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A few days ago, CanuckTexan e-mailed me, asking if he could do a breakdown of what needed to happen for the Texans to clinch a playoff berth this week. Never one to turn down a free post, I quickly acquiesced, and what you see below is wholly his work and his alone. Give him all the credit, and rain all the hate down on me if there's anything amiss. Take it away, James (his real name):
I've decided to give TDC a week off. Last week he wrote how the Texans could clinch a playoff spot after Week 12, and I'm going to do the same, but for Week 13.
The huge Thanksgiving win over Detroit (one of my most stressful as a fan) obviously helps the Texans inch closer to clinching, but they're still not quite there. A 10-1 record makes the playoffs all but inevitable, but the sooner the Texans can actually clinch, the better. Once they have a playoff spot in hand, a division win and the 1-seed will go a long way in helping them reach New Orleans for a certain big game in February.
So how can the Texans get the first step out of the way and clinch a second-consecutive playoff spot in Week 13? Let’s find out.
CURRENT AFC STANDINGS
AFC South leading Houston Texans - 10-1
AFC North leading Baltimore Ravens - 9-2
AFC East leading New England Patriots - 8-3
AFC West leading Denver Broncos - 8-3
Indianapolis Colts - 7-4
Pittsburgh Steelers - 6-5
Still in the hunt...
Cincinnati Bengals - 6-5
Miami Dolphins 5-6
Eliminated last week...
San Diego Chargers - 4-7
Tennessee Titans - 4-7
New York Jets - 4-7
Buffalo Bills - 4-7
With a Texans victory over the BESFs in Week 13, Houston will be sitting pretty at 11-1. Eleven. And one. That would be the best record in franchise history. Let that sink in.
With 11 wins in the bag, your Houston Texans will have clinched a playoff spot. The Bengals and Steelers, two teams that could finish ahead of the Texans’ 11 wins, face off in Week 16. If the Texans can just take care of the BESFs on the road, they’re in. If they tie, they’re still in. If not, it's a whole different story.
With comfortable division leads held by the Patriots, Ravens, and Broncos, the only three teams the Texans really have to worry about with regard to clinching are the Dolphins, the Steelers, and the Bengals.
The Dolphins play host to the Patriots at 12:00 p.m. While any loss by the Patriots helps Houston’s quest for home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, a loss by the Dolphins means just one more result pushes the Texans over the edge and likely makes them the first team to clinch a spot.
That result would have to be a loss by either the Steelers (in Baltimore) or Bengals (in San Diego), with both games coming at 3:25 p.m. If the Dolphins manage to pull off the upset versus New England (a result I’m sure we’d all gladly welcome), both the Steelers and Bengals would need to lose to allow the Texans to clinch (again, if the Texans lose in Nashville on Sunday).
Texans fans everywhere are obviously hoping for more than just clinching a simple playoff spot, but as TDC pointed out last week, clinching a spot is “a necessary step and will always be a noteworthy occurrence.” And that’s an occurrence that is getting more and more likely with each passing week.
After that step is eventually taken, the next step will be a division title, and eventually, hopefully, home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. Those might take a little bit longer, but are not far off as one may think. With a Texans win and a Colts loss in Detroit (1:00 p.m.), the Texans will have a comfortable four-game lead on the Colts with four games left to play. With two of those games coming against the Colts themselves, however, the Texans need until at least Week 14 (where they travel to New England and Indianapolis hosts the BESFs) to clinch the division.
The next goal would be to then clinch the awesomely convenient home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. While the Ravens (at 9-2) and the Broncos (at 8-3) both have a shot, the fact that Houston has managed to beat both of those teams makes the Patriots likely the only team standing in Houston’s way. Next week’s match-up in Foxborough will have huge consequences in determining who gets the 1-seed, especially if New England wins the rest of their games.
Buckle your seatbelts, Texans fans. It’s going to be a fun ride. |
Taking the train could add £24,600 to the travel bill
Network Rail is transporting 200 staff by coach from Reading to Coventry for a conference because of the high cost of train tickets, it has emerged.
The rail operator has opted to shun train travel for road transport as it is more than £24,000 cheaper.
If open return tickets were bought for all the staff it could cost up to £27,000 - £135 each. But coach travel, at £12 a head, will cost just £2,400.
The firm said it made no apologies for getting the "best value" for taxpayers.
Network Rail said it looks at cheaper options for journeys as part of cost-cutting, as its workers do not get free travel or discounts.
A spokesman added: "Whilst we have no role in setting train fares, we use rail for the overwhelming number of business journeys.
"Occasionally, if there is a cheaper alternative, we will use that." |
How Guardians Of The Galaxy Taught A Kid With Autism To Be A Superhero By Mike Reyes Random Article Blend
Post by James Gunn
In this story, a moviegoer talks about how their autistic younger brother identified with Drax The Destroyer. As part of his condition, he cannot comprehend metaphors; much like Drax's literal mindedness in Guardians Of The Galaxy. The fact that he shares this with Drax made him realize, as the fan relates to us in their post, "He's like me! I can't do metaphors!"
With this inspiration, the younger brother has been inspired to "tell everyone he knows that people with autism can be superheroes."
This post is the "in a nutshell" example of what good superhero movies like Guardians Of The Galaxy can do for an impressionable young audience. With its ragtag group of misfits -- who each possess a certain quirk, a certain ability, and an identifiable personality of their own -- Guardians Of The Galaxy has taught this child, and could teach the rest of us, that we can all be heroes. Heroes like the
What superheroes can, and should, teach us all is that to be a hero, you don't have to fit a certain mold, look a certain way, or be anything but your true self. Now this might seem problematic in a world dominated by the likes of Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Batman; but the industries of both film and comic books are fast learning the lesson we've been cheering and chastising them to learn. That lesson is if you can't find a hero you can identify to, it just means that hero hasn't been created yet. We live in a world where Thor will be a woman, Ms. Marvel is now a Muslim teenager, and Captain America is an African American. Imagine the countless kids that have seen these portrayals, and have finally allowed themselves to indulge in the fantasy that all of the other kids have had the luxury of dreaming of themselves: that notion that they too could wield great power and uphold great responsibility.
James Gunn gets people. He understands how they tick, how they learn, how they love, and how they hurt. What Guardians Of The Galaxy proved is that he's had a different way of showing it than what we're used to seeing. Even if you go back and watch Super, the film which probably got him the Guardians Of The Galaxy gig in the first place, you can see that his protagonist played by Rainn Wilson is going through some tough times in his life, and may have some undiagnosed psychological conditions. While his efforts in becoming his own hero are ultimately misguided, he ultimately does become a better, more stable person out of the whole deal. He lets go of his ex-wife, allows himself to be happy for her happiness, and starts to live a more well adjusted life. If Guardians Of The Galaxy is inspirational to children, then you can bet that Super is the adult version of that very same story.
The fact that a child with Autism could identify with Drax The Destroyer, and any of the other
On behalf of movie geeks everywhere, I say thank you James Gunn. Thank you for showing us once and for all that in the immortal words of David Bowie, "We can be heroes." This afternoon, James Gunn shared a very special post with all of his Facebook and Twitter followers. While on the surface it's another Guardians Of The Galaxy story that everyone is going to share. But there's a lot underneath the surface of this very simple, very human story. Grab some tissues.In this story, a moviegoer talks about how their autistic younger brother identified with Drax The Destroyer. As part of his condition, he cannot comprehend metaphors; much like Drax's literal mindedness in. The fact that he shares this with Drax made him realize, as the fan relates to us in their post, "He's like me! I can't do metaphors!"With this inspiration, the younger brother has been inspired to "tell everyone he knows that people with autism can be superheroes."This post is the "in a nutshell" example of what good superhero movies likecan do for an impressionable young audience. With its ragtag group of misfits -- who each possess a certain quirk, a certain ability, and an identifiable personality of their own --has taught this child, and could teach the rest of us, that we can all be heroes. Heroes like the Guardians Of The Galaxy are supposed to teach us that we can do anything, as long as we have the right mindset and are pure of heart while doing so. Personal medical conditions, disabilities, or perceived "flaws" mean nothing to the heroic mindset. Professor X uses a wheelchair, The Hulk has anger management issues, and yes, even Iron Man has a medical prosthesis that keeps him alive through modern medicine.What superheroes can, and should, teach us all is that to be a hero, you don't have to fit a certain mold, look a certain way, or be anything but your true self. Now this might seem problematic in a world dominated by the likes of, and; but the industries of both film and comic books are fast learning the lesson we've been cheering and chastising them to learn. That lesson is if you can't find a hero you can identify to, it just means that hero hasn't been created yet. We live in a world where Thor will be a woman, Ms. Marvel is now a Muslim teenager, and Captain America is an African American. Imagine the countless kids that have seen these portrayals, and have finally allowed themselves to indulge in the fantasy that all of the other kids have had the luxury of dreaming of themselves: that notion that they too could wield great power and uphold great responsibility.James Gunn gets people. He understands how they tick, how they learn, how they love, and how they hurt. Whatproved is that he's had a different way of showing it than what we're used to seeing. Even if you go back and watch, the film which probably got him thegig in the first place, you can see that his protagonist played by Rainn Wilson is going through some tough times in his life, and may have some undiagnosed psychological conditions. While his efforts in becoming his own hero are ultimately misguided, he ultimately does become a better, more stable person out of the whole deal. He lets go of his ex-wife, allows himself to be happy for her happiness, and starts to live a more well adjusted life. Ifis inspirational to children, then you can bet thatis the adult version of that very same story.The fact that a child with Autism could identify with Drax The Destroyer, and any of the other Guardians Of The Galaxy , ultimately shows us the positive power of superhero movies, as well as movies in general. It's because of this sort of personal attachment that we encourage filmmakers and film studios to produce films that everyone can at least take a small piece of the action home to call their own. This doesn't mean that we need to pander to everyone and cater to every whim all of the time, but it does mean that we should be keeping a closer look on how we represent various groups and persons of different backgrounds in our entertainment.On behalf of movie geeks everywhere, I say thank you James Gunn. Thank you for showing us once and for all that in the immortal words of David Bowie, "We can be heroes." 10 Marvel and DC Characters Who Will Steal The Show in 2019 Blended From Around The Web Facebook
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Dr G Yunupingu: Indigenous musician found 'wasted away', friend says 'we owed him better'
Updated
Friends of world acclaimed Indigenous artist Dr G Yunupingu say he spent his last days before going into hospital living at an itinerant camp surrounded by people drinking on a Darwin beach.
The Arnhem Land musician and singer died in the Royal Darwin Hospital on Tuesday afternoon after a long battle with kidney and liver disease following childhood hepatitis B.
His lifelong friend and colleague from Darwin's music scene, Vaughan Williams, has told the ABC he was horrified at the state of poor health he found Dr Yunupingu in at the beach camp last Wednesday.
He said he had been called by a health worker that day, who was worried Dr Yunupingu had missed a series of renal dialysis appointments, and was asked to find him.
"When I found him in this camp I was absolutely appalled at the state he was in because I'd known him since he was a teenager," Mr Williams said.
"To see him in that state. He had wasted away. He was surrounded by drinkers.
"I work with a lot of people getting renal treatment and he was the worst I had ever seen."
Mr Williams said he pleaded with the musician to come to hospital, "and he said, 'the next day, my renal day', and I agreed".
"So the next day I brought three other friends and colleagues with me to reinforce that he needed to go to hospital because he was seriously ill in my opinion," Mr Williams said.
He said he did not see Dr Yunupingu drinking himself.
Mr Williams said last Thursday the colleagues carried Dr Yunupingu out of the drinkers' camp to their car and then to hospital, thinking he would pull through.
"The news that came last night completely shocked me. I was devastated. Everyone I know is devastated," he said.
Mr Williams has lost count of how many clients and friends he has watched die from ill health after living in itinerant camps while working as a homeless outreach worker for the Larrakia Nation Aboriginal Corporation in Darwin over the past 10 years.
He believes it is an indictment on society that one of Australia's most high-profile and awarded musicians has died after living in similar circumstances.
"He shouldn't have missed one renal appointment. He shouldn't have died," Mr Williams said.
"He should have been in that hospital weeks before we managed to get him in there, and how that didn't come about is what I'm questioning right now.
"Dr Yunupingu brought the Northern Territory to the world.
"We owed him a better effort. We owed him our compassion. And as a society we should be thinking: how did it come to this?
"That this amazing man with the disability of blindness, who achieved so much was here on this lonely stretch of Darwin coastline, dying, with people drinking around him."
'When he didn't want to do dialysis he used to hide'
Witiyana Marika, the spokesman for Dr Yunupingu's family, said he was saddened when he heard last week, and on Tuesday, that his relative had been living rough in Darwin — called "long grassing" locally.
"I heard that he was last week over in the long grass. And when I found out last night, I was very, very unhappy about that," Mr Marika told the ABC.
"When he's missing sometimes I tell other family members to go and grab him."
Sorry, this video has expired Video: The family of the late Dr G Yunupingu speak in the wake of his death (ABC News)
Asked whether he believed there was enough done to make sure his relative underwent dialysis treatment, Mr Marika said it was an issue that concerned him.
"I believe he was dragged by other family members. We were upset about this," he said.
Dr Yunupingu's Skinnyfish Music producer and regular spokesman, Michael Hohnen, said the singer had been in hospital seven times over the past year after avoiding going to dialysis "because he hated it".
"He had an enormous support team of family and doctors and an extended social group here and out bush," Mr Hohnen said.
"But some people don't like dialysis, and when he didn't want to do dialysis he used to hide."
'We all must take responsibility for Closing the Gap'
Mark Grose, the managing director of Skinnyfish, Dr Yunupingu's record label, said the singer's health issues stemmed from his childhood illness and "his early childhood marked him out for passing away early".
"We have to redouble our efforts to Closing the Gap and we all need to be part of recognising that the Indigenous people that we are friends with, that we socialise with, that we work with, their life expectancy is not as great as mine as a non-Indigenous person," he said.
"And I think all of us need to take some responsibility to help work towards better outcomes for Aboriginal people."
Mr Williams said until he received the health worker's call he was unaware of Dr Yunupingu's living and health situation.
"I feel guilty for not realising he was in this predicament. And how he was in this predicament, I guess I'll never know," he said.
The two had worked together in Darwin at the city's former community Music Development Centre since Dr Yunupingu was 15.
He recognised the brilliance when his brothers Cal and Todd Williams jammed with the young Dr Yunupingu in Darwin in their band Swamp Jockeys.
Cal Williams was lead guitarist in Yothu Yindi when Dr G Yunupingu played keyboard, guitar and percussion in the band.
"Yothu Yindi started by filling the gap between white music and Aboriginal music. But he was the icing on the cake," Mr Williams said.
"His legacy is bringing everyone together and enjoying it for what it was: an amazing sound from an amazing musician who could play every instrument and sing like an angel.
"He has inspired many young and old Aboriginal people that if they work hard enough, whatever they choose to do, they can."
In the hollow on the beach where Dr Yunupingu had been lying, Mr Williams and a colleague poked a circle of casuarina branches into the sand, as a remembrance of their friend.
Topics: arts-and-entertainment, music, indigenous-music, community-and-society, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, australia, nt, darwin-0800
First posted |
Jorge Burgos (North Las Vegas Police Department)
A North Las Vegas doctor was arrested Wednesday in connection with a lewdness incident involving a patient, police said.
About 10 a.m., detectives arrested Jorge Burgos, 50, at his office in the 1800 block of East Lake Mead Boulevard on multiple counts of open and gross lewdness, North Las Vegas police said.
“Allegations were made that on multiple occasions, the doctor inappropriately touched a patient,” police said in a statement.
Police said the investigation is ongoing, and they are seeking other possible victims. He was arrested on three counts of open or gross lewdness.
Burgos was booked into the Las Vegas city jail, and according to jail records, he faces three counts of conspiracy open or gross lewdness. His bail is set at $6,000.
Burgos, an internal medicine physician, has no record of disciplinary actions by the Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners.
Review-Journal writer Pashtana Usufzy contributed to this story. Contact Christian Bertolaccini at [email protected] or 702-383-0381. Follow @bertolaccinic on Twitter. |
Twenty per cent of visitor stays in Christchurch are with Airbnb hosts.
The tourist industry has called for action to regulate private guest accommodation, with new figures revealing a fifth of Christchurch's visitor bookings are now made through Airbnb.
Over 2000 accommodation options in the city were with Airbnb hosts in the year to September, according to figures from promotional and economic development agency ChristchurchNZ.
The figure has doubled in a year.
CHRISTOPHER MICHEL Queenstown is taking action to seek promotional costs from Airbnb hosts.
Airbnb is a global peer-to-peer website launched in the United States a decade ago allowing visitors to book privately-owned homes or rooms listed by their owners.
READ MORE:
* Kiwi homeowners earn hundreds of thousands of dollars renting out their houses on Airbnb
* Restrictions coming for Queenstown Lakes holiday home renters
* Christchurch Airbnb fire a wake-up call for the accommodation industry
* Short term rentals, long term headaches for residents in one Rotorua street
* Airbnb's 'explosive growth' gobbles Queenstown
When combined with traditional guest accommodation such as hotel, motels and lodges, the numbers show the number of people staying in Christchurch has bounced back to pre-earthquake levels.
Tourism Industry Aotearoa hotel sector manager Susan Attfield was surprised at the figures for private hosting and called for a level playing field.
AIRBNB This Horotane Valley, Christchurch house costs from $1400 a night on Airbnb.
"We recognise sites like Airbnb give consumers a wider choice," she said.
"But they (Airbnb listings) are not regulated in the way commercial accommodation providers are. There are not the same safety standards for fire and health and safety.
"Are they paying their share of taxes and rates? There's a difference between residential and commercial rates – that's something for the Christchurch City Council to consider."
AIRBNB This St Albans, Christchurch home is from $141 a night.
Other centres including Auckland and Queenstown have moved to regulate private accommodation booked through sites such as Airbnb.
Queenstown has proposed Airbnb homes rented for more than a set number of weeks will need to obtain consents, while Auckland is considering widening a tax levied on hotels and motels to Airbnb properties rented out frequently.
Compared with Christchurch's 20 per cent, Auckland has 32.5 percent of its accommodation booked through Airbnb and Queenstown has 10 per cent. The data comes from Airbnb analyst service AirDNA, and Statistics New Zealand's tally of commercially provided accommodation including hotel rooms or motel units.
AIRBNB You'll be paying at least $2500 a night to stay at this Queenstown house.
The number of new or reopened hotels and motels in Christchurch is rising, and some struggled with low occupancy levels this winter.
Hospitality New Zealand spokeswoman Rachael Shadbolt said it was heartening that councils were looking at the impact of alternative accommodation like Airbnb, but a proper industry-wide discussion was needed at a national level.
"Our fear is that without a proper conversation . . . all we are going to see is more and more councils doing targeted rates because that's the only way they can generate any money for tourism infrastructure, and that's a problem."
REUTERS Chief executive and co-founder of Airbnb, Brian Chesky.
ChristchurchNZ's general manager of marketing, Rowan Worner, said the increasing use of Airbnb meant visitors had more accommodation options in the city.
"We know there are lots of different types of travellers, who require different types of accommodation and this growth is obviously filling a need."
ChristchurchNZ chief executive Joanna Norris said the new figures showed how innovation and technology were having an impact on traditional accommodation sectors.
BRUCE CALRKE Auckland has large numbers of Airbnb hosts.
She said Airbnb was "a clear example of a disrupter", where consumer demand supported by technology drove change at exponential rates.
"Businesses that create opportunities off the back of disrupters are those that will flourish," Norris said.
"It's about being agile and responding or anticipating to changes like this fast."
* Comments on this article have been closed. |
After a slow start to their first game of the season, The Stena Line Belfast Giants turned up the heat to win in overtime 5-4 over the Tilburg Trappers on Saturday Night.
It was all Giants in the opening minutes, but a sloppy defensive error handed Tilburg their first opportunity of the game and they silenced the home crowd to take an early 1-0 lead.
It didn’t take long for Robby Sandrock to remind the Odyssey fans why he was so loved during his first stint with the Giants back in 2002. A cannon from Sandrock on the powerplay was tipped by Darryl Lloyd to make it 1-1. Still in the first period, Tilburg took to the powerplay then a questionable call put the Giants down two men, with Tilburg eventually scoring to make it 2-1 to the visitors. Before the period was out, the Giants evened the scoreline courtesy of Adam Keefe who fired home a sweet pass from Craig Peacock to tie the game at 2 a piece.
The second period started again with a goal from the visitors, this time it came from former Giant Josh Prudden who took advantage of a Giants turnover and buried it past his old teammate Stephen Murphy to make it 3-2.
Despite being a pre-season friendly, this game was intense with some big hits from both teams, and a couple of fights after tempers boiled over with new Giants Sam Roberts and Greg Stewart both getting into bouts against the Dutch side. Speaking of Stewart, he evened the scoreline at 3 a piece to tie the game going into the 3rd.
After 2 periods of struggling to gel, the Giants seemed to finally be on the same page in the third, and seemed to be dominating the majority of the play but still Tilburg stayed in the game, mostly because of the outstanding play of netminder Ian Meirdress who faced 47 shots on the night.
In fact, despite the one way play most of the third, it was Tilburg who scored in the dying minutes to take the lead 4-3. It looked like it was going to end with an opening night loss for the Giants, but with less than 2 minutes on the clock, Mark Garside jammed in the tying goal past Meirdress to make it 4-4 and send this pre-season friendly into sudden death overtime.
The Giants pressed hard into overtime and were justly rewarded with a Brock Matheson goal to win the game and send the near 3,000 Odyssey crowd into a frenzy. Everyone went home happy after a great battle between to teams that played more like a playoff game than a pre-season friendly.
Next up it’s on the road to Braehead on Saturday September 8th in Challenge Cup action. The Giants host their league season home opener on September 20th against the Dundee Stars. |
Image copyright AP Image caption Thousands turned up to pray at a shrine for Tama
A lavish funeral has been held for a Japanese cat which became an international star when she was made a station master in western Japan.
Tama, which was made a railway official eight years ago, was credited with putting the rail firm back on track financially after drawing in thousands of tourists.
Her custom-made cap and jacket made her a familiar sight at Kishi station.
The 16-year-old cat died of heart failure on 22 June.
Dozens of company officials and thousands of fans turned out for Tama's Shinto-style funeral on Sunday, where she was elevated to the status of a goddess.
The Shinto religion, practised by many in Japan, has a variety of gods including animals.
Image copyright AFP Image caption Tama, once a stray cat, was given cat food in lieu of a salary
During the ceremony, officials thanked the feline celebrity for saving the station by attracting tourists from around the world.
The president of Wakayama Electric Railway, Mitsunobu Kojima, also gave her the special title of "honorary permanent stationmaster", AP reports.
He said Tama had contributed an estimated 1.1 billion yen ($8.9m; £5.7m) to the local economy.
"She was affectionate with people and hard-working," one local resident said.
Outside the station, bouquets of flowers, cans of tuna and other gifts were left by many of Tama's thousands of fans.
Since 2007, Tama has been quietly welcoming and sending off railway travellers at the station in Wakayama Prefecture.
At the time, the local railway line was almost bankrupt and the station was unmanned but Tama's celebrity status helped to bring the company back from the brink of financial ruin.
The governor of Wakayama Prefecture, Yoshinobu Nisaka, said it was important the practice of using feline staff at the railway station was maintained.
Another cat, called Nitama, has since become an apprentice station master. |
2K Games announced today in a post on its Support site that as a result of the GameSpy Technology closure, it will transition some legacy games to Valve's Steamworks and end support altogether for others.
First, the games that are going offline for good come May 31:
Borderlands (PS3)*
Civilization Revolution (PS3)*
Close Combat First to Fight (PC / Mac)
Jetfighter (PC)
Jetfighter V: Homeland Protector (PC)
Leadfoot (PC)
Rune (PC)
Stronghold 2 (PC)
Stronghold Legends (PC)
Top Spin (PS2 / PC)
Top Spin 2 (PC / DS)
Vietcong (PC)
Vietcong Demo (PC)
Vietcong Fist Alpha (PC)
Vietcong 2 (PC)
Vietcong 2 Demo (PC)
MLB Fantasy All-Stars (DS)
Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution (DS)
Major League Baseball 2K9 Fantasy All-Stars (DS)
NHL 2K10 (Wii)
NBA 2K10 (Wii)
*2K says it is currently looking into the "technical feasibility" of transitioning Borderlands (PS3) and Civilization Revolution (PS3) to another network. But that's all we know right now. Of course, you'll still be able to play all of these games offline.
Also on May 31, the original Borderlands (PC) and various Civilization games will temporarily go offline while 2K completes a server transition from GameSpy Technology to Steamworks. During this time, players will experience interruption of online play, matchmaking, and VOIP. Offline play is unaffected.
Below is a list of 2K games that will be transitioned to Steamworks starting May 31.
Borderlands (PC)
Civilization III
Civilization III: Conquests
Civilization III: Play the World
Civilization IV
Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword
Civilization IV: Colonization
Civilization IV: Warlords
"We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause," 2K said in a statement.
2K is not the only publisher facing issues from the impending closure of GameSpy. Crytek announced last week that the PC versions of Crysis and Crysis 2 are going offline on May 31. Electronic Arts is also affected, and has pledged to find other means to keep old Battlefield games alive after May 31. |
Problem with Trebuchet
The problem with the Trebuchet is either its damage or the minimum range to place it.
So either damage should be reduce significantly:
1500 damage for 50 stones, you'll need only 6 Trebuchet stone (all launched at the same time) so 300 stones to break T7 wall (Stone block) which require 50 stones, 4 water and 2 charcoal.
You make a 4x4 hole into this whole so fast.
So you destroy 16 x 50 stones, 4 water and 2 charcoal
To sum up:
You need only 300 stones to destroy 800 stones, 64 water and 32 charcoal.
Trebuchet is really cheap to make and won't fix anything, so changing its cost is pointless.
Even if you make it so you have to gather for 2 hours straight before having it, it's always way much less than the time you will need to brake things that took twice the time.
And/Or change the minimum range to place it:
The second problem with the Trebuchet, and like most placeable items, you shouldn't be able to place it on a claimed zone at first. It makes no sense and help a lot of people use them to "exploit" their way in.
Then to fix toe minimum range so people don't place their Trebuchet stuck to the wall all it needs is to largely increase its minimum shooting range.
For now with 1 Trebuchet Stone and no counter-weight you shoot at about 3 blocks in front of the Trebuchet.
Make it 100 and then keep the same curve as it has now.
And you will have a real siege Trebuchet, not a huge catapult.
Because this is what the Trebuchet is right now, a huge catapult with lots of damage. |
The organizers of the Navalmoral de la Mata tournament have issued a statement on what exactly happened with Borislav Ivanov, a story Chess.com reported on earlier this week. Because it answers several of the questions that were raised, we deem it prudent to give the statement below in full:
CLUB MORALO DE AJEDREZ
C/ Calvo Sotelo, 53
10300 Navalmoral de la Mata (Cáceres)
PRESS RELEASE
In view of the impact that the presence of the player Borislav Ivanov in recent XIX
OPEN INTERNACIONAL DE AJEDREZ DE NAVALMORAL DE LA MATA - XI PREMIO
CENTRAL NUCLEAR DE ALMARAZ, and due to the information published, which has sometimes been inaccurate, we issue this press release to try to cast light on this episode. This is no judgement of value. We'll just stick to a faithful narration of what happened and the insight of some people involved. Let everyone draw their own conclusions.”
1. The full participant list, including Mr. Borislav Ivanov, was published before the start of the tournament. The organizers did not receive any official statement against his taking part in the event.
2. The first day of the tournament some players, especially Grand Masters, verbally stated their disagreement with Borislav Ivanov's presence. They were advised to file a written complaint, but none of them did.
3. Once the tournament started, in view that other players were becoming more and more suspicious and in order to clear any existing doubts, the organizers proceeded to examine Borislav Ivanov's shoes at the end of round 4 and before he could leave the playing hall. It was widely remarked that a hidden device could be placed inside his footwear.
4. Player Borislav Ivanov willingly consented, so he was escorted to a private area in the hotel and, in front of two members of the organizing team, he was requested to take off his shoes, which he did. His footwear was thoroughly examined and nothing out of the ordinary was detected. He was examined as well, using a mobile app for metal detecting. We don't know exactly how reliable and accurate that app is, but nothing was found that could imply the existence of a hidden device inside his footwear.
5. Once this inspection finished, Borislav Ivanov motioned to take off his pants as well, as he asked the organizers if he should go on stripping. Since all complaints had focused only on his shoes, organizers decided not to go further.
6. During round 5, one of the participants in the tournament, Mr. Andrés
Holgado Maestre, noticed a suspicious bump on Mr. Ivanov's back (the Bulgarian played with his coat and scarf on, though the heating was working in the playing hall). This suspicious bump was noticed by other participants as well, and was reported to the chief arbiter. He deemed it untimely to interrupt the game in that moment. After the game, in a very tense atmosphere, Mr
Andrés Holgado Maestre suddenly took a hold of the bump on Mr Ivanov's back through his clothes, and pulling, asked him (in Spanish) what was hidden on his back. Mr. Ivanov gave some answer in Bulgarian. Then Mr. Holgado accused Mr Ivanov of cheating (in English) and requested help from other participants watching the scene, to find out what Mr. Ivanov was hiding. No-one helped him though, so he let Mr. Ivanov go and the Bulgarian player promptly left the playing hall.
7. Mr Holgado states he could touch an oblong object, similar to an mp3 player, attached to Mr. Ivanov's body.
8. The following day, moments before the start of round 6, it was Mr. Ivanov's opponent Mr. Namig Guliyev who verbally requested to the arbiter and the tournament director a new examination to Mr.
Ivanov.
9. Mr. Ivanov was asked if he was willing to undergo a new search, and he agreed, while he remarked it was odd to do it before the round and not after it. In contrast with the previous search, this time Mr. Ivanov was visibly nervous, according to one of the organizers.
10. The search was carried out in the same place as before. Mr. Ivanov stated he wouldn't strip and his opponent Mr. Guliyev, who was there as well, stated there was no need for a full striptease, just to show he had nothing to hide. Then, Mr. Guliyev emptied his own pockets and felt his own body showing there was nothing odd, and he even lifted the tight sweater he was wearing, allowing his shirt to be seen. Mr. Ivanov consented to take off only his coat and his scarf. Then Mr. Guliyev was requested to leave the room and just two members of the organizing team stayed with Mr. Ivanov.
11. Mr. Ivanov took off his coat and scarf and then a more thorough examination (frisking) was suggested. He willingly consented. In order to safeguard Mr. Ivanov's privacy, the tournament director Mr. Juan Antonio Sánchez
Bermejo (a retired policemen with a long experience) stayed alone with Mr.
Ivanov and frisked him.
12. He started with the hair, neck and shoulders. When he felt his chest, though, Mr. Ivanov dodged back. However, before Mr. Ivanov avoided contact, Mr. Bermejo could feel something odd near his left armpit, but couldn't say exactly what. Perhaps because of Mr. Ivanov's rushed movement unfastened one of his shirt's buttons, and a kind of strap could be seen crossing his chest from side to side. When asked what was under his shirt, Mr. Ivanov insisted he had nothing. Then Mr. Ivanov refused to go on and he was warned that in that case he could be expelled from the tournament. However, that was unnecessary because Mr. Ivanov stated he would willingly leave, but he requested the entry fee was refunded, as he didn't have enough money to leave.
13. In view that Mr. Ivanov was in dire straits, Mr. Bermejo decided, on a personal basis, to give Mr. Ivanov 50 € from his own pocket, as an act of kindness, not as a compensation of any kind.
14. The tournament organizers believe to have respected at all times current Spanish laws, since all searches were carried out with the prior permission of Mr. Ivanov.
Navalmoral de la Mata, 11 December 2013
Translation into English thanks to Patricia Llaneza. |
A tiny, orphaned cougar cub has found a temporary home behind the scenes at the Oregon Zoo’s veterinary medical center.
The rambunctious, adorable, blue-eyed cub was rescued this week by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officers, after a landslide separated the young cougar from its mother.
A Good Samaritan found it the day after the slide in the mud and called WDFW officials.
After a short stopover in Portland, the cub will be headed to a new permanent home at the Minnesota Zoo.
The 5-week-old male cub weighs around just 4 pounds, and wouldn’t have stood a chance alone in the wild, according to the zoo.
“We would rather they grow up with their moms, but when that’s not an option we want them to have the best lives possible," said zoo keeper Michelle Schireman.
Schireman has found homes for more than 120 cougar cubs in zoos around the country, but she usually never gets to see the cats she helps.
“In most cases, we try to arrange for orphaned cubs to go directly to their new homes,” Schireman said. “But in special situations, and depending on whether we have space, we sometimes take care of them at the zoo until their health has stabilized. " |
It was around 10am on March 18 in 1984, a day after Holi, when a clash between residents snowballed in the Fatehpur Village Road area of Garden Reach.
Bombs were being hurled and in many houses mattresses and pillows had caught fire. The situation was becoming explosive.
When this correspondent reached the spot around noon a big force from the police stations in the port division had gathered and raids were being conducted in the serpentine lanes and bylanes. People armed with swords, choppers and pistols could be seen peeping from the rooftops of some of the houses.
The mob clashed with the police and the cops fired several rounds, that led to the death of two people.
It was around 1.30pm that word began to waft out that the cops had not seen their deputy commissioner, Vinod Mehta, for some time. Soon they realised that his bodyguard Mokhtar Ali was also missing.
The fact that the DC (port) and his bodyguard had been missing for about an hour at a place where there was a fierce clash earlier in the day, began to sink in.
The then police commissioner Nirupam Som along with DC(1) of the detective department, H.A. Safwi, and other senior officers rushed with reinforcements from Lalbazar. As the area fell close to the border of the then undivided 24-Parganas, district magistrate Ranu Ghosh and district superintendent of police K.K. Kalia also arrived.
An intensive search operation began with policemen armed with rifles and revolvers snaking through the lanes in search of Mehta and his bodyguard.
One clearly remembers the police commissioner running around with his service revolver in hand, telling us repeatedly, “We will not be able to take responsibility of your safety.”
In a clearing near a maze of lanes, something was burning inside a haystack. So many of us had walked by it several times, little realising — as it would be discovered much later — that it was the body of Mokhtar Ali. He had been hacked to death and stuffed inside the haystack and the stack then set on fire.
Some officers noticed residents leaving the area with bag and baggage. “Why should they do so? Do they know of something terrible having happened?” one officer wondered and alerted his seniors.
It was around 4pm that an anonymous caller to the Garden Reach police station said that Mehta had been murdered and his body stuffed into a drain. The caller also gave the location. Around 4.30pm, the police found Mehta.
Officers who saw the body said that Mehta had been beaten and hacked to death, his hands and feet tied up and his eyes gouged out.
Around the same time the smell of burning flesh led to the discovery of Mokhtar Ali’s body.
The police were furious. A massive raid was conducted in which several people of the area were rounded up and herded into police vans. “Ora amader DC ke merechhey.... (They have killed our DC)...”
I can still hear the cry from the cops. |
Overview (3)
Mini Bio (1)
Spouse (1)
Trivia (30)
Graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1989, with a Bachelor's degree in Chinese (East Asian Languages and Civilizations). Her honors thesis: "Anti-Africanism in the People's Republic of China" about the Nanjing Anti-African protests, which won the Harvard Hoopes Prize for writing.
Chosen by People (USA) magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World (1996).
Speaks Mandarin Chinese and French fluently.
Attended Dwight Englewood High School in Englewood, New Jersey.
She has a beautiful singing voice. While an undergraduate at Harvard, she appeared as Dulcinea in a 1986 student production of "Man of La Mancha" at the Loeb Experimental Theatre. The show was directed by Peter Sagal . Unfortunately, she came down with a cold during the one week the show ran, and performed with a mug of tea in hand.
Has a younger brother named Michael Sorvino and a younger sister named Amanda Sorvino
Childhood friends with Hope Davis ; they performed plays for the neighbors.
Was a founding member of the Harvard-Radcliffe Veritones, Harvard's premier co-ed a cappella group (1985).
(June 11, 2004) Married actor Christopher Backus in a civil service in Santa Monica, California, and then had their formal ceremony on the island of Capri in Italy. Mira is of half Italian descent, and this was to honor her Italian roots. She wore a gown designed by Giorgio Armani
(Spring 2003) Met her husband at a Charades party, held by stylist Samantha McMillen
Was a member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997.
She and her husband Christopher Backus have both guest-starred on the situation comedy Will & Grace (1998), though not in the same episode.
Made her acting debut on an episode of Law & Order (1990) (which at that time starred her father, Paul Sorvino ). Although her scene was cut, she still earned a Screen Actors Guild Card for her trouble.
According to Larry Cohen on the DVD commentary for The Stuff (1985), Mira Sorvino came to the set of the film to visit her father, Paul Sorvino , and was given a small part in the film. She plays one of the yellow suited "stuffies" at the plant her father's character attacks. Larry Cohen had forgotten Sorvino appeared in the film until he was talking with her and Quentin Tarantino , whom she was dating, and mentioned that he had directed her father in the film. Mira then reminded Cohen that she actually appeared in the film.
Auditioned for the role of Dorothy Boyd in Jerry Maguire (1996), which went to Renée Zellweger
Gave birth to her first child at age 37, a daughter Mattea Angel Backus on November 3, 2004. Child's father is her husband, Christopher Backus
Gave birth to her second child at age 38, a son Johnny Christopher King Backus on May 29, 2006. Child's father is her husband, Christopher Backus
Gave birth to her third child at age 41, a son Holden Paul Terry Backus on June 22, 2009. Child's father is her husband, Christopher Backus
Gave birth to her fourth child at age 44, a daughter Lucia Backus on May 3, 2012. Child's father is her husband, Christopher Backus
Returned to work 5 months after giving birth to her son Holden in order to begin filming Angels Crest (2011).
Returned to work 3 months after giving birth to her daughter Lucia in order to begin filming Space Warriors (2013).
Is a huge fan of the original Star Trek (1966) series.
Was the 108th actress to receive an Academy Award; she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Mighty Aphrodite (1995) at The 68th Annual Academy Awards (1996) on March 25, 1996.
On May 1, 2018 in Los Angeles, California, the SAG-AFTRA Foundation presented "Conversations with Mira Sorvino," a Career Retrospective, where Mira discussed her many film and television roles. This was a private event for SAG-AFTRA members, but the Foundation videotapes and archives these interviews, and posts them on YouTube as well.
Personal Quotes (13)
There's a side of my personality that goes completely against the East Coast educated person and wants to be a pin-up girl in garages across America...there's a side that wants to wear the pink angora bikini!
(2011) WiseGirls (2002) is not a bad little film. It missed a theatrical distribution by inches. It did well at Sundance, it got a really good reception there. I made one of my very best friends in the world on it, Melora Walters , who plays one of the three waitresses. It's a pretty gripping little story about a waitress who's a former med student who gets caught up in this mob-run joint, and I end up being the house doctor for the local gunshot wounds, and we all become part of sting operation. It's actually kind of a good movie.
(2011) Free Money (1998). My Brando experience. The movie? Perhaps not as fully realized as we all hoped. But it was an amazing experience for me to work with Marlon Brando , because I had always idolized him, and it was so thrilling to get to work with him...I actually have lots of Brando anecdotes from that movie, but it would take all day, so I can't really tell you. And besides, I'm saving them for myself, for when I'm 80 and write my book.
(2011, on making Summer of Sam (1999)) I loved the dancing sequences with John Leguizamo . We had so much fun preparing for that. We just worked for a month with Paul Pellicoro at DanceSport in New York, rehearsing the Hustle moves. The first scene is a choreographed number, and the second scene is improvised, where I'm in a red dress. We had so much fun with both those scenes. There was a certain scene which was not so much fun, which is the orgy scene, where at the end of it I was crying in the corner, like, "I did not become an actress to do this". Because it was basically like being in the middle of a porn movie. Everybody else in the room-although they were not actually having sex-was completely naked, feigning sex with loud, loud noises. We were strategically covered. I mean, on-camera, we looked naked, but we had little things covering the most important areas. But everybody else in the room, who were also sort of rubbing up against you, was naked. For hours of this, everybody grunting and hollering. It was very demoralizing, so I was glad that was only one day of that shoot. But working with Spike [ Spike Lee ] was a treat, because he set up the way the he shot the movie so that it was all completely fresh in the moment. He used two cameras at all times, and Ellen Kuras, the amazing DP of that, really had it down to a science, so you didn't need to stop the scene to cover it. You were covering it as it was happening. So if in one take something amazing happened that didn't happen in another one, it didn't matter, because she already had it from the other side, because she was working two cameras at once. Like the scene in the cemetery. There's one take where, because John and I really trusted each other, Spike was like [whispers], "Spit in her face." And I didn't know he had said this. But because we trusted each other, when he spit in my face, I slapped him in his face. Then we went on with the scene and I jump out of the car, screaming in this cemetery. None of that was in the script. It just happened, and it was all caught, and it was all in the movie. And I love working that way, when life overtakes the state where it's the page, and it becomes something further than where the blueprint was. I love that way of working, and I loved working with Spike Lee
(2011, on Norma Jean & Marilyn (1996)) I loved that experience. It was an honor to get to play one of my icons. I had always been touched by her, and touched by the fact that, as a teenage girl growing up in a rather repressive household, she was so openly sexual. But also openly, seemingly good and innocent, like a child. That was very appealing to me, because she wasn't this vamp whose sexuality was this dark, knowing thing. It was just natural to her. And her life was so sad. She had such a miserable life. Getting into playing her, researching her, you got drawn into this vortex of desperation as she got older. I almost had a nervous breakdown on the set, because I was putting on the dress she had actually worn-with the cherries on it, from The Misfits (1961)-that I had found at this costume house in New York. I went in there and asked if they had any Marilyn costumes, because we were looking for things for the movie, and they said, "We have the actual dress from The Misfits (1961). Your production can rent it". So putting it on was almost this religious experience for me, and I felt like, "Uh, how dare I try to play Marilyn Monroe? Who am I to think that I can impersonate Marilyn Monroe?" Then, I had this weird epiphany that I was never going to be Marilyn, to take myself off that hook, because nobody could be her but her. But this is my homage to her, and I can try to put into this performance the things I think I know about her, and the things I think I know about her heart. So that made it easier for me to do it. Because to try to compare yourself to Marilyn, you're always going to lose, and there's no way you could be her, because she was one-in-a-million. But I think there's something iconic about her story, which is the great American tragedy-the 20th-century tragedy of illusory fame and lovability by millions, but ending up completely alone and desperate. I think it's an interesting parable that people get drawn to time and time again, because she seemingly had everything and yet had so little...People who actually knew her liked the performance. Some people did not like the way the role was written for the Ashley [ Ashley Judd ] side. Someone came up to me and said, "I knew Marilyn, and she was NEVER vicious". They showed her as kind of a ruthless, rise-to-power character incarnate in the Ashley character, and my character was the softer side of her. So personally, maybe there's bloggers out there who hate me, but there are bloggers out there who hate everybody. In terms of all the feedback that I've ever gotten in person, people were positive.
(2011, on Mighty Aphrodite (1995)) That was a blessing from heaven, that role. That was a fantastic role. Working with Woody Allen had been a dream of mine since I was 12, when I was reading "Getting Even" and "Without Feathers". I was in a high school production of "Play It Again, Sam". I played the Diane Keaton role in that. So getting to work for him was such a dream come true, and I never thought it could happen that early in my career. That was just an amazing role and a great experience.
(2011, on The Grey Zone (2001)) It is a movie I'm proud of, and no one has seen it because it's so dark. The darkest movie I've ever been a part of, for sure. But a great one, I think.
(2011, on working with Val Kilmer on At First Sight (1999) and his bad reputation) You know what, he was real easy to work with. I just hate furthering rumors about people being difficult, because it can do such enormous damage to their careers. My experience with him was nothing but positive. He was really professional and gentlemanly, and a terrific actor.
(2011, on The Replacement Killers (1998)) I wanted to work for John Woo , and he was one of the executive producers, and Antoine Fuqua . It was funny: That and Mimic (1997), the directors both made greater- or at least, more broad-reaching, more artistic movies-after their genre forays, and I kind of wish I'd worked with Antoine on his second or third movie. But I always like to give emerging directors my support, because you can tell when you talk to somebody that they have it, and you want to work with them, and it's exciting. It's just sometimes they're not really allowed, at the earlier stages of their career, to bring the fullness of their imagination to the project, because studios are very, very nervous about what they're doing. They want to make sure that it's going to fit. But I loved working with Antoine, and it was fun to do an action movie. It was kind of like being a kid and playing cowboys and Indians, or cops and robbers. And I enjoyed the role of Meg. I thought she was fun to do. I blew my voice out when I was doing a reshoot of Mimic-because it was one of those screaming scenes where I'm in the subway and I'm yelling because the monster is coming-and when I came back to the set of The Replacement Killers (1998), Antoine was like, "I like your voice that way. Keep it". So every day I had to yell to burn out my vocal cords. My voice wasn't the same for a year and a half afterwards because it had the rough, gravelly, two-registers-lower sound to it.
(2011, on The Final Cut (2004)) I don't think that many people have seen, and I think it's a rather interesting film. I loved working with Robin [ Robin Williams ]. Robin's an amazing guy. What a brilliant man. I don't know if you've had the good fortune of speaking with him, but he is brilliant, and he can improv a rant on anything and knows about everything. It's as if he digests the entirety of the New York Times for breakfast and then spits it out in these comedic bits. He's always on. He has one of those personalities where it seems like they're on speed, but that's just the way they're built. They're just...I think some people don't understand how brilliant he is, because they just get blown away by the funny. But he's just a brilliant man.
(2011, on Mimic (1997)) Giant cockroach movie. Guillermo [ Guillermo del Toro ] is a very dear friend of mine, and I think I now wish I had done one of his later movies, because I have an intense disgust for cockroaches. I met with him, and felt I was in the presence of a genius. I don't love horror movies, but I felt if I was ever to go down that dark path, it would be under his surefooted care. But I wish hadn't done the one about giant cockroaches. I wish I had been in one of his later ones, which were more esoteric and beautiful. But I still think it's a great movie. I just have disgust, and I think the audience... My father was like [Imitates Paul Sorvino ], "Mira, people are not going to come see a movie about cockroaches. There's a kind of evolutionary revulsion we have toward those sorts of insects, and no one will come to see it. It's not like a giant snake movie. It's different!".
The Cosby verdict [ Bill Cosby ] was a milestone for everyone. Please, God, let Weinstein Harvey Weinstein be next. I mean, we really need criminal proceedings against him. He's lost his position, he lost what he loved to do, he lost some money, but he hasn't lost his freedom. He committed numerous crimes, and he raped people I care deeply about, and he needs to pay for that. [May 2018]
[on #MeToo and speaking out against sexual harassment] It was a very tumultuous Fall for all of us who decided to speak out, and we had no idea where it was going to go. And it's blossomed into something that's really powerful, and really beautiful, and I'm proud to be a part of it. I'm proud to be part of a cultural sea of change that I think has the possibility of reducing the sexual misconduct, violence, and rape that has plagued the human species since time began. Because now, there's such a collective voice . . . and we're chipping away at that atmosphere of impunity for predators. So it's starting to be not possible to get away with it. [May 2018]
Salary (1) |
If one is searching for a match to define the phrase “total dominance”, check Bayern Munich’s clash against Manchester City in the UEFA Champions League campaign of 2013-14. With both clubs under new management, City with Manuel Pellegrini and Bayern with Pep Guardiola, the stage was set for one of the two to stamp their authority in a game of such magnitude.
The Bavarians won that night by three goals to one with Franck Ribéry, Thomas Müller and Arjen Robben making Álvaro Negredo’s strike just a mere consolation. However, despite not getting anywhere near the net, one man stood out and made things tick – Philipp Lahm.
Philipp Lahm: A Tribute to a German Icon
The Bayern Munich captain was the standout performer and received praise from all over for his excellence that night. Playing in his unconventional midfield role, which he was getting more time in under Guardiola, Lahm controlled every minute of the game and was a key contributor to his side’s success. Guardiola coached some of the world’s elite in his time as Barcelona boss, and his words spoke volumes when he described the player towards the end of his Bayern tenure:
“One of the reasons for my success at Bayern is the relationship with Philipp Lahm; he helped me a lot from the beginning. He always performs. I have never seen Philipp have a poor match. He will always be a special person in my life, and he is an absolute legend. Philipp Lahm is the most intelligent footballer I have ever coached.”
Legend
The German World Cup-winning captain surprised the footballing fraternity when he announced his decision to retire from football earlier this week, and that game against Manchester City was just a small piece in an impressive repertoire of classy performances.
He has spent all his career donning the red of Bayern Munich, except for a two-season spell on loan at VfB Stuttgart which saw the birth and early signs of his quality and versatility. 15 years, seven league titles, six DFB-Pokals, one UEFA Champions League, Super Cup, FIFA Club World Cup and FIFA World Cup later, he ends his career as a professional footballer rightfully in the category of a legend.
Thank you very much for all your messages. A day later, I’d like to explain my decision to you in detail: pic.twitter.com/Xz213rxM73 — Philipp Lahm (@philipplahm) February 8, 2017
His early years at Stuttgart showed exactly what he was made of, and once again, Manchester is the place he displayed his talents. In a Champions League game, this time at Old Trafford against Manchester United, Lahm was deployed at left-back and put in a confident shift in a shock 2-1 success against the English giants.
He left Sir Alex Ferguson so impressed that his former youth team coach Hermann Gerland claimed that he was being touted by the United boss for a long time following that match.
But his greatest success lies with the national team, and the World Cup in 2014, where Lahm was a driving force behind his team’s performance in Brazil. He started the campaign off in midfield and only went back to his traditional full-back role for the final three games of the tournament.
His leadership only resulted in Die Mannschaft conceding one goal in that phase, Oscar’s consolation in the host nation’s 7-1 embarrasment in Belo Horizonte, as Germany would go all the way and defeat Lionel Messi’s Argentina in the final. But Lahm, humble as ever, played down the thrashing laid out on Brazil, simply stating:
“It was oppressive, nobody wants opponents to make mistakes of that magnitude, as they usually don’t happen at this level.”
It is worth noting Germany’s relative decline in quality since their World Cup success and Lahm’s subsequent retirement following the tournament. The then-30-year-old ended his international career after 113 appearances and five goals, keeping the captain’s armband for four years and two World Cups.
Germany have struggled to replace him, and his qualities resulted in bumpy European matches as well as a semi-final exit at Euro 2016 in France.
German journalist Uli Hesse once rightly pointed out, “From one day to the next, he [manager Joachim Low] had to make do without one of the best defensive midfielders in the world, one of the best left-backs in the world, the best right-back in the world and his right-hand man on the pitch, a player whose understanding of the game is so faultless that the most famous coach in the world has called him the most intelligent footballer he’s ever worked with. These four key figures are called Philipp Lahm.”
Bavarian Icon
No matter what happens, Lahm will always have a special place in the hearts of all Bayern Munich supporters. A player as respectful, talented and demure as him certainly deserves that.
He has been the cornerstone of many Bayern successes over the last decade and will continue to have a role at the club even after he retires. His love for the club is undeniable and staying there for the course of his career was never in doubt.
Whether it was the Bundesliga games where he was a step above the rest against the likes of Borussia Dortmund and Schalke 04, or the Champions League nights like the horror of losing to Chelsea at home in 2012, or beating their German rivals at Wembley Stadium just 12 months later, both in the final, Lahm has been strong in his leadership and can definitely be regarded as one of the greatest players of this generation.
A man who revolutionised defending, being equally as good at left-back as he is in his traditional right-back slot. He also has quite an aptitude for excelling in midfield, and after more than 500 appearances and 16 goals for the German giants, he deserves every bit of respect that he gets.
It is quite surprising that Lahm has never been Germany’s “Footballer of the Year”, a distinction which several German greats have received over the years, but that shouldn’t deny the greatness that he has achieved in his career.
Philipp Lahm retires this summer as the modern era’s greatest-ever full-back, miles away from his nearest competition. A player who groups flawlessness with brilliance, and gives it his best every time.
Here’s a man who deserves a well-earned retirement, and he knows he’s earned every inch of success in his career.
“Philipp is the perfect professional who will give everything to be successful. He was always a key person for me to discuss ideas with. For almost ten years, Philipp Lahm provided consistency, reliability and the highest standard in the national side. He has a natural authority, takes on responsibility, is communicative and is a natural leader.” – Joachim Löw
Main Photo: |
Y’all will have heard that the NHL’s board has been discussing, and has approved, a significant realignment of the league’s conference format. Here are some random facts on this configuration:
The last time the NHL operated with four divisions was the ’92-’93 season.
This was the last time the Leafs shared a division with the Tampa Bay Lightning, which they again will do in ’12-’13.
’92-’93 was the year Kerry Fraser blinked. This should not affect our opinion of the realignment, and does not belong in this unordered list. Nevertheless, I mention it.
The board has not yet decided on the specifics of third- and forth-round playoff order. In ’92-’93, divisional champions played a third playoff round against the other divisional champions within one of two conferences, the Prince of Wales and the Clarence Campbell. These are the antecedents of our current geographically titled conferences. Overarching conferences in the new system have not yet been mentioned at all.
Because of the above lack of clarity, some are predicting all-West or all-East Stanley Cup Finals. This is probably nuts. I believe we will return to the four-division-two-conference set-up of ’92-’93. Sorry. I’m no fun.
Unlike in ’92-’93, the potential “West” and “East” conferences would be unbalanced: our brave new Gary Bettman West would have 8 + 8 to the East’s 7 + 7. Maybe that won’t matter.
The Phoenix Coyotes moving to Québec would solve this issue very tidily indeed. One might even argue that the ultimate fate of Phoenix is hidden between the lines of the NHL’s announcement.
Also not mentioned are divisional names, which were once the Patrick, the Adams, the Smythe, and the Norris, in order of increasing coolness. The Facebook petition to have these names reinstated probably already exists.
I’m here, though, to answer the question we all want answered: Would your reinvigorated ’11-’12 Toronto Maple Leafs make the playoffs given current standings and a return to the four division format?
The answer is: Yes. They would take on the Florida Panthers (the Florida Panthers are playing well?) in round one of the playoffs, and then either the Buffalo Sabres or the (*shudder*) Boston Bruins in round two.
2012-13 NHL SEASON, HYPOTHETICAL (As of December 6) Adams Division 35 – Boston Bruins 34 – Florida Panthers 32 – Toronto Maple Leafs 29 – Buffalo Sabres 29 – Ottawa Senators 27 – Montréal Canadiens 24 – Tampa Bay Lightning Patrick Division 36 – Pittsburgh Penguins 33 – New York Rangers 33 – Philadelphia Flyers 27 – Washington Capitals 25 – New Jersey Devils 21 – New York Islanders 20 – Carolina Hurricanes Smythe Division 31 – Vancouver Canucks 31 – Phoenix Coyotes 30 – Los Angeles Kings 29 – San Jose Sharks 29 – Edmonton Oilers 27 – Colorado Avalanche 24 – Calgary Flames 19 – Anaheim Ducks Norris Division 37 – Minnesota Wild 36 – Chicago Blackhawks 33 – Detroit Red Wings 31 – Dallas Stars 31 – St. Louis Blues 28 – Nashville Predators 26 – Winnipeg Jets 17 – Columbus Blue Jackets
(Teams marked yellow would make the playoffs in the current two-conference format. Ouch.)
Statistical issues exist due to our small available sample size, of course. For instance, Edmonton’s heartbreaking loss of the 4th and final spot to new bunkmates the San Jose Sharks over a single tie-breaking win would never happen given a whole season: we all know Edmonton will never keep this pace up!
Um. I think I’ve run out of steam, but here you go. Would your favourite team make the playoffs in the new system? |
House Democrats pushing what they call the “Gun Trafficking Prevention Act of 2015” are stooping to outright lies in order to fabricate a need for their legislation.
The bill is ironically offered by Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Maryland), who has done everything in his power to assist the Obama Administration’s stonewalling of the House Oversight Commitee’s investigation into Operation Fast and Furious, one of up to ten gun-walking plots carried out by Obama’s Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.
The Democrat press release announcing the bill claims:
On Wednesday, September 9, 2015, Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-New York), Patrick Meehan (R-Pennsylvania), Elijah E. Cummings (D-Maryland), and Robin Kelly (D-Illinois) will hold a press conference to announce the re-introduction of a bipartisan bill in the House of Representatives to make firearms trafficking a federal crime and impose stronger penalties for “straw purchasers” who buy guns for convicted felons and others who are prohibited from buying guns on their own. The re-introduction of The Gun Trafficking Prevention Act of 2015 comes on the heels of a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing tomorrow on violence at the U.S.-Mexico border. In March, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms reported that more than 100,000 guns were recovered in Mexico and submitted for tracing from 2009 to 2014. Of those, 70% originated in the United States. This legislation directly addresses concerns raised by law enforcement officials who have testified before Congress that a dedicated firearms trafficking statute would help them combat the flow of thousands of firearms to violent criminals, international drug cartels, and a host of other dangerous people. This bill is also cosponsored by Reps. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania), Peter King (R-New York), and Dan Donovan (R-New York).
I guess we should be thankful that these politicians are at least ratcheting back the scale of their lies.
Months after Barack Obama took office in 2009, key figures in his administration—including President Barack Obama, then Attorney General Eric Holder, and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—were pushing what we quickly revealed as “The 90 Percent Lie.”
These politicians repeatedly told the American people that 90-percent of the guns found in cartel violence in Mexico had their origins in the United States, primarily from gun shops in southwestern border states.
Citizens didn’t knew at the time that the Obama Department of Justice was actively supplying the narco-terrorist cartels (particularly the Sinaloa cartel) with firearms though numerous gun-walking plots in every border state until much later. It was only after a pair of “walked” guns was recovered at the scene of BORTAC agent Brian Terry’s murder that the plot began to unravel.
Today, the Obama Administration is still fighting a desperate rearguard action to cover up their complicity. Yesterday, Justice Department lawyers attempted to block discovery of how the men on trial for killing Terry acquired their weapons through Operation Fast and Furious.
While Obama lied about the percentage of guns of U.S. origin in 2009 (even as his administration was providing them to narco-terrorists) when he claimed 90-percent came from American gun dealers, and today’s still-stonewalling Democrats claim it is 70-percent, both figures are intentionally rigged and intentionally dishonest.
Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-New York), Patrick Meehan (R-Pennsylvania), Elijah E. Cummings (D-Maryland), and Robin Kelly (D-Illinois) are either incompetently informed, or intentionally lying… and I’m strongly leaning towards the later.
While the ATF is more than happy to be dishonest as an agency in a vague report, they sing an entirely different tune when you put individual ATF agents under oath and force them to be honest in front of Congress.
We discovered that just 18-percent of the firearms recovered from cartels came from the United States, and less than half of those (7,900) came came from dealers, many of whom were providing guns to the cartels as part of the ATF’s gunwalking plots.
Of the 100,000 weapons recovered by Mexican authorities, only 18,000 were determined to have been manufactured, sold, or imported from the United States, and of those 18,000, just 7,900 came from sales by licensed gun dealers. Both Mexican President Felipe Calderón and American President Barack Obama have tried to claim that 90 percent of the firearms used by Mexican drug cartels originate in the United States. These claims have been echoed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Attorney General Eric Holder and his assistants, liberal members of both houses of Congress, and a reliably anti-gun media. They hoped to use the shocking statistic to lay the groundwork for a reinstatement of the 1994 “assault weapons” ban that expired in 2004. The “assault weapons” ban outlawed 19 firearms by name, but otherwise merely banned certain cosmetic features. The practical effect of the ban was no ban at all; the exact same firearms — minus the banned cosmetic features — were back on dealer shelves the very next day with no decrease in lethality, accuracy, capacity, or rate of fire. Like most gun laws, the “assault weapon” ban had negligible impact on crime. The only measurable practical effect was that one provision of the ban — a 10-round limit on the magazine capacity of newly manufactured magazines — encouraged the development of the smallest guns possible that could carry ten rounds of ammunition. The resulting subcompact class of centerfire semi-automatic handguns is a direct if accidental result of the ban that the bill co-author, then Senator Joe Biden, certainly didn’t intend. But anti-gun politicians rarely miss a chance to call for more control even if the laws are proven failures, and the administration found the 90 percent claim to be a useful cudgel. It was also a complete, utter, and demonstrable lie. William La Jeunesse and Maxim Lott of Fox News were among the first to puncture the myth. They revealed that the 90 percent figure came from the number of guns that the Mexican authorities turned over to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Ninety percent of the firearms turned over to the ATF were determined to be from the United States. But only a fraction of the guns recovered by the Mexican authorities were turned over to the ATF, because most of the weapons recovered had markings that clearly identified their origins in other countries. Of nearly 100,000 weapons recovered from the cartels, only 20 percent had been turned over to the U.S. for identification, and a total of 18,000 were determined to have been manufactured, sold, or imported from the United States. Instead of 90 percent, the actual number of weapons recovered in Mexico that came from the U.S. was just 18 percent. As a result of this inconvenient truth, the myth being pushed by the Obama administration and championed by anti-gun elements of the media quietly went away. Eight percent is a far cry from the 90 percent that the administration had been wanting to claim, and considering that there are more than 6,600 licensed dealers in the border region, it means (statistically speaking) just over one gun per licensed dealer has found it’s way across the border.
Just 7,900 of the nearly 100,000 firearms recovered from cartels came from U.S. dealers. U.S. gun dealers may have provided as many as 20,000 guns to cartels in gun-walking operations run by the ATF in up to ten cities, none of which have been investigated by a government that has no interest in indicting itself.
Do you want to stop gun trafficking, Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-New York), Patrick Meehan (R-Pennsylvania), Elijah E. Cummings (D-Maryland), and Robin Kelly (D-Illinois)?
Put Erik Holder, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and their minions at the Department of Justice/ATF, Department of State, and the White House under oath. Let them explain how tens of thousands of weapons were smuggled to narco-terrorists under the orders of the United States government.
These Democrats want to stop gun trafficking?
Good.
They can start by stopping their participation in the stonewalling Congressional Oversight Committee, which is still attempting to discover who precisely who is responsible for gun walking plots that are provided weapons used in more than three hundred murders of citizens and law enforcement officers on both sides of the border.
Until they’re willing to hold their own party responsible for its gross gun trafficking violations, I don’t want to hear another word from them. |
+ 22
Collaborators Kuroiwa Structural Engineers
Site area 294.2 m2
Architectural volume 125.98 m2 More Specs Less Specs
This one story wooden house is located at new residential area in a suburb of Fukuoka. New housing lots was divided to average area in region and shaped rectangle (almost 300m2 in this area). A site with southern road has more value than a site with northern road. It is the typical small-scale development in Japan. The sites of both sides of the street face each other because of the rigid division rules.This house aimed to ensure openness and privacy at the same time even in that circumstance.
Save this picture! Courtesy of Masao Yahagi Architects
The Clients requested three outer spaces: parking, a courtyard, and a hidden drying laundry space from the street. V-shaped plan was satisfied them simultaneously as the simplest form. V-shaped house does not face with neighbors, the common spaces are in the west side, and the private spaces are in the east side. The fins as structure are lined on the both side of the courtyard. By these fins, the interior space is difficult to see from the street, but family has sight between common space and private space through the courtyard the east-west direction.
Although the structure is basically Japanese traditional wooden construction, 2×4 dimension beams because for economical reason. The east and west wooden construction methods are blended.
The columns of 50mm×390mm are sandwiched by two of 2×4 dimension beams. The in-between space is used for lighting box, guiderail for sliding doors. The interior space are assembled by small peace that allow easy construction and human scales. |
Yesterday, we released Android Studio 2.4 Preview 6 . Java 8 language features are now supported by the Android build system in the javac/dx compilation path. Android Studio's Gradle plugin now desugars Java 8 class files to Java 7-compatible class files, so you can use lambdas, method references and other features of Java 8.For those of you who tried the Jack compiler, we now support the same set of Java 8 language features but with faster build speed. You can use Java 8 language features together with tools that rely on bytecode, including Instant Run. Using libraries written with Java 8 is also supported.We first added Java 8 desugaring in Android Studio 2.4 Preview 4. Preview 6 includes important bug fixes related to Java 8 language features support. Many of these fixes were made in response to bug reports you filed. We really appreciate your help in improving Android development tools for the community!It's easy to try using Java 8 language features in your Android project. Just download Android Studio 2.4 Preview 6 , and update your project's target and source compatibility to Java version 1.8. You can find more information in our preview documentation Happy lambda'ing! |
Over four decades, Leonard Cohen, one of music’s greatest songwriters and poets who died at age 82, it was announced Thursday, released an incredible body of work during his lifetime: 14 studio albums that include enduring classics like “Hallelujah,” “Suzanne,” “Sisters of Mercy,” and more. Cohen’s influence is incalculable: his music has been covered by everyone from Judy Collins and Johnny Cash to Nina Simone and Roberta Flack, and he’s influenced generations of artists who followed him, from Jeff Buckley to k.d. lang to Kurt Cobain. Even a few American Idol contestants along the way have tried their hands at perhaps his finest song, “Hallelujah.”
EW is looking back on his towering body of work with our picks of just a few of his best songs.
“Suzanne” (1967)
Cohen wrote his first single, featured on his debut album Songs of Leonard Cohen, as a tribute to a friend and muse named Suzanne Verdal, with whom Cohen struck up a relationship in Montreal in 1965. Singer-songwriter Judy Collins would release a version of this song in 1966, prior to Cohen, but it is the author’s own version that remains definitive. It would also establish the hallmarks of Cohen’s songs: spare instrumentation (lilting acoustic guitars, angelic back-up singers, wisps of strings) and incredibly evocative storytelling about the mysteries of the human soul. “And you want to travel with her and you want to travel blind,” Cohen croons. “And you know that she will trust you / For you’ve touched her perfect body with your mind.” —Kevin O’Donnell
“Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye” (1967)
Love ends for an unspoken reason in Cohen’s ultimate “Goodbye” song. With gorgeous, and aching, resignation, he writes of a romance that came to “distances,” created by forces as natural as the changes between “the shore line and the sea.” Cohen matched his gorgeous poetry to delicate acoustic guitar chords, inspiring covers by Roberta Flack and Judy Collins, along with the placement of Cohen’s take in Robert Altman’s film McCabe and Mrs. Miller. No song ever accepted — or, perhaps, initiated? — a breakup with more grace. —Jim Farber
“Master Song” (1967)
In a 1968 interview with the BBC, Cohen cryptically said of this song, “It’s about the Trinity. Let’s leave that to the scholars…it’s about three people.” More than four decades after its release, Cohen’s fans are still parsing this song’s twisty, narrative complexity, but perhaps some things — like the faith to which “Master Song” alludes — will forever remain unknowable. Buried within this elegantly strummed saga lays a little wink from the author himself: “He never once made you explain or talk / About all of the little details.” —KO
“Sisters of Mercy” (1967)
Cohen reportedly wrote this song in a single sitting — one of the few times he completed a tune so quickly. The story goes that he had invited two stranded female hitchhikers to stay in a hotel room with him; as the two slept, he penned this delicate ode to how inspiration can strike with the most random encounters. As for what transpired in the hotel room that fateful night, Cohen has never let on — but it likely wasn’t anything untoward. “We weren’t lovers like that,” he croons. “And besides, it would still be all right.” “Sisters of Mercy” is such an enduring song in the pop music canon, Bob Dylan, perhaps America’s greatest living songwriter, offered commentary on the song’s greatness for a 2016 profile of Cohen in the New Yorker. “The song just comes in and states a fact,” Dylan said. “And after that anything can happen and it does, and Leonard allows it to happen. His tone is far from condescending or mocking. He is a tough-minded lover who doesn’t recognize the brush-off. Leonard’s always above it all. —KO
“So Long, Marianne” (1967)
The song’s subject was Marianne Ihlen, one of Cohen’s most famous muses and with whom Cohen had a relationship in the sixties. In August, Ihlen passed away due to leukemia and Cohen penned a touching tribute to his friend that read, in part, “I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine.” One hopes the two are reunited in the great beyond, duetting the song’s touching refrain, “It’s time that we began to laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again.” —KO
“Bird on the Wire” (1969)
Another Cohen tune that was initially recorded by Judy Collins, Cohen’s spare country tune is a soul-baring plea for redemption. The song cut so deep that Kris Kristofferson reportedly told Cohen he wanted the song’s first lines — “Like a bird on the wire / Like a drunk in a midnight choir / I have tried in my way to be free” — stamped on his tombstone, and it has been faithfully covered by greats like Johnny Cash, Joe Cocker, and others. —KO
“Joan of Arc” (1971)
Cohen was a man who never hurt for muses, but the exceptional reach and scope of this six-and-a-half-minute stunner from 1971’s Songs of Love and Hate — conceived as a sort of farewell monologue for the young French martyr in the final moments of her life — seemed only fitting for the weight of its subject. (Though German chanteuse Nico was also said to be an inspiration.) —Leah Greenblatt
“Avalanche” (1971)
A whirling weather system of syncopated guitar lines and raw lyricism, “Avalanche” is Cohen at his fiercely contained best; only fellow prince of darkness Nick Cave was brave (or crazy) enough to attempt to cover it, on a 1984 Bad Seeds release. —LG
“Famous Blue Raincoat” (1971)
Does anything telegraph romantic desolation better than the opening line “It’s four in the morning, the end of December”? Framed as a Dear Judas letter to his rival in a love triangle and laced with both immortal phrases (“my brother, my killer”) and oblique references to Scientology (“Did you ever go clear?”), “Raincoat” would go on to become one of Cohen’s most beloved signatures, and cold comfort to a thousand scorned lovers. —LG
“Chelsea Hotel #2” (1974)
The bard was hardly at his most gallant in this gossip-generating touchstone. The lyrics kiss and tell about a real-life sexual liaison at the Chelsea Hotel between the singer and a star he later revealed to be Janis Joplin. “She wasn’t looking for me. I think she was looking for Kris Kristofferson,” Cohen once told an audience. “I was looking for Brigitte Bardot.” Of their mutual physical appeal, he writes, “we are ugly, but we have the music.” The song also refers to his partner giving him “head on the unmade bed.” Years later, Cohen expressed regret for outing Joplin in his brutally honest classic. —JF
“Came So Far For Beauty” (1979)
It may sound like a typical country ballad, but “Beauty” has a Biblical reach. The song’s narrator believes his virtue and sacrifice will lead to deliverance, only to be shunned, leading him into bitterness and vengeance. For all the turmoil, it’s one of Cohen’s prettiest, and most sparely arranged, pieces. —JF
“Hallelujah” (1984)
Cohen surely never could have guessed the pop-culture afterlife his gospel-tinged dirge was destined for when he wrote it more than 30 years ago. Though all that followed — up to and including a now-iconic Jeff Buckley cover, and untold number of spectacularly misguided American Idol auditions — still can’t diminish its singular power. —LG
“First We Take Manhattan” (1987)
Ready for disco Cohen? In his most club-ready song, the bard addresses terrorism, both the literal and the psychic kind. The lyrics frighten and amuse in equal measure, while the music functions as Cohen’s answer to Marianne Faithfull’s “Broken English,” creating a danceable vision of doom. —JF
“Everybody Knows” (1988)
Cohen’s most cynical song also ranks as his most bitterly funny. Co-written by Sharon Robinson, the piece bounces to an appropriately cold, synth-pop beat, while the lyrics chronicle the many corruptions of the human soul. “Everybody” has become an anthem of the damned, employed by everyone from Guns N’ Roses to the government of New South Wales, Australia, which used it in a public service announcement about the ruins of smoking. —JF
“Tower of Song” (1988)
Consider Leonard Cohen a downer? In “Tower of Song,” he’s both hilarious and self-depreciating. Originally titled “Raise My Voice In Song,” the piece finds Cohen joking about his dark vocals (“I was born like this / I had no choice / I was born with the gift of a golden voice”). He ranks his songwriting skills “a hundred floors” below those of Hank Williams and, for a kicker, admits to the ravages of age when he sings “I ache in the places where I used to play.” As proof of the song’s importance, upon Cohen’s admittance into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, he read its lyrics in full. —JF
“Democracy” (1992)
A song on his album The Future, Cohen’s most politically-attuned record, “Democracy” addresses the world after the collapse of the Berlin Wall. He wrote over 60 verses for the song and even in its greatly sheared final form, it lasts over seven minutes. While the lyrics seem to ironically position democracy as a new force coming to the U.S.A., Cohen has insisted he’s being sincere in the song. Ultimately, the valiant-sounding piece views America as the ultimate Petri dish to study the possibilities, and pitfalls, of politics. —JF
“A Thousand Kisses Deep” (2001)
Leave it to Cohen to write a song about decay and defeat that has at its core a kiss. The lyrics refer to the joys of life as a fleeting “winning streak” that we savor “as if it’s real.” At the same time, the music has an erotic sense of succor. To seal the mood, Cohen featured a string arrangement by Beck’s accomplished father, David Campbell. —JF
“Going Home” (2012)
Allow him to introduce himself to…himself: “I love to speak with Leonard / He’s a sportsman and a shepherd / He’s a lazy bastard / Living in a suit.” A late-period beauty, “Home” brims with the rueful, hard-earned wisdom of seven-plus decades on the planet, as lived by one magnificently talented bastard. —LG
“Slow” (2014)
Ever the contrarian, Cohen answered the amped-up age of Instagram with an ode to dawdling. “You want to get there soon / I want to get there last,” he drawls in this wily blues number. Penned as he neared his 80th year, the witty ditty declares his lifelong devotion to methodical thought and sensual contemplation. —JF
“You Want It Darker” (2016)
Going towards the light would never be Cohen’s style: “Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name / Vilified, crucified, in the human frame / A million candles burning for the help that never came.” The title track from his final release, sung in a baritone so low it seemed to scrape the Marianas Trench, fulfilled the pitch-black promise of its name and more. But still, there is the final grace note in that quiet refrain, “I’m ready, my lord.” And he was. —LG |
South Australian local councils join campaign to raise Newstart job seeker payment
Posted
Nine local governments representing 560,000 South Australians have joined a campaign to raise the amount of Centrelink's job seeker payment Newstart.
Local councils have recently been taking public stances on issues that critics say are outside their jurisdiction. They including marriage equality, coal-seam mining and changing the date of Australia day.
The councils now feel that it is time to speak up for their residents who are out of work in the Clare and Gilbert Valleys, on the Copper Coast, on Kangaroo Island and in areas centred around Mount Gambier, the Onkaparinga, Playford, Port Adelaide Enfield, Salisbury and Streaky Bay.
The four metropolitan and five regional councils will write to relevant ministers lobbying for Newstart to be raised.
However, the Adelaide City Council is not part of the group. Despite covering an area with a 9 per cent unemployment rate, it decided to discuss the issue later, if it was raised again.
The decision greatly disappointed about 20 protesters who attended the meeting and waited two hours for it to be discussed.
A number of other people had written to council members detailing their struggles on the Newstart allowance.
Newstart $160 below poverty line: ACOSS
Newstart is a fortnightly welfare payment available for people looking for work or participating in activities to find a job.
Single people with no children are eligible for $538.80 every fortnight, or $269.40 every week, but this will vary depending on employment status, personal circumstances and savings.
However it is $160 below the poverty line, according to the Australian Council of Social Service (ACSS), and the amount has not been raised in real terms for more than 20 years despite increased in cost of living.
Wendy Morgan joined a group of other South Australians yesterday to protest against the Government's approach to joblessness.
She and around 40 per cent of others on Newstart could not afford to pay bills on time, according to ACSS.
When Ms Morgan lost her job, the Newstart payment was less than her rent, and once she has paid her utility bill, she said there was no money left for food so she relies on charity.
"I became evicted from my house and was living in my car for a period of time. I needed a considerable amount of help to get into the house I'm currently in," she said.
"It's extremely run down but at least it's a roof over my head."
Because she chose to pay her rent over a power bill, the power was cut off.
'Jobseekers demonised'
Ms Morgan said jobseekers have been demonised and blamed for shrinking industries.
"When I lost my job, it wasn't because of anything I did wrong as an employee, the company closed down," she said.
"I always hear people say to me 'my income is paying your income', but I worked for over 40 years of my life and I paid my taxes.
"I always thought with so many years experience and qualification I'd get another job, but I'm considerably disadvantaged.
"How are you so supposed to have enough energy to put full days work in when you haven't eaten?"
Anti-Poverty Network SA coordinator Pas Forgione said the extremely low payment put people further into poverty.
"Looking for work is expensive, looking for work takes resources, when you're on $269 a week you can barely look after yourself," Mr Forgione said.
"Australia has changed a hell of a lot over the last 23 years. Newstart hasn't been raised, it gets in the way of people's lives ... they can't get a job because no internet or phone connection and that means they can't look for work.
"People have said they feel like they are on house arrest, they can't leave the house, they can't afford to participate in their community, they can't afford to afford to go to the shop."
Mr Forgione said generations of Australians fought for the unemployment safety net and that his anti-poverty network would lobby local councils interstate to also pressure the federal government.
Topics: welfare, community-and-society, unemployment, government-and-politics, local-government, sa, australia |
by Brett Stevens on December 18, 2011
Suicide of a Superpower
by Patrick J. Buchanan
St. Martin’s Press, 428 pages, $16
Some books exist to comment on trends and to show us the richness of events unfolding before us. Other books come out of the cold with a singular mission, which is to find a pattern — connecting the dots — between all these trends and then to use that to kick open a door to a new level of discourse. Buchanan’s latest is the latter, and it must be read on two levels.
Its first level addresses the concern leveled by its title: is the USA, like Rome and Greece before it, in decline as an empire (sorry, “superpower”)? If so, what are the symptoms, then what is the underlying cause, and finally, how do we fix it? Buchanan addresses this with Reagan-era political pragmatism and a hint toward the subtext of this massive inspection of the cracks in the American facade.
The second level on which this book lives is a covert, subversive idea, which is that we took a wrong turn at the start of the last century. All that’s old is new again, and that means politics as understood to be “eternal” in the same way the emotions that characters face in Shakespearean plays are eternal. Eternal politics includes nationalism and the idea that a nation is defined by the unity of its heritage, beliefs, customs, values, language and culture.
But there’s the rub. As Buchanan devotes several hundred pages to explaining through remedial history (which is necessary, since they haven’t taught history in any meaningful way since the 1920s), the last century has been dedicated to kicking eternal politics to the curb. Patriotism and the “proposition nation” (really: proposition nation-state) have replaced unity, acceptance has replaced standards, and political correctness has replaced having a purpose. No wonder the empire is creaking from within.
The audience for this book is presumably the average American conservative, who is 75% likely to be European-descended and at least friendly to religion. Buchanan’s surface thesis (the first level) is that America is in decline because we no longer have any “glue” to hold our society together. This addresses the questions that your average conservative is going to have as we watch the liberal entitlement state collapse, and our “new” voters elect Barack Obama, our least qualified president.
Long before him, the Italian philosopher Vilfredo Pareto wrote that equality “is related to the direct interests of individuals who are bent on escaping certain inequalities not in their favor, and setting up new inequalities that will be in their favor, the latter being their chief concern. Cui bono? — Who benefits — is ever the relevant question. When a new class advances preaching the gospel of equality, who gets the power? (225)
Buchanan is careful to be gentle with the average conservative reader. As someone who has studied history and watched recent American developments explode out from under a once-stable society, he is aware of both the vastness of the threat that America faces, and the broader challenge of a lack of values in common in the West. He does not explicitly blame the French Revolution for a worldwide revolution in liberalism, but uses the post-1968 version as a type of metaphor for all liberal revolutions, drawing parallels to Russia and France.
For readers who are accustomed to the denser tomes from academia or philosophy, this book will seem a bit “bready.” Buchanan obeys the media rule, which is to tell people what they’re going to hear, tell them, then give them three examples and explain how each is an instance of the subject, and then tell them what they heard. This gives the book a steady but slightly languid pace, like a summer afternoon under rain, but he accelerates the heart rate with some of his more apocalyptic visions, which artfully accelerate as the book progresses.
The Founding Fathers did not believe in democracy. They did not believe in diversity. They did not believe in equality. From what Jefferson wrote and the fathers signed it is clear that the only equality to which they subscribed, as an ideal and an aspiration, was an equality of God-given rights. (191)
Unlike most political books, Suicide of a Superpower is not about cheering for the red team over the blue team. Similar to Anne Coulter’s Demonic, this book uses the current threats to America to talk about the fundamental problem of liberalism, which is that its mania for equality is divisive. Buchanan extends this by showing us how a healthy society will have unity of religion, values and heritage, and how each of those are under assault for us.
In order to avoid being slandered as a bigot — a strategy which did not work — Buchanan first talks extensively about Christianity as a lynchpin of American society. The only possible objection here for people who are not Christian-haters is that the problem is not a lack of religion, but a lack of agreement between citizens in the three major areas he targets in the book. For readers who dislike Christianity, this section is a bit of a squirmer but can easily be skimmed once you realize religion is a surrogate expression for the utter lack of values in common between Americans.
Since the internet is full of smug Europeans who like to talk disparagingly about “Americanization,” it is worth mentioning that Buchanan carefully illustrates between the lines how liberalism is Americanization, globalism, conformity, political correctness and social breakdown. As he demonstrates with frequent invective against the values of the Baby Boomer leftist revolution, the demands for civil rights, atheism, multiculturalism and the entitlement-welfare-Nanny State are byproducts of the liberal mania for the equality of judgment over all of its citizens. Simply put, liberalism opposes a single standard of reality or values, and so creates a disintegrating society that can only be held together by strong commerce, a police state, and millions of Nanny State bureaucrats trying to keep us all in line.
It is worth reading this book in conjunction with Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations because these two books are clamshells around the era of liberal power. The 20th century was an experiment in liberalism inspired by the revolution of 1789 in France, and this experimented culminated in globalism, which now has proven itself as unstable as communism and so we are reverting to the ways that served us well before this detour: nationalism, unity, spirituality and conservatism. The essential idea of liberalism is that we have as many directions as there are people, but this permits no winning strategy for governance — or getting elected.
In 2008, black and Jewish voters each gave McCain just one percent of his vote. Why then the GOP obsession with African American voters who went 24-1 for Obama, but are outnumbered by white voters 6-1? Why does the GOP spend so much time courting Jewish voters, who are outnumbered by Catholic voters 13-1 and by Protestant voters 25-1?…You go hunting where the ducks are, said Barry Goldwater. As whites remain three-fourths of the electorate and Christians four-fifths, this is where the GOP will find victory or defeat. (346)
America and Europe are in the grips of economic liberals and cultural Marxists who are behind the times and still clinging to the spectrum of leftist belief which at 222 years is showing not only its age, but its utter dysfunction. In denial of this obvious truth, the liberal elites in America and Europe are tightening their grip as their “ideological” policies hasten decay. Buchanan’s book exists not to stave off a disaster that he repeatedly hints is already upon us, but to prepare us for what we must do to rebuild.
Tags: Books, collapse, crowdism, genocide, Globalism, liberalism, pat buchanan, patrick j. buchanan
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Foxit PDF Reader for Linux was updated recently, after years of no new releases. The new version brings support for opening PDFs in tabs, annotations and more.
Foxit Reader is a popular free to use (but proprietary) PDF viewer available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. Compared to the Windows version, Foxit PDF Reader for Linux lacks some features - most importantly, the ability to create PDF files, but the app still has quite a few useful features.
The latest Foxit Reader for Linux features a new user interface as well as new features such as annotations (called commenting tools in Foxit), multiple views, bookmarks, printing both the documents and annotations (you can print the document, the documment with annotations or just the annotations) and more.
Among the available "comment tools" are highlighting text, underline, strikeout, replace or insert text, add a note or draw using a pencil (and erase):
For the comments, you can choose from various icons such as an arrow, pointer, cross, star and more, useful for both adding notes for yourself or for collaboration.
If you're looking for an open source PDF reader that can open large PDF files quickly, check out MuPDF. I should also mention that in my test, the application was able to open a large PDF file (which contains a large number of images) very quickly and it allowed me to scroll through it easily, without any lag, as opposed to Evince for instance, which took 1-2 seconds to load new pages, so as far as performance is concerned, Foxit Reader works great.
Unfortunately there's no official changelog for the latest Foxit PDF Reader for Linux so I can't tell you what's new under the hood.
Download Foxit PDF Reader for Linux
Download Foxit Reader for Linux
(click the "Free Download" link on the left and select Linux from the Platform drop-down). (click the "Free Download" link on the left and select Linux from the Platform drop-down).
Also see: Modify PDF Files In Linux With Master PDF Editor To install it, simply extract the downloaded archive, double click the extracted .run file and follow the instructions.
Thanks to bhaismachine for the tip! |
We reproduce here the political resolution of the Sixth Congress of the Russian Socialist Movement (RSD), which was held in Moscow on May 8 and 9, published on May 12 on the RSD website with the following statement: "This is our analysis of current trends in the evolving political system of Putinism (the" patriotic consensus "), its socio-economic course, its growing militarization, its fears in the face of social revolt, as well as the state of the forces opposed to the regime.
Russian Socialist Movement (RSD)
For nearly a quarter of a century, Russia has been in a historical impasse. The impossibility of a harmonious development of the former socio-economic forms of society led to the rupture of constitutional order in 1993. The perspectives which were imposed as a result over the following decades consisted of social regression and the destruction of institutions which organized the lives of millions of people. In the late 1990s, in order to preserve the new architecture of society and at the same time prevent social upheaval in Russia, the Putin regime imposed itself as a compromise between deepening the transformations under the reign of the market and strengthening the role of the state.
1. The victory of Vladimir Putin in the presidential election in March 2012 marked a conservative turn of the regime, redefining the content of the consensus around the figure of the president. The aggressive reaction against the Maidan in Kiev, the annexation of Crimea and the "hybrid" interference in eastern Ukraine aimed to transform the relationships between the regime and society. In this sense the events of 2014 have confirmed the old motto of Clausewitz: "War is the continuation of politics [by other means]." Since then, support for the existing regime is no longer presented as a rational choice, but as a civic duty, similar to the patriotic devotion to ones country. This new ideological content was succinctly formulated by Vyacheslav Volodin: "With Putin Russia exists, without Putin there is no Russia." Such a personification effectively means that the figure of Putin as symbolic "father" rises above day-to-day politics. You can be liberal or nationalist, in favour of state control of the economy or a supporter of the free market, demand the resignation of the government, of certain ministers or governors, but the "Putin-Crimea-Russia" link cannot be questioned or discussed. Those who do not fundamentally agree with that simply put themselves outside the boundaries of the Russian political spectrum and become "traitors to the nation".
In this logic, the responsibility for the sharp decline in living standards and the adverse consequences of neoliberal anti-crisis measures is borne by everyone, by whoever you like - except by the President. Even now, while the effect of the propaganda about the "return of Crimea" is obviously starting to wane, the personal rating of Putin remains high. Support for the existing regime is not a subject for discussion and becomes a civic duty. And the question of the status of Crimea completely replaces the question of who owns our country.
2. It is in this context of ideological changes in the structure of the regime that the preparation of the legislative elections in September is unfolding. Throughout the Putin era, legislative and presidential elections were part of the same political cycle, played out according to a single scenario: the triumphal success of the "United Russia" party was to anticipate and ensure the even greater success of Vladimir Putin. In December 2011, this mechanism failed: the large-scale fraud in favour of "United Russia" sparked mass demonstrations, whose participants expressed their rejection of the political system as a whole.
Today, the new political logic of Putins "third term" aims to break this cycle. In the context of a sharp decline in confidence in the government, the Kremlin took in the summer of 2015 the decision to bring forward the legislative elections from December to September 2016, and to postpone the presidential election to March 2018 thus prolonging the presidents term to six years. The meaning of such a manoeuvre is obvious: from now on the presidential and legislative elections must no longer be the two sides of the same scenario, but two totally different political enterprises. In the first stage, the limited number of parties that make up the "patriotic consensus" symphony will criticize the government and its opponents, thus competing with each other to win the sympathy of the discontented part of the population. In a second stage, support for Putin as candidate for president should flow from an organic patriotic instinct.
Already today, the parties of the "official opposition" - the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) and "Fair Russia" - focus their campaign on harsh criticism of the government and even demand its resignation. These two parties, controlled by the Kremlin administration, serve as a barometer of tolerable criticism. Gennady Zyuganov and Sergei Mironov have supported all the important political initiatives of the Kremlin, from the new repressive laws against "foreign agents" to the military support for the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. At the same time, speaking as the left flank of the political spectrum, they spread out a wide range of views within the Putin consensus, which authorizes the criticism of some unpopular decisions. In conditions of rising social discontent (still mostly passive) "United Russia", which not only leads the government but holds a majority of regional governors, may become the ritual "scapegoat".
However, this predictable scenario, developed in the Kremlin, could be supplanted by another, connected with the strengthening of military and police structures and their increasingly active interdepartmental competition. This process, which started with the creation of the National Guard, is growing in importance: each power structure is engaged in self-promotion, not only to remind people of its existence but also to demonstrate to its rival ministries its fighting capacity, unique and unsurpassable, against the potential threat.
For example, Alexander Bastrykin, in a recent programmatic article, proposes cancelling the election, because they might be too dangerous. He bluntly calls to stop "playing the farce of democracy" and to give enemies a "serious, adequate and symmetrical response (...) in the perspective of the forthcoming elections." With the appointment of Tatiana Moskalkova, even the apparatus of the mediator for human rights, hitherto neutral, seems to be turning into a new bastion of the struggle against conspiracies.
Obviously, this gesticulation is related to the fact that the deepening economic and social crisis does not for the moment have visible political consequences: there are no spontaneous mass uprisings, no strikes on the level of an industry (whereas the total volume of isolated labour disputes is increasing).
The diminution of the role of the elected bodies of the administrative entities of the Federation, to the benefit of appointed officials who represent the interests of the executive, is an integral part of the degradation of the entire political system. The local government reform of 2014, which abolished the direct election of mayors in some megacities and deprived municipal assemblies of their power to define how heads of towns and districts are elected, is part of the logic aiming to take away the powers of local governments over the population and install local political elites in harmony with the business community. In the context of the allocation of budgets by the federal centre and the concentration of power in the hands of unremovable local leaders ("princelings"), who are in no way accountable to the public, the model of Putin’s repressive government is becoming more widespread.
3. The social consequences of the economic crisis are now affecting the majority of the population. The propaganda that justifies this situation by the machinations of the West is perceived as being less and less convincing. The introduction of international sanctions and falling oil prices that began in 2014 have intensified the decline in production which began from 2012. In addition, in late 2014, when the collapse of the rouble on the exchange rate market peaked, Prime Minister Medvedev admitted that Russia "was not coming out of the 2008 crisis." The global crisis is not only reflected in the weakness of the Russian economy, but has caused the slow collapse of the whole system of post-Soviet capitalism, which has led to a further strengthening of military activity and to the strengthening of the regime in the country. Similarly, over the past two years, a sharp decline in oil revenues, combined with the stopping of the possibilities for Russian banks to refinance themselves in the West, has reduced the room for manoeuvre of the government. The previous strategy plugging the holes in the economy with the help of the huge government reserve fund - is now almost exhausted. Yet the scale of the current crisis makes more real the perspective of a catastrophe.
Thus, at the end of 2015, the slowdown of the Russian economy was marked by a decline of 3.7 per cent of GDP; inflation reached 15.5 per cent (with a maximum of 16.9 per cent in March 2015). During this short period, the poverty rate is impressive: the number of people with incomes below the poverty line increased from 16,100,000 to 19,200,000 (13.4 per cent of the population). It should be noted that at the end of last year, the poverty line was officially set by the government in 9,452 roubles (around 123 euros) per month. And how many people have incomes only slightly higher than this paltry amount, just exceeding the official poverty line? Moreover, according to a recent survey, 73 per cent of Russians have no reserves "for a rainy day" and spend all their salary for the bare necessities.
In this context, the unemployment figures are at first glance not so bad: the official statistics indicate a rate of 5.8 per cent (4.4 million people). This number also includes those actively seeking employment without being registered at the labour exchange. At the same time, during the first three months of 2016, the number of those who declared themselves as unemployed increased by 70,000, thus amounting to 6 per cent of the active population, according to the statistics office Rosstat. The persistence of relatively low growth of unemployment in a situation of a very rapid decline in living standards is explained by government measures to preserve formal employment (with lower wages and reduced working hours). For example, the practice of unpaid long-term leave is common in large industrial enterprises. The "maintenance of social stability" is an important reason, not in large cities, where in case of layoffs it is possible to find another badly paid job, but in the so-called "mono-industrial towns" built in Soviet times around key industries. If there was a drastic reduction of jobs in such enterprises, a significant part of the population of the city would automatically come into the category of long-term unemployed, and those cities would become potential places for social explosions.
The contradiction - between maintaining employment (to avoid a sudden drop in income of the population) and the use of austerity recipes against the effects of the crisis has been the basis for the fiscal policy of Russia over the past two years. During the adoption of the 2016 budget, Prime Minister Medvedev announced: "We cannot achieve this without a rationalization of expenditure, and it should be done not just, as we have done too often, by increasing the tax burden on businesses, but by reducing inefficient expenses." Among such expenses, Medvedev ranks for example the indexation of pensions on the cost of living. Thus it is proposed to completely remove indexation for working pensioners (14.9 million) and to cap the overall index at 4 per cent (whereas inflation is officially expected to beat least 10 per cent). The increase of the retirement age to 65 remains one of the most important ways indicated to fight against the budget deficit. Yet the practical implementation of this measure has been postponed for obvious reasons until after the parliamentary elections, or indeed the presidential election (the total number of pensioners in Russia today stands at 41.4 million, almost one-third of the total population).
The indexation mechanism for wages in the private sector is not really developed in labour law in Russia and in fact has the character of a recommendation" (it must be decided in collective bargaining agreements, which exist only in the largest enterprises). Over the past two years public sector workers have not benefited from the indexation of wages. It is significant that the increase in wages for this sector (which cannot even compensate simply the loss caused by inflation) is planned by the government for autumn 2016, and will obviously be used for propaganda purposes on the eve of parliamentary elections.
Although it was austerity that guided the 2016 budget, with significant spending cuts in education and health, a few months after its adoption it was further reduced by 10 per cent. The very structure of government revenues in which profits from the export of oil and gas are essential (up to 70 per cent) means that there will be continual cuts in the future.
4. Apparently the Putin elite has no long-term plan to rescue the national economy. The "anti-crisis measures" that are taken aim rather to preserve the social status quo until there is a natural increase in oil prices, for example. The boundless cynicism of the Russian elite is accompanied in a spectacular fashion by an almost mystical faith in "the invisible hand of the market" which will save it, more or less as in the early 2000s, when soaring oil prices appeared to be a real gift of fate. In December 2014, just after "Black Tuesday" (when the rouble plunged by 15 points), Vladimir Putin was therefore quite sincere in stating that "growth is inevitable, in particular because the external economic environment will change."
The logic of "megaprojects" - priority programmes with personal responsibility and a limited time limits, focusing the resources and the efforts of the bureaucratic apparatus (for example the Sochi Winter Olympics, the integration of annexed Crimea, the construction of the Vostochny [Eastern] cosmodrome, etc.) - is a characteristic feature of Putinism. Huge building projects, launched regularly since the mid-2000s and demanding huge budget investments, were presented as the way to orient socially excess oil profits: every project involves the creation of jobs and investment in infrastructure, which should mean a positive economic effect. In fact, the benefits of such large-scale works accrue to big companies, which receive state orders and bank guarantees; as for the "jobs" created, they have quickly proved to be a trap for the workers, who, under pressure from their employers and the bureaucratic machinery of the state, cannot defend their rights (which has been seen in a particularly glaring fashion with workers being cheated during the construction of facilities for the Sochi Games and the Vostochny cosmodrome).
In short, the concept of megaprojects, presented by the Russian state as a means of redistributing oil revenues for the benefit of the people, turns out to be actually a tool to quickly enrich a microscopic elite at the expense of the population. Yet propagandists still manage to focus attention on the "success" of these projects (thanks to the authority of their main sponsor, the President of the Russian Federation) and to ignore their catastrophic perversity. Thus the "anti-crisis" actions of the government are determined mainly by the desire to ensure at all costs the re-election of Vladimir Putin in 2018. But what then? For the moment, few people care.
At the same time, another logic, neoliberal, appears clearly behind all this: use the economic recession and the impoverishment of the population to promote "structural reforms" that radically reduce social norms and the cost of labour. Thus, according to estimates by experts of the state bank Vnesheconombank, incomplete indexing and continued falling incomes of the population will mean that in 2017-2018, the share of gross profits will exceed the total share of wages and the country will again become attractive to investors.
To this are related the discussions about the possible privatization of large public state assets, such as the railways or Sberbank, the largest bank in Russia. It is no coincidence that, with the continuation of sanctions, the combined mission of the IMF and World Bank, meeting in Moscow in March of this year, greatly appreciated the "anti-crisis" course of the Russian government. The recent appointment of Alexei Kudrin to the Presidents Economic Council is part of this trend.
5. It is important to stress that the search for new sources of state revenue in the context of the deepening crisis and of the fall in hydrocarbon prices will lead to an even further militarization of the economy, and, consequently, to an aggressive foreign policy. Over the last few years, large-scale investments in the production of weapons have been one of the major priorities of the government, while in 2016 the military budget has reached 4 per cent of GDP (0.8 per cent more than the year before). Over and above its foreign policy goals, the intervention in Syria has clearly fulfilled the task of publicizing the latest military innovations. Thus, one of its results has been the order by India, Algeria and other countries, for a total of $7 billion, of Russian bombers and military helicopters.
Both the "hybrid" aggression in Ukraine and military operations in Syria are not related solely to geopolitical games and the fight to assert Russias position against the West. They are directly linked to the crisis, ever deeper, of the entire political and economic system of Russian capitalism. The militaristic choices that are made make it possible to reinforce the legitimacy of the government within the country - in the general population as well as within the elite.
6. One of the principal components of the "patriotic consensus", until recently, has been the criminalization of any political or social discontent. The massive anti-Ukrainian propaganda that has filled the governmental media since early 2014, has consistently emphasized the link between large-scale protest and the inevitability of chaos and impoverishment. The classic conservative argument of "futility" [1], according to which to satisfy the desires of the masses would at the end of the day only lead to worsening the social situation, has been employed from the start. The other side of the same argument is to denounce the external character of all social conflicts: behind each of them lies concealed the ambition of foreign forces to destabilise the situation and lead, ultimately, to a change of regime that would have catastrophic consequences for the national independence of the country. Every strike or local social movement was immediately called an attempt to "organize a new Maidan". In addition, the new "post-Crimea" rhetoric of the Kremlin has cemented the position of the local state-business bosses. To retain power, they have only needed to denounce any political competitor as an agent of subversive revolutionary forces. We can observe that it is only towards the end of 2015 that these propaganda formulas began to lose their strength.
Protests, related to different manifestations of the crisis and the governments "anti-crisis" course, are becoming more numerous, although they are still very far removed not only from the formulation of their own alternative programme, but also from coordinating actions at the national level.
The most significant was the protest action of lorry drivers which started in November 2015 [2]. From the beginning, the government took an unequivocal position: no concessions will be made on the question and the level of taxation will not be revised in any way. Strong political pressure, but also the absence of a strong organization of lorry drivers capable of coordinating their protest in a difficult situation, led to the gradual extinction of their movement.
Since 2015, the number of protests by workers has increased - spontaneous actions or those organized by independent unions against the suppression of jobs, cuts in wages or delays in payment. Thus, last year the number of protests increased by 40 per cent compared to 2014. Among those who take part in strikes (one-day strikes or slowdowns), there are workers in big enterprises of the productive sector, public sector workers (hospitals, municipal employees), those who work in the service sector and even armament factories.
The opposition parties belonging to the "patriotic consensus", the KPRF and "Fair Russia", play an ever greater role in the disorientation of the participants in these up to now disparate actions. There does not exist any powerful organization determined to engage in the combat of those who struggle; they therefore seek political intermediaries, those who have resources and are therefore obviously integrated into the system, who are able to make their demands known. It can already be seen that this function of being a "safety valve", which was habitual for Russian "communists" in the 1990s, is increasingly sought after by the Kremlin and is organically embedded in the logic of the electoral campaign for the comic-opera parliament.
For its part, the liberal opposition, which is normally situated outside the institutional political system and which emphasizes the need for its radical democratization, remains isolated from the rising social anger. In the first place this stems from its political tradition and its social nature. In the wake of the "liberal reformers" of the Yeltsin era, leaders such as Mikhail Kasyanov and Alexei Navalny consider that the key to change lies in is the growing discontent of a number of sectors of medium-sized and big capital. In addition, Kasyanov like the political émigré Khodorkovsky - recognizes the possibility of joint work in a future "free Russia" with representatives of the "liberal wing" of the Putin establishment, such as the former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, the current head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina and the director of the Sberbank state bank, German Gref. The demands for "lustration" of corrupt officials and for democratization of the system are closely combined, for the radical liberal opposition, with the recognition of the need for "structural reforms" and for a "stop to confrontation with the West." It seems to them that the dismantling of the personal regime [of Putin] should rather take the form of a transformation at the top in collaboration with the present elite, whereas they consider the extra-parliamentary street movement as a secondary factor of pressure.
7. The radical left, which is not part of either the "patriotic consensus" opposition or the liberal one, must find a connection with this growing movement of social protest, which is not yet structured organizationally or politically. The problem, however, is that this radical left is today itself in a state of decline. Some of its well-known spokespersons, such as Sergei Udaltsov and Alexei Gaskarov, are still in prison. The events in Ukraine have also led to a deep split in the left, part of which has effectively supported the Russian intervention.
In this situation, we must begin to develop a broad programme for change, based on the demand for a revision of existing property relations, whose origin lies in the privatizations of Yeltsin and Putin. The natural consequence of this revision is the demand to dismantle the entire political system engendered by the ultra-presidential Constitution of 1993, which should be replaced by a parliamentary republic. Such a programme should ensure the recognition of the value of political democracy not as an instrument, but as a fundamental principle of peoples power, essential for the consistent realization of the aspirations for social equality.
The deepening crisis and the constant weakening of the magic of the "patriotic consensus" offer new opportunities to promote democratic and socialist policies. The tactics for the action of the left in the evolution of the present situation will have to be built on the basis of the analysis and the designated strategic objectives presented here.
Moscow, 8-9 May 2016 |
Richmond Tea Party Sues City: Charge #Occupy Protesters Or Refund $10,000 For Rallies at Plaza
The City of Richmond charged the local tea party $10,000 to hold three rallies on the plaza… But, socialist squatters get to set up camp for free.
(Examnier)
The Richmond Tea Party is demanding a refund from the city for $10,000 it spent on permits, portable toilets, police presence and emergency personnel for three rallies held at same plaza where the Occupy Richmond squatters set up their camp.
The Republic reported:
The Richmond tea party is demanding a refund of about $10,000 from the city, claiming it unfairly charged them for rallies while allowing the Occupy protesters to use the same space for several weeks for free. The political organization is sending the city an invoice for the charges incurred for three rallies held in Kanawha Plaza over the past three years. The Occupy protesters have been camped in the plaza since Oct. 15. Richmond Tea Party spokeswoman Colleen Owens says it’s not fair that her group had to pay fees for permits, portable toilets, police presence and emergency personnel. The group also had to purchase a $1 million insurance policy.
Hat Tip Mark |
Before television and radio, newspapers were a primary source of news from the front, though newsprint was insufficient to properly replicate the sights of war. “The illustrated weekly magazines had much better photographs and sketches,” McCarthy said by phone from London. “They could print on better-quality paper, and they weren’t tied to a daily schedule.”
The corporations and advertisers who packed the magazines with ads were quick to recognize emerging markets. A month after England declared war on Germany, on August 4th, 1914, the cigarette brand De Reszke had already placed an ad that featured a young woman bidding farewell to a naval officer with the gift of cigarettes.
Punch
“During the First World War, advertisers seemed to be responding to people’s needs relatively quickly,” Doran says. “In Country Life, one of the things I noticed, being a woman, was that there were a lot of ads for guard dogs. It’s things like that that start appearing throughout the war—obvious and terribly poignant things, such as identity bracelets—that start to be advertised very widely, as casualty lists mounted.
"The interesting thing," she continued, "is that so many of the manufacturers who produced the most eye-catching ads are still in business today. The ads worked. It was an extraordinary time for the advertising industry, but it was an extraordinary time for illustrated magazines, as well, before photography really took over. It shows the power of graphic art.”
Equally striking is the direct and occasionally cunning approach to copywriting. A tagline for Lea & Perrins, for example, offers the promise of “Appetizing meals in the Trenches” and encourages families to send bottles of sauce to the front for a taste of home. “It makes Bully Beef appetizing,” the fine print reads, “and when mixed with jam is an excellent substitute for chutnee [sic].” Likewise, manufacturers of fountain pens seized on the emotional attachment to letter writing. At a time when nearly five million letters were sent from the front, advertisements stressed that it was their leak-proof products that supplied the lifeblood. “Would you not like to be the donor of such a treasure?” the makers of Waterman’s Ideal Fountain Pen implored.
Though the majority of soldiers relied on items in their military-issued kits, store-bought armaments like barbed-wire gloves and wire-cutters also reached the frontlines by mail. “Minimise the Risk” reads the boldfaced claim in an ad for the “Crossman” body shield, a product intended to thwart shrapnel and bayonet thrusts to the midsection. The results in the field were often mixed. “Things like the body shield, sadly, fellow soldiers would laugh at,” McCarthy said, adding that metal used during the war years was substandard and somewhat disposable. (This calls to mind the U.S. Army’s decision, in 2006, to ban the use of commercial armor that had been sent by concerned citizens to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan after widespread complaints that military-issued armor was insufficient. The supplements were often equally problematic.) |
The court decision ended Ms. Serrano’s long struggle to obtain damages for the nurse’s negligence. It also helped her, she said, silence neighbors and others who accused her of lacking maternal instinct and criticized her inability to identify with her own child.
“After four days, how can you not recognize your baby?” Sophie Chas, the lawyer for the clinic, told the newspaper Le Figaro. “We can believe in it when it’s a second, a day, two days. But 10 years? The mothers may have been involved in creating the damage.”
Ms. Serrano answers such disbelief by pointing out that she was 18 at the time and that Manon, now 20, was her first child. “I could never have imagined such a scenario,” she said.
When Ms. Serrano gave birth, the baby developed neonatal jaundice and was almost immediately placed in an incubator. Because of a shortage of cradles, a nurse put the naked baby in the same cradle as another naked baby.
Daniel Verstraete, the lawyer for the other family, which refused to speak publicly about the case, said that only one of the two babies was wearing an identification tag, which “may have fallen off.”
When Manon was handed over to Ms. Serrano after the treatment, mother and child had spent very little time together. Ms. Serrano noticed that the baby’s hair was thicker, but she said she was persuaded to put it out of her mind. |
Last week I had the chance to interview OTOY’s CEO Jules Urbach about their recent announcements and future roadmap. We talked Unity, open standards, the metaverse, and more, but the general thread pointed to OTOY as one of the pivotal companies in the VR space. Ignoring OTOY would be like ignoring Youtube in the early days of the Internet.
What is OTOY?
At its core, OTOY is essentially a 3D format company. Their mission is to make realistic and distributable 3D graphics. You might have heard of the .OBJ and .FBX file formats, currently the most popular for 3D content. If not, you’ve definitely heard of .JPEG, one of the internet’s most widely used 2D image formats. In March of 2014, OTOY released a brand new 3D format called .ORBX, and it’s been growing ever since.
ORBX is a fundamental building block of the metaverse. Unlike OBJ and FBX, which are limited to geometry, it contains all the details of a high quality 3D scene such as lighting, physics, textures, and more. Whether streaming video or VR, it promises to be a one stop, open source solution to distributing anything the human mind can imagine over the Internet.
“ORBX supports detail down to a quarter the size of a Hydrogen atom,” according to OTOY.
The Big Unity Announcement
At Unity 3D’s conference in L.A. last week, OTOY announced their technology would be natively integrated into the Unity engine. Since Unity is the world’s most popular game engine with around 45 percent market share, this graduates ORBX from a power-user niche to a widely accessible creation format. When OTOY’s integration releases next year, you’ll be able to import and export ORBX directly from Unity, and use OTOY’s Octane Renderer to create experiences with extremely realistic visual detail. At launch, this means you’ll be able create and edit photorealistic scenes directly in Unity, then export a 360 video in the streamable ORBX format. However, it won’t be long before you can move through a scene as positionally tracked lightfields become supported (more on that later).
Hands on Demo
During the interview I had a chance to try a demo, and it was reminiscent of my experience trying the Oculus (DK2) for the first time. The first thing they showed me was a 360 image from Keloid, a sci-fi short film created using their technology. It literally brought tears to my eyes. All I was seeing was a 360 image in a GearVR, yet as someone heavily entrenched in VR I was blown away. Why? The image looked entirely photo-real, but it was entirely constructed via computer. It was beautiful.
A 360 image is one thing, but how about video? The next demo shows a scene of a park in the middle of a city. At first I think it was another image, then I look at a puddle and notice the reflection of the tree branches swaying slightly. Suddenly my brain clicks into full presence mode, and I am there in that park feeling the chill of a wet morning after a night of rain. Depending on where my head is rotated, the light and reflections from the puddles of water around me change. Taking off the headset, I ask what camera system they used.
“None,” Urbach said. “It’s all 3D rendered.”
My mouth hangs open. I believe him, but my mind screams it’s impossible.
It Gets Even Better
I ask Urbach when this level of visual quality is going to come to headsets with positional tracking. He replies by saying they already have a demo on the Vive they showed at CES this year. To illustrate how it works he shows me a short video:
Essentially, they pre-render every possible viewing angle within a box of space, allowing you to move freely as long as your head stays within their “Lightfield Cube”. As you can imagine, the file size for something like that would be enormous compared to traditional media. However, this is where OTOY’s elegance and technical superiority truly shines.
ORBX is highly optimized for streaming and use of the GPU. Even with current LTE Internet speeds, OTOY is able to stream lightfield media to a VR headset. Since all the computation and heavy lifting is handled in the cloud, the end-user hardware doesn’t need large storage or a massively powerful GPU.
Roadmap to ‘The Matrix’
Right now, OTOY’s focus is on mobile VR and 2D 360 videos. This strategy makes sense since desktop VR is still a small market. However, I was told that next year OTOY will be focusing on rolling out positionally tracked light fields for all the major headsets (PSVR, Vive, Oculus). Combined with their finished Unity integration, we should expect to see a number of amazing photo-realistic VR experiences on both desktop and mobile.
One of the key things they are working on to ensure this, and fix the problem of VR content distribution, is to get WebVR content streaming with the push of a button. So, rather than the current pipeline of having to download a file or wait a long time for browser content to load, ORBX players can almost instantly start streaming VR content and load the rest as it plays. Since ORBX is an open source format, any website can make use of it, allowing for consumers to hop from VR experience to VR experience through the open navigation of the web, rather than a single app store.
As mobile headsets with inside-out positional tracking become available, OTOY’s technology will immediately be ready to bring photorealistic position tracked content to the marketplace. So if estimates about when to expect mobile VR inside-out tracking are correct, in just a few years we could have cordless photorealistic VR.
Ten years from now, when VR/AR is an integral part of everyone’s lives, we’ll be able to look at the amazing quality of visuals and accelerated rise of 3D computing and thank OTOY for helping making it all possible.
Tagged with: lightfield, metaverse, orbx, otoy, streaming, unity, VR |
There have been widespread reports that Brian Niemeier, a Hugo Award-nominated sci-fi author, has been “shadowbanned” on Twitter, with his tweets no longer appearing in peoples’ notifications or feeds.
According to Niemeier, his followers are reporting that “they aren’t getting notifications when I retweet or reply to them. People also aren’t being notified when I follow them.” One user also reported that “he can’t even follow conversations since my tweets don’t show up.”
Niemeier agreed to carry out a test, in which I tweeted him to see if his replies showed up on my feed or in my notifications. They didn’t. Instead, I could only view the author’s replies to my tweet by navigating to his profile and scrolling down his feed.
My own tweet, below, should be followed by a reply from Niemeier. But the reply is hidden.
After Niemeier replied to my tweet, I checked my notifications to see if his reply would appear there instead. Once again, it didn’t. The following screenshot, taken 10 minutes after Niemeier replies, shows no sign of the author’s tweet.
Nor could Niemeier’s reply be seen in my “mentions” tab.
The only way to view Niemeier’s response was to manually navigate to his own Twitter feed and scroll down. Other users reported the same problem.
The problems with the sci-fi author’s tweets instantly attracted suspicion, as Niemeier is a supporter of the “Sad Puppies” slate, a nominating bloc in the annual sci-fi Hugo Awards aimed at combating political homogeneity in the award nominations. The Sad Puppies are regularly accused of being a conservative campaign (they deny this, claiming that nominating high-quality authors is their only goal), and have attracted the wrath of the web’s left-wing social justice warriors.
The mysterious disappearance of an author’s tweets, especially an author affiliated with the Sad Puppies, is another source of concern for those worried about Twitter’s descent into partisan bias. With the recent suspension of Milo Yiannopoulos from the platform, and the campaign to get him reinstated, Twitter is now facing yet more allegations that it is censoring opponents of social justice warriors.
We have reached out to Twitter for comment.
You can follow Allum Bokhari on Twitter, add him on Facebook. Email tips and suggestions to [email protected]. |
Hello, hello! I’ve not been spending time on my blog for the past month! Honestly, I’m running out of ideas and I’ve been eating simple meals which I think don’t need to be on the blog. Anyways, I’m getting my groove back and certainly meal ideas for those who are on the keto way of eating.
Most chips sold in supermarkets are made from either potatoes or flour, which are obviously high in carbs. There’s reduced fat, fat free, sodium free and gluten free, but no low carb. So I was looking for something crunchy to snack on or have as dips and I came across this Low Carb Flaxseed Chips from Low Carb Recipe Ideas. I tried it out and got hooked. Hooked so much, I would make it at least once a week.
You can adjust seasoning according to what you like. I like mine a little spicy so I add a chili powder mix of cayenne, chili, cumin, and paprika. These chips are perfect as a dip or a high fiber snack.
Ingredients
1 cup Flaxseed Meal (Golden or Brown)
2 teaspoons Garlic Powder
2 teaspoons Onion Powder
2 teaspoons Chilli Powder Mix (Cayenne, Paprika, Chilli) *optional
½ cup Water
Directions:
In a bowl, mix ground flax meal and seasonings well. Add water and mix till combined with a spatula. Cover and set the dough aside for 10 minutes. Pre heat oven to 200°c (400°F). Once dough is ready, roll it out between 2 parchment papers as thin as you like. (cooking times will vary according to thickness) Gently pull apart parchment paper from each side of the rolled dough onto the other (this is to make sure it does not stick to the paper while baking) Place the rolled dough with parchment paper onto a baking sheet and use a pizza cutter to cut into cracker sized pieces. Bake chips for 10-15 minutes (longer if thicker). Once chips are baked, turn off the oven, remove and break the crackers. Spread the crackers on the baking tray and return to the oven for another 10 minutes with the oven door slightly opened. (this is to dry it out so it gets crispy) Allow crackers to cool completely before storing.
Tips:
Conversion Chart
You can adjust seasoning according to what you like. I like mine a little spicy so I add a chili powder mix of cayenne, chili, cumin, and paprika. These chips are perfect as a dip or a high fiber snack.
If you are using MyFitnessPal app to count calories, first copy the recipe URL then go to MyFitnessPal app to Recipes , select Create a New Recipe , then Add from the Web . Paste the URL, match ingredients and that’s it!
, select , then . Paste the URL, match ingredients and that’s it! Always match ingredients to the ones you use. Ingredient nutritional facts differ depending on brand.
Nutrition Facts (based on my ingredients) : Per serving (8 pieces) 124 kcal, Total Fat – 9 g, Total Carbs – 7 g, Fiber – 6 g = NET Carbs – 1 g, Protein – 4 g.
Enjoy! |
Welcome to BackerKit’s High-Five Interview where we ask creators 5 questions revolving around their projects, inspirations, and overall crowdfunding journey.
Artist Shaun Keenan decided to combine his lifelong love for dinosaurs with the iconic imagery of the old Wild West. He recently crowdfunded a hardcover art book consisting of over 130 black and white illustrations and paintings depicting dinosaurs and people of the old west coexisting. We recently spent some time talking to him about his project and his love for dinosaurs.
Why Crowdfunding?
I saw other artists I follow use crowdfunding to great success. Also, I’ve spent the last few years building my follower base on Instagram, so I knew I had an established core group of people who were fans of my work that would help support the project.
What’s the coolest crowdfunding project you’ve ever seen? (Besides your own of course)
The coolest project I’ve seen crowdfunded is called “Beasts of the Mesozoic: Raptor series action figures.” It’s a series of fully articulated scientifically accurate dinosaur action figures beautifully sculpted and painted.
How did BackerKit change your overall experience?
BackerKit is great because it simplifies the logistics of managing backers. I really love the pre-order store option to allow people who missed out on the Kickstarter campaign to still pick up items.
Do you have any hobbies and/or collect anything?
I have a modest collection of dinosaur figures and sculptures, lego sets, model air planes/jets, and various action figures. Mostly nostalgic things from my youth.
What’s next? Any upcoming projects you want to share?
I definitely have some ideas that I’ve been kicking around for my next project, but I don’t have anything specific to share right now.
BONUS ROUND!
Obvious question, what’s your favorite dinosaur?
I’m going to have to cheat and give you two favorite dinosaurs; Allosaurus and Styracosaurus.
Favorite Western film, and favorite Dinosaur film?
My favorite western movie is 2007’s 3:10 to Yuma, and my favorite dinosaur movie is of course Jurassic Park. I’d like to give an honorable mention to “Dinosaur” which was a TV documentary special from 1985 hosted by Christopher Reeve. It had amazing stop motion animation sequences that really inspired me as a kid.
What are some of your art influences?
The classic Disney animated films and shorts were a huge influence on me. James Gurney, who created Dinotopia, and Ray Harryhausen’s creatures and movies where also a huge inspiration growing up.
There’s still time to pre-order copies of the hardcover book and a slew of cool prints on BackerKit’s Dinosaurs of the Wild West pre-order page! |
In Canada, 67-year-old Linda Gibbons has served 10-years and seven months in prison for peacefully protesting in front of abortion facilities. The National Post reports that access to abortion in Canada is unrestricted and some provincial health plans pay for the procedure.
At abortion clinics, Gibbons always brings the same sign, which features a drawing of a baby and reads, “Why mom? When I have so much love to give.” Gibbons also holds a 10-week model of an unborn baby in her hand and paces quietly on public sidewalks.
However, Canada has a so-called “bubble zone” law that prohibits pro-life activists from peaceful protesting within 500 feet of abortion facilities. In fact, Gibbons was arrested earlier this week in front of the Morgentaler clinic, which is an abortion facility located in Northern Toronto that has an “extensive security system,” according to the clinic s website.
Journalist Christie Blatchford said the following about Gibbons: “Those, like Gibbons, who still care about abortion, are profoundly unfashionable, regarded as cranks. Perhaps that’s why she’s also probably the country’s most ignored serious criminal. But for a handful of people — unusually, the National Post was there to watch and Gibbons had several supporters on the sidelines — her arrest proceeded quietly and without fuss.”
Here’s more about Gibbons recent arrest:
When the sheriff showed up Wednesday to read the paperwork aloud three times, the forbidden conduct included “impeding, interfering with, blocking and obstructing” clinic patients; “distracting” or “attempting to distract” or otherwise “interrupting” the business of the clinic; “supporting or condoning” actions that might interrupt the business. Click here to sign up for daily pro-life news alerts from LifeNews.com I think you’d be hard-pressed to conclude Gibbons did any of that. She walked her solitary path in front of the entrance; she didn’t chant, sing, or pray; she didn’t stop anyone. The Garda guys were more of an impediment than this 67-year-old woman. “Do you understand the court order?” the sheriff asked after each reading. “Linda, do you understand?” Then, after the third time, “Linda, you’re in breach of a court order.” Gibbons didn’t reply but once, when she told the sheriff: “You arrest me while allowing the murder of babies? You have blood on your hands.” She didn’t resist. She doesn’t sign her fingerprints. She doesn’t speak to her jailers. She won’t sign bail. She never speaks in court, where for most of the past two decades, she has been unrepresented (she has had a lawyer for the past few years). As she sees it, her silence honors the unborn. “The Supreme Court says the one you want to say you’re defending doesn’t exist … Nobody is there until the baby is born.”
In 2013, Gibbons was arrested for protesting abortion inside a no protest zone and given the maximum sentence for her “crime,” six months and 29 days. As LifeNews previously reported, in 2012, Gibbons was the recipient of the Mother Teresa Pro-Life Award at the National Pro-Life Conference banquet. Additionally, she received the Governor General of Canada’s Diamond Jubilee Medal from MP Maurice Vellacott in recognition of her “contribution to Canada”.
Monica Roddis, the president of LifeCanada , gave the award to Gibbons. At the ceremony, Gibbons said, “I have a moral responsibility not to obey an unjust law. I stand before you as one person who has chosen a certain walk.” She added, “Pro-life can be very difficult and challenging, demanding that we give that little bit more and go that extra mile because we want to show that our love is genuine.” |
A handful of neighborhoods in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens and the Bronx will have high-speed WiFi access available for businesses and residents by the end of this year. NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced an expansion today that'll roll out over the next few months, lighting up parts of downtown Brooklyn, lower Manhattan, Harlem and other areas by December 2013. Companies have invested $3.4 million in the new infrastructure, and the city has contributed $900,000 to get the job done. We're still a long way from having a city blanketed in completely free high-speed wireless internet, but with widespread availability in key areas, thousands of residents and smaller businesses should be able to drop their current internet providers before the ball drops to welcome 2014.
[Image source: AP/Frank Franklin II] |
President Trump had another busy day on Thursday: He received his daily intelligence briefing, signed two executive orders, posed for photographs in the Oval Office and was interviewed at the White House by NBC News. He also found time to reignite his decade-long feud with the comedian Rosie O’Donnell.
Mr. Trump shared a message on Twitter by Ms. O’Donnell from December in what appears to be his latest attempt to prove that even his critics truly support his decision to fire the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey. The president has highlighted past criticism by Democrats about Mr. Comey and noted on Thursday afternoon that even his longtime foe once wanted the F.B.I. director gone.
Ms. O’Donnell wrote on Dec. 20, “FIRE COMEY.” Mr. Trump shared her tweet and added, “We finally agree on something Rosie.” |
Horse bones are incredibly dense and fairly difficult to break, but when they do break they do not heal well, easily, or quickly and are very prone to infection. Most would die a slow painful death from infection, even with antibiotics and other medical care. Those that survive would most likely not have full use of the leg, and have a leg prone to break again.
There are several reasons:
Horses are pretty weird anatomically – they have no muscles below the knee. Part of their ability to run super fast is this really incredible tendon/ligament system – muscles higher on the body load the tendons and ligaments with huge amounts of power (picture a spring). Because of this, the bones in their lower leg (which is almost always where they break) are relatively very thin but also generating massive power. This ratio is much more extreme in the horse than other animals, so it means that solving it with a few pins like you might in other animals won’t do the trick. In addition, this massive power makes it more likely that the horse will basically shatter the bone rather than just a simple break or fracture . Also, they’re just really big. foundering – if the horse can’t move his legs around, he can’t circulate blood through properly and it somewhat pools in the hoof and the attachments of the hoof to the bottom of the leg weaken. Compare this to a human or dog, where we can wiggle our toes and whatnot to help move circulation through – remember, horses have no muscles below the knee. Trying to keep a horse from moving around for any extended period of time is a nightmare. There’s a saying I heard that all horses have two goals in life: homicide and suicide. They will colic and die if a bird looks at them wrong. In addition to the possibility of foundering, a horse is pretty likely to just lose his marbles if you try to keep them sedentary for too long – they may try to climb out of their stall, break whatever apparatus they’re in, colic (severe and sometimes fatal stomach ache), get ulcers and whatever else. You can’t force them to lay on their side for very long at all – they’re too heavy and will have difficulty breathing and damage nerves.
When deciding whether or not to save an animal, quality of life must always be considered. A dog may do perfectly well and have a wonderful life in a cast for a while and then with a moderate limp – this is not true for horses. Further, cost can be very prohibitive; it’s worth it for very very expensive horses (think Barbaro) but for your average pleasure horse, the cost and pain is just not worth it or generally feasible.
The physical difficulty of getting an isolated horse bone to heal well is what leads to the difficulty in treating it. It’s incredibly physiologically stressful on the horse. Healthy horses spend like 18-22 hours of a given day standing on all four legs and meandering. If a horse breaks its leg, it must be literally immobilized for weeks in order to not put any weight on the leg, until the healing process is stable. But horses who cannot stand, who are kept laying down, develop a multitude of other problems – laminitis, difficult breathing, sores, lameness in other ligaments/tendons/muscles/etc. You’d be extinguishing a grease fire in the kitchen, only to turn around and realize the wildfire from the forest had consumed the rest of your house.
horses are resistant to anything containing their leg. When you put support wraps on a horse who’s about to take a long trailer ride or be stabled for a while (to help with circulation when they can’t walk around), a horse who has never had wraps on will spend some time kicking their legs out and high-stepping, until they figure out the wraps aren’t going to hurt them. That doesn’t even bring the hoof into the equation – horses with items on their feet (even if it’s a boot with medicinal stuff like poultice or antibacterial soak that’s making them feel better) will go to extreme lengths to get That Thing off their foot – kicking, stamping, flinging, chewing at their own leg. If you were going to effectively cast a horse with a broken leg, it may need its foot casted, which it would not like, and it’d probably need to spend the whole time sedated.
And, lastly, you may have seen other animals with broken legs that have healed, right? Dogs, cats, etc. However, those animals don’t need to put weight on their leg, and don’t need it for their gait in the same way that a horse does. Cats and dogs frequently find a way to walk on three legs, but due to a horse’s skeletal structure and the way they’re gaited, they simply can’t walk or support themselves long-term on only three legs, let alone trot/canter/pace/etc. If you were going to go to extremes and consider amputation, you’d have to look into expensive and sophisticated prosthetics. |
The Environmental Protection Agency has named 21 contaminated sites across the country, including one in Nashua, where it aims to make quick progress on cleanup or redevelopment.
Mohawk Tannery is an old leather processing facility on the Nashua River. It was open until the 1980s, and used to dump chromium and zinc into the water.
The EPA says the tannery left toxic sludge in unlined disposal areas along the river, but it doesn't pose an immediate health risk.
The site is not yet on the EPA's "National Priorities List," which would make it an official Superfund site. Mohawk is one of four sites on the list that isn't actually a Superfund yet, and it's one of only a few with a redevelopment goal.
The EPA's list also includes a site in Providence, and some of the riskiest, most contaminated areas in the country, such as a drinking water basin in Orange County, California, and a lead-contaminated residential area in Indiana.
New Hampshire has twenty other current or former Superfunds, including at least four active cleanups.
Mohawk's addition to the list has been delayed for years, as cleanup and redevelopment efforts moved forward. Its development potential is apparently what landed Mohawk on the EPA's new list of sites it says are "targeted for immediate, intense action."
The EPA says its administrator, Scott Pruitt, will give all the listed sites direct attention, and move Superfunds on and off the list as their goals are met. |
Israeli Jews have two big concerns about Donald Trump’s visit here today and tomorrow. First that he will shut down traffic in the city. Second, that he will push for a peace deal and the creation of a Palestinian state. They’re not interested.
“We are afraid more than we hope,” said Elhanan, 71, a retired teacher. “If Trump pushes, after the blah blah blah and the etcetera and the hot air, everyone will find that the Israeli maximum is much lower than the Palestinian minimum. Nothing good will come of it. This is a 100 years war.”
These ideas were echoed again and again in interviews I had with 20 Jewish Israelis in Jerusalem. Israeli Jews fear the Palestinians far more than they trust them, and though they want little to do with them, the answer is not a Palestinian state.
“I don’t know if their own state is the solution,” Oded, a 32-year-old lawyer, told me on King George Street in Jewish West Jerusalem. “I don’t know what they [the Palestinians] are fighting for. They have a good life with us. They don’t want to vote…. I know there are problems with water, and facilities. But I think if they try to open themselves…. they can manage to live with us.”
Donald Trump will surely envy Benjamin Netanyahu. He has achieved what Trump has not: he has unified Israeli Jews of right and left in a fearful nationalism on an ethnic basis. He has helped create a broad Jewish center to which there is no real opposition.
Several of the Jews I talked to were leftists, but they are so demoralized by a long conflict that they go along with the Netanyahu agenda, of security first, for the Jewish state.
“I am on the left. I think we are wrong. I don’t think we are right,” said Dahlia, 71. “But I don’t want Arabs in my state. They are too different from us. I am afraid of them. I think they’re violent. I don’t think it’s their nature, but their culture. I don’t think they’re a nation. They came from I don’t know where.”
She said she hates religious Jews. “Hate. Really hate. I think they are stupid.” But Dahlia still desires a Jewish state. “I don’t want a two people state. I want one state for the Jews. Because of the culture. I love Israel. I love the language. They are people like myself. The Arabs, I don’t like their culture.”
I asked her how many Arabs she knew and she said one. Then she conceded that that one was not violent.
These Jewish Israelis both echo and reinforce Netanyahu’s achievement: between a Jewish state and a democratic state, they have already chosen. They want a Jewish state. Liberal Zionists in the United States like to say that the situation is still in play, that Israel is a Jewish democracy. But talk with these Jewish Israelis and they are clear about the purpose of Zionism: a Jewish state is more important than rights for Palestinians.
“The west doesn’t understand the east. We understand them,” says an Egyptian-born art gallery owner of 70 near the King David Hotel. “I don’t think Trump can do anything. There is no partner. We live with Arabs, that’s how we know what they are thinking. They work with Israel, but their heart is dirty: they hate, they want all the land.”
This man was a militant rightwing voter. But how different are the ideas of a young leftleaning couple on King George Street? When I suggest that Palestinians should all have the right to vote, Lala, who has a nose ring, shakes her head and says that would undermine the Jewish character of the state. While her companion, Guy, who has long hair and wears shorts, says that there are many people under American sovereignty who cannot vote, from illegal immigrants to people living in territories.
And Elhanan, the retired schoolteacher, says that while he used to vote left, he has an “internal schism” now because the left is unrealistic. The only way there will be a Palestinian state is if the Israeli army is on all the hilltops there. “Rather than a Palestinian state, it is much easier for most of us to believe there will be coexistence, commercial peace,” he says.
As so many Jewish Israelis do, Elhanan mentions the Palestinians who are proud to have participated in attacks on Israelis.
“We are afraid…. We have a long memory. Maybe some of it is somehow exaggerated. The Holocaust is quite fresh with everyone. It’s always present in our mentality. It’s really present,” he says.
While Nehama, 59, a former bookstore owner, says it more bluntly: “I don’t think they can have any state because they… say Jewish people have no right to Israel. They are like the Nazis.”
These Jews speak almost with one mind, about Jewish fears that underline the necessity for a Jewish state. It would be easy to say that they are indoctrinated, except that the springs of these ideas are so deep. Netanyahu echoes these feelings brilliantly, and never dares to try to lead his people anywhere.
At a music-and-light-show celebration of the 50th anniversary of the unification of Jerusalem last night, Netanyahu spoke, as tens of thousands of nearly 100,000 Israeli Jews were jammed into the streets near the Old City. Outwardly they were extremely diverse. Most men did not wear yarmulkes, there were many young seculars.
They sang along to anthems about a Jewish Jerusalem. They cheered the giant “50” in fireworks that appeared in the sky, and the Jewish star too. They regarded the Six Day War as a wonderful achievement. There was no expression of doubt or misgiving: no awareness that half the population that surrounds them is so left out by Zionism. |
Advertisement Patriots' Robert Kraft 'disappointed' by President Trump's comments on NFL Share Shares Copy Link Copy
President Donald Trump and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft have a long and well-documented friendship, but Trump's latest comments about the NFL have led Kraft to feel "disappointed."The president has bemoaned players sitting or kneeling in protest during the national anthem, and tweeted that players should be fired or suspended for engaging in such demonstrations. He also encouraged fans to force the league to take action by boycotting games. “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, you’d say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired,” Trump said during a rally speech in Alabama."I am deeply disappointed by the tone of the comments made by the President on Friday," Kraft said in his statement, issued by the team. "I am proud to be associated with so many players who make such tremendous contributions in positively impacting our communities. Their efforts, both on and off the field, help bring people together and make our community stronger. There is no greater unifier in this country than sports, and unfortunately, nothing more divisive than politics. I think our political leaders could learn a lot from the lessons of teamwork and the importance of working together toward a common goal. Our players are intelligent, thoughtful and care deeply about our community and I support their right to peacefully affect social change and raise awareness in a manner that they feel is most impactful.”Safety Devin McCourty, a Patriots team captain, also responded to Trump's comment, saying, “(People) said it was disrespectful not going to the White House. I’m sure they are quiet about us being called ‘sons of bitches.’"The two-time Super Bowl champion was among several Patriots who did not attend the team’s visit to the White House in April. Tom Brady was among those who did not attend, citing family issues.McCourty is also no stranger to demonstrating during the national anthem. Before the Patriots first regular season game against the Arizona Cardinals in 2016, McCourty and former Patriot Martellus Bennett raised their right fists in the air after the conclusion of the anthem.The NFL put out a statement Saturday in response to Trump's comments saying, "Divisive comments like these demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL, our great game and all of our players, and a failure to understand the overwhelming force for good our clubs and players represent in our communities."Executive director of the NFL Players Association DeMaurice Smith said the union won't back down from protecting players' constitutional rights. |
Christopher Howard never thought he would see the inside of a jail cell.
Growing up in a “dysfunctional family” in Gainesville, Florida, with an alcoholic uncle, a drug-addicted mother, and a wheelchair-bound grandmother, Howard dreamed of moving to New York and making it in the film industry. After a few unsatisfying years at Gainesville’s Santa Fe Community College, he dropped out and moved to a town in New Jersey, right across the Hudson River from Manhattan.
Soon enough, Howard, a tall African-American man with a deep voice and hazel eyes, began booking modeling and acting gigs and working as a waiter at Le Pain Quotidian to keep a steady income coming in. He quickly moved up the ranks, and now, at 30, owns his own production company, lives alone in a two-bedroom apartment, and has an eleven-month old daughter, Lian, whom he dotes upon. From his perspective, he’d beaten the odds. He’d left Florida and built the life he wanted.
But one afternoon this May, Howard found himself sitting behind bars at the NYPD’s 5th precinct in Chinatown.
“I was terrified,” he said, sipping a Blue Moon at Borough, a restaurant a few blocks from his apartment in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill. “I just have never wanted to be in that position at all in my life.”
Howard had been on a production job, driving a van to cross the Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn, when he was pulled over for running a stop sign. The sign was obscured by a double-parked car and he hadn’t seen it, as he explained to the officer who stopped him. The cop was sympathetic and told him he just needed to run his license before he could let him go. Moments later he returned and told Howard he had an open arrest warrant for an unpaid traffic ticket and would need to be taken to jail. Despite protesting that he had paid all outstanding tickets when he’d reinstated his license in Florida several years before, Howard was handcuffed next to the van, on a busy stretch of Canal street, and taken away in a squad car.
Howard’s story is surprisingly common. There are currently 1.2 million arrest warrants open in New York City. Many of the people who have them have no idea that these warrants exist, and many of the warrants themselves date back years, even decades.
The vast majority of warrants occur when people who receive summons for minor violations, such as riding a bike on the sidewalk or drinking a beer in public, fail to appear in court. Once they miss their court date, a bench warrant is issued for their arrest, meaning any interaction with a police officer, in which their ID is run and the warrant shows up, results in them being handcuffed and taken to the nearest precinct. For reasons ranging from lost tickets to lack of funds to pay fines to simple neglect, a full 40 percent of those ticketed failed to appear in court last year. These open warrants can interfere with their ability to find jobs, receive public housing, and achieve legal immigration status.
“I don’t think anyone’s freedom should be toyed around with so lightly.”
After more than two decades of unchanged policy, New York City may finally address this defective system. Police reform groups, City Council members and even Police Commissioner William Bratton—the architect of New York City’s “broken windows” crime-fighting strategy—have acknowledged the need to reconsider how low-level offenses are processed by the courts. Amnesty has emerged as a starting point. The Brooklyn District Attorney recently piloted a program, Begin Again, which allows New Yorkers with open warrants to have their cases cleared at a church or other community space, bypassing the traditional court system entirely.
Surprisingly, Bratton voiced support for this type of policy, which has long been pushed by reform groups.
“It would be great to get rid of a lot of that backlog,” Bratton said in an interview with the Associated Press. “It’s not to our benefit from a policing standpoint to have all those warrants floating around out there.”
Amnesty would allow people to pay their fines and have their records cleared without the burden of going to court. It would mean that someone like Christopher Howard wouldn’t have ended up behind bars for a crime he hadn’t even known he’d committed.
As Councilman Antonio Reynoso, co-chair of City Council’s Progressive Caucus, put it in a phone interview: “I don’t think anyone’s freedom should be toyed around with so lightly.”
The tremendous number of open warrants in New York City is one of many unintended consequences of “broken windows,” a policing strategy first implemented in 1994 under Mayor Rudy Giuliani and then-Commissioner Bratton to address a spiraling crime rate. Influenced by a 1982 article published in The Atlantic by social scientists James Wilson and George Kelling, the broken windows theory argues that aggressively pursuing minor, so-called “quality of life” offenses prevents the kind of community disorder that allows more serious crime to flourish.
Twenty-one years later, with those same policies firmly in place, there is no disputing that New York is now one of the safest big cities in the country. According to Commissioner Bratton’s annual policing report, issued in April, the once-dangerous, sprawling subway system saw “fewer than six crimes a day on average.”
But a heated debate rages about the extent to which “broken windows” policing deserves credit for this welcome outcome. Commissioner Bratton insists that the aggressive pursuit of these crimes is crucial to maintaining law and order in our newly cleaned-up city, and that retreating from this strategy could cause crime to skyrocket. In a City Journal article from January, co-authored with Kelling, Bratton writes, “A neighborhood where minor offenses go unchallenged soon becomes a breeding ground for more serious criminal activity and, ultimately, for violence…. Thousands of police interventions on the street” have “restored order and civility across the five boroughs.”
“It’s this belief that if we let the brown people have some slack, all hell will break loose.”
Critics of this strategy argue that crime declined drastically across the country over the last two decades, even in cities that don’t use broken windows techniques, and that devoting police and court resources towards pursuing and processing minor offenses is wasteful. They insist that there’s no proof that people who drink a beer in the park or hop a subway turnstile are ever going to commit more serious crimes, and point to studies proving the damaging psychological effects of exposing people to the criminal justice system for such minor infractions.
Bob Gangi, director of the Police Reform Organizing Project, put it bluntly: “It’s really fucked up,” he says. “In addition to being blatantly racist and immoral, it’s counterproductive, it’s wasteful, it’s not a serious crime-fighting strategy.”
Broken windows and other signs of disorder are also signs of poverty, and opponents of the strategy say it is a way of criminalizing poor, marginalized communities with little ability to push back politically against intrusive policing. “The neighborhoods where people can least afford it are where all the fines are happening,” Reynoso says.
Commissioner Bratton and NYPD officials insist they are merely enforcing the law in areas with the highest rates of crime, which happen to be predominantly minority communities in the outer boroughs. Still, the sheer scale of the effort is remarkable: In stark contrast to the annual rate of only a few thousand criminal cases a year, the NYPD issued 458,000 quality of life summons in 2014. The list of summonsable offenses is staggering. You can be fined for walking between subway cars, putting a backpack on a subway seat, or using a friend’s MetroCard to enter the subway. Loitering (even in front of your own building), being in a park after 1 a.m., and jaywalking can all result in court summons, depending on the officer’s discretion.
Advocates for reform make a convincing case that the same nonviolent offenses are essentially decriminalized in some areas and aggressively pursued in others. Between 2008 and 2011, police issued an average of eight bike-on-the-sidewalk summonses per year in the tony, mostly-white Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope. During the same period, 2,050 were issued per year for the same offense in the poor, mostly-black neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. A New York Civil Liberties Union calculation of race data on summons forms found that around 81 percent of the 7.3 million people who received court summons for minor infractions between 2001 and 2013 were black and Hispanic.
Councilman Rory Lancman, who represents the 24th district in northern Queens, supports broken-windows enforcement; in fact, he thinks there’s not enough of it. He just thinks it should be done in a fairer way, and acknowledges that the racial disparity is deeply problematic. “It’s this belief that if we let the black and brown people have some slack—have the same slack that we give to white people—all hell will break loose,” he says. “There’s something visceral about the desire and need to try to control black and brown people.”
Manhattan Criminal Court is housed in an imposing marble building on Centre Street that occupies almost an entire city block. Adjacent to the Manhattan Detention Complex—known colloquially as “the Tombs”—the towering white structure is an architectural testament to the authority of the law. Inside, arrestees are brought into courtrooms to appear before a judge. The inner sanctum, where the judge sits, is crowded with public defenders, officers, and bailiffs, chatting and passing each other manila envelopes stuffed with paperwork. Public defenders meet with arrestees in booths on one side of the courtroom, while officers and those waiting for loved one’s cases to be heard sit in low wooden benches facing the judge’s stand. The benches are engraved with hastily scratched words: “Willie,” “Jay,” “Chris,” “Fuck NYPD.”
Summons court may be inconvenient, but criminal court is a bona fide ordeal. The people appearing before the judge have been held for several hours or even overnight. Some are repeat offenders who have been arrested on felony charges like armed robbery or possession of a deadly weapon. But many others, brought in because of open warrants, have never been arrested before. When they walk up to speak to the judge, their handcuffs are removed, but many keep their hands crossed behind their backs as if they were still bound.
Several of the people interviewed for this story didn’t quite seem to know the boundaries of the law: what offenses they could be arrested for, whether their tickets had left them with open warrants, or what the statute of limitations was.
On a recent Wednesday, Marcus Green, a skinny African-American man with tattoos running up his forearms, was leaving court after spending the night and much of the day in jail. Green had been arrested for a bench warrant when he was caught smoking a blunt on the stoop of his building on west 131st Street. He said he was unaware that any warrant existed, or that smoking marijuana in public was still an arrestable offense. (NYC decriminalized the possession of less than 25 grams in 2014, but smoking it in public remains illegal.)
“I didn’t think I had a warrant for anything, but I still ended up down here,” Green said. “Okay, so I’m sitting outside smoking. It’s late at night. I’m not making any noise. I’m just enjoying the weather. But there’s gunshots going off uptown. You don’t go uptown; you come bother me over a blunt.”
Most of the defendants who appeared before the judge that day shared Green’s demographic background: young, non-white and working-class. But more privileged New Yorkers get caught up in the system, too.
Mike*, a white 31-year-old film editor who has a mop of curly bleached blonde hair, believes his arrest this summer was the result of a court processing error.
“That’s a shitty way to go to jail,” he says.
Last fall, Mike mailed a $25 personal check to the court after being ticketed for carrying an open container of beer outside Bushwick’s Morgan Avenue L station. (Fines for open containers and public urination, two of the most common offenses, can be paid by mail). He researched the payment details online, and made sure to write the ticket number on the envelope and check like he was supposed to. But in June of this year, he was arrested by undercover cops at the Marcy Avenue J station after a friend let him in through the emergency exit gate. The reason? A check of his driver’s license turned up an open warrant for the unpaid drinking ticket.
Despite explaining to the officers that he’d already paid the fine, he was taken first to the 73rd precinct at Broadway Junction in Bed-Stuy, then to the Detention Center in downtown Brooklyn. He spent the next 12 hours behind bars, being transferred from cell to crowded cell as night turned to morning. The jail population, he said, was “.001 percent white.”
“What you see cops doing on television, that’s what we want cops to do.”
Some of the defendants were aggressive and shouted at the guards, or at each other. One, who claimed to be withdrawing from methadone, rattled the bars of the cell screaming for a cigarette, and at about 3 in the morning, an older alcoholic man went into a seizure from alcohol withdrawal. Blood dripped from his mouth onto the cell floor.
Mike was released with an Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal, or ACD, which means that his case will be dismissed as long as he stays out of trouble for six months. Still, he calls his time in jail “emotionally and physically” draining. “I wouldn’t want anyone to have to go through the experience I did.”
The Police Reform Organizing Project (PROP) is run out of the sprawling, paper-strewn Upper West Side apartment of its director, Bob Gangi. A genial, bald Italian from Queens, Gangi met me at the front door wearing a PROP t-shirt with the group’s signature handcuff logo, and accompanied by his beloved white Lhasa Apso puppy, Harry. Since founding PROP in 2011, Gangi has paid close attention to the way summonses are issued and misdemeanor arrests are processed in New York City. What he’s found, he says, is a “discriminatory and abusive” method of policing that amounts to “institutionalized bullying.”
“What you see cops doing on television, that’s what we want cops to do,” Gangi said, scratching Harry behind the ears. “We want them to investigate serious crimes, devote their energies to catching people who are dangerous and predatory and get them off the streets…We are not interested in modifications or clipping around the hedges.”
Gangi points to the three-week period in late December and early January when the NYPD engaged in a force-wide slowdown, following the fatal shooting of two NYPD officers, as an example of the kind of policework he believes should be prioritized. During the slowdown, arrests declined by 66 percent and summonses by 90 percent. And many believe the city was better for it. Gangi says there was no report of any police officer who engaged in the work stoppage not intervening in a serious crime.
The NYPD’s press office and the Patrolman’s Benevolent Association, the largest police union, did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this article.
What concerns Gangi, and many who oppose the aggressive enforcement of broken windows, is that it disproportionately affects the poorest and most vulnerable residents of the city, including ethnic minorities, mentally ill people, sex workers, street vendors and the homeless. This in turn damages the already strained relationship between the police and marginalized communities. People who are suspicious of law enforcement are less likely to appear in court to resolve their tickets, and therefore more likely to be issued bench warrants.
“This is not John Dillinger out on the lam,” says Nancy Fishman, a project director at the Vera Institute of Justice. “You have a number of people arrested for low-level offenses who are in fragile housing situations, who are mentally ill, who have lives that are not easily placed in datebooks so they miss dates.” Then, once they do, “they’re afraid to show up in court because they think they’re going to be arrested and put in jail.”
Ulises Martinez, an undocumented immigrant from the Mexican state of Guerrero, can relate. Back in 2000, when he was 17, he and a few friends were arrested for smoking a joint in the doorway of a building on 14th street. He went to two court-appointed days of community service, but missed the third because he needed to call in for his job as a delivery boy. Going to court already made him nervous because of his undocumented status, and he figured he could just avoid getting in trouble with police again. Unbeknownst to him, after missing the third appearance, a warrant was issued for his arrest.
“To have your freedom taken away even for an hour is a really horrible feeling.”
On a recent June morning, the 32-year-old was stopped by NYPD officers after asking for and receiving a free swipe on a stranger’s MetroCard at Hunt’s Point station in the Bronx. They arrested him on the spot after a check of his ID turned up a bench warrant from the marijuana arrest 15 years earlier.
After a day in jail, a newly-released Martinez sat on the steps outside Manhattan Criminal Court, breathing in the early summer air. He wore thick-framed glasses and an Old Navy Athletics t-shirt, his long hair tied up in a braid. As the sky above the courthouse turned purple, he talked in Spanish about coming to the United States as an unaccompanied 14-year-old to meet his father in Queens, and the constant fear of living as an immigrant without papers.
“I was terrified,” Martinez said about his arrest that morning. “I thought they were going to send me back to Mexico. That’s what happens when they arrest you and you’re undocumented.”
Amnesty for open warrants offers one of the most feasible and politically palatable police reforms, uniting those who want quality of life crimes to be enforced and those who want immediate changes. It retains the principle that offenders are accountable to the courts, helps alleviate an overwhelming administrative backlog, and doesn’t dictate how the police should treat minor infractions in the future—a far more complicated conversation.
While Bratton and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s stated support for such policies is promising, any amnesty effort would have to be approved by New York City’s five district attorneys and the Office of Court Administration (OCA), which oversees the cases themselves.
“This is a very sensible way of trying to clear the backlog of cases,” Councilman Lancman says. “But I don’t think Commissioner Bratton can just decide to hit a button and eliminate arrest warrants.”
There are alternatives, some already in motion. In June, the office of Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson held an event called Begin Again at Clinton Hill’s Emanuel Baptist Church, in cooperation with local clergy, the Legal Aid Society, OCA, and the NYPD. More than 1,000 people with open warrants came from all five boroughs to meet with attorneys and plead before a judge. 670 had their records cleared.
The event was such a success that Thompson plans to replicate it in other Brooklyn neighborhoods, and sent a letter to de Blasio urging his support for the plan. Similar programs have already been successfully implemented in other major cities, including Atlanta and Tulsa.
Combined with recent reforms to summons court, advocates say amnesty could make a significant difference in how minor violations are processed. It would mean fewer people would have to grapple with the psychological damage of being jailed without warning.
Christopher Howard, the producer arrested for not paying a parking ticket, recalls the experience this way: “I don’t like to be out of control. To be in a situation where you can do nothing, no matter how much you want to—it really fucked with my head.”
As Howard talked, a torrential summer downpour flooded the street outside. The restaurant owner kept the windows flung open, turning up the R&B pumping over the stereo to cover the sound of raindrops hitting the pavement.
“To have your freedom taken away even for an hour is a really horrible feeling,” he continued. “I would have loved to spend the rest of my life saying I’d never seen the inside of a cell before.”
*Mike preferred not to use his full name to avoid any possible retaliation from employers. |
I thought I would share due to the recent question of “What is the reason you work out?” I saw a lot of posts about physical attraction but little to none about mental satisfaction. I am depressed all the time and rarely happy but working out seems to be the only thing that makes me happy anymore and the only thing that actually brings me joy and at some points makes me feel like it is the only reason I want to live. My dream to better my life started here and this subreddit might be the only thing keeping it going. I was just curious if anyone else felt the same way I did?
Edit: it's amazing to see all the responses on here. I figured I was not in the same boat but it definitely helps to get it off my chest and hear it from others. I hope we all have crazy gains in the future along with happiness.
Edit 2: I don't know how to comment on my own post so I'm going to just keep doing edits but just wanted to say I appreciate all the love around here. Fitness truly does bring people together. I hope you guys all continue to workout and improve yourselves I know I will. |
The battle between Donald Trump and Fox News is back with a vengeance.
Fox wants the famously non-apologetic presidential candidate to apologize for his latest round of attacks against Megyn Kelly.
"Donald Trump's surprise and unprovoked attack on Megyn Kelly during her show last night is as unacceptable as it is disturbing," Fox News chairman Roger Ailes said Tuesday afternoon.
He added, "Donald Trump rarely apologizes, although in this case, he should."
Trump almost instantly responded -- not with an apology but with a fresh shot at Kelly. And during a news conference Tuesday evening he dismissed Kelly.
"I don't care about Megyn Kelly," he said during a news conference. "She should probably apologize to me, but I just don't care."
Trump has been furious with the 9 p.m. host ever since she questioned him at Fox's GOP debate on August 6.
In a new storm of tweets on Monday night, Trump said Kelly -- back from a 10 day vacation -- was "off her game" and suggested she should be replaced. He retweeted people who called her a "bimbo" and "a waste."
Ailes was infuriated. In a statement Tuesday he assailed Trump's "verbal assaults," praised Kelly's journalistic chops and said "all of us at Fox News Channel reject the crude and irresponsible attempts to suggest otherwise."
"I fully support her as she continues to ask the probing and challenging questions that all presidential candidates may find difficult to answer," he said.
Within an hour Trump had put out his own statement.
"I totally disagree with the Fox statement," he said. "I do not think Megyn Kelly is a quality journalist. I think her questioning of me, despite all of the polls saying I won the debate, was very unfair. Hopefully in the future I will be proven wrong and she will be able to elevate her standards to a level of professionalism that a network such as Fox deserves."
In a final tweak, Trump added, "I will be in Iowa tonight with my speech being broadcast live on CNN and other networks."
Will he appear on Fox again this week, given his renewed criticism of Kelly? The network is not currently promoting any upcoming appearances.
The candidate recoiled at Kelly's tough questioning at Fox's debate when she pressed him on crude comments he had made about women, and he has been complaining about her pretty much ever since.
For Fox, the situation has been exceedingly delicate. Ailes views Kelly as the network's biggest star -- particularly looking ahead to the coming years -- but also knows Trump is an important news story, a highly influential figure and a ratings magnet.
Ailes tried to broker a truce with Trump on August 10, but it didn't last long. Ailes is now fed up with Trump's "disgraceful" behavior, according to a person close to Ailes.
Fox personalities by and large refrained from talking about Trump's earlier attacks against Kelly. But on Monday they were given the thumbs-up to defend her.
Trump is "totally out of control" and his Twitter attacks are "totally unwarranted," Kelly's colleague Brian Kilmeade said on "Fox & Friends" Tuesday morning.
Jedediah Bila, a rotating host of the 12 p.m. talk show "Outnumbered," called Trump's comments about Kelly "childish and in poor taste."
Anchor Bret Baier, who moderated the debate alongside Kelly, tweeted that Trump "has made his feelings clear. But THIS needs to stop."
Bill Hemmer, a morning news anchor on Fox, flagged the "bimbo" retweet and wrote, "Easy, Mr. Trump."
Geraldo Rivera also weighed in, writing, "Wish pal @realDonaldTrump would cool feud with @megynkelly Point is made boss. Now world needs you to use bully pulpit to address big issues."
And Dana Perino, co-host of "The Five," wrote, "The intelligence, class & grace of Megyn Kelly shined last night after her week's vacation with her family."
Related: Roger Ailes and Donald Trump avoid 'war'
Related: Fox News knocks Trump over Megyn Kelly 'conspiracy theories'
Kelly has sought to take the high road. While some Trump supporters have pilloried her on social networking sites, her ratings haven't been dented by the controversy. If anything, her debate performance and the ensuing controversy has lifted her profile and her ratings.
When Kelly went on vacation one week after the debate, Trump bought into the conspiracy theory that had circulated among his supporters that she'd been sidelined as a sort of punishment for her debate performance.
In fact, Kelly's vacation was scheduled well ahead of time, and Fox News called it "bizarre" that Trump would think otherwise.
On Monday, Kelly returned and Trump was watching. Before her 9 p.m. hour was over, he tweeted that "I liked The Kelly File much better without Megyn Kelly. Perhaps she could take another eleven day unscheduled vacation!"
Trump had appeared on another Fox News program, "The O'Reilly Factor," earlier in the evening.
Kilmeade seemingly went out of his way to defend Kelly on Tuesday morning, bringing up Trump's Twitter rant after covering Trump and Jeb Bush's latest squabble.
Trump is a frequent guest on "Fox & Friends," and Kilmeade called him a "friend," but had a sharply worded message for him.
"He is totally out of bounds reigniting that fight," Kilmeade said. "I don't know if he expects to get ratings out of that, or poll numbers, but he's not going to be successful."
He also said, "You can not, you should not, keep going after her."
The Fox hosts rallied around Kelly a day after Rupert Murdoch, whose media conglomerate owns Fox News, urged former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg to run for president in response to Trump becoming a "very serious candidate."
The Future of Media, a customized magazine |
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Venue Tickets Presale Password Saturday
Mar 11 Glasgow, U.K. NEW
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall PASSWORD = harp Sunday
Mar 12 Gateshead, U.K. NEW
Sage One at Sage Gateshead PASSWORD = harp Monday
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The Palladium Tuesday
Mar 14 Paris, FR
Grand Rex Wednesday
Mar 15 Brussels, BE
Cirque Royal Thursday
Mar 16 Amsterdam, NL
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Auditorium Parco della Musica Monday
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Mar 29 Stuttgart, DE
Liederhalle Thursday
Mar 30 Munich, DE
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Apr 1 Leipzig, DE
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Also of particular interest is AMD/ATI is expecting to finally release Mantle in the next coming hours for games like Battlefield 4. Surprisingly LibreOffice also supports mantle as well according to the release notes. However you will need the 14.1 driver which is being compiled and uploaded at the time of this writing to utilize this feature. Mantle will accelerate lower-end CPUs by up to 300% in some tasks while having modest improvements for those with more recent powerful CPUs. Real niceties for those like myself on AMD phenom IIs with the later 7000 series cards.The only issue (some on Slashdot may say benefit ) is the lack of a ribbon UI. However, for recent articles about governments considering OpenOffice this release addresses shortcomings with the new active directory and GPO support." |
Once Eagles head coach Chip Kelly stops talking about how important Sunday's game against the Giants is, or how well cornerback Bradley Fletcher has played this year, get some truth serum in him and ask him what he wants for Christmas.
In an Oregon second, the name Marcus Mariota is sure to come out of Kelly's mouth in his usual rapid-fire fashion.
An unrealistic dream just a few weeks ago when the Eagles were 9-3 and hoping for a first-round bye in the playoffs, the chance of a different kind of Duck Dynasty coming to Philadelphia has become feasible, if not entirely possible.
Here is a five-step plan for how Kelly can get his Oregon quarterback on his Eagles roster for 2015.
Step One: Lose to the Giants on Sunday. A win and the Eagles are almost locked into the 20th pick in the draft. That's not going to help matters. A loss coupled with some help from around the league and the Eagles pick could rise to No. 15. This shouldn't be hard to accomplish. Just let Bill Davis have Bradley Fletcher cover Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham and let nature take its course.
Step Two: Stop telling everybody how great Mariota is. Even though as a NFL head coach Kelly is not supposed to talk about college players who have yet to declare for the draft, he gushes every time Mariota's name is mentioned. Go the other route. Next time you're on the radio, say how Mariota is a great college quarterback, but how his skills might not transfer to the NFL game. It worked for Buddy Ryan when he called Keith Byars "a medical reject''.
Step Three: Once the draft order is set, or at least the top part of the draft, which will happen right after Sunday's game, get on the phone. Offer that No. 15 pick and a second round pick and see what you can get in return. According to the Draft Trade Value Chart, the 7th, maybe even the 6th pick, is a fair exchange. You're on your way.
Step Four: Now sit and wait. Armed with either the 6th, or 7th, pick go into the week of the draft willing to deal. Talk with all of the teams in the top three and see what it takes to make the next move. Another first-round pick? Maybe a player, or two? Anyone want an almost-new linebacker with low mileage (only 74 plays) in near mint condition? Oakland, Jacksonville and maybe even Tampa Bay, who currently would be No. 1, may all be willing to deal. The Bucs might actually like Nick Foles, he has beaten them twice.
Step Five: If you can't get all the way to the top, and there's the possibility that the team picking No. 1 is going to take Mariota, then it's up to the quarterback to get involved in this scheme. Mariota has to come out publicly and say "I'm not going to play for (fill in the blank). I want to go to the Eagles." Hey, it worked for John Elway and Eli Manning. Why not Mariota?
There you have it, five easy steps and Kelly has his quarterback. Now about fixing the secondary, we'll get to that later.
2015 NFL Draft 12-8-14 26 Gallery: 2015 NFL Draft 12-8-14
Follow Mark Eckel on Twitter at @MarkEckel08. Find NJ.com Sports on Facebook.Contact Mark Eckel at [email protected]. |
Eight women who say they were duped into forming long-term loving relationships with undercover policemen have started legal action against police chiefs, alleging that they have suffered intense emotional trauma and pain.
The women say the men "deliberately and knowingly deceived" them into forming intimate relationships of up to nine years by concealing their real identities.
They say the men, who had been sent to infiltrate protest groups, were using them "physically and emotionally" to obtain intelligence about those campaigns.
In an unprecedented move, they are now threatening to sue police chiefs as they say that the "deeply degrading" deceit caused them psychiatric and psychological injuries including depression, trauma, anxiety, anger and a difficulty to trust people again.
In legal papers sent to police chiefs, the women outline the scale of the alleged deception, saying that the relationships with five named men spanned from 1987 to last year. It is the first time that two of the men have been accused of being police spies.
The allegations contradict claims by police chiefs that their undercover officers are not permitted "under any circumstances" to sleep with people they are spying on.
Police chiefs claim it is "grossly unprofessional" and "never acceptable" for undercover officers to have sex with people they are targeting. The women were involved in the campaigns being infiltrated or loosely connected to them.
Mark Kennedy, the undercover policeman who infiltrated the environment movement for seven years, is said in the legal papers to have had relationships with three of the women.
One woman says she had a relationship with him between 2004 and 2010, while another says their relationship lasted between 2003 and 2005. A third says she had a relationship with him between February and September 2005.
Kennedy says he only slept with two women during his years pretending to be an environmental activist.
According to the legal papers, many of the women "became deeply emotionally attached, fell in love" with the undercover policemen, believing "they had met a true friend with whom they might share a long-term future".
"It appears that [the men] used techniques they had been trained in to gain trust and thereby created the illusion that they might be a 'soulmate'," to many of the women, they say.
Alleging that they have been assaulted, the women say "there is no doubt that the officers obtained the consent of [these women] to sexual intercourse by deceit".
The disclosure of the planned legal action heightens the controversy over the police's undercover operation to spy on political movements over the past four decades.
It caps a year in which the unmasking of Kennedy, by activists, has led to the exposure of five other undercover officers who infiltrated political groups. A sixth had gone public last year.
In the past year, police chiefs have also faced allegations that they corrupted the legal system by authorising undercover officers to give false evidence in court and spy on private meetings between defendants and their lawyers, and failed to disclose vital evidence which wrongly convicted protesters.
Police chiefs have also been criticised for wasting taxpayers' money on mounting huge operations to monitor campaigners involved in peaceful and legitimate protests.
But many believe the most damaging allegations centre on the long-term, sexual relationships between the undercover policemen and campaigners they were snooping on.
The eight women have come together to take legal action against the Metropolitan police, which ran one of the covert surveillance units and is now responsible for its apparent successor. Their lawyer, Harriet Wistrich of London law firm Birnberg Peirce, has sent legal papers to Scotland Yard as a prelude to a full-scale human rights lawsuit.
In the papers, she outlines their case against police chiefs for assault, deceit, negligence and misfeasance in public office. They want police chiefs to pay compensation and disclose full details of the undercover policemen's activities, which she says had no lawful justification.
In the papers, she also says that two of the women had relationships with Jim Boyling, who infiltrated environmental and animal rights groups in the 1990s.
She says that another woman "had a relationship with a man known as Mark Cassidy between 1995 and 2000". Another woman was "in a relationship with a man known as John Barker between 1990 and 1992," she says.
The fifth man to have a relationship with one of the eight women is named as Bob Lambert, who infiltrated animal rights and environmental campaigns in the mid-1980s and went on to be key part of the secret operation in the 1990s.
In the legal papers, Wistrich also says that "some of the officers were married and had children under their real identities, a fact completely hidden" from the women.
The women are not named as they intend to ask the court to grant them anonymity to protect their privacy.
The Metropolitan police said it was considering a letter from the women's lawyers, adding that eputy Assistant Commissioner Mark Simmons was conducting a review of covert deployments between 1968 and 2008.
"This is a complex process due to the elapsed time, the nature and volume of material and the inherent sensitivity of the issues," it said. |
UPDATE: 12:32 a.m. ET: Twitter has posted an update to its support account apologizing for the service problems, but still has yet to offer any explanations for the major disruptions, which lasted for hours.
The issue that prevented some users from signing in to Twitter has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience: http://t.co/7BlGvFMC3e — Twitter Support (@Support) December 29, 2014
UPDATED: 12:10 a.m. ET: Although there has been no official word from the company, if you refresh your TweetDeck page the correct time stamps now appear on current posts. Nevertheless, there are still no updates from Twitter's support account following the first one delivered hours ago, and the company has still not responded to a request for comment as to what happened to its service.
UPDATED: 11:25 p.m. ET: Several hours after Twitter acknowledged its widespread service disruption, some users have begun reporting that Twitter for Android is once again working, although some still report problems using the app on Android. As of this writing, there are still no further updates from Twitter itself.
Twitter for Android's back up finally. — Davey Shmurda (@DVDMLNDZ) December 29, 2014
Good to be back in the Twitter for Android app — Cat (@catzz00) December 29, 2014
Welcome back, Twitter for Android. — Kayla (@YesImKayla) December 29, 2014
With only 30 minutes left in the day (ET), it remains to be seen exactly what will happen on TweetDeck when the new day arrives. Currently, all posts are listed as 365 days old, the number of days in a year. So when the clock strikes midnight will the bug somehow fix itself, or will we find ourselves with yet another year added to the tally? The mysterious Twitter drama continues to unfold.
UPDATED: 9:15 p.m. ET: A couple of hours after the first reports from users rolled in, Twitter has finally acknowledged the problem via its official Twitter account.
We're working on resolving issues some users are having signing in on some platforms. Watch this handle & http://t.co/7BlGvFMC3e for updates — Twitter Support (@Support) December 29, 2014
However, the message did not address the issue many users on TweetDeck are still having with the time stamps on their Twitter posts, which lists all posts as one year old.
UPDATED: 8:25 p.m. ET: Other users are now reporting that they are locked out of their Echofon accounts for Twitter. One user made his report from Japan, indicating that Twitter's current service issue may be worldwide.
Echofon has locked me out of my account. Have I been overtweeting?! m__m @echofon — Dan Castellano (@ninja_padrino) December 29, 2014
Thought it was just me...locked out of echofon. Says it's a security issue and I need to log in again. Anyone else? — Dubl!nJo (@Dubl1nJo) December 29, 2014
The world's new year date change is still a few days away, but on Sunday a number of Twitter users began reporting that TweetDeck, which is owned by Twitter, was showing their posts as 365 days old.
The bug appears to affect both direct posts and retweets of other user posts.
There have also been reports from users that the Twitter app on Android is locking users out of their accounts, although other users report no problems on the iOS version of the service.
Either I’m crazy, or the Android @Twitter app has randomly locked me out … and thousands of other people. CC: @Support — Ryan Gorman (@GormoJourno) December 29, 2014
So if u have android twitter app then this thing just crashed and i tweet from my ipod right now it works, so wait for #twitter to fix it — MERRY CHRISTMAS!! (@OpunaLilly) December 29, 2014
Meanwhile, as more and more users began to notice the time shifting glitch on TweetDeck, some took to Twitter to comment on the odd bug.
wtf is going on with Tweetdeck right now? I'm seeing all the dates of tweets as 365 days ago... — V/// (@MGTheVillain) December 29, 2014
My tweetdeck just got the 365 day glitch, it was fine 3 seconds ago... pic.twitter.com/lO64F4xjXq — Kameron (@Icy_Rapture) December 29, 2014
Relaunching @TweetDeck reset the 365d thing, but now it is back. — blackfeather tanfur (@blackfeather) December 29, 2014
Why is Tweetdeck saying that all of my tweets are from a year ago? — Paul Trillich (@mr_wrightaway) December 29, 2014
My TweetDeck thinks it 2013. — Alexi Lalas (@AlexiLalas) December 29, 2014
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment. |
Ford is moving ahead in the development of self-driving cars, like this one (Photo11: Ford)
DETROIT -- Ford will debut an upgraded version of its self-driving Ford Fusion Hybrid sedan next week, one equipped with more advanced sensors, more computing power and proprietary software that helps the car think for itself.
The automaker's second-generation self-driving prototype has a brain located in the trunk that processes data collected by a host of high-tech sensors that can see the road.
There, the equivalent of several high-end computers generate one terabyte of data an hour. Ford says that's more than the average person would use in mobile phone data in 45 years. Those computers process data gathered by the sensors with a software system Ford has developed in-house.
The car will make its debut in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show, the giant trade exposition for the electronics industry. Increasingly, CES has become a showcase for automakers wanting to unveil their latest in self-driving car technology as well as infortainment systems and other automotive digital offerings.
"It’s been three years since we hit the streets with our first Fusion Hybrid autonomous research vehicle, and this latest version takes everything we learned and builds on it," according to a blog post from Chris Brewer, Ford's chief engineer of autonomous-vehicle development, posted on Medium.
Ford is among a host of automakers investing heavily in the development of self-driving vehicles in a industry movement that has the potential of revolutionizing how people get around every day.
Earlier this month, General Motors said it plans to begin testing a fleet of autonomous Chevrolet Bolts on public roads around metro Detroit and will produce them at the Orion Assembly plant in Oakland County.
Also, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles delivered 100 uniquely outfitted Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans to Waymo — previously Google's Self-Driving Car Project — so that the tech giant can outfit the minivans with its self-driving technology. One of them is expected to make its debut at CES.
Ford said in August it would develop a fully autonomous car that it will begin selling in 2021. Unlike some automakers, who view the development of self-driving cars as a multistep evolutionary process, Ford said it believes the industry must make the leap all at once.
Brewer said Ford's goal is to develop a fully autonomous car that does not require the driver to operate the vehicle.
"Building a car that will not be controlled by a human driver is completely different from designing a conventional vehicle," Brewer said in a blog post. "Just as we have confidence in ourselves and other drivers, we need to develop a robust virtual driver system with the same level of dependability to make decisions, and then carry them out appropriately on the go."
Ford developed its first 10 self-driving Ford Fusions based on the 2013 version of the hybrid sedan. Now, Ford has finished building a test fleet of 30 self-driving Ford Fusion sedans and says it will triple that fleet to 90 by the end of 2017.
Most automakers are using hybrid vehicles as the basis for self-driving cars because a standard gas-powered car lacks the electrical power necessary to support such a vehicle's data processing requirements.
Brewer said the new version of the Fusion Hybrid test vehicle includes:
•Two hockey-puck-sized LiDAR sensors, each generating millions of beams, jutting from the car’s front pillars, providing a 360-degree view.
Three cameras mounted on two racks on the roof.
•A forward-facing camera mounted under the windshield that works to identify objects and read traffic lights on the road.
Short- and long-range radar sensors — adept at seeing through rain, fog and heavy snow and at helping to determine how an object is moving relative to the car.
•A second, independent power converter connected to the Fusion Hybrid's battery added to supplement the computing power.
Ford's second-generation self-driving Ford Fusion Hybrid will debut at CES next week and also will be on display at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit next month.
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In-ears aren't just for the big guys anymore.
A few years ago, every big-name artist started the transition to in-ear monitors, even though the technology has been around since the early 1980s. It's been the "secret weapon" that has helped many artists perform better than they ever would have otherwise, and the love of in-ears has trickled down to independent musicians, too; heavy-hitters in the in-ear industry such as Future Sonics and Ultimate Ears have released superior quality universal earpieces featuring their expertly-designed sound signatures, and audio equipment companies such as Shure and Sennheiser have released affordable versions of their pro-quality (and pro-level-expensive) transmitter/receiver combos. It's never been easier to "go in-ear"; however, mixing in-ear monitors is a much different process than mixing wedges.
Whether you're on stage or in the studio, mixing in-ears is a much different affair than mixing wedge monitors.
In this guide, it's assumed that you're familiar with the equipment necessary for mixing in-ears, and you have a mixer and an in-ear system, either wired or wireless.
If you're a stationary musician (drummers, keyboard players, pedal steel players), a wired system is considered the best choice for both convenience and budget. For others, a wireless system of the highest quality you can afford is a great option. Also, don't forget the added cost of the monitor earpieces themselves; getting the best quality earpieces you can, whether custom-molded or universal-fit, is equally important. Many times, the included earphones with off-the-shelf systems offer relatively poor isolation and frequency response compared to even moderately-priced earphones purchased specifically for that purpose.
Hearing conservation
The first thing to remember is that in-ear monitoring is all about hearing conservation as much as it is quality monitoring. Taking your monitors off the stage and into your ears presents an interesting problem; while in-ear monitors have the ability to offer greatly reduced sound pressure level (SPL) exposure, you can actually damage your hearing even worse with in-ears if done wrong. Remember, with wedge monitors, you have sometimes over 100 decibels of SPL coming at your head from several feet away; with in-ears, you could potentially push just as much relative SPL through speakers much closer to your ears.
In fact, many times touring sound companies -- while gladly provide top-quality in-ear monitoring equipment -- will refuse to provide an engineer for the artist, insisting that they supply their own because nobody wants to be responsible for damaging a top artist's hearing with poorly executed in-ear mixes.
Many in-ear units offer fairly good limiters built into the belt pack, but it's never a bad idea to consider something external, especially if your artist is high-volume.
The first part of your signal chain you should consider investing in is a brick wall limiter for this very purpose. There are high-end models -- such as the Aphex Dominator and DBX IEM processor -- but any quality limiter, such as those built into the relatively inexpensive DBX compressor/limiter combos, will work, especially when used in conjunction with built-in limiters. The purpose here isn't to compress or restrict the signal, but catch any unexpected feedback or transients from entering the earphone signal.
Stereo or mono?
If you have the resources to run a stereo, or binaural, mix -- meaning, a stereo transmitter/receiver combo and a stereo auxiliary send from your mixer -- then, by all means, mix in stereo. Mixing in stereo has a distinct advantage on in-ears; you'll be able to set your mix in a way that mimics real life. If you're a lead singer, you'll want your vocals to be in the middle, but the guitars and drums can be panned around you just as you'd hear them while standing on stage.
Mono does have advantages. First, if you have a lower-end transmitter and receiver system, you will get a much stronger signal if you broadcast in mono. This is an advantage, especially in large cities where there are less clear frequencies to choose from.
Mono also has the advantage of being simple; if you don't have a stereo aux send, it's a lot easier to just use one instead of trying to balance two separate sends as a stereo pair.
Mixing the mix
The first thing to remember is that, while many artists that use in-ears prefer a full mix, on a small stage, this won't be necessary. Many times, you'll want a very simple mix on a smaller stage -- just vocals, a little guitar (or another instrument the mix owner is playing), and kick drum. Remember, the loudest sounds always win at the mic, so you'll get enough bleed from the vocal mics to hear everything else clearly.
On a larger stage, the sky's the limit. Just remember to communicate with your artist, and ask specifically what they want. If you're mixing in stereo, keep in mind that everything they want panned will be the opposite of what you see. If you see a guitar on the left side of the stage, they'll want it on the right side of their mix, because when they're facing the crowd, that's how they hear it.
Start with a kick drum, overheads, and bass guitar. Once you get a solid foundation, you can add the vocals. Make sure that you avoid sending an effects send at this point -- make sure your artist is feeling comfortable just hearing the rhythm section and their own voice.
Then, color in the rest of the instruments they require. Remember, they'll always want their own voice and their own instrument on top of everything else, so make sure you don't bury the important signals.
I tend to avoid putting snare or close-mic'ed toms in a mix until the artist feels comfortable and asks for it. Sometimes, hearing a loud snare crack suddenly can be scary, and unnecessary to the overall health of the mix.
Adding Ambiance |
Guillermo León has acquired La Aurora S.A. from E. León Jimenes, the family run company that has owned Aurora since 1903. León, who has spent 15 years running the company's cigar division, completed the purchase this week. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The Aurora cigar brand was created more than 100 years ago by Eduardo León Jimenes, León's grandfather, and is the oldest cigar company in the Dominican Republic. While cigars are its original business, the company has long done a much larger business in beer (it owns the Presidente brand, which commands more than 90 percent of the beer market in the Dominican Republic) and banking, and it used to make cigarettes.
The deal includes the company's brands (such as Aurora, Guillermo León and León Jimenes) and the company's cigar factory in the Dominican Republic. The building where Aurora Preferido cigars are rolled in Santiago, adjacent to the Museum of the City of Santiago, remains owned by E. León Jimenes. The small factory, popular with tourists, will continue to make Preferidos.
"I'm very happy. Very excited," said León during an interview with Cigar Aficionado. "Now we can make faster decisions. That's an advantage. The philosophy won't change, the philosophy of how we handle business."
Jose Blanco, head of marketing for Aurora, said that the company would "continue the tradition" that it has had for more than a century of "making good cigars."
To read about the Cigar Aficionado story about Aurora celebrating 100 years, click here. |
When the creepy podcast Welcome to Night Vale came to town last year, the show's creator dropped one hell of a bombshell on me in our interview. Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink talked about their inspiration for the show and I was surprised to learn that Cranor, a Mesquite native, based the format of his surreal community news show on KEOM 88.5 FM's straightforward information-delivery system.
For a split second, a twinge of hope crept across my brain at the thought that the elusive, mysterious dimension known as Night Vale may actually exist just a few miles away from where the fates have placed me on this part of the globe. So I just came right out and asked him without stopping to ponder how dumb and wide-eyed I might have sounded, "So I have to ask, is Mesquite Night Vale?"
Cranor responded, "No, not at all. Mesquite is definitely not." |
Good news, golf fans. You're going to be able to see more Ryder Cup TV coverage than ever. Just think NASCAR.
Confused? Let's explain.
NBC Sports announced its coverage of next week's biennial matches between the U.S. and Europe will feature an advertising campaign called "Playing Through." The gist of it is that when it's time to cut away to commercials, fans will see a split-screen instead with the right side playing an ad (with sound) and the left side allowing you to see continuous live action from Hazeltine. Here's what it will look like:
It's similar to the way NASCAR -- another sport with no timeouts -- shows commercials during races. There will still be normal commercial breaks, but NBC expects this to replace those about a third of the time and mostly at the backend of the day's coverage when there's the most drama going on. So plan your bathroom trips accordingly.
The network also revealed limited commercials at this week's Tour Championship once the final pair makes the turn in Sunday's final round.
Two weeks of big-time golf and less time watching commercials? We can certainly live with that.
RELATED: Golf Digest's TV survey reveals your favorite announcers
WATCH: GOLF DIGEST VIDEOS |
MANILA, Philippines–Popular toothpaste brand Colgate is said to be using a chemical linked to growth of cancer cells and disrupted development of animals, according to a report.
Colgate Total, a product of Colgate-Palmolive Co., is using triclosan to fight plaque and gingivitis.
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However, an investigation by business and financial site Bloomberg into the recently-released approval papers of Colgate Total by the US Food and Drug Administration found that “the scientific findings Colgate put forward to establish triclosan’s safety in toothpaste weren’t black and white — and weren’t, until this year, available to the public.”
The approval papers of Colgate Total also cited a research done by Colgate-Palmolive Co. in 1997 showing fetal bone malformations in mice and rats.
Also, Bloomberg revealed that the US FDA approved Colgate Total using researches sourced from Colgate-Palmolive, shedding doubts into the approval process of the said product.
An independent study also revealed that triclosan caused breast cancer in cells and in mice. Another research showed that exposure to triclosan induced neurological damage to mice.
Colgate dismissed the supposed risks of using triclosan in their product and maintained the safety of Colgate Total. According to Colgate, the safety of Colgate Total is supported by 80 clinical studies involving 19,000 people.
“In the nearly 18 years that Colgate Total has been on the market in the US, there has been no signal of a safety issue from adverse-event reports,” Colgate spokesman Thomas DiPiazza said.
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General Mike Flynn will be President-elect Donald Trump’s national security advisor, and if the only things you know about the man come from the mainstream media, you have no idea who he really is or what he really thinks, which means you have no idea what he’s likely to do when he starts his new job.
Yes, he had dinner with Vladimir Putin, and no, he’s not politically correct or even diplomatic. Yes, he was fired from his job as the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency because he does not play well with others. And yes somebody should tell him to retire his Twitter feed, or at the very least stop tweeting bombastic insults, fake news and conspiracy theories.
All human beings are greater than the sum of their screwups, and if you want to know what he has been doing for the past several decades and what he wants to do next, skip the news reports and read his book, The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies, co-written with Michael Ledeen.
It has been on bookshelves since July of this year. It’s short—only 208 pages—so you can read it in one day or even one sitting.
First, let’s get a big question out of the way right at the start.
No, he is not friends with Vladimir Putin.
He did sit next to Putin at the 10th anniversary dinner of Kremlin propaganda station RT (Russia Today) and he appeared as a guest on RT as well. He also, like Trump, thinks the United States should team up with Russia to fight ISIS in Syria.
But he’s not Putin’s pal. That comes across as loud and clear as a gunshot in his book.
Flynn divides the world into two sets of enemies. First, there are the radical Islamists, whom he sees as America’s principal foes. Then there is a constellation of hostile anti-democratic regimes that he calls “the alliance” that includes both Islamists and non-Islamists that collaborate against the West because we’re their common enemy. The alliance includes Russia, Syria, North Korea, China, Iran, Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Flynn puts Vladimir Putin and his Syrian client Bashar al-Assad squarely in the hostiles camp. There’s no point wasting much angst on Nicaragua and Bolivia right now, but he’s quite right to declare the Russian and Syrian governments enemies of the United States. Assad is the biggest state sponsor of international terrorism in the entire Arab world, and he’s Iran’s staunchest Arab ally. And since Iran is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the entire world, that makes Moscow-Tehran-Damascus axis the greatest state-level geopolitical threat to the West.
“This alliance surprises a lot of people,” Flynn writes. “On the surface, it seems incoherent. How, they ask, can a Communist regime like North Korea embrace a radical Islamist regime like Iran? What about Russia’s Vladimir Putin? He is certainly no jihadi; indeed, Russia has a good deal to fear from radical Islamists to its south, and the Russians have been very heavy-handed with radical Islamists in places like Chechnya. Yet the Russian air force and Iranian foot soldiers are fighting side by side in Syria. Somehow, Russian antipathy toward radical Islam does not prevent the Kremlin from constructing all the Iranian nuclear power plants.”
It’s not so hard to understand. Forging ideologically incoherent alliances is normal in wartime. Americans have done it too. We armed Afghanistan’s Mujahadeen to fight the Soviet Union in the 1980s despite the fact that many of them were radical Islamists. We forged an alliance not just with a Communist state but with Josef Stalin himself against Nazi Germany. We also armed and trained right-wing military dictatorships in Latin America when they faced communist insurrections backed by Moscow.
We can only go so far with this sort of thing, though, before ideological incoherence collapses into strategic incoherence. Forging an alliance with Syria and Iran, for instance, in the war against ISIS would be preposterous. Expecting state sponsors of international terrorism to act as an American firewall against international terrorists makes as much sense as placing arsonists in charge of the fire department.
Mike Flynn is many things, but he isn’t stupid. He knows this, which is why he says we should partner with Russia—but not the Iranians or the Assad regime—against ISIS in Syria.
In one of his debates with Hillary Clinton last month, Donald Trump said Russia and Assad are fighting ISIS in Syria, but it’s not true. Russia is fighting in western Syria to prop up the Assad regime against rebel fighters while ISIS territory is in eastern Syria well outside Russia’s theater of operations.
Trump apparently doesn’t know this, but Flynn does because he explains it in his book.
Teaming up with Russia to fight ISIS will require a dramatic transformation of both American and Russian foreign policies—another Russian “reset,” if you will. Vladimir Putin is a scorpion by nature. I don’t expect Trump’s Russian reset to work any better than Obama’s Russian reset or George W. Bush’s old college try, but I guess we’ll find out.
There’s a bit of incoherence in Flynn’s book. He blasts the Obama administration for reaching out to anti-American tyrannies in Syria, Iran and Cuba, but he advocates doing exactly the same thing with Russia right now despite the fact that Russia is neck-deep in the Syrian-Iranian axis. At times I couldn’t quite tell if Flynn is a foreign policy “realist” who’s willing to work with despicable tyrants as long as it suits us, or if he’s a neoconservative who thinks we should always ally ourselves with democracies against dictatorships.
Perhaps the book contradicts itself once in a while because the neoconservative Michael Ledeen co-wrote it. Maybe the differing worldviews of the two authors come through in different passages on different pages. Or perhaps Flynn is just ideologically flexible. It’s hard to say. Mostly he comes across as a Jacksonian who wishes to wage total war against his enemies.
He wrote a chapter on how to win such a war against radical Islamist terrorists, but first he describes what winning means—destroying terrorist armies, discrediting their ideology, forging new global alliances and “bringing a direct challenge to the regimes that support our enemies, weakening them at a minimum, bringing them down whenever possible.”
Bringing them down whenever possible.
Did I mention that Flynn isn’t a pacifist or isolationist?
“I know [our enemies],” he writes, “and they scare me, a guy who doesn’t scare often or easily. They scare me even though we have defeated them every time we fought seriously. We defeated Al Qaeda and the Iranians in Iraq, and the Taliban and their allies in Afghanistan. Nonetheless, they kept fighting and we went away. Let’s face it: right now, we’re losing, and I’m talking about a very big war, not just Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan.” [Emphasis added.]
In Flynn’s view, the war against terrorism is enormous. He makes Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld seem cautious and even timid. He says we know how to win this kind of war because we did it during World War II and the Cold War.
He recommends we do four things.
“First, we have to energize every element of national power in a cohesive synchronized manner—similar to the effort during World War II or the Cold War—to effectively resource what will likely be a multigenerational struggle…Second, we must engage the violent Islamists wherever they are, drive them from their safe havens, and kill them or capture them…Third, we must decisively confront the state and nonstate supporters of this violent Islamist ideology and compel them to end their support to our enemies or be prepared to remove their capacity to do so…Fourth, we must wage ideological war against radical Islam and its supporters.”
No one has a clue what’s going to happen after the Obama administration gives way to the Trump administration. Trump has already mellowed out in one policy area after another, and in any case, Flynn’s book isn’t Trump’s policy. It’s Flynn’s policy.
What you just read above, though, is more or less what Trump is likely to hear from his national security advisor. It is almost certainly what Trump has already heard from the man who will become his national security advisor.
“Most Americans mistakenly believe that peace is the normal condition of mankind,” Flynn writes, “while war is some weird aberration. Actually, it’s the other way around. Most of human history has to do with war, and preparations for the next one. But we Americans do not prepare for the next war, are invariably surprised when it erupts, and since we did not take prudent steps when it would have been relatively simple to prevail, usually end up fighting on our enemies’ more difficult and costly terms.”
Or to paraphrase Leon Trotsky, you may not be interested in war but war is interested in you.
Donald Trump’s national security advisor is much more eager to fight a huge war than George W. Bush or Barack Obama. If you voted for Trump because you want less war instead of more, you’re probably out of luck. |
In 1979, financial giant Goldman Sachs had plans for new headquarters at 85 Broad Street.
Nothing unusual about that—except that 300 years earlier, this address was the location of New Amsterdam’s first city hall, or Stadt Huys (“city house”), built in 1641.
Considering the possibility of uncovering historical remnants, archeologists excavated the site before construction began.
They didn’t find anything related to the Stadt Huys. Instead, they uncovered something that harkens back to the city’s beer-drinking past: the remains of a tavern built next door in 1670.
This was the Lovelace Tavern, once on the water’s edge and named for English governor Francis Lovelace, who presided over the now British-controlled city from 1668 to 1673.
The Lovelace Tavern (probably the little annex on the left in this illustration) even assumed the role of New York’s City Hall from 1697 to 1706, after which it burned down and all traces of it disappeared.
Archeologists came across some fascinating remains. Besides the tavern’s foundation walls and floor, they discovered thousands of pieces of clay pipes, wine glasses, and wine bottles (empty, unfortunately).
I’m not sure where the pipes and bottles are, but the tavern’s foundation walls were preserved and are actually on view beneath a Plexiglass cover on the plaza of the building.
This Flickr photo gives the clearest view of what remains of the Lovelace. If only those tavern walls could talk. . . .
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Tags: 85 Broad Street, Archeology in New York City, Colonial New York City, Dutch New York, Lovelace Tavern, lower Manhattan history, old New York taverns, Stadt Huys New York |
We're used to seeing Leonardo DiCaprio as the hero in his movies. So when he decided to be a villain for director Quentin Tarantino, he wasn't going to go halfway with it. The question was, how bad is too bad?
DiCaprio plays Calvin Candie, a wickedly inhumane plantation owner in "Django Unchained," Tarantino's new film set in the pre-Civil War South. A slave owner with no respect for humanity or decency (or dental hygiene for that matter), Candie is a truly repellant character. So much so, in fact, that DiCaprio admitted to Vibe Magazine that upon reading the script, "[My] immediate question was, 'Are we going too far?'"
Watch the exclusive new trailer for 'Django Unchained':
[Related: 10 most anticipated films of the holiday season]
"Django Unchained" is the story of a slave (Jamie Foxx) who is recruited by a bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) to help track down a set of brothers only he can identify. Their search leads them to Candie's plantation, where Django's wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) is being held. "Candyland," as the place is called, is home to forced slave fights and other indignities. It's tough stuff, and DiCaprio told Vibe "It was hard for me to wrap my head around it."
"For me," DiCaprio said, "the initial thing obviously was playing someone so disreputable and horrible whose ideas I obviously couldn't connect with on any level." He went on: "I remember our first read through, and some of my questions were about the amount of violence, the amount of racism, the explicit use of certain language... My initial response was, 'Do we need to go this far?'" But, DiCaprio concluded, Tarantino's use of in-your-face imagery was necessary to tell the story, just as it was in his previous film, the bloody WWII tale "Inglourious Basterds."
For his part, Tarantino admits that Calvin Candie goes even farther than the bad guys from his previous films. In an interview with Playboy, Tarantino said, "He's the first villain I've ever written that I didn't like. I hated Candie, and I normally like my villains no matter how bad they are." So if he's even more dislikable than the ear-slicing Mr. Blonde in "Reservoir Dogs" or Elle Driver, the one-eyed assassin in "Kill Bill," you know that Candie is bad news.
[Related: 'Tarantino XX' 8-film Blu-ray collection]
Tarantino also said while he and DiCaprio have been friends for 15 years, he didn't originally envision the star in the role. It was written for an older actor, but Tarantino adjusted the script to suit DiCaprio's age. He also disclosed that he had previously considered DiCaprio for the bad guy role in "Inglourious Basterds," which later won an Oscar for his "Django" costar Christoph Waltz.
DiCaprio did admit that when he was able to get past his revulsion, there was something freeing about taking on the role of Candie. He said, "Playing a bad guy opens you up to not having as many rules or restraints... It takes you to the darkest place of where you are as a person and lets you indulge in that." Once he gave himself over to the role, he was surprised at how it transported him: "I think it took me to places I didn't even imagine. It really took on a life of its own."
"Django Unchained" opens everywhere on Christmas Day.
[New on Yahoo! Movies: 'Jack Reacher' exclusive, 'Black Rock' trailer premiere] |
Where does human morality come from?
In The Bonobo and the Atheist, renowned primatologist Frans de Waal argues that moral behavior in humans is not predicated on religion. Drawing from extensive research on animals—primarily bonobos and chimpanzees, our nearest primate relatives—as well as research on fossil records of early hominids, he shows how evidence of moral sentiments, like empathy and altruism, predate the advent of religion by millennia and co-evolved in non-human primates as well as in humans.
De Waal makes his case for animal morality by citing scientific studies demonstrating animal benevolence. In one experiment, researchers show that a chimp, if given the choice, would rather share food rewards with another chimp than keep it all for himself—as long as he knows that the other chimp actually receives the reward.
In another experiment with rats, researchers find that if a rat is given the choice between two containers—one holding chocolate and one holding a trapped rat who appears to be suffering—the rat will try to help the suffering rat first before seeking the chocolate. Experiments like these show that animals make moral choices and that their behavior cannot be explained through natural selection alone.
“Mammals have what I call an ‘altruistic impulse’ in that they respond to signs of distress in others and feel an urge to improve their situation,” writes de Waal. “To recognize the need of others, and react appropriately, is really not the same as a preprogrammed tendency to sacrifice oneself for the genetic good.”
De Waal also engages readers with stories of individual primates who have demonstrated a capacity for kindness, generosity, and gratitude. For example, Georgia, a chimp at the Yerkes National Primate Research Station, expresses gratitude to deWaal by greeting him with quick panting noises, “which is about the kindest sounds a chimp can make,” after he helps reunite her with her troop following a long separation. In another instance a bonobo named Makali is kindly consoled by fellow bonobos following a rival attack. These examples of animal empathy may be contingent on the presence of mirror neurons in the animals’ brains—the same neurons found in human brains that are implicated in emotional resonance—which help the animals understand how another is feeling.
Since altruism, empathy, and gratitude all underpin moral behavior, finding them in our fellow mammals suggests that they run deep in our brain biology and did not come about because of moral reasoning or religion. In fact, probably the opposite is true—religion developed because of our innate capacities for caring. But, while some scientists might use this information as ammunition to hurl against religion, DeWaal does not. Instead, he writes disparagingly about strident atheists who rail against the existence of God, making enemies of the religious while doing little to promote humanistic values.
“Humanity cannot and will not change on a dime, and it’s also not as if religion is an alien influence,” he writes. “It is very much our own creation, part of who are, fully intertwined with our respective cultures. We had better get along with it and learn from it, even if our goal is ultimately to set out on a new course.”
Virginia Morell takes a slightly different, but related tack in her new book, Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures. Morell, a science writer, traveled around the world to meet with scientists studying animals in their social environments and found that many of these researchers have evidence that their subjects can think and feel much the way humans can.
In the first chapter we learn of Nigel Franks, a scientist who studies ant colonies. By looking at the behavior of individual ants (whom he painstakingly labeled with tiny dots), he has found they don’t rely on pheromones alone to communicate, but can teach other ants by example and demonstrate amazing patience with their students. We also learn that rats engage in play like puppies do, and that they make a noise that resembles laughter—albeit, laughter that is not audible to human ears without special listening devices.
“Their joyful chirps were ricocheting all around us, but we couldn’t hear a bit of it,” writes Morell. “If there was a moment that encapsulated all that we don’t know or miss about animals, for me, this surely was it.”
Her point, well taken, is that in our attempts to study our animal brethren and avoid anthropomorphizing them we sometimes miss their very real similarities to us. According to the scientists Morell interviews, birds are capable of complex communication, elephants have long memories and strong social networks, and dolphins will act altruistically. These scientists are convinced that many higher order cognitive abilities are not limited to humans, and that we only need look a bit further to discover them in animals.
Since evolutionary pressures push brain development, Morell argues, it makes sense that maybe humans are not alone in developing social and cooperative brains. “If animals—even those whose lineages parted ways long ago—face similar cognitive demands, they are apt to evolve similar cognitive abilities,” writes Morell. “There aren’t ‘lower’ or ‘higher’ species.”
We humans like to think we are supremely evolved. But even if some of our capabilities are advanced, that doesn’t mean the animals around us aren’t also evolving, writes Morrel. The more studies confirming animal intelligence and feeling, the more evidence there is for supporting a dichotomy rather than hierarchy of evolution—a finding that de Waal also supports, at least in relationship to mammals.
The consequence of books like these is that we may need to re-think our place in the animal kingdom and show a little more humility. Perhaps, if the lessons of these books are taken to heart, we will be inspired to be more considerate of animal needs and protective toward our shared natural world. |
Spotted on the Strip: MGM's transition to paid parking Copyright 2019 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Copyright 2019 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Copyright 2019 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Copyright 2019 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Copyright 2019 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Copyright 2019 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. prev next
LAS VEGAS, Nev. - Visitors to MGM Resorts International properties on the Las Vegas Strip may have noticed the company's transition to paid parking is well underway.
At New York New York Hotel & Casino, ticketing booths can be seen at the entrance to the parking garage.
Payment kiosks are also set up in the area where guests make their way to the parking garage from inside the casino.
Several floors of the parking garage already have sensors over each space which light up green to alert drivers if they're open and turn red when they're occupied. It's the same type of system used in the underground parking garage of The Cosmopolitan.
There are also new lights that turn on when drivers walk to their cars helping to illuminate normally dark areas in the garage. When MGM announced plans to charge for parking in January, one of the reasons was to provide better, safer parking for visitors.
Starting in the second quarter, most of the casino giant's properties will charge $10 or less for overnight self-parking. They are: Mandalay Bay, Delano, Luxor, Excalibur, Monte Carlo, New York-New York, Vdara, Aria, Bellagio, the Mirage and MGM Grand. |
What about that “almost” you mentioned earlier? What happens when neutrinos do interact with matter?
Earlier I mentioned that almost all neutrinos that course through your body don’t interact with you in any way – they just plow right on through, passing between the gaps inside and between your atoms. That they hardly ever bump into anything is a testament to how much empty space a typical atom has. Very crudely speaking, we feel solid and substantial to ourselves because our electrons repel each other – they get nowhere near each other to touch or collide, preferring to keep a large distance from other like charges. Since neutrinos don’t have an electrical charge, they can get right up close to an electron (or any other particle) without feeling that strong repulsive force. And so a neutrino is free to pass through the 99.9999…% of volume of an atom that is empty space. Almost all of the time, it makes it all the way through the atom (and through many other atoms) without hitting one of those rare spots already occupied by a subatomic particle.
As with our earlier lessons, below I give you my full derivation — if you really don’t care, skip the “show your work” section and jump straight down to the “bottom line” below.
Show your work
Let’s try to calculate the likelihood of a single neutrino interacting with a human body. Let’s say it’s your human body. To estimate this, we’ll be using the typical math you use in collisions – collision cross sections, mean free paths, and transmissions through material.
First off, what is the collision cross section of a typical solar neutrino with the atoms in our bodies? We’ll neglect the chance of a neutrino to hit an electron, focusing only on protons and neutrons (as they’re much larger and more likely to be hit). The cross section of a neutrino depends on its energy, and we know the typical energies of solar neutrinos because we can measure them. The famous graph below shows the energy spectra of solar neutrinos, and shows that by far most of them come off the sun with energies of about 0.3 – 0.4 MeV. The cross-section of a neutrino depends on the energy, with cross-sections getting larger as energies get larger. But a famous calculation of the neutrino cross section at 2 MeV energy gave a value of 6 x 10^-44 cm^2. I can’t manage to find a value for energies at 0.3 – 0.4 MeV, but this is pretty close to 2 MeV for my estimation purposes. (An order of magnitude counts as “close” in this analysis, considering that neutrinos can come in energies well above 1 GeV.) Let’s go with the rough estimate that the solar neutrinos we see most of all have a cross section of about 10^-44 cm^2.
So, given the cross-section, we can calculate the mean free path of a neutrino with this cross section passing through our bodies. (Remember what “mean free path” is? It’s the average distance a particle will plow through another material before hitting anything.) From collision theory, the mean free path is approximately 1 / (collision cross section * density of things it can hit). Since we’re considering neutrinos hitting the protons and neutrons in our bodies, we’ve got to figure out the number of protons & neutrons per unit volume in our bodies. We’re all remarkably close to water in density – water is about 1000 kg per m^2, while the average human is about 1060 kg / m^2. So we can pretty safely assume we’re just water for this analysis. Given that water has a molecular weight of 18.015 grams per mole, it’s easy to calculate that the number of protons & neutrons per unit volume in our bodies is 3.55 x 10^28 per cubic meter. Put these together, and we get the mean free path of solar neutrinos through human bodies:
Mean free path = 1 / (10^-48 m^2 * 3.55 particles per m3)
= 2.818 x 10^19 meters
= almost 3000 light years!
Well sheee-it, a neutrino will typically make it through 3000 light years of water (or human tissue) before it manages to hit something!
So given the size of our bodies, what’s the likelihood of a neutrino colliding with one of our protons or neutrons? We again can use collision theory for this. The transmission is defined to be the fraction of particles that make it through a block of material of a given length without a collision. And given the mean free path, calculating the transmission is easy – it’s just exp ( – length of the block of material / mean free path). So, we can just use (1 – transmission) as the likelihood of a single neutrino colliding with something in our bodies before it can make it through. Let’s assume a body length of 0.5 meters (about 20 inches), and do the calculation:
Likelihood of collision = 1 – transmission through water
= 1 – exp ( – body length / mean free path in water)
= 1 – exp ( – 0.5 m / 2.818 x 1019 m )
After a quick trip over to wolfram alpha to calculate this (as it defeats the machine precision limit on my computer), we get
Likelihood of collision = 1.77 x 10 -20
Finally, we multiply this likelihood by the total number of neutrinos that pass through our bodies in a typical lifetime (2.87 x 10^23), we get:
Average # of collisions with our body per lifetime = 5092
So, over the course of our lifetimes, about 5,000 neutrinos will wind up smacking into one of our atoms in our bodies. That’s about once a week!
The Bottom Line
So there is a staggering amount of neutrinos passing through your body every second, and each one has a staggeringly small chance of actually colliding with your body. The staggeringly large and the staggeringly small cancel each other out, so to speak, resulting in a surprisingly non-staggering number (in either direction) of neutrinos that will collide with you in your lifetime – about one a week or so.
I should say I’m not the first to do this kind of calculation. John Bahcall, who was probably the father of solar neutrino theory, also estimated this decades ago, and came up with a slightly lower number – that over a typical lifetime, we could expect to interact with about one neutrino. (I’m giving myself credit here, that being off from a Nobel Prize winner’s estimate by three orders of magnitude counts as “close”.)
More recently, over at the very cool Science in Real Life blog, spatialrift47 made an estimate from a completely different direction, by starting with the observed number of collisions seen in current neutrino detectors. Turns out that modern neutrino detectors use giant tanks of water, and as noted earlier our bodies are pretty much water, to a first approximation. So, as he (she?) notes, you can envision emptying out the giant tank of water and packing it full of human flesh, and it ought to pick up just about the same number of neutrino-collision events per year. Given how many neutrinos the detector actually picks up per year, and accounting for the volume of water, he/she calculates that we ought to see just about 1 neutrino collision per lifetime, on average, matching Bahcall’s earlier estimate.
And over at Physics professor Calvin Johnson’s webpage, he points out that “one can estimate that out of the population of the Earth, one would expect one to five thousand people to have had a neutrino “event” in their body from the 1987 supernova, and perhaps one or two to have had an event— a blue flash—in their eye!”
Recently we heard some buzz in the news about neutrinos potentially going faster than the speed of light. What was that all about?
Next Up: Do neutrinos really go faster than light? >> |
With the Rapids opening their doors to players this morning for the start of preseason, Rapids Technical Director Paul Bravo confirmed the team’s coaching staff that will be in place moving forward. Pablo Mastroeni will be leading a staff of experienced coaches, many of whom have been in Colorado for several years.
While Bravo oversees all of the soccer operations for the Rapids, including player transactions, overseeing the technical staff, and other duties, Mastroeni will have a more hands-on role while the team works toward making a decision on a head coach.
“Pablo will be in charge of all our first team activities as we start preseason,” Bravo told ColoradoRapids.com. “As we get all our players in and start our work to get ready for the regular season, he will be at the head of our group of coaches.”
In addition to Mastroeni, who was named Special Assistant to the Technical Director in the week leading up to the Jan. 16 MLS SuperDraft, the club also has several experienced coaches working with the first team, in John Metgod, Steve Cooke, and Chris Sharpe.
“John is still in his role as a consultant for us, and Steve Cooke is going to have a much more in-depth role with the first team,” said Bravo. “Chris Sharpe will oversee our goalkeepers, their training and schedules.”
Metgod was named a consultant to the technical staff on Jan. 9, coming most recently from Derby County in England but with a long coaching resume that includes time in the English Premier League, Dutch clubs Feyenoord and Excelsior, and a playing career that included stints with Nottingham Forest, Tottenham Hotspur, and Real Madrid.
Cooke and Sharpe have each been with the Rapids for several years, with Cooke coming to Colorado full-time in early 2010. The Sheffield, England native has been coaching for more than 20 years and holds the UEFA “A” and USSF “A” Coaching Licenses.
Sharpe served as a league pool goalkeeper in MLS from 2008-2012, training primarily with the Rapids, having previously played professionally in Denmark, England, and his native Australia. He has long served as the goalkeeping director for the Rapids Academy, and his role with the first team was expanded in 2013.
The staff addressed many of the players on Saturday morning at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, as most Rapids players have returned to Colorado and are undergoing their medical examinations. The team will have Sunday off before doing physical testing on Monday and Tuesday, with the first full-team practice on Wednesday. |
Via Twitter account ofDeRay Mckesson
Activists and protesters, including noted academic Cornel West, were reportedly arrested at the federal courthouse in St. Louis on Monday, as St. Louis County officials issued a state of emergency following a night of unrest in Ferguson.
Have seen Cornel West, @deray, Rev Sekou, Rev Renita Lamkin and loads more arrested at federal courthouse in STL — Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) August 10, 2015
Should be noted peaceful protesters at fed courthouse in downtown St Louis are being arrested by officers from the Dept of Homeland Security — Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) August 10, 2015
Cop arresting @CornelWest smiling and taking pictures as a fellow cop poses for a photo with West in handcuffs. #moralmonday — Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) August 10, 2015
The series of arrests came following a night in which a man who allegedly shot at police during a protest to mark the anniversary of Michael Brown’s death was himself shot and is now in critical condition.
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The reports of the arrests trickled out on Twitter, where reporters and activists were broadcasting photos and streaming videos of the protest.
And the arrests begin. STL. https://t.co/3GUSZiMOmn — deray mckesson (@deray) August 10, 2015
And the arrests continue. STL. DOJ. https://t.co/ZRbEISA0pG — deray mckesson (@deray) August 10, 2015
Among those also taken into custody were DeRay Mckesson and Johnetta Elzie, two prominent activists who were profiled by the New York Times Magazine earlier this year.
Elzie, who has more than 50,000 followers, sent out this tweet shortly before being taken into custody, an apparent reference to Sandra Bland’s mysterious death while in police custody last month.
If I'm arrested today please know I'm not suicidal. I have plenty to live for. I did not resist, I'm just black. — ShordeeDooWhop (@Nettaaaaaaaa) August 10, 2015
As the arrests were going on, St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger issued a state of emergency for the county, saying that “recent acts of violence would not be tolerated.” According to the order, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar was given command over “police emergency management” in Ferguson and “surrounding areas.”
New: State of Emergency issued in St. Louis County by @StengerSTLCo re: recent #Ferguson events. pic.twitter.com/E7JvumEQ3o — STL Public Radio (@stlpublicradio) August 10, 2015 |
The setting is Pennsylvania coal country, but it's a story right out of Dickens' grim 19th-century landscape: Two of Luzerne County's most senior judges on Monday were accused of sending children to jail in return for kickbacks.
The judges, Luzerne County President Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., 58, and his predecessor, Senior Judge Michael T. Conahan, 56, will serve seven years in jail under a plea agreement.
They're alleged to have pocketed $2.6 million in payments from juvenile detention center operators.
When a federal judge reviews their plea, though, the question ought to be whether the punishment is adequate - along with the judges being bounced from the bench, disbarred, and losing their pensions.
If the allegations are true, Ciavarella and Conahan were involved in a disgraceful cabal far worse than one that merely lined their pockets.
First, the judges helped the detention centers land a county contract worth $58 million. Then their alleged scheme was to guarantee the operators a steady income by detaining juveniles, often on petty stuff.
Many of the kids were railroaded, according to allegations lodged with the state Supreme Court last year by the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, an advocacy group.
In asking the court to intervene in April, the law center cited hundreds of examples where teens accused of minor mischief were pressured to waive their right to lawyers, and then shipped to a detention center.
One teen was given a 90-day sentence for having parodied a school administrator online. Such unwarranted detentions left "both children and parents feeling bewildered, violated and traumatized," center lawyers said.
"Very few people would stand up" to the Luzerne judges, according to the law center's executive director, Robert G. Schwartz.
Fortunately, Juvenile Law Center was willing to do so, along with backing from state Attorney General Tom Corbett's office and the state Department of Public Welfare.
The blind justices on the state's high court, though, took a pass. Only last month, they offered no explanation in declining to take up the law center's request that the court step up.
Now, the state Supreme Court should revisit the issue, since the scope of corruption alleged at the Luzerne County Courthouse in Wilkes-Barre could further undermine confidence in the courts statewide.
Authorities need to redress running roughshod over juveniles' rights - a process also likely to bring damage suits. While the local district attorney pledges to "do our best to right the situation," this calls for an independent, outside review.
The two judges' downfall may have rooted out the worst perpetrators of this evil scheme, but the abuse of power alleged in Luzerne County is so startling that it should send shock waves for reform around the state court system.
Buzz up! |
Sen. Charles Schumer addresses thousands of people rallying outside the historic Stonewall Inn for gay rights under the Trump Administration. (Published Saturday, Feb. 4, 2017)
With rainbow flags and a message of resistance, thousands of LGBTQ New Yorkers rallied Saturday in front of the Stonewall Inn against President Donald Trump's executive orders.
Demonstrators crowded near the historic gay rights bar a week after Trump issued an executive order banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. A judge temporarily blocked the ban Friday and the government has suspended enforcement of it.
"Let me remind people of why we're here," U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer said. "The pioneers at Stonewall were alone, but they fought and fought and eventually they won. We are gonna do the same thing!"
Schumer led chants of "Dump Trump" from the podium as a rainbow flag waved behind him.
New York State Sen. Brad Hoylman said: "We are stronger today because you are out here today. The bottom line is that we must resist."
Hoylman recalled the 1969 Stonewall Inn riots, when hundreds of gay New Yorkers rallied for equality in front of the iconic bar. He drew a parallel between the need to stand up for the rights of the marginalized then and now.
"It's so appropriate that we are at Stonewall today, because we are here to say we stand up to oppression just like our LGBT brothers and sisters stood up to oppression that fateful evening: June 28, 1969," he said, pumping his fist emphatically as the crowd cheered.
Singers performed a rendition of Dionne Warwick's "What the World Needs Now" to people waving rainbow flags and picket signs that read "Resist" in rainbow letters. Thin, white clouds escaped the mouths of demonstrators as they cheered the vocalists on.
Top News Photos: R. Kelly Leaves Jail After Paying Bond
Demonstrations have taken place throughout the country since Trump took office just over two weeks ago. John F. Kennedy Airport has become a mainstay for rallies protesting the president's immigration ban.
Protests have also ignited at universities on both coasts. New York University students protested Thursday evening after conservative Vice Media co-founder Gavin McInnes was scheduled to speak on campus.
A federal judge in Washington state blocked Trump's executive order Friday. The government suspended enforcement of the refugee and immigration ban Saturday to appeal the judge's order. |
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Three women are suing Sandia National Laboratories for “systemic and pervasive” discrimination against female employees in a federal class action suit filed in Albuquerque this week.
Two national law firms, Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP and Outten & Golden LLP, filed the suit on behalf of two current employees and one recent retiree.
The women accuse Sandia of a pattern of gender discrimination that allegedly uses inherently-biased performance evaluations to stunt women’s ability to achieve higher pay and promotions. They also allege retaliation against female employees who complain about discrimination.
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The suit describes “a corporate culture infected with gender bias.”
Sandia spokesmen told the Journal the lab cannot discuss pending legal matters.
The women are seeking class action certification that could result in back pay, monetary damages and changes on behalf of all female lab employees.
“These brave plaintiffs have taken the difficult step of filing a lawsuit that is intended not merely to help themselves but to change the playing field for women at Sandia,” said attorney Kelly Dermody in a statement.
The suit says an “unreliable” and “discriminatory” evaluation process, known as a “stack-ranking” system, undervalues female employees relative to maled. Under the system, all employees in a peer group are ranked on performance from one to five, with one as worst and five as best.
But caps limit the number who can receive higher grades, forcing many to accept lower rankings regardless of performance, the suit says. It says rankings are based on subjective “personality” or “behavior” factors that tend to favor males. Because those rankings are used to determine pay raises and promotions, the system stunts advancement for females, the suit said.
“In this system, female employees are systematically undervalued compared to their male peers because female employees receive, on average, lower rankings despite equal or better performance,” it said.
The women are suing Sandia Corp., a wholly-owned subsidiary of current lab manager Lockheed Martin Corp. Honeywell International is taking over in May, so it’s unclear who would ultimately be liable if the plaintiffs prevail in court, Anne Shaver, a partner with Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, told the Journal.
Sandia garnered national attention in 2015 when current director Jill Hruby became the first woman to head a national security lab in the U.S. About one third of Sandia’s 11,500 employees in New Mexico and California are women. |
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Bill Maher not only exposed the the legacy of Ronald Reagan for what it really is, he also slaughtered the Republican Party’s most sacred cow.
Video:
Bill used Bob Dole’s comments about the Republican Party as a springboard to go off on the mythology surrounding Ronald Reagan.
Maher said:
This has become a kind of conventional wisdom that the Republican Party has gone so far right Reagan himself wouldn’t fit in, but I’m here tonight to call bulls**t on that. Ronald Reagan was an anti-government, union busting, race baiting, anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-intellectual, who cut rich people’s taxes in half, had an incurable case of the military industrial complex, and said that Medicare was socialism that would destroy our freedom. Sounds to me like he would fit in just fine.
…
What they can not contest is that even though Reagan did a few things that today’s GOP would not like, he wrote the playbook for them on every issue of consequence. Sure he raised taxes a few times, but when you look at where he started with taxes and where he ended, this is where our income inequality problem began. He invented voodoo economics. On race, his ideas couldn’t have been more tea party if he shouted them from a Rascal Scooter. He ran on states’ rights. He invented the notion that black people get all the breaks. Constantly telling the story of the Chicago woman (wink-wink) who has 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards, and her tax free cash income is over $150,000. And that woman today is RuPaul. Actually, that woman never existed. Reagan just made s**t up. Something else he pioneered for his party today.
He described the New Deal as fascism. Medicaid recipients as waiting for handouts, unemployment insurance as prepaid vacation for freeloaders, and once said, “A tree’s a tree. How many do you need to look at?” He was the original official pitchman for batsh*t. When they hold up signs that say no socialized medicine, where do think they got it from? We got it from you dad. We got it from you.
…
Worst of all, Reagan inspired a whole generation of people who hate government to get into government. Both sides really should stop pretending that he is anything other than the man most responsible for our decline, and I do mean both sides. I get why Republican worship Reagan. They’re the religious party. Worship is in their DNA. They can’t help it. They love him beyond logic. Last year, they tried to elect his haircut. They want him on a stamp, so they can lick his backside. But why are Democrats conceding the argument on Reagan? Obama talks about him like a brother from another mother. He changed the trajectory of America. Yes, but not for the better.
When you mainstream Reagan, the far right becomes the new middle. He wasn’t a friend to all Americans. He was patient zero for everything you are fighting against now. He was the original teabagger. Stop agreeing that he was a saint. Especially when his two miracles were turning water into polluted water,and walking on the poor.
The mythology surrounding Reagan has seeped into the mainstream political aquifer. It is a great deal of fun for Democrats to use Reagan’s own words against Republicans, but let’s not forget who Ronald Reagan really was. He is a president whose policies were so disastrous for the poor that they spawned the Comic Relief charity.
Inequality wasn’t just celebrated under Reagan, it was glorified. Greed was a virtue, and stepping on others to get ahead was seen as heroic behavior. Under Reagan our manufacturing base vanished, and good blue collar jobs went away. Reagan cut the rungs on the economic ladder. He wrapped himself in the flag, and disguised his destruction with an overdose of patriotism and symbolism.
Today’s Republican Party has never been able to master Reagan’s greatest trick of making Americans feel good about their own destruction. Ronald Reagan may not have been able to make it in today’s politics because his handlers would not have been able to so closely manage his image. The 24 hour cable news cycle and the Internet would not have let the real Ronald Reagan hide. In today’s political/media environment, Ronald Reagan might have been Rick Perry. To suggest that he would be anything other than a far right icon is not only misleading; it’s rewriting the history of who, and what, Ronald Reagan really was.
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WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH YOUR PURPLE CRAYON? WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH YOUR We think the best book ever written about the start-up journey is Harold and the Purple Crayon. It’s why we give it to every employee on day one. We believe every one who works at thredUP needs a purple crayon. It’s a philosophy about creativity & problem solving & perseverance that anchors everything we do. Nobody’s ever done what we’re doing. We’re inventing the future of resale on the internet.
Jobs at thredUP We are solving complex problems each day and writing the playbook for how to build a company that serves tens of millions of customers over the long-term. There are 1s and 0s but we’re also building massive operational infrastructure and a brand that inspires a new generation of consumers to think secondhand first. If you think you’re ready for a purple crayon, take a look around. We’ve got places to go and the journey is going to be awesome.
Distribution Center Careers Our distribution centers are the core of what we do. We are focused on delighting our customers by keeping our website stocked with fresh inventory. With 5 Distribution Centers across the US, the thredUP Operations team is growing, and we're looking for the best and brightest talent to join us. If you think you're ready for your purple crayon, take a look around. We've got places to go and the journey is going to be awesome.
TECHNOLOGY & DATA ARE CORE TO WHAT WE DO. We love solving hard problems with software. We are foremost a technology company and that’s reflected in everything we do. We think world-class technology drives long-term competitive advantage. We’re hiring software engineers, industrial engineers, data scientists and swiss-army knife analysts so we can make the best data-driven decisions over and over again.
Read our Technology Blog
THINGS WE CARE ABOUT You & Your Career
Our mission at thredUP is to “inspire a new generation of consumers to think secondhand first” and we need exceptional people to do that. Part of our “people plan” is to really work hard to ensure we have the right people at the company and that they value the people they work with and the culture of the company. We believe deeply that happy, personally fulfilled employees are the best ones. That means we do things a little differently around here to make sure you’re always engaged, fresh and fired-up. MAKER DAYS + SABBATICALS
+ NO VACATION POLICY Our Maker Days are meeting free and no commute required. Work from anywhere every Tuesday and Thursday solving our biggest problems. Take vacation when you want it. After three years, you earn a paid sabbatical. We’re serious about work-life integration - you work hard for us, we work hard for you. MAKER DAYS + SABBATICALS
+ NO VACATION POLICY Our Maker Days are meeting free and no commute required. Work from anywhere every Tuesday and Thursday solving our biggest problems. Take vacation when you want it. After three years, you earn a paid sabbatical. We’re serious about work-life integration - you work hard for us, we work hard for you. RADICAL CANDOR DRIVES RADICAL GROWTH We think feedback is a gift. We want you to grow immensely at thredUP and achieve beyond your expectations. We invest heavily in ongoing growth assessments of how you’re doing and we’re always there to make sure you’re on the right trajectory, in the right role going places you never thought you’d go. RADICAL CANDOR DRIVES RADICAL GROWTH We think feedback is a gift. We want you to grow immensely at thredUP and achieve beyond your expectations. We invest heavily in ongoing growth assessments of how you’re doing and we’re always there to make sure you’re on the right trajectory, in the right role going places you never thought you’d go. ENGAGEMENT BEYOND WORK (GAME NIGHTS, RUN CLUB, ETC.) We do like to have a little fun, but it’s never “forced fun” - nobody likes that. But if you’re into books, we’ve got book club. Running? We do that too. Are you a Settlers of Catan fan? We play games on Tuesday nights. And if you’re up for some competitive beer-pong, we’ve been known to sling around the ping-pong ball. ENGAGEMENT BEYOND WORK (GAME NIGHTS, RUN CLUB, ETC.) We do like to have a little fun, but it’s never “forced fun” - nobody likes that. But if you’re into books, we’ve got book club. Running? We do that too. Are you a Settlers of Catan fan? We play games on Tuesday nights. And if you’re up for some competitive beer-pong, we’ve been known to sling around the ping-pong ball.
4:32 Minutes About Who We Are
speakUP If you aren’t here to contribute then why are you here at all?
We all learn from those around us, but it’s hard to learn if people are not willing to speakUP and share what they have to say. This isn’t about you being the life of the party or, alternatively, being the person who sucks air out of the room. Rather, when you have the choice to stay silent and go about your day or instead make your impact felt, you speakUP.
SpeakingUP can be doing so on behalf of customers; it can be doing so to make the employee experience better; it can be doing so to make the business operate better; call out bullshit; make the code base better; our marketing campaigns more creative; our efficiency in the DC’s hum a little louder, among so many others. In all instances, the people who speak up help us make thredUP more effective. Your ability to make a difference at thredUP is often directly related to your willingness to speak up and be heard.
Think Big Thinking Big is not about coming up with wild and crazy ideas. It is not just about ideas at all. It is a state of mind about how you/we look at the world. When we say Think Big at thredUP, what we’re saying is “Imagine the world as it could be, not as it is.” When given the chance to do the minimum and play it safe, you step back and say How do I think bigger here? How do I turn this from a good idea/opportunity into a great one? The very idea of thredUP was considered totally nuts at one point but it was a big vision, a big idea that has gotten us to where we are today. Thinking Big is the key for us to continue to grow and invent the future on behalf of our customers.
Influence Outcomes When I was a teacher, I remember one day walking into the teacher common area and hearing a fellow teacher ask another “what are you going to teach today?”. An older, revered teacher on the faculty, perked up and said “Wrong question. It’s not what you are going to teach, it’s what are the students going to learn?” That moment has stuck with me.
For much of our lives, we have focused a lot of time on measuring inputs. How many hours did you put in? How much practice have you done? How many years of school did you complete? Miles run. Laps swam. Lessons prepped. How many credentials have you racked up? How much code have you written? How many years of marketing experience do you have?
This is an input driven way of looking at the world, when what we really want to know is, how did you make an impact or a difference on the slice of the world you were in at the time? What did you do that directly affected the experience of others or the experience of a new product?
When we ask people in the interview process, “what sort of experience do you have?” we mean experience influencing outcomes.
While there are generally flagship outcomes of companies, the best companies are built on a series of world-class folks influencing outcomes all along the way - big and small. It’s not what you’re going to do today, it’s what outcome you’re going to impact.
Infinite Learning If you have all the answers please stop reading and turn in your resignation letter. Really. This is a place for the infinitely curious and those who believe every day is an opportunity to learn, an opportunity to teach and, just as importantly, an opportunity to forget. The world is moving fast, to learn new things, you have to sometimes forget what you used to know (you know “the way it’s always been done”). This is a place to learn and forget.
Transparency I’m always telling my kids “you make a better door than a window”. At first, they had no idea what I was talking about. But soon they realized that doors block vision, windows let the light in. At thredUP, we don’t have offices. We talk in the open. We keep the doors open as much as possible physically, but also metaphorically. We share the good news and the bad news. We give people information straight and we don’t obfuscate what’s going on. If you’re the kind of person who can’t deliver information - good, bad or ugly – then this really isn’t a place for you. As a company we share it all, sometimes it hurts. But when we all know what’s up and what’s happening, it’s a whole lot easier to make the best decisions moving forward.
Seek the Truth Whenever you join a company, you will be told how it’s done. We will tell you this. I will tell you this. I will be very convincing about why we believe what we believe and why it’s the path forward. Sometimes, I will be wrong. Other executives will be wrong, you will be wrong. The world will change, customer expectations will change, technology will change. First principle thinking encourages continuous innovation and creative problem-solving by reducing bias and faulty reasoning. It starts from the fundamental question of “why is this true?” Then you keep going like a toddler wanting to know why the sky is blue or the air is clear. You quickly get to the fundamental building blocks of truth (and organic chemistry!). Trust me, if you seek truth you will inspire others to do the same and we will all be better off.Our Open Jobs
Space & Time We’ve got a cool office. It’s not too cool for school but it says “we’re on our way to
making it, but we haven’t made it just yet so that’s why 37% of our furniture is still from Ikea.”
We’re still scrappy and feisty with how we spend our dollars and our time.
We operate crazy fun distribution centers all over the country. It’s where the true magic happens. You’ll love being part of something you can see, touch and feel in the real world. Plus your friends and family and your Mom will be so proud when she gets that Polka Dot box on her doorstep. thredUP is the kind of brand you’ll be proud to be a part of. Why would you work for anything less? |
AFTER MONTHS OF preparation, Culture Night 2015 is finally upon us.
Thousands of people will be attending events throughout the country.
During the week we’ve looked at what’s going on in the west, east, south and Dublin. Now it’s time to cast our eyes north.
This list is not exhaustive and a full guide of events is available on the Culture Night website.
Belfast
BabyDay Chillout
A pop-up exhibition by artist Faigy from Co Armagh will be on display at the Assembly Rooms from 1-10pm.
Assembly Rooms There’ll be a BabyDay Chillout happening at Established Coffee (3-5pm).
Established Coffee The Belfast Roller Derby will be kicking off at 7pm.
kicking off Head along to 101 Sessions at 101 Donegall Street for a night of musical performances with the chance to help create an art piece as the evening unfolds (7-10.30pm).
For the full list, see the Culture Night guide for Belfast.
Derry
In Your Space Circus
In Your Space Circus will be running a circus workshop at Waterloo House from 6.30-8pm.
circus workshop Claire Nic Ruairí and Tanya Nic Gairbheith will perform traditional songs in Irish , with music by Fadó, at Áras Cholmcille . Singers are welcome to come along and take part in the session (7-9pm).
For the full list, see the Culture Night guide for Derry.
Fermanagh
The Fermanagh Live Arts Festival will take place at the Buttermarket from 6-9.30pm.
Newry, Mourne and Down
Stone carving
Down County Museum is hosting a fancy dress parade and an evening of medieval stone carving .
fancy dress parade medieval stone carving There’ll be street entertainment in Downpatrick from 6-9pm.
For the full list, see the Culture Night guide for Newry, Mourne and Down.
Are you taking part in a Culture Night event? Tweet your photos to @thejournal_ie or send them to [email protected]. |
Introducing Team HD (Hunter’s Destiny)! Aslind Samure and I put together this team featuring former members of Team Maverick One and other talented individuals to bring a proper translation patch to Monster Hunter Online!
Instead of just tossing everything into Google Translate, we’ve been putting a lot of time and effort into making every bit of text in the patch sound like a localization that even Capcom would be proud of (yes, even including puns). We’ve even made an installer file to streamline installing the patch for the less tech savvy hunters.
As you can see from some of the screenshots, we’ve made a good deal of headway on a lot of important things like items, materials, skills, etc. We’ve even been able to translate the UI, something I haven’t seen other “English” patches do. Bigger stuff like NPC conversations will take much longer to do, but we plan on translating 100% of the game, in time.
Right now we don’t have the patch available for the public yet, but we’re planning to have a public beta version out by the end of this month. Today I’m streaming one of our recent beta builds of the patch over at https://www.twitch.tv/kogath just to show off how everything is looking (and just have some good fun hanging out with people and hunting).
Happy Hunting!
Team HD |
Boo! I got a new Stitch Fix stylist. I really liked the stylist who put together my first two boxes. I think she really hit it out of the ballpark by sending me items that fit my personality and style to a tee!
For Stitch Fix box #3, I requested a pair of pointy toe black flats – a closet necessity that I haven’t gotten around to shopping for.
My stylist, Holly, wrote me a personal note:
Hey Kenia! Happy December Fix! I truly enjoyed styling for you and hope to find you some fabulous pieces for the holidays 🙂 As a fun way to mix up the usual denim, let’s bring out your inner Queen B with these skinnies from Liverpool. Best of all, they can easily be dressed up with heels or down with flats. We didn’t have any pointy flats available in black, but we did have this pair from Seychelles in gold that are pretty for a party. As for blouses to pair with them, let’s add a splash of color with this keyhole piece from Skies are Blue. You can’t go wrong with a hint of sparkle, and this blouse from Greyline will look cute with the red skinnies from your last Fix. I visited your Pinterest and noticed a few puffer vests, and this piece from Market & Spruce is super versitile and easy to travel with. Happy Styling! Holly
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Stitch Fix, here’s how it works.
1. Fill out your Style Profile
Begin by filling out the Style Profile. This helps them understand your size, style, shape, budget and lifestyle. Completing your Profile takes about 10 minutes.
2. Pick the date you’d like to receive your shipment
Select a delivery date from the calendar. At the time your Stylist selects your items, you will be charged a $20 styling fee. That $20 will be applied as a credit toward anything you keep from your shipment.
3. Try everything on in the comfort of your home
Make sure you to try on everything our Stylists have picked for you because you never know what will look great on you. Create new outfits by pairing what’s in your shipment with items that are already in your closet.
4. Buy what you like and return the rest
Take three days to decide what you’ll purchase and what you’d like to send back. You’re only charged for items you choose to keep when you check out.
Check out by logging into your account to pay for the items you want to keep. The $20 styling fee will be applied as credit toward any items you purchase. If you buy all five items, you get 25% off the entire purchase
Simply return the items you don’t want in our prepaid mailer and drop it into any USPS mailbox. Stitch Fix provides free shipping both ways as a benefit of using the service.
******************************
So here are the items that Holly sent me based on my style profile and my request for this box! Stitch Fix recommends that you try everything on because you might feel differently about it once on your body. So, that’s exactly what I did!
Liverpool Maisy Coated Skinny Pant. Price to keep: $78.00
These black skinnies have a metallic finish and are really nice for a party. They as super comfortable to wear, but are a little big on me. Even if they fit perfectly, I wouldn’t keep them. I have too many pairs of black skinnies in my closet right now.
STATUS: RETURNED
Skies are Blue Thisby Keyhole Detail Blouse. Price to keep: $54.00
So, this blouse feels a little cheap to me. I think I would love it if it were silk rather than this polyester fabric. Also, I’m not feeling the bright orange color. It’s more suited for Spring, not the December holiday season.
STATUS: RETURNED
Seychelles Droves Mini Wedge. Price to keep: $90.00
Love these! While I asked for black flats, these are too cute for me to be mad that I didn’t get them! They are fairly comfortable, although they’ll need some breaking in before I wear out for any length of time… the perfect opportunity to try this method to break them in.
STATUS: KEPT
Greylin Kellyn Sequined Blouse. Price to keep: $$118.00
Well, this gets me into party mode! This piece, although straightforward, is very nice. It’s a heavy, high quality top. The neck and bottom are sheer, while the body is sequined. The top fits somewhat loosely so that you can wear it with a tailored bottom — a fitted skirt or skinny jeans. I want to keep this piece, but don’t see me getting much wear, beyond the holiday season.
STATUS: RETURNED
Market & Spruce Wilco Solid Quilted Vest. Price to keep: $68.00
I pinned a couple of quilted vest onto my Stitch Fix Pinterest board. It’s another way of requesting items for your Fixes. Unfortunately, we are now past vest season, so I don’t think I’d get much wear out of this before the Spring. Also, this particular one is a bit thinner than what I’m looking for. I’m not sure I’d be any warmer in this than I would in a regular shirt!
STATUS: RETURNED
Even though I’m only keeping one item, I think Amber did a really good job with Fix #2. I’m limiting myself to purchasing only one item, but if I had my way I’d be keeping everything! Let me know what you think!
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Kenia is a late bloomer from Philadelphia, PA. She is excited to explore and get back in touch with her personal style. From fashion, to food, to travel, she looks forward to sharing her style journey with you!
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NHL Mock Draft 5.0: Rounds 1-7 With Over 200 Player Profiles
Looking for the latest version of our mock draft? NHL Mock Draft 5.5 (released May 20th) is linked here.
NHL Mock Draft 5.0 brings forth our 10th edition which started back in November 2015 as a monthly release. In the past couple of months, we shifted gears to bi-weekly editions.
Now that we have less than two months to go until June’s Draft in Buffalo, our NHL mock draft will be accelerated to release every 10 or 11 days until the final rankings prior to the first round on June 24th.
Obviously we’ve tried to use a mix of best available player (BAP) coupled with positional needs, weighing out the two to find which prospect fit best. We also tried to pay close attention to filling the proper positional needs in later rounds.
Given that scouting is so subjective, opinions tend to vary across the board. Unexpected players rise and fall, making this an imperfect art. Even if you disagree with the rankings in our mock draft, think of this as a great resource for 2016 draft-eligible prospects.
For over seven months, we’ve been collecting prospect information/analysis from a variety of different sources. The man hours put in make this the most comprehensive one-stop shop for everything you need to know about the players expected to be drafted.
Don’t forget to bookmark us for a post-draft reference guide. With over 200 player profiles (95 percent of all so far – aiming for 100), we have the information on that late 5th, 6th, or 7th rounder your team drafted that you’ve never heard of.
This year’s draft class is particularly deep, similar to last year. There are also several talented leftover 19-year-old’s that were passed over in 2015. Teams should be busy signing free agents, offering try-out invites following the draft.
What’s New in Version 5.0 (compared to 4.5)?
– We now have roughly 200 player profiles
– Updates/additions to over 50 player profiles
– Not a ton of movement, but a few late risers (CHL Finals, U18 Aftermath, World Hockey Championship)
– Honorable Mentions section has been added on the second last slide, which features players in that final tier between the 5th-7th rounds who could also hear their names called at the Draft.
2016 NHL Mock Draft order is determined by NHL final regular season standings. It’s also important to remember that more movement of picks is expected on draft day.
Draft pick ownership information was gathered through www.generalfanager.com – it’s worth noting that several conditional trades are still in place, or options for picks to be sent in 2016 or 2017. We will include those picks as they are confirmed.
Conditional Picks
R1/2 CGY via DAL – Kris Russell Trade
R1 ARZ via NYR – Option for ’16/or ’17
R2 BOS via EDM – Option for ’16/or ’17
via NHL Hockey Operations,
Entry Draft Order
The order of selection among the Member Clubs in each season shall be determined in the following manner:
A composite of all Member Clubs shall be prepared by placing:
i) First the Clubs which failed to qualify for the preceding playoffs in the order of points earned by each of them in the regular schedule of the preceding season starting with the Club having the lowest points total and followed by the Club having the next lowest points total, and so forth.
ii) The Clubs which participated in the preceding playoffs (but had not been ranked first in their respective Divisions and had not won the Stanley Cup that season) in order of points earned by each of them in the regular schedule of the preceding season starting with the Club having the lowest total points and followed by the Club having the next lowest total points, and so forth.
iii) The Clubs which had been ranked first in their Divisions during the next preceding season (but had not won the Stanley Cup that season) in the order of points earned by each of them in the regular schedule of the preceding season starting with the Club having the lowest total points and followed by the Club having the next lowest total points, and so forth.
iv) The Stanley Cup winner shall select last, thus, positioning all Clubs on the list.
In the event of a tie for any position, such tie shall be resolved by application of the rules governing the determination of final League standings. The resulting list shall constitute the order of selection.
If you would like to see team-by-team draft picks, it can be found on the final slide following honorable mentions. |
The issue of Muslim identity has been all over the news lately. The Syrian refugee crisis and the recent terror attacks in Paris have provoked conversations about the nature of Islam and how it fits in secular democracies. During the 2015 federal election, columnists spilled gallons of ink pondering the niqab and what it represents.
But Pakistani-Canadian bloggerEiynah says there is an important group left out of these conversations: Muslim and ex-Muslim women who see misogyny and oppression in Islam. She argues those critiques of Islam are ignored by the Canadian left, and hijacked by the Canadian right to further anti-Muslim narratives.
Eiynah is a pseudonym. She has asked for anonymity because of the frequent threats she has received for her writing.
The full interview is available in the audio player above. The following portions have been edited for clarity and length.
It's a very nuanced point of view that you have, and you can see it in your own self-description: a "critic of Islam who loathes anti-Muslim bigots." Walk us through that.
It's something that's hard for people to understand, because they automatically conflate criticism of an ideology sometimes with bigotry toward a people. And I think it's terms like Islamophobia that actually confuse the matter more. When I talk about anti-Muslim bigotry, I mean specifically generalizing large groups of diverse people. Muslims are a very diverse group, and Islam is an idea. Just like any other idea, it should be open for debate, up for critique. I don't think there is an issue with people criticizing Islam — there isn't one with people criticizing Christianity and any other religion, so why is there this unique term for Islam the religion?
When you criticize misogyny and homophobia in Islam, how to people on the Canadian and American left typically respond to that?
They're defensive, they deny, and then they lash out and accuse me of being a bigot. I'm a woman of Pakistani origin, and I've been called a white supremacist, an imperialist, a race betrayer, a textbook racist more times than I can tell you.
Why do you think that is? Where does that reaction come from?
I hope it comes from a good place, where people are trying to protect a minority that they feel is persecuted — and it is, in a lot of ways — but in doing so they trample on the rights of minorities within that minority, like women, like the LGBT, like apostates and ex-Muslims, atheists who are called terrorists and killed for disbelieving.
But do you ever worry that when you critique Islam, you could inadvertently end up reinforcing someone's bigoted ideas about Muslim people?
It does happen, but why should that be a reason for me to stay silent about my own oppression? It does happen. My work has been hijacked and published on right-wing websites without my permission. What I try to do is in each essay that I write, I will include a paragraph in detail about anti-Muslim bigotry and how it's a big issue and how I do not agree with these bigots. I try to proof it like that against them hijacking, but if they still take my work there's nothing I can do. I mean, then literally you can't talk about any oppression if you worry about this.... You can always feed into someone's bias, but that doesn't mean you should stop talking about victims of oppression.
Click the blue button above to listen to the full interview. |
For the past two weeks, leaders from around the world have gathered in South Africa for a global wildlife summit to debate regulations on the trade of endangered plants and animals. This triennial event, which concludes Wednesday, led to new protections for such species as the pangolin and sharks. But some countries are disappointed that one endangered animal did not receive new, desperately needed protections: the elephant.
The controversy comes amid the worst elephant-population decline in decades. In just seven years, 144,000 of Africa’s savanna elephants—almost one-third of the remaining population—were killed for their ivory. Today, only 350,000 roam the African plains.
This rapid decline in the African elephant population has been concurrent with an unprecedented effort to stop their slaughter. Indeed, in recent years, the United States, the United Kingdom and many other countries mounted major new initiatives to try to build capacity in African countries to protect these animals. Despite these efforts, the decline in the elephant population has continued.
Halting the ongoing slaughter of elephants is not simply a matter of saving the iconic animal. It is necessary for the economic welfare and national security of countries across Africa and around the world. It’s time the international community takes much-needed action to stop poachers and lock up gangs involved in killing both elephants and those protecting them.
I have seen firsthand how the resources provided by the international community are not aligned with the scope and scale of the poaching challenge. In my years working to protect wildlife in Kenya, I have gotten to know courageous rangers and their difficult work. Despite the investments that have been made, it will still take many years to train and equip rangers to manage the sophisticated threat they now face. Today, transnational, increasingly militarized criminals are implicated in poaching and wildlife trafficking. In many cases, these crooks have more weapons and are better financed than protectors, and they are cunning at evading the law.
I have also seen struggling high-tech projects—from camera traps to drones—that are often well-intentioned but not in sync with the low-tech conditions on the ground. While these types of projects grab mainstream attention, advanced technologies are rarely incorporated into the day-to-day work of rangers. Meanwhile, rangers face ever more serious, even lethal, threats. Corruption in many of Africa’s wildlife parks is also rampant, sucking precious resources devoted to the problem.
At the current rate—one elephant killed every 15 minutes—elephants could disappear from the African savannas in 10 years. Dramatic action is now necessary if the world is going to stop the extinction of elephants. Simply providing more money or technology to overwhelmed rangers will not work. Instead, the United Nations Security Council should take the unprecedented step of authorizing the establishment of a protection force to safeguard these animals. And there is already a model for taking bold action to protect the unprotected.
In 2005, the U.N.’s Responsibility to Protect doctrine to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity received unanimous consent. One of its central tenets holds that when a country has proven unable or unwilling to protect its population, other nations have a responsibility to step in and protect civilians in harm’s way. The U.N. Security Council has the authority to approve the use of force to achieve these objectives.
The same logic can apply to wildlife. The continued decline in the elephant populations demonstrates that some countries with substantial elephant populations are, at present, unable to effectively protect them, despite receiving support to do so. Some governments are even implicated in the poaching, making a reliance on their genuine support a fool’s errand.
U.N. forces have been used in numerous situations to further peace and security, but they have never been deployed to protect an animal such as the elephant. Many nations would understandably oppose putting their soldiers in danger for such a mission, which is why it is important to point out that the stakes are far higher than just saving elephants. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called poaching a “grave menace to sustainable peace and security,” and the U.S. National Intelligence Council has confirmed that some terrorist organizations are financing their activities through direct or indirect participation in poaching. A recent investigation by the U.K.-based The Guardian also uncovered some of the transnational criminal ringleaders filling their pockets from the $23 billion illicit wildlife trade. And a 2013 U.S. intelligence analysis pointed to convergence between wildlife trafficking networks and other illicit actors such as drug and arms smugglers. Protecting wildlife must be a security priority.
The loss of elephants is also a serious economic risk to many African nations that rely on the popular species to drive travel and business to their countries. Some of the countries traversed by the last remaining elephants depend on tourism for 10 percent to 20 percent of their GDP. According to the U.N. World Tourism Organization, Africa is one of the world’s fastest growing tourism regions, and the safari is the most common form of wildlife tourism. The extinction of elephants will ruin the vast and yet untapped economic potential of tourism in Africa and significantly challenge development in poorer parts of the world.
Attacking the supply side of this crisis is only one part of the solution, to be sure. Reducing the demand for ivory in countries like China and regions like Southeast Asia, as well as in the United States, is also a critical solution to the poaching challenge. But right now, and for the next several years, we need to put the authority of the international community between the poachers and these defenseless animals.
The time has come to go all-in to combat poaching, or face the irreversible national and natural security consequences of the senseless death of the last elephant.
Johan Bergenas is a senior associate with the Stimson Center, where he leads the Natural Security Forum. |
There is no question that industrial agriculture is polluting the nation’s waterways, but huge factory farms are not the only culprits: Food processing plants also dump millions of pounds of toxic waste into rivers, lakes, and streams, according to an analysis released by Environment America, a national coalition of advocacy groups.
The report listed the top 15 water polluters in terms of volume but focused mostly on Tyson Foods, which processes 73 million pounds of beef, pork, and poultry every week.
“Tyson Foods Inc. and its subsidiaries dumped 104 million pounds of pollutants into waterways from 2010 to 2014,” the report said, citing the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxic Release Inventory.
Of the 15 entities on the list, six are involved in food processing, including fourth-ranking Cargill (50.4 million pounds) and Perdue Farms (30 million pounds). Collectively, the six companies discharged 243 million pounds of waste, or 36 percent of the total.
“Over the years, we noticed that corporate agriculture is at or near the top of the list,” said John Rumpler, senior attorney at Environment America. Processing plants, he added, are the tip of the toxic iceberg when it comes to industrial agriculture.
“This doesn’t even begin to count the millions of tons of manure at factory farms,” Rumpler said. “The total pollution discharge, which is much larger than these self-reported direct discharge figures, do not get reported to EPA.”
Tyson’s direct discharges were second only to those of AK Steel Holding Corp., at 107.2 million pounds, and well ahead of the third-largest polluter, the U.S. Department of Defense, at 63.3 million pounds.
The sixth-largest polluter was oil-and-gas giant Koch Industries, with 34.2 million pounds. The company has spent millions to oppose environmental regulations and question global climate change.
At the bottom of the list was ExxonMobil, which discharged 15.3 million pounds, seven times less than Tyson.
The discharges, for the most part, are legal. Under the federal Clean Water Act, facilities can discharge toxic waste into waterways if they obtain a permit from the EPA.
“Most releases reported to and tracked by the TRI Program are permitted under other EPA programs,” an agency spokesperson wrote in an email.
RELATED: The West Coast’s Massive Algal Bloom Could Be the Toxic Wave of the Future
Tyson spokesperson Gary Mickelson said in an email that Environment America “is misinterpreting the information we regularly provide the EPA.”
“We vigorously refute these misleading claims by Environment America,” Mickelson said. “The water we use is returned to streams and rivers only after it’s been properly treated by wastewater treatment systems that are government regulated and permitted,” he said.
Related Industrial Farming and Climate Change Mean More Toxic Drinking Water for the Midwest
But the EPA spokesperson confirmed that “Tyson-owned facilities reported releasing 104 million pounds of toxic chemicals in waste to surface water over the last five years.”
Almost all of Tyson’s releases were nitrate compounds, the EPA spokesperson said. Excess nitrates can lead to massive algal blooms that can choke waterways and kill huge numbers of fish. Blue-green algae releases gases that are harmful to humans.
High nitrate levels in drinking water can also cause “blue baby syndrome” in infants, which reduces the ability of blood to carry oxygen. Nitrates may also increase the risk of diabetes.
The EPA insists it is enforcing the law.
“EPA has taken a number of enforcement actions [against illegal discharges] in the last several years,” the agency spokesperson said.
Environmentalists contend the Clean Water Act is not being properly enforced.
Kelly Hunter Foster, senior attorney at Waterkeeper Alliance, said in an email that state and federal governments are mandated to control discharges, “but they are failing in nearly every way possible.”
The EPA has directed states to adopt limits on phosphorus and nitrogen discharges, but no state has applied them to all of its waters, while 27 states have not adopted any limits, Hunter Foster said.
“Because most states do not have these water-quality standards, Clean Water Act discharge permits end up being based on ‘technology based’ standards that are developed largely on cost without regard to the actual impact on water quality,” she said.
That means the toxic discharges will continue.
“It’s an awful lot of pollution,” Rumpler said. “If any of it is illegal, then someone needs to enforce the law. And if it’s legal, then those permits are obviously too weak.” |
By Andrew Burnes
February 21st, 2012
By Andrew Burnes
The new NVIDIA GeForce 295.73 WHQL drivers are now available to download. Recommended for all GeForce users, these drivers include the numerous game-changing, NVIDIA-exclusive improvements that have been introduced with our recent betas, plus a few other treats too.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Bethesda Softworks’ role-playing action game is Steam’s fastest selling and the most popular game ever, boasting a record-breaking concurrent user count that bested even Valve’s venerable titles. With PC players spending an incredible 75 hours in the world of Skyrim, on average, we’ve worked hard to enhance the experience for our users.
In December, the 290.53 beta driver introduced our first performance optimizations, helping improve frame rates by about 19% in Skyrim’s many shadowy dungeons, and 2.8% in its wide-open outdoor environments. For 295.73 we’ve delved back into our driver’s code and coaxed out even more performance, which should be especially helpful for GeForce GTX 560 and 560 Ti users who wish to increase the game’s graphics settings, make use of Bethesda’s high resolution texture pack, and install user-made mods from the Skyrim Workshop.
In the scene tested GTX 560 performance increased by an amazing 44.5%, allowing the mid-range card to make full use of Skyrim’s Ultra graphics options (285.62’s 27.6 frames per second rendered Ultra unplayable in indoor locations). In the other results, GTX 560 SLI performance is up 44.1%, GTX 580 performance by 36%, and GTX 580 SLI performance by 17.3%.
Outdoor performance tends to be CPU bound on higher end configs, though on the GTX 560 we did register a 16.2% improvement.
In November, we released the 290.36 beta driver, boasting exclusive GeForce-only Ambient Occlusion support, enhancing the shadowing of Skyrim’s immersive world. Users loved the addition, and following feedback we revamped the implementation in 290.53 beta, reducing the frame rate impact and improving the fidelity of the new shadows. With release 295.73, these enhancements are now brought to an official WHQL driver.
Click to view an interactive comparison.
To enable this must-have effect open your NVIDIA Control Panel, either via the desktop or the tray icon, and follow the steps below:
Browse to 'Manage 3D Settings' and select 'Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim' in the drop-down. If you can't see it in the list, untick the 'Show only programs found on this computer' box and try again. Set the 'Ambient Occlusion' option to Performance or Quality. Click the Apply button.
And finally, for 3D Vision users there’s a new 3D crosshair that better matches the game’s default 2D crosshair, helping improve the 3D Vision experience. To enable it, use the Ctrl+F12 3D crosshair shortcut in-game, and then disable Skyrim's 2D crosshair in the Settings menu.
Diablo III Beta
If you’re one of the lucky hundred thousand players currently enjoying the Diablo III beta you’ll be pleased to hear that your GeForce graphics card can now be leveraged to add the same immersive Ambient Occlusion shadowing to Blizzard’s role-playing action game, as shown in the comparison image below.
Click to view an interactive comparison.
To enable Ambient Occlusion in the beta, open the NVIDIA Control Panel, browse to ‘Manage 3D Settings,’ locate the Diablo III profile in the list, and select one of the Ambient Occlusion quality settings before clicking ‘Apply'.
Mass Effect 3
The Mass Effect 3 demo made a big splash last week, arriving with a lengthy slice of single-player action and an extremely addictive multiplayer mode that’s been sampled by over 250,000 PC gamers to date.
Our release-day article revealed that the demo performs exceptionally well even on prior generation single-GPU solutions, and now, with the release of the 295.73 WHQL driver, the demo can make full use of SLI setups also, offering up to twice the performance.
At 1920x1080 SLI frame rates increased by 91.63% on the GTX 560, and 90% on the GTX 570. At 2560x1440, SLI frame rates increased by an astonishing 100.00% on the GTX 560, and 95.04% on the GTX 570.
To see the benefit of SLI scaling above your monitor's refresh rate, Mass Effect 3's Vertical Synchronization must be disabled. A quick and easy tweak, simply open C:\Users\YourUsername\Documents\BioWare\Mass Effect 3 Demo\BIOGame\Config\GamerSettings.ini, and add useVsync=False and SmoothFramerate=False to the bottom of the [SystemSettings] section, each on separate lines. Save the file and SLI will now work to its full potential. The final version of the game, due out March 6th, will benefit from SLI also - just modify the GamerSettings.ini file located in C:\Users\YourUsername\Documents\BioWare\Mass Effect 3\BIOGame\Config\ in the same manner.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
Activision’s Modern Warfare 3 was the best-selling game of 2011, and it too benefits from the addition of GeForce-exclusive Ambient Occlusion support.
Click to view an interactive comparison.
As with Skyrim and Diablo III, open the NVIDIA Control Panel, browse to ‘Manage 3D Settings,’ locate the Modern Warfare 3 profile in the list, and select one of the Ambient Occlusion quality settings before hitting ‘Apply'.
New SLI Profiles
Our engineers continue to create and improve SLI and 3D Vision profiles for the latest games each and every day. Take a look below at the latest additions, and ensure that you enable automatic profile acquisition in NVIDIA Update to receive the latest enhancements as soon as they're released.
7554
Afterfall: InSanity
ArcheAge
Core Blaze
F1 2011
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Mass Effect 3
Oil Rush
Red Faction: Armageddon
The Darkness II
Trine 2
WRC 2: FIA World Rally Championship 2011
New & Updated 3D Vision Profiles
Afterfall: Insanity – Rated Fair
Alan Wake - Rated Poor
ANNO 2070 - Rated Not Recommended
Apache: Air Assault – Rated Fair
Black Prophecy – Rated Not Recommended
Chaos Online – Rated Fair
Choplifter HD - Rated Good
Cities XL 2012 - Rated Good
Da Vinci Online – Rated Fair
Dino D-Day - Rated Good
DotA 2 – Rating upgraded to Fair
Dungeon and Dragons: Daggerdale – Rated Fair
Edge - Rated Excellent
Ferrari Project – Rated Not Recommended
Fractal – Rated Excellent
FreeStyle 2 – Rated Good
Insane 2 - Rated Excellent
King Arthur II – Rated Not Recommended
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning – Rated Fair
Kong Fu Ying Xiong – Rated Fair
Love Beat – Rated Good
Marvel Super Hero Squad Online – Rated Good
Microsoft Flight – Rated Fair
Perpetuum – Rated Fair
Post Apocalyptic Mayhem – Rated Fair
Prototype 2 – Rated Fair
Q.U.B.E. – Rated Excellent
Quan Qiu Shi Ming – Rated Excellent
Red Bull X-Fighters - Rated Excellent
rFactor 2 (mod mode) – Rated Good & Updated Convergence
Risen 2: Dark Waters - Rated Fair
Saints Row: The Third – Rated Not Recommended
Shadow Company: Left for Dead – Rated Not Recommended
Special Force – Rated Good
Tera – Rated Good
The Adventures of Tintin – Rated Good
The First Templar – Rated Fair
The Haunted Halls Reach – Rated Excellent
Top Gun: Hard Lock – Rated Not Recommended
Tropico 4 – Rated Good
Worms Blast – Rated Good
Other Miscellaneous Additions
295.73 WHQL adds support for 3D Vision windowed mode on DLP HDTVs and on Optimized for GeForce passive 3D monitors.
Includes updated PhysX 9.12.0209 System Software for improved compatibility and performance in Alice: Madness Returns and Batman: Arkham City.
Enables WHQL-certified support for NVIDIA Surround on Intel X79 SLI-certified motherboards.
Fixes instances of texture corruption/artifacts in Battlefield 3 when memory constrained (typically on 1GB or less graphics cards running Ultra settings and high resolutions).
Click here to download the GeForce 295.73 WHQL drivers. |
Last updated Fri May 2 2014
MoonScript is an open source prgramming language which compiles into Lua. Lua is a very powerful dynamically typed language. It supports features like functions as first class objects, closures, tail-recursion and a high performance.
Lua has made its way into a variety of locations, like games, text editors, and window managers, due to its simplicity to embed in addition to its ability to be run from the command line like any other scripting language.
MoonScript is built on top of Lua to take advantage of the same excellent platform in addition to providing a collection of syntactic features which aid in rapid development.
You can think of MoonScript as an easier and faster way to write Lua. MoonScript is compatible with all existing Lua code, and Lua code can natively work with MoonScript code. MoonScript is just another way to write Lua.
This is a guide to get your system ready for MoonScript development.
If you have any trouble, or find something outdated in the guide please leave a comment at the bottom.
Installing
Installation of MoonScript is slightly different depending on the platform. MoonScript is written in pure Lua but some of its dependencies are written in C. Chose your platform to begin:
Windows
Because compiling the dependencies can be challenging, pre-built Windows binaries have been created.
Download moonscript-0.2.5.zip, the latest version as of this guide.
All versions can be found here: http://moonscript.org/bin/
Within the zip file, moon.exe and moonc.exe are the MoonScript executables. We want to be able to run these executables from the command line easily so we'll need to put them in one of the directories listed by the PATH environment variable.
Create a directory somewhere on your computer where you want your MoonScript installation to be. For example, I will use C:\moonscript .
Extract all the files from the zip into the new directory. moon.exe , moonc.exe and lua5.1.dll must be present for MoonScript to work.
Next, from the control panel goto System > Advanced Tab. Click on the Environment Variables button.
Under User variables , see if there is an existing PATH entry. If there isn’t, click New , else select PATH and click Edit .
If the variable value is empty, then just paste the MoonScript installation directory in. If it isn’t empty, then the new directory can be added at the end but it must be separated by a ; character.
Below is an image of my PATH , I happened to have another directory in it so I separated the new entry with a ; .
Now we can test our installation, open up a new command prompt and type in:
moon --version
If the installation was successful, then the version of MoonScript is printed.
If you see 'moon' is not recognized... then the installation was not done successfully. Go through the directions again and make sure nothing was left out.
Although not required, it is recommended to also install both Lua and LuaRocks. This will give you access to the rich collection of packages available to Lua.
Once you're ready, head to Setting Up Your Editor.
OSX
We'll use Homebrew to install LuaRocks, the Lua package manager.
Install Homebrew
If you don’t Hombrew installed already follow the Hombrew installation instructions, then return here.
If you do Homebrew installed, update it:
$ brew update
It’s best to have the latest version of LuaRocks that Hombrew provides, and this will ensure we get it.
Install LuaRocks and MoonScript
With Hombrew installed we can easily install LuaRocks:
$ brew install luarocks
This will also install Lua.
Now we can install the latest version of moonscript:
$ luarocks install moonscript
The moonscript package is now visible to Lua, but the MoonScript binaries aren’t in out path yet. By default LuaRocks will install binaries to /usr/local/lib/luarocks/bin/ .
Edit your ~/.profile and add:
export PATH = $PATH :/usr/local/lib/luarocks/bin/
Test your installation by running in a new terminal:
$ moon --version
Test that we can require moonscript by running this command, it should produce no output:
$ lua -e 'require "moonscript"'
Once you are ready, head to Setting Up Your Editor.
Linux
We're going to use LuaRocks, the Lua package manager. It will handle building all the dependencies for you in addition to installing MoonScript to the right spot. This method depends on having a build tools installed.
Most mainstream distributions will have LuaRocks in their package repository. If not, you can follow the LuaRocks installation directions.
To install, just run:
$ sudo luarocks install moonscript
We use sudo here to install globally to the system, enabling us to use the moon and moonc commands from anywhere. If you wish you can install locally by leaving off the sudo.
Assuming everything builds correctly, the executables moon and moonc will now be installed, along with the moonscript Lua module.
From Source
The source code can be downloaded from GitHub at http://github.com/leafo/moonscript.
The latest development version can be installed from source using LuaRocks with the special dev rockspec:
$ luarocks build http://moonscript.org/rocks/moonscript-dev-1.rockspec
Setting Up Your Editor
The following editors have support for MoonScript:
If you are unsure what to use and are on Windows, download the SciTE Windows binary.
SciTE Windows Binary
If you're on Windows then you're in luck! I've packaged SciTE, scintillua and the MoonScript highlighter together into one package. I've even installed the custom moon theme.
You can download the latest version at http://moonscript.org/scite/moonscript-scite.zip.
Just extract, and run scite.exe . You're now ready to start creating programs.
Creating Programs
Compiling & Running
The MoonScript package comes with two executables, moon and moonc .
With moonc we can compile MoonScript code into Lua. Let’s try it out, create a new file called hello.moon :
-- I'm a comment! print " Hello from MoonScript! "
From your terminal:
$ moonc hello.moon Built ./hello.moon
This created a file called hello.lua . Feel free to run this code using lua .
The moon executable lets us run our code without having to manually compile it to Lua first. We can run the script we just created like so:
$ moon hello.moon Hello from MoonScript!
moon automatically compiles the file in memory and then executes it right away inside the Lua runtime.
Watch Mode
moonc can do a couple interesting things worth mentioning. If you run moonc -h you can see an entire list of all of it’s command line options.
We're going to take a look at watch mode, which is activated using -w .
Watch mode will watch all of the input files and recompile them if they change.
For example, to automatically rebuild a single moon file if it’s changed:
$ moonc -w my_file.moon
If you want to watch all the moon files in the current directory you can simply do:
$ moonc -w *.moon
If you want to watch an entire directory (along with it’s children) for modified moon files, just use the directory’s name:
$ moonc -w code_directory
And finally, if you want to watch the current directory and all sub directories for changes you can just use . :
$ moonc -w .
Watch mode will tell you every time it compiles a file in the terminal. It will also tell you if there are any compilation errors.
There are two things to be aware of:
New files aren’t picked up, you have to restart moonc moonc doesn’t compile everything on start up. Use moonc without the -w flag to excplicity compile everything
Compile To Directory
If you want to save your compiled MoonScript’s Lua files elsewhere, use the -t flag to specify a directory. The entire directory structure of your MoonScript code will be preserved.
It can also be used with watch mode, for example:
The following will recursively watch all moon files from the current directory, and write them into the directory my_lua .
$ moonc -w -t my_lua .
What’s Next?
After you're comfortable with compiling and running code, the next step is to start learning the language. The MoonScript Reference Manual is the most comprehensive guide to everything provided by MoonScript.
If you're interested in contributing to the language, the MoonScript github repository is a good place to start.
If you're interested in using MoonScript as a web scripting language, I've written a nice guide to setting up Lua on Heroku.
There’s also an online compiler if you want to experiment without installing, or share snippets with other people. It’s located at http://moonscript.org/compiler/.
If you've created something with MoonScript I'd love to hear about it. Feel free to leave a comment.
Good Luck! |
SAN ANTONIO -- More than once during training camp Cowboys coach Jason Garrett has referenced how Rob Ryan’s defenses performed against some of the best quarterbacks in the NFL last year as a reason why he was excited to add Ryan as the coordinator.
“To me it’s a very difficult scheme to play against,” Garrett said. “The reason I say that is I believe the defenses he coordinates are very fundamentally sound. There’s a base defense that they play and they teach the defensive linemen, the linebackers and the secondary how to play some real sound, basic day one football. And then as you go, different situations that occur, it becomes more difficult. It becomes more scheme-oriented. So they’ve laid the foundation, but then there’s some scheme things that can be real challenging for an offense. I think if you saw some of the games they played last year in Cleveland against some of the better offenses in the league and some of the better quarterbacks in the league I think you’ll see what I’m talking about.”
Last year Cleveland played Atlanta (Matt Ryan), New Orleans (Drew Brees) and New England (Tom Brady), so I’ll assume those are the games Garrett is talking about.
Here are the numbers for those three vs. the Browns:
Ryan – 16 of 28, 187 yards, 1 touchdown, 0 interceptions, 2 sacks, 89.4 rating.
Brees – 37 of 56, 356 yards, 2 touchdowns, 4 interceptions, 3 sacks, 65.8 rating
Brady – 19 of 36, 224 yards, 2 touchdowns, 0 interceptions, 1 sack, 90.5 rating
The Browns beat the Saints (30-17) and the Patriots (34-14) and lost to Atlanta, 20-10.
Ryan’s 187 yards passing was the third-lowest output of his season. Brees’ 65.8 passer rating was his lowest of the year and he had two picks return for touchdowns. Brady’s 52.8 completion percentage was his lowest of the season. The Browns also kept Tampa Bay’s Josh Freeman and Kansas City’s Matt Cassel to 182 and 176 yards passing respectively. |
By Brandon Turbeville
Reminiscent of a 1970’s television show, whenever one tunes in to the mainstream corporate news to observe the latest propaganda from the US government and the State Department in particular, the viewer can scarcely contain himself from asking “What will they think of next?”
Indeed, mainstream news and the US State Department must be attempting to top themselves in a contest that could only be titled “Wackiest theory of the week.”
Enter this week’s contestant: the “Assad is supporting ISIS” claim.
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Yesterday, the U.S. Embassy Syria Twitter account sent out a tweet suggesting that the Syrian government was undertaking a bombing campaign in support of ISIS and the terrorist organization’s creeping assault on Aleppo.
Reports indicate that the regime is making air-strikes in support of #ISIL ‘s advance on #Aleppo , aiding extremists against Syrian population — U.S. Embassy Syria (@USEmbassySyria) June 1, 2015
The problem with this propaganda line is that not only is it untrue, it is incredibly stupid. By stupid, I do not mean ordinary levels of stupidity but an epic level of stupidity that would, under normal circumstances, suggest the possibility of brain damage.
Of course, those who sent the tweet are not stupid at all. In fact, they know full well that Assad is not supporting ISIS. They are merely attempting to shift focus after it was revealed a week ago that the United States, NATO, and the GCC not only were aware of ISIS/AQI early on, but that they were actively supporting their advance by documents belonging to the Defense Intelligence Agency.
With that little piece of information circulating throughout the airwaves (at least the alternative ones), the US is now claiming that it is Assad who is supporting ISIS. If this little piece of propaganda is able to stick, the justification for direct military assault on Syria will be more easily sold to the general public in the West who, at best, are only half listening to any report at any given time. |
Back in March, NFL owners approved a rule that banned ball carriers from initiating contact with the crown of their helmets in the open field.
The safety measure -- popularly known as the Trent Richardson Rule -- was met with heavy criticism. Some ridiculous panic was involved. Marshall Faulk was particularly apoplectic on the issue.
In reality, the rule led to no discernible change in how the game was played this season. Running backs carried on as they always had, and officials kept the flags in their pockets.
On Sunday night, Dallas Cowboys running back DeMarco Murray decked Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Damion Square with the exact type of blow that led to the rule's creation. NBC analyst Cris Collinsworth made a point to remind viewers of that fact.
Murray wasn't penalized on the play, but he did get fined $21,000 for striking an opponent with the crown of his helmet, according to NFL Media Insider Ian Rapoport.
Thanks a lot, Collinsworth.
Other fines from around the league:
» Baltimore Ravens safety James Ihedigbo was fined $15,750 for unnecessary roughness. He struck a defenseless player with the crown of his helmet.
» Green Bay Packers linebacker A.J. Hawk was fined $15,750 for striking a defenseless player using the crown of his helmet for his hit on Chicago Bears wide receiver Marquess Wilson.
We previewed all four Wild Card games in the latest "Around The League Podcast." |
On the edge of Europe, where the river Evros meanders towards the Aegean sea, a new tragedy involving two of the world's most troubled peoples is unfolding.
On one side of the river border are gathered clusters of Syrian refugees, desperate to escape the misery of war and put the Turkish camps behind them. But beyond the perilous currents lies Greece, a nation so economically bereft it has little time or resources for them.
The Evros has always been a barrier to those seeking asylum in the European Union, but now the surging tide of migrants fleeing Syria faces something new. Refugees, non-governmental organisation (NGO) workers and lawyers have told the Guardian that border forces have been pushing asylum seekers back into their boats and escorting them back back across to the Turkish side.
This summer two people smugglers left 25 Syrian refugees to cross the Evros alone at night. There were two rubber dinghies. The first disappeared across the river into the night. The second floated towards Greece, developed a leak, spun for 15 minutes and then capsized. Most of the men, women and children could not swim. Some survived using a fallen tree and some of the islands that peek out of the shallow waters.
The bedraggled Syrians who made it ashore walked for a couple of miles through dense woodland and asparagus fields.
It was nearly dawn but still dark when they arrived in a small Greek border village. Hungry, muddy-booted migrants are a common sight across northern Greece. Since the start of this year, 23,000 undocumented migrants and asylum seekers were arrested in Greece after crossing the border from Turkey. Syrians were the second-largest nationality arrested.
After their arrest, they are usually detained in administrative holding centres by the EU border police, Frontex, which has been deployed a few miles from the border since 2010. However, the group of Syrian refugees who made it across the Evros that night were not registered.
Instead, they were arrested by officers in "blue uniforms" and driven back to the river. "There were between 100 to 150 people by the river," said Farouk (not his real name), a 29-year-old from the Qamishli region in northern Syria. "They were of many nationalities, mainly Syrian. Some tried to make problems: they had paid a lot of money to get that far. When that happened, the police beat them. The police kicked and slapped them, including the women, they picked up children and threw them into the boat."
The officers put people in small plastic boats, which they tied to larger, motorised boats, and returned them to Turkish territory.
"We shouted loudly and said: 'We don't want to go back,'" Farouk continued. The Turkish border patrol helped them ashore. "We told the Turkish police and showed them signs of beating. They said they will make a complaint to the Greek police and we don't know what happened after that."
The accusation that Greek or Frontex officers returned refugees from Syria without screening them first is a serious one. Italy and Malta have been fiercely criticised for using "push-back" methods in the Mediterranean. This year the European court of human rights found that Italy had breached international human rights law by returning a boat of migrants back to Libya.
NGOs, lawyers, and locals working in Greece and Turkey say it is well known that Greek border police sometimes push back undocumented migrants and asylum seekers.
Levent Dinceli, a Turkish lawyer based in Edirne, close to the border with Greece, represents asylum seekers held in detention centres around Turkey. Many of his clients tell him about being pushed back by Greek border police. "There is a readmission agreement between Greece and Turkey, but it is not working well," he said.
"Very few people are sent the legal way. It is either the push-back method or they regroup these people in detention centres, then send them back to Turkey with boats. These boats are not safe. Putting people in these boats is also pushing them to their death."
A UN High Commissioner for Refugees source said the organisation could not comment on Farouk's story or illegal push-backs by Greek police in general. However, they acknowledged hearing similar accounts. "People say that there is a situation where people may enter the territory but are not registered as persons who are arrested in Greek territory. They are returned through use of force at night through the river. We think that these operations have been eliminated in the last two years."
Kelly Grivakou, a lawyer at the human rights NGO Aitima in Athens, said they often heard of Greek border police acting in breach of the law. "It is well known," she said. "It is illegal. When you enter a state and you need protection, and this state has ratified the Geneva conventions, the state has obligations to protect you. When you send a man from Iran or Afghanistan back to Turkey, when you know that maybe he is going to be deported back to his country, and might face danger or violence, you violate article 33 of the Geneva conventions."
Pasxalis Syritoudis, police chief of the northern Evros region, denied that his officers operated a push-back policy. "Migrants who don't succeed in crossing make these accusations to create problems for [us]. These accusations are being made because it is hard for a migrant to travel hundreds of kilometres to reach Greek borders and then not be able to make it across," he said.
However, Syritoudisadmitted that his main goal was to "prevent people entering Greek soil". This meant sometimes his officers used boats to block migrants in dinghies from crossing the border. "We have 10 boats patrolling the river all the time. The boats are used to block people from crossing – to stop them getting to Greek territory." When asked how they demarcated the border in the river, he said: "The border is at the halfway point in the river."
He said: "Using the thermal-vision vans and night cameras, we try to see them [migrants] before they enter the river, when they are on the Turkish side to prevent them crossing. When we detect migrants on the other side, we go to the spot and by using police sirens and lights, we make our presence clear to them to prevent them from entering."
Greece is under huge pressure to seal off its borders, from the EU and at home, because of rising anti-immigrant sentiment among ordinary Greeks. Operation Shield, paid for by the European commission, is the government's latest attempt to stop illegal crossings from Turkey.
Since the start of Shield in August, 900 extra police officers have been sent to Orestiada, a small border town in northern Greece. The effects have been immediate: in July 6,000 migrants were arrested in the area. This dropped to 1,800 in August and September.
The government has also spent €3m (£2.4m) on a barbed-wire fence for its eight-mile land border with Turkey, a few miles from the river Evros. Even during construction, Demiertzis Nasos, whose company is building the fence, said he saw refugees crossing the border. "We see families, once even a four-month-old baby. They were wet from the river."
Many of those pushed back or stopped from entering Greece through its northern border have simply chosen to try their luck by boat across the Aegean sea. This route is fraught with danger. In September 58 people died after their boat sank off the west coat of Turkey. A number of the dead were Syrians who had travelled with Farouk just a few weeks before.
The effort spent on keeping migrants and refugees entering Europe brings little return because there is no structure in place in Turkey to stop them simply trying again. When a person is caught crossing the border to Europe they are put in one of Turkey's immigration removal centres. Between January and July this year, Turkish police arrested 14,559 irregular such migrants.
Increasingly, as border controls tighten between Greece and Turkey, migrants and asylum seekers choose to enter Europe through Bulgaria. Syritoudis said there had been an increase of about 200 people a week evading capture and crossing from Turkey into Bulgaria. Mahmud, 39, and his wife, Fadwa, 35, are one such Syrian family. As Damascus collapsed around them, they packed up their four children and left. The family has spent six months at an open camp in Pastrogor, an isolated border village in Bulgaria. During that time they have been given little information on what will happen to them.
Farouk is living at the same camp. "We don't know what to do. We cannot go back because there is a problem with our country. We cannot continue because we have no money. We are like slum dogs. Before we came here we heard that Europe is a country of humanity. But after all these experiences we see the opposite." |
Artist Jonas Dahlberg has been chosen to create three memorials, one of which cuts a 3.5m slit in the landscape, to remember the victims of Anders Behring Breivik
A Swedish artist has been selected to create official memorials at the sites of the 2011 Norwegian massacres carried out by right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik.
The competition, called Memorial Sites After 22 July, was won by Jonas Dahlberg, who will create three artworks at a cost of 27m Norwegian kroner (£2.7m) to the government in Oslo.
The most striking memorial is called Memory Wound. The 43-year-old artist has sliced a three-and-a-half-metre-wide slit into the Sørbråten peninsula, which faces the island of Utøya where Breivik killed 69 people. It marks a "symbolic wound" in the landscape.
One hundred cubic metres of the stone cut from Sørbråten will be transferred to the governmental quarter in Oslo, where another memorial will mark the spot where a car bomb was detonated by Breivik that resulted in eight deaths.
A temporary pathway in the capital, between Grubbegata and Deichmanske library, will also be made by Dahlberg, who will later take trees from Sørbråten to create a permanent amphitheatre in the government quarter called Time and Movement.
Memory Wound model. Picture: Jonas Dahlberg Studio
Breivik, now serving a 21-year prison sentence, told an Oslo court in 2012 that his victims – many of whom were teenagers attending the Labour party's annual summer camp – were facilitating the "Islamisation of Norway".
The jury for the competition, who reached a unanimous decision, included representatives of the Labour party and victim support groups. Dahlberg beat 300 other entries, including former Turner prize winner Jeremy Deller. Two memorials will be unveiled on 22 July 2015 – the fourth anniversary of the attacks – with the amphitheatre to come at a later date.
"It is a big responsibility and in many ways the most important work I have done," Dahlberg told the Guardian. "I was already honoured to be considered when I was invited to be in the competition, so to have won now is a bit hard to grasp."
The Swedish artist, who lives and works in Stockholm, said he hoped the memorial would provide a state of reflection through its "poetic rupture". He said: "It should be difficult to see the inherent beauty of the setting, without also experiencing a sense of loss. It is this sense of loss that will physically activate the site."
The names of all the victims will be inscribed on a wall in the 'symbolic wound' of the landscape. Credit: Jonas Dahlberg Studio
The headland of the Sørbråten memorial will be engraved with names of all the victims; visitors will be able to read them but not reach to touch them. "People will find their own way through the landscape around the cut," said Dahlberg, "looking down at the channel and at the victims' names from high up, or looking out to Utøya, establishing their own private ways of seeing and remembering."
Mari Aaby West of the Norwegian Labour party youth league and John Hestnes, of the national support group for victims of the 22 July attacks, had passed on positive feedback from victims' families who had viewed the designs, said Dahlberg, who did not speak directly to the relatives.
A statement from the jury for Public Art Norway, which included West and Hestnes, said Dahlberg's idea to make a physical incision in the landscape stood like a "symbolic wound".
It said: "The void that is created evokes the sense of sudden loss combined with the long-term missing and remembrance of those who perished. The proposal is radical and brave, and evokes the tragic events in a physical and direct manner."
Walkway to the memorial site. Credit: Jonas Dahlberg Studio
Designs for two memorials in the government quarter are not finalised, but Dahlberg explained his temporary pathway would lie beside an existing walkway, taking pedestrians off their usual path.
"The design physically relates to the interruption that occurred in the everyday life flow of Norwegian society," he said. "Yet it is indeed everyday life that must carry on."
Breivik received the maximum sentence available under Norwegian law. His prison term will be reviewed every two years after he completes a decade in jail. |
During a recent blizzard in Massachusetts, Sonia Lo, CEO of FreshBox Farms, was in a grocery store suggesting to skeptical patrons that they sample her leafy greens. “They were picked yesterday,” is what she told tasters. She also told them no, they weren’t picked elsewhere and flown in that morning. Lo’s greens — over 30 different types — grow year-round in an airtight modular box in Millis, Massachusetts. Every plant’s tray is attached to a sensor to determine just the right amount of water, nutrients and LED lighting the plant needs.
“We have an algorithm for every plant variety,” says Lo. They measure around 10,000 data points per plant for factors such as environment, nutrients, plant stress and LED light. “We have our own software intended to identify if the plants are unhappy. We don’t use chemical controls — we rely on these digital points to pre-empt plant stress and allow for extraordinary things like faster grow times.”
As corporate investors start putting their money into agriculture technology (ag tech) startups, shoppers might just start seeing a lot more fresh crops at their local stores, even in the dead of winter.
Ag tech — from hobbyist to huge commercial farms — is taking off. CB Insights defines ag tech as “technology that increases the efficiency of farms (in the form of software), sensors, aerial-based data, internet-based distribution channels (marketplaces) and tools for technology-enabled farming.”
A recent report from Boston Consulting Group says that “new technologies are revolutionizing agriculture.” In fact, according to this report, venture capital firms have upped their ag tech investments by 80% since 2012 — even though commodity prices remain volatile.
Cleveland Justis, the executive director of the Mike and Renee Child Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at University of California, Davis says his campus is seeing a lot of traffic from venture capitalists as well as big industry companies who are looking for fresh agricultural technologies. Researchers at UC Davis are working on food growth technologies such as gut microbiome innovations, precision farming and drought-friendly cultivation.
“Companies are seeing this as a hub of science around how we feed people and make more resilient crops with less,” Justis says. “How are we going to feed 9 billion people in the future? Not with a simple software program. We’re going to have to use really deep, cutting-edge research to inform these processes.”
The software market for precision farming (such as yield monitoring, field mapping, crop scouting and weather forecasting) is expected to grow 14% between 2016 and 2022 in the United States. Dale Jefferson, president and COO of CropZilla Software Inc., says that in less than two years, his precision farming startup’s software has been installed in farms across the U.S. and Canada, and it is even being tested in Italy. His software takes into account every aspect of a farm, from the types of seeds planted to the number of workers and combines in use.
“We create a digital model,” he says. Farmers can use the software to play with variables and see how potential changes — such as an expensive combine purchase or hiring 10 new field hands — can affect their forecast. For instance, a Midwestern farmer recently used CropZilla to see what would happen if he took his soybean planting schedule from one 12-hour shift to two 10-hour shifts. “The numbers worked out to a five bushel-per-acre increase,” Jefferson says. The farmer made an additional $170,000 from his soybean yield after making this change.
“With corn and bean prices down, farmers are turning to technology to help them survive,” Jefferson says. |
What happens when you give a bunch of avant-garde, experimental musicians whose work is typically confined to living rooms and contemporary gallery spaces an hour of free rein at one of Indy’s most prominent public spaces? Stop by Monument Circle at 6 p.m. on Mondays to find out.
The onset of the workweek brings a bit of routine and the launch of themed days as part of Spark Monument Circle. Until mid-October, Mondays will consist of “Mellow Mondays” which are designed to “encourage low-tech, relaxing experiences.”
Local musician and artist John Flannelly will curate musical performances in connection with Big Car’s Listen Hear initiative to close out Mellow Mondays. For Spark Monument Circle, Flannelly was given broad guidelines. The Listen Hear contribution, which will take place from 6 p.m. until 7 p.m. on Monday evenings, will feature hour-long performances from Indiana artists. It will focus on experimental music, and generally leans toward more ambient, longform pieces. “A lot of musicians who are playing generally don’t get the opportunity to play for an hour,” Flannelly says. “So, they’re kind of stretching out some things or trying different things.”
Duncan Kissinger will be the first experimental musician to take the stage at Monument Circle this evening. Kissinger initially made a splash on Indy’s music scene while still in high school as the guitarist in celebrated rock band Hotfox. Since those early days, Kissinger’s sound has leaned toward the more experimental, outsider or fringe side of things. This change in direction first surfaced under the name of Skin Conditions, a project with a deep catalog (given its short lifespan) of bedroom recordings available via Indiana music archive Musical Family Tree. Skin Conditions underwent several iterations, including a full backing band at different points in time. More recently, Kissinger has recorded and performed solo under his given name.
“When you think about Duncan’s music,” Flannelly says, “he does a lot of different modes: guitar and singing, every once in a while he’ll whip out a keyboard and do something more spacey. He’s someone who likes to try out different things.”
Kissinger’s idea for his Monument Circle performance came to him as he was drifting to sleep on a recent evening. “It came to me that I should get a bunch of fans – like fans that cool cool a room, not that are supportive of a team or something,” Kissinger laughs. “I’m going to get a bunch of fans in a configuration of a live band … I’m going to have them mic’d and I think I might run them through some effects, but I’m going to just be the sound guy for that. I’m going to work a mixer in a choir robe, because [Flannelly] said it has to be an hour and it has to be an ambient set. So, I was like what’s a better ambient instrument than fans, you know? Plus it’s probably going to be hotter than Hell.”
Flannelly is anxious to bring these experimental sounds from the relatively sequestered spaces of music venues and the bedroom to a historic stage as prominent as any in the city. “Most live music, just by circumstance of the venue is going to be kind of hidden away,” Flannelly says. “It’s in a building with a cover, possibly. Or it’s in a house where not everybody knows about it. That’s even more true of the experimental side of things. So, I think it’s awesome. You never know how a wide audience will react to these things in general.”
Kissinger echoed that sentiment, saying, “The Listen Hear opportunity on the circle is really great, because that’s some weird, heady, out-there stuff … It’s going to be a really fun dynamic, especially with all of the other people that are doing the Monday sets. I know a lot of them. We’re all weirdos. I’m excited to watch everyone fly their freak flag in the middle of downtown.”
Listen Hear Performance Schedule:
August 3: Duncan Kissinger
August 10: Jim Walker
August 17: Rob Funkhouser
August 24: John Flannelly
August 31: Landon Caldwell
September 7: [No performance on Labor day]
September 14: Teen Brigade
September 21: Drekka
September 28: Sommer
October 5: Kaiton Slusher / Levi Villines
October 12: Sedcairn Archives
Listen Hear is an ongoing sound-art project that Big Car launched in 2014. The fundamental purposes of Listen Hear are to (1) highlight sound as a material in art while bringing people together to enjoy this, (2) give focus to the importance of our daily soundscape, (3) engage new listeners with tools and techniques related to deep listening, (4) provide opportunities to new and uninitiated audiences to experience sound as art.
Stay up-to-date on Listen Hear’s contribution to Spark Monument Circle via Facebook. |
Danish Pakkeleg Before we begin each player needs to bring a small gift and all the gifts needs to be placed in the middle of the table. You will also need at least one dice and a dice cup, preferable more. Ok, let's go!
ROUND #1 Players take turns in rolling the dice and when you roll a 6, you choose a gift until all gifts have been taken. Let's begin
ROUND #1 Players take turns in rolling the dice and when you roll a 6, you choose a gift until all gifts have been taken. All the gifts are gone
ROUND #2 The game continues the same way, but now you steal gifts from the other players, when you roll a 6, though only for a limited amount of time, which you will set now. Please set the minimum time, in min, and the maximum time in min. Start the clock
ROUND #2 The game continues the same way, but now you steal gifts from the other players, when you roll a 6, though only for a limited amount of time, which you will set now. Stop the clock |
The Quebec government will be slashing $56 million from the province's daycare budget despite a commitment to increase the family ministry's budget by 3.2 per cent.
Both the government-subsidized non-profit daycare system (CPE) and private daycares will be affected by the cuts, according to Family Minister Nicole Léger.
Léger made the announcement to CPE representatives on Thursday. She said the reductions will help balance the provincial government's budget.
Léger said the government will slash $37.9 million from the CPEs budget effective July 1. This represents 3.5 per cent of the entire budget allocated to the non-profit daycare system.
The other $18.3 million will be taken out of the subsidies given to private daycares.
"We have to remember that the family ministry also has to comply with budgetary efforts – all ministries have to – to counter the $1.6 billion deficit left behind by the previous Liberal government," said Léger.
The provincial budget tabled last fall promised a 3.2 per cent increase in the family ministry's budget.
Léger said the ministry was given the increase in order to add the 28,000 daycare spots promised by Premier Pauline Marois during the Parti Québécois' election campaign last fall.
Taking money from CPE surplus
The government said it would be taking $6.6 million from a $222 million surplus in the CPE network.
"When we have to take measures to help the budget, there's nothing that forbids me from looking into the surplus," said Léger.
Louis Senécal, the executive director of the association representing the provinces CPEs, said the network is entitled to the extra money.
"Government guidelines say that CPEs can accumulate 25 per cent of their turnover as a surplus for a total of $250 million. So, we're well within the limits with $222 million," he said.
Senécal said the surplus is typically used to help maintain buildings and set up installations. He said the money spent in the last seven years has doubled but the financing has remained the same.
Léger also said the government would be saving money by increasing the ratio of children per educator for 4-year-old children.
Léger said the ratio of children for one educator would increase from eight to 10.
She said most daycares already assign 10 children to each educator in that age group, but added she would make sure this becomes the norm across the province.
The ratio of eight children per educator for children aged 18-months and up will remain the same, said the minister.
According to Senécal, the government's justifications for the cuts fail to explain why it is taking those measures to balance the provincial budget.
CPE suspect cuts will help fund new preschool plans
Senécal said he suspects the government is trying to cut from the CPEs budget to help fund a new preschool program for 4-year-old children from disadvantaged families.
The program was announced by Education Minister Marie Malavoy earlier this week.
Léger, however, said the family ministry would not be spending any money on the government's new preschool plans.
"I am not financing the preschool for 4-year-olds. It's the government as a whole, the education ministry and that's for $8 million," she said.
Senécal said he still does not understand why the Marois government feels the need to cut from the daycare network's funds.
"We don't understand Mrs. Marois' motivations," said Senécal. "Fifty million dollars on a $72.4 billion budget is a drop in the ocean."
"This government gets elected and its first promise is 'one child, one spot.' Then, all while creating the spaces, they take away all of the means in place to offer quality services to parents," he said.
He said the network will do everything it can to make the government backtrack on its decision.
"We will look at all of the ways [to put pressure on the government,]" said Senécal. "We can't believe the mother of Quebec's daycare network, Mrs. Marois, is putting an axe in this beautiful network that is a part of Quebec's pride." |
But as the taboos are being broken (though not removed), politicians have begun to question these tactics and the treatment of minorities: Altan Tan, a member of parliament from the Peace and Democratic Party, has stated that “for a long time those allegations had been circulating, but they were denied by the authorities.”
Tan urged Interior Minister Muammer Guler to make a statement on the issue. “If there is such a thing going on, it is a major disaster. The state illegally profiling its own citizens based on ethnicity and religion, and doing this secretly, is a big catastrophe,” Tan said.
Even after the Genocide, the remaining Armenians in Turkey experienced the brunt of this discriminatory racist policy. One expression of that policy was the “wealth tax” (varlik vergisi), which was levied on Armenians, Jews and Greeks in the 1940s; those who were unable to pay the exorbitant taxes were sent to labor camps to perish.
Another policy which exists to this day is the appointment of Turkish assistant principals at Armenian schools. The community is free to hire an Armenian principal, but the power resides in the hands of the assistant principal, who must be an ethnic Turk. In reality, Turks serving in that capacity are the official government spies, placed there to enforce restrictive government policies and to report to higher-ups if any Armenian history is being taught secretly in those schools. That is why young people graduating from Armenian schools and emigrating to the West are dumbfounded to discover there is such a thing called Armenian history.
The Kurds do not have any race codes because they had been designated for assimilation. Beginning with Ataturk, who perpetrated the Dersim pogroms against the Kurds, successive administrations have been trying to convince the Kurds that there is no distinct ethnic group known as Kurd; that the Kurds better consider themselves as “mountain Turks.” Despite all atrocities and persecutions, no Kurd was ever convinced to be anything but a Kurd.
The Kurdish minority — which accounts for one third of Turkey’s population — is on the verge of emancipation. The establishment of Iraqi Kurdistan has fueled aspirations of the Kurds throughout the region and especially in Turkey. It looks like in the bloodbath of the civil war in Syria, another autonomous region for Kurds is shaping up. |
Monitoring: Simon Martin
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
4:05 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
Wednesday, December 31st, 2013
21:05 Coordinated Universal Time
Wednesday, December 31st, 2013
Meanwhile—
Simon learned at least three things that morning: the ambulance response time in Toronto is five minutes; “syncope” is the technical term for a fainting spell; and something awful is going to happen to at least a small piece of Toronto at some point in the future.
He had also learned a thing or two about his power. For one, it was sort of overwhelming to experience someone’s death from the inside. He had been expecting to see it as though he had been a bystander.
Second, he had to be careful about how he used his power in the future. After he had touched Laurie, his eyes rolled to the back of his head and his body slumped to the side, almost falling off the bench. He was like that for a few seconds, and then there was the screaming, and then he passed out. Understandably, she had called the ambulance on her cell, and even though he woke up a minute later she didn’t let him leave until the EMT said that nothing seemed to be wrong anymore.
He was handling things considerably better on the second go-around. About halfway through watching Looper with his mother he had pretended to get drowsy, and he was now letting his head hit the back of the couch in preparation for his next viewing of the future.—
The taste of metal in his mouth is the first thing he notices, even before he remembers that this is somebody else’s body. His mother’s hands are trembling, wrapped around something hard and cold, bumping against the roof of her mouth. This is his room, he notices, and something about that bugs him, but his thoughts are shaken off by a realization: there’s a gun in her mouth.
“Simon,” his mother says. It takes a moment for him to realize that he’s returned to the world.
“S-Sorry,” he replies, trying to put on his best sleepy voice.
“You should take a nap. I don’t know how much sleep you’re missing, but it’s obviously a lot. We can talk about how long you’ve been having these nightmares later tonight.”
Simon nods and moves off to his room, still in shock and half stumbling. After he sits at his desk, door closed and locked behind him, his mind puts together what had been off about his room: the bed had been made. Maybe he had just decided to clean it up for once, despite the utter uselessness of making up a bed that was going to get unmade later that day. Maybe, though, he would die at some point between now and his mother’s death, whenever that happened.
At least she died , or will die, quickly, without first having to freeze or turn into one of those horrid body trees. Thinking back on it he can remember pulling the trigger but hadn’t heard the gun go off, which has to be a good sign.
Time to figure out where to go from here, he thinks.
On paper he begins writing out either-or statements, questions, and a few observations that might be important. It still isn’t clear how long the visions lasted, but they were short. He will have to be cautious when he collects visions, to make sure that nobody kills him while he’s passed out (or for that matter that he doesn’t fall and break his skull on something).
Next to, “Is future mutable?” he writes, “Either is or isn’t, but no use worrying about self-fulfilling prophecies unless more information gotten on that.” Under the header “Things to figure out” he writes, “Do I die? How? When?” After a moment’s thought he takes out a teal-colored pencil and circles it.
This time around he hadn’t been greeted by the sort of horrifying scene that had greeted him when he saw Laurie’s death. Without knowing more about the circumstances he couldn’t say which was weird. Laurie could have died five years from now, or five decades. Maybe his mother committed suicide before whatever happened to Toronto, or maybe it was in reaction to those events. Laurie wasn’t a body tree, so obviously not everyone had been transformed, and it was no reason to think that there weren’t buildings with heating at that time. Maybe Laurie was homeless in the future.
He needs more information if he’s going to accomplish anything. He needs to find allies too, for a couple of reasons. His power isn’t necessarily actionable in the here and now, and if he’s going to die at some point in the future then he needs to make sure that there is someone who knows whatever he is able to find out. Unless he learns otherwise, he’ll have to assume that he’s going to die and that the future can’t be changed: his usefulness will be in mitigating the damage by giving forewarning.
Maybe only a little slice of Toronto had been turned into a body forest in that vision and nothing bad would happen to the rest of the world, but Simon doubted it. Laurie shouldn’t have been freezing in the cold if that were true, and what were the odds, anyway, that out of all of the people in the world, the one who could see the future would be in the same place that something freakish was going to occur?
Okay, maybe a little better than usual, because it is an entirely plausible argument that this power was given to someone in Toronto specifically because he is or will be well-positioned to affect this event in some way. That ultimately works against the idea, though, because if these powers had been given to more than one person then they had to have been given for a bigger purpose. Unless everyone like him was also in Toronto (he quickly notes the question on paper), purposeful placement suggests that there is more to the problem.
At the very least it has the potential to become regional or even global in scope. If Simon were to put money on it, he would have to say that the world is going to end. Nobody had gotten powers to stop World War II, after all, so whatever this is about has to be worse than that.
He sets the pencil down.
“Well, shit.”
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This is a place that has a lot of meaning and history in my life. My mother just retired as a teacher from St. Joseph’s, after over thirty years working there. Both of my maternal grandparents attended St. Josephs, back when it was surrounded by nothing by farmland.
I’m sure most people have noticed the old building before or after crossing the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge (and if you haven’t, give it a look right alongside the highway). The school itself was opened in 1869 and the present building, which I have recently took pictures of, was opened in 1913. This was the building that my grandmother attended nearly 100 years ago. The building always creeped me out as a kid, but looking around now it really is a great piece of lost architecture and design.
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REPORT: Seth Rich Attended Party with Numerous DC IT Workers the Night He Was Murdered
On July 10, 2016, 27 year-old Democratic staffer Seth Conrad Rich was murdered in Washington DC about a block from his apartment. The killer or killers took nothing from their victim, leaving behind his wallet, watch and phone.
Via Wikipedia: Earlier that night he had been at Lou’s City Bar, a sports pub 1.8 miles from his apartment, in Columbia Heights, where he was a regular customer. He left when the bar was closing, at about 1:30 or 1:45 a.m. Police were alerted to gunfire at 4:20 a.m. by an automated gunfire locator. Within approximately one minute after the gun shots, police officers found Rich with multiple gunshot wounds, in a conscious and breathing state.[33] He was transported to a nearby hospital, where he later died. According to police, he died from two shots to the back… Rich’s mother told NBC’s Washington affiliate WRC-TV,
“There had been a struggle. His hands were bruised, his knees are bruised, his face is bruised, and yet he had two shots to his back, and yet they never took anything… They didn’t finish robbing him, they just took his life.”
NBC 4 reported on the murder:
“ “
Shortly after the killing, Redditors and social media users were pursuing a “lead” saying that Rich was en route to the FBI the morning of his murder, apparently intending to speak to special agents about an “ongoing court case” possibly involving the Clinton family.
Seth Rich’s father Joel told reporters, “If it was a robbery — it failed because he still has his watch, he still has his money — he still has his credit cards, still had his phone so it was a wasted effort except we lost a life.”
The Metropolitan police posted a reward for information on Rich’s murder.
In August Wikileaks offered a $20,000 reward for information on the murder of DNC staffer Seth rich.
Julian Assange also suggested in August that Seth Rich was a Wikileaks informant.
Via Mike Cernovich:
earlier this week Washington DC area detective Rod Wheeler tweeted out about the arrest of Imran Awan.
Wasserman Schultz aide arrested trying to leave the country https://t.co/UypKvCbQfL via @politico — rod wheeler (@rodwheeler) July 26, 2017
Rod Wheeler then told his Twitter followers there may be a connection to Imran Awan’s arrest and “other” local cases.
Follow the arrest of Awan closely. Connect the dots to “other” cases. (hint, hint) Just the beginning. Stay tuned. — rod wheeler (@rodwheeler) July 26, 2017
Now this…
Seth Rich reportedly attended a party with Washington DC IT workers the night of his death.
World Net Daily reported:
During the course of his investigation of Rich’s mysterious murder, Wheeler claims, he learned something peculiar that he hadn’t heard before: Rich attended a party with numerous IT workers the night he was killed. After the party, Rich went to Lou’s City Bar, the last known location where he was seen before his murder. Wheeler said he was determined to learn more about the IT party and who was in attendance, but all his questions have gone unanswered. “Seth attended that party, and I wanted to know who else was at that party. But I could never find out,” Wheeler said. “When I went back to ask other people who should have known who was at that party – these were people who were close to Seth – they told me, ‘You don’t need to know who was at that party because it had nothing to do with his death.’” Uncovering more details about the attendees of the party is essential in the Rich homicide investigation, Wheeler contends. “He was at the party before he went to the bar. What you do in a murder investigation is you work backward. You want to trace the victim’s steps as far back as you can – who was that person around the day before? – as far back as you can,” he said. “What was interesting is when I am told as an investigator that I don’t need to talk to people who were at the party. It makes you wonder why.”
This photo was posted online of Seth Rich at a bar with friends.
The photo was posted on his Facebook page in April.
REPORT: Seth Rich attended party with numerous DC IT workers the night he was murdered https://t.co/Tpmt0euiwt pic.twitter.com/Jm41k5iIPS — Keith Walker (@KeithWalkerNews) July 29, 2017 |
Manchester United are ready to test Tottenham Hotspur’s resolve over Eric Dier by making a renewed effort to sign him. They have had one bid turned down and with Spurs adamant the 23-year-old defensive midfielder is not for sale, it appeared José Mourinho had moved on to other targets, including Chelsea’s Nemanja Matic.
But with United poised to sign the Everton striker Romelu Lukaku from under Chelsea’s noses in a deal worth about £100m, it is unlikely they would sanction Matic’s move to Old Trafford. As a result United are considering a further push for Dier, who has always been Mourinho’s No1 target in the position, and they hope that a bid of about £50m may change Spurs’ thinking.
Transfer roundup: Middlesbrough’s £5m bid for Newcastle’s Karl Darlow rejected Read more
Dier is receptive to a move to United, largely because he lost his place as Tottenham’s first-choice defensive midfielder to Victor Wanyama last season, although Tottenham have insisted they are not prepared to entertain any bids for the player signed from Sporting in 2014.
Mauricio Pochettino came to realise he could not play them together in central midfield and it was the more versatile Dier who felt the squeeze, dropping back to play in defence. Pochettino had moved Dier out of defence and into defensive midfield for the 2015-16 season and watched him excel; Dier finished it as England’s starting defensive midfielder at the European Championship.
Pochettino prizes tactical flexibility in his players but Dier wants to nail down one position and he wants it to be defensive midfield. United would play him there and it has not been lost on Dier he would have the chance to make the role his own.
Tottenham are in a period of relative austerity because of the building of their new stadium. The initial quote for the project was £400m but it has rocketed to £800m and Pochettino is under no illusions he must make ends meet with his trading. He is open to the idea of cashing in on the £50m-rated right-back Kyle Walker, who is a target for Manchester City, but he would not want to lose Dier, whom he values enormously.
Romelu Lukaku: £75m is never a bargain but Everton striker is worth it Read more
Pochettino has said he and the chairman, Daniel Levy, will decide on who is sold and the club will not lose anybody they do not want to sell. Dier is under contract until 2021 and he is not the type to rant and rave but United know money talks and they would also offer a huge salary increase.
Mourinho had looked set to close a deal for Matic last week only for talks to stall, which added to the United manager’s frustration.
However, they did sign the defender Victor Lindelof from Benfica for £31m in mid-June and the move for Lukaku has put a different complexion on United’s summer.
Lukaku is on holiday in Los Angeles with the United midfielder Paul Pogba. He is expected to complete the formalities of his move to United – including the medical – in the city and then join up with his new team-mates for the club’s five-match tour of the United States, which begins on Sunday. |
Martin Luther King Jr. Day King in 1964 Official name Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Also called MLK Day, King Day, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Observed by United States Type National Date Third Monday in January 2018 date January 15 ( 2018-01-15 ) 2019 date January 21 ( 2019-01-21 ) 2020 date January 20 ( 2020-01-20 ) 2021 date January 18 ( 2021-01-18 ) Frequency Yearly
Martin Luther King Jr. Day (officially Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.,[1] and sometimes referred to as MLK Day) is an American federal holiday marking the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. It is observed on the third Monday of January each year, which is around King's birthday, January 15. The holiday is similar to holidays set under the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. The earliest Monday for this holiday is January 15 and the latest is January 21.
King was the chief spokesperson for nonviolent activism in the Civil Rights Movement, which successfully protested racial discrimination in federal and state law. The campaign for a federal holiday in King's honor began soon after his assassination in 1968. President Ronald Reagan signed the holiday into law in 1983, and it was first observed three years later. At first, some states resisted observing the holiday as such, giving it alternative names or combining it with other holidays. It was officially observed in all 50 states for the first time in 2000.
History [ edit ]
Sign (1969) promoting a holiday on the anniversary of King's death
The idea of Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a holiday was promoted by labor unions in contract negotiations.[2] After King's death, U.S. Representative John Conyers (a Democrat from Michigan) and U.S. Senator Edward Brooke (a Republican from Massachusetts) introduced a bill in Congress to make King's birthday a national holiday. The bill first came to a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1979. However, it fell five votes short of the number needed for passage.[3] Two of the main arguments mentioned by opponents were that a paid holiday for federal employees would be too expensive, and that a holiday to honor a private citizen would be contrary to longstanding tradition (King had never held public office).[3] Only two other figures have national holidays in the U.S. honoring them: George Washington and Christopher Columbus.
Soon after, the King Center turned to support from the corporate community and the general public. The success of this strategy was cemented when musician Stevie Wonder released the single "Happy Birthday" to popularize the campaign in 1980 and hosted the Rally for Peace Press Conference in 1981. Six million signatures were collected for a petition to Congress to pass the law, termed by a 2006 article in The Nation as "the largest petition in favor of an issue in U.S. history".[2]
Senators Jesse Helms and John Porter East (both North Carolina Republicans) led opposition to the holiday and questioned whether King was important enough to receive such an honor. Helms criticized King's opposition to the Vietnam War and accused him of espousing "action-oriented Marxism".[4] Helms led a filibuster against the bill and on October 3, 1983, submitted a 300-page document to the Senate alleging that King had associations with communists. New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan declared the document a "packet of filth", threw it on the Senate floor and stomped on it.[5][6]
President Ronald Reagan originally opposed the holiday, citing cost concerns. When asked to comment on Helms' accusations that King was a communist, the president said "We'll know in thirty-five years, won't we?", in reference to the eventual release of FBI surveillance tapes that had previously been sealed.[7] But on November 2, 1983, Reagan signed a bill, proposed by Representative Katie Hall of Indiana, to create a federal holiday honoring King.[8][9] The bill had passed the House of Representatives by a count of 338 to 90, a veto-proof margin.[4] The holiday was observed for the first time on January 20, 1986.[9] It is observed on the third Monday of January.[10]
The bill also established the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Holiday Commission to oversee observance of the holiday, and Coretta Scott King, King's wife, was made a member of this commission for life by President George H. W. Bush in May 1989.[11][12]
State-level passage [ edit ]
Although the federal holiday honoring King was signed into law in 1983 and took effect three years later, not every U.S. state chose to observe the holiday at the state level until 1991, when the New Hampshire legislature created "Civil Rights Day" and abolished "Fast Day".[13] In 2000, Utah became the last state to name a holiday after King when "Human Rights Day" was officially changed to "Martin Luther King Jr. Day".[14]
In 1986, Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt, a Democrat, created a paid state MLK holiday in Arizona by executive order just before he left office, but in 1987, his Republican successor Evan Mecham, citing an attorney general's opinion that Babbitt's order was illegal, reversed Babbitt's decision days after taking office.[15] Later that year, Mecham proclaimed the third Sunday in January to be "Martin Luther King Jr./Civil Rights Day" in Arizona, albeit as an unpaid holiday.[16] In 1990, Arizona voters were given the opportunity to vote on giving state employees a paid MLK holiday. That same year, the National Football League threatened to move Super Bowl XXVII, which was planned for Arizona in 1993, if the MLK holiday was voted down.[17] In the November election, the voters were offered two King Day options: Proposition 301, which replaced Columbus Day on the list of paid state holidays, and Proposition 302, which merged Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays into one paid holiday to make room for MLK Day. Both measures failed to pass, with only 49% of voters approving Prop 302, the more popular of the two options; although some who voted "no" on 302 voted "yes" on Prop 301.[18] Consequently, the state lost the chance to host Super Bowl XXVII, which was subsequently held at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.[17] In a 1992 referendum, the voters, this time given only one option for a paid King Day, approved state-level recognition of the holiday.[19]
On May 2, 2000, South Carolina governor Jim Hodges signed a bill to make King's birthday an official state holiday. South Carolina was the last state to recognize the day as a paid holiday for all state employees. Prior to this, employees could choose between celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day or one of three Confederate holidays.[20] The municipal government of Forest City, North Carolina allows employees to choose between their own birthday or Martin Luther King Jr. Day for a paid holiday.[citation needed]
Alternative names [ edit ]
While all states now observe the holiday, some did not name the day after King. For example, in New Hampshire, the holiday was known as "Civil Rights Day" until 1999, when the State Legislature voted to change the name of the holiday to Martin Luther King Day.[21]
Several additional states have chosen to combine commemorations of King's birthday with other observances:
Workplace observance [ edit ]
A Martin Luther King Day march in Oregon
Overall, in 2007, 33% of employers gave employees the day off, a 2% increase over the previous year. There was little difference in observance by large and small employers: 33% for firms with over 1,000 employees; and, 32% for firms with under 1,000 employees. The observance is most popular among nonprofit organizations and least popular among factories and manufacturers.[28] The reasons for this have varied, ranging from the recent addition of the holiday, to its occurrence just two weeks after the week between Christmas and New Year's Day, when many businesses are closed for part or sometimes all of the week. Additionally, many schools and places of higher education are closed for classes; others remain open but may hold seminars or celebrations of King's message. The observance of MLK Day has led to some colleges and universities extending their Christmas break to include the day as part of break. Some factories and manufacturers used MLK Day as a floating or movable holiday.[citation needed]
King Day of Service [ edit ]
President Barack Obama serving lunch at a Washington soup kitchen on MLK Jr. Day, 2010
The national Martin Luther King Day of Service[29] was started by former Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Harris Wofford and Atlanta Congressman John Lewis, who co-authored the King Holiday and Service Act. The federal legislation challenges Americans to transform the King Holiday into a day of citizen action volunteer service in honor of King. The federal legislation was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on August 23, 1994. Since 1996, Wofford's former state office director, Todd Bernstein, has been directing the annual Greater Philadelphia King Day of Service,[30] the largest event in the nation honoring King.[31]
Several other universities and organizations around the U.S., such as Arizona State University, Greater DC Cares and City Year, participate in the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service. In honor of MLK, hundreds of Volunteer Centers, and volunteers across the country donate their time to make a difference on this day.[citation needed]
The only other official national day of service in the U.S., as designated by the government, is September 11 National Day of Service (9/11 Day).[citation needed]
Outside the United States [ edit ]
Canada [ edit ]
The City of Toronto, in Ontario, Canada, officially recognizes Martin Luther King Jr. Day, although not as a paid holiday: all government services and businesses remain open.[32]
Israel [ edit ]
In 1984, during a visit by the U.S. Sixth Fleet, Navy chaplain Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff conducted the first Israeli presidential ceremony in commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, held in the President's Residence, Jerusalem. Aura Herzog, wife of Israel's then-President Chaim Herzog, noted that she was especially proud to host this special event, because Israel had a national forest in honor of King, and that Israel and King shared the idea of "dreams".[33] Resnicoff continued this theme in his remarks during the ceremony, quoting the verse from Genesis, spoken by the brothers of Joseph when they saw their brother approach, "Behold the dreamer comes; let us slay him and throw him into the pit, and see what becomes of his dreams." Resnicoff noted that, from time immemorial, there have been those who thought they could kill the dream by slaying the dreamer, but – as the example of King's life shows – such people are always wrong.[34]
Japan [ edit ]
One place outside the U.S. where Martin Luther King Jr. Day is observed in the Japanese city of Hiroshima under mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, who holds a special banquet at the mayor's office as an act of unifying his city's call for peace with King's message of human rights.[35]
Netherlands [ edit ]
Every year, since 1987, the Dr. Martin Luther King Tribute and Dinner has been held in Wassenaar, The Netherlands.[36] The Tribute includes young people and veterans of the Civil Rights Movement as well as music. It always ends with everyone holding hands in a circle and singing "We Shall Overcome". The Tribute is held on the last Sunday in January and bridges Dr. King's birthday and Black History Month.[citation needed]
1986–2103
Date Years January 21 1991 2002 2008 2013 2019 2030 2036 2041 2047 2058 2064 2069 2075 2086 2092 2097 January 20 1986 1992 1997 2003 2014 2020 2025 2031 2042 2048 2053 2059 2070 2076 2081 2087 2098 January 19 1987 1998 2004 2009 2015 2026 2032 2037 2043 2054 2060 2065 2071 2082 2088 2093 2099 January 18 1988 1993 1999 2010 2016 2021 2027 2038 2044 2049 2055 2066 2072 2077 2083 2094 2100 January 17 1994 2000 2005 2011 2022 2028 2033 2039 2050 2056 2061 2067 2078 2084 2089 2095 2101 January 16 1989 1995 2006 2012 2017 2023 2034 2040 2045 2051 2062 2068 2073 2079 2090 2096 2102 January 15 1990 1996 2001 2007 2018 2024 2029 2035 2046 2052 2057 2063 2074 2080 2085 2091 2103
See also [ edit ]
Other holidays honoring African Americans [ edit ]
Other civil rights holidays [ edit ]
References [ edit ] |
In this post I am going to introduce my last side-project: “Node.js design patterns — second edition”, a technical book about Node.js and design patterns published by Packt.
This blog has been a very quite place in the last 8-9 months, this is because almost all my free time has been absorbed by one of my most ambitious side projects: co-writing a book about Node.js and design patterns!
I am finally happy to announce that “Node.js design patterns — second edition” has been published.
You can keep reading this post to find out more or have a look at the official website. If all of this is convincing enough you can even decide to buy the paperback or the e-book on Packt, Amazon or O’Reilly :P
The making of
As you might have noticed, this book is the second edition of an existing book on the topic — I dare to say one of the best books on the topic — that Mario Casciaro put together a couple of years ago.
I was contacted by Mario in November last year because he was looking for somebody willing to help him in creating a new edition of the book. I don’t know yet why he thought I might have been the right person (and I am still flattered about this) but, being his book one of my favourites, I almost immediately decided to accept the challenge and work with him and Packt on this new edition.
It took almost 9 months from the first idea to having the printed book on my desk. I have to admit it was an incredibly interesting experience for me. I learned a lot and I definitely feel I strengthened my knowledge of Node.js and design patterns, I worked with super skilled technical reviewers like Joel Purra and Tane Piper and with the amazing team at Packt. I also had chance to experiment with some new cool technologies like React and new ways of building websites like Universal JavaScript.
Content of the book
The book has been heavily updated: more than the 50% of the original content from the first edition was changed. These changes were mostly about updating all the code examples to Node v6 and EcmaScript 2015, upgrading all the obsolete content, introducing some new interesting examples and design patterns and a new entire chapter dedicated to Universal Javascript.
The final result counts 11 chapters, more than 500 pages and more than 100 code examples.
The first two chapters provide basic informations about the Node.js platform and the new features introduced with EcmaScript 2015.
Chapter 3 and 4 go deep into the topic of asynchronous programming exploring different approaches (callbacks, promises, events, async/await) and design patterns to exploit all the most common scenarios.
Chapter 5 discusses one of the most important patterns in Node.js: streams. It shows you how to process data with transform streams and how to combine them into different layouts.
Chapter 6 is probably the core of this book diving deep into the most popular conventional design patterns and showing how unconventional they might look in Node.js. It also introduces the reader to some emerging design patterns that are used only with JavaScript and Node.js.
Chapter 7 analyses the different solutions for linking the modules of an application together investigating design patterns such as Dependency Injection and the service locator pattern.
Chapter 8 is an entire new chapter that explores one of the most interesting capabilities of modern JavaScript web applications: being able to share application code between the frontend and the backend. Across this chapter we learn the basic principles of Universal (a.k.a. Isomorphic) JavaScript by building a simple web application with React, Webpack, and Babel.
Chapters 9, 10 and 11 go into more advanced and enterprise topics like “Advanced Asynchronous Recipes”, “Scalability and Architectural Patterns” and finally “Messaging and Integration Patterns”.
You can read a sample of the book containing the full table of contents and the first chapter for FREE on the official website, don’t miss it!
Acknowledgements
Apart from Mario, Joel and Tane, which I already mentioned previously, I have to spend a special word of thank you for my dear friends Anton Whalley, Alessandro Cinelli, Andrea Giuliano and Andrea Mangano. They are amazing guys and they have been precious supporters during the creation of this new book with words of encouragement and incredibly meaningful technical advices.
Thank you once again guys :)
What’s next
Well, I don’t plan to start writing a new book anytime soon in case you are wondering… :D But I surely will keep improving my knowledge and experience with Node.js and maybe I will also start to explore some new field in the amazing world of programming. I guess I will also be able to keep posting articles here more often :)
So stay tuned for the next post :)
I will go now to take a pint to celebrate the release… Cheers 🍻 |
Although Cohen said he would be available if talks were to resume, he issued a bleak assessment, saying in a statement, “No useful purpose would be served by requesting the parties to continue the mediation process at this time.”
The finality was somewhat surprising, given the modest progress that league officials and the players union had made this week, with Cohen’s assistance.
The sides narrowed the gap on revenue sharing proposals, with the N.B.A. offering a 50-50 split, and the players reducing their request to 52.5 percent. But that gap represents about $100 million in today’s terms, and $1 billion over the life of a 10-year deal, which is what the owners are seeking.
“They made it clear that if our position was that we were unwilling to move beyond 50 percent, there was nothing else to talk about,” said Silver, who was leading the N.B.A. contingent in place of Commissioner David Stern, who was ill. “And that’s when the discussions broke off today.”
Silver’s implication set off union leaders, who said it was the owners who essentially issued an ultimatum — an even split or nothing — and called off the talks.
“I want to make it clear that you guys were lied to earlier,” said Derek Fisher, the president of the players union.
Fisher said that the players “continued to express our willingness to negotiate,” but that the owners refused to budge — or to discuss other issues — without the union’s acceding to the 50-50 offer.
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The parties had made progress on a number of smaller items, like the midlevel exception, adjustments to the rookie-scale system and a so-called amnesty provision that would allow teams to waive players to clear salary-cap room.
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They spent about 24 hours together in a 32-hour span between Tuesday and Wednesday, including a 16-hour session.
Silver said he began the day feeling optimistic. Officials from the players’ side also felt that progress was possible when the talks reconvened early Thursday afternoon, after the N.B.A.’s board of governors meeting.
Union officials suggested that something changed during that owners meeting. According to the union, Paul Allen, the Portland Trail Blazers’ owner, was a surprise participants at the labor talks, and had been sent to deliver the owners’ message — that they would move no further.
“This meeting was hijacked,” said Jeffrey Kessler, the union’s outside counsel and its lead negotiator. “Something happened in that board of governors meeting. We were making progress.”
Allen was sent, Kessler said, to deliver a message from the owners — “and that view was, ‘Our way or the highway.’ That’s what we were told. We were shocked.”
Kessler spoke long after league officials had departed. The N.B.A. did not immediately respond to his remarks.
The talks took place without Stern, who had flulike symptoms. He communicated with Silver and Peter Holt, the chairman of the N.B.A.’s labor committee, by phone throughout the day.
Hope for a deal is growing dimmer with every breakdown. The parties were deadlocked when the owners imposed the lockout on July 1 and have since broken off talks three times — on Oct. 4, Oct. 10 and Thursday. As the 2011 calendar shortens, the consequences increase, along with the gloomy rhetoric.
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Billy Hunter, the union’s executive director, said the owners intended all along to push the players to this point, to cancel games and to force them to miss paychecks.
“I’ve known from the get-go, at least two or three years ago, that in fact it was the N.B.A. owners’ plan to lock out, break the union, break the resolve of the players and impose upon the players and the union the system they wanted,” Hunter said.
The earlier board of governors meeting was mostly spent discussing a more generous revenue-sharing plan. Silver reiterated that the revenue-sharing pool would be tripled, to at least $150 million per year, and quadrupled in later seasons.
Although the details remained confidential, the league’s poorest franchises could receive up to $15 million a year under the new formula, according to a person who has seen the plan. The two biggest payers would be the Los Angeles Lakers, who are expected to contribute $50 million a year, and the Knicks, who are expected to contribute $30 million a year. |
Note: We account for the CP3 trade!
Our most anticipated podcast of the year, the mock offseason, returns. Nate and Danny are joined by Dan Feldman of NBC Sports and Kevin Pelton of ESPN. Nate plays the player agent, while the others GM for the 30 teams. Despite the shock of Chris Paul reneging on his commitment to the Clippers from Part 1 to go to Houston and Kyle Lowry going back to the Raptors, the GMs soldier on. We find homes for all the major free agents, many of the minor ones, then rank the best teams in the East and West when all the transactions are complete and give our overall thoughts on what this means for the market in 2017 free agency.
With host Nate Duncan (@NateDuncanNBA) and Danny Leroux (@DannyLeroux).
Click to subscribe via RSS feed or iTunes. And if you like this pod, please donate to support Nate and Danny at Patreon.com/DuncanLeroux |
by Brett Stevens on January 7, 2015
The media pundits and protesters in Paris want a target, so they will blame “extremism” which is a code word for “Muslim extremism,” ignoring the underlying issue which is that diversity does not work, has never worked throughout history, and cannot work because it creates paradoxical goals.
A population — any population — in a diverse land finds itself facing a choice of damned if you do and damned if you don’t. The first option is assimilation, which means acting like whatever is de rigeur in the host population. This means abolishing your own identity, self-rule and standards, not to mention acting like a conquered population. Few want to do that, but the only alternative is to remain an isolated population that retains its own “flavor” like an ethnic restaurant, but ultimately must obey the laws of its host nation-state.
In the West, we have abandoned the indigenous model for the “proposition nation” which is the idea that we can bring in random people, teach them our laws and customs, and have them be just like us. Absolutely zero evidence suggests this is the case, but it is a popular notion and since people are equal, they have the freedom to believe in mass illusion of they so desire. The proposition nation requires that we use other populations like raw materials, bringing them in to the factory of our democracy and stamping them with the “right” opinions, producing a finished citizen-product at the other end of the democracy factory.
We saw this model fail time and again when applied under colonialism, so we brought it back home to keep trying to force our liberal ideas on an underlying order to the universe that clearly resists them. It is as if we are egomaniacs who refuse to believe the world is as it is because we want it to be otherwise, so we force it to conform where we can and when it does not do what we want, we ignore it and scapegoat something else. What we want to believe comes first before what we should know about reality because we, alone as individuals, are sovereign. There are no higher authorities above us, like kings, gods, culture or a historical heritage to uphold. It is just us, the egomaniac individuals who are both good consumers and good socialists, because we have made all of these things serve our vision.
We cannot blame Islam for resisting this mess, nor can we blame Islam for diversity’s failing. Diversity fails no matter what the ingredients, and history shows us no healthy or successful examples, so blaming a group that does not fit in — like African-Americans in the USA, Jews in 1939 Germany, or Muslims in Europe — is as stupid as blaming quarters for the failing of a toll road. In addition to that, we should acknowledge that our society has become a miserably obedient place where jobs and shopping are more important than personal self-development, having a soul, achieving mental clarity or even having free time to get to know ourselves and each other. We have made a dystopia by achieving our Utopia of the equal worker.
The media pundits seek scapegoats for the failure of liberal capitalist democracy in the West. We do not need scapegoats; we need to look at the problem: liberal democracy and its partners equality, feminism, multiculturalism and civil rights are themselves part of a failing model that has also failed throughout history. Islam is just the latest scapegoat to be blamed because Muslims have noticed that the West is delusional, collapsing and easily conquered by those who are tired of being a minority.
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Story of Broke
The United States isn’t broke; we’re the richest country on the planet and a country in which the richest among us are doing exceptionally well. But the truth is, our economy is broken, producing more pollution, greenhouse gasses and garbage than any other country. In these and so many other ways, it just isn’t working. But rather than invest in something better, we continue to keep this ‘dinosaur economy’ on life support with hundreds of billions of dollars of our tax money.
The Story of Broke, released on November 8, 2011, calls for a shift in government spending toward investments in clean, green solutions—renewable energy, safer chemicals and materials, zero waste and more—that can deliver jobs and a healthier environment. It’s time to rebuild the American Dream; but this time, let’s build it better.
Credits
The Story of Broke was created and released by The Story of Stuff Project, along with more than two dozen leading progressive, environmental, labor and economic justice organizations, including Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, Good Jobs First, National Priorities Project, Physicians for Social Responsibility and many others. The movie was produced by Free Range Studios. |
Book Review: Swarm and Steel by Michael R. Fletcher
I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.
Swarm and Steel by Michael R. Fletcher
Mogsy’s Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Genre: Fantasy
Series: A novel of Manifest Delusions
Publisher: Talos (August 22, 2017)
Length: 352 pages
Author Information: Website | Twitter
You know the saying, “That’s so crazy, it might just work?” Well, this is definitely true of Michael R. Fletcher’s latest Manifest Delusions novel. Featuring a new standalone tale, Swarm and Steel brings readers back to this world in which magic is insanity and the more deranged you are the more powerful you get. This, my lovelies, is the realm of the Geisteskranken, home to those whose delusions are made real.
The protagonist of this story is a woman named Zerfall, whose abilities are unique even in a world full of strange and uncanny Geisteskranken. Upon waking up in a dark alley, she does not remember how she got there, or anything about her past, for that matter. All she knows is that someone has sent an assassin on her trail, leading to a harrowing chase which ultimately ends in the desert with Zerfall gravely wounded and fighting for her life. But in her struggles to survive, she’s also starting to overcome her amnesia, with snippets of memories coming back slowly but surely. She remembers almost killing her sister Hölle by putting a blade through her belly, though she cannot exactly recall why she wanted to kill the other woman (and trust me when I say that finding out the answer to this question is the fun part).
Meanwhile, somewhere else in the desert, a young man named Jateko is fleeing for his life after accidentally killing another member of his own tribe. Mad from hunger and thirst after being hunted across the wastes by the victim’s vengeful kin, Jateko chances to stumble upon Zerfall, thus kicking off one of the most bizarre and eerie relationships I’ve ever come across in a fantasy novel. Teaming up, they decide to travel back to the city on a dead horse (yes, I said a dead horse) to confront Hölle, who currently oversees the Täuschung, a religious sect founded by the two sisters. Zerfall believes she must completely destroy the Täuschung in order to undermine Hölle’s power, and Jateko is all too willing to help. Completely smitten with Zerfall, he vows he will defeat and cannibalize their enemies in order to grow stronger, the better to fight by her side.
If you read that last bit and thought to yourself, “What the fuck?”…well, I don’t blame you. I have to hand it to Fletcher. His ability to come up with the most crazy and messed up scenarios never ceases to amaze me, and I genuinely mean that as a compliment! Having read his other Manifest Delusions novels, I thought I had seen it all, but somehow Fletcher always manages to raise the bar on himself and surpass it with every new book. If you’re a fan though, you probably know this already. Swarm and Steel is certainly not for the squeamish, even for readers accustomed to the grimdarkest of grimdark, but if you enjoyed Beyond Redemption and The Mirror’s Truth, then returning to this world will likely be as enjoyable for you as it was for me.
Still, since we follow a new cast of characters in this story, if you’re a newcomer to the world, there’s no need to read the other Manifest Delusions novels before jumping in—though prior experience with the setting will probably make things a little less overwhelming and disorienting, especially given the little references to the previous books you’ll find here and there. Learning about the different types of delusions and picking up the terminology will come in time though, as the narrative sets up backstories for both Zerfall and Jateko. Admittedly, the two of them are no Bedeckt, Stehlen, and Wichtig—our new protagonists don’t have quite the same amount of synergy in their dynamic as the original trio from Beyond Redemption—but their interplay was fascinating to watch all the same. Fletcher is flexing his writing muscles here, trying out new characters and developing new forms of relationships, and I also loved how this allowed for more unique circumstances and opportunities for action and dark humor. In time, I found myself gradually warming up to Zerfall and Jateko in spite of their unusual bond.
As always, Michael R. Fletcher’s talent for characterization makes his work stand out from everything else this genre has to offer, not to mention the sheer depth of his imagination—which is as formidable as it can be frightening sometimes! All this makes him one of my must-read authors, and I would enthusiastically recommend Manifest Delusions to all avid readers of grimdark or dark fantasy, with a guarantee that they’ll be like nothing you’ve ever seen before. |
Why our dev team moved from Trello to Clubhouse
Tom Randle Blocked Unblock Follow Following Mar 10, 2017
Six months ago we switched our project management tool from Trello to Clubhouse.
As not many people have heard of Clubhouse yet, we thought we’d share why we took the plunge and why we’d recommend it to other agile development teams looking for more structure in their working days.
Trello
When Trello arrived on the scene, it was a complete revelation. Its simple approach and snappy UI were a welcome contrast to Atlassian’s JIRA and Thoughtworks’ Mingle. For those of us with light enough processes to give up the big tools, it was a game changer.
We had a long honeymoon period and Trello remains a great product (we still use it in our other teams), but as the main tool for managing our development team’s workflow, it was beginning to drive us crazy.
Our process and how we used Trello
At Geckoboard, we’ve been following a Kanban process for the past couple of years, splitting work into chunks of work that take less than a day to complete. We have two development teams, usually working on different areas of the product. In Trello, each team had their own board with “Ready”, “Doing” and “Done” columns.
One of our team’s Trello boards from last year
The team would update cards in these boards throughout the day. We had them up on TVs in the office and referred to them during our morning standups.
The “Ready” column was predominantly managed by the team’s product manager. It was deliberately kept short and only contained work that had been discussed and planned. “Doing” contained work in progress, and “Done” was everything that had shipped. We experimented with splitting “Doing” into more steps a few times but in the end, we always reverted back to the simple three columns. Not every card needed a “QA” or “Review” step, and we didn’t want to encourage people to pick up a new card until their previous one was fully complete.
Our backlog was significantly more chaotic. As with all development teams, it contains a huge variety of potential work. It ranges from tightly defined high-priority features, likely to be implemented within a couple of weeks, to loose idea dumps of high-level functionality that might never be built. Not to mention all the bugs, refactoring, and infrastructure work.
We tried many different strategies to tame this mess. What we found worked best was using separate boards as holding areas, with columns to group together related cards and add a bit more structure.
Outgrowing Trello
Despite these attempts to create order, as product managers we’d often be asked where something was, whether there was an existing card for something, or on which board a new card should be created.
We would often accidentally create duplicate cards. A big reason for this was Trello’s limited tagging and search features. As Trello boards are independent of each other, the behaviour of labels when moving cards between them is horrible.
However, the two biggest issues were the absence of:
a proper way to show how Trello cards related to each other; and
any sense of how cards contributed to overall goals and progress.
To illustrate this, imagine working on a big product feature that might take a couple of months to fully complete. In Trello, the best we could do to show that the cards related to each other was to prefix their titles with the feature or epic name, and paste links to other cards in the description. This was an inadequate, slow hack that still did nothing to help the team see the bigger picture. You can’t just click on a card and see everything that related to it, nor can you collapse all the detail and just see the headlines when you need to think longer term.
Our journey to a better tool
The problem with replacing Trello was that it had spoiled us. Once you’ve experienced how quick and easy it is to update cards, you can’t give that up.
We signed up for a trial of every project management tool out there practically every month for years, but Pivotal Tracker and JIRA were the only serious contenders until we stumbled across Clubhouse.
Pivotal Tracker
Pivotal Tracker’s much more of a middle ground between JIRA and Trello, but it’s very opinionated when it comes to workflow. We just couldn’t get it to fit our process, so never got very far with it!
JIRA
JIRA’s the de-facto progression for most people needing more than Trello. Several of us at Geckoboard have used it in previous jobs, and it was the tool we wanted to move to. However, after three separate trial attempts over the course of several months, we couldn’t make the leap.
There are lots of things to love about JIRA: JQL, swimlanes, proper relationships, and customizable metadata to name just a few, but they come at the cost of complexity.
Ultimately, JIRA just felt slow and cumbersome compared to what we were used to — and when we only needed a fraction of the functionality — we couldn’t justify it to the team.
We had problems with the OnDemand service being slow to load, which put us off as we didn’t really want the burden of self hosting. Other issues were the lack of native support for markdown and the difficulty associated with removing certain concepts that didn’t make sense for us — such as Releases.
All that said, if we’d not found Clubhouse, I think by now we would have made the leap to JIRA.
Clubhouse
We stumbled across Clubhouse by chance when our QA Engineer was researching something else entirely. Intrigued, he signed up for a trial. Straight away we were impressed.
Clubhouse’s Stories view with its powerful filtering controls
On the great Trello-to-JIRA spectrum, Clubhouse sits close to Trello in terms of simplicity and ease of use. But unlike Trello, it’s designed specifically for agile development teams.
That means it has the concept of Epics. Cards can be linked so you can flag a duplicate bug or a card that relates to, or blocks, another. Cards can be either a Feature, Bug or Chore. There are powerful labelling and filtering features.
A typical Clubhouse card!
You can also use story points if you’re into that kind of thing (we’re not!). Cards that hang around too long in the Doing column show their age. Cards can be bulk edited with ease. Tasks can be assigned to individuals. As a developer, it’s easy to see all the cards assigned to you in a single view.
The new Milestone feature is a handy additional way of organizing more complex projects that involve multiple epics. Epics and Milestones have their own views which clearly show you how far you are through them — one of the key things we were missing in Trello. We also find these views very handy when planning as a team.
An epic in Clubhouse
One thing that will seem unfamiliar to someone moving from Trello is that’s there’s only one ‘real’ board, which contains all the cards you’ve ever made. However, you can create and save filtered ‘views’ called Workspaces. For instance, a ‘Standup board’ for each team or an overview of all the cards in a particular project. Once you’re used to it though, it makes perfect sense.
Another huge plus in Clubhouse’s favor is their pace of development. Milestones, Reporting and numerous other improvements have all launched in the past few months. Their support team is also excellent!
—
Six months in we’re really happy with our decision to move to Clubhouse. No product will ever completely tame your backlog, but if it did then we product managers would be out of a job!
If you’re on the lookout for a better tool — give Clubhouse a try.
PS — We’re hiring! |
My thanks to Deb Creamer and Albert Hernandez for inviting me to speak to you today. It is an honor to be with you.
I have a special fondness for Iliff because I had such a blast here – mostly because let’s face it, Iliff is like, a super weird place. I loved the people I met which now include two of my best friends. And one time in a paper for Jacob Kinnard I wrote a totally fake first page that contained every grammatical error and idiotic idea I could put in 100 words hoping his blood pressure would rise before getting to the line that said I’m just messing with you Jacob…here’s my real paper. During my time at Iliff I soaked up every single Psalm that Mark George read before class and I loved learning about Christian Mystics and Queen Isabel of Spain, and post-colonialism, and St Paul’s Jewishness. I learned a ton of awesome stuff here, but honestly one thing stands out in particular and it wasn’t actually in the curriculum. I had signed up for Holly Huer’s Spiritual Preaching class along with about 10 other women. A week or two into the class, Holly had asked this guy, let’s call him Steve, to be a guest presenter for a few classes. Steve was one of these super new-agey guys complete with like, linen draw string pants and painfully good posture and the kind of really “spiritual” way of speaking that sound like a half-whisper that usually comes from a couple doses of Zanax. Anyhow, Steve kept trying to get us to share our feelings and stuff like that and well, that didn’t go so well because we didn’t know Steve and he was maybe a little creepy and several of us were unhappy and we told all of this to Holly. The next week, we gathered in a circle like we did each class but this time Steve wasn’t there and Ill never forget what Holly did. She sat in front of us and very calmly said “I know that many of you were not happy about having Steve as a presenter. So I want you to hear me say this. I made a mistake. That was a bad call and I am sorry” and then she stopped.
She did not say but I knew him in a different setting and he was really great … she did not try to defend herself. She had the humility to just say I made a mistake. And what is fascinating is how much the energy toward her shifted after that. When Holly simply said she made a mistake and did not try to then get us on her side so that we wouldn’t hold it against her , what happened was that She then had the authority to teach that class for the rest of the semester. She was honest and authentic and did not use any of her energy trying to defend or protect her own authority. She taught us about what a new kind of leadership could look like.
It has stayed with me, what I learned from Holly that day. Not only what a proper apology looks like, but what allows us to have authority these days.
Now I am admittedly a hack at Cultural Theory and am saying all of this as a practitioner and not an academic, But isn’t the question, like, the big question of post-modernity and religion what is the locus of authority. Where does our authority lay? And what makes it tricky is that we are in an in-between time. Meaning, as of now, we still have the institutions of modernity: The promise of the enlightenment and the age of progress brought us an educational system and a health care system and denominations and democratic government all institutions that promised good things: learning, health, spirituality, safety. And yet every single institution has disappointed us. As soon as we realized how maintaining the institution was more important to the institution than providing what it promised in the first place, we became cynical. It’s as though we’ve looked and behind every single curtain we never found the Wizard of Oz, sometimes we found only scared little men or women pretending to be big.
But, it’s important to note that even though there is a whole generation who is cynical about institutions and presumed authority, it does not mean that we don’t want learning, health, spirituality, and safety. Being suspicious of presumed authority and institutions does not mean we don’t want what they promised in the first place.
It’s like *phonebooths, actually. 15 years ago there were 10s of thousands of phonebooths all across America – they were practically on every city block. Yet I defy you to tell me where a working phone booth is nowadays. They’ve practically disappeared. Now, we can look at that data and conclude, well, people obviously don’t care about communicating with each other through phones anymore!
Yes, people are suspicious of the institution of the church these days, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want a religious community. I just don’t think they want re-decorated phone booths. I think people are looking for leaders they can trust who can tell the truth about themselves and our world and about God. And I think this is possible and I think that places like Iliff are raising up this new kind of leader.
When Holly sat in front of us and apologized in the manner she did, when she told us the truth we felt there was no longer a curtain to look behind and we trusted her. Because what we really wanted was someone we could trust who also had the authority to teach us about spiritual preaching.
See, I suspect that leadership looking different is increasingly going to be something to pay attention to and so there are a few things I want to offer as a possible starting point.
I have the opportunity to travel around as a speaker right now. And I kind of just do my thing, and say my stuff and afterward, like with most speakers, there are people who are wanting to talk to me. And I’ve realized that about 80% of the time they say one of two things and it’s never like, I was seared by your stunning intellect, or Wow Nadia, after hearing you speak I am now going to sell all my things and give the money to the poor. No. They say some version of these 2 things: 1. Thank you for your honesty. And 2. Your authenticity is so refreshing. This is how high the bar is right now as a leader in the church, that people will wait in line to thank a speaker for not lying to them or trying to pretend to be someone else.
See, I think this new leadership looks like what I learned from Holly about apologizing and it’s related because people just want the truth. We want what we see to be what we get. The Wizard of Oz smoke and mirrors thing doesn’t work anymore.
People still want leaders and they are even willing to hand them the authority to preach and teach – they just don’t want any curtains to look behind. The people I know want leaders who, when they screw up, can be the first to admit it and to then ask for forgiveness. I try as a leader in the church to be transparent about my shortcomings and seriously, my parishioners love that their preacher is never the best Christian in the room, it kind of takes the pressure off, you know? Pastors used to be the one who were the shining example of perfect piety but now I think people are hungry for leaders who are consistently the same person in every situation they are encountered in. Clergy who don’t have their pastor personality and their regular personality. In other words, I think people are ready for spiritual leaders who don’t lie to them or pretend to be someone other than who they are.
So, here’s what I’ve learned from all this: I think there is a sweet spot. I think there is a space between two things in which this new leadership can thrive – in which new leaders can actually have authority and that is the space between not having to apologize for who you are and yet still having humility. I think being able to apologize for my mistakes and not ever seeing that as a threat to my authority is critical…but that is different than apologizing for who I am. Everyone does this but I hear women do it all the time. It’s not helpful. I think trying to pretend to be someone that you are not does nothing but water down your power. Because in a way, we are most powerful when we are simple who God made us where God put us. Maybe this and only this is where our authority rests. No need to defend it or protect it or apologize for it. Just rock it, brothers and sisters.
But humility, while not a word that usually associated with authority, is so critical right now. Embrace your limits. Celebrate them, even. Because your limits are your limits and in all likelihood, other people see them. So if you try and pretend they don’t exist…then not only do you have limits but now you also have no credibility.
So obviously as you go from this place today there is good news and bad news. The bad news is that people out there are a little cynical about institutions and presumed authority, and the old ways of being a leader don’t really work anymore. The good news is that people still very much want learning and health and spirituality and safety. And they are looking to you now. So don’t ever apologize for who you are – but still have some humility and things should go just fine. But seriously…don’t get talked into joining any phone booth re-decorating committees. Thank you.
*phonebooth thing shamelessly stolen from Tony Jones |
Jon Bloom serves as author, board chair, and co-founder of Desiring God. He is author of three books, Not by Sight Things Not Seen , and Don’t Follow Your Heart . He and his wife have five children and make their home in the Twin Cities.
Jon Bloom serves as author, board chair, and co-founder of Desiring God. He is author of three books, Not by Sight Things Not Seen , and Don’t Follow Your Heart . He and his wife have five children and make their home in the Twin Cities.
Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates close friends. (Proverbs 17:9)
Some cover-ups are lies and some cover-ups are love. It depends on who’s doing the covering.
Covering with Lies and Covering with Love
When President Richard Nixon and his aides attempted to cover up the offense of the June 17, 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate Complex by Republican Party operatives, they were not seeking love. Why? Because they, the offending party (the Republicans), were trying to cover their own offense against the offended party (the Democrats).
When a guilty party “covers” his own offense, it is a lie. The only love involved is prideful self-love. But when justice and ethics don’t demand that a matter be “repeated” (such as sexual or other kinds of heinous abuse) and the innocent (the offended party or an observing party) “covers” the offense of an offender in order to preserve friendship, it is love — the kind of love that “bears all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7).
Why We Know of So Few Love-Covered Offenses
Every day we hear stories of offenders who have tried to cover their own offenses with lies. And every day we hear (sometimes from our own lips) people repeating a matter. We call this gossip and it fuels whole media industries. All around us are shattered relationships that exploded in the “repeating.”
But how many examples can you think of where a friendship was preserved because someone did not repeat — gossip about — an offense? Not many, I’ll wager. Why is this so rare?
While it’s true that lovingly covering a matter is rarer in our sinful world than repeating a matter, this is not the only reason we know so few examples of covering. A significant reason is that by definition covering hides others’ offenses from our view and therefore even the covering is concealed from our view. We don’t know about offenses or their covering because loving people haven’t talked about them.
A Gospel-like Love
The kind of love that “covers a multitude of sins” is a costly love (1 Peter 4:8). It is a humble love that “looks not only to [our] own interests but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4).
The kind of love that “covers a multitude of sins” is a costly love. Twitter Tweet Facebook Share on Facebook
This love, even when it is exercised by unbelievers, is a gospel-like love because it is a reflection of the way God so loved the world that he gave his only son (John 3:16) to cover our sins (Romans 4:7). God, the offended party, justly covered the penalty of our offenses on the cross so that he could righteously “cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19) and “remember [our] sins no more” (Hebrews 8:12).
And to us, Jesus says, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12).
So seek to love like Jesus today. Love in a way that few will ever know about. Cover an offense. |
{This post is part of a long running series on lock free queues, checkout the full index to get more context here
IPC, what's the problem?
Inter Process Communication is an old problem and there are many ways to solve it (which I will not discuss here). There are several attractions to specialized IPC solutions for Java:
Faster than socket communication.
An out of process integration option with applications written in other languages.
A means of splitting large VMs to smaller ones improving performance by allowing GC and JIT specialization. For IPC to be attractive it has to be fast, otherwise you may as well go for network based solutions which would extend beyond your local machine uniformly. I attended an Informatica conference a while back and got talking to For IPC to be attractive it has to be fast, otherwise you may as well go for network based solutions which would extend beyond your local machine uniformly. I attended an Informatica conference a while back and got talking to Todd Montgomerey about the Disruptor and mechanical sympathy, he suggested that IPC should be able to perform as well as inter thread messaging. I found the idea interesting and originally meant to port the Disruptor, but Martin's queue is simpler (and quicker) so I went for that instead. Starting with a good algorithm/data structure is very good indeed, now I just needed to bridge the gap and see if I can maintain the benefits.
Off the heap we go!
To do IPC we must go off heap. This has several implications for the queue, most importantly references are not supported. Also note persistence to and from the queue is required, though one could extend my implementation to support a zero copy interaction where a struct is acquired, written and committed instead of the offer method, and similarly acquired, read and finally released instead of the poll method. I plan to make several flavours of this queue to test out these ideas in the near future.
My IPC queue uses a memory mapped file as a means of acquiring a chunk of shared memory, there is no intention to use the persisted values though further development in that direction may prove interesting to some . So now that I got me some shared memory, I had to put the queue in it.
I started by laying out the queue counters and cached counters. After realizing the counters need to be aligned to work properly I learnt how to align memory in Java . I went on to verify that aligned memory offers the guarantees required for concurrent access . Quick summary:
aligned access means writing data types to addresses which divide by their size.
unaligned access is not atomic, which is bad for concurrency :(
unaligned access is slow, which is bad for performance :(
unaligned access may not work, depending on OS and architecture. Not working is very bad :( Sorting out alignment is not such a big deal once you know how it works. One of the nice things about going off-heap was that solving false sharing has become far more straightforward. Move your pointer and you're in the next cache line, job done. This left me rather frustrated me with the tricks required to control memory layout in Java. Going back to the original implementation you will notice the Padded classes who's role it is to offer false sharing protection. They are glorious hacks (with all due respect) made necessary by this lack of control. The @Contended annotation coming in JDK 8 will hopefully remove the need for this.
This is how the memory layout worked out: straightforward. Move your pointer and you're in the next cache line, job done.
To illustrate in glorious ASCII graphics (each - is a byte), this is what the memory layout looks like when broken into cache lines:
|--------| --------| --------| head....| --------| --------| --------| --------|
|--------| --------| --------| tailCach| --------| --------| --------| --------|
|--------| --------| --------| tail----| --------| --------| --------| --------| |--------| --------| --------|headCach | --------| --------| --------| --------| |int1int2| int3int4| int5int6| etcetcet|cetcetce | tcetcetc| etcetcet|cetcetce |
...
I played around with mixing off heap counters with on heap buffer but in the interest of brevity I'll summarize and say the JVM does not like that very much and the end result performance is not as good as all heap/off-heap solutions. The code is available with everything else. Once alignment and memory layout were sorted I had to give up the flexibility of having reference pointers and settle for writing my data (an integer) directly into the memory. This leaves my queue very restrictive in it's current form. I intend to revisit it and see what I can do to offer a more extendable API on top of it. Let me summarize the recipe at this point:
Create a memory mapped file large enough to hold:
4 cache lines for counters/cached counters.
4 bytes(per integer) * queue capacity (must be a power of 2).
1 spare cache line to ensure you can align the above to the cache line.
Get a mapped byte buffer, which is a direct byte buffer on top of the mapped memory.
Steal the address and get the contained aligned byte buffer.
Setup pointers to the counters and the beginning of the buffer
Replace use of natural counters with off heap counters accessed via Unsafe using the pointers.
Replace use of array with use of offset pointers into buffer and Unsafe access.
Test and debug until you work out the kinks... The above code should give you a fair idea how it works out and the rest is
Smithers, release the hounds Here are the numbers for using the different implementations in process:
The above code should give you a fair idea how it works out and the rest is here . This queue can work in process and out of process as demonstrated in the tests included in the repository. Now that it works (for the limited use case, and with room for further improvement... but works), is it fast enough? not so fast? is it... ... FASTER????!?!?!Here are the numbers for using the different implementations in process:
Implementation/Affinity Same core Cross core Cross socket P1C1QueueOriginal3 110M 130M 19M P1C1OffHeapQueue 130M 220M 200M P1C1QueueOriginalPrimitive 124M 220M 215M
Confused? Let me explain. First line is the measurements taken for the original queue. Similar to what was presented in prev. post, though I saw a slight improvement in the results with increasing the compile threshold to 100000.
The second line is my offheap implementation of same algorithm. It is significantly faster. This is not IPC yet, this is in process. The reason it is faster is because data is inlined in the queue, which means that by loading an entry in the queue we get the data as opposed to a reference to the data. Getting a reference is what you get when you have and Object[] array. The array holds the references and the data is elsewhere, this seems to make it more painful as we get further from the producer.
The last entry is a mutation of P1C1QueueOriginal3 into a primitive array backed queue to compare performance like for like. As you can see this displays very similar results to the off heap implementation supporting the theory that data in-lining is behind the observed performance boost.
The lesson here is an old one, namely that pointer chasing is expensive business further amplified by the distance between the producing CPU and consuming CPU.
The off-heap queue can offer an alternative to native code integration as the consuming thread may interact directly with the off-heap queue and write results back to a different off-heap queue.
Running a similar benchmark adapted to use a memory mapped file as the backing DirectByteBuffer for the off-heap queue we get:
same core - ops/sec=135M
across cores - ops/sec=98M
across sockets - ops/sec=25M
JOY! a pure Java IPC that gives you 135M messages per second is more throughput then you'd get with most commercial products out there. This is still not as fast as the same queue in process and I admit I'm not sure what the source of the performance difference is. Still I am quite happy with it.
A few notes/observations from the experimentation process:
I got a variety of results, stabilizing around different average throughputs. I chose the best for the above summary and plan to go into detail about the results in the near future. The JVM was launched with: -XX:+UseCondCardMark -XX:CompileThreshold=100000 Removing the Thread.yield from the producer/consumer loops improved performance when running on the same core, but made it worse otherwise. Moving the queue allocation into the test loop changes the performance profile dramatically. I've not had time to fully explore the size of the queue as a variable in the experiment but the little I've done suggests it makes a difference, choose the right size for your application. I realize this post is rather less accessible than the previous one, so if you have any questions please ask.
Confused? Let me explain. First line is the measurements taken for the original queue. Similar to what was presented in prev. post, though I saw a slight improvement in the results with increasing the compile threshold to 100000.The second line is my offheap implementation of same algorithm. It is significantly faster. This is not IPC yet, this is in process. The reason it is faster is because data is inlined in the queue, which means that by loading an entry in the queue we get the data as opposed to a reference to the data. Getting a reference is what you get when you have and Object[] array. The array holds the references and the data is elsewhere, this seems to make it more painful as we get further from the producer.The last entry is a mutation of P1C1QueueOriginal3 into a primitive array backed queue to compare performance like for like. As you can see this displays very similar results to the off heap implementation supporting the theory that data in-lining is behind the observed performance boost.The lesson here is an old one, namely that pointer chasing is expensive business further amplified by the distance between the producing CPU and consuming CPU.The off-heap queue can offer an alternative to native code integration as the consuming thread may interact directly with the off-heap queue and write results back to a different off-heap queue.Running a similar benchmark adapted to use a memory mapped file as the backing DirectByteBuffer for the off-heap queue we get:JOY! a pure Java IPC that gives you 135M messages per second is more throughput then you'd get with most commercial products out there. This is still not as fast as the same queue in process and I admit I'm not sure what the source of the performance difference is. Still I am quite happy with it.A few notes/observations from the experimentation process:I realize this post is rather less accessible than the previous one, so if you have any questions please ask.
In my previous post I covered a single producer/consumer queue developed and shared by Martin Thompson capable of delivering an amazing 130M messages per second. The queue he delivered is a great tool for communicating between threads, but sometimes communicating between threads is not enough. Sometime you need to leave your JVM and go out of process. Inter Process Communications (IPC) is a different problem to inter thread communications, can it be cracked by the same approach? |
James Robinson has teased he has several projects in the works. Looks like another one has been revealed. Dynamite Entertainment is launching their San Diego Comic-Con announcements before the show starts. James will be writing a new series with Dynamite entitled GRAND PASSION.
"I'm thrilled to be working with Nick Barrucci and Dynamite Entertainment on a series I think will surprise a lot of readers," James said. "Grand Passion is definitely a departure from what I've been doing in the last few years. This series is about two wayward characters Doc and Mabel -- one a cop, the other a crook -- who are fated to fall in love at first sight even as Mabel swears she'll kill Doc if it's the last thing she does. It marries elements of a Harlequin romance with hard-boiled crime and takes it off in a direction that's surprising, funny, violent, and sexy. I'm very excited to roll up my sleeves and immerse myself in writing this tale."
James Robinson on a comic with elements of a Harlequin romance. This is going to be something to check out.
No further information has been released, such as artist or release date. We'll have to wait for more details. |
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