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With Hearthstone's most recent expansion, The Boomsday Project, a little over a month old, the development team released information pertaining to the health of the game and what players can look forward to in the future.
In the blog post, Blizzard relayed their perspective on the state of the Standard and Wild meta, cards they will be keeping an eye on for nerfs going forward, an adjustment to the new player experience, the in-client tournament add-on and more. The full post can be found here.
In addition to the details above, the Hearthstone team announced the addition of four new cards to the same that will be available to craft and open in Classic packs next month. As more and more cards have rotated into the Hall of Fame set, Blizzard felt it was appropriate to replace them to further solidify a class' identity.
Mage picked up two new cards in Icicle and Tome of Intellect. Icicle naturally fits in the Mage's theme of freezing opposing minions and replaces the slot that was left when Ice Lance rotated out, even though they operate quite differently. Tome of Intellect adds randomness to the class and the ability to add a random Mage spell which synergizes well with existing cards and archetypes that exist.
Warlock picks up Call of the Void to further push their Demon-minion-focused decks while being cheap enough to allow newer players to see what crazy creatures the game has under the Demon tag. It's harmless enough that it likely won't see play in top meta decks but it should help build out the Classic set for Warlock.
The final card added, Pilfer, fits right into the identity Blizzard has been pushing for a while, theft. A cheap card that allows less-experienced players to experience the wackiness that comes with stealing a powerful card from your opponent's class can create some fun and ever-lasting memories.
Blizzard's statement regarding the addition of the new cards and the potential for more in the future is as follows:
"When designing these cards we are thinking about new players’ first experiences playing Hearthstone. They should be relatively straightforward while still creating some exciting moments. They also give players a chance to see and play with cards that they don't own. At the same time, it’s important that they aren’t so powerful that they limit future design or cause problems (since they’ll be in Standard for longer than 2 years.)
Looking forward, we expect more cards to join the Hall of Fame. There are also still some gaps in Classic where neutral Legendary cards joined the Hall of Fame, so we’re considering adding some new cards to the Classic set in the future." | 4,700 |
The WeiShi (WS) family of the multiple launch rocket systems was developed by Sichuan Aerospace Industry Corporation (SCAIC, also known as Base 062) in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. The weapon system was developed for the export market, but has yet received any order. Currently there are four models available: the 302mm WS-1 (100km range), the improved 302mm WS-1B (180km range), the 122mm WS-1E (40km), and the latest 400mm WS-2 (200km range).
SCAIC began to develop an unguided large-calibre multiple launch rocket system for the PLA ground forces in the late 1980s. The resulted WeiShi-1 (WS-1) 302mm, 4-tube multiple rocket system was first tested in 1990. However, the weapon system failed to impress the PLA, and no production order was received. The ground equipment of the WS-1 comprises: a rocket launch truck, a transport and loading truck and a firing command truck.
Armament
The free rocket used by the WS-1 and WS-1B consists of the warhead and fuse, an FG-42/43 rocket motor and the tail section. The FG-42/43 rocket motor is a single chamber, solid rocket motor with an advanced hydroxy-terminated polybutadine (HTPB) composition rocket propellant. The rocket of the WS-2 system features four control surfaces in the middle section of the rocket for terminal guidance.
The rocket can be fitted with various types of warheads including anti-armour/personnel submunition, blasting, fuel air explosive (FAE), and high-explosive (HE). The ZDB-2 blasting warhead is loaded with steel balls and prefabricated fragments. The SZB-1 submunition warhead is designed to destroy large area targets such as armour formation and infantry troops. When the SZB-1 submunition warhead detonates, around 500 bullets are expelled under high pressure.
Launch Truck
The launch truck is available in a number of variants. The MF-4 launch truck is based on a Chinese indigenous 6X6 truck chassis. The HF-4 launch truck is based on the more capable Tiema XC2200 6X6 truck. The WS-2 uses a heavier 8X8 Taian TAS-5380 truck chassis. The launch tubes have an elevation range of 0° to 60° and azimuth range of -30° to +30°. The truck is equipped with four hydraulically operated stabilisers which are lowered in preparation for the rocket launch. | 4,701 |
Scott Wagner, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Pennsylvania, released an aggressive campaign video on Facebook Friday in which he vowed to "stomp all over" his opponent’s "face with golf spikes."
Wagner makes the startling threat to his Democratic opponent, incumbent Gov. Tom Wolf.
"Between now and Nov. 6, you better put a catcher’s mask on your face, because I’m going to stomp all over your face with golf spikes because I’m going to win this for the state of Pennsylvania and we’re throwing you out of office," Wagner, a former state senator, says in the video.
"Because you know what, I'm sick and tired of your negative ads," Wagner adds.
In other parts of the video, Wagner complains at length about Wolf's ads and what he calls his lack of understanding of small business.
A spokeswoman for Wolf's campaign hit back at Wagner, calling his "rant" proof that he is "unfit for office."
“Scott Wagner’s latest rant shows he is unhinged and unfit for office. Threats of violence have no place in society, especially from someone running for public office," Beth Melena, the Wolf campaign's communications director, told NBC News. "This is part of an unfortunate pattern with Scott Wagner.”
A spokesman for Wagner's campaign later said that the GOP candidate's comments "were not to be taken literally."
"He wanted them to be a metaphor for how he will approach the final stretch of the campaign," said Andrew Romeo, the communications director for the Wagner campaign.
Wagner — who received the endorsement of President Donald Trump earlier this week during a rally in Erie, Pa. — is trailing Wolf by double digits in polls.
A recent Franklin & Marshall poll shows Wolf leading Wagner 52 percent to 30 percent among likely voters.
The release of Wagner's video comes as Republicans, including Trump himself, have criticized Democrats, such as former Attorney General Eric Holder, for lacking civility in their campaign messages.
Over the weekend Holder was captured on video telling a crowd that it was "time for us, as Democrats, to be as tough as they are" and that his party should respond more forcefully to Republican attacks.
"Michelle always says, 'When they go low, we go high,'" Holder says in the video, referencing former first lady Michelle Obama.
“No. When they go low, we kick 'em.,” Holder says.
Trump, in an interview with "Fox and Friends" on Thursday, called Holder’s comments "dangerous." | 4,702 |
wain even got in on the fun last week, jabbing Harbaugh by telling reporters, "When you get the roster, let me know. Maybe I can figure out who we're playing."
McElwain's comments, his harmless promise to beat Michigan at a pep rally and a trail of suspensions have kept Florida in the national headlines as much as the Wolverines in August. Couple that with the Gators bringing in Notre Dame transfer Malik Zaire for an ongoing, three-way quarterback battle and there has been no shortage of interest in both of these teams heading into Saturday afternoon.
Forget Michigan's 41-7 rout over Florida in the 2016 Citrus Bowl, the 2017 season opener between the Wolverines and Gators is the one both programs have been eyeing since Jim Harbaugh and Jim McElwain took over in 2014. Rob Foldy/Getty Images
So it's natural to hype the game at AT&T Stadium as a proving ground for both sides of this non-conference match-up. It'd be easy to declare the winner as a team ready to remove doubt in 2017 and the loser as a team on a path to confirm the suspicions of its shortcomings. Those arguments in one form or another will probably be made in the aftermath of Saturday's game. They just aren't likely to be very true.
Michigan -- with an abundance of first-time starters and freshmen making their debuts on Saturday -- will be a different team by the time it faces Penn State and Ohio State and gets a chance to climb from the No. 3 spot in the treacherous Big Ten East. Florida, with its list of suspended players and an unclear picture at quarterback, is also a team that will inevitably evolve as the season goes on.
"I wouldn't say a decider of our season, but it'll show us what we're working with," senior fullback Khalid Hill said. "We lost a lot of guys and depth as a team. The younger guys are rowdy and they want to get out there. I believe in them.... I think we're ready."
Saturday in Texas is a big game in the sense that any game when teams like Michigan and Florida meet it's a big game. Teams trying to climb upward into a conversation for conference championships and playoff bids aren't afforded many second-chances and the loser will start the year with its back firmly planted against the wall. But the bigger picture of which of these programs has come further since hitting the reset button at essentially the same time will take longer reveal itself. If clarity hasn't come for either team in since that Dec. 2 three years ago, it won't arrive in a single night on a neutral field on Sept. 2. | 4,703 |
For a team seeking its first winning season since 2006, going 6-1-1 in nonconference play is no small achievement.
Ultimately, though, Oregon soccer coach Kat Mertz knows the Ducks will be judged by what they do in the Pac-12. That’s where Oregon has struggled most in recent years, finishing no higher than seventh for 13 straight seasons.
“We were here two years ago,” said Mertz, who is in her sixth year as head coach. “We were undefeated when we went into Pac-12 play (in 2016). This is not a new position for us. It’s just showing that we can stay hungry and humble and ready to go for the next game.”
The Ducks are hoping to sustain their strong start as they prepare for their Pac-12 opener against Utah at 7 p.m. Friday at Pape Field. They found reasons to be encouraged in nonconference play, including the breakout performance of junior Emma Eddy and strong play from senior Marissa Everett.
Everett’s goal helped Oregon beat Portland last Friday for its first victory against the Pilots in the program’s modern era. Two days later, Everett scored both goals in a 2-0 victory against Idaho.
“She is just a talented forward up top for us and really is a North Star for our team,” Mertz said of Everett, who was named the Pac-12’s offensive player of the week. “When she’s flying high, our team loves to feed off her energy.”
As usual, the Ducks will face tough competition in the Pac-12. Stanford is ranked No. 1 in the latest United Soccer Coaches poll, with USC at No. 3, UCLA at No. 8, Washington State at No. 14 and Colorado at No. 23.
The Ducks are receiving votes in the coaches poll and came in at No. 17 in the latest RPI. Though they rank in the middle of the Pac-12 in goals scored and goals allowed, they’ve performed well in close games and, according to Mertz, have developed chemistry that should carry into conference play.
After years of fighting up from the bottom of the Pac-12, there’s no doubt the Ducks are due for a breakthrough.
“What feels different is the team camaraderie, what they’re doing on and off the field and how they’re interacting with each other and the coaching staff,” Mertz said. “I think we have a hungry group.” | 4,704 |
During his round of interviewing potential job applicants, Donald Trump had one meeting with a Democratic politician: Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, a leading antiwar figure, an Iraq war veteran and Bernie Sanders ally and former rising star in the party.
The Monday meeting is important because of what Gabbard said about foreign policy: screw the neoconservatives and dump the idea of regime change in Syria, which Hillary Clinton had supported. The meeting thus contains seeds of ideological convergence between the antiwar left and right. It has been read as misguided, tragic, or hopeful– depending on the observer’s point of view. Here’s a short tour.
First off, Gabbard filed her own report, titled “My meeting with Donald Trump.” She said the meeting was all about Syria; and she called out the neoconservatives and others advocating intervention.
This was an opportunity to advocate for peace — and I felt it was important to take the opportunity to meet with the President-elect to counteract neocons’ steady drumbeats of war, which threaten to drag us into an escalation of the war to overthrow the Syrian government. This war has already cost hundreds of thousands of lives and forced millions of refugees to flee their homes in search of safety for themselves and their families. It has also strengthened al-Qaeda and other violent, extremist groups in the region. It would have been irresponsible not to accept this invitation. I feel it is my duty to take every single opportunity I get to advocate for peace, no matter the circumstances of those meetings. I shared with him my grave concerns that escalating the war in Syria by implementing a so-called no fly/safe zone would be disastrous for the Syrian people, our country, and the world. It would lead to more death and suffering, exacerbate the refugee crisis, strengthen ISIS and al-Qaeda and bring us into a direct conflict with Russia–potentially resulting in a nuclear war. We discussed my bill to end our country’s illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government and the need to focus our precious resources on rebuilding our own country, and on defeating al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other terrorist groups who pose a threat to the American people.
The New York Times published a report that characterized Gabbard as defensive and delusional. “The report was slanted and pejorative, in a way so easy to penetrate you wonder if they’ve lost their wits,” David Bromwich writes. “How deeply she has offended against the new Cold War consensus.”
Bromwich revised the Times piece by putting its prejudicial phrasing in double brackets, and including his amendments and commentary in boldface: | 4,705 |
On Thursday, during a speech before President Donald Trump’s rally in Cincinnati, pro-Trump activist Brandon Straka used a phrase that is common among believers in the QAnon conspiracy theory.
“Where we go one, we go all!” he announced to the crowd, a common catchphrase of QAnon believers.
Lots of Q shirts here at the rally in Cincinnati and Trump pre-rally speaker Brandon Straka just said “Where we go one, we go all.” — a common rallying cry of the #QAnon movement. They even have an acronym for it. #WWG1GWA. pic.twitter.com/cOsAB3vLmC — Marcus J. DiPaola (@marcusdipaola) August 1, 2019
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Straka, who claims to be a former Democrat, is the creator of the “#WalkAway” hashtag, a meme encouraging Democrats to “walk away” from their party and support Trump. The hashtag trended in 2018, largely with the help of Russian troll accounts trying to sow discord in American politics.
The QAnon theory, which originated from an anonymous online message board poster claiming to be a government official with high-level security clearance, holds that Trump is secretly working to uncover a world-spanning child sex trafficking ring run by Democrats. Some versions of this theory have held that former special counsel Robert Mueller was helping him under the cover of pretending to investigate Russia; others assert that John F. Kennedy Jr. is somehow still alive and a major investigator behind the scenes.
However, Straka said it was inaccurate to portray him as a supporter of QAnon.
Last night I had the honor of opening the Trump Rally in Ohio. My speech was hopeful: uniting 🇺🇸& waking up minorities from victimhood groupthink. Hours later I read that I came out as a Q supporter. No such thing happened. @RawStory will you retract this?https://t.co/nThceO4jyP — Brandon Straka (@BrandonStraka) August 2, 2019
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This is not the first time that the #WalkAway activists have been dabbled in QAnon fever — at the #WalkAway rally in October, folk singer J. T. Wilde closed out the speaking lineup with a QAnon-themed guitar song.
(Note: This article previously stated that Brandon Straka had “proclaimed his allegiance to the QAnon conspiracy theory.” The story was updated after Brandon Straka tweeted about the article.) | 4,706 |
Politics Nearly 3 in 4 Utah Voters Support Medical Marijuana, Survey Finds Gage Peake June 27, 2017 Salt Lake City skyline Utah in USA
Utah’s neighbors to the west, south, and east all have legal, regulated cannabis markets for both medical and adult use. Now a new poll suggests that Utah voters want to legal medical marijuana in their state, too.
The Utah Patients Coalition survey, published Monday, found that of 402 Utah voters polled, 73% support a medical cannabis ballot initiative. Only about 20% were opposed, and 7% remain undecided.
Voters from nearly all demographic groups expressed support for medical marijuana, the survey found, included 64% of Republican voters and 63% of active voters who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Older voters in Utah supported medical cannabis legalization at an even higher rate, with 75% of voters 50 and older in favor. And when asked about chronic pain, 72% of all respondents said they felt cannabis should be available as treatment.
“The poll results show overwhelming and broad support for medical cannabis in Utah,” said DJ Schanz, director of Utah Patients Coalition. “Voters believe that patients should be able to safely and legally access the medicine they need.”
The Utah Patients Coalition is also behind a prospective ballot initiative announced in Salt Lake City this week that would legalize medical cannabis in the state. Supporters say they’re frustrated by the Legislature’s inaction despite broad support for legalization from constituents.
Christine Stenquist, a campaign spokesperson for Utah Patients Coalition, said in a statement that Utah needs to adopt medicinal marijuana rules as soon as possible, especially in the face of the deadly opioid epidemic that has taken a heavy toll in Utah.
“The opioid epidemic has already taken too many lives in our state,” Stenquist said. “We should allow medical cannabis as a treatment for chronic pain for two urgent reasons. First, medical cannabis is a more effective treatment for many patients. And second, it can potentially play a significant role in reducing the rate of opioid overdose deaths in Utah.”
The poll, conducted in February, was commissioned by the Marijuana Policy Project, a national cannabis reform organization. Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates, an opinion research firm, conducted the survey.
Gage Peake Gage Peake is a former staff writer for Leafly, where he specialized in data journalism, sports, and breaking news coverage. He's a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's College of Journalism and Mass Communications. View Gage Peake's articles | 4,707 |
I’ve started this petition to ask Rogers Media to bring back the name we know and love, and that means so much to Torontonians and Blue Jays Fans. I’m calling on Rogers to officially change the name of the Rogers Centre to SkyDome or Rogers SkyDome. It’s time to reclaim the name that made the home of the Blue Jays so unique.
I’ll never forget the first time I went to a Blue Jays game at the SkyDome. It was 1989 and I was 10 years old. My brother had scored us tickets to a Jays/Indians game, and when I walked in to the stadium, I was completely blown away. I’m not sure what I was more excited about – seeing the players who I idolized, or sitting in the huge dome with it’s super cool retractable roof. Even though it was a beautiful sunny day I remember hoping it would rain – just so I could see them close the Dome. It didn't rain, but lucky for us, they closed the roof at the end of the game. Everyone stuck around to watch.
So many Jays fans like me have similar memories. People were upset and disappointed when Rogers Media changed the SkyDome’s name to the Rogers Centre in 2005, after they bought the stadium and the Blue Jays franchise. Why did they have to change it? What was wrong with a name that we loved and that symbolized important moments in our city’s history?
The name SkyDome was chosen in 1987, after tens of thousands of people from across Ontario submitted ideas as part of a “name the stadium” contest. We were proud of our new one-of-a kind stadium. It put Toronto on the map, and we felt like it was truly our stadium, because we helped name it. The opening of the SkyDome marked the beginning of an exciting time for our city.
From the 1991 All Star Game to Joe Carter’s World Series winning homerun in 1993, so many iconic moments in Toronto’s history go hand in hand with the SkyDome. We should celebrate and take pride in those moments. So many old fans returned during last season's phenomenal run, and were just not used to the Rogers Centre name.
Will you join me and add your name? Let’s make this season one to remember, so that new generations of Jays fans like my seven month-old son can make their own memories. Together, we can help bring back some of that World Series winning magic at a place we all know and love as SkyDome. #OurSkyDome. | 4,708 |
JUST like their male counterparts, Greater Western Sydney's female players will be road warriors when the inaugural NAB AFL Women's competition starts next month.
The Giants in the AFL play only two games at their Spotless Stadium home in the first eight rounds because of the Sydney Royal Easter Show, with the women's side also doing plenty of travelling in 2017.
The AFLW is an eight-team competition and the Giants are one of four clubs playing three home games and four away matches. With one of their 'home' fixtures scheduled for Manuka Oval in Canberra, the club's second home, the Giants will play just two matches in Sydney.
Giants coach Tim Schmidt told AFL.com.au the draw was just one of the many challenges facing the eight AFLW clubs, and he's already put things in place to make sure his squad was ready for the start of the season.
"It doesn't really faze me too much. It would have been nice to have an extra home game given one of ours is in Canberra, but we've got a great alliance there," he said.
"We've got a trial match (in Queensland) before the season starts so we'll use that to get the girls accustomed to travel.
"From there we'll come up with a good plan and see how the girls cope with that, and we can tweak it as we go,” he said.
"You just go out and try to play your best footy no matter which state you're in and who you're playing against.
"(GWS coach) Leon (Cameron) and his staff have been fantastic in offering us help and information, and it's important to have their support."
Schmidt said he would will rely on his experienced players to help his young side, with marquee signing Renee Forth taking on a much bigger off-field role after suffering a season-ending knee injury in the WAWFL finals just weeks after her signing.
A star of women's footy in Western Australia at both state and club level, Forth and her Coastal Titans teammate and Fremantle marquee player Kiara Bowers needed knee reconstructions after both were injured in the same game.
"It's really disappointing to lose a marquee player. She's a natural leader, so we've found her a developmental coaching role,” Schmidt said.
"She's been fantastic. Everything she says on the track is really positive and she's got a really good footy brain, so the girls listen and respect her greatly."
The Giants start their season in South Australia with a clash against Adelaide at Thebarton Oval on Saturday, February 4. | 4,709 |
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New York, May 18, 2017–The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Israeli authorities to apprehend and try the man who shot Associated Press photographer Majdi Mohammed in the hand and killed a Palestinian protester near the northern West Bank city of Nablus today.
The AP, citing video footage, witnesses, and medical officals, reported that a man, whom Israeli media identified as a settler, fatally shot a protester and shot their photographer in the hand after dozens of protesters blocked the road near the Hawara checkpoint. When the settler drove through the crowd, protesters began beating the car and throwing rocks at it. The man rammed a Palestinian ambulance with his car, the AP reported, and began shooting out of his back windshield with a pistol.
Mohammed told his employer he was shot in the hand as he attempted to put on a gas mask after Israeli soldiers arrived to disperse the protest. In video footage published to YouTube, Mohammed can be seen injured, wearing a protective vest and helmet, not far from the slain protester, whom the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency subsequently identified as Muataz Hussein Hilal, 23.
According to the AP, the shooter, who was not identified by name and whose face the channel blurred to obscure his identity, subsequently told Israel’s Channel 2 news that he had acted in self-defense and that he was grateful to have made it home “in peace.”
Israeli military spokesmen did not answer CPJ’s phone call or email requesting comment. The Ma’an News Agency quoted an Israeli military spokeswoman as saying that she was unsure whether security forces had detained the shooter. The left-wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that police were not treating the settler as a suspect.
“Israeli authorities should not allow a man who by his own admission shot at a crowd, injuring a journalist and killing a young man, to rest comfortably at home, unmolested by police,” CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour said. “Israel must show that its citizens cannot shoot journalists or other unarmed civilians with impunity.”
Mohammed reported that an Israeli security officer shot him in the back at close range with a rubber-coated bullet in October 2016 as he left a protest in the West Bank. The Israeli Foreign Press Association said it believed the shooting was intentional, according to media reports. On December 16, 2011, the photographer was injured when security forces fired a tear gas canister directly at his leg while he covered a demonstration, according to media reports. | 4,710 |
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) threw some not-so-subtle shade at Amazon and its CEO Jeff Bezos on Wednesday when he introduced a bill that would allow the government to charge big corporations for the federal welfare programs its low-income workers use.
The “Stop BEZOS Act,” which stands for “Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies Act,” would stick big companies with a bill for federal welfare programs commonly used by their low-wage workers and stem the flow taxpayer-funded subsidies for companies paying their workers low wages.
“At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, when the 3 wealthiest people in America own more wealth than the bottom 50 percent and when 52 percent of all new income goes to the top one percent, the American people are tired of subsidizing multi-billionaires who own some of the largest and most profitable corporations in America,” Sanders said in a statement.
The Vermont senator said that Amazon — which became the second company to be valued at over $1 trillion on Tuesday — is one of the companies responsible for using the federal government to subsidize its workforce, paying more than half of its employees an average of $13.67 an hour, or $28,500 a year.
Sanders also cited a recent report from the New Food Economy, which found that one in three Amazon employees in Arizona received food stamps in 2017.
Amazon, however, refuted those statistics in a blog post, claiming that the company provides “highly competitive wages” and “a comprehensive benefits package including health insurance, disability insurance, retirement savings plans, and company stock” to its employees.
The trend of Amazon employees receiving food stamps is nothing new, however. Another report from January found that more than 1,400 Amazon workers in Ohio were on food stamps, and ten percent of company employees in the area claimed some form of federal assistance.
The online retail giant not only relies on the government to subsidize their workforce, but it is also one of the top sponsors of the H-1B visa — which is extended to foreign workers. The company requested 2,515 H-1B visas for foreign workers in 2017, far surpassing the number of foreign workers requested by companies like Google and Facebook.
But the trend of companies like Amazon relying on the government to help provide cheap labor, largely from other countries, may already be on the downswing.
Because President Donald Trump recently placed a cap on the number of foreign workers entering the U.S., Bezos and other retail warehouse employers are being pressured to increase their wages for their massive workforce and potentially rely less on imported labor. | 4,711 |
highly conversational' nature of the apps they need to host. In addition they chose to use JBoss application server as a full Java EE environment in order to get the benefits of EJB and a'real' application server:
Performances: Nuxeo 5 targets high document volume with high level of concurrent transactions, and we believe the pooling and state replication services of an EJB container will allow us to reach these goals. Integrity and security: Nuxeo 5 leverages the transaction and security model of EJB3. As we have a very modular system, having a simple way to waranty transaction and security propagation to all components on all JVMs is important.
Clear separation of Presentation and Business logic: All processing and services of Nuxeo 5 are implemented using EJB3. This clear separation gives us several advantages : you can choose to deploy presentation and logic on differents JVM we can easily split the business components on several machines to externalise the services that have intensive needs of ressources the development model for business and presentation are differents, as they should be
Remote access to the business layer: Because Nuxeo 5 can be used both via a thin client and via a rich client, EJB3 gives us the opportunity to expose a remote business API. This remote API can be accessed via SOAP (as this would be possible in Tomcat) but also via RMI and IIOP. The emphasis on JBoss is tactical: we want to get a working product out of the door ASAP (in November 2006 to be precise) and we believe the best way to achieve this is to focus on one target platform. JBoss is production-ready, Java EE 5 / EJB 3 compliant, and professionally supported. Last, we have chosen to use three products from JBoss (Seam, jBPM and JBoss Rules) as primary building blocks for our platform. We know they can also be used on top of other servers than JBoss, but it’s more convenient for us to work with the same partner for both the application servers and these additionnal components. But in the long run, we will target other application servers, including Glassfish, JOnAS and Geronimo. We have specifically designed the Nuxeo Runtime layer of Nuxeo 5 to be able to do this, by pluging in new adapters for each new platform we (or third-party contributors to the project) will want to target.
There is a roadmap on the website. First server platform release is scheduled for November 2006, while several core components will be released sooner. Participation to the project is encouraged. The project is licensed under the LGPL. | 4,712 |
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Jerusalem (AFP)
The Israeli Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down military draft exemptions for Jewish seminary students, enraging the small but powerful ultra-Orthodox community.
Court documents seen by AFP showed a panel of nine justices agreed that a 2015 amendment to the law on military service treated the students more generously than their secular compatriots.
"All the justices ruled that the new draft arrangement violates equality," the decision read.
It said an eight-to-one majority went a step further, ruling that it must be struck from the law books.
Most Jewish Israelis are obliged to enlist, usually at the age of 18, with men serving for two years and eight months and women for two years.
Many continue to be called up for periodic periods of reserve duty into their 40s.
"The majority justices ruled that the annulment of the arrangement would take effect only a year from the date of the ruling, in order to enable the arrangement to be implemented," an official summary of the judgement said.
The year of grace gave the military and other authorities time to organise for an enlarged draft.
It also gave politicians a chance to find an alternative formula which would be acceptable both to the court and the ultra-Orthodox political parties, whose support is vital for the government's slender parliamentary majority.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders raged against Tuesday's decision but did not threaten the stability of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition, currently halfway through its four-year term.
"It's a miserable ruling," lawmaker Menachem Eliezer Moses, of the United Torah Judaism party, told state-owned Channel One TV.
"We are certainly not going to dismantle the government," he added. "There are still two years to elections. We shall change the law."
Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, took a similar line.
"The Supreme Court is totally cut off from our (Jewish) heritage and tradition," he said on Twitter.
"We will act with all our might to amend the law to allow the continuation of the existing arrangement."
Ultra-Orthodox Jews represent about 10 percent of the Israeli population and live by a strict interpretation of Jewish laws.
There have been large and heated ultra-Orthodox protests against the draft, which many of them view as a source of temptation for young people taken out of the cloistered world of prayer and religious study.
In March thousands took to the streets and dozens have been arrested on public disorder offences in the past few months.
© 2017 AFP | 4,713 |
When times are tough, people typically rein in their budgets. While most people cut everyday extravagances like gourmet coffee or premium cable channels, others take frugality to the extreme. Here are some unusual ways people are trying to save money:
Toilet training your cat: Buying kitty litter will put a dent in your wallet. Cleaning up the box is another pain. The ultra-frugal are addressing the issue by toilet training their cats. If that seems like too much work (or Lord Fluffington proves uncooperative), you could try making your own kitty litter instead.
Reusing toilet cloths: Some penny-pinching consumers have switched from toilet paper to cloth napkins, which have the added benefit of helping the environment. The same principle applies to paper towels, though with less of the ick factor.
Green-minded savers say that wiping with cloth in the bathroom is similar to using cloth diapers on babies instead of disposable ones. Wallypop, a family business in Des Moines, Iowa, sells colorful wipes in a variety of fabrics. The reusable towels are machine washable.
Picking up plants from funeral homes: Fresh flowers can brighten up a home, but they can be expensive. The obvious solution is to grow your own, but that's messy and takes time. Some people have tried calling local funeral homes to see if they can take plants left over from funerals. Mourners seldom take home all their flowers, and funeral directors might be happy to unload the bouquets.
Turning pet hair into clothing: Knitting can be a wonderfully frugal way to outfit your family. If you're an extreme saver, there's a way to avoid buying yarn. Kendall Crolius tells readers how to turn extraneous pet hair into yarn in her book Knitting With Dog Hair. The book's tagline says it all: "Better a sweater from a dog you know and love than from a sheep you'll never meet."
Baking cookies in cars: If you have a sweet tooth and live in a warm climate, you could cut the cost of your treats by making them in a solar oven. These metal rigs use the sun's rays to cook food for free.
The Baking Bites blog takes this idea a step further by showing you how to bake cookies in your car on hot summer days. The process might leave your vehicle smelling of chocolate chip cookies for the rest of the week, which some people might consider a good thing.
Although it's wise to cut expenses when the economy spirals, some things shouldn't be discounted. But it's up to you to make that distinction. | 4,714 |
The city of Orlando announced Monday it has ended its pilot project for the police to use Amazon Rekognition facial recognition software but held the door open for possible further use even as the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida called it a potential invasion of residents’ privacy, free speech and due process rights and demanded the city end its use.
The city’s pilot with Amazon regarding the potential viability of their Rekognition technology ended last week, according to a written statement issued jointly by the city and the Orlando Police Department.
“Staff continues to discuss and evaluate whether to recommend continuation of the pilot at a further date. At this time that process in still ongoing and the contract with Amazon remains expired,” reads a joint statement. “The City of Orlando is always looking for new solutions to further our ability to keep our residents and visitors safe. Partnering with innovative companies to test new technology – while also ensuring we uphold privacy laws and in no way violate the rights of others – is critical to us as we work to further keep our community safe.”
That statement came after the ACLU of Florida sent a letter Monday to Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and members of the Orlando City Commission, but referred to an action that took place before the letter was sent.
“People should be free to walk down the street without being watched by the government,” Nancy Abudu, legal director ACLU Florida declared in that letter. “Face surveillance in Orlando threatens this freedom, particularly where government agencies deploy it without community debate, without local legislative oversight, and without rules to prevent abusive use,” she continued. After the project was publicized in May revealing that Orlando police were using the Amazon software in a pilot project to see how it works, controversy erupted. Orlando Police Chief John Mina vowed it would never be used to track random people. The ACLU conducted a six-month investigation and obtained records revealing that Amazon was working with law enforcement agencies on both U.S. coasts to push its face surveillance product, including the Orlando Police Department. Abudu also argued that she and the ACLU are particularly concerned because the city launched the project without any public consideration.
“The City Council has allowed the use of this technology by the Orlando Police Department without inviting public debate, obtaining local legislative authorization, or adopting rules to prevent harm to Orlando community members,” said Abudu. “People should be able to safely live their lives without being watched and targeted by their government. We demand the City of Orlando to uphold that standard and end the use of a tool that threatens public safety, and that will endanger the rights of communities of color, protesters, and immigrants.” | 4,715 |
Sen. Bernie Sanders Bernie SandersMcConnell accuses Democrats of sowing division by 'downplaying progress' on election security The Hill's Campaign Report: Arizona shifts towards Biden | Biden prepares for drive-in town hall | New Biden ad targets Latino voters Why Democrats must confront extreme left wing incitement to violence MORE (I-Vt.), a 2020 White House hopeful, on Sunday dismissed concerns that his status as a self-proclaimed democratic socialist would be a liability in a general election and said President Trump Donald John TrumpHR McMaster says president's policy to withdraw troops from Afghanistan is 'unwise' Cast of 'Parks and Rec' reunite for virtual town hall to address Wisconsin voters Biden says Trump should step down over coronavirus response MORE’s description of his ideology as “communist” was inaccurate.
“Obviously I am not a communist,” Sanders told host Chris Wallace Christopher (Chris) WallaceCNN to host first 'drive-in town hall' with Biden on Thursday The Memo: Warning signs flash for Trump on debates Sunny Hostin slams'misogynistic, racist, homophobic' Joe Rogan after his offer to moderate debate MORE on “Fox News Sunday” in response to a clip of Trump using the designation in a Fox News interview, adding that Trump “maybe doesn’t know the difference.”
Sanders also called Trump a “pathological liar” for claiming Sanders was “married in Moscow.”
Wallace continued to press Sanders on how he would address criticisms that agenda items such as the Green New Deal, "Medicare for All" and forgiveness of college debt are radical and prohibitively expensive.
“In many respects, we are a socialist society today,” Sanders responded, noting the tax breaks and subsidies Trump received from the government as a businessman.
“The difference between my socialism and Trump’s socialism is I believe the government should help working families, not billionaires,” he added.
Addressing his specific proposals, Sanders said the price tags and the overhaul of the status quo were preferable to the alternative.
“If we leave the [health care] status quo alone, in the next 10 years, we’re going to be spending $50 trillion,” he said. “Medicare for All will cost the average American less than the $12,000 a year they are paying the insurance companies.”
Similarly, while discussing the Green New Deal, he described climate change as an "existential crisis."
"How much do you think it’s going to cost when we have increased disturbances?" he asked. | 4,716 |
Researchers at the University of Bristol have shown that resident artificial cells abandon their protocell hosts by displaying antagonistic behaviour on receiving a chemical signal.
The work opens new perspectives to develop synthetic soft materials endowed with life-like properties.
Living cells cooperate and compete with each other to maximise their survival and optimise their collective behaviour. Reproducing these behaviours in communities of synthetic cell-like entities (protocells) is extremely challenging and requires different types of protocells to be brought together in close proximity so that they can operate in unison, or alternatively, work against each other.
In a new study published today in Nature Communications, Professor Stephen Mann from Bristol's School of Chemistry, together with colleagues Dr Nicolas Martin, Yan Qiao, Richard Booth and Mei Li in the Bristol Centre for Protolife Research, and French collaborator Jean-Paul Douliez from the University of Bordeaux have addressed this challenge by designing two types of enzyme-containing protocells, which when mixed together spontaneously assemble into nested host-guest communities that operate synergistically or antagonistically depending on the strength of a chemical signal.
The team used large droplets of a pH-sensitive fatty acid complex (coacervate) and small protein-polymer microcapsules (proteinosomes) as the host and guest protocells, respectively. By engineering attractive interactions between the two types of protocell, the proteinosomes were spontaneously captured and internalized in the coacervate micro-droplets to produce a nested community.
The researchers enzymatically charged the nested community by trapping glucose oxidase and horseradish peroxidase inside the proteinosomes and coacervate micro-droplets, respectively. Addition of low amounts of glucose into the environment produced a cooperative interaction between the host and guest protocells such that the two enzymes worked together to produce a spatially coupled chemical cascade.
However, increasing the level of the glucose signal turned the guest protocells against their host which led to the pH-induced disassembly of the coacervate droplets and release of the resident proteinosomes. A surprising feature of the self-reconfiguration process was that the droplets restructured into small fatty acid vesicles that became trapped inside the ejected proteinosomes to produce a new type of nested protocell.
Professor Stephen Mann said: "Although the research is at an early stage, our long-term vision is to develop dynamic interaction networks in synthetic protocell communities. This could offer new opportunities for the design of functional life-like microsystems that operate collectively for example as smart sensors, drug delivery and release agents, and microscale modules for energy capture and storage." | 4,717 |
The complainant alleged that religious sentiments of the Christian community have been hurt. (Photo: Raveena Tandon/Instagram) The complainant alleged that religious sentiments of the Christian community have been hurt. (Photo: Raveena Tandon/Instagram)
The Ferozepur police have registered an FIR against actor Raveena Tandon, choreographer-cum-director Farah Khan and comedian Bharti Singh for allegedly hurting religious sentiments of a community during a television show.
An FIR has been registered at Ferozepur cantonment police station on the complaint of Vijay Goria, chairman of Samson Brigade Christian Youths and resident of Kamboj Nagar in Ferozepur. In his complaint, he said that religious sentiments of the Christian community were hurt when the trio mocked a word related to the community during a TV show.
Inspector Parveen Kumar, SHO Ferozepur Cantonment police station said that FIR was registered under the section 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of IPC. “We have started the probe. We will be probing and then getting the summons issued from the court to question the trio,” he said.
This was the second FIR registered in the matter. Earlier, Amritsar police booked the trio in an FIR registered at Ajnala police station on the complaint of Sonu Jafar, president of Christian Front in Ajnala.
Raveena and Farah Khan have offered an apology on the matter. “Please do watch this link. I haven’t said a word that can be interpreted as an insult to any religion. The three of us (Farah Khan, Bharti Singh and I) never intended to offend anyone, but in case we did, my most sincere apologies to those who were hurt,” the actor had tweeted sharing a clip of the said episode. The video clip shows Farah acting as the teacher as she asks Raveena and Bharti Singh to spell the word ‘hallelujah’.
“I respect all religions, and it would never be my intention to disrespect any. On behalf of the entire team, Raveena Tandon, Bharti Singh and Myself.. we do sincerely apologise,” Farah Khan had tweeted on Friday.
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For all the latest India News, download Indian Express App. | 4,718 |
1 of 11 Photo Credit: Splash News Photo Credit: Splash News howard-stern-wife-beth-ostrosky-spray-tanner-photos
2 of 11 Photo Credit: Splash News Photo Credit: Splash News Howard Stern and Beth Stern hold hands in New York City Howard & Beth Stern hold hands while arriving for dinner at the Polo Bar in New York City.
3 of 11 Howard Stern and Beth Stern hold hands in New York City The spray tanning faux pas, a common one in Hollywood circles, is evident in blotches on the beauty's legs, and the mismatched tones between her gams and the rest of her frame.
4 of 11 Howard Stern and Beth Stern hold hands in New York City The King of All Media, 61, seemed distracted as he kicked off his weekend, as his SiriusXM radio show currently airs Monday thru Wednesday.
5 of 11 Howard Stern and Beth Stern hold hands in New York City The fashion-conscious Stern didn't go for his trademark scarf on the weeknight outing, opting for a plaid jacket and black vest with jeans.
6 of 11 Howard Stern and Beth Stern hold hands in New York City Stern and his spouse were out on the town a mere hours before Simon Cowell filled the radio star's lead judge chair on America's Got Talent, amid Sony leak-fueled rumors that plans had been in the works to make the switch for more than a year-and-a-half.
7 of 11 Howard Stern and Beth Stern hold hands in New York City Beth, speaking with Extra this past June, offered another explanation for her husband's departure from primetime TV: "Howard told me he wanted more free time to be with me."
8 of 11 Howard Stern and Beth Stern hold hands in New York City Despite her scowl in this shot, Beth's sweetness often shines through her via love of animals, which she closely chronicles via her Instagram page, as well as her heartwarming hobby matchmaking foster kittens with owners.
9 of 11 Howard Stern and Beth Stern hold hands in New York City The self-proclaimed "crazy cat lady" also serves as a spokesperson for the North Shore Animal League, and has spearheaded the Bianca's Furry Friends Campaign a fundraiser aimed on erecting a 14,000-sq. foot facility for up to 20,000 unwanted felines.
10 of 11 Howard Stern and Beth Stern hold hands in New York City While the radio icon has repeatedly stated that his wife is uncomfortable with the spotlight, Beth appeared in front of the camera Wednesday to film The Hallmark Channel's upcoming Kitten Bowl III, which will air on Super Bowl Sunday Feb. 7. | 4,719 |
General Motors is preparing to launch its own peer-to-peer car-sharing service this summer, according to Bloomberg. Car owners can list and rent out their own personal cars when they aren’t using them, much like Airbnb users do with their homes and apartments. It’s another sign of the auto industry exploring new ventures as it seeks to insulate itself from changes in vehicle ownership models.
The new peer-to-peer rental service would most likely be launched by Maven, GM’s car-sharing spinoff that’s available in 10 cities across the US. Maven rents cars that it owns to users on a short-term basis. It also has a side business called Maven Gig, through which it lends vehicles to people who want to earn money driving for ride-hail companies like Uber or Lyft, or delivery services like Instacart.
“At Maven, we are always considering new, innovative ways to make sharing easier,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “We have no plans to announce at this time.”
“We have no plans to announce at this time”
In launching a peer-to-peer service, GM would be competing with startups like Turo and Getaround that allow people to list their personal cars for rent. But unlike those companies, GM is a global giant with a market value of almost $53 billion.
That said, a peer-to-peer service isn’t an obvious choice for GM. One could argue that the automaker’s strengths — its manufacturing acumen, its after-market division, and its network of dealerships — aren’t necessarily applicable here.
To make a successful Airbnb-for-cars, GM will need a trustworthy tech platform on which people will feel comfortable listing their cars, and from which customers will feel secure renting these vehicles. Some customers who’ve used Maven have complained that the user experience can be confusing, while the app can be a bit slow. Other users have found the cars available on Maven to be dirty. The company’s service in San Francisco has 1.5 stars on Yelp based on 30 reviews.
It is likely GM is intrigued by the commercial prospects. Turo, which claims about 4 million users in more than 5,000 cities in North America and Europe, says it appeals to travelers because they can find short-term car rentals that are cheaper than those of its corporate peers. The company has raised money from Daimler AG and is currently valued at $700 million. Getaround raised $45 million last April, with Toyota among the companies buying in. | 4,720 |
Punk House Adds More Water to Dr. Bronner’s Bottle to Prepare for Coronavirus
PORTLAND, Maine — Residents of local punk house the Fire Trap added more tap water today to the house’s already severely diluted bottle of Dr. Bronner’s Castile Soap to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic, overconfident sources confirmed.
“This whole coronavirus thing has gotten really serious. We knew it was time to take action,” said house resident Kenzie Stillwell. “But after stocking up on ramen and Steel Reserve, we didn’t have any money left for a new Bronner’s bottle, so we figured we’ll just water down what we’ve already got. It might be a little thin, but it should get us through, right? I mean, it’s not like this is the first time we’ve done this — we’ve had that same bottle for like, six years at this point.”
Property manager Bud Miller did not seem confident, however, in the residents’ ability to avoid the disease.
“That whole house is like a petri dish for deadly infections. I’ve actually seen rats refuse to go near it because of how gross those guys are,” said Miller. “I did my part to keep the place up to code, but at a certain point, you’ve just gotta cut your losses. Best guess, there’s a 99% chance that everyone in that place gets the coronavirus twice… if not a mutated version of the virus that is far worse. All I know is, I’m not going back there.”
For its part, the Dr. Bronner’s bottle seemed optimistic.
“I don’t see what everybody’s so concerned about; ain’t no coronavirus getting in here with Dr. Bronner on the job,” said the bottle. “You can shake all the hands and touch all the faces you want, because just a little scrub-a-dub-dub with me, and you’ll be clean as a whistle. Sure, at this point I’m mostly tap water, but that never stopped this Dr. Bronner before. This pandemic is going to be another clean sweep. God’s love will get us through.”
Residents of the Fire Trap are allegedly also boiling their malt liquor to kill off any potential pathogens prior to consumption.
Photo by Charlie Dignan. | 4,721 |
An Arizona mother spoke out against her son’s 4th-grade teacher having students recite an altered version of the Declaration of Independence in class, reported Arizona ABC-affiliate KNXV Wednesday.
The Salk Elementary School teacher replaced the word “men” with “humans” whenever it appeared in the Declaration. The mother, Elizabeth Vaillancourt, posted about the teacher’s actions on her Facebook account, including a photo of the altered Declaration of Independence. In one of the comments, she also provided the number of the superintendent Mr. McCord and encouraged people to contact him and complain.
“Zev’s teacher has this hanging in the classroom can anyone guess what’s wrong with this picture?”
When Vaillancourt aired her grievances with the school, administrators told her she hurt the teacher’s feelings by posting about the incident on social media. The school removed Vaillancourt’s son from the teacher’s class and the sign was taken down.
After Vaillancourt posted on Facebook, she was contacted by a member of the ABC15 team for an interview about the situation. She shared the photo of the altered Declaration again Wednesday before her interview to provide an update.
“What she [the teacher] is doing is indoctrination you may be alright with her doing this but it is against board and school policy so therefore she was in the wrong,” Vaillancourt wrote.
“Each and every morning after the Pledge of Allegiance is said, the class recited this altered version of our Declaration of Independence. The teacher also felt it was ‘A teachable moment’ when she shared with the class that she attended a protest of our President Donald J. Trump. I beg of you all for future generations to remain free, please beware of what is actually occurring in our schools.”
A spokeswoman for Mesa Public Schools said the policies for school ceremonies included reciting the Declaration of Independence.
“It should be recited as written, and not modified in any way. School administration, when learning of the alteration to the text, provided feedback and guidance to the teacher to restore the document to its original format,” she said.
“There is not a specific reference in policy to the discussion of political beliefs by a teacher in a classroom, however in practice the district does not allow teachers to share their political views with students. When the teacher used a personal example of how individuals can have differing political views but still be friends, the principal reminded the teacher that personal examples are not appropriate in the classroom setting.” | 4,722 |
Why does the body need food with a balanced vitamin D content?
A person needs a whole range of complex vitamins and microelements for the normal functioning of the body, but some of them play a special role in our body’s vital activity.
Calcium is needed for bones and teeth, without it, the body will not get stronger. In addition, it takes part in the muscles, immune and nervous systems, by contributing to blood clotting. Phosphorus is also necessary for bones and teeth, and for muscles, it participates in the reproduction and division of cells, reduces the likelihood of sand and kidney stones, and is involved in all bodily processes. But the human body is not able to absorb calcium and phosphorus without vitamin D. This is what my post is about today.
Due to a lack of vitamin D, bones become weak, immunity goes down, and a variety of diseases can develop, including cardiovascular and cancerous ones. Its deficiency leads to health problems ending in death.
In many countries, the shortage is compensated by special treatment with ultraviolet rays of some products: milk, mushrooms, cottage cheese, kefir. This allows you to exclude some health problems among the population. Countries are particularly at risk where, due to climatic conditions, there is a clear lack of sun.
It is very important at an early age to give children enough Vitamin D, otherwise, in the first months of life, rickets can begin to develop, leading to serious complications. In adulthood, a person needs 600 IU per day of vitamin D, children need 400 IU, and older people up to 800 IU.
It is possible to provide the body with this substance in several ways: by means of direct exposure of the skin to ultraviolet rays, by taking multivitamin complexes, and also by adjusting the diet.
To saturate the body with vitamin D, you need to be in the open sun for about an hour a week, without using protective agents. Ultraviolet rays, reaching the open skin, help a person to synthesize this substance.
With food, it is problematic to fully supply the right amount, but still, the diet needs to be diversified with products having a high content of this substance. These products include chicken, eggs, sardines, tuna, mackerel or salmon.
If you take vitamin D as a separate component, then there is a risk of overdosing, which also adversely affects health, leading to intoxication. Therefore, sunbathing is considered the best option, but too much is also harmful. It is enough to be in the sun 2-3 times a week for 15-20 minutes.
Eat right! | 4,723 |
Description Winestein Wine Mug You don't have to worry about choosing whether to drink your favorite beverage from a beer stein or wine glass with this Winestein Wine Mug. Is it a beer stein or is it a wine glass? Why it's both! Allow this Winestein Wine Mug to hold your favorite draft beer or hold your favorite wine. It has a nice handle, which measures four inches, like a beer stein, with the elegance of a wine glass.
Use this Winestein Wine Mug at an Oktoberfest party, or give it as a gift during the holiday season. This Winestein Wine Mug is made of glass and measures six inches tall and five inches wide including the handle. The base of the mug measures three inches across.
The mug will hold up to ten ounces of liquid. If you like the Winestein Wine Mug try taking a look at the Beer Bottle Glass, or the Port-A-Pint Glass. You don't have to worry about choosing whether to drink your favorite beverage from a beer stein or wine glass with this Winestein Wine Mug. Is it a beer stein or is it a wine glass? Why it's both! Allow this Winestein Wine Mug to holdyour favorite draft beer or hold your favorite wine. It has a nice handle, which measures four inches, like a beer stein, with the elegance of a wine glass.Use this Winestein Wine Mug at an Oktoberfest party, or give it as a gift during the holiday season. This Winestein Wine Mug is made of glass and measures six inches tall and five inches wide including the handle. The base of the mug measures three inches across.The mug will hold up to ten ounces of liquid. If you like the Winestein Wine Mug try taking a look at the Beer Bottle Glass, or the Port-A-Pint Glass. Product Features
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Average Customer Review: 5 of 5 Total Reviews: 1 Write a review. | 4,724 |
Tokay Gecko gets global protection
Massively hunted for Chinese medicines, Tokay Gecko, an endangered species of lizards usually found in North-East India can now have a certain level of protection from exploitation with the wildlife global summit bringing it under the Appendix II list.
Appendix II means that the animal or its body parts cannot be traded unless it can be shown that it wouldn’t threaten their chances of survival. Tokay Geckos were not previously protected under Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the treaty that governs the international wildlife trade.
A senior Union Environment Ministry official said at the recently concluded 18th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations, CITES approved our proposal to bring the lizard under Appendix II. Philippines, the European Union and the USA too had supported our proposal, he added.
The CITES Secretariat has temporarily concluded that regulation of the international trade in Tokay Geckos may be required to counter further decline. Given the patchy nature of both trade and population data of Tokay Geckos, a listing would help in gathering data on these aspects, the official added.
Geckos are listed in Schedule III of India’s Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, as a “highly endangered animal”. However, this has not much helped to curb its smuggling.
According to various reports and seizures from time to time by wildlife officials, hundreds of locals in the northeastern States smuggle Tokay Geckos to centres of Chinese medicine across Asia to be used for its reported medicinal values. Also, they sell the lizards to international wildlife traffickers.
It is believed that the Gecko’s parts are used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat cancer, asthma, diabetes, skin disorders and a range of ailments, though there is no scientific proof to substantiate the purported medicinal properties of this reptile species.
Besides North-East India, these reptiles are found in Bhutan, Nepal, and Bangladesh, throughout Southeast Asia, including the Philippines and Indonesia, New Guinea.
While the overall volume of the Tokay Gecko trade/smuggling is not clearly known, last year, global wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC estimated that Indonesia alone has been exporting 1.2 million dried Tokay Geckos annually. In recent years, Taiwan has imported 15 million Geckos from different countries.
TRAFFIC also warned that the wild population of the Tokay Gecko in Southeast Asia was in grave danger as it is hunted to meet demand in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam and other Asian countries. | 4,725 |
Sam Smith came out on Jameela Jamil’s I Weigh Interviews.
Singer-songwriter Sam Smith has publicly come out as non-binary genderqueer in an interview with Jameela Jamil. Smith was appearing on her I Weigh Interviews series where they also spoke about previous body issues.
Opening up about this, the singer revealed that they’d had a liposuction procedure at the age of 12. “I think at the time I was very happy about it,” they told Jamil.
“It didn’t really change anything. I think I put the weight back on in like two weeks, cause I hadn’t figured out my relationship with food.”
Related: Sam Smith poses shirtless for inspiring post about body positivity
But speaking about gender identity, Smith said: “I’ve always had a little bit of a war going within my body and my mind. I do think like a woman sometimes, in my head. Sometimes I’ve questioned ‘Do I want a sex change?’ and it’s something I still think about, like: ‘Do I want to?’
“But I don’t think it is. When I saw the words ‘non-binary’ and ‘genderqueer’ and I read into it and I heard this people speaking, I was like ‘Fuck, that’s me.’”
When asked to define what genderqueer meant to them, Smith said: “Non-binary genderqueer is that you do not identify in a gender. You are a mixture of different things, you are your own special creation. That’s how I take it. I’m not male or female, I think I flow somewhere in between. It’s all on the spectrum.”
Smith also applied this thinking to sexuality, saying: “I’ve been with too many straight men to know that not everyone who says they are straight are fully straight. You fall in love with people, not genitals.”
Smith also said this helped them in defeating their body issues, saying: “That spinballed everything actually, because that’s me, looking at myself [thinking], maybe I’m not a man, maybe I’m not a woman, maybe I’m just me and maybe that’s ok.”
You can watch the 30-minute interview with Smith opens about about their body issues and gender identity below. | 4,726 |
of the crackdown, such as Mor Young, were previously in influential positions
Image copyright AFP Image caption Thai Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn (centre) was among the thousands of cyclists who took part in Bike For Dad on 11 December
The government and the army have tried, and failed, to stem the tide of allegations surrounding the park.
General Udomdej Sitabutr, who was army commander until October this year and oversaw the project, admitted that irregular commissions were demanded by middlemen for the foundries building the huge statues, which cost around $1 million each. But he said he had insisted the commissions were refunded, although he explained the foundries then donated those commissions to an army charity.
There have been allegations of inflated prices paid for trees planted in the park too. And an initial denial that any government funds were used to build the park turned out to be untrue - around $2 million came from state coffers.
The army announced its own investigation, and quickly concluded there was no corruption. There was a public outcry, so the Ministry of Defence has ordered another investigation.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Major General Werachon Sukondhapatipak: "It is a test of the current administration"
The police say they cannot investigate unless the military authorises them to do so. A government spokesman told the BBC that independent agencies would soon be allowed to scrutinise the accounts of the project, but could not say when.
The government's opponents have jumped on the opportunity to illustrate what they say is hypocrisy on the part of the military in prosecuting former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra for alleged corruption under her administration, yet failing to clean up its own house.
Image copyright EPA Image caption The Thai king is widely respected, making a smooth succession especially important
Student activists and leaders of the pro-Yingluck "red shirt" movement have tried to organise visits to the park, but have been stopped and detained by the army. The government has also charged some of those spreading negative information about the park with sedition, a serious offence which carries a penalty of up to seven years in prison.
Few people outside the top ranks of the military can know what lies behind these disturbing developments. But they show that the men who seized power last year, despite their considerable power, have nevertheless been unable to prevent damaging allegations of wrongdoing being made about their own royal promotion projects.
Nor have they been able yet to provide a convincing response to those allegations. Many people in Thailand believe the revelations indicate divisions at the top over how to handle the royal succession, and crucially, who has control over this historic transition. | 4,727 |
For those young persons who have maintained extensive ties to Polishness, there has frequently occurred a high degree of cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, they had mostly accepted the enculturation by their Polish parents, viewing Polishness as a very large element of their lives, yet at the same time, they had very great difficulties with ever finding a recognition of the importance of Polishness in the society at large. Thus, their inner map or picture or understanding of the world was set on a path of fundamental tension with the prevailing societal environment.Those few young people who clung to extensive elements of Polishness were likely to have found the dissonance rather difficult to bear. And they had virtually no groups of peers within the Polish-Canadian community to interact with, or find a degree of comfort or reassurance with.What seems to be the invariable destiny for virtually all persons of Polish descent in Canada, is to melt and meld into the rather bland category of the so-called mainstream. And it could be argued that the so-called mainstream is not a particularly exciting place to be today.In Canada, unlike in the U.S., multiculturalism policies — especially in the 1970s — did give considerable attention to so-called "White ethnics." The increasing diversification of Canada has meant that Polish-Canadians are seen as less and less important. Most Polish-Canadians are astounded at the pace of the demographic transformation of Canada. They remember a time when they were considered as "too ethnic" — but now, they are seen as "not ethnic enough."The prevalent, current-day mood of postmodernism and multiculturalism in Canada should in theory encourage the construction of various, strongly-felt intermediary identities — one among which could be the Polish-Canadian. However, this does not appear to be happening, as far as the creation of a more collectively-felt and lasting identity for those persons.It would be in the interest of the Polish-Canadian community to see limits on current-day immigration — over 80 percent of which consists of "visible minorities" — since Polish-Canadians are becoming regarded as less and less important under the newer forms of multiculturalism. There is also the fact that the immigration numbers are now so huge, resulting in very rapid and massive demographic shifts. It would also be in their interest to cultivate a distinct Polish-Canadian identity, which would allow them to resist the various blandishments of the current-day North American pop-culture and consumer society.It may be noted that in Poland today, there is a salutary resistance to alien immigration, and most of the country remains proudly patriotic. Canada and Poland could be seen as polar opposites within the broader Western world. | 4,728 |
more on moving the ball by foot, and has a slightly higher rate of uncontested disposals to contested – a stylistic difference more than anything. Geelong, however, has a significant edge in generating inside 50 opportunities, and a slight edge in the ruck.
Sydney v GWS
This game should be a battle between styles (to a degree). Will the dominant Sydney defence be able to overcome GWS’ balance?
GWS have had a more potent attack this year, but this is obscured by the absence of Tippett for Sydney, and the resultant structural changes they have had to make. Sydney’s recent upward trend (finally ticking above league average) in scoring efficiency may suggest they’re better than their whole-season record in this department.
We wrote earlier this week that Sydney has the best defence of the last 18 years, and by a fair way. GWS have the second best defence of all finalists, but there’s a definite gap in how well they prevent scores inside their defensive-50.
Again, one side (the Giants) rely much more heavily on moving the ball by foot. Both sides have near identical inside 50 ratios, with GWS having the edge in the ruck.
The key for GWS to cause an upset will be to win the midfield battle, and expose the strong Sydney defence to repeat inside 50 entries.
Adelaide v North Melbourne
Most people are assuming this one is a foregone conclusion, but there might be a little fight left for North. At least that’s what all neutrals looking for a good game are hoping for.
Again, we wrote about how good the Crows attack has been earlier this week. But for the early part of this year, North weren’t too far away from them in ability. Unfortunately for Kangas fans, a big part of that early potency, Jarrad Waite, is sitting on the sidelines this week.
If there’s an Achilles heel for this Adelaide side, it is their defence of opponent inside-50s. Both sides have near identical defence ratings according to HPN, and that’s about as close as the Crows have to a weakness.
There’s also a potential mismatch looming in the ruck, with Goldstein appearing as a potential saviour for North, as long as his midfield is up to the task. Both sides seem similar stylistically, with Adelaide improving as the year went in relation to their inside-50 ratio.
There’s at least a glimmer of hope there for North, which has been enough before in September. | 4,729 |
ニューヨーク・マンハッタンに賃貸住宅を所有する大家は何年間にもわたって家賃を最高値へと引き上げてきた。それが今新たな記録を生み出している。それは入居者への特典だ。
家賃１カ月分や不動産手数料の肩代わりといった特典付きの新規賃貸契約数は１月までの４カ月連続で最高を更新している。不動産鑑定の ミラー・サミュエルと仲介のダグラス・エリマン・リアル・エステートがまとめたデータによると、１月は賃貸契約のうち大家が特典を付けたケースは31％と、12月の26％から一気に５ポイント上昇、統計でさかのぼれる過去約６年で最多となった。
ダグラス・エリマンの賃貸担当エグゼクティブディレクター、ハル・ガブジー氏はブルームバーグのインタビューで、「大家や家主はできることなら特典を付けたくない。しかし、テナントの要求に抵抗できなくなってきた」と続けた。
原題： Manhattan Landlords Can’t Stop Setting New Records for Giveaways（抜粋） | 4,730 |
: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway resembling the giant panda is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway, resembling a giant panda, is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A concept car by Trumpchi from GAC Group is shown at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A Mirai fuel cell vehicle by Toyota is displayed at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A visitor tries a Nissan VR experience at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A man looks at an exhibit entitled 'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A new Israeli Da-Vinci unmanned aerial vehicle manufactured by Elbit Systems is displayed during the 4th International conference on Home Land Security and Cyber in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv Getty
This unusual phenomenon allows quantum computers to be vastly more powerful than traditional computers and means they could potentially solve computing challenges far beyond the reach of the world’s most powerful supercomputers.
It was previously thought that quantum computers were able to make calculations exponentially faster than traditional computers, whereby every qubit added improves the machine’s processing power at an exponential rate.
But computer scientists at Google’s quantum computing lab observed that its systems were gaining power at a “doubly exponential” rate when compared to classical computers.
Quanta magazine described it: “Even exponential growth is pretty fast. It means that some quantity grows by powers of 2: 21, 22, 23, 24. The first few increases might not be that noticeable, but subsequent jumps are massive. Doubly exponential growth is far more dramatic. Instead of increasing by powers of 2, quantities grow by powers of powers of 2: 221,222,222,224.”
This rate of development is so unfathomably fast that there is nothing that grows as quickly in the natural world to make a comparison to. | 4,731 |
You may recall the story of John Palmer of Utah, from whom online retailer KlearGear.com demanded $3500 after John’s wife Jen posted an online review discussing the couple's bad experience with KlearGear’s customer service. When John refused to pay the outrageous demand, KlearGear reported the $3500 alleged “debt” to the credit reporting agencies and wrecked John’s credit.
According to KlearGear, John owed the money because when Jen posted her review, John violated a “non-disparagement clause” in the site’s Terms of Sale and Use that prohibited users from taking any action that negatively impacts KlearGear.com or its reputation, on pain of a $3500 fine. But this prohibition didn’t appear in the Terms when John Palmer used KlearGear's website back in 2008 (in fact, the Internet Archive reveals that it didn’t show up until more than three years later!), and even if it had, businesses aren’t allowed to enforce outlandish terms like this one in their fine print.
Three weeks ago, Public Citizen sent KlearGear a demand letter on behalf of the Palmers, asking the company to clear up John’s credit, to compensate the Palmers for their ordeal -- which included a car loan delayed, a credit card denied, and three weeks this fall that the Palmers and their three-year-old son spent without heat in their home because their furnace broke and they couldn’t get a loan to pay for new one -- and to stop using the “non-disparagement clause” on their customers.
KlearGear never responded.
So today, Public Citizen filed suit on behalf of the Palmers, seeking a judicial declaration that the $3500 so-called “debt” is invalid and seeking economic, emotional, consequential, and punitive damages for KlearGear’s abusive practices, which have drawn attention nationally (for instance, ABC and CNN) and even internationally (see this coverage from the UK, Israel, and France).
Today’s case was filed in federal court in Utah. The complaint also names as a defendant debt collector Fidelity Information Corp., for the purpose of the declaratory judgment that John doesn't owe any money (John’s credit report reflects that Fidelity now owns the supposed “debt”). In addition to declaratory relief, the claims against KlearGear include violations of the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, defamation, intentional interference with economic relations, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. You can read the full complaint here. | 4,732 |
Wisconsin’s attorney general compared gay marriage to abortion on Wednesday in arguing that there was no fundamental right to it and state laws defining marriage as between one man and one woman were reasonable.
Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen made his arguments in a brief filed with the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. Van Hollen is appealing a federal judge’s June decision declaring Wisconsin’s ban on gay marriage unconstitutional. The case has been combined with a similar one from Indiana.
U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb had determined that the ban violated gay couples’ equal protection and due process rights.
But Van Hollen said in his brief that the due process clause in the U.S. Constitution doesn’t require states to grant rights but only bars them from depriving citizens of fundamental rights. Crabb’s decision amounted to the creation of a new right of gay marriage, and letting it stand would greatly expand federal authority into an area traditionally controlled by states, he said.
Van Hollen compared gay marriage to abortion.
“Although the constitutional right of privacy protects a woman’s right to obtain an abortion and precludes government from prohibiting or punishing her exercise of that right, there is no corresponding obligation on government to affirmatively endorse or support her exercise of the abortion right,” he wrote.
Van Hollen also said sexual orientation has not been declared a “suspect class” subject to heightened protection like gender or race, and therefore doesn’t deserve the same kind of deference in equal protection claims.
More than 500 same-sex couples married in Wisconsin in the week between Crabb’s decision and her order putting marriages on hold while Van Hollen appeals.
Van Hollen did not argue against same-sex marriage in his brief. He said the federal Defense of Marriage Act had stepped on the right of states to recognize same-sex marriages if they wished, and in overturning it last year, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized states’ authority to set standards for marriage.
But Van Hollen also noted that Wisconsin has historically defined marriage as between a man and a woman, and voters supported that in a 2006 amendment to the state constitution. He argued that the federal government should defer to states on the issue.
The attorney general submitted his brief on the same day that Marquette Law School released poll results showing 56 percent of Wisconsin voters support repealing the state’s ban on gay marriages. The poll of 804 registered voters done between July 17 and Sunday had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. | 4,733 |
SAN FRANCISCO — Two Google employees who have been active in criticizing the company's management over the treatment of women and other workplace issues are accusing the tech giant of retaliating against them, a person familiar with their accusation said Monday.
The alleged retaliation, which Google denies took place, follows a worldwide walkout by employees in November to protest the company’s payment of tens of millions of dollars in exit packages to executives accused of sexual misconduct.
Federal law generally prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who complain about harassment or other forms of discrimination.
At the time of the walkout, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said he supported the protest, reassuring employees that they would have the support they needed if they wished to participate.
Two of the walkout’s organizers, Claire Stapleton, a marketing manager at YouTube, and Meredith Whittaker, an artificial intelligence researcher, are telling fellow employees that Google hasn’t followed through with that promise.
On Monday, Whittaker said in a message posted to internal Google mailing lists that she was told this month that her role would be “changed dramatically,” Wired magazine reported. She said she was told that she would have to “abandon” her work on artificial intelligence ethics and at a center she co-founded at New York University, the magazine said.
Stapleton said in the message that Google had demoted her and instructed her to take medical leave, even though she was not sick, Wired reported. She hired a lawyer and the company ultimately reversed the demotion after an investigation, the magazine said.
A person familiar with their accusations who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed the contents of the internal company message.
My guess is that Meredith and Claire aren’t going to get $90M payouts. Because it’s quite clear the kind of behavior that Google rewards. https://t.co/s5BKxbeJJv — Vanessa Harris 🐳 (@technologypoet) April 22, 2019
Whittaker and Stapleton are planning a “town hall” meeting Friday for employees to share stories and strategize, the person confirmed.
Google on Monday denied that any retaliation had taken place.
“We prohibit retaliation in the workplace, and investigate all allegations,” Google said in a statement sent to NBC News. “Employees and teams are regularly and commonly given new assignments, or reorganized, to keep pace with evolving business needs. There has been no retaliation here.”
David Ingram reported from San Francisco, and Jason Abbruzzese from New York. | 4,734 |
mongrel作者がRubyとRailsコミュニティを大批判した件のリンク集。
元記事。長い。下品（多分）。今読めるのは、1月2日に更新された第2版。
上記のartonさんによる翻訳。続きもある( http://arton.no-ip.info/diary/20080104.html )。感想も( http://arton.no-ip.info/diary/20080105.html#p01 )。
スラドの記事。内容はわりとどうでもいい。
Zedのblog。今回の件についていろいろ書いてあるので、あわせて読みたい。
Gregory Brownによる記事。彼はZedの仲間らしい。
Zed and I have had at least a couple conversations about the Ruby / Rails communities before, and I’d say philosophically, we’re mostly on the same page. The key difference is that Zed is… umm… Zed.
Akita On Railsのひとの反応記事。これは参考になる。
Ruby insideの中のひと、Peter Cooperとの対話。最後の方で今回の件について触れている。Peter Cooperからマイルドなcaboo.seに対する批判があったのはちょっと意外だった。
そのRuby insideでの記事。コメントは未読。
ruby-talkのスレッド。比較的冷静な反応のように見える。
今回の件とは関係ない、Zedのインタビュー記事。未読。 | 4,735 |
"A window in a space capsule, where such a luxury would cause complications and expenses that I can barely imagine," writer Gladys Haunton later mused in her non-fiction work Laika's Window. "A window for the dog whose monitored demise had been this man's objective in all the interactions that had bonded her to him with the eager devotion of every well-trained working canine."
It was understood that Laika would not return from her trip into space, though counter to the pragmatic focus of the mission, planners were apparently moved enough by the little dog to engineer Sputnik 2 with her sentience in mind. Their design, at the urging of the scientist training Laika, also included a small window presumably to give her a way to enjoy the view of Earth before her one-way trip came to a fatal end.
On November 3, 1957, a lovable little dog named Laika made history by becoming the first Earthling to ever orbit our planet and see it from space.
The origins of this early cosmonaut couldn't have been more humble. Laika was among the countless stray dogs scavenging for food on the streets of Moscow, unloved and unnamed, prior her enlistment into the Soviet space program. The aeronautics team wanted to test how an animal would fare in the extreme conditions of space, and a hardy dog like her was the ideal candidate.
Along with a handful of other dogs, Laika was trained by scientist Dr. Oleg Gazenko to ride inside the small chamber aboard Sputnik 2, a satellite equipped to monitor an animal's vital signs from orbit. Her easy personality helped her get selected for the mission - but it also endeared her to the mission team perhaps more than they ever expected a test-subject could.
"Laika was a wonderful dog.... quiet and very placid," one of the scientists involved later told NASA. "Before the flight [...] I once brought her home and showed her to the children. They played with her. I wanted to do something nice for the dog."
Laika didn't survive for more than a few days inside that crude early spacecraft, but she did pave the way for a future of manned space flights. Her contribution as a pioneer has made her a celebrated figure in Russia and beyond, though for those who knew her best - not as a cosmonaut, but as a dog - cutting her life short still wasn't worth it.
"The more time passes, the more I'm sorry about it. We shouldn't have done it," Dr. Gazenko lamented decades later. "We did not learn enough from the mission to justify the death of the dog." | 4,736 |
Instapaper is the simplest way to save and store articles for reading: offline, on-the-go, anytime, anywhere, perfectly formatted.
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Instapaper has been inducted into the iPhone and iPad Hall of Fame, received Macworld Editor's Choice Award, and has also been featured in publications including Wired, TIME, Daring Fireball, and The Verge, among others.
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- Control every aspect of your reading experience with a variety of font, color themes, and spacing options.
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Instapaper also offers an optional Instapaper Premium subscription for $2.99/month or $29.99/year. With Instapaper Premium you receive:
- Full-text search for articles in your account
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On sign up for Instapaper Premium, payment will be charged to your Apple ID account at the confirmation of purchase. The subscription automatically renews unless it is canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Your account will be charged for renewal within 24 hours prior to the end of the current period. You can manage and cancel your subscriptions by going to your App Store account settings after purchase.
Terms of service: https://www.instapaper.com/terms
Privacy policy: https://www.instapaper.com/privacy | 4,737 |
Today, Johnson Arroyo was really bad. This is a gayme recap. Buut I'm not sober enough to does a real one with a graph that I make. I'm really really drunk i think. In the first inning bRonson gave up a nothing. But after that I think he was bad. Then he... someone told em to right a game recap or i wouldn't be doin h this. So aynways. He was bad after that. He let Ran Brayun and Prince Fielder and maybe even Kasey Kotchamn hit homeruns. Girls are stupid. I'm afraid your son is mentally retarded. I'm afraid that means he;ll never be not retarde. So, Joey votto hit a good hit and we gscored smoe runs and the puppy has cancer. Holy shit I'm drunk. I could probably pitch like bRonson arroyo right now. I' m watching something on tv and that's where the puppy got cancer. Afeter that ejerem horSt came in and he did bad too. It ihnk he gave up a home run to ryan Braun too. And John axford pitched and there as a double play. Then Ramon Hernandez wasn't very good and everyone cried hysterciically. I think this show is Americal Dad. The fir's boobs just got big and there's a gyu named tear jerkrer. Ther's a jiy in Beignjing. And Butte and lONdon.everyone is suppose to die and have celileverity babie sto on live. noooo1 tihis isnt' over smith. Any ways. I hope ywe sign joey votto to a long extesion. He's really good at basedvall. Nobody is as good as joey Votto. I falbert puhols was Joey V otoom he awould not even be as go Tere is a chimp in it? od at joey Vototo. Has anyone seesd planet of the apes/ I love you sexpot smith. but it's okay. Iwon't remener this tomorrow. The end, my alohold blodd content is...like if you w/ere at best buy and they wer el ike. You know how much it is? Thats more thatn this Thiat's how muchn it is. lIke atn invisible butt. I think next year we need to sign a lot of really good playerl That will make us perttter than the other tams and they weill be worse thatn us. We being the Reds. Go team@ you are really good :) | 4,738 |
I was lucky enough to have purchased my first Goruck hydration bullet about a month ago at the Denver Colorado GoRuck Kill That 5K. It paid off getting to the “Beer and Gear” early to get my hands on this 15L and also the 10L Coyote, which I will be doing on review on later. I got this ruck for $90 which is a little under retail at $120 on the GoRuck website.
The first thing I noticed about this ruck was that the material felt a lot “thinner” then that of my GR1 or even the Coyote 10L I had bought. This is because the newer hydration rucks are being made of the 500D Cordura instead of the normal 1000D Cordura, which the GR series of rucks is made out of. At first this made me uneasy and feel that I was not getting the normal quality that I had come to except from GoRuck, however this was not the case at all. After a few days with the 15L I learned why the company had decided to change the material it is made of. I used this pack mainly as a hydration bladder pack and extra gear backpack for my biking trips and for my hiking/climbing adventures while I was back in my home-state of Colorado. The pack was noticeability lighter then even the 10L Bullet I bought that had the 1000D Cordura construction. Anyone who bikes/climbs or uses a smaller backpack for any action adventure activity knows that the lighter the pack means more endurance and less effort. I had always been looking for light packs to bike with but they always came with the compromise of quality and reliability I could count on. On the other hand, anyone who knows the GoRuck company knows that their products and quality that their products are built to is second to none. Having this mix of lightweight 500D Cordura and toughness and water resistant Cordura felt like the perfect combination. Cordura aside, the ruck also comes with the same kickass YKK zippers, 2x3 velcro patch, and padded straps that are featured on the higher end GoRuck packs.
As I said before, I used this ruck mostly while biking throughout Colorado. The lightweight but sturdy construction of the pack made it feel like I had nothing on my back. In the main compartment on my excursions I would bring along a rain jacket, pelican case for my phone and wallet, a bike case storing tire patches and other simple things. Then my Lowepro GoPro case/GR1 Field pocket for my Sony A3000. Everything fit perfectly and still the bag had a slim profile when on my back. | 4,739 |
We expect streams of text to scroll down in our browsers. But almost all of them scroll incorrectly.
Figure 1 shows a column of text; the grey bars represent the lines. The blue rectangle shows the area currently visible in your browser. The red line is the last one visible in the current screen, the green one the next one that would be visible were the window a little longer.
Figure 2 shows what you expect to happen when you’re in this situation and you hit next-page or the space-bar; either option is acceptable. The top line visible in your browser window should be either the red or green line from the previous figure. Browsers do this well, and the eye knows where to go.
But there’s a problem, illustrated in Figure 3, when you’re near the bottom of the page, so there’s not much left to display after the last line in the current window.
When you’re in this situation and hit space-bar or page down, what you’d like to see is the exact same behavior, as shown in Figure 4; zero or one lines of overlap between screens.
For some reason, browsers are reluctant to leave white space showing at the bottom of the window, so they refuse to scroll all the way up, as shown in Figure 5, leaving the last line you were reading stranded at some random location in the middle of the page.
When this happens, my flow of reading is disrupted because my eye doesn’t know where to go to pick up where I left off.
There’s another problem. If you link to a particular sub-heading in an article, using hash-fragments properly (unlike, for example, Twitter), the point you link to should show up at the top of the window. This same bug — the browsers’ refusal to leave room at the bottom of the window — means that it’s really hard to link effectively to an article’s conclusion.
To illustrate, here are two links into this an article on this blog. The first, to a section entitled The Index, works just fine. The second, to a comment about text browsers, fails miserably.
In many pages on the Web, this bug has become invisible because the actual content is much shorter than the sidebar and footer apparatus with which it is festooned, which carries on ad infinitum. On this subject, please read Brent Simmons’ The Readable Future.
Could this be fixed, please? It’s really OK to have some white space at the bottom of the browser window. | 4,740 |
“Cross Me” [ft. Chance the Rapper and PnB Rock]
The “Nice Guys” finally get a win when Ed Sheeran, a massive pop star still masquerading as an everyman, and Chance the Rapper, a power-tripper masquerading as a holy man, team up for “Cross Me.” Both Sheeran and Chance have made careers out of being the sweetest men in the room. They present themselves as loveable scamps, and that niceness hasn’t gone unnoticed, scoring Sheeran BuzzFeed lists about being the nicest person in show business and getting Chance dubbed the best human of Chicago. Which sets the stage for “Cross Me,” a song that is obviously respectful and appropriately gentlemanly. They’re joined here by the not-so-nice Philly crooner PnB Rock, who just released a record called TrapStar Turnt PopStar yet phones it in hard on this, his biggest opportunity to prove it. This unlikely grouping is sponsored by Sheeran’s upcoming collaborations album, aptly titled No.6 Collaborations Project. “Cross Me” is inoffensive quiet storm pop. It should be hate-proof. Yet the song is so cloying it’s hard not to be cynical about it.
Sheeran, Chance, and PnB Rock each stand ready to defend their lady’s honor, you see. It’s unclear what they’re defending her from and why, but they are ready and willing. Produced by Fred Gibson, who has worked with afrobeats stars like Burna Boy and Mr. Eazi and UK-based rappers like Octavian and Stefflon Don, there’s a bit of throwback R&B sway in this overt pop confection. It’s as if they were trying to work their way up to something like “Sexual Healing” and gave up halfway through. The song is significantly less catchy than the vaguely Caribbean Justin Bieber tag-teamer “I Don’t Care,” which Gibson co-produced with Max Martin. Chance is rapping like he’s doing voiceover work for Adult Swim, or like he’s doing a really mean KYLE impersonation. It’s like watching Stefan Urquelle turn back into Steve Urkel. Sheeran, for his part, is the least awkward-sounding person in this situation, perhaps owed to all the practice being noble. But the song has all the impact of a guy wearing a “male feminist” t-shirt. | 4,741 |
Labour First-supported BAME representative Carol Sewell wanted to exclude racism from terms of reference of Starmer’s report into leaked Labour report, say outraged NEC members
A recently-elected BAME member of Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) spoke against including racism in the scope of the party’s investigation into the leaked internal report that accused right-wing HQ staff of undermining Labour’s electoral efforts, obstructing disciplinary investigations and potentially racist discussions, according to other members.
Carol Sewell, a Unison activist backed by right-wing pressure groups Labour First and Progress, did not want racism to be included in the terms of reference of the investigation when the NEC met to set them earlier today.
However, she ultimately voted to include them.
One NEC member told the SKWAWKBOX:
[Sewell] spoke against including racism because it ‘predetermined the outcome’ and voted against it. It was outrageous. We were eventually able to make sure sexism, racism and other forms of discrimination were included in the end, but it shows their contempt for the membership and for equalities.
Another said that Sewell then changed her vote:
She changed her vote when it became clear which way the wind was blowing – it was one of the few votes the left won. But she seemed set against doing anything to strengthen the terms of reference. The contributions from all the new members [the three who won the NEC by-election announced on the same day as Keir Starmer’s leadership win] were pretty bad, actually.
It’s remarkable that a reason for not including racism in the scope of the investigation was that it would ‘pre-determine the outcome’.
Starmer’s investigation has been criticised for appearing more concerned with targeting the whistleblowers who released the report rather than the behaviour of the staff and ex-staff accused by the report, two of whom now hold senior positions in Unison.
Ms Sewell was contacted for comment but did not respond.
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demand for properties. Speculators noticed that prices were rising and got in on the game making demand increase even more, which encouraged even more speculators to join, etc… Many rentals were purchased at prices way above what the rent could carry. In essence they were cash flow negative investments justified by faulty spreadsheet projections that assumed ever increasing property values. The catch was they would have to sell it for some crazy high number in the future to actually make a profit. It was a game of musical chairs at that point and the music stopped in early 2008.
Getting off the Rent Spiral:
Here is one of the biggest lies a loan officer or real estate agent will tell you and is only half true: Assuming you get a fixed rate loan, your payments will never go up.
It is true with a fixed rate loan the principal and interest portion of your payment are locked in. So your payment will not increase due to supply and demand, interest rates, replacement cost changes, or speculators since those elements are locked in! You are also opting for a form of forced savings - when you pay your mortgage the balance is reduced a little, which translates into more equity in the home for you.
However, what the real estate agents and loan officers won’t tell you is your payment will still go up over the years due to taxes and insurance which are tied to inflationary forces. Taxes and insurance make up the escrow portion of your payment. The bank collects the money for these bills up front and later pays it on your behalf. They do this because they really don’t want you skimping on fire insurance or running up a huge tax bill since the house is collateral in case you default on the loan. Taxes and insurance are ALWAYS going up, due to inflation, as mentioned above. The bank will do an ‘escrow analysis’ every few years and jack up your payment to cover the increases.
Our mortgage calculator has a field for inflation which lets you see the impact of ever increasing taxes and insurance on your payment. Nobody else’s mortgage calculator does this.
In summary… getting off the rent spiral cuts many of the costs associated with housing, but you can never fully escape the inflationary forces of rising real estate taxes and home insurance. The good news is you can expect your home’s value grow with inflation, if not more depending on the area, which protects you financially. The flip side of that is homes require maintenance of their own, which is a new cost to incur (but you have more control over it, ability to put in sweat equity, etc). Forced savings that accompanies a mortgage is another hidden benefit that comes with home ownership. | 4,743 |
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Alexis Sanchez is the latest Manchester United star to publicly fall out with Jose Mourinho as problems worsen at the Old Trafford club.
The Chilean performed badly in the Red Devils' 1-1 draw with Wolves and was subsequently dropped from the squad for their next Premier League fixture against West Ham.
Reports in Chile claim the forward was reprimanded by his boss and told he was going to be dropped in front of his team-mates in the Manchester United changing room.
Despite not being able to come off the bench for United, the club's best-paid player travelled with the rest of the squad to the London Stadium.
(Image: Man Utd via Getty Images)
He was seen talking to his former Arsenal team-mate Lucas Perez, who is now at West Ham, in the tunnel.
And there are genuine fears that the Chilean is starting to regret his big-money switch to Manchester United.
The Red Devils had hoped that a fresh Sanchez - who wasn't at the World Cup - would hit the ground running this season and propel United up the league.
But so far Sanchez has yet to reach anywhere near the levels he would regularly hit when playing for Arsenal.
(Image: West Ham United via Getty Images)
One argument is that he was utilised through the middle at Arsenal, with play centred around him, while at Manchester United he has been deployed out wide.
Paul Pogba and Romelu Lukaku are used down the middle instead, and Sanchez is having to adapt his game around the other big names at the club.
Sanchez isn't the only player who has had a falling out with Mourinho in recent weeks.
(Image: REX/Shutterstock)
The Portuguese has been embroiled in an ongoing clash with Paul Pogba, with whom he shared a frosty exchange with on the training ground ahead of the West Ham defeat.
Mourinho attempted to play down the issue, claiming usually those sorts of situations are more heated.
He said: "When you say it's disruptive or you got on camera me speaking with Paul I am happy that you don't come here more times because you would get much more than that.
(Image: Sky Sports)
"I can promise you, much more than that. Much louder much more aggressive. Words with a completely different dimension, you would get a lot.
"So I'm really happy that the rules are 15 minutes [a month]." | 4,744 |
British actress Ella Purnell (Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children) is set for the lead role of Tess in Starz’s half-hour drama Sweetbitter, based on Stephanie Danler’s best-selling 2016 book. In addition, Emmy winning writer/director Richard Shepard (Girls) has joined as executive producer and will direct the series premiere episode.
Alfred A. Knopf; Starz
Sweetbitter follows 22-year-old Tess (Purnell) who, shortly after arriving in New York City, lands a job at a celebrated downtown restaurant. Swiftly introduced to the world of drugs, alcohol, love, lust, dive bars, and fine dining, she learns to navigate the chaotically alluring, yet punishing life she has stumbled upon. This is the story of a young woman’s coming-of-age, set against the rich and grimy backdrop of exclusive restaurants, conjuring a nonstop and high-adrenaline world evoking the possibility, beauty, and fragility of being young and adrift.
“Ella’s portfolio of work and the array of her characters and performances in her young career are truly remarkable. We are excited for fans of the book and audiences to meet Tess,” said Starz President of Programming Carmi Zlotnik. “We are also excited by Richard’s vision to bring the book’s richly written sensory experiences from the page to the screen.”
Sweetbitter is Purnell’s first major television role. Her film work includes the role of Emma in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. Other credits include Never Let Me Go, Kick-Ass 2 and Maleficent.
Rex/Shutterstock
Shepard’s feature directing credits include The Matador starring Pierce Brosnan and Dom Hemingway starring Jude Law. On television, Shepard directed 12 episodes of HBO’s Girls, as well as the pilots for Criminal Minds, Ugly Betty, among others. Shepard also directed the Emmy nominated documentary I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale and recently sold his short film Tokyo Project starring Elisabeth Moss.
Danler, who wrote the pilot script, and Stu Zicherman (The Americans, The Affair) executive producer along with Plan B Entertainment and Shepard. Donna Bloom will serve as producer on the six-episode freshman season. Laura Rosenthal is leading the ongoing casting search.
Starz retains all global distribution and home entertainment rights to the series. | 4,745 |
Veteran actress and comedian Roseanne Barr has revealed she is “fine” after rumors she had a heart attack went viral across social media Saturday evening.
The rumor spread on Twitter after Sputnik radio host Lee Stranahan’s live Periscope broadcast was interrupted by a call from an individual claiming to be Barr’s assistant, who informed him that she had suffered a heart attack.
I was doing a call-in segment about Zionism on Periscope when the phone rang, saying it was my friend @therealroseanne. I was surprised but it's a topic she's interested in so… It was her assistant, saying she'd had a heart attack. This went out live. I don't know her status. — ⏳ (@stranahan) November 25, 2018
However, the rumors were soon quashed after Roseanne Barr, who tweeted a photo of herself standing in her living room while wearing a t-shirt designed to look like a corset.
“I’m fine,” she wrote, much to the relief of her supporters.
Stranahan, meanwhile, later spoke of his own confusion over the matter, maintaining that the phone call came from Barr’s personal mobile and that Barr was herself unable to find an explanation.
1) The call came from a phone of hers.
2) She has possession of that phone.
3) The caller had listened to her voicemail messages, or at least one that I had left her.
4) The call was live and you can hear what was said.
5) Neither @therealroseanne or I can explain this. https://t.co/Gg6QAUCCZp — ⏳ (@stranahan) November 25, 2018
Earlier this year, the 66-year-old also spoke of how she received a misdiagnosis that led her to believe that she was turning blind as a result of macular degeneration and glaucoma.
“I went to a new doctor about a year ago,” she told People at the time. “She told me I don’t have macular degeneration, but rather a mole on the inside of my eye that’s growing, and that’s why my vision is narrowing. Probably in the next year or so I can get it removed. I have a bad eye, but I’m not losing my eyesight.”
Follow Ben Kew on Facebook, Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at [email protected]. | 4,746 |
a traditional church. I happened to arrive before Mass was quite over — having nowhere else to go before the event, and wishing to receive Communion, I decided to sit in on the Mass. Unsurprisingly I found myself surrounded by veiled women who entertained themselves in between kneeling bouts by casting disapproving glances at my leggings and earrings. Looking around, I was astonished to see many college-aged men and women among the crowd. The priests seemed to be in their 30s. Clearly these people were too young to remember times before Vatican II. Yet something had drawn them here. Parental influence? Doubtful. It seemed to be a shared spirit of ultra-conservatism. I found it frightening to reflect on how the closed, Latin Mass mindset had managed to replicate itself over time and spread like a virus. Unsurprisingly, while there I had another memorably bad experience. I asked to receive Communion in the hands. Most traditional-type priests I'd encountered in my lifetime would give me the Eucharist in the hands. Not this pastor. He literally made a scene at the altar and jerked the Eucharist away from me when I reached out to receive it — as if my hands would contaminate the very Jesus who, according to the Catholic faith, seeks Communion with my soul. I seriously considered walking out of the church at that point, but decided to receive the Eucharist instead since I wanted to pray. After Mass I gave the priests a piece of my mind.
I reminded him that, as a priest, he was supposed to be of service and value my feedback as a believer.
Clericalism defined the response I received. When I informed an assisting priest that the pastor had been very rude to me at the altar and asked that my views be relayed, he replied: "I won't throw our pastor under the bus. He's the pastor. I refuse to tell him to correct his behavior," the priest said. I reminded him that, as a priest, he was supposed to be of service and value my feedback as a believer. The priest took a step back and looked at me in astonishment, as if the notion of service had never occurred to him. "Very well. I'll tell the pastor what you said," he said condescendingly. "But I don't think he did anything wrong." His attitude was a trademark example of the culture within the Catholic Church that encourages abuse. His first reaction was to default to absolute loyalty to his pastor, then dismiss my views. When pressed further, he flat-out denied all wrongdoing. To clericalists, complainers are always the problem — not those who belong to the herd, and certainly not clergy. | 4,747 |
Kevin Poulsen over at Wired has a wonderfully entertaining story on a mathematician at UCLA who hacked OKCupid to help him find the ideal date.
Chris McKinlay, a 35-year-old PhD student, wasn't having much luck with OKCupid's famous questionnaire. Out of a pool of thousands of questions members must answer 350 multiple-choice questions involving religion, movies, sports, etc. and anyone whose answers match 90 percent of the time is deemed a suitable match. But McKinlay found that the questions he chose to answer didn't match up well with many women in Los Angeles. As Poulsen wrote, "On a site where compatibility equals visibility, he was practically a ghost."
So he set up a dozen fake OKCupid accounts and coded a Python script that searched profiles of heterosexual and bisexual women between the ages of 25 and 45, visited their pages, and scraped their profiles "for every scrap of available information: ethnicity, height, smoker or nonsmoker, astrological sign -- 'all that crap,' he says."
Three weeks later, Poulsen wrote, McKinlay had harvested 6 million questions and answers from 20,000 women around the country. Then he grouped the women into seven categories, which he applied to members in the LA area.
I don't want to give too much detail, because you really should click over to Wired to read the article. After I tweeted the story one of my followers who works in computer security reminded me that McKinlay may have run afoul of one of the shabbiest laws in existence: The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) -- the same law that Federal prosecutors used to pressure Aaron Swartz.
CFAA makes it a crime to access a computer without authorization, a catchall chunk of poorly conceived legislation that has been ripe for abuse. For example, there's the case of Andrew "weev" Auernheimer, who, as a member of a hacker group called "Goatse Security" in June 2010, scraped AT&T's website for the email addresses of iPad users then shared the file with Gawker to show the porousness of the telecommunication company's security. No money changed hands. He didn't break into AT&T's computer network or cause any damage. He simply created an automated script to vacuum up information off a publicly available webpage. After being found guilty Auernheimer was sentenced to three and a half years in prison and forced to pay $73,000 in restitution to AT&T, which had to plug the security hole.
Let's hope OKCupid has a better sense of humor than AT&T.
[image via comicbookplus] | 4,748 |
In May, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a historic $20 billion initiative to support affordable housing and combat homelessness in New York state. And on Wednesday, Governor Cuomo’s administration announced its next step in that fight.
More than 150 agencies in 47 counties, including nine organizations in central New York, have been awarded a total of $30 million in conditional awards to support operations at 1,200 supportive housing units. The funding is part of a larger $2.6 billion, five-year plan to develop a total of 6,000 units throughout the state.
Supportive housing offers homeless New Yorkers an opportunity to turn things around. These units focus on the most vulnerable homeless populations, including those with mental illness, health problems and trauma, among other issues.
These units offer essential services to prevent future homelessness such as employment, vocational training and educational programs. Without a stable job and the opportunity to advance in a career through higher education, recovering homeless individuals could easily end up back on the street.
Although the majority of homeless New Yorkers are concentrated in New York City, according to the New York State Office of the State Comptroller, communities across the state are struggling with homelessness.
Over the last decade, the problem has worsened. The New York State Office of the State Comptroller reported that from 2007 to 2015, New York’s homeless population increased by 41 percent — the largest increase of any state.
The rising cost of living in New York state has contributed to the rise in homelessness. New York’s average rent for every housing category is far above the national average, according to Sperling’s Best Places.
The average unemployment rate in New York is also slightly higher than the national average. The average unemployment rate in New York state is 4.9 percent, but in many counties in central and upstate New York the rate exceeds 6 percent, according to the Department of Labor.
Both the unemployment rate and rising cost of living have made it difficult for homeless New Yorkers to get back on their feet. But with initiatives like Cuomo’s investment, these vulnerable communities have greater opportunity to maintain stable housing and start on a positive path to regain self-sufficiency.
This round of awards shows the state of New York stepping up to promote supportive housing units and alleviate financial and mental burdens for homeless individuals. Providing access to affordable, safe housing will ultimately help these New Yorkers find better jobs and, more importantly, improve their quality of life.
Daniel Strauss is a junior finance major and public communications minor. His column appears biweekly. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @_thestrauss_. | 4,749 |
In a rare show of emotion, ABC's Jimmy Kimmel on Monday used his opening monologue to talk about the birth of his son, William, and the medical emergency that followed.
Kimmel was emotional from the start of the 13-minute-long opening.
William “Billy” John Kimmel was born on April 21 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The delivery went smoothly.
About three hours later, a quick-thinking nurse discovered that the baby appeared purple and she detected a heart murmur.
Billy was taken into the hospital's NICU and was administered more tests. Kimmel said the room “started to fill up. More doctors, nurses and equipment started coming in and they determined that he wasn’t getting enough oxygen into his blood.”
A pediatric cardiologist-- who was at the airport to pick up his mother-- was called back to the hospital. The staff found that the boy’s pulmonary valve was completely blocked. In addition to the blockage, there was a hole in the wall between the left and right side of the heart.
Billy was taken by ambulance to Children’s Hospital and last week underwent open-heart surgery. Dr. Vaughn Starnes, a distinguished professor and chairman of surgery at the hospital, successfully corrected the valve issue.
“It was one of the longest three hours of my life,” Kimmel said. Billy will undergo another surgery in a few months to repair the hole. He will also undergo another procedure in his teens to replace the valve.
Kimmel-- who seemed relieved at times-- tried to add levity by showing a picture of the baby after the procedure appearing to smile. Kimmel said, "Poor kid, not only did he get a bad heart, he got my face."
He said he was able to bring the boy home six days after the procedure.
The “Jimmy Kimmel Live” host read through a list of the medical professionals who assisted his family throughout the entire process and brought up President Trump’s recent plan to cut funding from the National Institute of Health, which was prevented by Congress and instead increased on Sunday night.
“More than 40 percent of those impacted by the cuts would be children,” he said.
Kimmel went on to say, “If your baby is going to die -- and it doesn't have to -- it shouldn't matter how much money you make. I hope you never have to go there but if you do you’ll see so many kids from so many financial backgrounds being cared for so well with so much compassion.” | 4,750 |
, as ever, is the fussiest umpire in the world about bowlers who run on the wicket - he has a gentle word with Broad. (He gave Broad a couple of formal warnings on his Test debut in Sri Lanka, if I recall correctly). But Ponting shows his class with a jab for two off his legs, and a superb, powerful pull for four off a shorter delivery. 1155 - Aus 109-2 (34 overs)
Hussey tries to force Swann through mid-wicket, but it's straight to a fielder. Swanny rips another couple past his outside edge, to the sound of agonising "oohs" from close fielders and crowd alike. That's three maidens in a row. Meanwhile, the injured Kevin Pietersen, in his Sunday newspaper column, has backed Broad to take on Flintoff's mantle as the team's all-rounder. "Stuart is the future", proclaims KP. Hussey tries to force Swann through mid-wicket, but it's straight to a fielder. Swanny rips another couple past his outside edge, to the sound of agonising "oohs" from close fielders and crowd alike. That's three maidens in a row. Meanwhile, the injured Kevin Pietersen, in his Sunday newspaper column, has backed Broad to take on Flintoff's mantle as the team's all-rounder. "Stuart is the future", proclaims KP. From alfie on 606: "Good bowling so far from Broad and Swann. Keep the pressure on - get Ponting early and they might fold. (Only might, mind, this is Australia)" 1151 - Aus 109-2 (33 overs)
Ponting is troubled by another Broad off-cutter which beats his defensive prod. There's a silly point in as well as a short leg, both helmeted. Another maiden over. Ponting is troubled by another Broad off-cutter which beats his defensive prod. There's a silly point in as well as a short leg, both helmeted. Another maiden over. Jason Gillespie on Twitter: "It is fair to say that this is not Australia's ideal start." 1148 - Aus 109-2 (32 overs)
Hussey gets a thick edge off Swann, but it sneaks just wide of the two slips. Another maiden by the Notts twirler. Meanwhile, Australian newspaper "The Age" has this to say about yesterday's play. Bloodied and bruised, Australian captain Ricky Ponting watched the Ashes slip from his grasp as Jonathan Trott edged his adopted nation closer to victory while also steering country of birth South Africa towards the Tes | 4,751 |
. “It is really reassuring to know that students can have a say in the matter,” Jilly told them. “So thank you, guys, for that.”
The moment of decision arrived at the board’s next meeting in March. Jilly sat in the front row, posting on Twitter, and addressed the board one last time. “I know it’s not the most conventional thing and it’s going to get some pushback,” she said, referring to the later time. “But it is the right decision.”
The board voted, 6 to 1, to push back the high school start time to 9 a.m. “Jilly kicked it over the edge for us,” said Chris Belcher, the superintendent.
It is now seven months into the new normal. At Rock Bridge High School, the later end to the day, at 4:05 p.m., is problematic for some, including athletes who often miss the last period to make their away games.
“After doing homework, it gets to be 11:30 p.m. pretty quickly,” said Brayden Parker, a senior varsity football player. “I would prefer to get home by dark and have more time to chill out.”
The high schools in the district have tried to adjust, for example by adding Wi-Fi access to buses so athletes can do homework on the road. Some classes meet only one or two days a week, and are supplemented with online instruction. More sports practices and clubs convene before school.
Some parents and first-period teachers are seeing a payoff in students who are more rested and alert.
At 7:45 a.m. on a recent school day, Rock Bridge High, a long, one-story building with skylights and wide hallways, was sun-drenched and almost silent.
Then, like an orchestra tuning up, students gradually started arriving, some for debate club and choir, others to meet in the cafeteria for breakfast and gossip. Laughter crackled across the lobby, as buses dropped off more students, and others drifted in from the parking lots. The growing crowds could almost be described as civilized.
At 8:53 a.m., Jilly burst through the north entrance door, long hair uncombed and flyaway, wearing no makeup, lugging her backpack.
“Even when I am late to school now,” she said, dashing down a corridor to make that 8:55 bell, “it’s only by three or four minutes.” | 4,752 |
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella addressed a wide variety of topics at the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce annual luncheon today, speaking broadly about his vision for the company and its place in the Seattle region.
But even in the midst of some friendly questioning, one topic was unavoidable: How can Microsoft dig itself out of this giant hole in smartphones and tablets?
Or, as Seattle Chamber President and CEO Maud Daudon put it more diplomatically, “How do you see yourself positioning Microsoft to increase its market share to become an even stronger competitor?”
To which Nadella replied, in essence, Pay no attention to our current Windows Phone market share!
Actually, his answer was more nuanced than that. Here’s what he said.
When we define mobile in the marketplace, we don’t think of it by today’s market share positions on a given form factor. Devices and device sizes will come and go, even within a single year, you will be changing multiple phones. It’s more about the mobility. In fact, if there’s anything central to our vision, it’s don’t think of the device at the center, think of the individual, the people at the center. And then have the platforms and productivity experiences get built with that at the center. So you will have many devices, you will have small devices, large devices, and devices that have not yet been created that will come in time. But what’s going to be the constant? Your digital memories, your productivity experiences across all of those devices. That’s really the center of how we think about innovating today and into the future. And also we are very grounded on this cross-platform world. One of the things that you’re find is Microsoft icons on any phone — irrespective of whether it’s a Windows Phone or not. That’s our core goal: Things like Office, things like Skype are broadly available. And Minecraft! On every 8-year-old’s phone, for sure.
The response underscored the change in mindset under Nadella’s leadership as CEO, but it also sidestepped the question of whether Microsoft can be a major player in productivity and platforms, as Nadella hopes, with smartphone market share in the single-digits and app developers treating its mobile platform as an also-ran.
That’s the big challenge facing the company in the short run. The bigger challenge long-term — as long as Microsoft continues to make hardware and operating systems — is identifying and becoming a leader in those devices yet to come. | 4,753 |
“Excuse me, but acupuncture and herbs can’t help you there,” he said, with a laugh. “But there are some health problems where these therapies may be beneficial, and, hence, I’m not against it when someone uses it.”
At times, Dr. Unschuld almost seems perplexed that his field of study actually became an alternative source of medical treatment. He said Chinese medicine’s popularity in the West can trace its roots to the Cold War, to 1971 to be exact. That is when James Reston, a columnist for The New York Times, reported about how he was treated in China for a burst appendix, in part with acupuncture and mugwort.
This was during the Kissinger-Nixon rapprochement with China, and the start of China’s decades-long reopening to the outside world. Chinese medicine became part of the country’s allure. Soon came the visit to Dr. Unschuld from Mr. Quinn, the C.I.A. agent; the opening of Chinese medical schools in the West; and a flood of books and translations about the exotic-sounding healing arts from the Orient.
Dr. Unschuld’s interest in medicine was not entirely unique in his family. His great-grandfather had treated the king of Belgium and other European nobility. Dr. Unschuld says he grew up in a household filled with vases and other chinoiserie donated by grateful patients. His father had been a pharmacist who collected pharmaceutical artifacts and pharmacopoeias of past centuries.
Initially, Dr. Unschuld earned a degree in pharmacy in Munich along with his wife, Ulrike. But he had also been fascinated with foreign languages and had completed a parallel track in Chinese studies. In 1969, before what he assumed would be a career in the pharmaceutical industry, the couple went to Taiwan for a year to improve their Chinese language skills.
Instead, Dr. Unschuld spent the year interviewing medical practitioners. The resulting Ph.D. thesis started his career as an expert on Chinese medicine, and for 20 years he headed the Institute for the History of Medicine at Munich’s Ludwig Maximilian University.
His purely academic approach, however, makes him a difficult figure for China to embrace. While widely respected for his knowledge and translations, he has done little to advance the government’s agenda of promoting Chinese medicine as soft power. Echoing other critics, he describes China’s translations of the classics as “complete swindles,” saying they are done with little care and only a political goal in mind. | 4,754 |
WASHINGTON—The Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump spoke on Wednesday, Sept. 21 at a church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio and at a rally in Toledo, Ohio. Not including his remarks at a taped Fox News town hall with Sean Hannity, which did not air on Wednesday, he said at least five false things:
Falsely said Lyndon Johnson put forward his “Johnson Amendment” in 1954 “because he didn’t get along with a certain church, they say, in Houston. Because the pastor was maybe against him, maybe not with him.” (Johnson’s opponents were two right-wing anti-Communist groups, not churches; one was founded by an oil billionaire, one by a newspaper magnate. Neither was based in Houston.)
Falsely said of a pastor, “He’s not allowed to talk politics. If he does, they take away his tax exemption.” (Pastors are permitted to “talk politics” as much as they want, and they can opine and advocate on hot-button issues; under the Johnson Amendment, they are prohibited from endorsing or opposing candidates.)
Falsely said of his tax plan, “Income taxes will be cut dramatically for the workers … The workers, the middle-class, families, everybody, we’re having major, major tax reductions.” (Trump is not offering a dramatic or major tax cut for the middle-class. According to the conservative Tax Foundation, his plan would give people in the bottom 80 per cent less than a 2 per cent income boost before accounting for hypothetical economic growth.)
Falsely said, “All together, the Hillary Clinton plan would bring in 620,000 refugees in her first term.” (Clinton has not actually proposed the 620,000 number, which was calculated by Trump ally Sen. Jeff Sessions based on assumptions.)
Falsely said, “I don’t know if you’ve been watching, but the poll numbers (with African-Americans) are going like a rocket ship.” (The only supposed evidence of a sharp increase in his black support in polls was a sudden bump in the Los Angeles Times tracking poll, which has quickly vanished. The Times wrote Wednesday: “Trump’s black support in the poll is back to the single digits, near where it had been all along.”)
Related:
Donald Trump said 18 false things on Tuesday
Donald Trump said at least 11 false things on Monday
Donald Trump said 12 false things on SaturdayE ND
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The government has awarded £86.6m of contracts to ferry companies to transport medicines in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
Brittany Ferries, DFDS, P&O and Stena Line will be able to deliver those supplies from 31 October, it said.
The contracts are aimed at making sure deliveries of vital products continue, if the UK leaves the EU without a deal.
The government was criticised earlier this year after awarding a transport contract to a company with no ferries.
The contracts will be in place for six months so the government is prepared for different Brexit scenarios, a spokesperson said.
Should the contracts need to be cancelled, the UK will pay the firms £11.52m. The UK paid £51m to cancel no-deal ferry contracts after the Brexit deadline extension at the end of March.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: "The UK is getting ready to leave the EU on the 31 October and, like any sensible government, we are preparing for all outcomes.
"Our decisive action means freight operators will be ready and waiting to transport vital medicines into the country from the moment we leave."
The firms will operate on routes away from the busiest ports to minimise disruption, the Department for Transport said.
The ferries run between Teesport, Hull, Killingholme, Felixstowe, Harwich, Tilbury, Portsmouth and Poole in the UK and Cherbourg, Caen, Le Havre, Zeebrugge, Hook of Holland, Rotterdam, Europort, and Vlaardingen.
'Patients may die'
Earlier this week, the government established a customs paperwork support unit for medical goods suppliers to help with getting across borders in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
The extra capacity will help drugs firms plan for a no-deal Brexit, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry said.
"This capacity is an important part of our members' preparations," said the industry body's chief executive Mike Thompson.
"Stockpiles are also in place, and some companies have already sourced their own alternative ferry routes."
Earlier this week Dame Sally Davies warned that patients could die should there be medical supplies shortages.
"We cannot guarantee that there will not be shortages, not only in medicines, but technology and gadgets," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "There may be deaths, we can't guarantee there won't."
In February the government scrapped a ferry contract with Seaborne Freight, which had no ships, after the Irish company backing the deal pulled out. | 4,756 |
By Anders Lorenzen
As yet another winter storm ravaged the British Isles last month, one silver lining appeared – wind power climbed to new heights.
On March the 17th, power generation from Britain’s wind farms hit a record 14.2 gigawatts (GW). This shows just how much wind power can do on windy days and just how much it can contribute to electricity generation, accounting for a whopping 34% of electricity produced at around 14:30 on that Saturday.
While the building of wind farms onshore, at least in England that is, seems to have stalled due to policy changes and opposition to wind turbines, offshore it continues to grow at full steam at sea (as well as onshore in Wales and Scotland). And in 2018 the trade body for renewable energy, RenewableUK, predicts another 2GW of wind power will be added to the grid, with a slight bias towards offshore over onshore generation. Meaning it is only a matter of time before that record will be broken again. In 2017 wind power capacity grew by around a fifth with both the connection of the Burbo Bank wind farms’ offshore extension and the Vattenfall Pen-y-Cymoedd onshore project. Prior to the 17th, the previous wind power record set in the UK lasted less than a month. With the high and prolonged wind speeds producing 13.8 GW on the 1st of March surpassed within just three weeks. RenewableUK’s Executive Director Emma Pinchbeck commented “Yet again, wind is playing a key role in keeping Britain going during a cold spell. When the mini Beast from the East struck on Saturday, over a third of the UK’s electricity was being generated by wind.
As Britain are rapidly phasing out coal power stations and old nuclear power plants are beginning to close, paired with the fact that it will be quite some time before new nuclear capacity such as the Hinkley Point C station comes online, it is hoped that wind power could fill the gap.
However, as wind power is an intermittent source of electricity any added capacity to the market makes it increasingly difficult to balance the system and keep a handle on frequency control. But National Grid is certain they can rise to the challenge. Their Director of the System Operator Fintan Slye commented: “We now have significant volumes of renewable energy on the system and as this trend continues, our ability to forecast and manage this is becoming more and more important. We have an expert team of forecasters, analysts and engineers who monitor a range of data, to forecast just how much electricity will be needed by consumers and how this is matched by generation available from renewable and other sources.” | 4,757 |
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and guidelines for large gatherings, the Oktoberfest event for 2020 has been cancelled.
The 8th annual Oktoberfest will bring German music, dancing and much more to Old Town Winchester! This event is expected to be just as big and exciting as last year. Oktoberfest will once again encompass most of the Loudoun Street Mall including The Shenandoah Valley Civil War Museum lawn and the Taylor Pavilion. Attendees will have the opportunity to sample German-inspired food, beers, and wine while experiencing different aspects of the German culture.
Our Old Town Winchester Burgermeister will again be crowned in September in honor of National Volunteer Day.
Everyone is invited to compete in the Best Dressed Lederhosen and Dirndl Contest on Saturday. The top prize is an overnight stay at the Bavarian Inn in Shepherdstown.
A high energy band is back in Winchester for Oktoberfest: The Continentals, a band with a wide repertoire specializing in different ethnic styles of polka and waltz.
Friday will kick off with the Keg Tapping Ceremony. A horse drawn carriage will bring authentic German beer and a free tasting to the first 100 ticket holders. Our Austrian horses, Yeager and Meister, will be strolling down the Loudoun Street Mall to kick off the party!
Also featured on Saturday is Altwashingtonia Schuhplattler Verein, the “Original Bavarian Dance Club of Washington D.C.” Over 30 costumed professional Bavarian dancers will bring fun traditions and create a true Oktoberfest atmosphere. There will also be street performers, accordion players and activities for everyone.
WHEN: Friday, October 9 – Saturday, October 10
TIME: Friday, 5:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m. and Saturday, Noon – 8:00 p.m.
WHERE: Old Town Winchester Loudoun Street Mall
COST: Free entry into event. Tastings require a ticket. $20 in advance, $25 at the gate.
To enjoy tastings, a ticket is required.
Tickets can be purchased for $20 in advance and $25 the day of the event.
Tastings include a commemorative glass beer stein.
Winchester offers many great hotels and lodging options to choose from to accommodate out of town guests! Check out this list of lodging options in the area! (Button for the below link)
Hotels & Accomodations
Benefitting:
Friends of Old Town Winchester Sponsors: | 4,758 |
By the Associated Press
LA PAZ, Bolivia— A tense diplomatic feud between Bolivia’s conservative interim government and Mexico expanded to include Spain on Friday when a confrontation broke out as Spanish diplomats visited the Mexican ambassador’s residence in La Paz, where members of the ousted leftist government have taken refuge.
Bolivian Foreign Minister Karen Longaric complained that Spanish diplomats were accompanied by masked and armed men on a visit to the residence, calling that an abuse of Bolivia’s sovereignty. She said a protest would be lodged with the European Union, United Nations and Organization of American States.
Television stations broadcast images of a masked person getting out of a Spanish diplomatic vehicle and exchanging words with local police. Civilians then approached and began attacking the car, shouting that there could be an attempt to free nine officials sheltered inside.
The interim government already has been feuding with Mexico, which not only gave refuge to the nine, but also sheltered ousted leader Evo Morales when he resigned the presidency on Nov. 10 after losing the support of the military and police following days of turbulent protests over alleged fraud in his reelection bid.
Bolivian officials accuse several of those inside the embassy of electoral fraud as well as sedition and terrorism for their alleged role in protests that followed Morales’ ouster.
Mexico’s Foreign Relations Department said the incident came as police intercepted Spanish embassy vehicles that were returning to the Mexican mission to pick up the ranking Spanish diplomat, who had made a “courtesy visit” to the Mexican ambassador.
It said a Mexican diplomat in the car was also briefly detained but was allowed to pass after showing identification.
Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said later it would investigate the incident.
Spanish diplomats in their own country are sometime accompanied by bodyguards wearing masks to protect their identities as a security measure, though it wasn’t immediately clear if that was the case here.
On Thursday, Mexico’s Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said his country will file a complaint against the interim government of Bolivia at the International Court of Justice at The Hague, alleging the buildup of security agents around the Mexican ambassador’s residence violates international treaties regarding the rights and protections for diplomatic personnel and installations.
Longaric denied the allegation and her Foreign Ministry issued a statement expressing “deep concern over Mexico’s interference in Bolivia’s internal affairs” but saying it is open to talks.
Morales has since relocated to Argentina and says he plans to stay involved in politics in neighboring Bolivia, while some former top aides remain holed up in the Mexican ambassador’s residence. | 4,759 |
const wordSeparator = ", " const errorMsg = "ALL OTHER SOFTWARE TEAMS ARE USELESS, OUTSOURCING IS A SHAM" type apiResult struct { content string err error } // Stitcher calls the Hello and World APIs to create a very useful string func Stitcher(helloURL string, worldURL string) string { helloChannel := make(chan *apiResult, 1) worldChannel := make(chan *apiResult, 1) go getStringFromAPI(helloChannel, helloURL) go getStringFromAPI(worldChannel, worldURL) helloResult := <-helloChannel worldResult := <-worldChannel if helloResult.err!= nil || worldResult.err!= nil { return errorMsg } return helloResult.content + wordSeparator + worldResult.content } func getStringFromAPI(ch chan<- *apiResult, url string) { response, err := http.Get(url) if err!= nil { ch <- &apiResult{"", err} } else { defer response.Body.Close() content, err := ioutil.ReadAll(response.Body) if err!= nil { ch <- &apiResult{"", err} } else if response.StatusCode!= http.StatusOK { ch <- &apiResult{"", errors.New("Non 200 response from API")} } else { ch <- &apiResult{string(content), nil} } } }
This code makes our new test pass, hooray! Some Go experts might have some better ways to write this and that’s fine because we now have a suite of tests to make sure no matter how much someone tinkers with the implementation they can be confident they have not broken existing functionality.
Summary
Even though this is a contrived example I hope this demonstrates how Go’s ecosystem and tooling can really help to create robust, well tested and readable software.
Go makes it really easy to write maintainable open source software, if you are mad enough to want to use something that blindly concatenates two successful HTTP calls, all you need to do is
go get github.com/quii/go-perf-test-example
and then just check the almost entirely auto-generated go doc (https://godoc.org/github.com/quii/go-perf-test-example) to see how to use it.
The final codes are available here: https://github.com/quii/go-perf-test-example
If you have any comments on feedback, please do get in touch with me. | 4,760 |
The TTC supports the idea of a region-wide transit fare system, but its board has put the province on notice that Toronto can’t subsidize the trips of 905-area riders.
The board passed a motion Monday confirming that the TTC will not take on the financial burden of any fare integration system that Metrolinx proposes.
Councillor Josh Colle, who chairs the TTC, said he fears the TTC might have to raise its fares or assume costs that are paid by another agency under an integrated fare system.
“We need to talk about nuts and bolts of fare integration… It can’t be at a cost the TTC has to bear that’s unfair to our riders or the city of Toronto,” he said.
The TTC and Metrolinx boards will be holding a joint meeting to discuss fare integration, he said. But so far, Colle said he doesn’t know the financial implications for the TTC or its riders.
“I don’t understand when you see how some agencies are subsidized, how do the finances work out on that?” he said.
York Region, for example, offers a $4.34 per rider subsidy for its transit service and Durham Region subsidizes transit with $4.06 per ride. But the TTC is only subsidized 89 cents per rider. Toronto transit riders pay the largest share of operating funds in North America.
About 80 per cent of transit trips in the Toronto area include the TTC.
The TTC is actually involved in three separate fare discussions. It is looking at revising its own fare structure when Presto rolls out across the system at the end of next year, it is working with the city on a potential low-income rider fare and it is part of the Metrolinx fare integration study.
There’s a risk to losing money within its own fare structure and within a region-wide system. The TTC has to make sure when it revises its own fare policies that it comes up with a revenue neutral solution.
“We need to be cautious that whatever is proposed by Metrolinx for regional integration doesn’t load some of the costs onto the TTC,” said Deputy CEO Chris Upfold who is leading the fare discussions.
“If they say you don’t have to pay a double fare when you cross Steeles Ave., who loses the fare? Somebody is losing a fare,” he said.
Metrolinx is expected to make recommendations on fare integration in the spring.
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At least seven people have died after clashes between supporters and opponents of a new citizenship law in India, police have said.
Delhi police officer Anil Mittal said: "Seven persons including one head constable of Delhi police have died," adding that around 150 people were injured in Monday's violence.
Officers used tear gas and and smoke grenades but struggled to disperse demonstrators who set fire to vehicles and a petrol pump, threw stones and pushed barricades over.
Image: Supporters of a new citizenship law tore down police barricades during clashes with opponents in Delhi
There was no word on the cause of death of those who were killed, but a hospital official said weapons were fired.
Dr Rajesh Kalra, a medical superintendent at the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, said: "Some of the people brought in had gunshot wounds."
A small number of firefighters were injured and a fire department vehicle torched, an official said, while firefighters were called to reports of at least eight separate cases of arson as further protests erupted on Tuesday.
In other areas, schools and a handful of metro stations were closed.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal called for peace.
"Whatever problems people have can be resolved peacefully. Violence will not help find a solution," he said.
Image: Indian police and paramilitary forces on a road in New Delhi destroyed in clashes over the citizenship act
Donald Trump has started his trip to India with a speech about how much he appreciates Indian culture.
The new Citizenship Amendment Act makes it easier for non-Muslims from three neighbouring Muslim-dominated countries to gain Indian citizenship.
Those opposed to the measure accuse prime minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of destroying India's secular traditions.
Delhi has been a centre of protests against the act and opponents have been camping out in parts of the city for two months.
Image: Donald Trump sprays flower petals during a wreath laying ceremony at Mahatma Gandhi's memorial in Delhi
The clashes erupted even as he and Donald Trump were busy praising each other at a rally in Mr Modi's home state of Gujarat.
"India is a country that proudly embraces freedom, liberty, individual rights, the rule of law, and the dignity of every human being," the US president said while addressing a rally of more than 100,000 people.
"Your unity is an inspiration to the world," he added.
On Tuesday Mr Trump, by now in the capital city, laid a wreath at Mahatma Gandhi's memorial and inspected troops at the presidential palace before holding talks on trade. | 4,762 |
about to die for our freedoms. Our President will raise his fist and talk about how "They hate our Democracy" and "This is a war against evil" a "Just cause" as he prepares the soil to grow another generation of "terrorists".
Peace is not just the absence of conflict but also the presence of justice, for in our world's history, peace has never prevailed where justice was absent.
Injustice is the garden that nourishes terrorism.
A great many of us choose to engage ourselves in rampant consumerism and ignorance of world affairs. After all, who cares what is happening "over there"?
9/11 has taught us nothing. We have become narcissistic and self centered; like the drug addict who refuses to look at himself, we rage on about how everyone is against us, and use our denial to continue our self destructive behavior. In search of another fix we roar across the world dropping bombs on anyone who may try to point out that our sickness is self-imposed.
If America is addicted to power, who then are its friends? The pushers who feed the habit or those who call to its attention the destruction it brings on its own family? Tom Feeley is editor of www.Informationclearinghouse.info Click Here To Support Information Clearing House Your support has kept ICH free on the Web since 2002. Comment section added March 21, 2018 Join the Discussion It is not necessary for ICH readers to register before placing a comment. We ask that you treat others with respect. Take a moment to read the following - Comment Policy - What Or Who is Information Clearing House and Purpose and Intent of this website: It is unacceptable to slander, smear or engage in personal attacks on authors of articles posted on ICH. Those engaging in that behavior will be banned from the comment section. Click on "comments" below to read or post comments Comment (0) Comment Guidelines
Be succinct, constructive and relevant to the story. We encourage engaging, diverse and meaningful commentary. Do not include personal information such as names, addresses, phone numbers and emails. Comments falling outside our guidelines – those including personal attacks and profanity – are not permitted.
See our complete Comment Policy and use this link to notify us if you have concerns about a comment. We’ll promptly review and remove any inappropriate postings. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Information Clearing House has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Information ClearingHouse endorsed or sponsored by the originator.) | 4,763 |
QATAR Airways was shamed into relaxing its policy of sacking cabin crew for getting pregnant or marrying in their first five years of employment, a labour federation said, while welcoming the move.
“Qatar Airways has been shamed into action, and that’s a tremendous advance,” International Transport Workers Federation president Paddy Crumlin said.
“No amount of hiding behind ‘best airline’ awards has kept the truth about how staff are treated from emerging.” The ITF said the move, confirmed by the Doha-based carrier, was a “first victory” for staff rights.
And it said that, working closely with staff, it “will continue to campaign for further change and respect for workers’ rights.” Company executives said the restrictions had been phased out over the past six months.
“Our policies have evolved with the airline’s growth,” a spokeswoman said. Under the new regulations, women who get pregnant are now offered temporary ground jobs and staff may get married after notifying the company.
“We will provide an opportunity for someone to continue working in a ground position,” the spokeswoman said.
Crumlin said that “we, along with everyone who works for the airline, hope that they will now address what many of those workers call the ‘climate of fear’ at Qatar Airways. There’s much to be done, but the airline has made one step towards it.” ITF general secretary Steve Cotton also praised staff who had “bravely and secretly” spoken up about the issue.
Other controversial regulations, such as female crew only being allowed to be picked up from work by their fathers, brothers or husbands, are thought to remain in place, at least for the present.
Qatar Airways has about 9000 cabin crew, around three-quarters of which are female.
In June, the UN’s International Labour Organisation called on the airline to scrap rules on pregnancy, saying they were “discriminatory.” The ITF was among those that had taken the case to the ILO.
The ILO said the provision on pregnancy breached its 57-year-old convention against discrimination at work, which has been ratified by more than 170 countries.
The company spokeswoman said the recent changes had been brought into place after senior management began a review of working practices last year, and not in response to international criticism.
Earlier this year Qatar Airways won the airline of the year award for the third time at the annual Skytrax world awards at the Paris air show. | 4,764 |
By Greg Botelho, CNN
(CNN)–High-profile Pastor Rick Warren tweeted Thursday that his son who shot himself late last week had bought an "unregistered gun" from "someone over the internet."
"I pray he seeks God's forgiveness," wrote Warren, a best-selling author and the head of Saddleback Church, referring to whoever sold his son the gun. "I forgive him."
https://twitter.com/RickWarren/status/322434892828917760
Law enforcement authorities have the gun they believe Matthew Warren used to kill himself, according to Orange County Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino.
Follow the CNN Belief Blog on Twitter
Amormino said he could not say from where, or whom, the 27-year-old got the weapon. But he did confirm the gun was not registered, adding that its serial number had been scratched off.
"(The fact) the serial number is scratched off... is going to make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to trace," Amormino said.
Matthew, the youngest of Warren's children, worked at the Saddleback Resources Warehouse, which distributes books and DVDs. He was "an important part of the church but played a quiet role," church spokeswoman Anne Krumm said.
He'd had "a fun evening" with his parents, Rick Warren wrote Saturday to the staff of his Southern California megachurch, before he committed suicide "in a momentary wave of despair."
Matthew Warren was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in Mission Viejo, California, late Friday afternoon, the Orange County Coroner said. The autopsy completed Monday put the time of death at around 10 a.m. Friday.
"Matthew was an incredibly kind, gentle and compassionate young man whose sweet spirit was encouragement and comfort to many," the church said in a statement. "Unfortunately, he also suffered from mental illness resulting in deep depression and suicidal thoughts. Despite the best health care available, this was an illness that was never fully controlled, and the emotional pain resulted in his decision to take his life."
CNN’s Belief Blog: The faith angles behind the biggest stories
Rick Warren is a pioneer of the megachurch movement who looked to translate traditional evangelical messages to a wider audience.
Warren founded Saddleback with his wife 33 years ago and wrote "The Purpose-Driven Life," a Christian self-help guide that became a mainstream best-seller. He also gave the invocation at President Barack Obama's 2009 inauguration.
CNN's Eric Marrapodi contributed to this report. | 4,765 |
multiplexing and packetization functionality from scratch.
Future work
Media sink discovery and connect
As mentioned above, the Wi-Fi Display implementation pieces in Chromium are cross-platform and can run on any platform that can run Chromium3.
However, the networking functionality that provides discovery, connection, and watch operations to media sink devices does depend on the underlying platform. Chromium just contains the generic DisplaySourceConnectionDelegate interface, which should be implemented on each platform accessing system or middleware networking components available there.
At the time of writing, the Chrome OS platform does not enable Wi-Fi Direct. Therefore, the DisplaySourceConnectionDelegate interface remains unimplemented, but is an area for future work.
Conclusion
The crucial part of the Wi-Fi Display media source functionality (except Wi-Fi Direct networking) is now available in Chromium. The code is open source and can be used as a baseline by OEMs who are willing to enable Miracast on Chromebooks*.
Introducing the chrome.displaySource extension API as an entry point for Wi-Fi Display media source functionality and our future work to integrate it into the Media Router framework produces very flexible setup that fits various clients. Web sites can access Wi-Fi Display functionality via Presentation API, Chrome users can access via Media Route UI, and extensions and web apps can use chrome.displaySource API directly.
Footnotes
There are generally two device types used in wireless display technologies. The device that provides the media content is usually called the media source. The media source is usually a mobile device, like a smartphone, tablet, or laptop. The device that presents the media content is usually called the media sink. The media sink is usually a device with a larger screen than the media source device. For example, a smart TV or a TV with a linked adapter that supports the display technology. Miracast also allows TDLS, but the vast majority of Miracast devices actually use Wi-Fi Direct. Those platforms where Chrome extensions are enabled.
References
[1] http://www.wi-fi.org/discover-wi-fi/wi-fi-certified-miracast
[2] https://www.w3.org/TR/presentation-api
[3] http://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/media-router
[4] https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromiumos-design-docs/software-architecture
[5] https://github.com/01org/wds | 4,766 |
Just the other day, as I turned onto Crescent Heights at its southern end on my way home from the Far West Side, I was pleasantly surprised to find a nice new bike lane.
Crescent Heights is a great exercise in utility for Westside riders, since it provides a tranquil and well-paved alternative to La Cienega. La Cienega is a road you ride when you need to get to someplace on La Cienega, but the paving’s crappy, the view is dull, and the traffic frantic and loud.
Crescent Heights, two short blocks east, lets you relax as you make your way between Guthrie, two blocks north of Venice Boulevard, and Olympic in Midtown. There Crescent Heights briefly changes its name, using Carrillo and McCarthy Vista as pseudonyms for a few blocks before casting aside its disguise and continuing on as Crescent Heights again all the way to Sunset. It becomes more crowded north of Wilshire but still isn’t too bad as a north/south route, something lacking in many parts of LA.
However, the bike lane pictured ends after less than half a mile.
So I thought to myself, “Not another orphan bike lane!” It’s pretty well known now that scattershot networks don’t drive ridership the way a well-connected grid of facilities does.
So I wrote to LADOT’s bikeways bunch and asked What’s up?
Well, good news: even the LADOT gets it eventually. To quote the affable and hard-working Nate Baird:
[Crescent Heights is] a planned BFS [Bicycle-Friendly Street] up to San Vicente, with planned BFS connections at 18th St., Airdrome St., Cashio St., Whitworth Dr., and Commodore Sloat Dr. And Pico Blvd. is on the plan for bike lanes.
I believe that San Vicente has been promised bike lanes as well (which it already sports on the WeHo stretch.)
Nate did caution me that none of the cross streets is on the priority list yet—something to bring up at the next BPIT meeting perhaps—but, since LADOT has been making up for its recent decades of malign neglect as regards bicycling infrastructure, and getting pretty good at slapping paint, I’m going to be so bold as to hope we might see a connected neighborhood bike grid in the McCarthy Vista area sooner rather than later.
I wonder how far those Pico bike lanes might extend. The street is seeing medians installed right now, in that same neighborhood…. | 4,767 |
Following Trump’s eye-brow raising assertions that President Bush was not only responsible for 9/11 but purposefully and intentionally lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he faced a barrage of criticism from the right.
Those on the right argued that he was not only wrong but that he sounded a bit too much like the “Bush lied, people died” sputterings of the fringe left (and of left-leaning “journalists” like Ron Fournier).
Indeed, Dick Cheney noted on Monday that Trump’s comments make him seem like a “liberal Democrat.”
The Blaze reports:
Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who served alongside former President George W. Bush, issued a bold criticism of Republican presidential contender Donald Trump Monday, saying the billionaire “sounds like a liberal Democrat” when it comes to the Iraq war and 9/11. “You heard at the debate Saturday Donald Trump accuse President Bush and his team of purposefully lying the country into war in Iraq, saying, ‘I will tell you they lied, they said there were weapons of mass destruction, there were none. They knew there were none.’ Your response?” Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked.
Watch the interview:
Those on the right were not the only ones to note Trump’s startling assertions; those on the progressive left were positively giddy in their joy and agreement with Trump.
In an atypical gush of praise for a Republican of any stripe, Code Pink even heaps praise on Trump.
The Hill reports:
Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin said in an email to the Huffington Post that she “loved” the debate. “It felt surreal to hear Donald Trump, the leading Republican contender for President, saying what we at CODEPINK have been shouting to the winds for 14 years now: that Bush and his cronies lied about WMDs, that the Iraq war was catastrophic, and that Bush never ‘kept us safe’ because 9/11 happened on his watch.” Benjamin said that she also agrees with Trump that the war wasted money that could have been used to rebuild the country’s infrastructure — a theme the group uses in a campaign called “Bring out war dollars home.” “It was wild,” she said.
Code Pink’s Benjamin was so enthralled with Trump’s comments that she says she gives him “a Pink Badge of Courage.”
[Featured Image: Medea Benjamin Facebook, Oct. 12, 2015]
| 4,768 |
NOWSHERA, IHK: Pakistan and India fired barrages of shells at each other across the Line of Control (LoC) Friday, leaving at least one dead as the troubled region braces for more violence amid renewed hostilities between the arch-rivals.While Pakistan´s promised release of an Indian pilot has eased the threat of a wider conflict, there has been no letup in the Himalayan region divided between the neighbours since 1947.
Alongside the shelling, which caused widespread damage, Indian forces in Kashmir killed two suspected militants during a night-time clash. It comes after Pakistani and Indian fighter jets staged tit-for-tat cross-border raids this week.
Shelling that has been a part of daily life for decades has intensified even as Pakistan freed a pilot shot down on its side of the Line of Control.
"There is a very high risk of escalation towards localised, but more intense direct Indian-Pakistani military confrontation in Kashmir," Jane’s Intelligence service said in a study this week. Heavy mortar and artillery fire sent inhabitants on both sides of the LoC scurrying for bunkers and other cover.
One woman was killed and an Indian soldier wounded during shelling late Thursday and early Friday in the Poonch and Krishna Ghati sectors on the Indian side, police claimed.
Indian authorities told villages to turn off lights to avoid becoming a target for Pakistani gunners. Nowshera, a small town three kilometres from the ceasefire line, was plunged into darkness but gunfire and explosions broke the silence through the night.
Surjeet Kumar, village head in the town´s Kalal sector, told how he was at home with his family when the building was hit by nine 120mm mortars.
One shell left a huge hole in the stone bedroom wall, smashing the windows and furniture. His bed and a steel trunk were crushed by debris. Eight other shells failed to explode and remained buried in the house and nearby. Kumar said Indian troops inspected the damage in the darkness, but explained they could only move the shells once calm had returned.
“We want peace or an all out war. We don´t want to live in bits and pieces,” Kumar said.
“We have been suffering since 1947. Whenever the governments in India and Pakistan fail, the armies start fighting here. This has to stop.
Kashmir residents had been bracing for the surge in hostilities since a suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden car into a military convoy at Pulwama, near the main city of Srinagar, killing the paramilitaries. It was the worst militant attack in three decades of violence. | 4,769 |
A landmark deal for US procurement of Israel's Iron Dome anti-air missile defense systems was finalized this week. It became official when on Tuesday the US Defense Department announced it had formally signed a contract for two complete Iron Dome systems.
Co-developed by Raytheon and Israeli defense firm Rafael, the system has been touted by Israeli leaders as the most advanced short to mid-range interceptor in the world with a proven track record, given that even within the past year it's been engaged in dozens if not hundreds of Hamas rocket intercepts from Gaza.
Image via Jewish Policy Center
"Now that the contract is set in stone, the Army will be able to figure out delivery schedules and details in terms of taking receipt of the systems," a US missile systems analyst told Defense News of the future transfer.
From a US perspective the Iron Dome represents an "interim" solution to close some existing gaps in the Army's anti-air capabilities, as well as experiment with integration with other systems, according to Defense News:
The Army was shifting around its pots of funding within its Indirect Fires Protection Capability (IFPC) program — under development to defend against rockets, artillery and mortars as well as unmanned aircraft and cruise missiles — to fill its urgent capability gap for cruise missile defense on an interim basis. Congress mandated the Army deploy two batteries by fiscal 2020 in the service’s fiscal 2019 budget.
The US Army had announced last February when the impending deal was first revealed: "While Iron Dome has been in operational use by the Israeli Air Force since 2011 and proven effective in combat, it should be noted that the U.S. Army will assess a variety of options for its long-term IFPC solution," according to the report.
This week's announcement marks the first time Israel has ever sold a stand alone weapons system to the United States.
Tel Aviv has recently cited the Iron Dome achieving an 86% shootdown rate when in May about 700 rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip over a period of a few days in the most recent major flare-up of hostilities.
Also, last month Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the successful test firing of Israel's Arrow-3 ballistic missile shield over Alaska, tests previously considered secretive. Specifically the Arrow-3 is designed to take out advanced ballistic missiles in Iran and Syria's arsenal, and is designed as the 'top level' of which the Iron Dome forms the base platform in the overall three-tiered system.
The Arrow-3, once fully integrated with the Iron Dome and the medium-range 'David's Sling,' will mark the longest range capability in Israel's multi-tiered missile defense network. | 4,770 |
EVENT
King Triton High Score Challenge!
■Event Period:
Mar. 23, 2018 12:00 a.m. to Mar. 31, 2018 11:59 p.m. (PT)
Mar. 23, 2018 7:00 to Apr. 1, 2018 6:59 (UTC)
It's High Score Challenge time!
The prize this time is the King Triton Medal!
Aim for the top of the rankings and score high to receive this exclusive medal!
This time, players that manage to rank within the top rewards tier (1st-1000th) will receive a Boosted version of this Medal!
・Boosted King Triton: 1,000 more base Strength and Defense.
Medal Attribute Reversed / Upright Special Attack Bonus Tier Special Attack Target Gauge Cost Damage Multiplier* King Triton M Upright 7 Deals 4 hits. 1 turn: ↑ Upright STR by 1 tier. Fills 3 gauges. Random 7 × 21.90
* Damage multiplier listed applies to a version of this Medal with a maximum Special Attack Bonus.
You can view the Ranking Rewards in-game by doing the following:
1. From the Menu, tap on "Quests"
2. Tap on "Events"
3. Tap on the event's banner
4. Tap on "Rankings" on the right
5. Tap on "Rewards" on the bottom right
You can view the High Score Rewards in-game by doing the following:
1. From the Menu, tap on "Quests"
2. Tap on "Events"
3. Tap on the event's banner
4. Tap on "Rewards" on the right
■Tips to Maximize Scores!
●Use Medals with high Special Attack damage multipliers!
●Equip Score Bonus Medals!
※Please note that using Skip Tickets or Skip Tickets+ will not give you a score.
■Event Details
・The goal of the High Score Challenge is to earn the highest score you can!
・If you fall in battle you will not be able to continue.
・The greater the amount of damage you do to enemies, the higher your score will be.
・Your score will be finalized when you defeat the stage's target enemy or when you are defeated.
▼You can also equip Score Bonus Medals to boost your score!
Follow us on Twitter for the latest news! @kh_ux_na | 4,771 |
band and you’re right next to the drum set, so you feel all of that.”
In addition to the band performing five songs from Dystopia (“Fatal Illusion,” “Dystopia,” The Threat Is Real,“ "Poisonous Shadows,” and “Post American World”) in what appears to be a ruined city, the video has some other surprises, Spio says, including a torture chamber. “You’re actually in the music video, so you’re seeing all this happening,” she adds. “It’s extreme. It’s about as metal as it gets.”
The wild, wild west
Although virtual reality is new, it’s unclear how widely it’ll be embraced by the entertainment establishment. “It’s growing,” Underwood says. “It’s the wild, wild west. It’s the new frontier.”
Can it replace the live concert experience? “I hope not,” says Underwood. “I want people to have the experience if they cannot buy that ticket and be there. Even as an actor, you don’t want technology to get to the point where they don’t need us anymore. There’s something to be said for the humanity in front of you and being in the same room.”
Yet, as Spio points out, the technology can be a godsend for bands who can’t hit every market and for fans who can’t make it to live performances. “This is just the beginning,” she says. “You are going to see other artists hop on it.”
She also claims that she’s had discussions with TV studios and major networks about producing VR content for them. “It’s going to start a lot with behind-the-scenes, where fans get a chance to see what’s going on,” Spio says. “But there are long-term goals — and when I say long-term, we’re taking within 12 or 18 months — to film full episodes of your favorite sitcoms and scripted and non-scripted shows in VR.”
For Mustaine, this feels like the final frontier. “Honestly, realistically, what is there left to do, other than entering a pod like in The Fly where we disintegrate you in the comfort of your own bedroom and reintegrate you on a stage near you?” | 4,772 |
The Senate Intelligence Committee announced Friday that it will hold a rare open session to question senior intelligence officials on Russian hacking activities.
The hearing will come the day after the White House is expected to make public a declassified version of a hotly anticipated report from the intelligence community detailing Russian interference in the U.S. election. A classified version will go to Congress.
Four blockbuster witnesses will testify on Tuesday: Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, National Security Agency Director Adm. Michael Rogers and FBI Director James Comey.
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Clapper and Rogers testified on the matter before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday but provided few new details, arguing that they did not want to preempt the report.
The Intelligence Committee hearing will be watched particularly closely for clues as to how Republicans will tackle the investigation into Russian involvement in the election. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Addison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellSenate Republicans signal openness to working with Biden Hillicon Valley: DOJ indicts Chinese, Malaysian hackers accused of targeting over 100 organizations | GOP senators raise concerns over Oracle-TikTok deal | QAnon awareness jumps in new poll The Hill's Campaign Report: Biden asks if public can trust vaccine from Trump ahead of Election Day | Oklahoma health officials raised red flags before Trump rally MORE (R-Ky.) has said he believes the issue is best handled by that notoriously secretive panel — a move critics say was an attempt to sweep the matter under the rug.
President-elect Donald Trump Donald John TrumpBarr criticizes DOJ in speech declaring all agency power 'is invested in the attorney general' Military leaders asked about using heat ray on protesters outside White House: report Powell warns failure to reach COVID-19 deal could'scar and damage' economy MORE has continued to deny that Moscow was behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and others.
Comey’s testimony will also be closely watched.
Many Democrats — include former Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid Harry Mason ReidSenate Republicans signal openness to working with Biden Mellman: The likely voter sham Bottom line MORE (D-Nev.) — have explicitly blamed him for Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonBarr criticizes DOJ in speech declaring all agency power 'is invested in the attorney general' Virginia Democrat blasts Trump's 'appalling' remark about COVID-19 deaths in 'blue states' The Hill's Campaign Report: Biden asks if public can trust vaccine from Trump ahead of Election Day | Oklahoma health officials raised red flags before Trump rally MORE's loss in November. They have accused him of doggedly pursuing the investigation into Clinton’s private email server while neglecting to give the breach at the DNC the attention it deserved. | 4,773 |
Image caption President Ghani travelled to Nuristan to see the avalanche damage for himself
Frantic efforts to rescue hundreds of people feared buried under snow in northern Afghanistan are continuing with villagers using whatever digging means available to find survivors.
Local officials say at least 119 people have been killed with scores more missing in several mountainous provinces.
Entire villages in the north and east are reported to be under snow.
President Ashraf Ghani visited Nuristan province which lost at least 70 people.
He travelled to the Bargmatal district, where 57 people were killed.
Image copyright EPA Image caption Much of Afghanistan is in the grip of harsh winter conditions
"Natural disasters can hurt any country, but it is hurting us most, because the war has limited our abilities," he said. "We can't help the needy people in the way that we should."
On Monday he paid tribute to "160 countrymen [who] have been martyred" in the last six weeks, pointing out that hundreds of homes have been destroyed in snow and rainfall in Nuristan, Badakhshan, Parwan and Ghazni provinces.
Image copyright AFP Image caption People in remote areas have had to use any means available in the hunt for survivors
A villager from Nuristan's Barg-e-Matal district told the AFP news agency that people were using "any tools possible" to dig through huge piles of snow and locate their buried loved ones.
"We have no contact with several villages and districts," Abdul Rahim said. "A lot of people are still under the snow, we have to rescue them as soon as possible."
Mr Rahim's village has been inaccessible since Sunday, when avalanches and heavy snow first struck the area.
Image copyright AFP Image caption The military are now helping out in the rescue effort
Army helicopters have been deployed to distribute aid as rescuers on the ground continue to fight their way through snowdrifts to reach remote avalanche-hit towns.
But the drifts, blocked roads and the hazardous terrain have hampered the rescue operation in Nuristan where local media have reported on the plight of villagers left to fend for themselves over the last three days.
Image copyright AFP Image caption The president says the war has impeded his country's abilities to help vulnerable avalanche victims
Image copyright EPA Image caption The heavy snow has also badly affected livestock
Deadly avalanches are regular occurrences in Afghanistan's higher areas throughout winter and spring, and rescue efforts are often slowed down or made less effective because of shortages of equipment.
Some mountainous areas of Badakhshan are only accessible overland for three months a year. | 4,774 |
Data indicates that the blockchain job industry has seen a sustained uptrend in Asia, while cryptocurrency-specific applications appear to wax and wane with volatile markets, CNBC reports August 31.
Recruitment firm Robert Walters told CNBC that it has seen a 50 percent increase in the number of roles related to blockchain or cryptocurrencies in Asia since 2017, noting that developers skilled in Python language programming are among the most coveted of applicants.
Data from job search engine Indeed's main Asian markets — comprising Australia, India, Singapore and Malaysia — reportedly reinforces that interest in blockchain and other crypto roles appears to have been more consistent among job-seekers than Bitcoin (BTC)-related positions. An Indeed spokeswoman told CNBC that:
"The situation in Asia seems to mirror the U.S. in that Bitcoin [job search] trends are much more volatile (and related to price volatility) and resulting media coverage while blockchain and cryptocurrency searches have seen a more consistent upwards trajectory."
Indeed’s data reveals that Bitcoin job interest in Asia trended lower after the coin fell off from its all-time-price highs last December, while blockchain industry interest has sustained a strong uptrend.
TenX’s Julian Hosp confirmed his start-up’s experience that “"[when] crypto is doing well...we get huge inbound from people [who] feel, 'I need to jump on this wave. And then when … crypto go[es] down — and we saw this at the very beginning [of 2018] and we're seeing this right now — people [think], 'Oh no, this is a dying industry, I shouldn't go in there.' So it's completely emotional."
Established financial firms, unlike crypto and blockchain startups, tell a slightly different story. Justin Chow, Asia head of business development at Cumberland, the crypto division of proprietary trading firm DRW, told CNBC that for capital markets professionals, price decline is “not a big issue.”
CNBC notes that in China — where a stringent government stance against cryptocurrencies is counterbalanced by an enthusiastic official endorsement of blockchain technology — regulatory climate is another major factor.
Wayne Zhu, a founding partner of the NEO Foundation’s venture capital arm, told CNBC that China’s strictly regulated capital market environment is pushing finance professionals into the crypto space: “people think, 'Where [can I] actually close deals, [where can I] actually help companies to get money, to get liquidity and the money they need to grow [my] business?'"
Earlier this summer, Cointelegraph launched a job listings platform for applicants to seek opportunities within the blockchain, fintech and crypto industries. | 4,775 |
manager wishes to make, Monk outlines what he expects from the attackers and midfielders in a training session where they will be working on the high-press, which essentially means trying to win the ball back as close to the opposition goal as possible.
The Swansea defender Federico Fernández takes part in pre-season training on the NordBord, which tests hamstring strength. Photograph: Dimitris Legakis/for the Guardian
The 10th day of pre-season may seem early for that sort of deep tactical session but Monk was working on getting his “concepts” across as soon as the players reported back – something that is made even more worthwhile in his eyes because Swansea were ahead of the game when it came to bringing in new signings.
He sets his exercise up on an area roughly half the size of a pitch, with a goal at each end, and makes sure the attackers and midfielders are always outnumbered by seven to six so it is realistic and challenging. The defenders start with the ball and Monk encourages the players up against them to press at the right time and in the right areas.
“We’ve been working on the high press all of last week and it will be all of this week as well. I’ve split it up, done it with just the front three, added the midfielders, I did the back four on Monday, then we’ll bring it all together. Going on through pre-season we’ll work on the medium block, a lower press and then a box defence, so we cover all the defensive concepts we’re working towards.”
As the forwards break off at the end to work with James Beattie, who joined the coaching staff this summer, Monk stands and watches while each player takes it in turn to shoot at goal after receiving the ball from seven different bases dotted around the penalty area.
It is now getting on for 6.30pm, another day’s training is coming to an end and the Swansea manager heads back to the changing room, removing the microphone he was wearing during the session. “That’s more for myself, just to make sure that I’m clear with my points, it’s about development of yourself, really,” he says. “I’ll watch the session back when I get home tonight, see if I repeated myself too much on one point, or if I gave the right information. The bottom line is they’ve got to go and deliver it, so it’s got to be spot on. It comes back to accountability. Make everyone as accountable as possible.” | 4,776 |
�.
65. Tell seductive stories to entice your audience in. People eat up stories like Cheerios. But make sure they’re relevant (e.g, the true story of someone whose life completely changed after using your service)
66. Don’t tell a random story. They should always have a connotational meaning, which promotes you, your product, your service or supports the point you’re making.
67. Avoid overused cliches like the Bird Flu.
68. But if you give a small twist to an overused phrase — you might find something original and refreshing. Try it.
69. Build up your offering before revealing it. Get your readers on the edge of their seats, eager to read on. Tell them that they’re about to discover something awesome. Something life-changing!
70. Say stuff like ‘The more you read, the more you’ll understand just how amazing…’ and ‘As you lap up every word of this web page, you’ll begin to discover new ways to…’ and ‘After reading this article, you’ll feel…’ and ‘Imagine how awesome it would be if…’. They’re hypnotic.
71. Be yourself. Let your personality dribble out through the ink of your pen (or the keyboard of your laptop).
72. “Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way” ~ Ray Bradbury
73. Include a PS. at the end. Some people skip straight to the PS. So leave them with a powerful or important statement.
74. Build up your portfolio and fine-tune your skills by taking The Freelance Copywriter Kickstarter Course.
75. Oh and — Repeat important points. Repetition is powerful 🙂
Right. I’ve run out of steam.
I hope you’ve enjoyed nibbling on this tasty selection of copywriting canapés, and learnt a thing or two along the way.
Have I missed out any crucial copywriting tips? Probably. So if you’ve got any more to add, please do it now in that purple box below. The more you comment, the happier I’ll be 🙂
Cheers!
Konrad
PS. Share this post now — and I’ll prepare some extra delicious copywriting treats for you next time (but if you don’t, I’ll probably sulk under my bed covers for a couple of months at least…) | 4,777 |
The Upper Nicola Band is hoping to build the largest solar farm in the province on its land in the southern Interior.
The community has partnered with Fortis BC to build a solar farm with 56,000 modules, each containing 72 solar cells, on the Quilchena reserve near Merritt, B.C. Fortis says the project will cost an estimated $30 million.
The proposed project will generate 15 megawatts, enough power for 5,000 homes and could earn between $3.5 and $4 million in revenue per year. The power will be sold into the provincial power grid.
"We want to be resourceful and doing things for ourselves," said Upper Nicola Chief Harvey McLeod.
However, the band still needs to vote on whether to allocate 400 hectares of the band's Quilchena reserve for economic development projects — half of which would go toward the solar farm.
The proposed solar farm would require 200 hectares of land on the Quilchena reserve. (Fortis BC)
McLeod says the council is encouraging their members to vote in favour of the project in the April referendum.
"We've had a number of discussions with our community already and they can see the vision that we've painted," he said.
A big part of making the vision a reality is the expertise from Fortis BC. In addition to providing part of the funding, the energy company will help with construction and operation of the project.
If built, this project will 15 times larger than the current largest solar farm in B.C.
"This is a different scale entirely and even better it's on First Nations land," said Fortis BC business development director, Grant Bierlmeier.
"It's a great complementary partnership. We bring the technical expertise and the business acumen in the energy industry, they bring resources in terms of the land, some labour."
Goal is to produce clean energy
McLeod says it's still unclear how many jobs the project will provide, but jobs weren't the main driver of the project.
"It wasn't so much the employment, it was the Upper Nicola community being involved with producing clean green energy," he said.
"We're all very excited about this opportunity."
McLeod says the band hopes to reach a deal with BC Hydro in the next few weeks over the price of the electricity the project would deliver.
If all goes according to plan, construction on the project could start as soon as spring of 2019.
With files from Daybreak Kamloops
For more stories about the Interior, check out the CBC Kamloops Facebook page. | 4,778 |
This saga has been going on for weeks now, and this is the ending??
Numerous reports have now suggested Inter Milan is preparing to offer Croatian striker Ivan Perisic a new contract. This would take him out of any transfer talk — of which most of the Nerazzurri’s mercato discussion has revolved around this summer season.
Football-Italia.net reported while Inter is looking at a new deal, Perisic wants to play at Old Trafford. The issue has been the price Inter is reportedly asking for.
That price has been anywhere between £44 million to £50 million and Jose Mourinho is not willing to pay that, choosing instead to try to leverage financial fair play to his favor, countering with a much lower offer.
The Nerazzurri have held to their asking price and have reportedly given Manchester United until the end of the week — when Inter has to recoup €30 million — to decide to either meet the terms or back away.
Of course, this brings a whole new set of issues, if the reports are true.
Inter has until Friday to find that €30 million or face an additional fine. Selling Perisic would have covered that even if Inter agreed to the Red Devil’s price.
Corriere dello Sport reported the Nerazzurri management “believes they can rise €30 million from other sales, they could offer a renewal to Perisic.”
Perisic’s contract runs into 2020 for €4 million per season. The new deal could extend that and raise the season pay closer to €5 million.
The question is whether Perisic will want to stay at the San Siro after all of this drama. He’s under contract, so what he wants is irrelevant. The worst-case scenario was that Perisic would play for Inter this season. The decision will be whether he will accept a different deal from the club.
Face it, after this debacle, Mourinho won’t likely be interested in January or next season for Perisic. Does the Croatian really just want out of Italy, or was it just the allure of playing in the Champions League with Manchester United? The other thing to consider is just what kind of playing time would Perisic get with the Red Devils? Odds are, not nearly as much as he will likely see this coming season for Inter.
Renegotiating his deal with the Nerazzurri is likely the best option. He will get higher pay and there is always the possibility of going elsewhere later down the road, if he and the club agree to that option. | 4,779 |
Christopher “Big Black” Boykin, who starred on MTV’s Rob & Big, has died.
Boykin, who starred opposite professional skateboarder Rob Dyrdek on the reality series, passed away on Tuesday morning (May 9) from a heart attack, a rep for Boykin confirms to PEOPLE.
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Image zoom Jason Merritt/Getty
The 6′ 6,” 375-lb. reality star appeared as Dyrdek’s bodyguard on 19 episodes of the MTV show from 2006-08, according to his IMDb profile, before the show abruptly ended following friction between the duo.
“It was a strange period,” Dyrdek said in a March 2016 interview with Graham Bensinger about the difficult period between himself and Boykin after the show’s end. “I had been a pro skateboarder for years, so me transitioning to mainstream fame was relatively smooth, right, where for him, the idea that man he was like working security two years earlier and now he’s on television, it was a much different dynamic. But I think we both struggled with I didn’t want to be known as like Rob from Rob & Big … and I think he didn’t want to be known for like the sidekick. So that created a lot of that tension between me and him.”
According to Dyrdek, the duo was “paid the same in that era.”
“I think it was more the fundamental struggle of wanting to not be so connected to each other,” Dyrdek added. “Ultimately, after we had a big blowout creatively over an idea … things were so tense at certain times — it’s funny now that I think about it — but we literally would film some of the funniest things that we have ever done and would be losing it and then walk away and not talk to each other. It was super, super bizarre.”
Boykin, 45, is survived by his daughter, 9-year-old Isis Rae Boykin.
“MTV is deeply saddened to learn the news of Christopher ‘Big Black’ Boykin’s passing,” an MTV spokesperson said in a statement, obtained by PEOPLE. “He was a longtime and beloved member of the MTV family and will be greatly missed. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends at this time.”
After learning about his passing, celebrities took to social media to remember Boykin. | 4,780 |
, and he went out set the football world on fire (I also think this occurred in part due to his famous competitiveness, which is another useful trait for LSAT success). And, ultimately, the opinions of the experts didn’t matter because they weren’t on the field; he was.
In the case of Thomas, our LSAT student, he was having some troubles shaking off the comments and views of others (and this is understandable—it’s hard to ignore other people telling you that you can’t do something). But, as he and I discussed, the people telling him he couldn’t do it weren’t going to be taking the test for him. He was taking the test, and whatever they thought was irrelevant to his actions.
Breaking Expectations
In that vein, we discussed how what he had already done had beaten the expectations of others. He started at 143, and if you ask most people if someone with a starting score of 143 can hit the mid-160s, the answer is no, it probably won’t happen (that’s not my answer, however). Against expectations Thomas had already achieved that, and now he was pretty close to 170. But, he remained uncertain as to whether he could make it the rest of the way, in part because people had told him he couldn’t make it to 170.
The point I relayed to him was that, if 20 years ago you asked a panel of NFL experts whether a 6th round draft choice was going to become one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history, they would have uniformly said no, it was extremely unlikely. Yet, that very thing happened. In Thomas’ case, he’s already done something that most people didn’t think he could do, so what was stopping him from going just a little bit further?
In your life, you’ll always have someone telling you that you can’t do something or that you don’t have the ability. Screw those people. They aren’t the ones taking the LSAT for you or living your life, and the only limitations you have are the ones you impose upon yourself. So ignore the negative things people say, focus on working hard towards your goal, and maintain a steadfast confidence and belief that you can do it. By doing so you will increase your chances of success, and actually make it more likely to happen.
By the way, this article is called Tom Brady and the LSAT, so has Tom Brady ever taken the test? I don’t know, but if he did, I bet he’d destroy it. | 4,781 |
When people hear the name of crypto assets, what comes in mind is stuff like, blockchain, investments or fintechs. But, hey what about the least boring options offered by cryptocurrencies? Cryptos have reached to almost every sectors, one of the recent adoptions of digital currency is made by the nightclubs, especially in Tokyo, Japan.
Those Night clubs which are considered as best of its kind in Tokyo, are looking to enable payments in Bitcoin cash. The highly rated night clubs in the region are planning to deploy Bitcoin cash in their payment process from April. The owner of a massive luxury lounge named Mezzo has stepped into a deal with Akane Yokoo, a BCH enthusiast. The deal is regarding the adoption of crypto in night clubs.
As a result of this deal, crypto owners in Tokyo can have fun in the leading night clubs with the use of Bitcoin Cash BCH. This move is expected to make nightlife in Tokyo easier yet more exciting. Notably, Mezzo’s owner holds the most popular night clubs in Tokyo. He has agreed to initiate accepting Bitcoin cash for the night clubs. As part of the deal, V2, Ele, Villa, and Mezzo’s cafe named Ruby will be allowing BCH for payments. From April, these places will be offering drinks and amenities using BCH for payments. Also, at Mezzo, BCH payment option is already available for meals, drinks, and services.
Remarkably, Japan has been famous for the fact that it is the third most popular region which accepts BCH, especially through retailers. Japan has about 57 different merchants who accept BCH for payments, apart from these four-night clubs. Yokoo, the BCH believer, talks about Mezzo luxury lounge noting that it is the hottest bars in the region. Sometimes, BCH meetups in Tokyo were also hosted at Mezzo. Additionally, Mezzo uses Bitcoin.com wallet also, to accept BCH. Yokoo added that he is quite excited to witness more BCH adoption by the biggest clubs in Tokyo.
About the First Night Club Which Accepts Cryptocurrency
Peter Klamka, an Entrepreneur, had pioneered MORE Las Vegas, the first-ever cryptocurrency nightclub. One can enjoy VIP service and private seating at the MORE club in the Bellagio Hotel and Casino’s Hyde room using MORE coin. Here, for the entry, it requires 5000 MORE coins, that can be acquired by trading Bitcoin, Ethereum, or other crypto assets on Bittrex, a crypto exchange platform. There are also other casino which are planning for casino games with Bitcoin Cash Faucet.
In 2018, Klamka said, | 4,782 |
Honda and Toivonen inspire first half blitz as Victory beat Roar in six-goal classic
Melbourne Victory defeated 10-man Brisbane Roar 4-2 in a Hyundai A-League classic on Friday night.
This is a fixture that usually delivers high drama, and with Cyclone Owen marauding the Queensland capital the possibility of a freak result may always have been on the cards.
And although it took a while for the heavens to open, the floodgates were unlocked and a crazy opening half ignited via Kosta Barbaouses’ crisp 13th minute volley.
The flashpoint of a fiercely contested affair occurred early on, when Eric Bautheac was dismissed for two yellow cards in quick succession – one accrued for a dangerous sliding challenge on Corey Brown, and the other awarded for the Frenchman’s role in the melee that ensued.
WATCH FOR FREE: How to watch the Hyundai A-League LIVE and FREE
RE-LIVE: All the goals and talking points from Victory-Roar thriller
ANALYSIS: Victory's deadly trio sparking breathtaking displays
HAVE YOUR SAY: Vote for your Hyundai A-League Goal of the Month in November
That gave John Aloisi’s side a big mountain to climb against the reigning Hyundai A-League Champions, but Adam Taggart’s equaliser from the penalty spot midway through the first half brought the contest level.
However, Victory turned on the style and were soon cruising following Ola Toivonen’s emphatic first-time finish from Brown’s whipped delivery and Keisuke Honda’s coolly measured spot-kick.
The prolific Swede Toivonen rustled the back of his own net after heading Alex Lopez’s free-kick past Lawrence Thomas, but it would not offer any semblance of a route back into the match for the hosts.
Roar have not won any of the five matches in which they have conceded the first goal this season, and that fact was rammed home when Barbarouses finished off a slick Victory corner routine to make it 4-2 on the stroke of half time.
Both teams arrived back into the fray for a more measured and controlled second stanza, which led to few chances for both sides as the rain teemed down at Suncorp Stadium.
Carl Valeri and Terry Antonis went closest for the visitors, who kept things ticking over methodically after the turbo-fuelled whirlwind of the opening half.
Victory have now won six in a row, equalling their second-best winnings streak in club history. | 4,783 |
't worry about whether the Facebook IPO is creating an economic bubble. The real bubble are the billions of delusional social media bubbles which are distorting our real sense of self and weakening genuine social interaction.
So what to do?
It's time to wake up to the truth about social media. Networks like Facebook have turned us into products in which their only economic value is our personal data. Like any other addiction, we need recognize its destructive reality. Facebook is free because it sells our most intimate data to advertisers. Forget about last week's dodgy IPO. The fraud is on anyone who has ever used Facebook.
Last year, I quit Facebook. It's a growing movement. I hope you'll consider joining me as a Facebook resistor.
But the solution goes beyond leaving Facebook. Our addiction to digital narcissism can only be broken by a new regime of strict self-censorship. For many of us, perpetually high on the narcotic of self-broadcast, this won't be any easier than quitting smoking or kicking that online porn or gaming habit. But remember, the less we publicly announce about ourselves, the more mysterious and thus the more interesting our private selves become.
There are political solutions too. We need to support governments in both the E.U. and the U.S. to protect online privacy through "do not track" legislation; force companies like Google to be more transparent with their use of our data and even enshrine, as the EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding is bravely championing, a "law of forgetting" on the Internet
The market can also play a role. Let's embrace new technology which allows data to degenerate over time so our online data, like real world trash, eventually decomposes.
Let's support Internet start-ups like the strictly private social network EveryMe and the defiantly private search engine DuckDuckGo. And let's recognize, once and for all, that "free" is never really free and that we are much better off paying for apps and services that absolutely guarantee the protection of our private personal data.
At the dawn of our brave new networked 21st century world, we are faced with two options. Either, we succumb to the narcotic of digital narcissism, turn ourselves inside out and let our kids inherit a world in which the quiet mystery of the disciplined private self becomes a historical artifact. Or we fight our growing addiction to social media so that we are no longer enslaved to the personal update, the tweet or the check-in.
Privacy or publicness? It's not a hard choice. Zuck-up or save the species. I trust you'll know which one to make. | 4,784 |
Seven people on board a cruise ship that docked in Tauranga this morning have the flu or gastroenteritis, not the Covid-19 coronavirus, the Ministry of Health says.
Photo: CC BY-SA 4.0
Passengers and crew were prohibited from leaving the Voyager of the Seas at Vanuatu and New Caledonia due to coronavirus concerns and it has diverted to Tauranga.
Health officials boarded the ship this morning to assess the sick people, before allowing other passengers to disembark.
The Ministry of Health said standard processes had been followed. "These people are being managed appropriately," its statement said. "Our current assessment is that there is no risk from Covid-19."
Read more about the Covid-19 coronavirus:
Tourism Bay of Plenty chief executive Kristen Dunne said staff were at the port speaking to people as they left the ship.
"Everyone was in really good spirits. We met some wonderful people and everyone was just trying to make the most of a situation that had changed on them and they were very happy to be somewhere warm and welcoming today."
The ship is expected to leave this evening for the Bay of Islands.
Health Minister David Clark said earlier the ship's captain had followed the requirement to make ports aware of any health concerns.
"Members of the public can be reassured we're confident it's not Covid-19," he told Morning Report.
Tauranga Mayor Tenby Powell said he found out last night the ship was due to arrive.
"I'm very conscious for Tauranga residents that we've got more 65-plus-year-olds here than in any other city in New Zealand and we know that coronavirus affects the elderly, the infirm and the sick.
"But this is not coronavirus... I think we need to remain calm and I think we need to listen to our health professionals," he told RNZ's First Up.
"The Bay of Plenty DHB have extremely good systems and processes in place.
He said the Voyager of the Seas was going around Australia and the South Pacific, and the members who were sick joined the vessel in September or October last year.
"As I understand it, they [the seven crew] have been isolated and any passengers showing symptoms of the illness on board will be isolated themselves.
"What I'm asking the health officials to do is ensure that we are safe and I would ask that they don't take any risk, Powell told First Up.
Tourism Bay of Plenty said it had complete confidence in the steps taken to mitigate risk | 4,785 |
[no spoilers]
Santa Clarita Diet is Netflix’s brand spanking new RomZomCom series starring Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant, directed by Zombieland‘s Ruben Fleischer (for the first few episodes).
Barrymore and Olyphant’s chemistry is wonderful to watch, even as Sheila (Barrymore) mysteriously turns into a flesh eating machine. Her preferred diet is meat. Human meat. Some of Santa Clarita Diet has shades of of iZombie, but Santa Clarita Diet is much darker, with the dark comedy that comes with it.
To complicate matters for the couple (along with their daughter Abbey– played by Liv Hewson), and an interesting plot mechanism, is the fact that the family lives between two police officers, in their nice all-American home in their nice all-American suburban neighborhood. On the one side is Richardo Chavira (who plays police officer Dan Palmer)– the typical VERY-annoying nosey neighbor, and on the other side is Richard T. Jones (who plays police officer Rick)– the boyscout-cop: decent, reliable, a good neighbor, and who has a penchant for getting stoned with his good buddy (Olyphant).
Sheila and Joel are realtors, who work together as a team. Of course, the zombification of one half of that team quickly cramps their selling styles as Sheila descends into full zombie mode. A vomiting scene while showing off the plush white carpet in the master bedroom to potential buyers is epic!
While Barrymore is the big draw, Olyphant practicality steals almost every scene he’s in. Who knew he had such comedic chops– from his wide-eyed horror to his ultimate acceptance that life as he knew it would never be the same. His dear wife needs fresh human flesh, and by God she’s going to get fresh human flesh. We all know what that means.
Fortunately Santa Clarita Diet doesn’t hold back on the gore, with most of the humor based on Sheila’s snacking and consumption habits. Unfortunately the show starts to lose some steam toward the middle of the premiere season. To be fair, I haven’t made it to the end of the first season, so maybe it’ll find another gear. There is some clever dialogue, but I’m not sure how long the existing plot can sustain itself.
But nevertheless, if you have Netflix, looking for some zombie-ish entertainment, and are fans of Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant, it’s worth a look. | 4,786 |
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The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has expelled almost 40,000 Pakistani migrant workers in the last four months, local media has reported.
Over 39,000 people have been deported since October 2016 over visa violations and security concerns, the Saudi Gazette reported, citing unnamed interior ministry officials. As well as crimes including drug trafficking, forgery and theft, an unknown number of those removed from the country were suspected to have links to Isis and other extremist groups, the paper said.
The alleged mass deportations come after a year of strikes and other unrest in the kingdom due to unpaid wages following the oil market’s decline and subsequent blow to the Saudi economy.
Official Saudi statistics say that 243,000 Pakistanis were deported between 2012 - 2015. Mass deportations of migrant workers - which Human Rights Watch and other rights organisations say often involve illegal beatings and detainment in poor conditions - are fairly common.
2010 census figures show that 8.5 million of Saudi Arabia's 27 million strong population, or around 30 per cent, are foreign nationals.
According to a 2014 European University Institute report, there are approximately 900,000 people of Pakistani nationality currently employed in Saudi Arabia’s vast construction industry and other low-paid service jobs.
In Mecca in January, dozens of expatriate workers, mostly from poor Asian and Middle Eastern countries, were beaten and jailed over public protests against unpaid salaries that turned violent.
While the Philippines and India have also seen hundreds of thousands of citizens returned home after lay-offs in Saudi Arabia, the deportation of Pakistani workers has been mainly driven by security concerns, the New Arab reported.
Several prominent Saudi politicians, including Abdullah Al-Sadoun, chair of the security committee of the country’s Shura Council, have called for tougher screening processes for Pakistani nationals before they are allowed entry into the country.
“Pakistan itself is plagued with terrorism due to its close proximity with Afghanistan. The Taliban extremist movement was itself born in Pakistan,” he said.
Approximately 80 Pakistani nationals are currently in prison in Saudi Arabia charged with terror or security related offences.
In 2016, 35-year-old Abdullah Gulzar Khan, a Pakistani citizen who had lived and worked in Saudi Arabia legally for the previous 12 years, blew himself up in a suicide attack near the US consulate in Jeddah. No other injuries were reported in the incident.
Two Pakistani nationals as well as one Sudanese and one Syrian were also arrested for allegedly planning a terror attack on a football match between the kingdom and the United Arab Emirates in Jeddah’s Al-Jawhara Stadium last year.
Courtesy The Independent | 4,787 |
Deliveroo riders from Manchester went on strike to protest against 'cuts to pay and poor working conditions'.
Self-employed staff held a four hour walkout from 11am to 3pm.
A protest march was also held from Ancoats through the city centre.
Video footage shows about 40 cyclists, moped riders pedestrians taking part, many holding banners aloft and beeping horns as they march along Portland Street.
Similar protests were also held on Thursday in Bristol and Bournemouth.
(Image: ABNM Photography)
The striking riders are calling for a minimum payment of £5 per delivery and £8 for a double order; a £1 payment for every additional mile travelled; no deliveries outside Manchester city centre; and for motorbike riders to be given the same access to orders as cyclists.
One Manchester Deliveroo rider taking part - who gave his name only as Zahid - said: “We are going on strike for at least £5 a delivery to cover the cost of living, and to provide for accidents and illnesses.
"The money we make per delivery is decreasing at a time when inflation increases."
Andy Nesbitt, north west area organiser for the Industrial Workers of the World trade union, helped the riders organise the protest.
(Image: Paul Jackson)
He claimed many Deliveroo staff were currently earning less than £5 a hour, adding: "The majority of the city centre Deliveroo riders took part today. It was really good.
"Many Deliveroo riders earn less than the minimum hourly wage for 18-year-olds. We're giving them a fortnight to respond to our demands before we consider further action.
"We call on Deliveroo to listen and act on these demands and to do the right thing by their riders."
Deliveroo chiefs said 'only about 15 to 20 riders' were present, plus various other union reps, and that the strike didn't affect services.
"Deliveroo is proud that it creates well-paid flexible work across Manchester which allows riders to choose when and where to work and to be their own bosses," a spokesman said.
"Riders make on average over £10 an hour with Deliveroo, and earnings rose throughout 2018.
"Deliveroo listens carefully to rider feedback and works hard to address any issues raised in our regular help hubs, and we will continue to engage across Manchester, improving the rider experience at every chance we get.
"We respect the right of individuals to protest, but their actions are unrepresentative riders in Manchester, of which the vast majority will be out delivering amazing meals to customers." | 4,788 |
Israel on Saturday afternoon announced the closure of the Erez and Kerem Shalom crossings between Gaza and Israel, as well as the fishing zone off the coast of the Palestinian enclave, in response to the firing of over 150 rockets at Israel.
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the Defense Ministry body responsible for liaising with the Palestinians, announced that the closures would be until further notice.
An average of 1,000 Gazans cross through Erez each day, mostly those in need of medical care but also businesspeople, students, and others, according to Israeli authorities.
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The Kerem Shalom crossing is used for transporting goods.
Last month, the fishing zone was expanded after Israel and Hamas reached an unofficial Egyptian-brokered ceasefire agreement, under which terror groups in the Strip would scale back violence along the Gaza border in exchange for economic and humanitarian concessions by Israel.
IDF Spokesman Ronen Manelis told Channel 13 news that it was decided on Friday that, “it would be impossible to continue accepting the situation that Hamas is not controlling Islamic Jihad while Israel has responded positively to the arrangement.”
One of the first steps by Jerusalem last month was the expansion of the Gaza fishing zone from six nautical miles to 15 — a level that the coastal enclave has not seen in over a decade. The zone was reduced on Tuesday in response to the rocket fire from the Strip the night before.
Fishing is a significant source of revenue for Gaza. The size of the fishing zone has varied over the years, having been set at 20 nautical miles by the Oslo Accords of the 1990s before being reduced by Israeli authorities.
Over 150 rockets were launched at Israeli communities from the Strip since Saturday morning, with thousands of Israelis forced into shelters throughout multiple towns and cities near Gaza, including Rehovot, Ashkelon, Ashdod and Sderot.
At 3 p.m. sirens sounded for the first time as far as Beit Shemesh, a city 20 kilometers (12 miles) west of Jerusalem.
A woman, aged around 50, was in serious condition after being hit by shrapnel from a rocket in Kiryat Gat, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) northeast of the Gaza Strip. A man was moderately injured by shrapnel in the coastal city of Ashkelon.
Shortly after 3 p.m. the army said fighter jets and tanks had struck 30 “terror targets” in the Strip belonging to the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups. The operations were ongoing. | 4,789 |
Theta Network, made with pride in the Bay Area
After 15 months of development, 9 months running the Theta testnet, 1,433 GitHub commits, who knows how many Telegram messages, and 3 live testnet channels on SLIVER.tv, MBN, and Samsung VR, we are finally ready to launch the Theta mainnet in just 7 days! Here’s a final summary of important instructions and dates:
Existing Theta Token holders: On Tuesday, March 12th at approximately 7pm UTC, we will take a snapshot of the Ethereum blockchain to determine the addresses to receive Theta Tokens on the Theta mainnet. The exact time the snapshot will take place is at Ethereum block height 7,356,258. You will need to store your existing ERC20 Theta Tokens in either the Theta wallet (available on web, Android OS and Apple iOS), or a supporting exchange like Binance, UPbit, Bithumb, Gate.io, DigiFinex, or Huobi.
For every ERC20 Theta Token you hold at the time of the snapshot, you will receive 1:1 native Theta Tokens on the new blockchain. In addition, you’ll receive Theta Fuel, the operational or ‘gas’ token of the Theta blockchain — 5 Theta Fuel for every Theta Token you hold. Make sure you have your Theta Tokens in a supporting wallet or exchange before the March 12th snapshot!
On March 15th, we will officially launch the Theta mainnet, and you’ll receive your Theta Tokens and Theta Fuel. We’re proud that we can finally put the Theta blockchain to work, letting users on SLIVER.tv and all our current and future partner platforms earn token rewards for contributing to the Theta Network. We’ve got a lot more in store for 2019, which we’ll reveal in our 2019 Roadmap on Monday.
We want to give a special thanks to everyone in the Theta community who have supported the team and the Theta project. There’s been a lot of ups and downs in the blockchain space over the last year, but we appreciate all the kind words and support you’ve given us along the way. We hope you’ll continue to work alongside us going forward, whether it’s sharing video on a Theta-powered site, running a node and securing the network, or just stopping by our social channels to say hi. Thanks for everything, and we’ll see you on the other side on the Theta mainnet!
Cheers,
The Theta team | 4,790 |
City Manager Howard Chan on Wednesday released the City’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2019/20, which bolsters and expands core city services such as public safety and park maintenance while also focusing on the City Council’s commitment to inclusive economic development and increased youth programming.
“I am proud to offer this balanced budget, one that combines and prioritizes our city’s values of inclusive growth and the delivery of quality community services,” Chan said.
The budget, which represents the City’s proposed financial plan for the upcoming year, totals $1.2 billion for operations and capital improvement projects and reflects an increase of $64.8 million or 6% compared to the FY2018/19 approved budget. The combined General Fund and Measure U fund budget of $588.5 million represents an increase of $53.3 million or 10% compared to the prior year approved budget. The Measure U fund reflects new revenues from the sales tax increase approved by voters in November 2018.
“With the passage of the expanded Measure U sales tax, Sacramento voters demonstrated their desire to invest more in their city’s future,” said Chan, adding that the newly formed Measure U Advisory Committee, consisting of community members, will work in tandem with City staff to make recommendations to the City Council on how best to program the funding for equitable economic development. The committee’s first meeting is scheduled for April 29, 2019.
Last fall’s voter approval of Measure U authorized the extension and expansion of the City’s Measure U sales tax from a half cent to a full cent effective April 1, 2019. The half-cent Measure U tax generated approximately $47 million a year. The full-cent is projected to generate approximately $97 million a year.
“The City stands steadfast in its commitment to empower youth, strengthen neighborhoods and help residents of all ages realize and reach their fullest potential,” Chan said.
Because of thoughtful planning, deliberate use of resources and creative partnerships, the City’s budget forecast is balanced over the next five fiscal years, Chan said. Nevertheless, “it is important to keep in mind that Sacramento, like most California municipalities, continues to face aging infrastructure, increased retirement costs and other obligations, which put pressure on our finances,” he said.
The proposed budget can be found on the City’s website: www.cityofsacramento.org
The budget will go through a series of committee meetings and hearings to solicit input and feedback from Councilmembers, constituents and other stakeholders. The vote for its adoption is scheduled for June 11, 2019. Here is the complete schedule: | 4,791 |
Almost a year after the original announcement at WWDC 2014, Apple has opened access to App Analytics in iTunes Connect today.
Sarah Perez, writing for TechCrunch:
Ahead of its annual WWDC developer conference in June, Apple has opened up beta access to a new mobile app analytics service aimed at iOS developers. Simply called “Apple’s App Analytics,” an announcement inviting developers to request early access to the service appeared today on the iTunes Connect developer portal. Those with an iTunes Connect account can also reach the sign-up page using the direct link analytics.itunes.apple.com.
App Analytics are available for devices running iOS 8 and above, and the usage data part is completely opt-in. Every time you set up a new iOS device (or upgrade to iOS 8), you’re asked if you want to share information with app developers to improve their apps through analytics. Other App Store metrics (views, installs, etc.) are returned for all users.
Based on the tweets I saw in my timeline today, first impressions seem positive. Apple can now give developers a level of insight that’s unprecedented for any other app analytic platform. Apple’s App Analytics can plug directly into the App Store and tell developers how customers find their apps, where traffic is coming from, and how many views an app gets on the Store.
iTunes Connect Analytics are such an incredible resource to have now. Feel like we were blind and now we see. — Merek Davis (@Merekdavis) April 30, 2015
Got in to App Store Analytics. Really impressed so far. VERY helpful info. Finally, we will know what marketing is worth it and what is not — Jeremy Olson (@jerols) April 30, 2015
This Analytics thing is pretty cool. Can finally get good data of where sales are coming from. pic.twitter.com/r8iFVMPpZ5 — Paul Haddad (@tapbot_paul) April 30, 2015
App Store Analytics has some great data but does not report sources from inside the App Store (eg featured categories, search queries) — Benjamin Mayo (@bzamayo) April 30, 2015
Looks like, from the analytics, that people use PCalc a lot less at the weekends. Do they have lives or something? pic.twitter.com/BTGi2cjCP9 — James Thomson (@jamesthomson) April 30, 2015
After years of no data about customer behavior on the App Store, it seems like this will be a massive change for how apps are marketed, optimized for international App Stores, and presented to users. | 4,792 |
In this image-obsessed world, everyone struggles with self-esteem at some point. But in Brooklyn, NY, your local landlord, Frank Langone, has proven his abilities to channel a high self-regard. He won’t turn on the heat no matter what the haters say.
And by haters, we’re referring to you going to sleep wearing a hat and socks.
According to sources, this 52-year-old, Williamsburg-born-and-raised legend refuses to supply your apartment with heat, even in sub-zero weather. Why? Because he knows who he is and cuts the toxicity from his life, even if that toxicity is you sending a midnight text that you may have frostbite.
When pressed for comments about the heat, this absolute badass said, “I’ll look into it.”
And guess what? He never did. That’s powerful.
Like many heroes, Frank faces so much adversity, yet bravely, he pushes through it. So what if residents of his building send him eight consecutive emails with the subject “URGENT”? So what if each email contains various iterations of “Frank, this is unethical and wrong.” And so what if Frank’s lack of response spurred you to buy a space heater that caught on fire and led to a “thing” with your roommates?
Frank leaves the drama on read.
And not only is Frank badass in the winter, he’s badass all year round. He’s so confident in who he is, he refuses to respond to broken toilets, power outages, and a front door that’s not locking properly.
Think about it. Would you rather have a #confident landlord who refuses to pay ConEdison an extra $15 a month, or an insecure landlord who makes your apartment more habitable? A recent survey found that most tenants would much rather have a landlord who loves himself, even if that means a Google history filled with “how do I break my lease?”
So when you’re feeling small, or weak, or inadequate, think about Frank. Think about this man who is so self-esteem goals he destroys the haters, first by refusing to address his building’s rampant mice problem, and then by upping the rent by $250. Is he a good landlord? One hundred percent no. But does he have the poise and power of Beyonce? One-hundred percent yes! And at the end of the day, isn’t that really the only thing that matters? | 4,793 |
A new study of the Kitchener-Waterloo real estate market shows that homes in at least half of the neighbourhoods in the two cities are within the realm of affordability.
The study, which was released by Zoocasa Thursday morning, looked at the median household income compared with how much the household would need to earn to buy a home in 31 neighbourhoods within the two cities.
In Kitchener, half of the 18 neighbourhoods the study looked at were considered to be affordable while in Waterloo the number was just above 50 per cent (seven of 13.)
READ MORE: Kitchener-Waterloo home prices see double-digit increase in May, according to KWAR
The most affordable neighbourhood in the city of Kitchener was Victoria Hills, which saw a median home sales figure of $405,550 between January and May. With average household income in the area coming in at $70,774, Zoocasa says this would allow an income surplus of $13,017.
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On the flip side of the coin, few in Kitchener would be surprised to see the Hidden Valley/Pioneer Tower neighbourhood topping the other end of the list. Homes in the area were sold for an average of $1.115 million, almost a half million dollars more than the runner-up, which was Chicopee/Freeport ($640,000.)
The price of a home in Hidden Valley/Pioneer Tower was also well above the most expensive neighbourhood in Waterloo.
READ MORE: How Chinese gangs are laundering drug money through Vancouver real estate
Homes in Upper Beachwood were sold for an average of $860,000. With Waterloo having an average family household income of $83,045, this would create an income deficit of $39,656.
At the other end of Waterloo’s spectrum were the neighbourhoods of Uptown Waterloo/Northport (445,000) and Bridgeport ($445,100).
For the purposes of the study, Zoocasa assumed there would be a 20 per cent down payment with a mortgage of 3.75 per cent with a 30-year amortization period.
READ MORE: Will it crash? Here’s what to expect from the Canadian housing market in 2019
Marcia Fukudome, a Zoocasa realtor in the region, has some words of advice for those who are priced out of the market: if a detached home is out of your price range, then consider a semi, townhome or condo.
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For a full list of the affordability of freehold homes in Kitchener and Waterloo, see the below lists. | 4,794 |
for the HDP!” she said.
Some 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) away, the scene of the third bombing, Kizilay Square, was unprecedented. It was around 6:30 p.m., rush hour, the time at which the bombers had struck. Ankara’s main juncture — through which some 1 million people pass on a normal day — looked almost unrecognizable with so few people. One could even count the pedestrians waiting at traffic lights. The shattered storefronts facing the explosion remained covered.
Farther uptown, Tunali Hilmi, one of Ankara’s liveliest avenues, lacked both its pedestrian throngs and traffic crawling at the pace of a turtle. More than half of the shops were closed. In the ones that remained open, one could discern only gloom, making one ask, “Where is this going to end?”
The entertainment sector has also been badly hit. Irfan Demirkol, owner of the largest cinema in the Kizilay area, told Al-Monitor, “No one came on the first day [after the blast], so we canceled all the screenings. It’s the second day that we’ve closed all the halls again. We are waiting for the fear and panic to pass. After the previous bombings, it took three or four days. The bus stop, where the blast occurred, is used both by our employees and customers. This alone can explain how frightened we are. This is not about personal or corporate concerns, but we want the country to be a safe place because small businesses suffer the most.”
Orhan Karsak, who owns a plaza with more than 100 shops in Kizilay, said, “Shopkeepers can’t do business because people are staying at home. As a result, they start asking for rent discounts or expect sacrifices from employees. We had just begun to return to normal after the second blast, and now we are back to ground zero.” The government should activate support facilities designed for extraordinary circumstances, he stressed, “or else small shopkeepers will crash.”
The regional manager of a popular retail chain, who requested anonymity, said, “Everyone is in a panic. Friends are calling to urge me to stay at home, speaking of bomb alerts. The real danger, however, is that people seem to acquiesce to this state of affairs. Same with us. We are supposed to call clients and make sales, but one feels psychological pressure, like ‘What am I after?’ The customers’ return to the shopping malls will take much longer this time.” | 4,795 |
Zero balance account in SBI: BSBD account can be opened by any individual by taking up KYC verification.
State Bank of India (SBI) offers a special type of savings bank account, known as the basic savings bank deposit or BSBD account. A zero balance savings account, the BSBD account does not require the customer to ensure any particular balance. However, withdrawals from this account are limited. The BSBD account - offered by SBI - comes with a free debit-cum-ATM card and a passbook without any charge, according to SBI's corporate website - sbi.co.in. SBI's BSBD account can be opened by any individual by taking up KYC (Know Your Customer) verification. (Also read: How to set up a zero balance savings accounts in India Post Payments Bank)
Here are some details about SBI's zero balance account:
Mode of operation
One can open SBI's BSBD account singly, jointly, or on an either or survivor basis.
Interest rates
SBI offers the same interest rates on deposits in BSBD accounts as applicable to regular savings bank accounts. Customers with Rs 1 lakh or more in their savings account earn an interest of 3.25 per cent, whereas those with less than Rs 1 lakh in their savings bank accounts earn interest at the rate of 3.50 per cent, according to the SBI website.
Benefits
A basic RuPay ATM-cum-debit card is issued free of cost and no annual maintenance charge is applied. The receipt/ credit of money through electronic payment channels like NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer) /RTGS (real time gross settlement) is free. The deposit/ collection of cheques drawn by central/ state governments is also free for holders of such account. There is no charge on activation of inoperative accounts and closure of accounts, according to SBI's website.
Withdrawal limit
A maximum of 4 withdrawals in a month is allowed in case of a BSBD account, including ATM withdrawals at own and other bank's ATMs and transactions through other mode including RTGS/NEFT/clearing/branch cash withdrawal/transfer/internet debits/standing instructions/EMI, etc. No further customer debits are allowed during the month, according to SBI's website.
Condition
The customer cannot have any other savings bank account with the bank if he/she holds a Basic Savings Bank Deposit (BSBD) account. If the customer already has a savings bank account, the same will have to be closed within 30 days of opening a BSBD account, according to the SBI website. | 4,796 |
コンテンツはあくまでも利用者の個人使用のみのためにロイターのコラムニストによって提供されているものであって、商用目的のために提供されているものではありません。このドキュメントの当コンテンツは、投資活動を勧誘又は誘引するものではなく、また当コンテンツを取引又は売買を行う際の意思決定の目的で使用することは適切ではありません。当コンテンツは投資助言となる投資、税金、法律等のいかなる助言も提供せず、また、特定の金融の個別銘柄、金融投資あるいは金融商品に関するいかなる勧告もしません。このドキュメントの使用は、資格のある投資専門家の投資助言に取って代わるものではありません。ロイターはコンテンツの信頼性を確保するよう合理的な努力をしていますが、コラムニストによって提供されたいかなる見解又は意見は当該コラムニスト自身の見解や分析であって、ロイターの見解、分析ではありません。 | 4,797 |
We have had an amazing time providing a fun place for people of all ages to come together to unwind and spend time with friends and family, but we have decided the time has come for us to say goodbye.
We are sad to announce the closing of Pizza Putt.
Pizza Putt is officially CLOSED permanently.
We are sad to announce the closing of Pizza Putt.
We have had an amazing time providing a fun place for people of all ages to come together to unwind and spend time with friends and family, but we have decided the time has come for us to say goodbye.
Play Structure:
Vermont’s largest indoor soft play structure is packed with many unique features including slides, rope ladders, swinging platforms and more to keep the little ones entertained for hours!
Mini Golf:
Our 9-hole indoor mini golf course features a Wonders of the World theme and offers both fun and challenging play for all ages and skill levels.
Lazer Tag:
Our Glow in the Dark Lazer Tag arena has recently been updated and now offers an exciting menu of different objective-based play to choose from.
Mini Bowling:
Two lanes of mini-bowling featuring electronic automatic scoring and pin indicators. Fun for all ages …. It’s like modern candle pin bowling with smaller bowling balls and pins. Gutter rails for the tikes and many fun variations of games for the adults.
Bumper Cars:
They’re back and better than ever!
Batting Cage:
Practice your swing, or just have a ball in our fun and challenging Batting Cage!
Video Game Arcades:
We are constantly adding New Games to our Arcades and feature some of the newest and exciting games on the market today! We have a wide variety of immersive video games, including a roller coaster simulator, many large racing simulators which move to the action, and many different carnival style games! From air hockey games to ticket-winning games we have something to delight and challenge everyone from children to adults!
For a limited time come experience the giant 4 Player Halo Fireteam Raven ….. the only one in Vermont!!!!!!
Ticket Game Arcades:
Nothing beats the excitement of playing to win! We have more Ticket-bearing games throughout our arcade than anywhere in VT, for children and adults alike including DC Comics, Giant Space Invaders, Fruit Ninja, Circus Ball drop, Fish Bowl Frenzy, Quick Drop, Willy Crash, classic Skee-Ball games and more. Win tickets and claim prizes from THE LARGEST Prize Center in VT. | 4,798 |
The GBX team made their way to the True Global Ventures (TGV) event, co-organised with the GBX, entitled ‘Disruption in Financial Services.’ This event in the series was held in the International Commerce Centre (ICC) in Hong Kong.
As with all TGV events, the focus was on understanding fintech trends and future projections of what financial institutions might look like, coupled with showcases of innovative growing startups and great networking opportunities, with Chatham house rules applied.
The two-day event was packed with thought leaders from the industry. The opening address was delivered by Dušan Stojanović, Director and Founder of True Global Ventures. David Wang, Executive Director (Asia) at GBX, participated on the panel titled ‘The Past, the Present and the Future of Private Markets.’
David Wang commented on the panel, stating: “It was my pleasure and honour to be on a panel run by Benedicte Nolens, former regulator at the SFC, and joined by Lukas Petrikas, Co-Head of Innovation at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, as well as Kristi Swartz, Managing Partner at Bryan Cave, to discuss the potential and challenges that blockchain & DLT bring to the exchange business.”
There were many interesting discussions from blockchain entertainment as well as some fireside chats with key voices such as Tim Draper, Founder and Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson from San Francisco. There were some well-known firms in attendance with representatives from KrowdMentor, Bountysource and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
GBX would like to thank everyone that participated in yet another successful Disruption in Financial Services event — we look forward to the next one.
Remember, you can follow us on any of our online channels:
Website: https://gbx.gi
Medium blog: https://medium.com/@Gibraltar.Blockchain.Exchange
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/18286558/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GibBlockEx/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GibBlockEx
Telegram: https://t.me/GBXCommunity
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/GBXCommunity/
BitcoinTalk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2684176.msg27421066#msg27421066
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/GibraltarBlockchainExchange | 4,799 |
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