Ability to Perceive Time
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Hold music -- the stuff you hear on the line when you call everyone from the bank to your local bail bond agency -- didn't fall into America's phone lines by accident. It's designed specifically to reduce the amount of time you think you're waiting, so that you're less likely to hang up in anger. Other places that involve waiting, such as doctors' offices, use a similar trick. Time shrinkage is also the aim of most retail stores, which is why you'll rarely enter a mall, supermarket or clothing store without hearing some sort of music in the background.
Our coke dealer always has Iggy Pop on at his apartment.
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How the hell does music do that?
To understand why exactly music makes it seem like less time has passed, think of the human brain as a mountain lion that is eating a bag of money. It doesn't matter what the zookeepers distract it with -- food, shiny objects or just shouting and yelling. All that matters is that they give another zookeeper the chance to sneak up and retrieve the money while the lion is busy deciding which one of them to eat.
Similarly, when your brain is steadily distracted, you'll be less likely to notice things around you in detail, and this includes the passage of time. Our brains have limited input capacity, and when something else is using up that capacity, we're less likely to think things like, "I've been standing in line to get Richard Moll's autograph for three goddamn hours" or "Do I really need this Garfield alarm clock?"
"Will Katy Perry really sleep with me if I keep buying her music?"
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But it works the opposite way, too. In some situations, listening to music can actually expand perceived time. For example, listening to music while performing tasks that require concentration will usually cause us to overestimate the amount of time that has passed. The theory is that as your mind switches back and forth between perception of the music and concentration on the challenging tasks, it forms separate "events," or distinct memories. When your brain thinks about what you've been doing for the past hour, you'll remember more of these events and recall that the hour was quite long. | 3,169 |
By Christopher Helton
Although the news was scooped on Friday, today Valiant Entertainment and Catalyst Game Labs announced that they would be teaming up to produce the Valiant Universe RPG. Licensed role-playing games are always met with enthusiasm from tabletop gamers, more so when the licensed property is something that gamers hold a sense of nostalgia towards. In the case of today's announcement of Catalyst Game Labs producing an RPG based upon the characters and storylines of comics made by Valiant Comics.
Catalyst Game Labs produces games based on the popular Shadowrun and Battletech properties (produced under license from The Topps Company), as well as original role-playing games like Cosmic Patrol and miniatures and board games. The system at the heart of Cosmic Patrol, which will be used in the upcoming Valiant Universe RPG, is a non-traditional RPG where storytelling and game mastering efforts are shared among the players of the game. Unfortunately, I have not played the game myself (despite having a PDF copy of it), but Cosmic Patrol has a strong following of dedicated players. Using a non-traditional game system in a licensed role-playing game is always a risk in an industry where the mainstream prefers a traditional approach, but with support a game can still take off.
Over on the Catalyst Game Labs Tumblr, Randall Niell Bills, Managing Developer for the company commented:
I love superheroes…I love gaming…I love making games. And now, having a chance to dive into Valiant's gritty universe of unbelievably cool superhero characters (man I've read a lot of their comics over the last two months…instantly fallen in love with Shadowman…go figure) and pair them with some great games…it really is an amazing confluence of events that have brought me to this place and this opportunity.
One of the things about tabletop RPGs is that they are, more often than not, labors of love on the part of the people making them. It looks like this love for super-heroes and gaming is already a part of the development of the Valiant Universe RPG, and that makes it something to look forward to seeing.
There will be more on this as the game is developed.
Christopher Helton is a blogger, podcaster and tabletop RPG publisher who talks about games and other forms of geekery at the long-running Dorkland! blog. He is also the co-publisher at the ENnie Award winning Battlefield Press, Inc. You can find him on Twitter at @dorkland and on G+ at https://plus.google.com/+ChristopherHelton/ where he will talk your ear off about gaming and comics. | 3,170 |
Hackaday had an amazing opportunity to sit down with [Ivan Godard] who discussed the Mill CPU development which his company — Out of the Box Computing — has been working on for about a decade. The driving force behind Mill development is that optimizations to existing architectures can only get you so far. At some point you need to come up with a new processor that builds on success and failure of its predecessors.
Ivan’s team has put out several lecture videos linked from their site that dig really deep into the inner workings that give Mill an advantage over currently available chips. We covered one of them recently which prompted [Ivan] to reach out to us. But what if you aren’t working on your advanced degree in semiconductor design? Our interview certainly isn’t for the laymen, but any engineering enthusiast should find this a refreshing and delightful conversation. After the jump you can see the first two installments of the four part interview.
If you don’t want to take the plunge on watching the whole thing, start with this greatest hits clip from the interview. It’s around eight minutes and covers three questions. The first is a discussion on how Mill uses and budgets power in a way that mimics DSP chips but still offers the versatility of a traditional processor. The next snippet is a discussion of the usefulness of Mill for things like cryptanalysis. [Ivan] explains that when the crypo algorithm is known, an ASIC will outperform Mill. When tasked with testing to discover patterns which may be used for cracking crypto, though, Mill performs remarkably well. And the final segment of the “greatest hits” reel covers a discussion of the automated build tools the team developed which will dynamically add operations to the Mill. Within about twenty minutes you can see that operation in action via the simulator.
Don’t stop with this tasty teaser or you’ll miss an epic discussion. In fact, the second clip of the four-part interview (don’t worry, they’re all pretty short) includes one of the greatest quotes we’ve heard. [Ivan] is discussing the difference between a software startup and a company that is designing a new processor architecture. He jokes that software companies can be founded with a couple of “hot” guys and a wad of cash, but: “Heavy semi doesn’t work like that. Heavy semi is like steel mills and railroads.” Classic!
Work your way through these interviews today. We’ll be posting a follow-up with the other two parts tomorrow. | 3,171 |
British Talent Cup set for radical shakeup
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The British Talent Cup series will undergo a radical shakeup for the 2020 season, as it effectively merges with the British Superbike Motostar class to remain as a one-make series for developing young riders while losing the selection system (and it’s paid-for rides) in the current programme run by MotoGP bosses Dorna.
The new series will become the premier youth development class within the UK, and will retain the standard-class Honda NSF250 four-stroke machines used by both the current British Talent Cup and by the highly successful Honda Standard class that runs as a race within a race in the current Motostar series.
Running alongside the 2020 BSB calendar at ten rounds and with two races at each round (visiting Assen, Brands Hatch, Donington Park, Knockhill, Oulton Park, Silverstone, Snetterton and Thruxton), series boss Stuart Higgs says it makes sense to amalgamate the various lightweight classes into one series.
“This evolution of the British Talent Cup is a good and logical step forward for prototype racing in the UK for the next three years. To have a single British championship on proven, high quality, affordable and equal machinery, with a guaranteed follow through to the FIM CEV Moto3 Junior World Championship, represents the best way for our partners Dorna to find the UK’s fastest and freshest potential MotoGP talent.”
Responding to criticisms aimed at the organisers in 2018 after inaugural champion Rory Skinner and runner-up Thomas Strudwick were left to find their own rides for 2019, it’s also been confirmed that the winner of the class will now progress to the Moto3 Junior World Championship for the following year, while second and third will secure places at the Red Bull Rookies selection event.
However, there’s likely to be some riders left deeply unhappy with the new class thanks to one key factor – an age cap that means it will be open only to riders aged between 12 and 17. That will exclude a number of the current Motostar’s more established small capacity specialists while also simultaneously removing any opportunity to run ex-Grand Prix specification machinery at a national level.
With some teams making a considerable investment in ex-Moto3 bikes from both Honda and KTM, they could well find themselves left financially out of tune to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds.
Read the latest stories causing a buzz this week in Sport… | 3,172 |
Six cars were seen escorting Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath's relatives to a temple.
Highlights Kamal Nath's nephew, niece visited famous temple in Ujjain on Tuesday
Were given VIP treatment complete with security, ambulance escort
BJP alleges serious misuse of government machinery
At least six cars, including an ambulance and three police escorts, were seen tearing through Madhya Pradesh's Ujjain on Tuesday - all for a temple visit by relatives of Chief Minister Kamal Nath. The Chief Minister has now come under opposition fire which has accused the Congress administration of scandalous misuse of government machinery.
Kamal Nath's nephew and niece were given the VIP treatment when they came for a visit to the famous Mahakaleshwar temple in Ujjain. Before that, they also prayed at the Mangalnath temple for half an hour - accompanied by an elaborate entourage of police officers and government officials.
As the controversy swelled, the local administration responded, saying all services had been paid for by the visitors. "Standard rates are fixed for every private plane which lands at the city's airstrip and associated security and other facilities too are provided on payment basis. The visitors have duly paid for all the services," Ujjain Superintendent of Police Sachin Atulkar said.
Kamal Nath's relatives prayed at the Mahakaleshwar and Mangalnath temples in Madhya Pradesh.
The resurgent opposition BJP, which scored a stunning sweep in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections in the state just months after Congress snagged the state with a wafer thin majority in the assembly elections, attacked the state government.
"Kamal Nath's nephew Ratul Puri, who is under the IT lens, was given such kind of treatment in Madhya Pradesh where even patients are not getting ambulance. I think nothing can be more shameful than this," BJP spokesperson Rahul Kothari said.
"Five days ago, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath came here but they refused to give him such protocol. We will demand from the governor that the cost of the protocol should be deducted from the salary of Kamal Nath," he added.
Congress spokesperson Pankaj Chaturvedi told NDTV that the issue was "some kind of misconception". "The rules that apply to everyone, apply to the chief minister's family as well. I don't think anybody was given any special or VIP facility. But if the local administration decided to give them a certain degree of security, I don't see a problem in that," he said. | 3,173 |
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Emmanuel Buah
More than 7,000 people have used Airfordable, collectively flying more than 1,000,000 miles
Chris Woods started looking for flights to Hawaii during his son’s senior year of high school. His son had joined the US Army and would be deploying right after graduation, which meant the only time the whole family could take this trip together was during spring break. The problem was, it would cost the Woods family $2,475 upfront to buy the tickets. Airfordable lets Chris lock in a deal and pay on a payment plan.
To use Airfordable, a user enters the flight details, submits a screenshot, and Airfordable provides several payment plan options. Upon receiving the last payment, Airfordable sends users their e-ticket.
“A lot of people, especially those who live paycheck to paycheck, don’t have the money to pay for plane tickets upfront,” says Ama Marfo, co-founder of Airfordable. “But that shouldn’t stop them from traveling or resorting to credit cards to pay for plane tickets.”
Airlines don’t service travelers with limited means which prevents them from paying for flights early when they’re at the lowest prices. Airfordable flips this problem on its head by giving people the ability to lock in a low price upfront and pay off the ticket before the trip begins.
“Our goal is to get people out of debt as fast as possible. We try to make our payments high enough so that they can pay it off faster without putting too much of a financial strain on them. Since our customers don’t get their tickets before completing their payments, they’re incentivized to make their payments rather than paying the bare minimum, which is what they do with credit cards and why they end up paying lots of interest.”
Airfordable wants to help people go on vacation without having to worry about paying for bills when they get home. Its long-term vision is to democratize the travel industry. We want to build a world where traveling is accessible to everyone.
“This is a perfect example of a startup trying to solve the practical problems of everyday Americans living on a budget,” says Michael Seibel, Partner at Y Combinator.
Sign up for weekly recaps of The Macro. | 3,174 |
Adam Driver shared a few juicy details about Star Wars: Episode VIII. During a special screening of Midnight Special Monday night, Driver, who played Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens, reassured fans that the First Order and Resistance are still at odds.
“They’re still at war. It’s still Star Wars,” Driver joked during a special Q&A hosted by Entertainment Weekly. “They’re not at peace.”
Driver can’t say much about the plot details but he did admit that he thinks the script is great and confirmed that he’s currently in the middle of shooting Star Wars: Episode VIII.
SEE ALSOJ.J. Abrams Explains Why He Won’t Direct Another ‘Star Wars’ Film
The actor also talked about working with Episode VIII director Rian Johnson and how his style of work differs from The Force Awakens‘ J.J. Abrams.
“Their temperaments are different,” Driver said. “I feel like there was so many moving pieces in the first one – just trying to solve it and set the vocabulary for what it was. There’s a lot of that anxiety is gone, because people have developed a language. I think it’s more of a testament to Rian coming into something very established and making it [his own]. I can’t wait to get on set, just because he’s so unassuming and intelligent and approachable. The script they’ve come up with is really great.”
So, what’s life like after Star Wars: The Force Awakens for Driver?
“I didn’t turn into a new person,” Driver said. “Nothing happened to me. But a lot of people saw it, and that was good. I guess my Christmas is kind of easier now – the toys and things for family. Kids is a big thing: I feel like before parents kept me away from their kids; now it’s like, go get a picture.”
SEE ALSOJ.J. Abrams Wants To See Gay Characters in ‘Star Wars’ Movies
Star Wars: Episode VIII stars Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Anthony Daniels, Gwendoline Christie, Andy Serkis, Benicio Del Toro, Laura Dern and Kelly Marie Tran.
The film will be released on December 16, 2017. | 3,175 |
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Aston Villa are rumoured to be at the centre of a mystery takeover bid from Azerbaijan.
The club was put up for sale by Randy Lerner last year and sports broadcaster and Villa season ticket holder Jonny Gould claims there is interest from the oil and gas-rich eastern European country.
In an interview with former Villa star Andy Gray, Gould claims a company called Gilan Holdings was involved in a possible bid.
It is not the first rumour of a takeover at Villa, with American billionaire Mark Cuban linked with the club last month.
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Meanwhile, Gray, now working as broadcaster in World Cup 2022 hosts Qatar, tells Gould he has been trying to find a buyer for Villa in the Middle East - with little success.
“I’ve been very anxious to see this thing brought to a settlement,” Gray said. “Randy’s lost his interest, there’s no doubt about that.
“His lost his passion, he’s lost his interest, he’s lost his drive. That’s fine, I understand that. But it’s in limbo the club and it needs to be sold.
“But try as I might to maybe encourage one of the sheikhs to invest his multi millions in Aston Villa, I find it difficult.
“And what I also find difficult is Villa seems not to be an attractive proposition. I don’t get it. When I look around Villa Park I see a magnificent stadium.
“When I look at the training ground I see a fantastic training ground. It’s not like you’re buying a club where you’re going to have to build these things. You’re not.
Look: Andy Gray
“I’m amazed how little interest has been shown in Villa. I don’t know whether the reputation of Villa has dropped over the years and it’s not as attractive? But you and I know the size and potential of this club.
I’m not saying they could be Manchester City or Chelsea, but they could be Tottenham or Everton and these are teams that have been battling for fourth, fifth and sixth for the last seven, eight, nine, 10 years.”
To listen to the full Jonny Gould interview with Andy Gray click here. | 3,176 |
HAVANA, Cuba — Cuban law enforcement officials on Friday arrested and detained the leader of a Russian anti-gay extremist group, according to a source in the Russian Federal Security Services, the Investigation Committee of the Russian Federation.
An Interpol “wanted” arrest and detention warrant was served on Maxim Sergeyevich Martsinkevich in a raid on a central Havana hotel room where he was determined to be residing.
The source also told LGBTQ Nation that a laptop computer, mobile phone, and other equipment belonging to Martsinkevich was seized as evidence.
Russian authorities initiated criminal proceedings in November against Martsinkevich for a number of anti-gay assaults on gay and perceived gay citizens inside the Russian federation by his group “Occupy Pedophilia.” Martsinkevich’s alleged attacks include assaults on citizens from Ukraine, Iraq, and South Africa.
Martsinkevich and his followers believe that being gay equates to being a pedophile, and boast via their social media pages that they are on the “hunt” for pedophiles to eliminate the “deviant filth” from Russian society.
His group has produced numerous videos on the Russian social media site VKontakte (vk.com) as well as YouTube, documenting violent and homophobic harassment of men and gay youth the group claims were seeking to have sex with boys.
The graphic videos often go viral and have also been used to humiliate gay teenagers who responded to false dating invitations from what they thought were other gay youth in chat rooms.
Article continues below
Martsinkevich, also known by his street nickname “Tesak” — which translates as “The Cleaver” — was arrested and charged in absentia on Dec. 13, 2013 by the Kuntsevskaya District Court, under Part 1 of article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code, Incitement of ethnic and social hatred.
The charge is punishable by a sentence of 3–5 years imprisonment.
Martsinkevich claimed on his vk.com page that he was in Cuba as early as Dec. 10, having fled both Russia and Ukraine after prosecutors from the Ukrainian port city of Sevastopol issued an arrest warrant for an alleged assault last month on a former contestant of the British talent competition “The X Factor.”
Russian officials confirmed Saturday that they are in the process of initiating extradition proceedings with the Cuban government, which are expected to result in Martsinkevich’s deportation and return to Russia within the next two weeks. | 3,177 |
The Winklevoss twins — Bitcoin (BTC) bulls and founders of the Gemini crypto exchange — say its retail investors who are still largely reaping the benefits of the crypto market.
In an interview with CNN Business on Aug. 22, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss gave their perspective on Bitcoin as an investment, industry risks and the traditional financial sector’s approach to the new asset class.
Buying a piece of the new internet of money
While many still regard Bitcoin as too risky a bet for the average investor, Tyler argued that on the contrary, the retail sector remains one step ahead of financial institutions when it comes to crypto. He argued that:
“Unlike the internet, which you couldn’t buy a piece of, you can actually buy a piece of this new internet of money. It’s still a retail-driven market, from day one [...] and a lot of people have done really well. Wall Street has been asleep at the wheel.”
Of all traditional investments, Cameron added, Bitcoin is most similar to gold — a new store of value for the digital era. And while it may be volatile, it’s the future, he said, underscoring: “We had to invest because we were afraid of missing out, we couldn't miss out on this future.”
Over-hyped risks
While the twins were, as ever, keen to demonstrate their readiness to liaise with regulators — “compliance is the DNA of our business” (Cameron) — they nonetheless called out a degree of alarmism that continues to cloud perceptions of the risks associated with crypto.
Facebook’s Libra, Tyler argued, hasn’t even been launched — no one’s using it for anything illicit — and yet there’s a regulatory din surrounding it already.
And while Bitcoin may have been used by bad actors — think Silk Road and the Kremlin’s Internet Research Agency during the 2016 U.S. elections — many of those are now in jail, he emphasized.
“Smart criminals,” Tyler noted, “aren’t using Bitcoin, because it’s actually very traceable” — with ever more sophisticated blockchain forensics tools being developed.
The bottom line: “more criminals have used the dollar than anything else.”
As recently reported, the Winklevoss Twins have revealed they are open to partnering with archrival Mark Zuckerberg on Libra, with the caveat that they still need to learn more about the full details of the project. | 3,178 |
East Gallery
February 21 through October 13, 2015
Hidden Treasures
Plant roots are vital components of the earth's ecosystem. They are necessary for all plant growth, including the production of food and nutrients for humans and many other organisms. However, as root systems are out off sight, their beauty and importance often go unnoticed. Exposed: The Secret Life of Roots showcases the presence and importance of roots through visually stunning root representations using the work of agricultural ecologist Dr. Jerry Glover, sculptor Steve Tobin, and photographer Jim Richardson.
Photography and Sculpture
Jim Richardson is a photographer for the National Geographic Society. His photographs in this exhibits capture the disparity in the aboveground and belowground biomass of plants. His series on soil profiles, hung in the Classroom and National Garden (spring through fall), highlight striking differences in global soils and the human struggle to grow food.
Steve Tobin is a celebrated sculptor who specializes in nature-inspired works. Two of his pieces on display spring through fall on the U.S. Botanic Garden grounds, Romeo and Juliet, are bronze casts of tree roots washed out from a riverbank. The other two sculptures are from his Steelroot series.
Roots Exposed
Agricultural ecologist Dr. Jerry Glover studies the importance of healthy soils and their relationship to plants. While working at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, he helped develop a method of growing and preserving plants.
Plants are grown in "root tubes," 10-foot sections of 12-inch diameter PVC pipe containing a special baked clay material. After removal from the tubes, plants are soaked in a glycerin and water solution to prevent them from rotting. See these preserved plants in the East Gallery.
International Year of Soils
Soils are layers of minerals and organic matter that are critically connected to a diverse array of organisms from worms to bacteria. They are the foundation for much of life on Earth and are a crucial component of global nutrient and water cycling. Soils are also fragile and largely non-renewable, and thus their conservation is extremely important. Learn more about soils in the National Garden spring through fall.
Terrace Plantings
The raised beds on the Conservatory Terrace feature living displays of plants found throughout Exposed: The Secret Life of Roots. Highlights include "root" crops (plants grown for their underground roots, leaves, and stems) and native prairie plants. Explore both the dried and live versions (spring through fall) of these prairie plants throughout the Conservatory Terrace and East Gallery. | 3,179 |
July 7, 2017 125th Anniversary of Orthodox Christianity in Chicago to be celebrated September 30
Proclaiming 2017 as the “125th Year of Orthodox Christianity in Greater Chicago,” the region’s ruling bishops have endorsed a historic celebration to take place on Saturday, September 30, 2017. Sponsored by the Orthodox Christian Clergy Association [OCCA] of Greater Chicago, the commemoration will include the celebration of a Pan-Orthodox Hierarchical Divine Liturgy at Lane Tech Auditorium, 2501 West Addison at Western, Chicago, followed by an anniversary banquet at the Chicago Marriott O’Hare, 8535 West Higgins Road, Chicago.
Chairing the event is Archpriest Nicholas Dahdal, Rector of Saint George Antiochian Orthodox Church, Cicero, IL. His Grace, Bishop Paul of the OCA’s Diocese of the Midwest and other Chicago hierarchs, together with all area clergy, will gather to concelebrate the historic Liturgy. His Grace, Bishop Irinej of the Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Eastern America, former Director of Education at Chicago’s Holy Resurrection Serbian Orthodox Cathedral, will deliver the homily. Responses will be sung by the Pan-Orthodox Choir of Greater Chicago.
History reveals that the Orthodox Christian presence in Chicago began in the late 1800s with the establishment of the “Greco Slavonic Brotherhood,” which included immigrants primarily from Sparta and Corfu, Greece; Montenegro and Hercegovina, in Serbia; and Carpatho-Russians and Galicians from what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After petitioning the ecclesiastical centers in their respective homelands, priests were sent in 1892 to serve the faithful under the existing Russian Orthodox Diocese of Alaska. This marked the establishment of Saint Vladimir Church [today’s Holy Trinity OCA Cathedral], Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral, and Holy Resurrection Serbian Orthodox Cathedral. Today, there are nearly 80 parishes in the greater Chicagoland area.
“A Pan-Orthodox committee representing 20 parishes is working on producing this grand event,” said Gordana Trbuhovich, an Orthodox Event Coordinator assisting Father Dahdal and the committee. “We welcome additional volunteers, and especially singers for the choir.”
For further information contact.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or call Father Dahdal at 708-656-2927 or Gordana Trbuhovich at 773-619-8755. On-line updates will be available through September. | 3,180 |
Sometimes a potentially niche TV show becomes an unexpected sensation that makes people sit up and take notice. That’s exactly what has happened to BBC Wales drama Keeping Faith, which will now be shown across the UK on BBC1 after smashing multiple records.
The eight-part series stars Eve Myles, best known for her roles in Broadchurch, Victoria, Torchwood and A Very English Scandal, and tells the story of a lawyer, wife and mother called Faith who must fight to find the truth behind the sudden disappearance of her husband.
Almost 300,000 viewers watched each of the weekly episodes as they aired on BBC1 Wales, the highest audience for a non-network drama shown in the country for over two decades.
But Keeping Faith has proved to be a record-breaker on BBC iPlayer as well, with over 9.5 million requests to view the series so far – the largest ever for any non-network show on the BBC.
In the face of such popular demand, the broadcaster has decided to air the whole series across the UK on BBC1 this summer.
A joint commission between S4C and BBC Wales, Keeping Faith was shot concurrently in both English and Welsh – so there are actually two separately filmed versions of the drama, made by production company Vox Pictures.
The series was originally broadcast in Welsh on S4C, with the title Un Bore Mercher, before going out on BBC Wales in English.
“This series has been a real gem from start to finish,” said BBC Wales head of commissioning Nick, “and it’s testament to the strength of drama coming out of Wales right now.
“I’m so proud that audiences across the UK will now get to enjoy everything Keeping Faith has to offer. Eve Myles has been utterly brilliant and I know she’d be the first to say she was supported by a remarkable cast and the terrific production team at Vox.
“The increased investment in English-language programming at BBC Wales has been a total game-changer for us and Keeping Faith is one of a series of hits which can be directly linked to the new funding.”
S4C’s director of content Amanda Rees added: “This is a huge moment for S4C – the first time an original S4C/BBC Wales drama will be shown on BBC1 network and it is testament to what is possible when two, national broadcasters come together and make great things happen. That Eve Myles learnt Welsh for the part provides an inspiration for Welsh learners everywhere.” | 3,181 |
What could you do with 0.5KB of memory if you had a 25 cent MCU?
You’ve probably been using fixed-function integrated circuits (ICs) for quite some time now, and in some cases accepting their limited flexibility. A simple universal asynchronous receiver transmitter (UART)-to-Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) bridge, a reset controller or an external real-time controller (RTC) with backup memory are specialized in their functions and can’t go beyond them.
But what if you could add intelligence or tailor these simple functions to better meet your needs? What if you could implement these individual functions using separate low-cost MCUs?
The new MSP430™ value line sensing MCU family enables you to implement simple sensing solutions through a variety of integrated mixed-signal features. To add to these low-cost MCUs, TI created a library of code examples for 25 common system-level functions, including timers, input/output (I/O) expanders, system reset controllers, electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM) and more.
The 25 functions are divided into four functional categories ubiquitous in standard circuits: system and housekeeping, pulse-width modulation, timers, and communications. The majority of code examples fit in under 0.5KB of memory when using the MSP430FR2000 device, and the lowest-cost MSP430 MCU is priced as low as 29 cents in 1,000-unit quantities – 25 cents in higher volumes.Figure 1 gives you an overview about some of the discrete function IC’s such as an external watchdog or a real time clock IC which you can replace by one of our 25 function set. If you use more than one of the shown IC’s or functionalities (such as timer or PWM), you could even combine multiple functions and adapt them to your application to reduce effort and board space.
Figure 1: A few examples of the 25 functions
To help you get started, TI has compiled an e-book containing 25 brief application notes with links to source code. Within a couple of minutes you’ll be able to compile, download and run the source code on your target MSP430 value line sensing MCU. Adapt the functions to your application needs and thereby reduce your time to market significantly.
As you start exploring this programmable alternative to many fixed-function ICs (and we look forward to seeing what you can do with the 25 functions), we’ll continue to build out the application note series.
Additional resources | 3,182 |
have an internal budget,” Walsh says, “and we didn’t want to go into the tax.” But signing Green and then D.J. Augustin, the latter as Collison’s replacement, to $7 million combined (along with Mahinmi) ended up costing only about $1.7 million less than the Collison-Jones-Green-Mahinmi quartet earned together. Avoiding Green altogether, signing Mahinmi outright, and simply keeping Jones and Collison would have been cheaper than both options.
Sussing out the timing of all these transactions can be tricky, but the Hill contract played at least a small role in sending Indiana down a rabbit hole of moves that failed in the end to upgrade Indiana’s paper-thin bench. Mahinmi has been useful, but when you’re playing Sam Young key postseason minutes, you need another wing body.
The Pacers’ salary situation is also tighter than it might otherwise be going forward as they prep again to upgrade that bench. West’s cap hold vaporizes all their potential cap room this summer, and a new two-year deal for West, plus the max salary coming up for George, would probably keep Indiana capped out — or close to it — until after the 2014-15 season.
That’s not a terrible thing. This team is already very good, with room to grow, and their cap sheet even with these West and George deals will be clean enough (in the worst case) for them to use the full midlevel exception, engage in sign-and-trades, etc. Things would be easier with Leonard on a rookie deal instead of Hill at $8 million, but Hill is a talented player whose status as a local hero and devoted community servant has helped the Pacers rebuild their bond with Indianapolis.
Another thing that has helped repair that bond: a trip to the conference finals, and a spirited battle there with the favored and glamorous Heat. Even if the Spurs and Pacers aren’t “winners” in an equal sense, the trade has worked out fine for Indiana in the big picture; it’s as if it got to choose between two very delicious slices of pie. The Pacers got the slightly less delicious slice.
And in the short run, it’s unclear if either of these teams would be in the conference finals without this deal. This trade received nothing like the attention of the Rudy Gay deal. But less than two years later, it’s done far more to affect the championship-level landscape of the NBA. | 3,183 |
But the same spending would still be necessary if we were to undo reform. So the G.O.P. argument here is exactly like claiming that my mortgage payments, which I’ll have to make no matter what we do tonight, are a cost of going out for dinner.
There’s more like that: the G.O.P. also claims that $115 billion of other health care spending should be charged to health reform, even though the budget office has tried to explain that most of this spending would have taken place even without reform.
To be sure, the Republican analysis doesn’t rely entirely on spurious attributions of cost it also relies on using three-card monte tricks to make money disappear. Health reform, says the budget office, will increase Social Security revenues and reduce Medicare costs. But the G.O.P. analysis says that these sums don’t count, because some people have said that these savings would also extend the life of these programs’ trust funds, so counting these savings as deficit reduction would be “double-counting,” because well, actually it doesn’t make any sense, but it sounds impressive.
So, is the Republican leadership unable to see through childish logical fallacies? No.
The key to understanding the G.O.P. analysis of health reform is that the party’s leaders are not, in fact, opposed to reform because they believe it will increase the deficit. Nor are they opposed because they seriously believe that it will be “job-killing” (which it won’t be). They’re against reform because it would cover the uninsured and that’s something they just don’t want to do.
And it’s not about the money. As I tried to explain in my last column, the modern G.O.P. has been taken over by an ideology in which the suffering of the unfortunate isn’t a proper concern of government, and alleviating that suffering at taxpayer expense is immoral, never mind how little it costs.
Given that their minds were made up from the beginning, top Republicans weren’t interested in and didn’t need any real policy analysis in fact, they’re basically contemptuous of such analysis, something that shines through in their health care report. All they ever needed or wanted were some numbers and charts to wave at the press, fooling some people into believing that we’re having some kind of rational discussion. We aren’t. | 3,184 |
average earnings) from the Office for National Statistics and Office for Budget Responsibility, respectively. The model works by simulating new scenarios for the UK labour market, earned and unearned income and tax and social security. The model estimates the impacts of policy change, including a breakdown of fiscal effects (changes to government expenditure and receipts), distributional impacts across family incomes and the implications for various measures of inequality and poverty. The model is capable of accurately estimating interactions and co-dependencies within different elements of tax and means-tested benefits, but it does not attempt to estimate behavioural effects.
Technical notes:
All modelling was simulated for the 2024/25 financial year with cash values deflated to 2019/20 prices using the ONS GDP deflator. Quintile groups for families were estimated on the basis of disposable family income, equivalised for the number of adults and children in a family using the OECD equivalisation scale.
Poverty is defined in terms of people living in families with equivalised disposable income after housing costs below 60% of the UK median. In all cases the poverty threshold has been recalculated to incorporate the effects of policy changes on the income distribution. Poverty results have been run on a three-year sample of the FRS to improve sample size and results have been rounded to the nearest 50,000
Estimated impacts on tax receipts are net of any savings to government from means tested benefits and rounded to the nearest £100 million.
The cash impact on families is also net of any change in entitlement to means tested benefits and pertains to annual disposable household income after housing costs, rounded to the nearest £10.
Michael Gove and Rory Steward have not yet committed to detailed plans to reform personal taxation
Table 1 – summary of results
All results modelled in the 2024/25 financial year with cash values deflated to 2019/20 prices using the ONS GDP deflato
Source: NEF analysis using the IPPR tax benefit model based on the Family Resources Survey and OBR forecasts (various)
* Net effect on annual fiscal balance taking into account changes in means tested benefits as a result of higher post-tax income, rounded to the nearest £100m, 2019/20 prices
** Average change in disposable family income before housing costs across within respective quintiles for equivalised household income, rounded to the nearest £10, 2019/20 prices
*** Change in poverty count, defined as families below 60% of equivalised household income after housing costs, poverty threshold recalculated after the effects of policy change
Image: Jordhan Madec, Unsplash
| 3,185 |
President Trump Donald John TrumpFederal prosecutor speaks out, says Barr 'has brought shame' on Justice Dept. Former Pence aide: White House staffers discussed Trump refusing to leave office Progressive group buys domain name of Trump's No. 1 Supreme Court pick MORE took aim at Sen. Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth WarrenOvernight Defense: Appeals court revives House lawsuit against military funding for border wall | Dems push for limits on transferring military gear to police | Lawmakers ask for IG probe into Pentagon's use of COVID-19 funds On The Money: Half of states deplete funds for Trump's 0 unemployment expansion | EU appealing ruling in Apple tax case | House Democrats include more aid for airlines in coronavirus package Warren, Khanna request IG investigation into Pentagon's use of coronavirus funds MORE (D-Mass.) at a campaign rally Thursday, warning that he could "revive" the nickname "Pocahontas" "very easily" and "very quickly" if necessary.
"I did the Pocahontas thing. I hit her really hard and it looked like she was down and out but that was too long ago," he said of Warren, who is seeking the Democratic Party's nomination to run against Trump in 2020.
"But don't worry, we will revive it. It can be revived. It will be revived and it can be revived very easily and very quickly and we're going to have some fun in the state of New Hampshire," he said.
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Trump has frequently hit Warren at rallies over the subject of her heritage, often referring to her derisively by the nickname "Pocahontas" and reciting inaccurate numbers from her blood test results.
The president recently swiped at Warren at a rally in Cincinnati earlier this month, again calling her "Pocahontas" and going after her claims of Native American heritage.
Warren took a test last year that demonstrated she was between 1/64 and 1/1028 Native American, and has since apologized multiple times for the confusion caused when she identified herself as Native American.
Trump's attacks come as Warren has seen her stock rise in the crowded Democratic primary field. Warren was seen as one of the winners of the latest Democratic presidential debates, gaining more speaking time than fellow progressive front-runner Sen. Bernie Sanders Bernie SandersSirota reacts to report of harassment, doxing by Harris supporters Republicans not immune to the malady that hobbled Democrats The Hill's Morning Report - Sponsored by Facebook - Republicans lawmakers rebuke Trump on election MORE (I-Vt.).
The Hill has reached out to Warren's campaign for comment. | 3,186 |
didn’t get the start in Nashville, and some wondered if he would start to take a backseat to Nilsson. But what a game in Toronto for a player that desperately needed to rise to the occasion. Maybe his best game of the year, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.
9. Derrick Pouliot (10) ↔
Pouliot remains one of the Canucks’ most solid defenders. Who would have thought that he’d have stretches in the top three of ice time among Vancouver defencemen?
8. Sven Baertschi (4) ↡
Moved off the top line and whaddya know? Under 15 minutes in both Nashville and New York and largely ineffective in all three, uh oh.
7. Alex Edler (9) ↔
Edler finished the week plus-2, which is remarkable seeing as he was minus-3 against the Islanders. He also made Canucks fans feel like it was 2011 again.
What a goal.
6. Henrik Sedin (7) ↟
Some vintage Henrik, with four assists in the three games. The Sedins and Eriksson are really coming alive against lesser competition. He was also excellent defensively throughout the week.
5. Loui Eriksson (5) ↔
Another nice week for Loui, as he tallied three points and looked good throughout. The 14 minutes of ice time against the Leafs is a tad puzzling, though.
4. Chris Tanev (2) ↔
Tanev had bad underlying numbers last week for the first time in what seems like forever. He was still obviously his dependable self, but it’s something to watch. Green must have noticed too, because his ice time took a considerable hit.
3. Bo Horvat (3) ↔
Forwards never lead teams in ice time, but Horvat did exactly that against Nashville. He also had two points during the week and once again was the team’s anchor in the middle of the ice.
2. Brock Boeser (1) ↔
Even if the league won’t give him the respect he deserves, we will. Boeser was the team’s lightning rod in the win over Nashville.
1. Daniel Sedin (6) ↟
1,000.
Didn’t Play This Week: Alex Biega, Erik Gudbranson, Brandon Sutter | 3,187 |
This study assessed whether women and minorities are discriminated against in the early stages of the recruitment process for senior positions in the Australian Public Service (APS). It also tested the impact of implementing a ‘blind’ or de-identified approach to reviewing candidates.
Over 2,100 public servants from 15 agencies participated in the trial. They completed an exercise in which they shortlisted applicants for a hypothetical senior role in their agency. Participants were randomly assigned to receive application materials for candidates in standard form or in de-identified form (with information about candidate gender, race and ethnicity removed).
Overall, the results indicate the need for caution when moving towards ’blind’ recruitment processes in the APS, as de-identification may frustrate efforts aimed at promoting diversity.
Authors: Professor Michael J. Hiscox, Tara Oliver, Michael Ridgway, Lilia Arcos-Holzinger, Alastair Warren and Andrea Willis.
Pre-registration information
Women are under-represented in management and executive level positions across the private and public sectors. In 2016, women comprised 59.0% of the APS, but accounted for 48.9% of its executive level officers and only 42.9% of its Senior Executive Service (SES) officers. These statistics may reflect gender discrimination in hiring and promotion processes as a result of unconscious cognitive biases that affect decision-making.
Addressing the gender imbalance across the APS is the key priority of the Australian Public Service Gender Equality Strategy 2016-19. Aimed at driving high performance and boosting productivity the strategy calls for the APS to reflect contemporary reality and states that the APS must embrace diversity and that it should benefit from people of all backgrounds.
Study
This study aimed to test the magnitude of gender and ethnic minority bias in APS shortlisting processes, and the impact of introducing a gender/ethnicity-blind approach to reviewing job applications for shortlisting purposes.
The study was a randomised controlled trial conducted in partnership with 15 APS agencies. Participants were drawn from senior and executive level officers in these agencies. To identify any effects participants were asked to complete a fictitious shortlisting exercise with 16 fictitious CVs. The aim was to see whether de-identifying a CV (by removing a candidate’s name and personal information) changed the way it was assessed.
Results
The results showed that overall, de-identifying applications at the shortlisting stage does not appear to assist in promoting diversity within the APS in hiring. Overall, APS officers discriminated in favour of female and minority candidates. | 3,188 |
It seems a little bit silly...
Banks. Bitcoin. The two words in close proximity tend to get everyone excited.
When first perusing the news about a bank in Argentina using Bitcoin to enable cross-border payments, I was intrigued. Upon further examination, it's a little bit odd. Maybe I don't get it.
Here's what's happening in a nutshell. This bank in Argentina - Banco Masventas - is enabling cross-border payments for its customers. The customers don't actually touch any Bitcoin - just the bank uses it through Bitex and charges a fee for doing its customers the favour of taking care of the transaction. The bank is boasting that they can do cross-border payments to as many as 50 countries, settled in 24 hours or less.
OK.
So... why not just... use Bitcoin?
What does the bank have to do with this?
The problem here is most customers do not know that they themselves could just buy Bitcoin and send it cross-border, anywhere in the world, in about ten minutes. Either that, or they're too intimidated by the technical hurdles of buying, sending, and receiving Bitcoin. So, the bank and the service provider Bitex get a piece of the pie as intermediaries, while convincing customers that this is the better way to go because there are no intermediaries.
Does anyone else see how messed up this is?
Oh well. In the end, it could help build adoption of Bitcoin as customers might begin to see Bitcoin as more trustworthy. It is cheaper than the more archaic method of moving money around the world, so that's a good thing. I guess it's also a good thing that this bank sees it as something it can trust. It's just too bad that most people might go on for years paying the bank to send their Bitcoin for them when they could just do it themselves at a much lower cost.
It's time to get out there and teach people more about this stuff, before the banks convince everyone they can't take care of themselves.
*This is not professional trading advice - it's just my opinion!
If you're interested in trading cryptocurrencies, check out CoinSquare and Binance by using the link in my profile and sign up today!
source:
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/argentinian-bank-allows-cross-border-payments-bitcoin/
image source:
https://pixabay.com/en/argentina-flags-argentina-flag-3001464/ | 3,189 |
I'm a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement, and whatever you think of the Sanders' campaign and how they should have handled this protest or the group's concerns, I don't think the activists here did the movement any favors with these tactics and the name-calling.
From the Seattle Times: Black Lives Matter protesters shut down Bernie Sanders; later rally draws 15,000:
A Seattle speech by Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was pre-empted in a chaotic confrontation Saturday afternoon with a pair of Black Lives Matter protesters, who took the stage and refused to let him speak.
The Vermont senator, who has drawn huge crowds around the country, was to be the star attraction and final speaker for a rally at Westlake Park to celebrate the 80th birthday of Social Security and the success of other anti-poverty programs.
But his afternoon plans were scuttled by protesters determined to turn attention instead to Sunday’s anniversary of the shooting by a white police officer of Michael Brown, an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Mo. [...]
An estimated 15,000 supporters packed Hec Edmundson Pavilion and an overflow area as Sanders took the stage to thunderous applause and delivered an hourlong populist stemwinder about his plans to wrest the country from the control of billionaires.
As the crowd stomped and cheered, Sanders pledged to fight for a full menu of progressive policies, including 12 weeks of paid leave for new parents, a federal minimum wage of $15 an hour, and an end to unequal pay for women. [...]
At Westlake, Sanders was just starting to address the crowd, thanking Seattle for being “one of the most progressive cities in the United States of America.”
That’s as far as he got before two women walked onstage and grabbed the microphone.
“If you do not listen … your event will be shut down,” one of the protesters told organizers, who offered to let them speak after Sanders. After a back and forth with the screaming protesters, organizers relented and said the demonstrators could go first.
Some in the largely white audience booed and chanted for protesters to let the senator talk. A few yelled for police to make arrests.
Marissa Johnson, one of the protesters, shot back, “I was going to tell Bernie how racist this city is, filled with its progressives, but you did it for me,” accusing the audience of “white supremacist liberalism.” She cited Seattle’s own police problems, including an ongoing Justice Department consent decree over use of force.
Read on... | 3,190 |
Lewis Hamilton: Wants to have wheel-to-wheel dices
Having ended the European season by claiming comfortable consecutive wins at Spa and Monza, Vettel was once again in league of his own in Singapore and capped his stellar weekend by winning the race by a massive 32-second margin - the largest by any victor since Hamilton's wet-weather triumph at Silverstone five years ago.
Despite starting just 114 grands prix, Vettel's 33rd career win gave him sole possession of fourth place in F1's all-time victory list, while only Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost have led more laps than him.
But while Hamilton is adamant his rival doesn't deserve to be booed for his current domination of F1, the Briton has suggested that he personally wouldn't deride much satisfaction from winning with such ease on a regular basis.
"I saw a glimpse of him on the podium and I was happy for him," Hamilton told reporters on Sunday night.
"I tried to imagine what it would be like if I was winning races the way he is winning races. Me, I don't want to be able to be that far ahead, I want to be able to fight with him or whoever. But this is the way it is, and it's definitely not a positive thing to hear that he has been booed.
"He's on his way to his fourth World Championship and he needs all the credit if he wins it."
Hamilton finished nearly a minute behind the runaway Red Bull at the end of Sunday's 61-lap race and admitted afterwards that any hopes he still harboured of catching Vettel in the championship had "totally gone out the window".
The 2008 World Champion admits he has become used to the German's stranglehold on the top step on the podium but expressed some hope that Mercedes will still have opportunities to challenge him at the front over the final six races.
"It's not depressing because it's nothing new. I look at his on-board laps and it doesn't look or appear as if he is on the limit like some other drivers are," Hamilton suggested.
"When you have that much in hand sometimes it makes it so much easier. But at the end of the day, he does the job that he needs to do and they've made a step somewhere because their car was rapid this weekend. But I still feel we can fight at some points through the rest of the season."
Click here to read the full post-Singapore GP Q&A with Lewis Hamilton. | 3,191 |
A mystery shopper paid of customers' layaway items at a Walmart in Derby, Vermont, CBS Burlington affiliate WCAX reports. The act of generosity happened just days before Thanksgiving, when the store's storage room was already filled with layaway items.
"I don't even think I can find the words to say," customer Julie Gates told WCAX. Gates was going to pick up a package at the store on Thursday when she overheard a man asking if he could pay for someone's items.
"He came up to the man in front of me and said, 'Either I am going to pay for it now or I am going to pay for it later,'" Gates said. The man turned to her and offered the same. "He said, 'Why don't you run and get what you want now and come back here,'" Gates said.
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She admits she was skeptical, but left the line to gather the items she had planned to put on layaway. "I came back and he was standing there waiting. There was no one left." The man had paid for everyone in the line. Gates was the last one.
"There were people ahead of me who were eight-, nine-hundred-dollar layaways," she said.
Gates was in shock. She asked the man why he was doing this.
"This can't be, who can afford to pay for everyone's layaway? And he said 'Santa Claus can,'" Gates said.
The layaway storage room at the Walmart in northern Vermont had been cleared out. Everyone's items were paid in full and they got to take them home right away.
"It was kind of like surreal when they said no balance due, then it was really a reality," shopper Tammy Desautels said.
Walmart did not disclose how much the mystery shopper spent, WCAX reports. One shopper took a photo of the man walking away, but the man said he wanted to remain anonymous.
It wasn't just about the material items. To many shoppers, it was the kindness this mystery man showed that touched them so deeply. "I have a feeling that there is hope for mankind... There's still good people out there," Desautels said.
"I get goosebumps thinking that is the true magic of Christmas. That's the Christmas spirit walking among us," Gates said.
Just like a real-life Santa Claus, the man delivered his gifts and swiftly left without a trace, spreading Christmas cheer to those in need. | 3,192 |
Detroit Lions spent $204 million on salaries in 2017, most in the NFL
It hasn't yielded much in the way of results yet, but the Detroit Lions are spending big in their quest to bring a winner to Ford Field.
The Lions spent more than $204 million on player salaries last season, the most in the NFL, according to the NFL Players Association, and some 22 percent more than the $167 million salary cap.
The Lions' cash outlay was bolstered by two big free-agent signings — offensive lineman Rick Wagner and T.J. Lang got a combined $22.5 million in signing bonuses — and by giving the richest contract in NFL history to quarterback Matthew Stafford.
More Lions:
Stafford's deal, which has since been eclipsed by the extension signed by San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, included a $50 million signing bonus, though payment of $16.5 million of it was deferred until earlier this month.
Signing bonuses are prorated for salary cap purposes and spread equally over the life of a contract, which allows teams to spend more money in a season than the cap.
The Carolina Panthers were the only other NFL team to spend more than $184 million on player salaries last season, while the Lions' other NFC North rivals all ranked in the top half of the NFL in spending.
The Lions spent an average of $22.7 million per victory, ahead of the Green Bay Packers ($183.2 million total, $26.2 million per win) and Chicago Bears ($179.2 million total, $35.8 million per win), but behind the division champion Minnesota Vikings ($172.9 million total, $13.3 million per win).
Though the Lions spent more than the cap last year, they still managed to carry over $4.2 million in space that will be added to this season's projected cap of $178 million.
Fourteen teams carried over less money, including the Packers, Atlanta Falcons and defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles.
The Lions, coming off a 9-7 season in which they missed the playoffs, will have about $40 million in cap room this year once they've accounted for their rookie contracts.
They could use $17.5 million of that space to place the franchise tag on defensive end Ziggy Ansah.
Free agency opens in two weeks.
Contact Dave Birkett: [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett. Download our Lions Xtra app for free on Apple and Android! | 3,193 |
that is David Cameron.’
I defy anyone to identify a solitary syllable of truth in this assertion. What is Mr Cameron (who pretended he could act in 2010 when he couldn’t) going to do, exactly?
What sort of fool would believe it?
Well, here’s your answer, uncrammed with practical or legal detail:
‘Only David Cameron can conceivably deliver those changes, since he is the only leader who can lead reform of the EU.’
So here we are in the wonderful territory so well summed up by the old chants: ‘with a ladder and some glasses, you could see the Hackney Marshes, if it wasn’t for the houses in between’. Or ‘If we had some ham, we could have some ham and eggs, if we had some eggs’.
If we had some ham…Mr Cameron has to win a parliamentary majority in May 2015 (arithmetically and politically impossible even if UKIP sank to the bottom of the ocean tonight). If we had some eggs….He then has to persuade the EU to reverse the ’acquis communautaire’ (its irreversible ratchet under which all powers conceded to it by nation states remain forever in the EU’s hands).
Then, after viewing the Hackney Marshes with his imaginary ladder and glasses, except for the problem of the houses in between, and after cooking and eating his imaginary eggs and ham, he will deliver phantasmal changes to our relationship with the EU (changes which I for one am by no means sure he or Mr Johnson actually want anyway).
Serious people have to keep asking the Tories why they never actually say what their attitude is towards EU membership. They hint, they bluster and blow hot and cold, they leak, they allow people to speculate on certain lines, but have you ever heard any significant senior Tory say ‘Yup, we have to leave if we are to get our borders back, and we will’.
No. Nor will you. Because, while they know perfectly well thus is true, they will never leave the EU. But you *will* with increasing frequency hear statements designed to look as if the person is saying this, when he isn’t.
The Tories are and always have been the party of the EU. All they have learned from the past 30 years is how to pretend to dislike the thing they support. That’s why we will have to get someone else to do it, if we want this job done. | 3,194 |
Adventure Time: Finn and Jake Investigations is the newest game based on the hit Cartoon Network series. It takes our heroes and the Land of Ooo to a whole new dimension of gameplay and visuals on PS4 and PS3.
What new dimensions, you ask? Read on!
At its heart, Finn and Jake Investigations is a modern take on a classic adventure game, a genre that has seen a recent resurgence. Gameplay is based on exploring, investigating, and puzzle-solving. Through the course of the episodes, you get to interact with dozens of your favorite Adventure Time characters all over the Land of Ooo, including the Candy and Fire Kingdoms, Wizard City, and Castle Lemongrab.
And there’s a reason for all of this investigating! Joshua and Margaret — Jake’s mother and father, who also raised Finn — were seasoned detectives back in the days before becoming parents. They received their assignments from a machine called the “tickertype,” which printed out information on various cases. Now, Finn and Jake have unearthed the tickertype and decide to go into the investigation business themselves.
Rather than following a single story arc that spans the entire game, the adventure plays out as a series of separate (but related) adventures in which Finn and Jake must travel the kingdoms of Ooo in order to solve the tickertype mysteries, set around the middle of the sixth season of the show.
Investigating and puzzle-solving are the heart of the game — but, wait! There’s more!
The game’s not focused on fighting, but what would Adventure Time be if Finn couldn’t solve at least some problems with his trusty sword? Combat is fast-paced, pitting Finn against a variety of familiar foes who drop lots of collectibles and loot (as game enemies so often do). When you go back to the Tree House after each “episode,” you’ll see piles of dosh grow in Finn and Jake’s treasure room.
The depth of the story and the amount of character interaction really immerses you in the game — and the icing on the cake is the visual presentation. For the first time ever, you get to see the Land of Ooo in 3D. We have gone to great lengths to faithfully capture the art of the show as it’s never been seen before. Hey… we’re all fans of the show, too, and we’re doing it up right!
Finn and Jake Investigations hits the shelves this fall. Be there! | 3,195 |
In the last week or so there has been some discussion on the internet about a paper (initially authored by Hill and Tabachnikov) that was initially accepted for publication in the Mathematical Intelligencer, but with the editor-in-chief of that journal later deciding against publication; the paper, in significantly revised form (and now authored solely by Hill), was then quickly accepted by one of the editors in the New York Journal of Mathematics, but then was removed from publication after objections from several members on the editorial board of NYJM that the paper had not been properly refereed or was within the scope of the journal; see this statement by Benson Farb, who at the time was on that board, for more details. Some further discussion of this incident may be found on Tim Gowers’ blog; the most recent version of the paper, as well as a number of prior revisions, are still available on the arXiv here.
For whatever reason, some of the discussion online has focused on the role of Amie Wilkinson, a mathematician from the University of Chicago (and who, incidentally, was a recent speaker here at UCLA in our Distinguished Lecture Series), who wrote an email to the editor-in-chief of the Intelligencer raising some concerns about the content of the paper and suggesting that it be published alongside commentary from other experts in the field. (This, by the way, is not uncommon practice when dealing with a potentially provocative publication in one field by authors coming from a different field; for instance, when Emmanuel Candès and I published a paper in the Annals of Statistics introducing what we called the “Dantzig selector”, the Annals solicited a number of articles discussing the selector from prominent statisticians, and then invited us to submit a rejoinder.) It seems that the editors of the Intelligencer decided instead to reject the paper. The paper then had a complicated interaction with NYJM, but, as stated by Wilkinson in her recent statement on this matter as well as by Farb, this was done without any involvement from Wilkinson. (It is true that Farb happens to also be Wilkinson’s husband, but I see no reason to doubt their statements on this matter.)
I have not interacted much with the Intelligencer, but I have published a few papers with NYJM over the years; it is an early example of a quality “diamond open access” mathematics journal. It seems that this incident may have uncovered some issues with their editorial procedure for reviewing and accepting papers, but I am hopeful that they can be addressed to avoid this sort of event occurring again. | 3,196 |
Rep. David Kustoff (R-TN) told Breitbart News that Jewish Democrat representatives in Congress are “all upset” about their party’s refusal to condemn Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) framing of congressional support for Israel as procured by Jewish interests.
Kustoff joined Thursday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow to discuss Friday’s passage of a House resolution condemning “hateful expressions of intolerance” including “anti-Muslim discrimination and bigotry.”
LISTEN:
“I’m one of two Jewish Republicans(in the House of Representatives,” said Kustoff. “There are 20-something members of Congress who are Jewish. Between 20 and 30. They’re all upset about this, and they should be. And they wanted something stronger. You’re seeing deep divisions among the Democrats in terms of how this should be handled.”
Kustoff criticized Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) refusal to characterize Omar’s statements as antisemitic. He said, “For the Speaker of the House — I think it was yesterday in her press conference — to say that [Ilhan Omar’s] remarks are not antisemitic, that’s just wrong.”
Omar’s tweet about “the Benjamins” amounted to antisemitic innuendo about malevolent Jewish procurement of political influence, assessed Kustoff.
“I think the one where she talked about ‘the Benjamins’ was most personal,” Kustoff stated.” That just goes down to every stereotype that we’ve heard about Jewish people going back to the beginning of time. … it perpetuates every myth that some people believe about Jewish people.”
Oy…not what I would tweet. pic.twitter.com/SLqy7FyCjh — Yashar Ali (@yashar) February 11, 2019
Kustoff added, “They’re fundraising off of this. They’re sending out fundraising emails saying that AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] is coming after them, which is not true.”
Breitbart News Daily broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter. | 3,197 |
JOLED, a joint venture between Sony and Panasonic, has demonstrated multiple PC-oriented printed OLED-based monitors at Finetech Japan trade show. Among other things, the company exhibited OLED displays for gamers, home applications, and professionals. Some of the products are already on the market, or are about to be released, and others are prototypes.
One of the advantages that OLED has over conventional LCD technology is a very fast response time, which makes the tech particularly appealing for gamers. Meanwhile, due to cost and longevity reasons, hardly any company has addressed this audience with an OLED solution. At the show JOLED demonstrated a prototype of its 21.6-inch OLED display that was co-developed with Burning Core, a Japanese gamers team that JOLED sponsors. The monitor features a 1920×1080 resolution and was test driven at Finetech Japan.
In addition to a 21.6-inch Full-HD OLED panel, JOLED also has a high-contrast 21.6-inch Ultra-HD OLED panel in its arsenal. The company has been shipping a medical 21.6-inch 4K OLED display under its own brand (presumably only in Japan) since late 2017. Also, a similar (or the same) 21.6-inch Ultra-HD OLED panel is used by ASUS for its ProArt PQ22UC monitor that is yet to hit the market.
Besides 21.6-inch OLED panels for consumer and professional applications, JOLED has developed a 27-inch 4K OLED panel too. The prototype the company demonstrated at the exhibition was a wall-hanging monitor aimed at smart home applications (smart speakers, IoT, etc.). The positioning of the device is a bit odd because a 27-inch OLED would have been a good solution for PCs, but for some reasons the company does not want to address this market with this panel just yet.
Also aimed at consumers is JOLED’s 55-inch OLED Ultra-HD panel for UHDTVs. This device was demonstrated as a proof of concept to show that the company’s printed OLED technology is suitable for large-sized applications such as TV sets.
Amongst its consumer/professional-oriented OLED devices, JOLED showcased prototype of a rather unique 21.6-inch column-style 4K monitor featuring plastic substrate. The similar substrate is also used for a 21.6-inch curved 4K display designed for digital signage applications in metro/trains and other similar places.
Related Reading:
Source: JOLED, OLED-Info (via TechPowerUp) | 3,198 |
From Bulbanews, your community Pokémon newspaper.
QR Code for 20th movie hat Pikachu announced
Article Report error Thursday, September 7, 2017 Reported on Bulbanews by SnorlaxMonster
Originally reported on Official Pokémon site
This article brought to you by Bulbanews, your community Pokémon newspaper.
Link to this article
Update: The code to obtain Pikachu is PIKACHU20. This Pikachu (regardless of cap) comes bundled with the Pikashunium Z.
The six Ash hat Pikachu in Pokémon Sun and Moon
A code to obtain Ash hat Pikachu will be revealed on the official Pokémon site. Additionally, details on the publication of a QR Code to obtain the movie hat Pikachu in Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon have been revealed.
On September 19, 2017, a common code will be published on the official Pokémon site to obtain Ash hat Pikachu in Pokémon Sun and Moon. There are six different possible hats, and the moves Pikachu knows will vary with its hat; when the player redeems the code will determine which hat they obtain. The code can only be redeemed once per save file, so each player can only obtain one of the six different hats. The dates for each hat are as follows:
Sept. 19 to 25: Original hat
Sept. 26 to Oct. 2: Hoenn region hat
Oct. 3 to 9: Sinnoh region hat
Oct. 10 to 16: Unova region hat
Oct. 17 to 23: Kalos region hat
Oct. 24 to 30: Alola region hat
These Pikachu are likely to be the same as the equivalent Japanese distribution. The Japanese distribution also included the Pikashunium Z, although this has not yet been announced for the international distribution.
The 20th Pokémon movie, Pokémon the Movie: I Choose You!, will air in theaters in the United States and Europe on November 5 and 6, 2017. In Australia and New Zealand, the movie will show in theaters beginning November 11, 2017. A new teaser trailer for the movie has been published.
A QR Code to obtain "I Choose You" hat Pikachu in Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon will be given away at showings, as will a TCG card featuring the same Pikachu. This has been announced by both the US site and the UK, French, German, Italian, and Spanish sites. Tickets are now available for preorder in the United States.
025Pikachu-M20.png "I Choose You" hat Pikachu
Promotional TCG card
Trailer | 3,199 |
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