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Good news, Windows laptop users! Microsoft has just announced that trackpad gestures are getting a makeover in Windows 10. Sure, you’ve been able to tap and swipe with Windows before, but some of the more advanced gestures we’ve seen in Mac OS X are now making their way into Microsoft’s extremely popular operating system. It’s definitely borrowing heavily from Apple, but that shouldn’t matter for end users. This is a big jump forward in Windows usability on trackpads, so it’s worth stealing a little bit of “magic” from Apple.
Earlier today, Microsoft VP Joe Belfiore demoed these new gestures onstage at the TechEd Europe conference. As you can see in the video below (courtesy of The Verge), a number of extremely useful gestures have been added. A three-finger swipe downward brings you to your desktop, a three-finger swipe up shows you your multi-desktop “Task View,” and a three-finger horizontal swipe lets you quickly switch between different apps. Apple prefers four-finger swipes for OS X, but the similarities between the two are clear as day.
In his demo, Belfiore points out that hardware manufacturers have implemented similar gestures on Windows laptops before, but this is different. By standardizing these gestures at the OS level, it allows muscle memory to take over completely. Regardless of which trackpad you’re using, your gestures will remain the same from Windows 10 onwards. Without a doubt, this is a smart addition for laptop users.
Whenever I’m using a Mac, I make extensive use of the gesture functionality. The four-finger swipes and pinches on the trackpad are superb, and I frequently find myself whipping my cursor into the hot corners to quickly access my desktop with a traditional mouse. As someone who frequently switches between OS X and Windows, I’m thrilled to see that Microsoft is taking user experience cues from Apple. I long for the day that my muscle memory from one OS will transfer seamlessly to the other, and this is just one step closer to that dream.
So, is this enough to persuade desktop users to rush out and buy a Magic Trackpad? Absolutely not. Trackpads still aren’t as elegant and comfortable as a traditional mouse, but this does mean laptop users will benefit from more intuitive navigation. As a bonus, this should make running Boot Camp on a MacBook a whole lot more tolerable. These gestures certainly aren’t original, but it does show that Microsoft is focused on improving its OS from top to bottom.
Now read: Windows 10: The best hidden features, tips, and tricks | 5,100 |
Event data are stored in TrailDBs in S3
This stack allows us to perform a massive amount of computation cost-efficiently without any performance bottlenecks. S3 has proven to be able to provide amazing aggregate throughput to hundreds of concurrent instances, so TrailDBs can be accessed quickly.
Thanks to TrailDB’s various language bindings, we can use the best tool for each job. Some computationally intensive jobs are written in C or D. Some jobs rely on external libraries which are convenient to access in Python or R. Naturally not all use cases are batch jobs; we have services written in Go and even Haskell which access TrailDBs.
As TrailDB is a library, not a framework, it allows you to structure your program in the most idiomatic way, which is great for productivity. Docker removes deployment headaches by encapsulating everything in well-behaved containers.
Thanks to Quentin and auto-scaling groups, we can optimize instance types for each workload, some of which are IO-bound while others require more CPU. Finally, Luigi makes a job graph of tens of inter-dependent jobs manageable.
TrailDB at AdRoll
TrailDB has been used in production at AdRoll for about one and a half years. During this time, we have stored tens of trillions of events in TrailDBs. Today, the TrailDBs are queried by almost a thousand jobs daily.
As TrailDB is a core component of our data infrastructure, we take robustness and testing seriously. The unit test coverage of TrailDB is nearly 100%. TrailDB is also hardened by a number of integration tests. As a result of long-term production use, we take backwards compatibility very seriously: not a single time during the history of TrailDB we have broken backwards compatibility so that old TrailDBs could not be read anymore. We intend to keep it this way.
We have a number of tools built on top of TrailDB which make computing various user-level metrics easier. We are planning to open-source some of these tools in the future. Adroll continues active development of TrailDB and we hope that the wider community finds it useful as well.
Learn More
You can find TrailDB with extensive documentation at traildb.io.
The quickest way to get started is to read the installation instructions and walk through the TrailDB tutorial.
If you want to learn more about the background and internals of TrailDB, you can watch a presentation about TrailDB on YouTube and browse the slides of the presentation here.
If you have any questions, you can find us in the TrailDB Gitter channel. | 5,101 |
Research budgets are tight, and many universities are canceling subscriptions to costly online science journals and publications. But papers are the currency of science, and it’s impossible to stay at the top of your field when you can’t find out what your field is doing.
One solution sails between the rock and the hard-place, as scientists and trainees turn to ‘pirated’ articles posted online.
Avast ye scurvy dogs!
Scientists have shared their work since the beginning of scientific discourse, and until very recently, most would order extra copies of their published papers to mail to colleagues around the world. But with the internet and PDFs, that sharing became painless.
As universities cut back on subscriptions, enterprising researchers have turned to Twitter, Reddit, and other online gathering places to “request” papers from those with access. It’s largely illegal and fairly inefficient. But because the network is decentralized, it’s also difficult for publishers to squelch.
Enter websites like Sci-Hub and LibGen – online repositories with a searchable interface and access to tens of millions of scientific articles. These sites navigate through journal paywalls using university.edu proxies and archive all the content they can scrape.
By all accounts, this ‘easy access’ to research is popular: Sci-Hub claimed to receive 200,000 visitors per day in January 2016. Not surprisingly, the publishers who own the content are less than pleased.
Weigh anchor and hoist the mizzen!
Elsevier and other publishers have brought lawsuits against Sci-Hub and their ilk in international courts, and seized domain names in an effort to have the content removed. In true piratical fashion, Sci-Hub’s crew have taken the site down only to have it reappear on foreign servers, peer-to-peer networks, and anywhere else the content can be hidden from the law.
The legality of the situation is clear, but the morality is more nuanced than other cases of internet piracy. In this case, restricting access to scientific research slows the pace of discovery, which harms all of us. Are scientists and trainees justified in breaking the law, or should they find creative ways to pay for the content they need?
This week on the show – we explore both sides of this daring, high-seas adventure!
Three sheets to the wind
For ethanol this week, we get tropical with Death By Coconut Irish Porter from Oskar Blues Brewing. It’s surprisingly coconutty, wonderfully chocolatey, and a pretty tasty way to die if you had to pick. Blow me down! | 5,102 |
Dear All Singapore Stuff,
With regards to the recent furore over the exposure of sexualized orientation games at NUS, I would like to point out that it is not only happening at NUS. While other universities and polytechnics aren't as extreme yet, their orientation camps can easily go that way.
I have attached some photos of an orientation camp at NTU that happened a couple of years ago. The photos show a muscular guy wearing nothing but skimpy swimming briefs sitting down to a girl wearing a sports bra that shows her cleavage.
Even if there is a swimming component, why are there girls wearing bikinis and sports bras on the school campus? Can't they wear a modest swimsuit instead? Why is there so much focus on who is hot and who is not? Orientation is supposed to be about building bonds of friendship, not getting into a boy-girl relationship and ogling each other's body.
You may call us prudes but let me ask this question. Are the orientation camp organizers even aware that they are driving away conservative students from coming to orientation camps? Why is the school orientation organizer discriminating against conservatives? Furthermore, girls who do not have a hot body are discouraged from attending because they are self-conscious and do not feel comfortable being half-naked around their male peers.
It is also very insensitive because Muslim and Christian parents may not want their daughters to be skimpily dressed and engaging in promiscuous behaviour at an orientation camp. It is outrageous to have put so much effort into educating your daughter to grow into a woman of good character, only to end up with her studying at a 'good' school whose culture promotes slutty behaviour.
The undertone of the orientation camps at the universities is very sexual. The orientation camps are almost dating events. There's a lot of focus on sexual tension. People are told to write secret pal letters to someone of the opposite gender and there are activities that involve a guy and girl passing an object by mouth or taking bites out of the same food. There are half-naked guys carrying girls. Honestly, I won't be surprised if there are even shops selling condoms on campus!
I hope the Ministry of Education will work with the universities to abolish such promiscuous games at school orientation camps. There should be code of conduct and rules against immodest attire at orientation camps. Let the focus be on building friendships and accepting each other, regardless of whether one is sexy or not. Besides a good university education, it is also important to cultivate the right moral values in our young men and women, who are the future of Singapore.
Charissa
A.S.S. Contributor | 5,103 |
By Diane Luckow
Every Friday at the Squamish Nation reserve in North Vancouver, 22 adult learners attend an all-day class to further their ability to speak S k w x wu7meshsnichim, the Squamish language. They’re enrolled in SFU’s inaugural Diploma in First Nations Language Proficiency program, which follows completion of a one-year Certificate in First Nations Language Proficiency in the language.
“It takes a few thousand hours of language exposure to become an intermediate second-language speaker,” says Peter Jacobs, an SFU professor of linguistics and the program’s instructor. “This diploma program, which is staggered over two years, along with the certificate program, approximates that. The students continue to learn more grammar, and more communication contexts.”
Jacobs, who is from the Squamish Nation himself, joined SFU’s faculty in 2017 from the University of Victoria in part because of the new diploma program. He is passionate about promoting First Nations language programs that emphasize learning to speak the language.
“We only have a handful of first-language speakers of S k w x wu7meshsnichim left,” he says. “The majority of our new adult speakers will come out of this program.”
S k w x wu7meshsnichim is one of several SFU First Nations language programs to offer the new second-year diploma program to students who have completed the first-year language immersion certificate. Other B.C. First Nations language diploma programs include the Shuswap Nation’s Secwepemcts language, and the Coast Salish people’s Hulq’umi’num language, in Duncan.
Jacobs is also the co-investigator on a six-year, $2.4-million Partnership Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to study adult learners of Indigenous languages, in collaboration with nine First Nations communities and partners across Canada.
“We’re examining the types of programs and their effectiveness, and also ways of measuring language proficiency for Indigenous languages because it has not been done before, or has been done piecemeal.”
He’s also studying the effects and outcomes of learning these languages. For example, how many participants go on to become second-language teachers?
“We want to understand how they integrate their First Nation language competency afterwards,” says Jacobs. “The overarching goal is to better share the types of programs and initiatives that work best for adult learners.” | 5,104 |
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Earlier this week, U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci's U.S. Senate campaign announced he and his allies had raised slightly more than $4.5 million, an eye-popping amount, since he jumped in the race in January.
As it turns out, $4 million of that was Renacci's own money, according to a newly available federal campaign finance filing.
A document summarizing Renacci's fundraising for the first three months of 2018 also shows he brought in $257,000 in contributions, of which about $101,400 came from political action committees. An affiliated committee raised another $253,000, and Renacci also seeded his Senate campaign with about $223,400 from his now-dormant congressional campaign.
A Federal Election Commission deadline passed Sunday for federal candidates to report their first-quarter campaign finance activity. In part because candidates are only required to postmark their disclosures that day, there is typically a lag between when the filings are submitted and when the FEC makes them publicly available online.
The Renacci campaign on Monday announced to the media that it and an affiliated committee would report having $4.2 million in cash on hand, and -- including "contributions from donors, including the candidate" -- that it had raised $4.5 million. The newly available document shows that of that, about 88 percent came from Renacci himself.
(Scroll down to read the Monday news release from the Renacci campaign -- the highlighted text is added for emphasis)
In a statement that accompanied the announcement, Renacci referenced the "wave of support from voters and conservative leaders across Ohio who have rapidly mobilized behind our campaign" and said that with so much at stake, he was "committed to helping ensure our campaign has the resources it needs to defeat Sherrod Brown in November."
Brown, a Democrat, has announced raising $3.3 million during the same time period, with $11.8 million in cash on hand.
Renacci, worth at least $34.4 million, is Ohio's wealthiest congressional representative and the 16th wealthiest member of Congress overall, according to Roll Call, a Capitol Hill publication. He is an accountant by trade, but made his fortune running a number of businesses, including a chain of nursing homes, a chain of Harley Davidson dealerships and a financial consultancy for troubled businesses.
Renacci jumped in the Republican Senate primary in January, abandoning a run for governor, after Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel unexpectedly dropped out.
Numbers for other Republican Senate candidates -- Mike Gibbons, Melissa Ackison, Don Elijah Eckhart and Dan Kiley -- remained unavailable as of Friday. | 5,105 |
In Dragon's Crown, runes are used to cast spells with varying effects.
Carried Runes [ edit | edit source ]
Runes Found in Dungeons [ edit | edit source ]
A list of runes not pictured above:
M
R
Z
D-S-B Double Score Bonus: Doubles all points earned E-C-G Enchanted Coin Geyser: Spawns a random amount of money E-I-S Extra Item Stock: Grants one additional use to all consumable items L-F-S Life From Stone: Brings statues to life (mission related spell) P-A-D Potency And Durability: Buffs attack and defense P-T-F Petrify The Flesh: Petrify enemies S-B-S Strength Beyond Strength: Grants invulnerability S-F-C Soloman's Flying Carpet: Spawns a flying carpet (mission related spell) T-E-B Tri-Elemental Blast: Casts a Fire, Ice and Lightning AoE spell T-H-F Treasure Hunters Friend: Uncovers hidden Treasure T-S-K The Skeleton Key: Opens hidden doors T-T-F The True Fist: Buffs the damage done by bare handed attacks
Add a photo to this gallery
List of rune combinations not pictured:
C-S-W Call Sylphide's Wind : Casts a spell which shields all players in wind
: Casts a spell which shields all players in wind D-B-G Dead Be Gone : Kills undead enemies
: Kills undead enemies D-I-E DIE : Where all living things go (mission related)
: Where all living things go (mission related) G-W-S Generate Weapon Stash : Spawns a crate of temporary weapons
: Spawns a crate of temporary weapons O-T-S Open The Sesame : Opens hidden doors
: Opens hidden doors R-M-Z Reveal Mystery Zone : Used to gain access to the Illusionary Lands (mission related)
: Used to gain access to the Illusionary Lands (mission related) S-O-D Sigil Of Death : Casts a spell with a high chance of killing all enemies in range
: Casts a spell with a high chance of killing all enemies in range S-O-L Salve Of Life : Casts a healing circle on the ground
: Casts a healing circle on the ground T-P-I The Phoenix Incantation: Grants all players an extra life point | 5,106 |
Royal LePage is forecasting that aggregate prices for homes in Canada will increase by just over 12 per cent this year.
In its second-quarter house price survey and forecast, the firm said the extended period of low interest rates will delay a cooling in the country's hottest real estate markets that was predicted for the second half of this year.
"Economic and social disruptions have rocked the world once again, introducing new risks and making it very likely that the Bank of Canada will leave interest rates as-is for now," said Royal LePage president and CEO Phil Soper.
He said the firm doesn't see even a mild correction for either the Toronto or Vancouver markets this year.
Based on data from 53 markets across the country, Royal LePage said the price of a home rose by 9.2 per cent year-over-year in the second quarter to $520,223. The firm said its aggregate home price is based on a weighted average of the median values of homes for reported property types, such as two-storey homes, bungalows and condos.
Nationally, the price of a two-storey house rose 10.7 per cent to $619,671, while bungalow prices grew by 7.9 per cent to $437,121. Condominium prices grew by just over four per cent to $348,189.
Brexit fallout
In the wake of the U.K.'s vote to leave the European Union, Soper said there have been suggestions that foreign money will push into the "relative safety" of Canada.
"We anticipate the impact, if any, will be seen in the commercial property sector and not in housing market," he said. "Beyond Europe, our research does point to increasing Vancouver and Toronto region foreign buyer activity in residential markets this quarter."
On a regional basis, Royal LePage said the Greater Vancouver area saw an aggregate year-over-year home price increase of 24.6 per cent to a median price of $1,098,599.
"Alongside skyrocketing prices of single-family homes, we have seen an uptick in the rate of price appreciation for condominiums over 1,000 square feet, when compared to smaller units in this market," Soper said. "This may indicate that families being priced out of the single-family detached home market in Vancouver are looking upwards to
condominiums."
He said the situation isn't quite the same in the Greater Toronto Area, where aggregate prices were up 10.2 per cent year-over-year in the second quarter. In the Toronto area, buyers are still moving out to suburban areas to find affordable housing options. | 5,107 |
Director of Marketing
There’s work and there’s your life’s work. The kind of work that has your fingerprints all over it. The kind of work that you’d never compromise on.
Our team didn’t start SprinkleBit to play it safe, we do this to disrupt a broken service. Here you have the chance of doing something truly remarkable, you can change the financial future of millions of people.
Position Overview
As SprinkleBit’s Director of Marketing, you’re in charge of establishing, monitoring, measuring, and analyzing the effectiveness of marketing initiatives as they relate to SprinkleBit’s overall goals. You’re in charge of building a community of millions of future savvy investors. On your side, you’ll have a state of the art social investing platform, a team of super talented developers, designers and your own marketing staff aspiring marketers.
You will have many roles. You may start your day being creative and developing a new marketing plan, transition to creating a budget with the accounting team, go through a PPC campaign in the afternoon, and finish your day with a marketing team meeting. Each role requires a slightly different skill set in order to work with your staff, designers, and our vivid community.
We’re seeking a marketing Director of Marketing who will lead our marketing team toward executing synchronized, effective, and strategic practices. You will oversee all segments of the marketing department to ensure consistency and communication across roles, as well as roll up your sleeves to keep the mission and evolving goals of the company to grow SprinkleBit in to a global brand for social investing.
Desired Skills and Experience
A minimum of 5 years of experience in marketing.
Prior experience in a managerial position.
Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to lead a team effectively.
Professional experience in SEO.
Strong Google AdWords experience (certification is a plus).
Extensive PPC optimization experience.
Extensive search engine marketing experience.
Fluency in analytics tools such as Google Analytics, etc.
An analytical mind with the ability to evaluate and tweak approaches based on a comprehensive understanding of our business’ goals.
Excellent organization and planning skills to work on strategies with teams.
A comprehensive understanding of the best email practices.
Good understanding of email marketing concepts and metrics.
Some basic design skills using tools like PowerPoint, Photoshop, and InDesign.
Bid management tools experience.
B.S. degree in business, marketing, finance, or similar concentrations.
Responsibilities Include: | 5,108 |
Jobs Minister Richard Bruton claims a Government plan to create 25,000 jobs in the south-east will depend on getting communities and relevant agencies to collaborate effectively.
The plan aims to increase employment by 10pc-15pc in the region, which was very badly hit by the crash and encompasses Carlow, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Waterford and Wexford.
The plan aims, among other things, to develop a cluster of advanced manufacturing and 3D printing companies in the south-east. It was born in part out of a previous jobs plan for the region.
Mr Bruton believes that "based on all the evidence and the strong buy-in for the process up to this point, it is realistic to target 25,000 additional jobs in the region by 2020".
He added: "I believe that this is a really important area that we have not tapped in the past.
"We haven't had real regional enterprise strategies. And this is the first time we're doing that.
"We're putting financial incentives into the process, that we think will drive the collaboration and the new ideas."
Small Firms Association director Patricia Callan said she thought the jobs target was achievable. "In terms of the track record of what's been achieved in the region, in particular over the last number of years, it shows that targeted interventions... can achieve real success," Ms Callan told the Irish Independent.
She said the key was to "come up with new ideas, you set a timeline for delivery, you get all of the agencies working collaboratively and all of the business and local community leaders involved".
"I think the pattern for industrial development across Europe, across the world, is this concept of city regions... having regions competing with each other for investment, giving multinationals an opportunity to decide where they want to invest," she added. "Each region can point to different quality-of-life benefits, in terms of cost of living... and having a well-educated workforce on your doorstep."
Three companies announced plans for the creation of a total of nearly 300 new jobs in the region yesterday.
Irish outsourced customer care company Eishtec said it would create 200 jobs in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, over the next six months.
Bluefin Payment Systems said it would create 40 jobs in Waterford City over the next three to five years, while information security services company CipherTechs said it would create 36 new jobs in Kilkenny over five years.
Separately, members of Geoscience Ireland said they created a total of 134 new jobs in the first six months of 2015.
Irish Independent | 5,109 |
Kanye West will remain in the hospital over the Thanksgiving holiday, a source exclusively tells Us Weekly, and Kim Kardashian will be right there with him.
“Kanye will be in the hospital for Thanksgiving and isn’t leaving,” the insider tells Us, adding that his wife “has barely left his side.”
“Kim has been very concerned and supportive,” the source adds. “Seeing Kanye like this is scary for her.” The reality star was scheduled to make her first public appearance since her robbery at the Angel Ball in New York on Monday, but dropped everything and returned to Los Angeles after learning of her husband’s condition.
As previously reported, West, 39, was admitted to UCLA Medical Center on Monday, November 21, after authorities were called to his trainer Harley Pasternak’s home after the rapper began behaving erratically.
Although the 911 call from the incident referred to West’s condition as a “psychiatric emergency,” the source confirms to Us that West is not under a 5150 hold, which is used to involuntarily admit patients to hospitals for mental illness.
West’s hospitalization, which insiders said was for exhaustion and extreme stress, came shortly after his team announced the cancellation of the remainder of his Saint Pablo tour. Another source told Us that Kardashian — who is still recovering from her terrifying armed robbery on October 3 – is “very worried” about the Waves rapper’s condition.
Yet another source told Us that West had particularly been on edge following his wife’s scary Paris encounter. “[Kanye] took on a lot and the Paris incident sort of split up the family because he hasn’t been able to spend hardly any time with Kim.”
“She was supposed to be on a lot of the tour dates with him and because of what happened with [her Paris] robbery, she wasn’t feeling up for going to all these different tour dates,” another source said. “So [Kanye] hasn’t had his family, his support system, with him. Kim is very worried.”
The rapper’s health scare comes after several incidents of odd behavior on his Saint Pablo tour. During a show in Sacramento on Saturday, November 19, he performed three songs and then went on a rant against Beyoncé, Jay Z, Hillary Clinton and the media before ending the concert after just 30 minutes. He also told fans during a concert that he would have voted for Donald Trump, and puzzled followers by posting 99 blurry Instagram fashion photos to his social media account on Sunday. | 5,110 |
BOSTON, MA--(Marketwired - March 04, 2016) - Placester, a marketing platform that fuses technology and design to dramatically improve the home buying process for real estate professionals and consumers, today announced its acquisition of HomeFinder LLC, parent company of leading app OpenHomePro and search platform HomeFinder.com.
With this acquisition, Placester will take over HomeFinder's multi-year contracts with media companies Gannett Co. Inc. (GCI), The McClatchy Co. (MNI) and Tribune Publishing Co., transitioning them to Placester's Sites product for publishers, which powers the real estate sections of local newspapers. The HomeFinder platform including, Gannett, McClatchy and Tribune power 375 news sites across the U.S., including the LATimes.com, ChicagoTribune.com, Azcentral.com and MiamiHerald.com.
Placester will also acquire HomeFinder LLC's top-ranked open house management tablet app, OpenHomePro. The app provides agents the digital tools to take full advantage of open houses, by helping to collect and convert leads from open house sign-ups, automating email follow ups to guests, and promoting home showings on social media through the app's one-click sharing function. Existing Placester customers will soon have access to OpenHomePro's iOS and Android versions through Placester's app platform.
"We are excited to welcome an experienced team of mobile engineers, data scientists and marketing specialists to the Placester family," said Matt Barba, CEO and co-founder of Placester. "This team brought the real estate industry a host of valuable resources including the popular app OpenHomePro, and we can't wait to see what we can accomplish together at Placester."
About Placester
Placester fuses technology and design to dramatically improve the home buying process for consumers, brokers, and agents. Founded In 2011 by Matthew Barba, a former real estate agent, and Frederick Townes, a seasoned technologist, the Placester marketing platform provides real estate professionals with MLS integration, high-resolution visuals, responsive design, and mobile optimization, as well as lead management tools and marketing automation software for email, Facebook, Google AdWords, and other channels. Currently serving over 250,000 real estate professionals, Placester is the sole website provider for the REALTOR Benefits® Program, the official member benefits program of the National Association of REALTORS®. To date, Placester has raised $50 million in funding, and is backed by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Romulus Capital, and Techstars. For more information, please visit placester.com. | 5,111 |
the discrepancy in pAkt level. Firstly, p-Akt level depended on the timing after the injury/stress. After ischemia, pAkt was dephosphorylated immediately in the CA1 region and rephosphorylated after only 5 min of ischemia [ 40 ]. Secondly, the extent of ischemic injury also accounts-lethal damage downregulated pAkt in the CA1 region, but sublethal damage increased pAkt. Thirdly, the origin of tissue used in protein analysis also works. pAkt level was elevated in cortex in our manuscript or in peri-infarct cortical tissue in Ishrat’s research [ 39 ], or in the ipsilateral cerebral cortex as described by Pérez-Álvarez [ 41 ]. Both Gao and Shibata revealed that the enhanced pAkt occurred mainly in neurons located in the outer area of the middle cerebral artery territory (ischemic penumbra) [ 37 38 ], but Osuka reported that PI3K/Akt signaling was down-regulated in bilateral cortices adjacent to the hippocampus [ 35 ].
Cerebral ischemia motivates Akt and mTOR, which subsequently prevents BAD into the mitochondrial membrane, finally inhibiting death of neurons. Although BAD translocation into the mitochondrial membrane was inhibited by pAkt, phosphorylation of BAD was increased by activated Akt, thereby inhibiting the apoptotic activity and promoting cell survival [ 42 ]. As we know, p-BAD increment contributes to the inhibition of apoptosis. Apoptotic stimuli result in dephosphorylation of BAD, thus activating caspase-3 and Bax [ 43 ].
Our data show that Rhy reduced ischemic brain damage, probably by increasing the ratio of p-mTOR/mTOR, and triggering its downstream target p-BAD, thereby reducing ischemic neuronal death. These data resemble those reported by Ishrat that neuroprotective agents protect against stroke via mediating Akt/BAD phosphorylation [ 39 42 ]. Why there isn’t a direct and proportional relationship between pBAD and pAkt expression? It is reasonable that there is not enough pAkt to trigger pBAD at 24 h post-injury. Because the damage in the cortex region inflicted by the stroke model is relatively moderate. Herein, it is possible that Rhy treatment up-regulated pAkt in pMCAO rats and thereby increasing pBAD. Furthermore, in our study, wortmannin weakened the activation of BAD & Akt and thus abolished Rhy’s effects, confirming the critical role of PI3K/Akt pathway. | 5,112 |
ger is New Jersey’s largest daily paper, with a print circulation of 167,600 and 265,500 on Sunday. They have won three Pulitzer Prizes, including for its coverage of the resignation of scandal-plagued Gov. Jim McGreevey in 2005. Tony Soprano used to pick up copies of it in his fictional driveway.
Thursday’s drastic cuts at the publication, the paper’s management said in its announcement, were part of the now more than decade-long trend of a decline in revenue for daily print publications. “Industry analysts say newspapers across the country, hit hard by the digital age, have been experiencing a steady decline in readership and dramatic declines in ad revenue, with many large public newspaper companies reducing their work forces by 30 percent to 42 percent since 2006.
In its 2013 census, the American Society of News Editors found that for the first time since 1978, the number of full-time professional editorial employees fell below 40,000. From 2011 to 2012, the number of full-time editorial jobs at newspapers declined by 6.4 percent. (The Daily Beast has not exactly been immune to this trend; dozens of editors and reporters were laid off after the ill-fated merger and de-merger with Newsweek.)
In addition to the Star-Ledger, Advance Publications owns, among other things, The Times-Picayune in New Orleans. In May 2012, Advance announced that beginning in the fall, the Times-Picayune, a daily paper, would only be published on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, making New Orleans the biggest city in America with no daily newspaper. In April 2013, it was announced that the Times-Picayune would begin printing a tabloid version of the paper, called the Times-Picayune Street on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.
The Star-Ledger announcement says Advance Publications has overseen severe cuts at many of its papers “as the company has pursued an aggressive ‘click-based’ digital strategy, questioned by critics, aimed at driving traffic to its websites in hopes of generating revenues.”
In the elevator, employees quietly chattered about the gutting of their paper. Forcing those fired to stay on until September in order to get their severance, they said, seemed particularly cruel. “It’s an awkward day,” one employee said. “It’s going to be an awkward summer.”
The sprawling and dimly lit newsroom—its walls adorned with press clippings and accolades—was virtually empty on Thursday afternoon. Among the rows of unoccupied desks, I could only count about seven people. | 5,113 |
A coalition of library organizations which includes the American Library Association (ALA) sponsored a gathering this week in Washington DC to promote awareness and advocacy on a broad assortment of political issues that impact libraries. The ALA's priorities for the National Library Legislative Day (NLLD) include advocating net neutrality, promoting copyright reform, and voicing concerns about the Real ID Act and the Patriot Act.
The ALA also called for "ongoing investigations" into FBI use (and abuse) of National Security Letters (NSLs) and asked legislators to "incorporate judicial review and remove gag orders from NSLs." NSLs, a special kind of subpoena that can be issued without probable cause or judicial oversight, prohibit recipients from disclosing information about NSLs to the extent that recipients can't even publicly admit receiving one. Although the basic concept of NSLs has existed in American law since the late 70s, the Patriot Act expanded the potential for abuse by making it possible for federal law enforcement agents to use NSLs to investigate citizens who are not suspects in any criminal investigations.
Lack of judicial oversight in NSL issuance and implementation is particularly disturbing in light of revelations regarding systematic abuses of Patriot Act powers (particularly NSLs) and investigatory misconduct that are apparently pervasive within the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. Initially, the Patriot Act allowed law enforcement agents to get full access to any library records that they sought for formal investigations. The standards were changed during the reauthorization process and now require that law enforcement agents have "reasonable grounds" to believe that such records are "relevant" to an investigation. As the ALA points out, the new standard still leaves open the possibility of wide search order requests because it still doesn't require the FBI to demonstrate that targeted individuals are themselves suspects.
The ALA also encourages supporters and NLLD participants to support network neutrality by promoting the Internet Freedom Preservation Act, which aims to prevent Internet service providers from leveraging network control in predatory ways that could potentially limit free speech on the Internet. The ALA supports copyright reform as well and wants additional exceptions added to the DMCA to protect fair use rights.
The ALA's political agenda reflects the organization's extensive understanding of the present legislative climate and the consequences that sweeping laws like that Patriot Act have on libraries and library patrons. In addition to promoting advocacy, the ALA and other sponsors of the NLLD are also looking to improve awareness. At a series of briefings that were part of the event, policy experts presented information on topics like privacy and telecommunications and advocacy experts gave tips on how concerned citizens can make their message heard. The ALA is one of many organizations calling for reform as more evidence of systematic Patriot Act abuses continues to emerge. | 5,114 |
The Chesapeake Bayhawks announced today that they have signed John Wagner for the 2020 season."John joined the flock halfway through the season, but wasted no time in contributing," said Bayhawks Head Coach,. "In his rookie season he showed a lot of promise, he has the potential to develop into in an elite player and we look forward to his growth in year two."John was called up for his first game of the MLL season when the Hawks faced the Lizards on July 20, 2019. Steele Stanwick was unavailable for the game, so Wagner was brought in to one of the highest performing attack units. In his first game, Wagner contributed 2 assists. Throughout the 11 games played, including the semifinal and championship games, Wager delivered 10 goals and 4 assists across the season.Before joining the Bayhawks Wagner was a standout attackman for Marquette. He was a 2x team captain, 2x All-Big EAST, BIG EAST Scholar-Athlete Sport Excellence Award recipient, Ralph H. Metcalfe Senior Male Athletics Award recipient and All-BIG EAST Champion."I am just looking forward to getting the 2020 season started," said Wagner. "I learned a lot last year, I had a great time playing with and learning from Lyle, Steele and all the other guys. I am working hard right now to get ready for the season, and I look forward to building from where we left off in 2019."For more information on the Bayhawks' 2020 season, or to purchase tickets, visit the Bayhawks at www.thebayhawks.com, or call 410-934-0456. The Bayhawks kick off their twentieth anniversary season at home on May 30 with a rematch of the 2019 MLL Championship against the Denver Outlaws.The Bayhawks are the reigning Major League Lacrosse (MLL) champions, and the most decorated MLL team in league history. The Bayhawks are one of three MLL teams to have played in every Major League Lacrosse season since its formation in 2001. The Bayhawks have won over 135 regular season games, 14 of their 19 postseason games, appeared in eight championship games, and earned seven MLL championships (2002, 2005, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2019). The Bayhawks play at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, MD and have consistently given Chesapeake area fans the opportunity to be a part of this growing, fast-paced and exciting sports community. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit the Bayhawks at www.thebayhawks.com Website: bayhawks.majorleaguelacrosse.com Twitter: @TheBayhawks Instagram: @thebayhawks Facebook: facebook.com/BayhawksLacrosse | 5,115 |
syphilis. In our country stillbirths are undercounted. We are now trying to educate providers to understand that in the cases of any stillbirth, the mother needs to be tested for syphilis.”
The chlamydia rate held relatively steady with more than 1.7 million cases diagnosed in 2017, just a few percentage points above where it was in 2013. Nevertheless, the chlamydia rate is worrisome because the disease can scar a woman’s reproductive organs and leave her infertile. Chlamydia and gonorrhea are most common in young people aged 15 to 24, Bolan said.
“STDs are widespread and cross urban and rural boundaries,” Bolan said. “They cross socioeconomic boundaries. We’re seeing STDs in places we haven’t seen them before.”
One big problem: all of these STDs can be asymptomatic, Bolan said. So the CDC recommends that sexually active people under the age of 25 get tested whether they have symptoms or not.
Charlotte Gaydos, a professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said most of those people are not getting tested.
The numbers presented by the CDC may not be quite as alarming as they sound, Gaydos told NBC News. “Certainly the numbers are increasing, but some of the increase may be due to the fact that we are doing more testing,” she added. “The more you look, the more you find. Also, they’re now using a more sensitive test for chlamydia and gonorrhea.”
Gaydos also believes that the breakthroughs in HIV treatment and prevention have had the unintended consequence of driving an increase in other STDs. “Part of the problem is that people are not afraid of dying from HIV now so they are less likely to use condoms,” she said. “And they are more likely to have multiple partners.”
It’s also quite likely that apps like Tinder have helped drive up the rates of STDs, Gaydos said. “It’s easier to find partners with the dating apps,” she explained. “People can find partners and they don’t even need to know their names.”
New rapid STD tests that are in clinical trials now may help stem the tide, Gaydos said.
“That way we can treat people before they leave the clinic,” she added. “Many don’t come back. If we could do a rapid test, we could treat them before they left and eliminate future spread.” | 5,116 |
Earlier on Labor Day, Donald Trump tweeted out some poll results showing him ahead in Iowa and Ohio, and then deleted the tweets a few hours later. For most of the last year, Trump has boasted of his polling numbers more than most politicians, and I probably wouldn’t have noted the deleted tweets at all, since I was spending Labor Day binge-watching “Jake and the Fatman.”
But one thing about the tweets jumped out at me: the attribution of the results.
If you look at the bottom of the tweets, you’ll see our website’s logo, suggesting that the polls he was citing were produced by FiveThirtyEight. Of course, there’s an obvious problem with that: FiveThirtyEight has never conducted or sponsored those kinds of horserace polls. The polls Trump cited were actually produced by Ipsos and mentioned on our site like scores of others. FiveThirtyEight aggregates polls and produces forecasts based mostly on that poll aggregation. And while our combined forecast shows Trump with the slightest of edges in Iowa, FiveThirtyEight gives Clinton a 1- to 2-percentage-point lead in Ohio. (In both states, Trump is doing better than he was a few weeks ago.)
So why did Trump or one of his aides think it was our poll? We don’t know, but the Twitter feed Political Polls (@ppollingnumbers) linked to our forecast pages in Iowa and Ohio, which includes Ipsos state polls. Earlier Monday, Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, originally attributed the Ohio poll to us.
Political Polls probably linked to us instead of Ipsos or some other site because we display the Ipsos state polls in an easy-to-digest manner. It can be difficult to find the Ipsos poll on the website of its sponsor (Reuters), and most aggregators do not include the Ipsos States of the Nation surveys. FiveThirtyEight, though, aims to be as inclusive as possible, as long as the poll is real and not sponsored by Hillary Clinton or Trump’s campaign or one of their super PACs. Each poll we use goes into a model that accounts for factors like sample size, past accuracy of the pollster and whether the pollster has results that lean more Democratic or Republican than the average pollster.
So while we cannot claim credit for the Ipsos polls Trump tweeted, we certainly welcome Trump and his campaign talking about FiveThirtyEight. Next time, perhaps, Trump can link to our actual forecasts (which currently show him trailing in the presidential race) and not just the more favorable polls for him “featured” on FiveThirtyEight. | 5,117 |
Uncovering and explaining how our digital world is changing — and changing us.
A developer kit for Nvidia’s self-driving car platform, the Drive PX, will go on sale in May for $10,000, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said today at the company’s GPU Technology Conference.
The platform is powered by two of Nvidia’s Tegra X1 chips and was first teased at CES earlier this year. Huang claimed it’s 3,000 times faster than DAVE, the autonomous vehicle technology developed by DARPA.
The notion is that with powerful enough hardware, self-driving vehicles will be better able to recognize what they’re seeing, learn from the environment and make the right decisions. Nvidia hopes to expand its existing partnerships with automakers like Tesla, Audi and BMW.
“It’s a system that can be trained, and retrained, with more data,” Senior Automotive Director Danny Shapiro wrote in a blog post. “Every time your self-driving car gets an over-the-air update, it can get smarter.”
Huang was joined onstage by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who said he expected autonomous driving technology to be a fact of life in a few years’ time.
“Just like Mars,” Huang remarked, a nod to Musk’s desired place of death.
After Musk took the stage, Huang asked him about a 2014 tweet that likened the dangers of artificial intelligence to nuclear weapons. Nearly all of Nvidia’s keynote touched in various forms on AI and deep learning.
“I said ‘potentially,'” Musk qualified. “We don’t really need to worry about autonomous cars. It’s a narrow form of AI.”
Musk said having the right hardware should come first in designing autonomous vehicles, but that change may come slowly. There are currently two billion cars and trucks on the road worldwide, and global manufacturing capacity is at 100 million vehicles per year. “Legacy” vehicles, he noted, will be around for a while.
And, Huang asked, what about security? Musk said the absence of steering wheels and brake pedals, “many years from now,” creates new challenges. At Tesla, his team is currently focused on “making it very difficult to do a multi-car hack.”
In the keynote, Nvidia also announced a new GPU, the Titan X, and a “supercomputing box” for researchers called the Digits Devbox, which will also debut in May for $15,000. | 5,118 |
Here's what we don't know, for sure: that there will be a remastered version of 2009's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 released this year. Neither original developers Infinity Ward nor publisher Activision has made any official noise to the effect of: yes, you'll soon get this game for your Xbox One or PS4, looking sharper than it ever has.
But, here's what we do know, for sure: the Pan European Game Information board (PEGI) has confirmed an (18-certificate) age rating for a game titled Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. But there's a caveat. Well, a couple, actually.
Firstly, this new rating only covers "Campaign Remastered" - which doesn't bode so well for fans of the game's various multiplayer maps. And secondly, the listing as it stands is only for PlayStation 4 - so could Sony players get access to the much-requested Remaster before it arrives on any other platform? Wouldn't be the first time that a CoD game has released with console-exclusive timed content - post-launch content for 2018's Black Ops IIII came first to PS4.
Modern Warfare 2 Remastered PEGI Rating
Advert
(Obviously ignore that release date, LOL.)
If the Remaster does show up as a campaign-only experience, that'll tally with rumours that did the rounds in early 2018, when an Italian Amazon listing for said game - Modern Warfare 2, campaign only - was spied, only to be swiftly removed. It was priced at a point perhaps reflecting its streamlined form, at around 20 Euros.
But of course, just because a game listing appears on PEGI doesn't mean that the game in question will actually come out (although, sure, they usually do). As for how players get their hands on MW2 Remastered - if it's coming out - we can only speculate whether it'll be a standalone purchase from day one, or if it'll be offered as a special-edition incentive to drive pre-orders for whatever the new CoD in 2019 proves to be (it's also being developed by Infinity Ward).
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Advert
The first Modern Warfare, originally released in 2007, received a remaster in 2016, initially as a complementary game alongside that year's Infinite Warfare. Could we see the same kind of package appear later this year? Seems possible, at least. The MW remaster was the work of Raven Software, an Activision subsidiary studio active with the CoD series - and it could be that it's been beavering away on MW2 Remastered while Infinity Ward focuses on the brand-new CoD for 2019. | 5,119 |
I guess I’m the Dont Say Nigga If You Aint Black Shirt girl different then because 1 I would rather wear my own jacket because I would feel bad my man have to freeze because of me being selfish 2 I would rather order my own food so I Know I get food I like and because when I eat I don’t care what guys think of me and I don’t want my man hungry 3 if I say I’m going to leave I mean it I don’t say it just to be a child and play games just to see if my man would chase me and this is just all me and my opinion every girl is different this is just what suits me. Why do boys get mad when their girlfriends eat their food. You should be happy that they are not picky and actually eating, who the fuck eats right before they know they’re being taken out and then orders just a water at a restaurant sorry but not every female is stupid and passive aggressive. I actually do mean what I say and am straight to the point for the most part. I also don’t rely on other people to take care of me.
See more design at:
Home page: https://gravartees.com
Dont Say Nigga If You Aint Black Shirt, Hoodie, Tank Top And Sweater For Men And Woman
If i know it’s going to be chilly out, I bring a sweat shirt or jacket and am prepared like an adult. Not all women are mindless. Yeah when the food is ordered and she says she not hungry she touches my plate she leaving girl you said your not hungry if you touch my food I will get angry and I will make you walk away. Any female who does this is not a woman. She is little girl who needs to be the center of attention and be catered to and waited on like a child. If you say you’re leaving, you better mean it. Don’t expect a man to chase after you, because he probably won’t. But if a woman says No to sex, you best not touch her. If she’s a little girl playing games & says no, I say that’s your problem for dating a child instead of a woman. A lot of ladies are saying. What’s the big deal about eating his food. But what I want to know is. What if the Dont Say Nigga If You Aint Black Shirt was reversed and the guy just decided to help himself to what ever was on his gf’s plate. And don’t lie about it. Y’all women would lose your minds | 5,120 |
IU-Michigan Postgame Show: Elder and Future Statesmen Set Tone for Blowout
Assembly Call Classic 00:00 / 1:06:02 1X
In the most pivotal moment of Tuesday night’s game in Ann Arbor, Indiana’s elder and future statesmen stepped up in a big way.
With the score 15-4, and Indiana not executing Tom Crean’s gameplan of staying close to Michigan’s sharp-hooters, Crean took a timeout and excoriated his senior leader Yogi Ferrell.
What happened next is exactly what should happen when a team and its coach are connected, and when a team has strong internal leadership.
Yogi responded with four straight points. Then senior Nick Zeisloft responded with a 3. Then senior Max Bielfeldt drained another 3. Indiana’s elder statesmen had settled the Hoosiers back into the game.
Then it was time for the future statesmen to the step up.
Thomas Bryant is clearly Indiana’s best freshman. He’s fantastic. But he’s so good that he may only be around for one season, certainly two at the most.
But OG Anunoby and Juwan Morgan will be part of this program’s foundation moving forward, for at least the next three years, and the two previously unheralded freshmen are offering more and more evidence each game that they will be ready for the responsibility.
OG had one of his patented steal-and-dunks, and then Juwan had a terrific sequence where he played smart defense, forced a steal (which Yogi corralled), and then ran the floor to receive a beautiful bounce pass from Yogi that was converted into a bucket.
That tied the game at 24-24, and Indiana would go on to score the next 21 points in the half.
And while those 21 straight points were breathtaking to watch, it was the tough, hard-fought sequence before it that set Indiana’s dominant run up. And that sequence was a result of Indiana’s current and future leaders doing what leaders do on the road: taking a punch, shaking it off, and buckling down to make smart, fundamental play after smart, fundamental play.
In terms of Indiana’s present and its future, it was the most encouraging sequence of basketball we’ve seen from the Hoosiers all year. And it was the Banner Moment in a game filled with them.
What a performance by the Hoosiers. We broke it all down on the latest edition of The Assembly Call IU Postgame Show. | 5,121 |
Start a Computer Business and Be Your Own Boss
So you want to learn how to start a computer business? Back in 2006, I found many websites that explained how to fix specific computer problems. However, I couldn’t find any websites that wrote about the business side of computer repair. Topics like: how to start a computer business, how to set your computer repair prices and how to get clients.
This is why I started Technibble. A resource to help you start your own computer business or improve your existing one. Using my own experience in the field and occasionally bringing in other experts, we cover a wide range of topics that you’ll encounter when starting a computer repair business.
How to Start a Computer Business
You may be good at fixing computers, but a lot more goes into having a successful business. You need to change your mindset from someone who just does hands on computer work (the Technician), to someone who looks for new opportunities and angles to gain more clients (the Entrepreneur).
If you are working for someone else and want to start a business on the side, you also need to consider any issues like conflicts of interest. Does your current employment contract allow you to start your own similar business on the side? The following articles will help you navigate the points to consider before starting.
Starting Your Business
If you think you have what it takes and are in the clear with previous employers, you can get the ball rolling and start your business with the following articles.
Getting Setup Legally
The legal requirements of setting up a business differs from country to country, so we cannot give you specific advice here. However, you can use the following government sites to find out what you need to be in the right legally:
Work Orders Templates, Maintenance Contracts, Disclaimers
Pricing
Setting your computer repair prices can be tricky as it’s hard putting a dollar value on what your time is worth. Many beginners start out being the cheapest in town to gain clients, but unfortunately that just attracts cheap clients who will frustrate you. The following articles will help guide you on setting your computer repair prices.
Getting Your First Clients
Once you have the legal and pricing side setup, time to start getting some customers!
What Next?
This is just the beginning of your journey, we have a wide range of other articles to help answer your questions about starting a computer business. So be sure to Check Them out.
If you have any questions, want someone to bounce ideas off or just want to hang out with your fellow techs, we have a very large and active community to help you on your journey. | 5,122 |
Former Vice President and 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden published a video Tuesday in which he appeared to use a speech by former President Barack Obama as an unofficial endorsement.
Serving as @BarackObama‘s Vice President was a privilege and an honor. We share the belief that America is a place where ordinary people do extraordinary things and anything is possible. pic.twitter.com/Y5rXEijgIu — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) April 30, 2019
“This is an extraordinary man,” Obama begins, in a speech where he gave Biden the Medal of Freedom. “With an extraordinary career in public service. Somebody who has devoted his entire professional life to service to this country.”
“He revitalized American manufacturing,” Obama’s voiceover continues. “As the head of our middle-class task force, he fought to make college more affordable. He suited up for our cancer moonshot, giving hope to millions of Americans. Joe’s candid counsel has made me a better president.”(RELATED: Joe Biden Can’t Keep His Thoughts Straight)
“He could not have been a more effective partner in the progress that we’ve made. The best part is he’s nowhere close to finished,” Obama concluded.
Biden formally announced that he was running for president last week, and his former commander-in-chief announced that he would not be making an endorsement in the race this early on.
Biden then said he asked Obama not to endorse him, asserting that he wanted to see if he could make a dent on his own first, and make sure that the Democratic primary was untouched by Obama’s influence.
Here’s the video of Biden telling reporters he asked Obama to not endorse him: I asked President Obama not to endorse and he doesn’t want to — whoever wins this nomination should win it on their own merits. pic.twitter.com/9qAmfyuSI4 — Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) April 25, 2019
The former vice president’s most recent ad suggests that he certainly wants as close to an Obama endorsement as he can get. Obama’s words appear aimed at boosting the vice president’s jobs resume, and mirror past language Biden’s made in the past in his efforts to draw union support.
Obama’s words also reached out to the social justice progressive wing of the party, endorsing the former vice president on marriage inequality, sexual assault and the #MeToo movement, as well as advance his work on affordable healthcare and college. | 5,123 |
Obama Outwits Opponents: Forces Feds to Cut Gas Use 21%
May 5th, 2011 by Susan Kraemer
The power of presidents is overstated. Only congress actually has the power to pass legislation to make America safer from climate change or oil company gouging. And about half are paid to not pass it.
So, when congress after congress is unable to pass climate legislation to reduce greenhouse gases, the blame can not be laid at any president’s feet. As just one result of the congressional failure, American fuel mileage has long lagged even below China’s – even a decade ago, back when we were a developed nation and China wasn’t.
But, although Obama cannot pass the climate legislation he might want, an Executive Order governing federal agencies is within his jurisdiction, and in 2009, he lost no time in passing Executive Order mandating a 30% reduction in greenhouse gases emitted by the government, the nation’s single largest energy user. The effects are starting to show up, on military bases and other government operations.
Today’s result comes from the General Services Administration, which buys cars for all the federal agencies to lease. Executive Order 13154 mandates, among other details, a 30% reduction in gasoline use by 2020. The 35,000 vehicles the GSA has bought this year use 21% less gasoline than last year. And last year, according to the GSA report, the agency averaged 22.5% of the gasoline use of 2008, the baseline year.
They average 23.4 miles per gallon, up from 19.1 miles per gallon, which may not sound very efficient, but the military is a big buyer of vehicles, as is the post office. Hummers and delivery vans are not known for efficiency.
The new vehicles will save 2.4 million gallons of gas and about $9 million annually in taxpayer dollars. About 22,000 of the 35,000 vehicles ordered by GSA were advanced technology vehicles, defined as electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, fuel cell vehicles and vehicles that can run on E85 (85 percent ethanol).
Via AutoblogGreen and the GSA Scorecard Report
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More than 1,000 people died in Puerto Rico in the weeks after Hurricane Maria — meaning the storm’s death toll is likely much higher than the official tally, new data reveals.
There were at least 1,065 fatalities on the water-and-electricity-starved island in the 42 days after the storm struck on Sept. 20, according to a report released by The Center for Investigative Journalism on Thursday.
At least 985 more people died in the country during September and October 2017 than the same time period last year, according to the data.
Puerto Rican officials have said the number of people who died as a result of the natural disaster is 62.
The most people died on Sept. 25 — the same day Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rosselló warned the country was on the brink of a mass exodus. There were a total of 135 fatalities on that day, compared to 75 last year.
Overall, more than 100,000 people have fled the storm-ravaged island this year, according to The City University of New York’s Center for Puerto Rican Studies.
In September, the island’s average daily death rate spiked by 43 percent — and soared as high as 80 percent in the five days after the storm struck, according to the report. In October, the death toll increased by 23 percent.
The biggest spike in deaths hit people between the ages between 70 and 79 in September. Many of them died in hospitals and nursing homes from preexisting conditions such as diabetes, Alzheimer’s, kidney disease, and respiratory diseases as temperatures hit 90 degrees.
In October, the biggest increase in fatalities hit people over the age 90, according to the report.
But the death rate also soared among people in their 30s and 40s.
Fatalities among people ages 30 to 39 years old increased by 36 percent in October. The rate among people 40 to 49 years old spiked 23.3 percent, according to the report.
On Sept. 29, Puerto Rico’s public safety secretary, Héctor Pesquera, said he expected the death toll to increase — but not by much.
“Will it go up? I am pretty sure it will go up,” he said in a statement. “It won’t double or triple. It’s not like an earthquake where you have a building and you don’t know whether there were 20 in the building or 300 in the building until you get all the rubble out.”
Hurricane Maria was the tenth-most powerful Atlantic hurricane and the most intense tropical cyclone so-far in 2017. | 5,125 |
The Maine Democratic Party recently sent campaign mailers that reignited a controversy caused by state Rep. Lawrence Lockman’s (R) statements comparing abortion and rape.
The Maine Democratic Party recently sent campaign mailers that reignited a controversy caused by state Rep. Lawrence Lockman’s (R) statements comparing abortion and rape.
Shutterstock
The Maine Democratic Party recently sent campaign mailers that reignited a controversy caused by state Rep. Lawrence Lockman’s (R) statements comparing abortion and rape.
The Bangor Daily News reported on the mailers, noting that the statement made by Lockman is from a 1995 article quoting the lawmaker.
“If a woman has the right to abortion, why shouldn’t a man be free to use his superior strength to force himself on a woman?” Lockman said. “At least the rapist’s pursuit of sexual freedom doesn’t in most cases result in anyone’s death.”
Lockman hasn’t held elected office in Maine for very long—he was first elected in 2012—but he has a long history of making comments like the one printed in the Democratic mailers.
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Maine political reporter Michael Tipping this year compiled a list of some of Lockman’s comments, ranging from opining on the spread of HIV to protesting the IRS.
Lockman, in a 1987 letter to the editor of a local paper, wrote about the spread of AIDS, saying, “In the overwhelming majority of cases, people are dying because of their addiction to sodomy. They are dying because progressive, enlightened, tolerant people in politics and in medicine have assured the public that the practice of sodomy is a legitimate alternative lifestyle, rather than a perverted, depraved crime against humanity.”
Lockman doubled down in 1990, saying that “the practice of sodomy is learned behavior, and those addicted to this form of biologically-insane sex are at high risk for all manner of serious medical problems.”
Almost a decade earlier, Lockman founded a group called the Maine Patriots, which espoused the belief that taxes are voluntary and that the IRS is unconstitutional. A federal tax court in 1983 found that Lockman owed more than $17,000 in unpaid taxes.
The Maine Democratic Party called for Lockman to resign after his recent rape comments were made public. Lockman refused to step down and has never issued an apology for his statements, though he did say that he regrets the comments he made. | 5,126 |
�American Hiroshima.” In the words of Eugene Habiger, a retired four-star general who once ran antinuclear terror programs for the Department of Energy, “it is not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when.”
The most important challenge for the U.S. armed forces and their allies in the post-9/11 world is to “leverage” their advantage in conventional weaponry to deal with today’s unconventional threats. Information technology can be an important part of this task. Embedded microchips can track the 18 million cargo containers moving around the world and help prevent terrorists from using them to smuggle weapons. Computerized cameras scanning a crowd may be able to pick out a terrorist based on facial recognition patterns. Dog-like sniffing machines may be able to recognize suspects by their body odor. Powerful computers utilizing artificial intelligence programs can sift vast reams of Internet data to pick out information about terrorist plots — if concerns about violating the privacy of innocent people do not get in the way. A variety of unobtrusive sensors can detect the presence of explosives or chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. Handheld computer translating devices such as the Phraselator, already in use by U.S. troops, can bridge some of the language gap between Western operatives and the regions where they operate.
But in the final analysis, having the best technology is not enough to defeat the most committed terrorists armed with the deadliest weapons. Some of the most expensive weapons systems being purchased by the United States and its allies are irrelevant to fighting and winning the war against terrorism. And the combination of moral restraint and bureaucratic sluggishness that defines America’s military culture may leave the U.S. at a comparative disadvantage against nimble, networked, nihilistic enemies like al Qaeda, who will deploy whatever weapons they have with urgent brutality. To deal with the essential paradox of the information age — that the march of advanced technology may decrease our security in some areas while increasing it in others — we need not just better machines but also the right organizations, training, and leadership to take advantage of them. That’s where the U.S. has lagged badly behind; its industrial-age military bureaucracy remains configured primarily for fighting other conventional militaries, rather than the terrorist foes we increasingly confront. Changing the culture and structure of our armed forces — to say nothing of the CIA or State Department — is a far more daunting task than simply figuring out which weapons systems to buy. Yet even if we rise to that bureaucratic and political challenge, there will likely be times, tragically, when our military supremacy is no match for the technology-enhanced savagery of our inferior enemies. | 5,127 |
Here's something unexpected: Of the five major PC makers in the United States, Apple was the only one whose shipments fell last quarter.
Overall U.S. PC shipments grew by 3.5% in the third quarter, according to tech consultancy Gartner. While Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Dell (DELL), Lenovo and Toshiba all grew their shipments over last year, Apple's fell by 2.3%.
It might be even worse than that. If you ask Gartner's rival consultancy IDC, Macintosh shipments fell by more than 11%.
Apple's Macintosh shipments are difficult to estimate. We won't get an official number until Apple (AAPL) releases its quarterly financial statement on Oct. 28.
But the Mac's decline is perplexing. It could be attributable to the fact that Apple hasn't issued a major update to its MacBook Air line in nearly two years, and it has devoted most of its energies towards the iPhone and iPad. Still, Apple hit a company high for PC market share just a year ago, capturing 14.2% of the market. This year, it only has 13.4% of the market.
Related story: Microsoft Surface 2 is hardly an afterthought
For Microsoft (MSFT) Windows PC makers, the positive numbers are better than expected but not terribly surprising. The third quarter is when PC makers begin their big "back to school" marketing push in the United States, and Windows 8 has had nearly a year to make its way onto PCs.
The growth in PC shipments was enough to give Gartner analyst Mikakio Kitagawa some hope that the industry could be ready to take a breather from its three-year slump. And though tablets may still be on the rise, the PC could be finding its footing once again.
"The U.S. market may have passed the worst declining stage," said Kitagawa in a statement. "Tablets will continue to impact the PC market, but the U.S. PC market will see a more moderate decrease rather than a steep decline in the next two years."
Worldwide, the PC market faced a different story. Though the three largest PC manufacturers managed squeeze out shipment gains, the rest of the industry wasn't so lucky. Global PC sales fell nearly 9% year over year, according to Gartner.
That's not nearly as bad as the 14% decline the market experienced last quarter, but it's a big decline nonetheless.
Lenovo, HP and Dell grew PC shipments by between 1% and 3% globally. But Asus and Acer weren't so lucky, each victims of a double digit backslide. | 5,128 |
Following the group’s disbandment in July 2014, many thought that would be the end of controversial idol group BiS.
Exactly two years after BiS’s disbandment, it was announced by former BiS leader Pour Lui, sound producer Kenta Matsukuma and former Manager Junnosuke Watanabe that BiS would reform under a new line up. Auditions were opened for women 18 to 28 years old.
To mark a new beginning, Pour Lui released “BiSBiS” as a free digital download, with a video of the last-woman-standing wandering through wreckage and finding out what was in store for the group.
At the end of last month, the BiS YouTube channel uploaded videos of eleven audition finalists: Koshouji Megumu, Maina The End, Tontonko, Bug Me, Nagayama Yukiko, Yokoyama Hina, Michihayashi Rio, Terayama Yufu, Sen to Chihiro Tsuttsu, Second Summer Uika, and Hirano Nozomu.
The finalists participated in a four-day audition which was livestreamed on Niconico, following a format similar to Morning Musume’s auditions on the TV show ASAYAN.
In the end, four girls were selected. They will go by pseudonyms rather than formal stage names: Yokoyama Hina as Go Ji-ra, Nagayama Yukiko as Pere Ubu, Koshouji Megumu as Aya Eight Prince and Maina the End as Kika Front Frontal.
Although former members were welcomed to take part in the audition, Pour Lui is the only member from the previous incarnation to be part of the current line up.
Today, the group held a live show “THiS is BiS” to show off their new regime to a crowd of 70 people. At the end of their performance, three girls that failed the auditions (Paripi, Nozomu and Yufu) stormed the stage to formally declare their rivalry with BiS.
Three members of SiS confirmed! Looking forward to this rivalry in action. #BiSオーデ #BiSAudition pic.twitter.com/NRptqiyTGo — ぴちぇる (18) (@no3982) September 4, 2016
The newly-formed rival unit SiS are set to perform their first live show later this month. They will be produced by Especia’s former manager Hiromitsu Shimizu.
(Via Natalie, no3982) | 5,129 |
You have probably heard or read that it has been rather smoky out West this year. Dozens of large wildfires have raged through forests in British Columbia, Alberta, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, and other states this fire season. Intense blazes are lofting up so much smoke that huge plumes have been blowing across the country—and even turning up in Europe. We checked with a few scientists who specialize in studying wildfires for an update on what is going on.
EO: How does this fire season compare to past years?
The western fire season has been quite active this year. British Columbia has surpassed its greatest burned area in the modern era. While its unlikely that this season will be record-breaking in the western U.S., it is above normal relative to the past decade, which has seen abundant fire activity.
— John Abatzoglou, University of Idaho
EO: Is climate change exacerbating these fires?
Because we have let fuels build up in the western U.S., it is difficult to tell in many ecosystems what is weather-driven vs. climate-driven until we get back to normal fuel loads. This 2013 PNAS paper tries to answer the climate question given the artificially increased fuel loadings. They found that climate change is responsible for 55 percent of the observed increasing fuel aridity. — Jessica McCarty, Miami University
EO: Are bark beetles making these fires worse?
No, the bark beetle outbreaks have little-to-no relationship with trends in area burned or the ecological severity of fires. I think this continues to be a big misconception with the public, which is understandable because climate is a key driver of both bark beetle outbreaks and wildfires. Many people jump to the conclusion that bark beetle outbreaks are causing fires. But it is likely a classic case of correlation without causation. — Brian Harvey, University of Washington
EO: If there was one thing you wished Americans understood about wildfires in the West, what would it be?
Be careful with fire. Smokey the Bear is trying to educate you on the risk—listen. Heed fire risk and fire weather warnings. Don’t build campfires unless you have to. Don’t go off-roading during droughts and heat waves. Be careful with your cigarette butts. — Jessica McCarty, Miami University
Even though no one is a fan of widespread smoke, wildfires aren’t inherently “bad” [when they are in unpopulated areas]. One continuing challenge is figuring out how to live with fire as part of the system as more people settle in the region during an era of changing environmental conditions. — John Abatzoglou, University of Idaho | 5,130 |
The SK Group, one of the largest conglomerates in South Korea, is creating a blockchain-based donation platform, reports IT Chosun, the technology publication of the Chosun Ilbo. The company also proposed two new tokens in the design of the platform.
According to the report, SK Corporation C&C, the group’s IT arm, made the announcement today at a conference on the blockchain and social impact. Kakao’s Ground X was one of the sponsors of the conference, which was held at the Heyground co-working space in Seongdong District, Seoul.
The platform will be built with xCurrent, a real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system from San Francisco-based Ripple. Once completed, the platform will allow for direct, low-cost and peer-to-peer (P2P) foreign-currency transactions, instantly settling free of intermediary institutions.
The architecture will be open sourced and open to outside developers, with transaction terms customized by the counterparties. It will be centralized and will not depend on mining.
Two separate tokens will be utilized. The Social Value Coin (SVC) will trade 1:1 to the won and be used for making the actual donations. The Social Value Power (SVP) will be distributed as compensation to those using the platform. SVPs will be paid out at a ratio of 1 to 1000 SVCs when donations are made, meaning the sender receives 1 SVP for every 1,000 SVCs remitted.
SK said that the project is still in development with no firm deadline for launch.
The group has been active in the development of blockchain solutions. In late 2018, SK Corporation C&C signed a deal with New York-based ConsenSys to build an enterprise blockchain platform. Last month, it was reported that the SK Holdings invested 10 billion won ($8.2 million) in a fund managed by ConsenSys.
SK Telecom, the telecommunications arm of the group, is building the STONledger, an enterprise blockchain platform. It is also working with a number of other companies, including Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Koscom—the IT subsidiary of the Korea Exchange—to develop a blockchain-based identification system.
SK is the third largest chaebol in the country, after Samsung and Hyundai Motor, with 218 trillion won in assets. The modest blockchain-based donation project being proposed is just about all that is possible at the moment in terms of cryptocurrencies. With ICOs banned, tokens that represent underlying fiat currencies and those used for highly-directed rewards programs are all that can be developed while still remaining within the regulations.
Image via Shutterstock. | 5,131 |
I want to talk about Herman Wouk’s naval coming-of-age story, The Caine Mutiny for two reasons:
It used to be A Big Deal: It was anchored to the New York Times best-seller list for 122 weeks, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1952. It’s pretty funny.
Summary: An aristocratic young man goes from piano-playing in New York to decoding directives aboard a leaky, rusting ship called the USS Caine, somewhere in the South Pacific. His coming-of-age has everything to do with surviving inhumane ordeals and constant run-ins with authority, authority, authority. As a new sailor, the protagonist can’t do anything right, and just when he starts to figure things out, the new Captain Queeg arrives, a boss so pathetically and maliciously insecure that his subordinates wonder if he’s mentally ill.
Sound familiar? Back in the 1950s, The Caine Mutiny resonated with a lot of people—those who’d been to war, those who’d served in the Navy, anyone who’d been in the chain of command or rebelled against it, and anyone who was struggling with rules of order, class, and paternal patriarchy could find something in this book. If anything, it may help you understand your grandparents. (Of course, The Caine Mutiny also reflects all the stupid offenses against humanity of its time, too.)
If you find yourself advising a young reader torn between The Caine Mutiny and say…The Great Gatsby, choose this. Here, the quest for masculinity is constantly lampooned, and after about 200 pages of jokes, The Caine Mutiny starts to get really interesting by posing some serious questions about justice and hierarchy: appropriate for the moment since although the Pentagon will soon ease restrictions on women in combat, the ban continues on women in infantry, which keeps 200,000+ enlisted women out of promotions and leadership roles.
Follow the book’s about-face from bildungsroman to legal thriller and feel good about not quite knowing who’s good, who’s bad, what mental illness really is, and what security really means.
“Queeg was at his desk, dressed in fresh clothes, his puffy face shaved and powdered. This struck Maryk as ominous. He handed the captain the investigation report, headed: ‘Strawberries, disappearance of—Report of board of investigation’. Queeg, rolling two silver balls in his hand, read the typewritten sheets carefully.”
Previously: A ______ of One’s Own | 5,132 |
, and it’s not just his play that put the final nail in the coffin.
Revis found himself making headlines when he was charged with aggravated assault, robbery, terroristic threats and conspiracy stemming in February of 2017. Just one week after, the Jets let him walk. The charges were later dropped after a friend confessed to the assault, but the damage was done.
Revis didn’t find a home until November when he signed with the Chiefs. He only played five games and started just two of them. Two months later, the Chiefs cut him.
The Lions just don’t need him. The Lions could use another corner to help out All Pro corner Darius Slay, but at this point, that corner is more likely to be Malcolm Butler. Revis will be calling football games on TV before you know it.
Here’s our first big fish of the season. This is the one I’m predicting will get some flack. The Lions already have a big receiving tight end in Eric Ebron, and Ebron is the better choice over Graham going forward. Here’s why.
If drops are a big problem to you, then you would hate Jimmy Graham in Detroit. Let’s do a little stat work here. Eric Ebron is supposedly the drop master in the NFL. Although for all of that narrative, Ebron only dropped the ball three times in 2017. Graham had seven, good for second-most in the league.
That’s nothing new. Graham has had this problem his entire career. But the production he was able to get out in his heyday masked the deficiencies. But those days are over. In 2017, Graham racked up just 520 yards. He had 10 touchdowns, but he became a player who turned into just a red zone threat.
The idea of a dependable tight end on the other side of Ebron is a good idea, but going on 32, Graham is just not that guy. The Lions could probably benefit more from signing Graham’s counterpart in Luke Wilson. Willson could bring in some blocking and a little receiving in the vein of Darren Fells. Willson is just 28, too.
Look, I won’t lie. There’s always a player on these lists that if the Lions do somehow sign, I won’t complain about. Graham is that player this time. If the Lions can get Jimmy for super cheap, why the heck not? I’ll be the last to complain about it. But the truth is that will never happen. Graham is going to want more than he’s worth and somebody is gonna give it to him. | 5,133 |
."
A year later, Gooding is still ambiguous about the source. "The fire report, all it said is that it was an electrical fire with an unspecified source," she says. "They think it started at the base where Big Tex plugged into the power in the ground."
"Lighting an effigy is completely manageable and doable, according to how you do it," says pyrotechnics expert Joe Walker.
For a fire that started at the base of the statue or in his boot, it sure seems convenient that his head was first to burn. But Gooding says that Big Tex acted like a chimney. "The first thing we noticed was smoke coming up out of his collar," she says.
5. The ease of arson.
One of the wondrous things about the Big Tex fire was its efficacy, the way it burned so cleanly, so efficiently. And what a miracle that no one got hurt – unless, of course, you count the unforgettable trauma of witnessing the pyre suffered by a troop of children who were scarfing funnel cakes to celebrate Big Tex's birthday. Their nightmares will never end.
Is it possible to deliberately set a statue on fire? Enter Joe Walker, pyrotechnics expert from Austin ProFx.
"Lighting an effigy is completely manageable and doable, according to how you do it," Walker says. "It depends on how much flammable material is on the inside or outside. It could be started and finished in a matter of minutes."
Cue State Fair spokeswoman Gooding: "The fire started at about 10:05 am and it was about 17-18 minutes from start to end," she says.
6. The stunningly efficient disposal.
One attendee at the fair that day who asks to remain anonymous witnessed the fair's recovery of the "corpse" and marveled at how unnervingly efficient it was.
"I was there the morning it burned down, doing a product demonstration," she says. "Let me start by saying that the experience I'd had was that, to even get a dumpster delivered to where we were was the biggest pain in the ass known to man.
"So I was amazed to see that, within 45 minutes, they had a truck on site and a crane that they used to lower him onto this truck. They had tarps to wrap his burnt body up, and get him secured and tied down. I remember thinking, 'How in the hell did their response team get that done so quick?' I thought they must have some amazing emergency plan for this. But how do you plan for Big Tex catching on fire?" | 5,134 |
�Excuse me,” he coughed, blinking dramatically, “but … where am I?”
The secretary peeked up then grumbled, “So you saw a line and thought you should cut, huh?” And in a loud voice she called, “We got a breather!” Immediately, two burly women burst from one of the doors behind the secretary and grabbed Perry by the biceps, towing him through another door on the opposite side. There, a terrific gray light blinded him, and the next thing he knew he was sitting across from a man in a windowless office.
“Just a minute,” said the balding man, his wire-rimmed glasses halfway down his nose. He scribbled on a form, before he pitched the folder over his shoulder and toward one of the impossibly balanced piles behind him. It landed perfectly on top. “Now, how can I help you?”
Perry pulled at the loose fabric of his pants. “What’s … happening?”
The squat man flashed a brusque smile and flicked through a tower of folders. He stopped on one that looked the same as every other. “Perry J. Costa,” he read. “Forty-eight years old. Two children. One ex-wife. Heart attack while browsing the Internet at work. Sound right?”
The memories came to Perry like a nail gun to his skull. “I’m” — he panted — “Am I dead?”
The other man cleared his throat then jazzily danced his hands and sung, “They call me Death.” From somewhere, a tinkling sound effect played, but upon its conclusion, Death resumed his sober disposition.
“But you …” Perry began to have difficulty breathing.
“I know. I look like a tax lawyer. Stupid joke.”
All around Perry, the colors of the room seemed to turn soupy, his thoughts like the music of a merry-go-round getting faster and faster, the melody becoming shriller, distorted; the world ingesting him like —
Death snapped his fingers, and suddenly, everything popped into focus, Perry abruptly feeling as though he had taken a couple of his ex-wife’s anxiety pills. “You’re just dying,” said Death. “You haven’t died.” He dragged a finger down Perry’s folder. “Right now, the EMT’s are entering y | 5,135 |
Article and Photos by Andres Alvarado
Aussie quintet POND brought their mesmerizing pageantry to Atlanta’s The Loft. This psychedelic-pop gang from down-under has been widely recognized for their a cosmically soothing approach, fan-interacted showings, and an oft revolving line-up involving fellow countrymen and genre titans, Tame Impala. This go-round, the Nick Allbrook-led troupe performed for a packed venue of aficionados ready to be handheld onto a downpour of starry psych-rock tunage.
Front and center stands Allbrook, a slender and pint-sized man, in an Outkast tribute tee as POND performs in the hip-hop duo’s hometown. Shaggy bed-hair and glitter splattered around his persona make Allbrook seem all the more rock-n-roll – if that makes any sense. Backing the POND vocalist are a highly rhythmic foursome, Tame Impala’s multi-instrumentalist Jay Watson, Shiny Joe Ryan on the bass, Jamie Terry in his Taylor Swift-inspired tee on the keys, and drummer James Ireland.
Playing to a boisterous and fully engaged mob, the Perth-based five-some delivered a bevy of highlights. Allbrook consistently panders to his base by way of crowd-surfs, fist-pumps, and signature oddball dances and facial expressions. While Nick’s vocal works is the driving force behind each anthem, his antics are what really bring the band’s tunes to life. The remaining POND mates all take a back-seat to their front-man, and for the most part stand their ground on the dais, but do not let that fool you. The galactic-rock sound-waves produced by the background foursome are enticing and dreamy. While Allbrook may garner most of the ohhs and ahhs, it’s Watson, Ryan, Terry, and Ireland that keep you swaying and dancing throughout the evening.
Overall, the band is a hoot to witness. With a storied discography that travels back roughly a decade, POND tossed out plenty of oldies, and mixed in some off their new highly acclaimed LP, The Weather. This Australian gang serviced onlookers with abundant space-inspired hooks, wild and weird lead-singer antics, and just a let-loose dosage of good old-fashioned fun. POND is, most definitely, one act to catch on the live circuit.
For more on POND and their ongoing trek, including a stop at world-famous music festival Bonnaroo, click here. | 5,136 |
’s concentration during this crucially important final tune-up for Saturday. They were laser-focused on mastering the weekend’s game-plan.
“On Friday, I want to make sure everyone’s completely locked in,” Franklin said. “No talking — echoing the situation so we’re all on the same page. We come out and we do every situation that may come off in the game. How you prepare all week is going to help you be confident on Saturdays.”
Penn State’s Friday routine is a stark contrast from Florida’s, which was chronicled on the first episode of “24/7 College Football.” The Gators play flag football and have a much more relaxed practice on Fridays.
Sean Spencer’s Wild Dogs
The closeness and bond among Penn State’s defensive linemen was chronicled quite a bit throughout the episode of “24/7 College Football,” and it was a refreshing change of pace.
Position coach Sean Spencer was introduced in the most badass possible fashion by riding his motorcycle on his commute to work. The narrative quickly shifted to the closeness of the players he coaches, which was on full display during a Wild Dog dinner at The Field in State College.
The climax of the Wild Dogs’ narrative took place on the Friday night before the game. In one final team meeting, the Nittany Lions’ defensive linemen took part in one of their most sacred traditions. Each Wild Dog picks out the dog tag of the teammate they’ll play for that weekend.
Shaka Toney discussed this tradition following Penn State’s 35-7 win over Purdue, and Spencer also took some time to remind his players of their bond at the end of this meeting.
“This is what it’s all about — the brotherhood in this room,” Spencer said. “It doesn’t matter what the damn game-plan says — it doesn’t — because if you don’t fight for each other, we have nothing. What we have in this room is special, and you got to believe in each other every time you go out.”
Out-Of-Context Line Of The Show
“We’re a thermostat.” -Sean Clifford.
Honorable Mentions:
“We come here, and families know to clear out.” -Robert Windsor
“Nine years with that guy. ‘Chaos’ is the fitting word.” -Brent Pry
Other Notable Observations | 5,137 |
So I'm transgendered (male to female) and I do parkour. How does that work? I'm on hormones that physically change some of the morphilogical features of my body to match my gender. Some of these changes include shrinking muscles and body fat redistribution.
I'm very early in on my transition, only 2 months on hormones but a lot has changed socially and physically for me. I was incredibly worried about not being able to train the way I did before. I thought that I would just get weaker and so it wasn't worth an ounce of my strength to take hormones even if it meant that my body would change into what I'd always needed it to be. I also needed to be strong and capable, wouldn't I lose all of that? Since I'm already 2 months in here, I've already come to the conclusion that I'm gonna be okay. Working with a doctor who has had several trans patients gave me a lot of confidence and I found myself dispelling a lot of myths about taking hormones that kept me too afraid to get on the path.
Yes it's true that my muscles will get smaller due to my lowering levels of testosterone. However, this means that my overall bodyweight will drop due to the muscle being heavier than fat. As a parkour practitioner I'm really only concerned about my relative strength/power to weight ratio. It does not really benefit us to be extremely heavy with muscle or fat in this discipline. That's the theory anyway, but there are plenty of real world examples of female gymnasts, one arm pull-up rock climber chicks, and super skinny parkour dudes to show that it's quite possible to thrive with smaller muscles. Aaaand of course don't forget about all the other female parkour athletes out there breaking down all the stereotypes. I draw so much motivation and inspiration from them.
It's about motor control and neurological training which doesn't just go away with muscle loss. It reminds me of Pavel's work. In one of his books he shared a story about a woman lifting a car off of her husband or something because she was recruiting a higher percentage of her muscle fibers. So there you go, estrogen will allow me to lift cars now. There's your non sequitur of the day. In all seriousness though I'm writing about this stuff because I don't want being a serious parkour practitioner to bar trans women from getting the treatment that they need. Let's see if my theories hold true throughout my transition. I'll do some progress report posts on things as they unfold. Also if there are any other trans parkour athletes out there, feel free to connect with me, we're a rare cross section of people.
| 5,138 |
it down, they witness a mystical phenomenon: the ghost of a young woman pulls itself out of the machine, as if the spaceship had a soul. Trying to understand the nature of this entity, they start chasing the woman through space. Inspired by the spirit of the 80’s films and music, BLOOD MACHINES is a 50-minute, 3-part sci-fi horror mind melter told in three chapters, scored by the synthwave artist Carpenter Brut. Starring Elisa Lasowski, Anders Heinrichsen and Noémie Stevens, written and directed by Seth Ickerman. A SHUDDER ORIGINAL EXPERIENCE (Also available on Shudder Canada and Shudder UK)
Friday, May 22nd, 2020
THE LAST DRIVE-IN WITH JOE BOB BRIGGS, ep. 205
Monday, May 25th, 2020
TURBO KID (Director: RKSS)
In a post-apocalyptic future, a young solitary scavenger obsessed with comic books must face his fears and become a reluctant hero when he meets a mysterious girl. Starring Munro Chambers, Laurence Leboeuf, Michael Ironside.
Thursday, May 28th, 2020
CONFESSIONAL (premieres Thursday, May 28)
After two mysterious deaths at a college on the same night, seven students are blackmailed into revealing what they know inside a hidden confession booth. Their confessions unveil the truth—not just about the deaths, but about the confessional as well. Starring Marcus Scribner (Black-ish, @marcusscribner), Paris Berelc (Alexa & Katie, @theparisberelc), Vanessa Marano (The Dead Girls Detective Agency, @vanessamarano), Lucas Adams (Days of our Lives, @thelucasadams), Annalisa Cochrane (Cobra Kai @annalisacochrane), Jess Gabor (Shameless, @jessgabor), Brandon Larracuente (Party of Five, @brandonlarracuente), Jake Short (A.N.T Farm,@jakeshort) and Mia Xitlali (La Quinceañera, @mia.xitlali.official). Written by Jennifer Wolfe and directed by Brad T. Gottfred. A Shudder Exclusive (Also available on Shudder Canada and Shudder UK)
Friday, May 29th, 2020
THE LAST DRIVE-IN WITH JOE BOB BRIGGS, ep. 205
Top Photo: Doug Bradley as Pinhead in Hellraiser. Courtesy: Entertainment Film Distributors. | 5,139 |
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Koster won’t appeal same-sex marriage ruling
Saint Louis, Mo. — Hours after the U.S. Supreme Court announced they would not be hearing any same-sex marriage cases in the coming year, Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster announced his office would not be appealing last week’s decision that Missouri must recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in other states.
“Our national government is founded upon principles of federalism – a system that empowers Missouri to set policy for itself, but also obligates us to honor contracts entered into in other states,” Koster said in a statement on the case, Barrier v. Vasterling, today.
Koster, a Democrat, was one of more than a dozen attorneys general across the U.S. that signed a legal brief asking for the Supreme Court to rule on one of several pending appeals in states where courts have knocked down laws or constitutional amendments prohibiting same sex marriage. The decision by the Court not to act effectively permitted same-sex marriages to legally begin taking place in 30 states.
“A consequence of this morning’s ruling by the United States Supreme Court is that gay marriage will soon be legal in as many as 30 states,” Koster said. “At a time when Missouri is competing to attract the nation’s premier businesses and most talented employees, we should not demand that certain individuals surrender their marriage licenses in order to live and work among us.”
Koster’s announcement signals yet another advancement for the LGBT community, and may indicate that his office will not vigorously battle legal representatives from St. Louis City after city officials issued same-sex marriage licenses in an effort to test the state’s ban in open court. Koster said at the time he personally supported same-sex marriages, but that he would uphold his constitutional duty to defend the state’s laws in court. Whether or not Koster will seek to appeal a ruling knocking down Missouri’s ban entirely is not yet known.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri, whose legal representatives brought the Barrier case to court, released a statement applauding the decision.
“As the Attorney General has recognized, our constitution obligates Missouri to recognize marriages from other states, as our state has historically done. Now more than half of the states will not exclude gay men and lesbians from marriage,” said ACLU of Missouri’s legal director, Tony Rothert. “We look forward to the day that Missouri will join the majority soon. In the meantime, we are thrilled that Missouri will no longer single out gay men and lesbians for discrimination by refusing to recognize their marriages.” | 5,141 |
5, resulting in simulated soil NO x emissions in Imperial Valley croplands near 20 and 129 ng N m−2 s−1, which are representative of the range in mean and median flux values collected under both average and recently fertilized conditions in the field. It is important to note that this modelling exercise simply increases emission rates and does not account for the observed nonlinear pulse NO x emission events that occur in response to fertilization.
All simulations were run for 7 days in September 2012 (23–29 September 2012), with several days as spin-up time. These simulations were compared with measurements of surface and tropospheric NO 2 columns above the Imperial Valley.
Comparing modelled and measured NO 2
Evaluation of WRF-Chem model performance was assessed through comparisons with surface and satellite observations. First, we compared modelled with measured surface NO 2 in the Imperial Valley. Surface NO 2 concentrations are measured by the California Air Resources Board at an air quality-monitoring site located 11.3 km west of DREC on 9th Street, El Centro, CA (latitude: 32.79222; longitude: −115.563). This site is not near a point source and provides representative concentrations of pollutants for the Imperial Valley. Surface NO 2 measurements are made by first reducing all NO 2 to NO using heated molybdenum surfaces and then measuring the chemiluminescent reaction of NO with O 3 (ref. 53). Comparisons between modelled and measured surface NO 2 concentration were made for all WRF-Chem model simulations (default, 10 × and 64.5 × elevated soil NO x emission). WRF-Chem model performance was assessed using linear regression and the coefficient of determination (r2). Model bias was estimated using the absolute r.m.s.e. between modelled and observed surface NO 2 concentrations.
To evaluate the model’s ability to simulate local meteorology, we compared daily average wind speed (m s−1) and air temperature (°C) measured at the El Centro air quality monitoring station and simulated by the model. Model performance was assessed using the coefficient of determination (r2) and the absolute r.m.s.e.. We evaluated local sources of NO x from biomass-burning events using MODIS images. MODIS images are publically available and were assessed for 20–29 September 2012. We also analysed meteorological data from a weather station located at DREC (managed by the California Irrigation Management Information System, www.cimis.water.ca.gov) to investigate how rainfall (mm), air temperature (°C) and net radiation (W m−2) changed during the simulation period. | 5,142 |
A bill was recently introduced in Oregon that would reform primary elections in a whole new way. Republican state Representative Knute Buehler, of District 54, is the sponsor of bill HB-3140, also known as the People’s Primary.
The People's Primary opens the first stage of the public election process in a way no other state does. Put simply, HB-3140 reforms the current closed primary system by adding a ballot for independent voters. Voters registered with a party can vote in their party's primary. However, if these voters wish to opt out of participating in their party's primary or are unaffiliated, they can participate in the People's Primary.
Here is how it works:
The system would opt for voters, parties, or a coalition of parties to nominate candidates who they want to be in the primary. Candidates then submit their nomination to the secretary of state to ensure qualification.
Once nominated and confirmed, voters registered with a political party can vote in their party's primary per usual. Voters not affiliated with a party are mailed the People's Primary election ballot, and voters affiliated with a party may request the People's Primary ballot instead of their party's ballot.
Candidates affiliated with a political party who qualify for the primary appear on their party's ballot. All candidates, including candidates not affiliated with a party, appear on the People's Primary ballot and their party affiliation -- or lack thereof -- is indicated on the ballot.
The winner of each party's primary AND the People's Primary would be guaranteed a spot on the general election ballot.
The bill was introduced on March 1. While it would be a new primary system to be implemented, if passed, the concept behind it is not new.
In April 2016, IVN published an article by FairVote detailing the Public Primary, which initially was proposed by a member of the Independent Voter Project (a co-publisher of IVN). Both the People's Primary and the Public Primary are very similar in nature, with the biggest difference being the use of ranked choice voting in the Public Primary.
Undoubtedly, HB-3140 would drastically change the current closed primary system in Oregon. According to OpenPrimaries.org, roughly 30 percent of Oregon voters are registered as non-affiliated or independent.
In an election climate where nearly all elections are decided in the primary stage, a significant bloc of voters in Oregon do not currently have an equal say in who ends up representing them. There clearly is a desire for change among these voters. It is up to Oregon lawmakers to decide if establishing the People's Primary will be the change the state needs.
Photo Credit: vepar5 / shutterstock.com | 5,143 |
A young Subject Nine at the KTC Headquarters with a gizmo helmet.
Subject Nine is a sentient raptor attempting to engineer an escape from the Secret Lab in Azshara. Imported from the Barrens, she could be found as a hatchling at the KTC Headquarters in Kezan, where she was made intelligent by Hobart Grapplehammer. She was bred with Subject Four in order to create a unique race of cognitively superior raptors. She now plans to leave Azeroth with her children and colonize a new world.
Quests
Hearthstone. Subject 9 in
Quotes
Kezan
Subject Nine's dialogue changes everytime she is interacted with, but always starts with:
<To your astonishment, the Raptor hatching is able to communicate with you.>
Followed by one of the following:
Greetings. I recently emerged from an egg. You?
I hunger... therefore, I am.
Is it true that you cook your meat?
Curious.
<Papa/Mama>...?
They call you <name>. Is that your unique signifier, or is it an honorary title?
The ends of your fingers are dull and round. Is this why you carry around other implements for use in combat?
How interesting.
What does "<class>" mean? Are you the goblin <patriarch/matriarch>?
You lack a helmet. Does this diminish your intellectual capabilities?
Azshara
Greetings, <race>. Please do not alarm yourself. I am indeed speaking to you in your native tongue.
My own considerable raptor intelligence has been augmented through a series of experiments. You may refer to me as "Subject Nine," an identity recently bestowed to me by my creators, who are otherwise at the moment occupied or deceased. Perhaps you can render me some assistance?
In Hearthstone
This section contains information exclusive to Hearthstone and is considered non-canon.
Subject Nine (spelled "Subject 9") appears as a legendary card in The Boomsday Project expansion for Hearthstone. In the lore of the expansion, Nine ended up in Boom Labs after departing Azshara and received a number of robotic body enhancements. While she received some help from Dr. Boom and the other scientists at the lab, she was ultimately the genius behind her own "evolution".[1][2] 9's flavor text reads: "The original clever girl."
Trivia
Her story arc appears to be a reference to Plan 9 From Outer Space.
Patch changes
See also
References | 5,144 |
Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. Advertisement A teenage boy has been praised for helping to save six children aged from five to 15 from their burning house. Leighton Griffiths, 15, from Cwmbran, heard the youngsters screaming for help after the fire broke out in the Greenmeadow area early on Saturday. The mother of five of the children rescued from the fire said her young neighbour had saved their lives. South Wales Fire Service praised the "swift actions of the public", firefighters and fire control staff. Fire crews were called to The Twinings at 0220 BST on Saturday, with the fire at an end-of-terrace house. Leighton said he used a hosepipe to try to douse the flames while his stepfather Alan Probert and a neighbour put a ladder up to a window and got out three of the youngsters. They could have died and I could not have lived my life knowing I could have done something
Leighton Griffiths Meanwhile, unbeknown to Mr Probert, Leighton said he had gone into the property and rescued the three other children trapped in the burning house. He collapsed and had to be taken to hospital afterwards with minor burns and a suspected broken rib. Leighton said: "No matter how scared you might be, you've got to be brave enough to go in and get them. They could have died and I could not have lived my life knowing I could have done something. "I class everyone who gave a hand at the time a hero because we all played a part in it." The fire is believed to have started in the electrical fuse box at the house. The blaze broke out in the early hours of Saturday They are the third family to have survived a blaze in the property in recent years. Tracy Evans and her husband had been on their first evening out in 18 months when the fire started. Mrs Evans said: "He's absolutely fantastic. He saved my children's lives. If it wasn't for him, my kids wouldn't be here now, and there's nothing I can ever do (for) that boy or repay him for what he's done." The children have also made a thank you card for Leighton who celebrates his 16th birthday on Tuesday. South Wales Fire Service said the blaze was being treated as accidental. Further investigations are being carried out with the police. Richie Prendergast, the officer in charge of the incident, said due to the swift actions of the public, the fire crews at the scene and fire control staff, a great tragedy had been avoided.
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Alexander Alusheff
Lansing State Journal
LANSING – The Beer Grotto has closed its doors.
The restaurant, one of the first in Lansing to focus on craft beer, made the announcement Monday afternoon on its Facebook page.
“With deep sadness, we regret to inform you all that The Beer Grotto - Lansing will be permanently closed for business effective today,” the post reads.
The restaurant's owners could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday afternoon.
The Beer Grotto, located at 500 E. Michigan Ave. inside the Stadium District, had 48 craft beers on tap, mostly from Michigan breweries, and a selection of 24 wines. It was intended to be a place for people to try craft beer in an area that didn’t have many options at the time it opened in April 2015.
Since then, five breweries have opened in the region, including the Lansing Brewing Co., which is located a block away from The Beer Grotto.
"We are bummed they are closing," said Pat Gillespie, president of Gillespie Group, which owns the building where The Beer Grotto operated. "We thought it was a nice addition to the avenue. The area has gotten a lot more energetic since they opened."
Gillespie Group opened Lansing Brewing Co. six months after The Beer Grotto opened.
"It probably didn't help them, but I hoped they would complement one another," Gillespie said. "Anytime something leaves, it's not positive."
Gillespie said his company will work to find another business to open in that location, one that brings something not yet offered in the area.
"I'm sad to hear that it's closing," said Sam Short, a former partner in the business. "It's too bad because there were fun times had there."
Short said he left the business a year ago to focus on his other venture, the Potent Potables Project, which owns the Cosmos, Zoobie's and The Creole. It also plans to open Punk Taco sometime next year.
The Beer Grotto still operates two other locations, one in Dexter and the other in Ann Arbor.
The Dexter location is listed for sale by Swisher Commercial for $350,000. Before the Lansing location closed, it was listed for sale by the same company for $200,000.
The Lansing location was the largest of the three.
Alexander Alusheff is a reporter at the Lansing State Journal. Contact him at (517) 388-5973 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @alexalusheff. | 5,146 |
We could have been living in an antimatter universe, but we are not. Antimatter is matter’s upside-down twin—every matter particle has a matching antimatter version with the opposite charge. Physicists think the cosmos started out with just as much antimatter as matter, but most of the former got wiped out. Now they may be one step closer to knowing why.
Researchers at the Large Hadron Collider Beauty (LHCb) experiment at CERN near Geneva have discovered antimatter and matter versions of “charm” quarks—one of six types, or flavors, of a class of elementary matter particles—acting differently from one another. In a new study, which was presented in March at the “Rencontres de Moriond” particle physics conference in La Thuile, Italy, the physicists found that unstable particles called D0 mesons (which contain charm quarks) decayed into more stable particles at a slightly different rate than their antimatter counterparts. Such differences could help explain how an asymmetry arose between matter and antimatter after the big bang, resulting in a universe composed mostly of matter.
Matter and antimatter annihilate each other on contact, and researchers believe such collisions destroyed almost all of the antimatter (and a large chunk of the matter) that initially existed in the cosmos. But they do not understand why a relatively small excess of matter survived to become the stars and planets and the rest of the cosmos. Consequently, physicists have been looking for a kind of matter that behaves so differently from its antimatter version that it would have had time to generate this excess in the early universe.
The newly discovered mismatch in decay rates between charm quarks and antiquarks turns out to be too small to account for the universe’s excess of matter. The result, however, “does bring us closer to finding the answer because it shows one of the possible answers may not be the right one,” says theoretical physicist Yuval Grossman of Cornell University, who was not involved in the new work. “I am also excited because it’s the first time we’ve ever seen this [phenomenon in charm quarks].”
Physicists previously found similar variations in two other quark flavors, but those were also too tiny to account for our matter-dominated universe. Scientists are holding out hope of finding much larger matter-antimatter differences elsewhere, such as in ghostly particles called neutrinos or reactions involving the Higgs boson—the particle that gives others mass—says LHCb team member Sheldon Stone of Syracuse University: “There are lots of different searches going on.” | 5,147 |
On June 9, 2016, Donald Trump Jr. and other top members of the Trump campaign met with a number of Russians, including lawyer Natalia V. Veselnitskaya. The meeting was set up after Trump Jr. was contacted by Rob Goldstone, an agent who represents a Russian pop star. Goldstone told Trump Jr. that the Russians had dirt on Hillary.
“If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer,” Trump Jr. famously replied.
Veselnitskaya, despite evidence to the contrary, had denied any connections to the Russian government. But this week, Veselniskaya admitted she has been “actively communicating with the office of the Russian prosecutor general” for years. The admission came after emails documenting her relationship with the prosecutor general were released by Dossier, an organization started by a Russian exile who is a leading opponent of Putin.
At a campaign rally in Michigan, a red-faced Trump offered a convoluted explanation for Veselniskaya’s admission. According to Trump, Veselniskaya does not have any relationship with the Russian government. But she recently was convinced by Putin to pretend she was an agent of the Russian government.
Why? According to Trump, Putin realized that “Trump is killing us.” Therefore, Putin convinced Veselniskaya to lie about her role to make life in America “even more chaotic”
Arguing that Veselniskaya is not a Russian agent but also takes orders directly from Putin is a creative, if not particularly convincing, line of argument.
Trump provided no explanation for the email evidence that established her connections to the Russian government were ongoing.
Trump’s role in managing the narrative of the June 2016 meeting is already under scrutiny. During questioning by the House Intelligence Committee, Trump Jr. refused to answer questions about his conversations with his father when the meeting first became public, citing attorney-client privilege. Legal experts have widely dismissed Trump Jr.’s argument, which is based on the fact that there was a lawyer in the room, since neither he nor his father is a lawyer. Republicans on the committee, however, let Trump Jr. get away with it.
Trump’s contention that he is “tougher on Russia” than any other president is also highly questionable. While he has imposed some sanctions on Russia, he has also blamed Congress for forcing his hand. In other cases, the implementations of new sanctions have been as minimal as possible. Recently, when U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley announced that administration’s intention to impose harsher sanctions on Russia, Trump became enraged and rolled the policy back. | 5,148 |
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A litigator who specializes in municipal law suggests that a 2014 B.C. Supreme Court decision may be worth reading again.
Nathalie Baker made the recommendation amid criticism from the public about how the City of Vancouver defines “for-profit affordable rental housing”.
It’s also a time when civic parties are gearing up for a new election in October this year, hence the relevance of the nearly four-year-old court ruling.
Baker knows this case well because she represented the group of residents that sought a judicial review of a city bylaw that provided incentives to developers to build “affordable rental housing”.
Through Baker, the West End Neighbours Residents Society in 2014 argued that the city did not provide a plan for affordable rental housing and delivered instead a scheme to subsidize private developers to build market rentals.
At that time, developers were eligible for city incentives if their rental housing had initial rents of $1,443 per month for a studio unit, $1,517 for a one-bedroom, and $2,061 for two bedrooms.
The numbers have increased since then.
For the year 2018, the city will reward developers if the starting rates for their “for-profit affordable rental housing” in the West End are as follows: $3,702, three bedrooms; $2,756, two bedrooms; $1,903, one bedroom; and $1,646, studio. In East Vancouver, the rates are: $3,365, three bedrooms; $2,505, two bedrooms; $1,730, one bedroom; and $1,496, studio.
Going back to the court case, Justice Susan Griffin dismissed the petition filed by Baker’s clients against the rental policy brought in by Mayor Gregor Robertson and his Vision Vancouver councillors.
“The subjective nature of what is ‘for-profit’, and the relative nature of ‘affordability’ creates considerable room for disagreement but I also find that it creates considerable room for Council to exercise its judgment,” Griffin wrote in her May 30, 2014, decision. “I conclude that this is what it has done.”
Those who disagree with how the city defines what is affordable may want to read what Griffin wrote next: “Despite the thoughtful arguments advanced by the petitioner, I find that the petitioner’s position falls into the category of criticism of Council’s political choices. That is not a matter on which the Court ought to weigh in. Instead, the forum for these arguments is the ballot box.” | 5,149 |
TOMS RIVER – The Ocean County Health Department’s (OCHD) recent inspection of the Popeye’s Louisiana Chicken on Route 37 in Toms River found only minor violations, none related to unsanitary conditions.
When a viral social media post raised concerns over the unsanitary conditions at the restaurant, citing rotten food, bugs, and filth, the OCHD stepped in to confirm or deny these suspicions. The post was made by Taj Davis, a former employee at the new Toms River location, on September 9.
The post read: “So I’ve Been Working At The Popeye’s On 37 since they opened almost 3 months ago ‘at first it was pretty decent only problem I had was we never got paid on time nor were our checks ever correct but that’s besides the point by the beginning of July these place was literally disgusting everything started falling apart & the management didn’t care to fix or improve anything when informed.”
Davis described the chicken being served as “foul” and smelling of rotten eggs as well as the workspace being infested with insects. In addition to this, Davis described being sent lewd photos by a member of the Popeye’s corporation.
“Nothing has yet to be done about it…Help me get this place shut down,” stated the post.
The social media post was accompanied by numerous pictures depicting what Davis described. The photos showed bugs, unsanitary working conditions, and rotten food.
When the OCHD caught wind of the issue, they performed an inspection on September 10. According to Brian Rumpf, Ocean County Health Department director, the department only found minor violations related to a leak and a door that did not shut, but nothing was found to substantiate Davis’ claims in the social media post.
“There was nothing that reflected what was depicted on social media,” said Rumpf.
According to the manager of the Toms River Popeye’s, Mohammed Faisul, the photos did not accurately depict the conditions inside the restaurant as they were taken before cleaning has been done and some were not even taken at the restaurant.
Popeye’s management alleged that these photos and “some bad apples” employed by the company were simply trying to make the franchise look bad. However, according to Davis, the photos in the post are time-stamped.
Popeye’s plans to revisit the sanitary training with employees, according to OCHD. The department also plans to follow up again with the restaurant regarding the minor violations. | 5,150 |
GETTY Donald Trump may have secured his election victory because of a British far-right campaigner
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James Dowson, also a former member of the British National Party, created the Patriot News Agency last year. The agency reportedly published countless articles accusing Hillary Clinton of having links with “Satanism, paedophilia, murder and other conspiracies”.
We were FORCED to become incredibly good at alternative media in a way the left simply can’t grasp or handle James Dowson, Britain First founder
Michael Flynn, Trump's nominee for national security adviser tweeted an article from one of the websites. Linked to a number of other propaganda websites, the 52-year-old far-right activist and former Priest said he created the websites because he was fed up of the liberal bias in mainstream media.
Twitter General Flynn, a nominee for Trump's cabinet promoted fake news but the tweet was later deleted
He told the New York Times: “Simple truth is that after 40 years of the right having no voice because the media was owned by the enemy, we were FORCED to become incredibly good at alternative media in a way the left simply can’t grasp or handle. “Bottom line is: BREXIT, TRUMP and much more to follow.”
GETTY Mark Zuckerberg denied claims that Facebook promoted fake news websites
It comes weeks after Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, denied all suggestions that fake news travelling on their network could have influenced the election. But last week, Facebook announced that it would begin flagging fake news stories with the help of users and outside fact-checkers.
GETTY Hillary Clinton strongly condemned the use of fake news websites
After joining the BNP Dowson founded Britain First, an anti-immigration group that sees the Islamic religion as a threat to British values. One of the reported aims of Dowson’s site was to “spread devastating anti-Clinton, pro-Trump memes and sound bites into sections of the population too disillusioned with politics to have taken any notice of conventional campaigning".
US Election 2016: DONALD TRIUMPHS Wed, November 9, 2016 Donald Trump has been elected as the President of the United States of America Play slideshow Getty Images 1 of 115 Donald Trump as he makes his acceptance speech in New York following his victory to become he 45th president of the United States. | 5,151 |
The bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange markets are growing at an exponential rate. New exchanges and trading platforms such as Binance.com have demonstrated a significant growth rate in terms of o user base and trading volumes.
Binance, founded and led by Zhao Changpeng, former CTO at major Chinese bitcoin exchange OKCoin and technical director at Blockchain.info, has been targeting the Chinese bitcoin exchange market to compete with some of the largest trading platforms in both the domestic market and globally.
Prior to establishing Binance, Changpeng led the technical development team at OKCoin and played a vital role in allowing OKCoin to become the largest bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange within the Chinese bitcoin exchange market by securing over 30.6 percent of the market share.
With Changpeng’s experience in leading one of the largest bitcoin exchanges and wallet platforms in the industry, Binance quickly evolved into an emerging innovative trading platform with sophisticated technologies. Specifically, the Binance development team has prioritized security and high performance by implementing a multi-tier structure and integrating a matching engine technology that can handle up to 1.4 million orders per second. More to that, Binance supports bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and BNB, and aims to integrate support for more cryptocurrencies in the near future.
Currently, according to sources including Coinmarketcap, Binance remains as the largest trading platform for NEO, China’s first ever open source public blockchain project, ahead of major digital currency exchange Bittrex. Of NEO’s $9 million daily trading volume, Binance has been processing nearly 50 percent of the trades, while Bittrex and Yunbi have been processed just over 33 percent combined.
Additionally, Binance is a relatively large trading platform within the Ethereum exchange market. Although South Korea and the Ethereum-to-Korean won remain as the largest market and trading pair, Binance is currently the 10th largest trading platform in the Ethereum-to-bitcoin pair. Itp processes over $2.4 million worth of Ether on a daily basis and in total, Binance processes nearly $9 million dollars per day.
In a short period of time, Binance has evolved into a leading bitcoin exchange and digital currency trading platform by optimizing user experience, integrating high performance order settlement technology and targeting the right markets.
China is still a market that is expected to mature and in comparison to overseas markets such as South Korea, the U.S. and Japan, China significantly lacks regulations and clarity on the legality of bitcoin. Once regulatory aspects of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum are properly established, exchanges such as Binance are likely to demonstrated a higher growth rate.\
Image Credit: Creative Commons, No Attribution Required | 5,152 |
Victoria University student Bethany Paterson organised for Weir House and Te Puni Village to have a power-saving face off.
Two of Victoria University's halls of residence saved enough power over the past two and a half months to power a house for two and a half years.
Weir House and Te Puni Village competed between July 19 and October 9 to see which residence could save the most power compared to the previous year's usage.
Weir House was declared the victor on Monday, October 19, with a 5.4 per cent decrease.
Te Puni Village had a 3.7 per cent decrease, and both residences saved a combined cost of more than $2000.
Second-year law, ecology and biodiversity student Bethany Paterson organised the competition.
Victoria University environmental manager Andrew Wilks, who helped bring Paterson's idea to life, says it was a pleasure working on the initiative with her.
"It's always exciting when motivated students such as Bethany come to you with ideas like this," he says.
Paterson says the competition got students thinking about their everyday energy habits and also showed how collective action can make a difference.
"It's about developing a mindset around those little everyday decisions that have no significant impact on your day-to-day life, but over time, and en masse, can result in massive energy and cost reductions."
Even the slightest of modifications in behaviour can have a great impact, she says.
"Instead of boiling a litre of water to make a cup of tea, just boil what you need.
"Cut back on daydreaming time in the shower, and open a window instead of using an extractor fan to get the steam out."
Students showed a positive attitude to the competition and used their initiative to reduce power, she says.
They were encouraged to use blankets when cold, turn off lights when not in use, and even to cook their two-minute noodles in bulk instead of in single portions.
Victoria University students' association wellbeing and sustainability officer Rory Lenihan-Ikin says the competition is a great way for first-year students to learn sustainable energy-saving habits before they move into flats.
One senior resident went around on the weekend turning off lights after the students had gone out to town.
Paterson says the heads of the residences have been positive about the competition, which she hopes to roll out to most Victoria University halls next year.
The money saved by the students will be invested back into the two halls through the purchase of communal bikes.
Weir House will get four bikes and Te Puni Village will get two. | 5,153 |
We have an exciting announcement to share with you. Effective September 16, 2019, San Francisco Public Library has eliminated overdue fines for all Library patrons. This move ensures that our public library is living up to its commitment to provide free and equal access to information, knowledge, independent learning and the joys of reading for our diverse community.
Also effective today, all outstanding overdue fines will be cleared from all patron records. No exceptions, no questions. You are fabulously fine free.
Any items checked out starting today that are eligible for renewal will be automatically renewed for you. For more information on the auto renewal process, visit sfpl.org/autorenew.
The Library encourages patrons to return books in a responsible and timely fashion to the Library so others may enjoy our shared resources.
Why did the Library decide to eliminate overdue fines?
The San Francisco Public Library was a pioneer in the fine free library movement. SFPL eliminated fines for children and teens in 1974. In recent years, inspired by other library systems that had eliminated fines for overdue materials for patrons of all ages, the Library partnered with the San Francisco Financial Justice Project of the Treasurer’s Office to study whether SFPL should go fine free. See the full Eliminating Fines report (PDF) on the findings of this study.
The study found that the elimination of overdue fines in libraries had several positive outcomes:
Increased patron access to materials and services
Reduction of the inequitable impact of overdue fines
Improved patron relationships with their library
Optimization of library staff time and increased staff efficiency
Additionally, research shows overdue fines do not ensure borrowed materials end up back on shelves.
Are other Libraries Fine Free?
The fine free movement has taken on momentum across the nation. The Urban Libraries Council map shows other fine free libraries.
What if I misplaced a book and can’t return it? Did the San Francisco Public Library eliminate replacement fees?
While the Library eliminated overdue fines, Library users are still responsible for fees associated with the replacement of lost or damaged books and other materials they check out.
Under this new policy, it is important to understand the difference between overdue fines and billed-item fees. Overdue fines are the daily charges applied to items not returned by their specified due date. These are the fines that will no longer be charged to patrons. Billed-item fees, or just fees, represent the charges applied for lost, damaged, or unreturned materials and are still in effect.
San Francisco Public Library, even more fabulous than before. From all of us here at the Library, we thank you for your continued patronage and support. | 5,154 |
Washington Free Beacon contributing editor Daniel Halper on Friday joined Fox Business host Neil Cavuto to discuss the media's lack of coverage of former FBI Director James Comey's testimony about Loretta Lynch, who served as attorney general during the Obama administration.
The conversation touched on Bill Clinton's private tarmac meeting with Lynch last July in the midst of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server, leading Halper to say that the 42nd president could "easily" be blamed for his wife's election loss in November.
Cavuto began the segment by playing a clip of Comey testifying Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee on his conversations with Lynch.
"We were getting to a place where the attorney general and I were both going to have to testify and talk publicly about it," Comey said, referring to the FBI probe into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. "And I wanted to know, was she going to authorize us to confirm we had an investigation?"
"And she said, ‘Yes, but don't call it that; call it a matter,'" Comey continued. "And I said, ‘Why would I do that?' And she said, ‘Just call it a matter.'"
Halper said that Lynch's conversation was an "astonishing revelation" and that the Obama administration got off with little to no criticism.
"There's a lot of blame to go around, " Halper said. "In fact, Hillary Clinton was a cabinet official when she was using the emails, so the whole thing sort of—because she was a candidate, the criticism landed on her squarely, but really it should have landed on [Barack Obama] himself for allowing a cabinet member to do and conduct such conduct."
Cavuto asked what the Obama administration's role was in the Russia investigation and the Clinton email probe.
"It seems like you could blame President Obama for not handling the Russia thing correctly to begin with, not putting attention on it, not condemning it initially and sort of just letting it simmer."
Halper then said that Bill Clinton could also be blamed for Clinton's election loss last year because "Lynch met with Bill Clinton on the tarmac."
"They like to blame Comey for the loss, but you could easily blame Bill Clinton for the loss if you're going to go down that road, because Bill Clinton put himself in that position with Lynch," Halper said.
"I think you could squarely blame Obama for Hillary Clinton losing or Bill Clinton for Hillary Clinton losing very, very convincingly, or at least just as convincingly you could—you know, all the other factors that Hillary Clinton has found to blame," Halper said. | 5,155 |
Colin Perkel, The Canadian Press
TORONTO -- The two men behind a free Toronto area newspaper that promotes legalizing rape and denies the Holocaust were found guilty on Thursday of promoting hatred against women and Jews.
In delivering his verdict against James Sears and LeRoy St. Germaine, Ontario court Judge Richard Blouin called evidence of their guilt overwhelming.
Sears, 55, the editor-in-chief and St. Germaine, 77, the publisher, had argued Your Ward News was meant to be satire but Blouin said there was nothing funny about their odious views.
If what they were doing didn't amount to wilful hate promotion, the judge said, nothing would.
“Both men were fully aware of the unrelenting promotion of hate in YWN,” Blouin said in his ruling. “(They) intended that hatred to be delivered to others.”
After the verdict, Sears, who compared himself to a persecuted Jesus, said he would be appealing.
Sentencing in the case is set for April 26.
The prosecution argued Your Ward News was filled with “vile and degrading” articles and imagery.
Prosecutor Robin Flumerfelt told the trial the publication demonizes feminists as “dangerous people” and calls women “tri-orficed chattels.” The paper also brands most feminists as “satanists exhilarated by abortion,” claims women are inferior, and that feminism encourages rape, court heard.
The paper also contains repeated claims of a worldwide, blood-thirsty Jewish conspiracy. Flumerfelt said its imagery depicts Jews as devils with serpent tongues and reptilian hands, argues Jews were behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the Holocaust was a Jewish myth to strengthen their control of the world.
“These are examples of the communications that the defendants made available to hundreds of thousands of homes without being asked,” Flumerfelt told court.
Sears and St. Germaine had pleaded not guilty to two counts each of wilfully promoting hatred against identifiable groups.
Sears' lawyer Dean Embry had tried to argue that the courts should not criminalize anti-feminist sentiment. The publication, the lawyer said, only takes aim at some women and some Jews, and while it may be offensive and go too far at times, it doesn't advocate hatred or violence against those groups.
St. Germaine and Sears, who lost his medical licence in the early 1990s for sexual misconduct with three women, face a maximum sentence of a $5,000 fine or six weeks in jail. | 5,156 |
When Dan Maff was asked in a recent interview after he signed with ROH who he would like to face, one of the first names out of his mouth was Jeff Cobb.
ROH officials must’ve been paying attention. Just signed for the Final Battle pay-per-view on Dec. 13 in Baltimore is a first-time ever dream match between Maff and Cobb.
The two powerhouses have been in the ring together once before, as Maff (replacing the injured Brody King) teamed with Villain Entreprises’ Marty Scurll and PCO in a successful defense of the ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Title against Cobb, Colt Cabana and Cheeseburger at The Experience earlier this month.
Maff, a two-time former ROH World Tag Team Champion making his first appearance in ROH in 14 years, showed in that match, as well as the next night at Unauthorized when he went toe-to-toe with PCO in a violent anything-goes encounter, that he hasn’t lost a step.
Cobb, a former ROH World Television Champion who possesses one of the best win-loss records in ROH over the past year and a half, is one of the few competitors who can match Maff in intensity and toughness.
What will happen when Cobb and Maff collide at Final Battle? Join us live in Baltimore or streaming for HonorClub to find out!
ROH PRESENTS FINAL BATTLE
FRIDAY, DEC. 13, 8 P.M. EASTERN
UMBC EVENT CENTER
1000 HILLTOP CIRCLE
BALTIMORE, MD 21250
PURCHASE TICKETS
ALREADY SIGNED:
ROH WORLD TITLE MATCH
CHAMPION RUSH vs. PCO
ROH WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH
CHAMPIONS JAY & MARK BRISCOE vs. JAY LETHAL & JONATHAN GRESHAM
ROH WORLD TELEVISION TITLE MATCH
CHAMPION SHANE TAYLOR vs. DRAGON LEE
GRUDGE MATCH
MATT TAVEN vs. VINCENT
STREET FIGHT
MARK HASKINS (W/VICKY HASKINS ) vs. BULLY RAY
JEFF COBB vs. DAN MAFF
VILLAIN ENTERPRISES’ MARTY SCURLL & FLIP GORDON vs. BANDIDO & FLAMITA | 5,157 |
Ubisoft is expanding its presence in mobile.
The French publisher announced today that it acquired mobile game studio Ketchapp. Ubisoft did not disclose the details of the deal, but the purchase will go through during the company’s fiscal third quarter that ends December 31. Ketchapp is responsible for free-to-play games like Risky Road, Stack, and Gravity Switch. Bringing that library of apps into Ubisoft will make the company the fourth largest publisher in terms of total downloads in the $36.6 billion mobile gaming market.
Ketchapp first came to prominence when it released the app 2048 on iOS and Android in 2014. Smartphone owners downloaded that game millions of times. But that app was also widely criticized for boldly cloning the gameplay and aesthetics of the beloved puzzle game Threes from developer Asher Volmer. In a blog post, Volmer expressed how sad it made him to see companies like Ketchapp rip off his idea. Since then, many of Ketchapp’s games have appeared to ape the gameplay or aesthetics from other, smaller studios.
Risky Road has a conceit that is nearly the same as indie developer Owlchemy Labs’ Smuggle Truck. Stack has an aesthetic style that is similar to stand-out hit Monument Valley from Ustwo. Gravity Switch features a gravity-flipping mechanic that reminds me a lot of the platformer VVVVVV from developer Terry Cavanagh. Crazy Circle is an inverted take on Cavanagh’s Super Hexagon.
But Ketchapp’s value to Ubisoft likely isn’t in its game-design capabilities. The company has built a platform that can find new mobile games an audience almost immediately. Ketchapp does that by cross-promoting its games across its network of several dozen apps. That has led to people downloading the publisher’s mobile apps more than 700 million times or an average of 23 million downloads per month.
“With Ketchapp, Ubisoft acquires a highly profitable publisher with a successful portfolio of free-to-play games for mobile,” Ubisoft mobile director Jean-Michel Detoc said. “This acquisition gives Ubisoft one of the world’s leading mobile game publishers and reinforces our advertising capabilities in mobile gaming.”
It’s that marketing know-how that makes Ketchapp an important addition to Ubisoft’s portfolio. Now, Ubi can build original mobile games and launch them into the Ketchapp ecosystem without having to spend quite as much on player acquisition. And that’s a major key to profitability in an industry where it can cost several dollars to bring one new player to a game. | 5,158 |
In its maiden operational flight, the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle – Mark III-M1 (GSLV Mark III-M1) vehicle used for launching Chandrayaan-2 had successfully placed the satellite in the Earth Parking Orbit (EPO) with perigee (closest distance from the earth) of 170 km and an apogee (farthest distance from the earth) of 45,475 km. The apogee of the earth parking orbit is about 6,000 km more than originally envisaged.
As a result, the number of earth-bound steps or manoeuvres needed to take the satellite to the highest orbit of nearly 1,44,000 km apogee has been reduced from seven to six, says K. Sivan, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The reduced number of manoeuvres will translate into fuel savings.
After the satellite is placed in the Earth Parking orbit, the apogee is increased in steps to take it to the final earth-bound orbit of about 1,44,000 km. The satellite goes around the earth in elliptical orbits and to increase the apogee, the satellite is fired when it comes closest to the earth (perigee).
In the first of the orbit-raising exercise that was carried out on July 24, the perigee was increased from 170 km to about 230 km, while the apogee was reduced from 45,475 km to 45,162 km. Explaining why the orbit raising was done mainly to increase the perigee and not the apogee, Mr. Sivan said to The Hindu: “At 169.7 km altitude at perigee, the satellite is still in the earth’s atmosphere and so is exposed to heat stress while travelling at very high velocity. So we had to raise the perigee.”
The second orbit raising manoeuvre will be undertaken tonight (July 25) when the focus will be to increase the apogee in large measure, while there will be only a small increase in the perigee distance.
“Totally there will be six earth-bound, orbit-raising manoeuvres before the trans-lunar insertion, including the one on July 24. If the satellite had not gained nearly 6,000 km while being placed in the earth parking orbit, then there would have totally been seven orbit-raising manoeuvres,” Mr. Sivan said.
Currently, the ISRO website mentions only five orbit-raising manoeuvres and the perigee distance mentioned is 241.5 km after the first orbit raising exercise. “This will be soon revised,” he said. | 5,159 |
Something is coming… something delicious. How can we tell? Well, whenever a bombshell is about to drop on the corrupt Intelligence Community, the New York Times does a quick narrative dump to get out ahead of the story.
All the way down, buried deep, in a NYT story about Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s FISA investigation and AG Barr’s review of DOJ and FBI activity… they drop the following two paragraphs (emphasis mine):
[…] The inspector general is also scrutinizing another early source of information for the Russia investigation, the people said: Mr. Horowitz’s investigators have been asking questions about the role of Stefan A. Halper, another F.B.I. informant, and his prior work for the bureau. Agents involved in the Russia investigation asked Mr. Halper, an American academic who teaches in Britain, to gather information on Mr. Page and George Papadopoulos, another former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser. (read more)
Oh? NYT now saying FBI agents asked help from intelligence asset Stefan Halper to go gather information on Carter Page and George Papadopoulos?
Six months ago the New York Times was calling people ‘conspiracy theorists’ for pointing out how the CIA and FBI were using overseas intelligence officials to run up against the Trump campaign. Now they just drop it in their column as ‘meh‘, all casual like…. running spies into political campaigns, well, it happens all the time… or something. Obviously they are shaping and dumping their narratives and quietly trying walking away.
The bigger question the Times avoids is: “FBI Agents involved in the Russia investigation asked Mr. Halper to gather information on Page & Papadopulos” predicated on what?
What’s the underlying evidence that would inspire the FBI to request Stefan Halper to spy on American citizens connected to the Trump campaign? What’s the reason?
These contacts took place prior to July 31st, 2016, when Crossfire Hurricane began; so they are not part of the ‘official‘ FBI investigation… because these requests would have come before the investigation began… so what gives?
What’s the predicate for such a request?
The FBI has a “Brennan” problem. CIA Director John Brennan organized foreign intelligence assets to run against the Trump campaign March through July 2016 to help construct Brennan’s “EC” memo that he gave to James Comey to initiate the official start of the FBI counterintelligence operation.
As soon as The New York Times mentions the name Professor Joseph Mifsud in the same way as Professor Stefan Halper the gig is up. | 5,160 |
By Jerry Adler
Yahoo! News
A dozen or so years ago, I was working on a profile of Zig Ziglar, the famous motivational speaker who died in 2012, and I went to hear him speak at his church in a suburb of Dallas. His topic, as a lay lecturer in adult Sunday school, was the threat of cults, and he began by mocking the creation myth of Scientology — the whole baroque science-fiction epic starting 4 quadrillion years ago and proceeding through the Galactic Overlord, the frozen thetans and the nuclear holocaust on a planet called Teegeeack.
“Now, I ask you,” he said, wrapping up his recitation, “how could any of this fool an intelligent, thinking man or woman who has read the first four chapters of Genesis?”
Well, yes, precisely. Scientology is incompatible with Christianity, or Judaism or Islam; you cannot by any stretch of reason believe in both. What went without saying, to Ziglar and to his audience that morning, was the logical superiority of a six-day Creation and a talking snake, and by extension the flood and the ark, the litany of biblical miracles and the Resurrection.
But from an agnostic standpoint, there’s no inherent reason to believe one account over the other. They are stories written in books that function as their own authority. People believe in the Bible as a matter of faith, because they accept its message of redemption, not because of empirical evidence or the inherent plausibility of the individual stories within it. This has been true as far back as Augustine, who held that faith and reason go together, but faith leads the way: “Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.” Or, in the more pungent formulation of Mark Twain, faith consists of “believing what you know ain’t so.”
Does that remind you of something transpiring in American society at this moment? Many Americans subscribe to conspiracy theories as preposterous as anything L. Ron Hubbard could have dreamt up, and — because they relate to current events and real living people — far more dangerous. Just in the past few days, a man shot up a Washington pizzeria, acting under the delusion that it was the headquarters of a child-sex ring involving Hillary Clinton, and a woman who believed that the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre was a government hoax was arrested for making threats against the parents of a child who died there.
Continue to full article...
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Picture: VOA News (voanews.com) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons | 5,161 |
So you’ve pwned an AWS account — congratulations — now what? You’re eager to get to the data theft, amirite? Not so fast whipper snapper, have you disrupted logging? Do you know what you have? Sweet! Time to get settled in.
Maintaining persistence in AWS is only limited by your imagination but there are few obvious and oft used techniques everyone should know and watch for.
No one wants to get locked out before mid hack so grab yourself some temporary credentials.
aws sts get-session-token --duration-seconds 129600
Acceptable durations for IAM user sessions range from 900 seconds (15 minutes) to 129600 seconds (36 hours), with 43200 seconds (12 hours) as the default. Sessions for AWS account owners are restricted to a maximum of 3600 seconds (one hour). If the duration is longer than one hour, the session for AWS account owners defaults to one hour.
You’ll want to setup a cron job to do this regularly from here on out. It might sound crazy, but it ain’t no lie. Baby, bye, bye, bye (Sorry got distracted). A sensible person might assume that deleting a compromised access key is a reasonable way to expunge an attacker. Alas, disabling or deleting the original access key does not kill any temporary credentials created with the original. So if you find yourself ousted, you may still get somewhere between 0 and 36 hours to recover.
There are some limitations:
You cannot call any IAM APIs unless MFA authentication information is included in the request.
You cannot call any STS API except assume-role.
That does create an annoyance but an annoyance that’s trivially overcome. Assuming another role is an API call away. Spinning up compute running under another execution role or instance profile, that can call IAM, is almost as easy.
The best (worst?) part however, is that temporary session keys don’t show up anywhere. Checking the web interface or running “aws iam list-access-keys” is ineffective. There’s no “list-session-tokens” or “delete-session-token” to go along with “get-session-token”. There have been more sitings of the Loch Ness Monster in the wild than AWS session tokens.
This is the entire STS API at time of writing.
I really do hope Amazon does something about this soon. Having someone use the force instead of the API within the accounts I’m responsible for genuinely scares me. | 5,162 |
PASSENGERS STUCK ON THE SHIP IN MARSEILLES FRANCE ARE NOT BEING ALLOWED TO DISEMBARK AFTER ORIGINALLY TOLD THEY COULD.
Only French and Italian passport holders are being allowed to leave the ship, according to tweets, passengers have started to go crazy and shouting abuse at staff as only the French and Italian passengers were been handed any information.
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More than 2,000 Argentines are also currently on the Pacific Coast cruise in international waters and are asking to return to Argentina since in Europe the situation is very complicated and there are almost no ports enabled. Of the 2,000 Argentines, the majority are older adults who are in the coronavirus risk group. NO passenger on the ship has coronavirus and there is no suspicion either.
The Costa company wants to leave the ship in Europe, which is why it says they will not return to America.
“If they land at a European port, they will all be exposed to the spread of the Coronavirus while waiting for their turn in the long line to repatriate Argentines by Aerolineas Argentinas,” the company said.
Russian tourists on the cruise ship Costa Pacifica stranded in Marseille, the Russian embassy in Paris sent a diplomatic note to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs asking that a solution be found, the door said on March 20 – speech of Russian diplomacy, Maria Zakharova.
Onboard for almost three weeks
At least 35 Russian citizens are on board this liner from Buenos Aires, she said. After leaving South America on March 3, the cruise was expected on March 21 in Barcelona. The Russians had to fly from Spain to return to their country the same day, said the spokeswoman.
“Taking into account the measure implemented by the Spanish government to prohibit the entry of foreign cruises to the ports of this country, the liner changed route and headed for Marseille for an arrival scheduled for March 19. The French authorities do not authorise the exit of tourists to Marseille, “continued Maria Zakharova.
Le Drian said “that there are 130,000 French people stranded abroad because of the coronavirus, it’s up to them to pay for their return ticket”.
In recent days, the Russian Consulate General in Marseille and the Russian Embassy in Paris have been taking steps to welcome them. However, the agreement is not yet concluded, she said.
Russia has also expressed hope that France will be understanding and can do its utmost to remedy the situation, because “people have been on board since March 9 without making stops” | 5,163 |
Cummins, a name synonymous with heavy-duty hauling, has shown a hydrogen-powered Class 8 semi concept at the 2019 North America Commercial Vehicle Show (NACV) in Atlanta.
Its concept truck includes a proton exchange membrane fuel cell from Hydrogenics, which Cummins recently acquired. The truck was designed for a 90-kW fuel cell, but this can be scaled up in 30- or 45-kilowatt increments up to a maximum of 180 kilowatts.
Juice goes from the fuel cell to a 100-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack. Cummins says the truck has a range of 150-250 miles between fill-ups, and notes that this range can be extended by adding hydrogen tanks, by increasing the hydrogen storage pressure or by installing additional fuel cells.
Cummins Urban Hauler Tractor concept
While Cummins' concept truck may only have a range that caps out around 25 percent of a diesel-powered equivalent, a scaled-up, production version might bump that figure up significantly.
Boosting that range is critical, as ICE-powered long-haul commercial trucks are still vastly cheaper to own and operate than their alternative-fuel competitors, but FCEVs have the best chance of reaching price parity with diesel trucks by 2030.
And while some of its potential electric competitors claim they can go farther, a FCEV's full range is only a fill-up away, giving the technology a significant leg up when it comes to broader-scale adoption.
Unfortunately, America's hydrogen filling station network is abysmally tiny, to the point of being non-existent outside of parts of California. For commercial trucks it's more like building a train line than trying to accommodate for all the variables in personal-vehicle routing. Freight-shippers with established daily routes could, however, establish filling stations along their busiest routes.
Notably, one of the Cummins' alternatives shown at NACV came from Hyundai, which has inked a deal with Cummins to develop fuel cell powertrains for commercial applications.
Cummins Urban Hauler Tractor concept
Cummins is no stranger to electrified vehicles. The Urban Hauler Tractor the company revealed in 2017 is just an "education" project aimed at exploring its capabilities of about 18,000 pounds and 100 miles of range from a 140-kwh battery pack. The company also earlier that year purchased Brammo.
The proliferation of fuel cells in the United States will be entirely dependent on its fueling infrastructure being built out—via subsidies that could simply be non-starters in the current political climate. | 5,164 |
President Donald Trump gestures as he arrives at Ocala International Airport in Ocala, Fla., October 3, 2019. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
What do you do when the country is about evenly split on whether to remove a president? Today’s new poll from Quinnipiac shows 45 percent of registered voters saying President Trump should be impeached and removed and 49 percent opposing the idea. The new Washington Post poll shows 49 percent support removing Trump from office.
What happens — or what is likely to happen — is that the Democratic-controlled House votes to impeach and the GOP-controlled Senate votes to acquit, and the country moves on to the 2020 presidential election. After a lengthy, angry debate about whether Donald Trump should continue being president, Americans would move on to a different lengthy, angry debate about whether Donald Trump should continue being president. (“First American president to be impeached and then reelected” would be a really unusual distinction. And Grover Cleveland thought he was so special, just because he was the 22nd and 24th president! )
The current impeachment inquiry is not running quickly or smoothly. House Democrats called Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, to testify and he responded he had been ordered not to testify, declaring that as an employee of the State Department, he “is required to follow the department’s direction.” House Democrats now plan a subpoena. Rudy Giuliani similarly stated that he will not comply with any requests for testimony and that he can’t imagine anyone else in the administration will, either.
The coming weeks will probably include a lot of fights about who’s testifying and who gets access to emails, documents, text messages, and other records. House Democrats will issue subpoenas and probably declare those who refuse to comply to be in contempt of Congress; many Trump administration officials will heartily concur that they feel contemptuous towards Adam Schiff and the rest. It will be ugly and messy, and the impeachment in the House may well end up moving forward without any testimony from key officials because they refuse to cooperate.
If the general mood of the public is that opponents of President Trump never granted him the the full respect for the office that he was due, and set out to destroy his presidency from day one, they will quickly tire of the spectacle of members of Congress in even higher dudgeon than usual. But the public could also conclude that the Trump administration simply ignores laws they find inconvenient, and defies lawful requests for documents and testimony from elected officials they don’t like. This might be exactly the sort of contrast that the Democratic nominee wants as a backdrop to the 2020 election. | 5,165 |
A 58-year-old Utah woman is set to give birth in a few weeks -- to her first grandchild.
Julia Navarro is serving as a gestational surrogate for her daughter and son-in-law after the couple struggled with fertility problems.
Navarro's daughter Lorena McKinnon said she began trying to have a baby with her husband, Micah McKinnon, three years ago.
The 32-year-old Provo woman said she's had about a dozen miscarriages, with the longest pregnancy lasting 10 weeks.
After several tries, the couple began looking for a surrogate. McKinnon said a friend and sister both considered carrying her baby, but ultimately decided against it.
That's when her mother offered to step in.
"As a family, we have to help each other," Navarro told The Salt Lake Tribune (http://bit.ly/1a40CaE ).
Navarro had to undergo hormone shots for three months before an embryo fertilized by her daughter and son-in-law could be implanted. Because of her age, doctors had warned there was only a 45 percent chance the implantation would be successful.
But the procedure was a success, and Navarro said she's had a smooth pregnancy carrying a developing baby girl.
As with other surrogacy arrangements, the couple and Navarro needed three months of counseling.
"The psychologists wanted to make sure we knew what we were getting into -- that we were mentally prepared," McKinnon said. "Mostly, surrogacy contracts are with people you don't know. It was weird to have a contract with my mom."
It's unclear how rare it is for a woman to carry her own grandchild, but recent news reports have detailed similar relationships.
Last year, a 53-year-old Iowa woman gave birth to her twin granddaughters. And in 2012, a 49-year-old woman in Maine gave birth to her grandson.
McKinnon said she was grateful and overwhelmed by her mother's offer, which eases some of the obstacles and financial burdens for parents using a gestational surrogate.
According to Utah law, surrogates must be 21 or older, financially stable and must have already given birth once.
Couples must be married and are allowed to offer a reasonable payment to a surrogate.
On average, a couple can spend about $60,000 on procedures and paying the surrogate, but McKinnon said her mother's offer to help is saving the couple about half of that.
Both she and her daughter said they've bonded over the experience.
The baby girl is due in early February. | 5,166 |
pipelines. His administration also announced it will reverse Obama's key Clean Power Plan, implemented to reduce carbon emissions.
Empowering agencies
Hans Noel, an associate professor of political science at Georgetown University, said with Republicans having unified control of government, you would expected Trump`s administration to do a lot more.
Trump has been effective at using executive orders and directing the bureaucracy, even though there has been a lot of ambiguity about what he's done and what he's talked about doing. Still, agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement "feel empowered and are acting like it," Noel said.
"Withdrawing from [the Trans-Pacific Partnership] is a big change."
Even symbolic moves such as announcing moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem in Israel are powerful, Noel said.
As well, Trump has scored a victory with his controversial travel ban. Despite judicial roadblocks and stumbling execution, Trump has been able to implement the order, which applies to travellers from Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.
Credit for ISIS defeat?
On the foreign policy front, some suggest Trump deserves credit for Iraq's declaration that ISIS has been defeated during his watch.
Wayne White, who worked for several decades as an Iraq analyst for the U.S. government, said Trump can take some credit for continuing Obama's policies. But, he said, when Trump came along, 95 per cent of the work had been done.
"ISIS had been ground down, ISIS's forces had been demoralized and hammered and reduced in effectiveness."
National Review's Jonah Goldberg has also questioned whether Trump should receive credit for the accomplishments of his administration.
Trump's success, such as it is, is less attributable to sudden mastery of the issues than to staying out of the way. — Jonah Goldberg, National Review
The tax bill, for example, is more of an achievement of GOP congressional leadership, he recently wrote. And the task of selecting judicial appointees has largely been outsourced to the Federalist Society, he said.
"It seems to me that Trump's success, such as it is, is less attributable to sudden mastery of the issues than to staying out of the way of rank-and-file Republican policymakers, activists and bureaucrats."
Siegfried agreed in part, describing Trump's administration as the "30,000-foot presidency. He gives a very broad strokes and doesn't really come into the process."
Still, Siegfried said, "it's not like he's gotten the ball and he's just sitting there on the 20-yard line and taking a knee. He's trying to get forward progress." | 5,167 |
Facebook really wants to make sure everyone is on Facebook.
For 96-minutes last month, the company flew a 140-foot wide unmanned drone over Yuma, Arizona. It was the first successful test flight of Facebook's full-scale Aquila drone. It is designing the boomerang-shaped aircraft to beam-connectivity down to billions of people who don't currently have access to the internet.
Eventually, Facebook (FB) hopes entire fleets of the carbon-fiber drones will fly for up to 90-days at a time in the stratosphere, between 60,000 and 90,000 feet. (The test flight only went up to 2,150 feet above sea level.) The drones will be solar powered and use lasers to deliver internet connections receivers on the ground, up to 30 miles in any direction. The connections will be fast, with speeds up to tens of thousands of gigabytes per second.
Related: Facebook built a giant Internet drone
Though the test was a success, Facebook says it still has lots of work to do. The aircraft is about as wide as a 747, but weighs less than 1,000 pounds (most of that is batteries). To stay aloft for months at a time, the team needs to make it lighter.
The company has not said who will operate the final drone fleets. Previously, Facebook's Jay Parikh, the global head of engineering, said it was not interested in becoming a plane manufacturer or an internet service provider. It would leave the actual deployment to local internet providers and governments.
Aquila has been one of the flashier projects out of Facebook's two-year-old Connectivity Lab. The group focuses on innovations that can help bring the internet to the parts of the planet that are still mostly offline. It is also working on other aircraft, satellites and ground communication systems to help increase access.
The group is part of Facebook's Internet.org initiative, which has been criticized by Net Neutrality advocates for its Free Basics by Facebook program. The service offers free Internet access on mobile phones, but only to a limited number of websites, including Facebook.
Related: India blocks Facebook's plan for free Internet
More than four billion people still lack access to the Internet, primarily in developing countries, according to the World Economic Forum. Lack of electricity and 3G coverage are major reasons and issues a drone might be able to address. But many people also lack the funds to buy devices that can connect to the internet, are illiterate, or speak a language not widely represented online.
Facebook is not the only company racing to tap this market. Google is working on its own connectivity solutions, like its giant Project Loon balloons. | 5,168 |
Magic Leap tipped to launch AR glasses as first product Updated: 2016-07-22 17:11 By Meng Jing(chinadaily.com.cn)
Brian Wallace (left), chief marketing officer of Magic Leap, and Dong Benhong (right), chief marketing officer of Alibaba, talks at the Taobao Maker Festival in Shanghai. [Photo provided to China Daily]
The US-based Magic Leap Inc is likely to launch augmented reality glasses as its first product according to an executive from the tech startup's key investor, Alibaba Group.
Dong Benhong, chief marketing officer of Alibaba, said on Friday that Magic Leap was likely to launch light, easy-to-wear AR glasses as a new product.
"And it hopes to invite you to become the first to try out the product," he told an audience attending the Taobao Maker Festival in Shanghai after completing a dialogue on stage with Brian Wallace, the chief marketing officer of Magic Leap.
Magic Leap announced earlier this year $793.5 million in new funding, led by China's e-commerce giant Alibaba. The company, which is yet to launch any product, is valued at $4.5 billion.
Wallace, who visited China for the first time, said he was very excited about the market potential for his company in the country. "What I am seeing here today is the spirit of creation and entrepreneurship," he said.
He demonstrated how Magic Leap's technology was going to change people's shopping behaviors, in a short video.
The video, which was shown to the public for the first time on Friday, showed a pregnant woman who wanted to decorate her nursery room could use voice control to choose whatever she wanted to buy.
By giving a voice order, she could actually see a digital light on the real desk, so that she could be sure whether or not the item she wanted to buy could match the entire decoration style in the room via augmented reality technology.
The AR technology of Magic Leap is only one part of Alibaba's inaugural Taobao Maker Festival. The three-day event in Shanghai aims to celebrate online merchants by showcasing creative ideas and designs to the world, including cutting-edge gadgets, fashion and high-tech products.
The festival is Alibaba's latest effort to engage young people on its online shopping ecosystem. Zhang Yong, Alibaba's chief executive, said in a previous event that the event was dedicated to those young people who enjoyed innovation, creation and who were eager to put their ideas into action.
"Users of Alibaba are becoming younger and younger. By leveraging new technology and new models, we want to encourage young people to create and innovate more," he said. | 5,169 |
other segment of civilized society. But as noted above, it doesn’t begin and end in Hollywood. Not is every case as high profile as Weinstein, Cosby, or Polanski. But the culture is there.To paraphrase a popular phrase - life does not only imitate Hollywood. Hollywood imitates life.
Presidents like Kennedy, Clinton and Trump have either sexually exploited women or made derogatory comments about exploiting them. It is not a coincidence for example that President Kennedy was an avid reader of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. How many prominent senators, governors, mayors and congressmen with pretenses of moral authority have been exposed as far less moral than they pretended to be - ruining their careers in the porcess! Just to name a few at the top of my head, Jim McGreevey, Eliot Spitzer, Gary Hart, John Edwards…
Many professional athletes are notorious womanizers that have had many sexual ‘conquests’.
And need I mention the number of religious figures that have been caught with their proverbial pants down?
None of this excuses Weinstein. He deserves what he’s getting. And more. But to say that he is all that different from so many other prominent and not so prominent people is an insult to my intelligence.
If there was any single factor we should be looking at – it is the culture that makes it ‘cool’ to be a womanizer. James Bond ought not be looked at as a hero. The values generated by Hollywood are not Torah values.
The Torah is very clear about unsanctioned sexual activity. Rashi interprets the words of the Posuk ‘Kedoshim Tihiyu’ exegetically in the following way. The presence of illicit sexual activity is inversely proportional to holiness. Holiness is what God demands of us in those very words.
Our sexually permissive culture is the exact opposite of that. It contributes mightily to the likes of Weinstein. It would behoove our nation to take a few steps back in time where sex was not as exploited in the media as much as it is today. Instead of ridiculing the morality standards of Hollywood past, where sexual activity was never explicit - it might not be a bad idea to take another look at that. I’m not saying that Hollywood is the only cause of this problem. Far from it. The Weinsteins of the world may still exist. And have existed well before Hollywood. But I can’t help but believe that pulling back from the ‘anything goes’ policy of our day will not help reduce their number. | 5,170 |
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Two Somali suicide bombers blew themselves up accidentally in a failed attack on the weekend's World Cup qualifier between Ethiopia and Nigeria in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian government has revealed.
According to Reuters' Aaron Maasho, via the Calgary Sun, the incident occurred in the Bole district of the city around 5km from the stadium where Sunday's match was to be played.
The detonation took place at a residential property about one hour before the match was due to kick off, with three suspects detained at the scene. The area is home to a small Somali refugee population.
Per Maasho's report, government spokesman Shimeles Kemal said:
They were Somali nationals and plotted to carry out a suicide attack disguised as fans on either the stadium or areas where large crowds gathered to watch the game. Heavy police presence must have caused their nervousness and state of agitation which led to the detonation that caused their own death.
The report suggests that football shirts, explosives, grenades and firearms were discovered at the scene.
While there has been no claim of responsibility thus far, Somali Al-Shabaab rebels have promised to exact revenge on Ethiopia for sending troops into Somalia to fight Al-Qaeda militants, Maasho reports.
Just last month, following an Al-Shabaab siege on a shopping mall in Kenya, Ethiopia's opposition group Medrek warned that the country could face "large-scale attacks" from Somali rebels, per the Sudan Tribune.
It is not the first time that a sports event has been a target for terrorists, with this year's Boston Marathon and the Munich Olympic Games two notable past instances of sports being at the centre of such an incident.
Football matches, also, have been targeted. Nine people were injured in 2002 when Spanish separatist group Eta targeted the Santiago Bernabeu stadium in the buildup to a Champions League semifinal clash between Real Madrid and Barcelona, per the Telegraph.
The latest incident, though, will heighten worries about the security situation in East Africa—a topic high on the agenda following last month's high-profile incident in Nairobi's Westgate Mall.
Sunday's match eventually went ahead without disruption, as Nigeria secured a 2-1 away victory thanks to two goals from Emmanuel Emenike—effectively ending Ethiopia's hopes of a first World Cup qualification.
The game was marred by post-match incidents, however, with BBC Sport reporting that the Nigerian Federation is demanding that FIFA takes action over attacks on the team bus.
Betis midfielder Nosa Igiebor was left needing emergency treatment after heavy blood loss from his right palm following the incident. | 5,171 |
A CRYSTAL Palace hooligan has been banned from watching his team play after assaulting a fellow fan at the Amex.
Colin Goff left Eagles supporter Garry Suckling with a bloodied nose when he attacked him at Albion’s FA Cup clash with their arch-rivals last month.
Goff, a mechanical project engineer, had been drinking in the build-up to the evening kick-off on January 8.
He was angered by Mr Suckling filming Goff and his friends, and their two groups became embroiled in a fight.
The 30-year-old, from Bexley, London, asked Mr Suckling to stop filming, and someone stole the victim’s phone, Brighton Magistrates’ Court heard.
Martyn Williams, defending, said his client “lost his temper” and got involved.
He said: “He fully accepts his behaviour was foolish.”
Goff, who works for Integral UK, has a degree from London’s South Bank University.
He pleaded guilty to assault by beating and was handed a three-year football banning order.
This means he must not attend the Amex stadium or Selhurst Park, Palace’s home ground, four hours before or four hours after a regulated football match.
District Judge Tessa Szagun initially thought Goff assaulted a Seagulls fan but he told her they supported the same team.
He said: “It was blue on blue.”
Judge Szagun ordered Goff to carry out 120 hours of unpaid work and wanted him to pay compensation to his victim.
Goff said he “tried to seek out” Mr Suckling to apologise but has not been able to.
The judge then deemed this not possible and told Goff he must pay £85 costs and £85 surcharge.
Initially, the rules of the banning order meant Goff could not be in a town or city where either Albion or Palace are playing four hours before and after matches, but Judge Szagun said this was not necessary because Goff has a low likelihood of repeating the offence.
When The Argus asked Goff if he had anything to say for himself after the case, he declined to comment.
Goff was one of six men arrested in connection with the Albion v Palace match, which the Seagulls won 2-1.
The two clubs have a deep-lying rivalry which has been prominent since the 1970s.
Last November, both sets of fans clashed as the two clubs faced each other for the first time in four years. | 5,172 |
Today at Black Hat 2014 hacking conference, Yahoo! Chief Information Security Officer Alex Stamos announced that the company will start giving its consumers the option of end-to-end encryption in its Mail service by next year.
Google showed off a PGP-based encryption plugin for Gmail back in June. The Purple-hued company will offer encryption via a modified version of the same End-to-End browser plug-in that Google uses for PGP in Gmail, Alex Stamos told the audience at his talk titled Building Safe Systems at Scale - Lessons from Six Months at Yahoo.
The PGP plugin will be native in mobile apps allowing Gmail and Yahoo mail to easily exchange encrypted email. Infact, the email providers themselves won't be able to decrypt messages exchanged between its users. Only senders and recipients will be able to read the messages.
In short, it means that Yahoo email users can reportedly send safe and secure messages between Yahoo users and also Gmail adherents without fear, which makes almost impossible for cyber criminals and well-resourced spying by the US government and its Five Eyes allies to read their private messages.
In a talk today, Stamos said, "If an activist in Sudan wants to email a human rights organization's Gmail address and they have encryption set up for it, it will automatically detect that and offer them the option to encrypt."
Stamos (@alexstamos) said that this project has been a priority since he joined one of the world's largest web providers, Yahoo six months ago. He stressed that Yahoo email encryption will be easy to use, with little or no efforts.
The announcement was tweeted by Yan Zhu, who has reportedly been hired to assist in the project. Yan Zhu formerly worked as an engineer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a non-profit organization that has consistently been outspoken in its call for the widespread use of encryption across the Web and the Internet, and he is apparently no friend of the NSA.
But as said earlier, use of encryption will require some amount of education for users also, to make sure their privacy expectations are set appropriately. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Stamos explained that PGP encryption won't cloak the destination of your e-mail.
"We have to make it clear to people it is not [a] secret you're emailing your priest, but the content of what you're e-mailing him is secret," Stamos said.
The move to encrypted mail will bring Yahoo! in the list of the most secure technology companies in mail services among web giants, Google and Microsoft that protect their customers in the post-Snowden era of security. | 5,173 |
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A long-time Toronto chef is part of a growing online movement of neighbours helping neighbours during the COVID-19 crisis.
“I mean, it’s crazy times, so if somebody gets into trouble, I’ve got their back,” said Jordan Wagman as he seared short ribs and lamb shanks in his west Toronto home on Sunday.
Wagman volunteered his services on a public Facebook page that aims to help those impacted directly and indirectly by COVID-19. Others have offered everything from performing grocery runs to teaching resources for parents.
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The chef estimated his efforts would mean 24 to 36 cups of frozen soup for people in need of some extra help.
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“There are people who rely on hourly wages to support themselves and their loved ones,” he said.
“If they don’t have those hourly wages coming in, well how are they supporting themselves?” Tweet This
Wagman is part of a trend online of neighbours helping neighbours during uncertain times.
Some volunteers and those seeking help have turned to the Nextdoor app, which is specifically designed to connect neighbours, each user verified as trustworthy.
“There’s someone who might be very afraid of going outside right now or going out to a store to expose themselves if they have certain vulnerabilities, whether that’s [a compromised] immune system or perhaps they’re an elderly person,” Christopher Doyle, country manager of Nextdoor Canada, told Global News.
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“This actually lets them know that they have a community that can help them.” Tweet This
He said the free app has seen an increase in users, with many offering to help.
“We’ve seen stories — very heart-warming stories — of people offering to go and get groceries, for people to drop off medications to local neighbours,” Doyle said. “It’s really important that the most vulnerable right now, that we look after them.”
For Wagman, offering up his talents as a chef to make soup at a moment of need is his way of giving back.
“Where I’ve come from and where I am today, there’s a huge amount of trials and tribulations in between,” he said. “So if I can give back and help some people by cooking some great food, that’s really easy to do.” | 5,174 |
On Thursday, a US House committee investigating Hillary Clinton's private e-mail server voted along party lines to hold the Democratic presidential candidate's former IT aide in contempt of Congress.
Bryan Pagliano, the former State Department IT technician who helped set up Clinton's private e-mail server when she was secretary of state, did not appear before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee during its hearing investigating the server. However, Pagliano was subpoenaed.
"Subpoenas are not optional," Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said Thursday. "Mr. Pagliano is a crucial fact witness in this committee's investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private server to conduct government business."
The committee's resolution, adopted on a party-line vote of 19-15, must be approved by the House. If approved, it would be up to the District of Columbia US attorney to decide whether to prosecute.
Pagliano had invoked his constitutional right against compelled self-incrimination last week when subpoenaed to testify on the same issue before the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
Pagliano's attorneys wrote Chaffetz late Wednesday to say that Pagliano "will continue to assert his Fifth Amendment rights and will decline to answer any questions put to him by your Committee." The lawyers added: "In an effort to resolve this matter, Mr. Pagliano has offered to assert his rights on the record before this Committee in Executive Session. You have flatly refused that offer and continue to insist that Mr. Pagliano appear in a public session where his further and repeated assertion of his constitutional right not to testify can be videotaped and broadcast."
House Democrats said the contempt resolution was designed to hurt Clinton's presidential bid against GOP rival Donald Trump.
"Where is our investigation of Donald Trump? His potentially fraudulent business practices?" asked Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the committee. "This is an abuse of authority and taxpayer dollars to inappropriately affect the presidential election."
Pagliano received limited immunity from prosecution as part of the FBI investigation into Clinton's private e-mail servers. The bureau found that Clinton was "extremely careless," but no criminal prosecution was recommended. Republicans were outraged over the decision because some e-mails contained classified data that was hosted on a private server at her New York residence.
For a closer examination of Pagliano's role, read our previous coverage detailing the evolution of Clinton's server. It began on a Power Mac, shifted to a Dell PowerEdge 2900 running Windows Server and Microsoft Exchange, and then moved to a Dell PowerEdge 1950 running Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES). | 5,175 |
ATHENS (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake shook western Greece early on Friday, damaging a port and a 15th century monastery, but causing no major injuries, officials and local media said.
The quake sent out tremors felt as far afield as Libya, Italy, Malta and Albania. Greek authorities initially issued a tsunami warning then withdrew the alert.
The magnitude 6.4 quake struck in the Ionian Sea, 50 km (31 miles) south of the island of Zakynthos, also known as Zante, Greece’s Geodynamic Institute reported. The U.S. Geological Survey rated the magnitude at 6.8.
Three people were taken to hospital on the island, two of them slightly injured, a spokesman for Greece’s civil protection agency said. A series of aftershocks, the highest at 5.6, rattled the island and power was briefly disrupted.
Tremors damaged a 15th-century monastery on the nearby islands of Strofades, local media in Zakynthos reported. They also left large cracks in the port of Zakynthos, though authorities there said operations would continue as usual.
“We are not facing any particular problems,” Zakynthos Mayor Pavlos Kolokotsas told Greek state broadcaster ERT. “Calm is being restored.”
Extensive damage was avoided because quake-prone Zakynthos had adopted seismic protection codes in construction, said Efthymios Lekkas, head of Greece’s Earthquake Planning and Protection Organisation.
Slideshow ( 6 images )
“The energy unleashed, based on the angle of the faultline, fanned out towards Italy,” he added.
Italy’s Il Messaggero online news site said the quake was felt hundreds of kilometers away in southern Italy. Firefighters in Calabria, Puglia and Sicily received thousands of telephone calls from worried locals.
Zakynthos was all but destroyed in a 6.8 tremor in 1953. More than 140 people were killed in an earthquake north of Athens in 1999.
The quake was fairly shallow, according to the USGS, just 14 km (8.7 miles) below the seabed, which would have amplified shaking.
It struck at 1:54 a.m. (2254 GMT, Thursday). Greece straddles two tectonic plates and often suffers earthquakes.
The EMSC European quake agency said sea levels had risen slightly, by about 20 cm (7.87 inches), but the increase could be higher locally. It later tweeted sea level changes were also observed in Italy. | 5,176 |
Incident reports submitted by federal officials and contractors since late 2010 to the Energy Department's Joint Cybersecurity Coordination Center shows a near-consistent barrage of attempts to breach the security of critical information systems that contain sensitive data about the nation's power grid, nuclear weapons stockpile and energy labs.
Cyber attackers successfully compromised the security of U.S. Department of Energy computer systems more than 150 times between 2010 and 2014, according to a review of federal records obtained by USA TODAY.
The records, obtained by USA TODAY through the Freedom of Information Act, show DOE components reported a total of 1,131 cyberattacks over a 48-month period ending in October 2014. Of those attempted cyber intrusions, 159 were successful.
"The potential for an adversary to disrupt, shut down (power systems), or worse … is real here," said Scott White, Professor of Homeland Security and Security Management and Director of the Computing Security and Technology program at Drexel University. "It's absolutely real."
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Energy Department officials would not say whether any sensitive data related to the operation and security of the nation's power grid or nuclear weapons stockpile was accessed or stolen in any of the attacks, or whether foreign governments are believed to have been involved.
"DOE does not comment on ongoing investigations or possible attributions of malicious activity," Energy Department spokesman Andrew Gumbiner said in a statement.
In all cases of malicious cybersecurity activity, Gumbiner said the Energy Department "seeks to identify indicators of compromise and other cybersecurity relevant information, which it then shares broadly amongst all DOE labs, plants, and sites as well as within the entire federal government."
The National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-autonomous agency within the Energy Department responsible for managing and securing the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile, experienced 19 successful attacks during the four-year period, records show.
While information on the specific nature of the attacks was redacted from the records prior to being released, numerous Energy Department cybersecurity vulnerabilities have been identified in recent years by the department's Office of Inspector General, an independent watchdog agency.
After a cyber attack in 2013 resulted in unauthorized access to personally identifying information for more than 104,000 Energy Department employees and contractors, auditors noted "unclear lines of responsibility" and "lack of awareness by responsible officials." In an audit report released in October of last year, the Inspector General found 41 Energy Department servers and 14 workstations "were configured with default or easily guessed passwords."
| 5,177 |
2019 - Cover Art For Scuderia Ferrari
By: Migz 7/27/2019
Matteo Spirito returns to Scuderia Ferrari with this beautiful work for the 2019 German Grand Prix!
In this cover... Ferrari celebrates 90 years and you can feel the excitement with Sebastian returning to his home track. The pressure is on and Seb will meet the challenge as his passion is electric. These colors may blur from speed, but they don't run! With the utmost concentration, Vettel prepares for the win.
Did You Know?
The Hockenheimring Baden-Württemberg was originally built in 1932 and was approximately twelve kilometers long. It was shortened and redesigned many times over the years to give us what we have today. This 2.842 mile track has 6 left turns, 11 right turns, 6 straights.
About The Artist - Matteo Spirito
Matteo Spirito is an illustrator and concept artist who enjoys working on different and widespread types of projects. In 2009 he graduated in “Illustration and Animation” at the European Institute of Design (IED) in Rome and soon started working for several Role Playing, Board and Card Games. Since the last two years, he is working mainly in concept art and character designs in a miniature-making company based in Florence. - Formula1.Ferrari.com
photo submitted by artist - Matteo Spirito photo submitted by artist - Matteo Spirito
Spirito's 2019 Bahrain Grand Prix Cover Art
Metteo is not new to Scuderia Ferrari cover art. Here is his work from the 2019 Bahrain Grand Prix.
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What Should We Expect From The German Grand Prix?
Sebastian explains the track at Hockenheim
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Join In On The Conversation
Please comment below with your predictions for the German Grand Prix as well as your own feedback of Scuderia Ferrari's cover art!
Thank You
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# TheArtOfFormula1 # ScuderiaFerrari # Scuderia # Ferrari # Migz # MigzRacing # MigzMusic # CoverArt # MigzRocks # Drivetribe # DrivetribeUSA # DrivetribeAmbassadors # Formula1 # F1 # MatteoSpirito # GermanGP # GermanGrandPrix # Hockenheim | 5,178 |
programme. I think Pakistan's paranoia is so acute that whether Cold Start existed or not, the fundamental asymmetry in Indian and Pakistani military capabilities, coupled with Pakistan's deep suspicions about India's malicious intentions towards Pakistan, would have driven Rawalpindi to an enormous nuclear expansion in any case once the chokepoints in its fissile material production cycle were removed.
How do you see the ISI's current role in the Pakistan army? Is covert operations against India and in Afghanistan still its exclusive domain? Has it grown even more powerful in recent times or was it put on a leash of sorts after 26/11, so as not to incite the Americans? Do you foresee an ISI-inspired major terror attack in India like 26/11? Or is that kind of terror operation deemed too expensive for Pakistan internationally?
I don't see the ISI's role as having changed at all: it still has both internal and external functions, the latter involving both Afghanistan and India but going beyond both.
I think 26/11, and the revelations that followed, highlighted the strong connections between ISI and LeT. But it also flagged the risks of an unbridled terrorist campaign against India for Pakistan's own interests.
The U.S., for its part, has tried to remind Rawalpindi of that quite consistently. For a while, the ISI did try to keep its proxies on a tight leash, but whether it can or will do so forever is not obvious.
Do you see the possibility of an India-Pakistan short duration war, as some observers believe? Or is that extremely unlikely?
Over two decades ago, when I was at (the think-tank) RAND, I concluded long before the 1998 nuclear tests that India-Pakistan security competition for the foreseeable future would be characterised by 'ugly stability' -- subconventional violence that would persist at varying levels of intensity because both unlimited and limited conventional conflicts were risky for both sides.
I think that conclusion still holds true -- obviously, India could be compelled to embark on short-duration military reprisals, if Pakistani terrorism inflicts mass or conspicuous casualties.
Short of such eventualities, however, New Delhi has more important things to do if Modi's dream of India becoming a leading power is to be realised.
In fact, the greater danger to my mind is not that Pakistani terrorism against India might push New Delhi towards a limited war, but towards subconventional retaliation, with great risks for Pakistan's own stability and India's international reputation.
What are the five things you can expect from Pakistan this year?
If only my crystal ball were that clear!
This interview originally appeared on Rediff.com. | 5,179 |
壊してしまった設備は、厨房備え付けのノートPCから（ゲーム内の）お金を払って修理依頼をだすことができるので安心だ。コンロを利用してダンボールに着火し、その火でステーキを焼いたり、まな板を並べてドミノをしたり…。料理以外にどのような楽しみ方を見つけるかは、プレイヤーであるあなた次第だ。収益を度外視すれば。
本作の開発を手がけるのは、ポーランドのインディースタジオWastelands Interactive。『Planar Conquest』や『Worlds of Magic』など、数多くのストラテジー作品を開発してきた。特にアートワークには定評があり、『Tyranny』や『SUPERHOT』といったメジャータイトルにも魅力的なビジュアルを提供している。本作は同スタジオ初のシミュレーターながら、映像からは細かい挙動も含めて丁寧に作られていることが感じられるだけに、完成に期待したい。なお、Steamストアページによると日本語にも対応予定のようだ。
『Cooking Simulator』の対象プラットフォームはPC（Steam）で、リリース時期は2018年Q2を予定。パブリッシャーはPLayWayが担当している。 | 5,180 |
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Anyone who is a fan of dark chocolate will know the name Bournville all too well.
Yet for those of us from Birmingham the name of Bournville has two meanings because it’s also the name of the village created for workers in the vicinity of the Cadbury’s factory.
But which came first – the village or the chocolate bar?
Apart from the Georgian-built Bournbrook Hall, the land on which the “model village” of Bournville now stands was once home to a handful of farmsteads and cottages.
In 1861 when young Quakers George and Richard Cadbury took over the family business from their father John, the pair decided it needed to move out of its city centre Bridge Street factory if it was to expand.
The brothers wanted a greenfield site which they could develop that would have easy access to canal and rail networks and opted to move to Bournbrook Hall, four miles south of the city, in 1879.
It’s said the rural location, already serviced by the new Stirchley Street Railway Station, was chosen as it was cleaner, healthier and more amenable to a long-term expansion plan.
Just four years later, in 1893, George bought a 120-acre swathe of land close to the works and planned, from out of his own pocket, a model village which would “alleviate the evils of modern more cramped living conditions”.
George and Richard named the area Bournville after the Bourn Brook with ville, the French for town, to distinguish it from the rest of the local area and then set about developing their factory in their new suburb.
By 1900, the estate included 313 cottages and houses set in over 330 acres, with more built in the years running up to World War One.
Bournville, which is now in a Conservation Area, went on to become a blueprint for other model village estates across the country.
But it wouldn’t be until 1908 that the first Bournville plain chocolate bar was sold.
So it was leafy Bournville, which is still a popular village today, that came first.
Although still sold in the UK, Bournville Plain is now manufactured in France.
Cadbury’s, which started life in Bull Street, Birmingham, in 1824 and opened its first factory in Crooked Lane in 1831, launched its Bournville cocoa in 1905 in the village’s name. | 5,181 |
Elevated body mass index (BMI) – a measure of weight accounting for a person's height - has been shown to be a likely causal contributor to population patterns in mortality, according to a new study led by the University of Bristol using measurements and mortality data from 500,000 people.
Specifically, for those in UK Biobank (a study of middle to late aged volunteers), every 5kg/m2 increase in BMI was associated with an increase of 16 per cent in the chance of death and specifically 61 per cent for those related to cardiovascular diseases. The work is published today [Thursday 25 October] in Obesity Editors’ Choice.
While it is already known that severe obesity increases the relative risk of death, previous studies have produced conflicting results with some appearing to suggest a protective effect at different parts of the spectrum of body mass index. Until now, no study has used a genetic-based approach to explore this link.
The Bristol team applied a method called Mendelian randomization, a technique that uses genetic variation in a person’s DNA to help understand the causal relationships between risk factors and health outcomes – here mortality. This method can provide a more accurate estimate of the effect of body mass index on mortality by removing confounding factors, for example, smoking, income and physical activity, and reverse causation (where people lose weight due to ill health), which could explain the conflicting findings in previous observational studies.
Using data from the UK Biobank, the team were able to show that the apparent optimum body mass index for survival was lower with Mendelian randomization analyses (within the normal weight rather than overweight range found with observational studies) and the association remained flatter over a larger range of body mass index.
The findings which link body mass index and mortality, confirm that being overweight increases a person’s risk of death from all causes including cardiovascular diseases and various cancers.
Dr Kaitlin Wade, Research Associate in Genetic Epidemiology at the Bristol Medical School (Population Health Studies) and lead author of the study, said: "The findings highlight the need for a global effort to reduce the surging levels of obesity within society and suggest that in most cases, any reduction in body mass index to a normal, healthy level is likely to be beneficial."
This research was supported by the Wellcome Trust and included researchers associated with the Medical Research Council Integrative Epidemiology Unit, the Cancer Research UK Integrative Cancer Epidemiology Programme, the University of Bristol Population Health Sciences Institute and the University of Bristol NIHR Biomedical Research Centre.
Paper:
'Body mass index and mortality in UK Biobank: revised estimates using Mendelian randomization' by K Wade et al in Obesity | 5,182 |
Three jihadist groups operating in the Sahel region of Africa have merged to form one single organisation, Mauritania’s private news agency ANI said Thursday, citing a video distributed by the Islamists.
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Among the groups joining the merger south of the Sahara are Mali’s Al Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine and Al-Murabitoun, led by Algerian extremist Mokhtar Belmokhtar.
The new movement will operate under the name the Group to Support Islam and Muslims, and will be led by Ansar Dine’s Iyag Ag Ghaly, ANI said, adding that it had received the video Wednesday.
The Macina Brigades group, active in central Mali, has also joined the merger.
“It is very particular to see them all together,” said Wassim Nasr, France 24’s expert on jihadist movements.
ANI distributed a screenshot of the video showing five jihadist leaders seated together, with Iyad Ag Ghaly in the centre.
The four others were identified as the “emirs” of the new movement.
“What they are doing here is also against the Islamic State in the region, which is gaining in force,” Nasr said. “They are confirming their presence there.”
The ability of such key players in local terror groups to meet freely is notable. “It shows that it is impossible to monitor this huge region militarily and even with technical means,” said Nasr.
In an audio excerpt Iyad Ag Ghaly can be heard swearing allegiance to slain Jordanian jihadist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi – whose Al Qaeda in Iraq group later evolved into the Islamic State group – and Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda’s current leader.
He can also be heard praising Al Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden, who was killed in Pakistan in May 2011.
It was not clear when the video was recorded, though ANI said it was “recent”.
All three groups already had ties to Al Qaeda, and were involved in an onslaught that saw northern Mali fall out of government control for nearly a year from spring 2012.
The extremists were later expelled from the region by a French-led international military intervention.
Nonetheless large swathes of northern Mali continue to come under attack from jihadist groups.
The area is also seen by governments battling the jihadist threat as a launchpad for attacks against other countries in the region.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning Subscribe | 5,183 |
Dean Potter @ Taft Point in Yosemite (2009Dean Potter (born January 1972, in the United States) is an American free climber, alpinist, BASE jumper, BASEliner, and highliner. He is noted for hard first ascents, free solo ascents, speed ascents and enchainments in Yosemite and Patagonia.Free climbing and free soloing:Potter has made several new routes and bold solo ascents in Patagonia.Speed climbing:In July 2006, he climbed The Reticent Wall, one of the hardest routes on El Capitan, in 34 hours and 57 minutes with Ammon McNeely and Ivo Ninov, shaving five days off the existing time.Highlining and BASE jumping:Potter is known for his exploits in highlining and BASE jumping. He was introduced to slacklining by Chongo, aka Charles Victor Tucker III, one of the first three people to highline across Lost Arrow Spire.Delicate Arch climb:Potter is infamous for climbing Delicate Arch, for which he lost his sponsorship from the Patagonia clothing company. "There wasn't any legal reason for me not to climb it," Potter said of Delicate Arch. "I didn't see any moral reason not to climb it. I didn't hurt it."Potter said he would not climb Totem Pole, the spire in Monument Valley that Navajo imbue with religious significance. Delicate Arch, despite its prominence on Utah license plates, doesn't have the stature of that sacred Arizona tower, he said."I didn't see a reason why it's wrong, why we shouldn't mesh with nature," Potter said."At first Potter's handler in Patagonia spread the word of his climb by calling a press release to the Salt Lake Tribune. Public outrage was immediate, though, especially in Utah, where many see Delicate Arch as a symbol for the state's wild beauty."Potter's Delicate Arch climb became the topic of the song Not All Roses by rapper Odub (Kris Hampton), released on the web on 2 April 2007. On 11 April 2007, Potter's lawyer sent Hampton a Cease and Desist letter advising him to halt all distribution of the song. Hampton subsequently released a follow-on song called Cease and Desist.Notable Ascents:- 2002 Supercanaleta, Cerro Fitz Roy, Patagonia. First solo of route.- 2003 Concepcion 5.13+ (67m), Day Canyon, Moab, Utah. First Ascent.- 2006 Heaven (5.12d/13a) Glacier Point, Yosemite Valley. First solo ascent.- 2006 Southern Belle (V 5.12d), Half Dome, Yosemite Valley. Second ascent with Leo Houlding. | 5,184 |
My Blog
Over the past few months, several reporters have approached me or my associates asking aggressively about a fiction story that I authored more than four years ago and is no longer posted online.
The story posted on my blog was fiction ‒ a made-up story meant to spark debate and conversation.
The fact that my blog is no longer on the internet and reporters, unassociated with my industry, have still “found” and pursued it indicates that individuals with less than good intentions have been actively trying to disparage and slander me.
My public acknowledgement of the story, along with my strongest possible rebuke that any part of this story is true, is meant to end all attempts to destroy my reputation. I sincerely apologise to anyone who found my experiment in creative writing upsetting, and I hope we can all come together in understanding its original intent and purpose. The content in question was created four years ago, when I wrote a story in rather poor judgement. I published it to my personal blog, Insights into a Modern World, in which I offered readers “projections of thoughts for you to reflect upon and refract over.” To reiterate, this story was entirely a work of fiction ‒ no characters or events described anything real. The story, entitled “Elizabeth” was the last in a series of posts (“Sexism and Physics” followed by “Lolita Justice” and then the post in question) that were prompted by current affairs at the time, specifically the Jeremy Forrest case in the U.K.
My story is fiction and was written purely as a literary thought-experiment in the context of current events. In the months before I wrote those posts, I had read “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”: Adventures of a Curious Character by the physicist and Nobel-winner Richard Feynman, in which the author applied a unique critical perspective on the world, ruffling a few of his audience’s feathers along the way. Along those lines, my blog posts at the time were meant to provoke intellectual debate and discussion around generally taboo subjects like the nature of consent. Nothing about it should be taken as indicative of my personal position. My only position here is that rigorous, rational and unrestricted discussion on all topics is generally a requirement to make informed decisions as a society.
It was not my intent to upset anyone, and I took the story down as soon as I realised it was being misconstrued. Recent re-publications of this story have been entirely by others, and I am very sorry to anyone that may have become upset by its contents.
Gavin Wood
| 5,185 |
Both Libreri and Davis think it is key to have a set of standards for VR development, as it would make things easier for every developer, not only those who are interacting with the Unreal Engine. "We wanna make sure that, whatever platform developers choose to use, they're well supported in UE 4," says Libreri, who previously worked on visual effects for The Matrix franchise. Davis adds, "It's always been sort of our [approach] with the engine. Even going all the way back to the original Xbox [360] and pushing back on Microsoft to make sure they put enough memory in it." He says it's also important to learn the lessons of what works and what doesn't in VR and share this information with developers and companies like Oculus or Valve.
For Epic Games and Unreal Engine, one of the main focuses right now is to better understand input, motion-tracking and how those two elements work with VR experiences. "You know, we've got controllers on the horizon; things are gonna be really difficult," Libreri points out, "the first time that you got into a new generation VR experience with Crescent Bay or the Vive, you wanted to touch things." That's expected to be supported by Unreal Engine, along with whatever new methods of input may come up in the future. "We just wanna help sort of propagate people's ability to evolve quickly," he says about what Unreal Engine's goal is in the VR landscape.
Davis also emphasizes that partnerships between manufacturers, such as Microsoft and Oculus, will be crucial going forward. He believes these types of collaborations could pave the way for VR projects that are, at the very least, enjoyable. "It's actually really, really great that they found that connection, because it's really easy to have terrible VR experiences -- it's like the Wild Wild West out there," Davis says. "On the PC front, having a good partnership between Rift and Windows 10 increases the chances that it'll actually work consistently well. That's always been the Windows problem; it's such a wide-open hardware ecosystem, you don't know what kind of drivers you have or the right GPU, all that kind of stuff."
"It's like the Wild Wild West out there."
Libreri, for his part, is confident developers will benefit from creating snackable VR, rather than taking on large-scale projects from the beginning. "As we start to think about the evolution of the shooter game or the exploration/action/adventure game, the Uncharted for VR, I think that it's better to experiment initially with smaller, digestible things," he adds. "As a collective, we learn that language quickly."
Check here for everything happening at E3 2015! | 5,186 |
While Phillies coverage is on the acquisition of a rotation piece or two, general manager Matt Klentak must also consider having back-of-the-pen hurlers to protect slight edges in the final three frames.
Right price:
Occasionally, something unexpected lands on the Philadelphia Phillies GM’s desk and is an opportunity to accomplish his goals and achieve positive results more easily. But Klentak can’t use it as a backup plan and risk forfeiting this chance to a rival, he must make moves with a critical eye — yet quickly!
IN OTHER WORDS: “Right time, right place, right people equals success. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history.” – Idries Shah
The hot stove league began with good news for the starting staff and the relief corps. Yes, one involves good health regarding a reliever who finished 2019 on the injured list, and the other concerns a reasonably priced hurler for a contending opportunity. Any guesses?
The importance of remaining below the CBT (competitive-balance threshold) is critical to the business end of major league baseball. Unfortunately, execs don’t advertise this long-term factor, plus many fans and writers are oblivious to this trend for parity due to thoughts directed elsewhere.
Rooting for teams and stars goes back to recruiting players, forming a club, creating a league, and charging admission. So, if your favorite fielder, catcher or pitcher doesn’t perform up to expectations, the Phils replace, cut, or swap him. But one role for two good regulars equals trading a strength for a weakness.
Employing hindsight primarily, some scribes individualize each deal not made, but combining their moves equals a GM’s dismissal even if two are contradictory. Yet, if a hitter consistently goes two for five, he’s an All-Star, while the decision-maker must go five for five to keep his job according to some locals, no?
While managing partner John S. Middleton’s approach of adding seasons and dollars to a free-agent signing lacks popularity, he’s lowering the AAV to avoid the Luxury Tax. But some faithful supporters prefer dramatically overpaying per 162 to limit the contract lengthwise, which raises the AAV they casually dismiss.
Imagine acquiring a mid-rotation arm for $10 million AAV. Yes, an extra $5 million AAV for a critical-inning fireman will help the pen shoulder the workload in the seventh, eighth and ninth. In other words, good fortune could be at hand after last summer’s plague of the walking wounded. | 5,187 |
“Ladies of Manure” is a calendar with typical calendar girls except for one thing. They are covered in poop.
This calendar is meant to encourage urbanites to start composting their waste — veggie peels, fruit rinds and even feces (animal and human) — into fertile, black soil.
Month by month, scantily clad women pose in and around piles of poop to highlight the benefits of composting in a calendar being sold to benefit the Fertile Earth Foundation.
Ms. April is a smiling blonde with slender legs that end in three-inch heels.
A typical calendar girl, except for one thing: She is covered in poop.
Fish poop, to be exact.
“The whole point of this is to make it less disgusting. If this hot chick doesn’t mind smearing fish poop all over her, maybe it’s not that bad,” said Lanette Sobel, who started the Fertile Earth Foundation, the South Beach-based nonprofit organization behind the calendar. “It’s a resource; it’s not waste.”
Sobel, 34, dreamed up the project to get other people to think about organic waste as much as she does.
The result is a pictorial calendar that’s meant to encourage urbanites to start composting their waste — veggie peels, fruit rinds and even feces (animal and human) — into fertile, black soil.
For $25 online — or a $20 donation at a fundraiser Friday at Cafeina Wynwood Lounge — you can own a 12-month calendar that features the semi-naked manure babes.
The pictorials are equal parts bombshell glam and bathroom humor.
In the calendar, a long-haired brunette poses on a commode with pink lace panties stretched across her booted ankles. Another lies on grass, cupping her breasts while worms crawl through a patch of inky dirt piled over her nether regions. Still another crouches near a banana tree, her outstretched arms covering her bare chest as she lifts rotting fruit peels.
Each photo is accompanied by a brief biography of the featured girl. All of the models were chosen because of their work on environmental issues.
Fertile Earth is funded mostly through its worm sales, with a few out-of-the ordinary fundraisers — like the poop calendar. The group’s last fundraiser was a cook-off to bring attention to invasive, non-native species in South Florida. The winning dish consisted of python chili, wild boar sliders and snakehead fish slaw. | 5,188 |
Astronomy Club. Photo: Anni Weisband
Sketch-comedy group and UCB alums Astronomy Club, who we included in our 2018 Comedians You Should Know, is getting the Netflix bump with some help from Black-ish creator Kenya Barris. According to Variety, Netflix has ordered six episodes of a half-hour sketch series from the group, which includes Keisha Zollar, James III, Monique Moses, Jerah Milligan, Caroline Martin, Ray Cordova, Jon Braylock, and Shawtane Bowen. The series will “use comedy to discuss real-world topics,” with sketches covering “an array of topics ranging from pop culture and social issues to the black experience.” Barris will serve as an executive producer alongside Daniel Powell, who worked as an EP on Inside Amy Schumer and more recently Netflix’s The Break With Michelle Wolf and I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson.
Speaking with Splitsider back in 2017, Braylock, Milligan, and James — who co-host the podcast Black Men Can’t Jump in Hollywood — explained why they were ready to bring their work to television. “I feel like now we’ve done the digital thing. We’ve done Comedy Central. We’ve done Seriously. We’ve been on stage at UCB. I feel like these dues have now been paid. We’ve proven ourselves. Let’s get a show so we can put our friends on it,” Milligan said. “All I’m saying is, we’re at the next step. So hopefully we have some cool stuff that does help the cause. We want to make sure we put a positive thing out there for people and especially people of color.”
Prior to the Netflix show, Astronomy Club starred in their own digital series for Comedy Central last year, and the group told Variety that the Netflix show will be similar. “Instead of doing the normal sketch show, we kind of have a show within a show,” Braylock explained. “So our inter-specials will be kind of a heightened fake reality show with all of us living in one house together because Netflix doesn’t have money to give us a bigger house. So we kind of have all these wonderful characters that are heightened versions of ourselves. And we have very, very loose plot lines that take us through each episode. So that way people can have a break from the sketches, they get to know us.”
Until the Astronomy Club show premieres, check out the group’s Comedy Central series right here. | 5,189 |
narrative is shifting to another uncharted theory of obstruction. It is a neat cynical trick. Every cry of defense to a false accusation could be counted and showcased as evidence of obstruction. We saw that type of goalpost-moving during the confirmation hearing of Justice Brett Kavanaugh — when charges of sexual assualt were unfounded, the argument shifted to Kavanaugh’s temperament.
There are also arguments about, shockingly, whether Bill Barr is prevaricating in his summary, as Mueller and his people wait quietly without protest, or worse, whether Mueller himself was compromised.
The People Who Did This Need to Face Consequences
Typically a fellow human’s intelligence is not questioned out of common courtesy. Sometimes, however, there is a need. If anyone believes that type of conspiracy theory, after two and a half years of withering obstructionism, he perhaps needs to have his intelligence insulted and shamed.
But this shouldn’t be over. Every time incessant attacks on conservatives are discovered to be unfounded, there are calls for national unity. As if it is a burden on the falsely accused to heal the wounds, not the false accusers.
But that needs to end. Otherwise, there won’t be any balance or sanity restored. Vengeance is the purest form of emotion, according to the ancient Hindu epic of Mahabharata. Of course, it is a transliteration of the ancient Sanskrit word, which doesn’t mean vengeance in the way we know it in modern times, but the philosophy behind it is clear.
Without accountability and punitive deterrence, there is no justice, and without justice, society implodes. From the hate crime hoaxers intending to simply “start a conversation” to the activist media bullying young kids, to academia providing fuel to the fire to sell their books, to the serial celebrity rapist-filled industry sanctimoniously lecturing on public morality, to public intellectuals fueling mass hysteria to bureaucrats trying to undermine a legitimate government—the single constant in all of these is a lack of accountability and pushback.
It is time to ponder the same philosophical question that vexed ancient warriors on North Indian plains 5,000 years ago: How do we restore balance in society and bring about the fear of justice? The answer was that there needs to be a reckoning. A punitive deterrence needs to be established to restore sanity and order.
What started this hysteria was a pre-election federal investigation based on a highly dubious dossier, funded by rival campaigns, with the implicit support of a section of the ideological bureaucracy, supported by legions of celebrities and public intellectuals worried about their declining influence on the broader American populace. There must be a reckoning for all of them. | 5,190 |
Vice-Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin answers reporters' questions in Beijing on Wednesday at a news conference on the State Council Information Office's publication of a white paper on China's Asia-Pacific security cooperation.Zou Hong / China Daily
China confirmed on Wednesday that it will finish a framework with Southeast Asian nations by the middle of the year for a code of conduct on the South China Sea.
"Negotiation on the code of conduct has entered a very important phase," Vice-Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin said during a news conference to issue a white paper on China's policies on Asia-Pacific security cooperation.
"We will continue to focus on the job in the coming few months and do our best to finish a draft of the framework of the code of conduct," Liu said, joking that the work will not be dragged out until the last minute in June but will be done "as early as possible".
He also said this is progress in just one phase of negotiation on the Code of Conduct for the South China Sea, adding that the heavier work will come after the draft is completed.
In Manila, the Philippines' foreign minister also said on Wednesday that the code of conduct framework will be completed by the middle of the year.
"Even as we speak, we continue to have discussions with our high officials, below ministerial level," Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay told a news conference, according to Reuters. "And this is precisely why we are hopeful."
China and Association of Southeast Asian Nations members started work on the code of conduct in 2003. Yasay said China had been "very cooperative" in the process.
Yasay also said his country won't raise last year's international arbitration ruling on the South China Sea during ASEAN summit talks that Manila will host this year. He said pressing the ruling at the meeting would be "simply counterproductive for our purposes".
Beijing rejected the ruling in the arbitration case, which was unilaterally brought by the Philippines, and said the tribunal's ruling cannot be the basis of any discussions.
Chen Qinghong, a researcher of Philippine studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said recent progress on the South China Sea issue can be largely attributed to the shift of Manila's stance.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has taken steps to mend relations with China since taking office in June.
"So far, we judge that China's double-channel strategy is effective," he said, referring to Beijing's stance that South China Sea disputes should be negotiated by countries directly involved, while China and ASEAN should work together to maintain peace in the sea.
[email protected] | 5,191 |
ironic statement given that Senator Carmichael was the lead sponsor of a bill introduced earlier this year to cut the business inventory tax for large corporations by $140 million a year.
It is unclear how this standoff between striking public employees and Senate Republican leaders will end, but if nothing else, this week’s decision to keep striking is a reminder that the rank and file can lead.
Indeed, this strike has been driven by rank and file workers from the beginning. When Mingo County announced that it would be the first county to walk out, on February 2, the head of the county local told the paper that state union leaders “kind of suggested that we hold off on it to see what happens, but our people were so fired up about it they said, ‘No we’re not waiting, we’re going to do this now,’ so we did.” The state WVEA president replied that he was neither encouraging nor discouraging county walkouts.
And when state union leaders organized a ten thousand-strong rally at the capitol on February 17 and announced a two-day statewide walkout for the following week, the plan had been for that statewide walkout to be followed by rolling walkouts by a handful of counties each day. But by the second day of the statewide walkout, the mood at the capitol (with chants of “See you Monday! See you Tuesday!”) was such that the unions reevaluated and announced the statewide walkout would continue until demands were met.
The strike is actively making the teachers unions more democratic. County locals are organizing mass meetings, phone trees, and text loops and making demands on their state leaders. The anger at union leaders over this week’s deal — and how it was presented to members without a vote — shows that much more work could be done if the rank and file are serious about wanting a more democratic union.
In many ways the deal negotiated between union leaders and Governor Justice kicks the can. The PEIA task force will be making recommendations to the 2019 legislature. The 2019 legislature may also be faced with the task of filling a hole in the budget if Justice’s new revenue projections prove overly optimistic. Kicking the can is not necessarily a bad thing. It has required a historic statewide wildcat strike to get the current legislature to the point of considering a meaningful pay raise for public employees. And there is an election between now and 2019.
The strike has been driven by the rank and file so far. And, if the deal passes the Senate, it will be up to the rank and file to organize for November and ensure that the 2019 legislature is more receptive to working-class demands. | 5,192 |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A homeowner has filed a lawsuit accusing Wells Fargo & Co WFC.N of improperly charging thousands of customers nationwide to lock in interest rates when their mortgage applications were delayed.
A Wells Fargo bank sign is pictured in downtown Los Angeles, California, U.S. August 10, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake
Filed on Monday in San Francisco federal court, the lawsuit said Wells Fargo managers pressured employees to blame homeowners for the delays, sometimes by falsely stating that paperwork was missing, so homeowners could be stuck with extra fees.
Wells Fargo Spokesman Tom Goyda said the bank is reviewing past practices on rate lock extensions and will take steps for customers as appropriate.
The lawsuit, which will request the court grant class action status, comes as Wells Fargo is trying to recover from a scandal last year when the bank was fined for opening accounts for customers without their authorization in order to boost sales figures.
Last month, a new lawsuit accused it of charging several hundred thousand borrowers for auto insurance they did not request.
Monday’s lawsuit accuses the bank of violating state and federal consumer protection laws, including the U.S. Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act and the U.S. Truth in Lending Act.
Earlier this month, Wells Fargo disclosed that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was investigating the fees the company charged to lock in interest rates for delayed mortgage loans. In a securities filing, the bank said it was working with regulators to see if customers had been harmed by the fees.
Interest rate locks are guarantees by a lender to lock in a set interest rate, usually for several weeks, while a loan is processed. If the rate lock expires before a loan closes, lenders often cover the cost of extending the lock if the delay was their fault.
Wells Fargo usually locked in rates for 30 to 90 days but often took longer than that to process applications because of understaffing, the lawsuit said. The bank routinely blamed borrowers for delays and charged them to extend rate locks, according to the lawsuit.
Fees could be significant, amounting to 0.125 percent to 0.25 percent of the loan amount, the complaint said.
The named plaintiff, Nevada resident Victor Muniz, said he was charged $287.50 for a rate lock extension this year after his application for a mortgage was bogged down by bank delays.
Muniz was told by a bank employee that Wells Fargo would pay to extend the rate lock but a regional manager reversed that decision, the lawsuit said.
The case is Muniz v Wells Fargo & Co, U.S. District Court, California Northern District, No 17-cv-4995 | 5,193 |
So you can just be friends with a girl! Harry Styles steps out with a pretty blonde as she insists it's just platonic
If being his girlfriend is out of reach, then it's the role most females across the globe want instead - being Harry Styles' confidante.
The cheeky One Direction star stepped out with a pretty blonde, reportedly his old school friend Ellis Calcutt.
However, despite earning himself a reputation as somewhat of a ladies man, she insists they are just good friends.
Just friend: Harry Styles steps out with old school friend Ellis Calcutt
It seems Harry might still be harbouring a soft spot then for Emma Ostilly, an aspiring model he was spied kissing while on tour in New Zealand last week.
Harry and Ellis' body language spoke volumes, although celebrities are often encouraged to keep their distance from love interests so as to avoid media speculation.
At least the 18-year-old didn't have to hide his love for his lavish new Audi R8 Coupe, which he clearly couldn't wait to take for a spin on his return to his parents house in Cheshire.
Showing off! The 18-year-old singer went for a spin in his brand new Audi R8 Coupe
Lady magnet! Harry attracted even more attention than usual as he drove around in the lavish vehicle
The pair went for a coffee after Harry showed off his new set of wheels.
And the outing didn't go unnoticed by his fans, who were also spotted leaning forward to try and catch a glimpse of their idol in the driving seat.
Hopefully Ellis won't be the subject of a hate campaign, after Emma was forced to shut down her Twitter page after she became a target by jealous One Direction devotees.
Time off: The new girl he's been enjoying time with said she has 'a lovely boyfriend called Phil'
Sealed with a kiss: Emma Ostilly was forced to delete her Twitter page after jealous One Direction fans sent her hate mail following her kiss with Harry
Ellis has already addressed rumours, insisting they are just friends from school who hadn't seen each other in a while.
She wrote online: 'Wow, you people are sooo quick to make up rumours! Me & Harry went for coffee together as we haven’t seen each other since last year!
'We’re only good friends and have been since high school. I have a lovely boyfriend called Phil so you can stop spreading rumours about me and Harry dating each other because we absolutely are not!'
Out and about: Harry was seen getting into his luxurious new car yesterday afternoon | 5,194 |
The pandemic is dragging Australia's relations with China to a new low amid reports two of its scientists who studied live bats in Australia were being monitored by intelligence services.
China has threatened to stop importing wine and beef from Australia if the Morrison government continues to push for an inquiry into the origin of the global coronavirus outbreak.
But Foreign Minister Marise Payne dismissed China's unprecedented threat of economic retaliation.
Chinese ambassador Cheng Jingye said that Canberra's call for a global COVID-19 review could trigger a Chinese consumer boycott of Australian services and products.
Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne says the federal government won't be swayed by China pressure. (AAP)
"It's up to the people to decide. Maybe the ordinary people will say, 'why should we drink Australian wine? Eat Australian beef?" he said.
Senator Payne rejected "any suggestion that economic coercion is an appropriate response to a call for such an assessment, when what is needed is global co-operation".
Trade Minister Simon Birmingham said the boycott would be inappropriate.
"Australia's position is very clear that we believe it is entirely reasonable... for there to be a genuine inquiry and investigation into the cause of the loss of life of hundreds of thousands of people around the world," he told the ABC.
"We won't be changing our public policy position, on the face of such a serious public health matter, in the face of any threats of coercion from any other nation."
Labor has supported the federal government's stance.
Frontbencher Bill Shorten told Today the opposition supported calls for a global COVID 19 inquiry.
"I think China needs to just step back a bit. All the people want to know is how did it happen," he said.
"This virus has changed Australia forever and it's had dreadful health consequences."
China accounts for a quarter of all Australian exports, worth $153 billion in 2018-19.
Australia has joined other Western nations in calling for a global inquiry into the pandemic that started in China last year. (AP)
Now it has been reported by News Corp that two Chinese scientists who studied live bats in Australia were monitored by Western security services as part of their investigations into the cause of the coronavirus pandemic.
The pair, both reportedly working at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, were studying the link between bats and the coronavirus. Part of their work reportedly involved research at a Geelong laboratory.
- Reported with AAP
For breaking news alerts and livestreams straight to your smartphone sign up to the 9News app and set notifications to on at the App Store or Google Play. | 5,195 |
Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi has attacked British Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn, saying that his recent election proved that Labour “delight in losing”.
“After what happened with Corbyn, I think [David] Cameron is the happiest of all about Corbyn’s win,” said Renzi said in a speech to lawmakers in his own party.
He added: “It’s not a question of being Blairite or anti-Blairite, it’s a matter of ‘Do you want to go to elections like you go to the Olympics, to win or to participate’?”
It was not the first time that Renzi expressed a sense of exasperated frustration in the wake of the Corbyn victory.
Last week, Renzi said on a radio programme: “The last one called ‘Red’ was Ed Miliband, who took a mighty slap in the face from Cameron. I don’t think people who want to get out of Nato want to win elections.”
It is almost unheard of for Renzi to target a foreign opposition leader with such insults, particularly one that, like his Democratic party (PD), is left-of-centre. But Corbyn’s win came at an important juncture for the Italian premier, who is seeking to pass controversial constitutional reforms that are opposed by some in the leftwing flank of the PD.
While some liberals in Italy might take comfort in the Corbyn victory, Renzi – who has taken on trade unions and sometimes forged alliances with conservatives to pass his agenda – was clearly suggesting that they ought not to, and that Corbyn’s chances for moving beyond the opposition were doomed.
He even compared Labour to the Washington Generals, the team that plays in exhibitions against the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team, and always loses.
Blatant attacks against foreign leaders are rare, but Italian politicians do gravitate to British politics. Matteo Salvini, the rightwing and xenophobic leader of the Northern League, voiced his support for David Cameron last month after the prime minister and other conservatives took a hardline against accepting immigrants.
Cameron, Salvini said, had shown “balls” in his efforts to close Britain off to immigrants as thousands sought to make their way to Britain from Calais. While Britain’s stance on immigrants has since evolved, Cameron and Russian president Vladimir Putin are both admired by Salvini.
Beppe Grillo, the populist head of the anti-euro Five Star Movement, has claimed support for Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, who Grillo once commended for his sense of humour and irony. | 5,196 |
metaphysics could find this volume beneficial.
REFERENCES
Calosi, Claudio (forthcoming), "Priority monism, grounding, and dependence," Philosophical Studies
Correia, Fabrice (2005), Existential Dependence and Cognate Notions, Munich: Philosophia
Correia, Fabrice (2014), "Logical grounds," Review of Symbolic Logic, 7: 31-59
Dasgupta, Shamik (2014), "On the plurality of grounds," Philosophers' Imprint, 14 (14), 1-28
Fine, Kit (2010), "Some puzzles of ground," Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 51, 97-118
Guigon, Ghislain (2015), "A universe of explanations," Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, 9, 345-375
Jansson, Lina (2017), "Explanatory Asymmetries, Ground, and Ontological Dependence," Erkenntnis, 82: 17-44
Jenkins, Carrie (2011), "Is Metaphysical Dependence Irreflexive?," Monist, 94: 267-76
Koslicki, Kathrin (2015), "The Coarse-Grainedness of Grounding," Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, 9: 306-44
Kovacs, David Mark (2018a), "The Deflationary Theory of Ontological Dependence," Philosophical Quarterly, 68: 481-502
Kovacs, David Mark (2018b), "What is wrong with self-grounding?," Erkenntnis, 83: 1157-1180
Krämer, Stephan (2013), "A simpler puzzle of ground," Thought, 2: 85-89
McKenzie, Kerry (forthcoming), "Structuralism in the Idiom of Determination," British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
Raven, Michael (2013), "Is ground a strict partial order?," American Philosophical Quarterly, 50: 191-199
Rydehn, Henrik (forthcoming), "Grounding and Ontological Dependence," Synthese
Schnieder, Benjamin (forthcoming), "Grounding and Dependence," Synthese
Simons, Peter (1987), Parts: A Study in Ontology, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Thomasson, Amie L. (1999), Fiction and Metaphysics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Woods, Jack (2018), "Emptying a Paradox of Ground," Journal of Philosophical Logic, 47: 631-48 | 5,197 |
An Air Force Academy judge will decide whether a victim who didn't speak still meant "no" in an alleged sexual assault of a female cadet in a campus classroom.
Prosecutors on Tuesday opened the case by claiming the woman was frozen by fear during the 2015 incident with cadet Jackson Spalding. Defense attorneys contend the woman fabricated the rape claim after feeling regret over a consensual incident.
"Can you believe her as a witness?" defense attorney Capt. Diane Ingram asked Judge Lt. Col Marvin Tubbs, who is hearing the case without a jury. "Absolutely not."
The female cadet who brought the allegation was on the witness stand for more than three hours of often-tearful testimony describing the incident, which took place on a Friday night in an unused classroom of Fairchild Hall, which houses the academia departments of the school.
"I wanted to get up and go," the woman testified. "My body still wasn't moving."
The Gazette does not routinely name alleged victims of sexual crimes.
Spalding is charged with grabbing the woman's genitalia under her clothes, fondling her breasts and forcing her to touch his genitals after inviting her to the classroom to watch a movie.
The trial revealed a seamy side of life at the academy, including cadets testifying that Fairchild Hall is called "Fairchild hotel" by freshman cadets. Freshmen at the school, as Spalding and the woman were at the time of the alleged crime, have few freedoms, but are allowed to venture out of the dorms to study in Fairchild.
Ingram said it's also a place where freshmen slip into classrooms for forbidden trysts.
"It's commonly known to all cadets," she said.
The female cadet testified that she wasn't looking for sexual contact when she agreed to meet Spalding to watch "Star Trek" and was surprised when others didn't join them in the classroom.
She said she was wordless and rigid when Spalding pulled her into a chair and unzipped her flight suit.
"I've never had anyone else do anything like that to me," she said.
The woman testified that the incident stopped when she found her voice and refused to give Spalding oral sex.
Defense attorneys asked the cadet repeatedly about her unvoiced opposition to Spalding's advances.
"You never said no?" she was asked at at least a dozen times, in slightly different forms.
To each of the queries, the woman responded, "No, sir."
Testimony is expected to continue Wednesday, with Tubbs expected to issue a verdict this week. | 5,198 |
Introduction:
Kit Talk:
New Photos:
Old Photos:
I'll admit that sometimes I buy kits just because they're on sale. At times that has become a bad habit and has been responsible for the bloat of my backlog. This is something that I have gotten better about, but the MG Victory 2 Ver Ka is a good example. Building and painting kits that I have no connection too often results in some interesting outcomes as I do not feel compelled to capture the stock design.The MG Victory Gundam is another example of Bandai building a design around a gimmick. In this case the Victory is able to separate itself to large upper and lower body core fighter components. And, like other transforming master grade designs, this mobile suit sacrifices detail, stability, and articulation to pull off this transformation. It's not quite as bad as the MG Delta Plus, but it certainly leaves something to be desired.In general, I don't care of transforming gimmicks, I don't transform my kits because I don't want to scratch up my painted job.The first thing you might notice about my rendition of this kit is the customized color scheme. What you may not notice are the panel lines I re-scribed throughout the build. I chose to apply the custom color scheme because I thought the base design was too bland. Adding a gentle gradient to the core fighter was a simple way to spice things up. It was also good practice for the design of the fin funnels on the upcoming (in my backlog() MG Hi-Nu Gundam.Unlike most of my kits (99% of them) I opted to use a semi-gloss top coat instead of a completely matte version. I think that the semi-gloss works well on a clean built and streamlined design like the MG Victory 2. I may continue to use this type of topcoat on upcoming kits like the RG Quanta or MG Freedom 2.0 in my backlog.The most frustrating element of this entire kit was the red round details on the elbows. In my opinion, these parts should have been molded in color and separate from the armor. Because they were not they were an absolute nightmare to mask and paint. I also attempted reverse washing and hand brushing these elements with very limited success.Regrettably, the Nikon D3200 that I use to photograph my kits is currently being repaired by the manufacturer. I am also in between photo setups at the moment, hopefully, I will have a build log together on the new setup soon. All of these photos were taken with a borrowed camera that I'm not very familiar with; consider these photos to be placeholders until I can get back to my normal gear. | 5,199 |
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