text
stringlengths 316
100k
|
|---|
Lately I’ve been really getting into the neon trend. It’s just so summery and bright and you just can’t go wrong! There have been a lot of great neon items coming out recently, such as these shoes from Hucci. They’re only available for 21 shoe this round, after which time this colour will be gone forever. Although the event was yesterday, you might still be able to get in and snap up a 2 for 1 deal on shoes if you go quickly! I haven’t been back to the stores to check yet so don’t take my word for it.
I decided to match them with this perfect blazer from Nylon Outfitters at Collabor88. The aptly named Highligher blazer is available in a few different neon colours so you can match it with whatever you like! I also paid a visit to Fi*fridays which I hadn’t done in a while and grabbed this great clutch by Ben’s Beauty for only 55L$! I also hear they have group gift versions available at their mainstore so be sure to pay them a visit too. You can never have too many clutch bags in my opinion!
And finally, my cute rose headband is a new release from LaGyo for Fifty Linden Fridays. It comes in a bunch of colours like blue and red but I decided to wear the pink to tie in the rest of my outfit! As I said above, you might still be able to get it for 50L$ if you hurry.
Sorry there’s only one photo today! My laptop was misbehaving yesterday.
*X*
Advertisements |
I’m an artist, and I don’t have to listen to you
Technology, ego, and the future of creativity are inextricably linked.
Dustin M. Chaffin Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jul 2, 2016
Ego takes up no small amount of space in the music industry. It drives the artists and the business, sometimes to great heights of success and other times into the ground.
The word “ego” itself has become convoluted; everyone seems to have their own acceptable definition of it. To some people it means hubris, and to others it means self-identity. It might represent the realistic limitations on your deepest desires or the manic belief that you can do literally anything.
I’ve been involved with many types of musicians. I’ve watched as flaccid egos paralyze their owners with uncertainty, and I’ve seen people with inflated egos burn all of their bridges one by one. Neither types were what I could call successful. If they had any success, it did not last.
As much as any of the devices you use to create, your ego is a tool. And sculpting with a noodly tool presents some challenges.
The Paralysis of Choice
Limitations are a vital part of the creative process, especially as technology expands our available options. Those options are shiny and attractive, but they will do nothing to prop up a weak ego.
Think of limitations as an artistic palette; having as many colors as possible will not make for an interesting work, and it will make the process a struggle.
Technology/gear has become the over-the-counter aphrodisiac of the creative libido. It promises less struggle, more satisfaction, and endless possibilities. What it actually provides is a quick burst of excitement followed by I-have-no-idea-what-to-do-now depression.
Gear creates the illusion of motivation and trajectory, but it does not drive creativity.
Technology creates the illusion of personal capability, but the mere feeling of augmented abilities does not lead to confidence.
Instead of relying on gear for motivation, use your ego.
Artists design their own ego
Have you ever known an artist with a pseudonym?
That’s a dumb question, right? It seems to be a prerequisite for mediums like music and street art. Before writing off someone for their bizarre alias, consider this: a pseudonym is a mask. It’s the very first step in creating a persona — an ego — separate from but connected to yourself.
Many musicians work under several project names, each having its own aesthetic. That makes it possible for one artist to, say, release both bluegrass records and metalcore records without confusing their audiences.
If you’re a multi-faceted person, you might have trouble reducing everything about yourself into a single, digestible package. A pseudonym/handle could be a way for you to neatly encapsulate part of your viewpoint.
If pseudonyms feel inauthentic to you, be prepared to distill and enact your own life in a way that resonates with others. Or, let each work live outside yourself as a reflection of some past version of yourself (but you must be either articulate or entertaining enough to coherently and succinctly express that so that it stands up over time).
It’s not about the image you project outward; it’s about the strength and certainty of the part of your personality that you draw from. If you draw creative motivation from a specific part of yourself, you distill your palette, making every subsequent decision easier and more natural.
Create yourself by limiting your influences
Technology gives everyone a voice, un/fortunately. Anyone can review an artist’s work with an air of authority, and it seems like everyone has an opinion.
As an artist, you have a few options: you can get obstinate and ignore everyone who can’t relate to your work, you can listen to as many people as possible in order to please them, or you can hand-pick the people you listen to.
Designing your own ego means deciding who will be your allies in shaping it. Decide who you listen to protect yourself from irrelevant criticism and to get the most out of relevant criticism, and forgive everyone else for not getting it. That doesn’t mean negative feedback won’t hurt, but if a person understands what you’re trying to do, past the pain there is a wealth of valuable insight.
Ego is not pride, and damaged pride should not mean a destroyed ego.
Embrace fluidity
In a recent episode of Invisibilia called “The Personality Myth”, they explore the idea of personality as a static, persistent, and defining characteristic. As revealed in the podcast, most of the research points to personality being radically contextual.
If you have trouble believing in the image you craft for yourself as an artist, remember that your personality is just as fluid as the personas you create.
Some people may have trouble adjusting when you’re trying something “out of character”, but forgive them and invite them to play along. It’s an obstacle, but when it comes to art people don’t want ordinary. You have the ability and responsibility to lift people out of their everyday life and into something remarkable.
Always be pretending
You should be the first person to drink your own kool-aid. Certainty doesn’t come from facts or skills (though they don’t hurt). Being certain is a choice that involves the risk of being wrong, unpopular, or ignored. If your certainty is not achieving your desired result, find a new way to be certain and know that no one will blame you for changing direction. Depending on the boldness of the change, most people probably won’t even notice; so if you want your audience to recognize and participate with you in it, it must be drastic.
The act of pretending is just playing with certainty and buying into the story. If you haven’t committed to the story you tell your audience, you are not giving them the permission they need to play with you.
Think bigger than yourself
If you’re not taking risks, you probably aren’t being true to your deepest desires. Putting your honest work out in the world means taking a risk.
Audiences aren’t excited by small ideas or small risks. If they were, you could bet “Who Wants to be a Hundredaire” would be a hugely popular TV program. Audiences want remarkable characters in extraordinary situations with extreme stakes.
If you have trouble taking risks, you might use an alter-ego to give you permission to explore the deeper parts of yourself without self-judgement.
Find a balance between ambitious and achievable (by you). Determine what’s achievable by cultivating a healthy ego, whether that lives outside of “normal you” or not. |
Our country is in growing danger, and not just from the real threat of terrorist attacks. We are in jeopardy now from the internal fear that capitalizes on America's worst instincts. Caution can be a positive thing in response to serious dangers, but panic and fear can be very dangerous impulses, especially when they are used to incite the hatred of others by false leaders who proclaim their own "strength" -- people like Donald Trump.
Hatred of "the other" because of fear has created some of the most dangerous movements in human history. Donald Trump is appealing to racial and religious fear and hate in order to advance his own success. But an even greater danger than Trump is the growing popular response to him, the standing ovations to his most vicious attacks on racial minorities, immigrants, and now all the members of a world religion. Because of his notoriety and the ratings it garners, the media grants Trump credibility and constant coverage of his continued falsehoods and ugly assaults against those whom he has named as enemies -- who are mostly people of color.
For many years Trump has sought to portray the first black president of the United States as a foreigner and not "one of us." Trump's demonization of immigrants, in sharp contrast to the facts, has changed the conversation in America. After lying about Muslim reactions to 9/11, Trump is now calling America to "completely shut down" all Muslims from entering the country. In other words, he is calling for an unprecedented, unconstitutional, and un-American test targeting people based on their faith.
Donald Trump is strategically stoking the racial fears and hate of a solid segment of white America that fundamentally rejects a diverse American future. The real meaning of his famous "Make America Great Again" motto is "Make America White Again." And with their fears trumped up, his following is itself a dangerous threat to America. Since 9/11, more Americans in the United States have been killed by white extremists than by militant jihadists.
Stopping this hateful spread of Islamophobia and racism must become a bipartisan and trans-partisan issue -- because it is now a moral question. Leaders from both political parties must denounce Donald Trump's statements and distance themselves from his dangerous ideology. Journalism must return to the values of truthfulness, freedom, integrity, equality under the law, and religious liberty in its coverage. His toxic message is becoming a dangerous threat to our most basic American values, and it should be treated accordingly.
From a religious perspective, Trump's "strength" is a falsehood. Arrogance, lies, greed, the will to power, and the manipulation of racial prejudice and xenophobia are not strengths to us, but are contrary to all of our faith traditions. As faith leaders, it is time to call upon our constituencies to reject these false idols of power and division.
It's time to name Trump's dangerous rhetoric for what it is. It is not only racist, but also fascist, with all the dangers that ideology implies. And it's time for American political leaders, and also for American religious leaders, to denounce Donald Trump's appeal to our worst instincts of fear and hate. We must act before his movement grows to become even more dangerous. The truth is that we have seen this before. And it's time to tell the truth.
Jim Wallis is president of Sojourners. His book, America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America, will be released in January. |
This post has been updated.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that GOP frontrunner Donald Trump’s call to ban all Muslim immigrants from entering the US “disqualifies him from serving as president” during Tuesday’s press briefing.
“The first thing that a president does when he or she takes the oath of office is swear an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” he told reporters. “And the fact is that what Donald Trump said yesterday disqualifies him from serving as president. And for Republican candidates to stand by their pledge to support Mr. Trump, that in and of itself is disqualifying.”
Trump released a statement on Monday calling for “a total and complete shutdown” of Muslims immigrating to the U.S. until “our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” His remarks were widely condemned by Democratic and Republican leaders alike.
Reporters spent much of Tuesday’s briefing pushing Earnest for the White House’s response, and the press secretary was unsparing in his criticism of the GOP frontrunner. He said that Trump’s “offensive bluster” endangered national security and spurred Islamophobia within the US.
“The Trump campaign for months now has had a dustbin of history-like quality to it, from the vacuous sloganeering to the outright lies to even the fake hair—the whole carnival barker routine we’ve seen for some time now,” Earnest told reporters. “The question now is about the rest of the Republican party and whether or not they’re going to be dragged into the dustbin of history with him.”
The press secretary accused other prominent national Republicans of following in Trump’s lead, calling out House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) for saying he would vote for him if he becomes the GOP nominee and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) for once referring to himself as white supremacist David Duke “without the baggage.”
He also insisted that any 2016 candidate who failed to condemn Trump’s remarks or vowed to support him as the nominee should be disqualified from ascending to the presidency. |
David Marshall Williams (November 13, 1900 – January 8, 1975) was a convicted murderer and was the American firearms designer of the floating chamber and the short-stroke piston. Both designs used the high-pressure gas generated in or near the breech of the firearm to operate the action of semi-automatic firearms like the M1 Carbine.
Early life [ edit ]
David Marshall Williams was born in Cumberland County, North Carolina, the son of James Claude Williams by his second wife, Laura Susan Kornegay. He was the eldest of seven children and the younger half brother of the five surviving children from the first marriage of James Claude Williams to Eula Lee Breece. James Claude Williams was a wealthy and influential landowner of hundreds of acres in and around Godwin, North Carolina.
As a young boy, he worked on his family's farm. He was expelled from school during the eighth grade by Godwin School Principal H.B. Gaston and began work in a blacksmith shop. At the age of 15 he enlisted in the Navy by claiming he was 17 years old. His Navy enlistment was short-lived when the Navy became aware of his true age.[1]
In 1917, he enrolled in Blackstone Military Academy. He failed to complete the first semester due to his expulsion for theft of government property in possession of the school. Several rifles and 10,000 rounds of ammunition were found in his trunk by Col. E.S. Ligon, owner of the academy, who found Williams had shipped the stocks from the rifles home and refused to return them.[1]
On August 11, 1918, in Cumberland County, he married Margaret Cooke and they later had one child, David Marshall Jr.
After his marriage, he obtained employment as a manual laborer with the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. Several weeks later, while working with a railway team, he pulled a handgun and shot at a bird flying by, missing the bird but succeeding in having his employment terminated by his supervisor, Captain McNeill, section master.[2]
Murder of Deputy Alfred Jackson Pate [ edit ]
Williams began operating an illegal distillery near Godwin, North Carolina. On July 22, 1921, the Cumberland County Sheriff and five deputies seized the still and product after the workers fled. While transporting the evidence away from the scene, the deputies came under gunfire from the woods. Riding away from the scene on the police car sideboard, Deputy Sheriff Alfred Jackson Pate was struck by two bullets and died at the scene. Williams was arrested for the murder the following day.
Coroner’s Inquest testimony on August 1, 1921, followed by the arraignment on August 2, 1921, revealed a total of five shots had been fired at the deputies from a single location. One of the deputies present at the shooting identified Williams as the person who fired the rifle at Deputy Pate. Williams was held to answer for First Degree Murder with the possibility of a death sentence. Attorneys representing Williams then notified the court Williams could not be tried for the charges against him due to insanity. Williams and five black workers he hired to run the still were charged with operating the still.[3][4]
On October 11, 1921, a 12-man jury was impaneled to hear the testimony and decide the issue of Williams' sanity. Testimony started on October 12 and continued for four days. Williams was again identified by the deputy sheriff as the person who shot at Deputy Pate. All five workers employed by Williams testified that, as the deputies approached, they ran in a different direction than Williams and the gunshots came from the direction in which Williams had run. The hearing ended in a hung jury (11-1 for sanity).[5]
On November 22, 1921, his attorneys withdrew the insanity plea and Williams entered a plea of guilty to murder in the 2nd Degree. Immediately afterwards, Williams and his five workers pleaded guilty to the charge of Making Liquor.[6]
On November 25, 1921, Williams received a sentence of a “term of Thirty Years at hard labor, to wear felon stripes” for the murder of Deputy Pate. On the same day, one of the black workers employed by Williams, Ham Dawson, was indicted and tried in Cumberland County Superior Court on the charge of Secret Assault on Deputy Pate. Williams testified during the trial that he had fired the first couple of shots but didn’t intend to kill the deputy. Williams gave the rifle to Dawson, who fired the remaining shots with the intent to kill the deputy. The same day, the all-white 12-man jury voted 12-0 for acquittal and Dawson was released.[7][8][9]
Prison years [ edit ]
Early carbines created while in prison
While serving time at the Caledonia State Prison Farm in Halifax County, North Carolina, Williams related that the superintendent, H.T. Peoples, noted his mechanical aptitude and allowed him access to the prison’s machine shop, where he demonstrated a knack for fashioning his own tools the shop lacked. He began servicing the weapons used by the guards at the prison. His skills in the machine shop permitted him to stay ahead of his assignments and allowed him time to develop his ideas for self-loading firearms.
He would save paper and pencils and stay up late at night drawing plans for various firearms. His mother sent him a drafting set and technical data on guns and eventually provided him with patent attorney contacts who were unable to help him as long as he was incarcerated.
Williams designed and built four semi-automatic rifles while in prison. All four used the high-pressure gas within the breech as a cartridge was fired to operate their semi-automatic actions. The means used to accomplish this was a floating chamber containing the cartridge that channeled the gas at the front of the chamber to force the floating chamber backwards into the bolt with sufficient energy to operate the action. Rearward movement of the chamber was limited to a short stroke to impact the bolt face, in effect making the floating chamber a short-stroke gas piston. All four rifles are part of the permanent David Marshall Williams display in the North Carolina Museum of History.
Commutation and parole [ edit ]
His family started a campaign to commute his sentence and they were joined by the sheriff to whom he had surrendered. The widow of the man he was convicted of killing was approached and agreed his sentence should be commuted if his work would help the country. The request for commutation was submitted to North Carolina Governor Angus McLean on November 22, 1927.[10]
On December 16, 1927, North Carolina Governor Angus McLean commuted the sentence from thirty years to “a minimum of ten and maximum of twenty years”.[11]
Records of the Office of Superintendent, NC State Prisons indicate Williams was "regularly discharged from the State's Prison by Expiration of Sentence" on September 29, 1929.[12]
Firearms development [ edit ]
Back in Cumberland County, he set to work perfecting his inventions, filing his first patents on February 2, 1931. Amongst these was a patent application entitled “Automatic Firearm” U.S. Patent 2,090,656 published August 24, 1937. This application detailed his concept for the use of the high-pressure gas in or near the breech to operate the action of a semi-automatic firearm. The application and subsequent patent detail several different designs to accomplish this, including the floating chambers he manufactured on the four rifles he built while imprisoned.
Colt Manufacturing Company [ edit ]
In 1931, Colt Manufacturing Company introduced the Colt Ace pistol, a .22 long rifle caliber rimfire version of Colt's M1911A1 .45 ACP pistol for training purposes. This pistol was specific to the .22 rimfire cartridge with a recoil equivalent to its cartridge. In 1933, Williams was contracted by Colt to redesign the Colt Ace with his floating chamber. The end result was the Colt Service Ace (“Firearm” U.S. Patent 2,090,657 published August 24, 1937), a .22 caliber rimfire pistol with a recoil stronger than that of the Colt Ace but less than that of its M1911A1 .45 ACP counterpart.
In 1938, Colt introduced the Colt .22 - .45 Service Model Conversion Unit (Ace). Also designed by Williams, the conversion unit could be used to convert the 1911A1 .45 ACP pistol to .22 long rifle caliber rimfire for training. The kit allowed for pistol to be converted back to its original 1911A1 .45 ACP. The kit was also used to convert the earlier Colt Ace pistols for use as a Colt Service Ace with the floating chamber.
U.S. Ordnance Department [ edit ]
After two years, he went to Washington, DC to show his work to the War Department. He received his first contract to modify the .30 caliber Browning machine gun using the floating chamber system to fire .22 caliber rimfire ammunition to facilitate inexpensive training. His conversions were permanent. Two patents were filed for this design on Mar 19, 1935, and published February 22, 1938: “Automatic Weapon Patent” U.S. Patent 2,027,892 and "Belt Feeding Means for Guns" U.S. Patent 2,027,893.
The original Williams design was redesigned and improved upon by others into a .22 caliber conversion unit that allowed the M1919A1 to be converted back and forth between .30 caliber and .22 caliber rimfire (“Automatic Firearm” U.S. Patent 2,108,817 published February 22, 1938). This conversion kit was designated the “Trainer, Machine Gun, Caliber .22 M3” (for the 1919A1). Subsequent versions were created for the 1919A4 (Caliber .22 M4) and AN-M2 (Caliber .22 M5 .30).
Remington Arms [ edit ]
Around 1937, Remington Arms contracted Williams to produce a .22 long rifle caliber rimfire semi-automatic rifle utilizing his floating chamber intended for the commercial market. The rifle designed and developed by Williams can be seen in two patents: “Firearm” U.S. Patent 2,336,146 and “Firearm” U.S. Patent 2,373,622.
The Williams design was not accepted by Remington. The rifle was redesigned by Remington employees K. Lowe and C.C. Loomis using the Williams floating chamber. The rifle was designated the Remington Model 550 and introduced in 1941.[13]
The patents for the rifle, “Firearm” U.S. Patent 2,353,679 published July 18, 1944, and “Firearm” U.S. Patent 2,356,491 published August 22, 1944, credited the earlier Williams patent (U.S. Patent 2,090,656) of the Williams floating chamber for use with a .22 long rifle caliber rimfire rifle. This rifle was the first semi-automatic rimfire rifle capable of operating with either the .22 short, .22 long, or .22 long rifle cartridges.
Winchester Repeating Arms and World War II [ edit ]
Management at Winchester Repeating Arms Company was already aware of the work of Williams when in 1938, one of their patents (U.S. Patent 2,069,887) was contested by Williams as it infringed on one of his earlier patents for a sear (U.S. Patent 2,242,496). Winchester agreed with Williams and negotiated a settlement.
The Ordnance Department’s General Julian Hatcher was impressed by Williams's work and in 1938 recommended Winchester hire him because he showed the greatest native ability of anyone Hatcher knew. Winchester entered into negotiations with Williams, who was hired full time by Winchester on July 1, 1939.
Williams was assigned the task of redesigning a semi-automatic rifle invented by Jonathan Edmund Browning, half brother of John Browning and Matt Browning. The design had been purchased by Winchester, who had also hired Jonathan Browning to improve the design. Winchester hoped the Browning design might replace the M1 rifle invented by John Garand.
One of the problems encountered was the gas system that operated the rifle’s semi-automatic action. By May 1940, Williams had fitted the rifle with a short-stroke gas piston outside the bore of the barrel that used the gas forward of the breech to cause the piston to strike the operating slide and cycle the action. Winchester designated this rifle the Model G30M.[14] The rifle developed with this version of the short-stroke gas piston was used during U.S. Ordnance Department trials at Quantico, Virginia, and Aberdeen, Maryland from March through April 1940, followed by trials with the Marines in San Diego, California, during the fall and winter of 1940.
Based on the experience gained during these trials, Winchester directed Williams to redesign the rifle to correct additional problems, chamber it for the standard military rifle cartridge .30 M2 (.30-'06), and make it as light as possible. Williams completed the changes by May 1941, with the result weighing only 7.5 lb (3.4 kg). Winchester designated this rifle the G30R.
By May 1941, the U.S. Ordnance Dept. had started trials of a number of submissions for a light rifle design that would eventually be chambered for the .30 caliber Carbine cartridge. Winchester initially decided against developing a submission due to other commitments that included the Browning prototype being worked on by Williams. During the trials of the Model G30M at Quantico and San Diego, it had become apparent to Winchester they were not going to be able to replace the M1 by Garand. When Williams produced the 7.5 lb (3.4 kg) Model G30R, it convinced Winchester they should be able to come up with a prototype for the light rifle trials.[15]
The challenge for Winchester was producing a working light rifle in time for preliminary tests pending a second set of light rifle trials. Williams had already shown he worked at his own pace, so Winchester assigned two other employees to head up the project. When Williams was not included, he was livid. Williams refused to have anything to do with the gun and did not want his name associated with it. Thirteen days after they had begun, Winchester employees completed the first prototype.[16]
The receiver, rotating bolt, slide, and short-stroke gas piston used on this first prototype were based on those used by Williams to produce the Model G30R. Of these four parts, three were designed by Williams from parts already in use on other rifles. The one part Williams could take sole credit for was the short-stroke gas piston that accessed the high-pressure gas near the breech to operate the semi-automatic action.[15]
The preliminary tests of the first prototype by the Ordnance Department on August 9, 1941, proved the design had sufficient merit for Winchester to proceed with the development and submit a light rifle by the September 15, 1941, deadline for the final trials.
For the second prototype, Winchester formed a second team consisting of the two prior employees and others with Williams as the project director. Three days later, Winchester removed Williams from the team after assessment of a dispute between Williams and the others that had forced the project to a halt. The team continued the work on the second prototype without Williams, whom Winchester allowed to design his own prototype concurrent with the others.
On September 12, 1941, the second prototype light rifle designed by the team was complete and ready for submission but for two problems that had yet to be resolved. Williams was asked to help the others sort out the problems, and collectively solutions were found that allowed the prototype to be transported and submitted to the Ordnance Department by the deadline. The Ordnance trials were completed and the Winchester light rifle was adopted as the Carbine, Caliber .30, M1 Carbine on September 30, 1941. Williams had been unable to complete his own light rifle prototype in time for the trials. The prototype by Williams was a downsized version of his G30R design. Photographs of this carbine are retained by the Springfield Armory Museum and the Cody Firearms Museum Buffalo Bill Historical Center.[15]
Williams had previously entered into a license agreement with Winchester on September 9, 1940, for use of his patented short-stroke gas piston (U.S. Patent 2,090,656) in exchange for a royalty payable on the basis of the value of each gun manufactured containing the invention. From the end of 1941 and into 1942, Western Cartridge Co. (Winchester) negotiated with the Ordnance Department over the design of the M1 Carbine. In February 1942, the Ordnance Department proposed a one time lump sum royalty payment of $886,000 in exchange for a royalty-free production license. On March 19, 1942, Williams voluntarily entered into another agreement with Winchester, accepting 26.411 percent of this lump sum ($234,100.46 over and above his salary) in lieu of royalty payments. Winchester signed the agreement on March 20, 1942.[15]
The contract for the M1 Carbine cited 14 patents as part of its design. Four of these were held by Williams as an assignor of Western Cartridge Company (Winchester). Two were related to the Model G30 (“Takedown Firearm” U.S. Patent 2,336,431 published December 7, 1943, and “Gas Operated Self-Loading Firearm” U.S. Patent 2,346,954 published April 18, 1944). The third was Winchester’s patent for the M1 carbine itself (“Automatic Firearm Construction” U.S. Patent 2,308,257 published January 12, 1943) with Williams as the assignee. The fourth was the carbine’s short-stroke gas piston (“Piston Means for Gas-Operated Firearms” U.S. Patent 2,341,005 published February 8, 1944). Winchester felt the earlier Williams patent for his floating chamber gas piston (“Automatic Firearm” U.S. Patent 2,090,656) was sufficiently different from the design used in the M1 carbine that they would have won an inevitable court battle with Williams but saw no point in it as Winchester retained the patent rights with Williams as their assignee and the time taken by a court battle would be counterproductive to the overall goal of manufacturing the carbine for timely use by American forces already at war.
Williams continued working at Winchester on the Model G30, a light machinegun version known as the Winchester Automatic Rifle (WAR) intended to replace the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), and a .50 caliber anti-tank rifle version. As the design of several of these firearms neared completion, the war’s end in August 1945 and subsequent budget cutbacks ended these projects. Williams assisted Winchester throughout the war on a number of smaller projects, including the design and development of the rear flip sight for the M1 carbines.[15]
Winchester Repeating Arms – Post World War II [ edit ]
Along with his .30 M2 Browning Military Rifle, Jonathan Edmund Browning had developed, patented, and sold to Winchester a design for a semi-automatic shotgun U.S. Patent 1,628,226, U.S. Patent 1,842,581, U.S. Patent 1,971,597. After the war Winchester assigned Williams to the project of developing the shotgun for sporting use.
As an assignee of Olin Industries (Winchester) Williams obtained two patents related to his design: “Inertia Operated Bolt Lock” U.S. Patent 2,476,232 published July 12, 1949, and “Firearm with Movable Chamber and Sealing Sleeve” U.S. Patent 2,847,787 published August 19, 1958.
Winchester introduced the shotgun in 1954 as their Model 50 Automatic Shotgun in 12 and 20 gauge. The shotgun featured an Inertia Operated Bolt Lock designed by Williams. The bolt block and cartridge sat within a large floating chamber. When the gun was fired the gas forward of the floating chamber forced the chamber to the rear approximately 1/10th of an inch in a short stroke that generated the energy necessary for the bolt block to disengage the rear of the floating chamber and operate the semi-automatic action. This was the first semi-automatic shotgun with a fixed non-recoiling barrel. In 1960 Winchester introduced their Model 59 Automatic Shotgun which also utilized the Williams design from the Model 50. This model featured the Winlite 'glass' barrel; it was a thin tube wrapped with micro-filament glass fibre. This model could be had with the first ever screw-in Versalite choke tubes.
Movie fame [ edit ]
In 1952, MGM released the film Carbine Williams starring James Stewart as Williams with Jean Hagen as his wife, Maggie. The movie details Williams' life from his discharge from the Navy to his release from prison. The movie premiered April 24, 1952, at the Colony Theater in Fayetteville, North Carolina.[17] After the premier, Williams traveled the country appearing where the film was shown, offering autographs and photographs.
The story presented in the movie Carbine Williams was entertainment based on the story as told to MGM's producers by David Marshall Williams, verbally, in writing, and as a technical consultant during the production of the movie. The original movie script is archived within the MGM Collection by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Special Collections, Margaret Herrick Library, Beverly Hills, California.[18] A cover page indicates the script was prepared by a member of the MGM script department March 15, 1951. The script consists of two documents: The Williams Story by David Marshall Williams (copyrighted by Williams February 9, 1951 - Copyright AA0000174857) and Army Carbine: The Rifle that was Born in Prison by David Marshall Williams "as told to B. Fay Ridenour".
The original story of the Army Carbine: The Rifle that was Born in Prison, as authored by Williams and told by Ridenour was published prior to the creation of the movie script, by The Charlotte Observer on February 25, 1951. The article includes an introduction by Ridenour declaring the article to be a correct accounting of events. Within the article, Williams is quoted: "In 1939, I went to work for Winchester and it was while working for them that I invented the U.S. Army Carbine that is in use today". B. Fay Ridenour was a newspaper reporter for The Charlotte Observer.
Returning to Godwin, NC, after his travels with the movie, Williams was thereafter known as "Carbine Williams" and personally adopted the moniker. During newspaper, magazine, and radio interviews stimulated by the movie, Williams repeated his story as presented in Army Carbine: The Rifle that was Born in Prison. The fictional legend created by the publication of this story has continued to be the source for authors to this day.
Final years [ edit ]
Williams, ca. 1970
The November 6, 1960, edition of The Fayetteville Observer included an article entitled "Condition of Williams Is Still Critical”: “David Marshall (Carbine) Williams, 66, of Godwin, Rte. 1, inventor of the Army carbine, was in critical condition Saturday at midnight in a Dunn Hospital. Williams' physician, Dr. L.R. Doffermyre, said his examination late Saturday night indicated that Williams was "extremely critical". The Cumberland County man was admitted to the hospital earlier last week for treatment of a liver ailment. He had been unconscious at least three days." The article indicates his wife, son and three grandchildren were at his bedside. The November 14, 1960, Fayetteville Observer included a follow-up report indicating Williams was recovering.
During the 1960s, Williams remained at home with his wife and family. Williams eventually donated his personal collection and entire workshop to the North Carolina Museum of History. On June 22, 1971, the museum held an opening ceremony of the David Marshall Williams exhibit at the museum, where it remains on permanent display. The display includes the entire building of the Williams workshop. All contents remain in the same location where Williams left them.
In 1972, David Marshall Williams was admitted to Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina. His wife described his condition as being unable to recognize his own family. Dorothea Dix Hospital is a psychiatric hospital with short term and long term care for patients with a variety of mental disorders, both psychological and physical. Williams remained at the hospital until his death on January 8, 1975.
His death certificate lists the primary cause of his death as cardiorespiratory arrest with contributing factors of bronchial pneumonia and organic brain syndrome. Organic brain syndrome (OBS) is decreased mental function due to a medical disease other than a psychiatric illness. Examples are stroke, Alzheimer's disease, liver failure, long-term alcohol abuse or withdrawals from alcohol, amongst many others.
Williams is buried in the cemetery of the Old Bluff Presbyterian Church near Wade, North Carolina.[19]
Legacy [ edit ]
While the fictional legend of “Carbine Williams” has garnered Williams more attention over the years, his design, redesign, and development of firearms that used the high-pressure gas in or near the breech to operate their semi-automatic action has remained a significant contribution used in the design and development of new firearms and as a starting point for other inventors to come up with new ideas.
The U.S. patent for the highly successful Benelli Shotgun (U.S. Patent 4,604,942) references Williams' patent for his “Inertia Operated Bolt Lock” U.S. Patent 2,476,232. The Weatherby Model SA-08 and SA-459 semi-automatic shotgun lines manufactured for Weatherby by Armsan in Istanbul, Turkey, use an external gas piston housing and short-stroke gas piston that impacts an operating rod to cycle the semi-automatic action. Armsan manufactures and markets in Europe their own line of semi-automatic shotguns using this design.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ] |
Darsh Patel, the 22-year-old Rutgers student who was mauled to death by a black bear in New Jersey in September, was taking photos of the bear with his cell phone just before the attack, according to NJ Advance Media. A public records request submitted by the local news organization returned five photographs taken with the young man's cell phone from no farther away than 100 feet. The phone, which was recovered with Patel's body, was also damaged by the bear.
In October, hikers in the Lake Tahoe area were warned about taking selfies with bears at Taylor Creek, an area where the bruins gather in the fall to feed on spawning trout. Black bears are generally considered less likely to attack humans than the larger grizzly bears, which are making a comeback in the northern Rockies. |
KNOXVILLE, TN—Taking a break from surfing the web, going out for multiple cups of coffee, and missing important work deadlines, employees at Winthrop Media complained once again Monday about being taken for granted.
"I come in almost every day, bust my hump for like four or five hours, and what do I get? Nothing," said Tom Bertram, one of several chronic underachievers employed by the Knoxville advertising firm. "You'd think management could show us a little appreciation now and again. It's not like I particularly enjoy just sitting around here all day."
Advertisement
Bertram then returned to his computer's web browser, logged out of Facebook, and hurriedly responded to 14 work e-mails that had accumulated in his in-box.
According to sources, the 36-year-old isn't the only incompetent employee on staff who feels undervalued. Joseph Garten, a production designer, notorious procrastinator, and all-around liability, said that he wished he got more respect around the office.
"A simple thank-you from the higher-ups would be nice," said Garten, who spends nearly 60 percent of his workweek making personal calls from his desk. "Yesterday I stayed late in order to finish up some work I've been putting off, and nobody even noticed."
Advertisement
Added Garten, "I don't know how much longer I can keep killing myself like this."
In addition to receiving praise for their hard work, the inept and often neglectful staff members said they'd like to see a number of new incentives introduced. Among them, a larger and more comfortable break room where employees can go unwind, longer extensions on overdue projects, and the option of working from home on Fridays and possibly also Mondays.
"This place would fall apart without me," said routinely absent project coordinator Susan McIntyre. "I'm the only one around here who actually knows how to use the popcorn maker, and I almost always remember to wash my mug in the sink after I'm done using it. Plus, I show up to meetings only like a minute or two late."
Advertisement
"Honestly now," McIntyre continued. "They're lucky I just don't pack up my things and leave."
Despite feelings of frustration, employees at the design firm have yet to bring their misplaced concerns and unfounded complaints directly to management. Instead, many choose to air their grievances by making passive- aggressive comments beneath their breath, setting aside important assignments in favor of reading gossip columns, and sneaking out several times each week to grab a "much- deserved drink."
"Our Christmas party this year was the last straw for me," said Deborah Castor, whose early departures to attend a scrapbooking class have resulted in the advertising firm losing two separate clients. "Some crappy Secret Santa thing, a bowl of punch, and a box of Archway cookies and they call it a holiday bash? We're the heart and soul of this company, for Christ's sake."
Advertisement
While no one has come forward as of yet, management at Winthrop Media is reportedly aware of its employees' reticence to work and prepared to take action.
"We've already tried buying everyone lunch and handing out big bonuses, but so far nothing's worked," company president Harvey Dunn said. "I wish I could just fire the entire staff for being so incompetent, but between going on vacation and running around trying to buy a second home, I'm really only in the office a couple of days a year." |
Dear tech and legal journalists,
In January of this year, I filed a lawsuit in Federal Court in an attempt to protect my blog, The Skeptical OB, from being hounded off the web by someone who doesn’t like what I have to say, and who was raising money and soliciting followers in an express attempt to do just that.
I had no idea that abuse of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was a topic of profound interest in both the tech and legal communities and therefore I was quite surprised to see the case reported in these venues. I am very grateful that others recognize the potential for abuse of the DMCA, but I’m a bit concerned that many have dismissed the underlying issue as unsavory or petty. It is anything but.
I’ll concede that the proximate cause of the lawsuit, the picture of the finger seen round the world is both unsavory and petty, but that should not confuse people. The underlying dispute is about censorship, whether purveyors of pseudoscience should be allowed to censor critics when they cannot counter the scientific evidence that the critics present.
I’m a Harvard educated, Harvard trained obstetrician gynecologist who has spent my entire professional life attempting to ensure safe childbirth for babies and women. I am a respected expert on the issue of homebirth, writing for Time.com, Salon.com and The New York Times among other places, and quoted widely.
I am very effective at what I do; it’s not that hard to be effective when the scientific evidence is on your side. I merely present it in a way that lay people can understand. And in doing so, I threaten a multimillion dollar industry of childbirth paraprofessionals such as homebirth midwives, doulas and childbirth educators.
The scientific evidence on safe childbirth is so clear that no professional homebirth advocates would dare debate me in an open forum, despite multiple offers on my part to do so. Rather, they have attempted to censor me.
As far back as 2007 doulas and homebirth organizations sent multiple complaints to the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine (they were dismissed), and as recently as within the past several months, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has received multiple letters from homebirth activists demanding that I not be allowed to speak at a forthcoming ACOG district conference where I am a featured speaker.
While my experience may be the first time that a homebirth critic has been targeted, this is hardly a unique experience for those who fight to correct the misinformation of people who profit from pseudoscience. From Simon Singh, PhD, a critic of chiropractic who was sued for libel, to Dr. Paul Offit, who has tenaciously countered the misinformation of the anti-vaccination lobby and has required a bodyguard for protection from threats against his life, physicians and scientists who debunk pseudoscientific misinformation with scientific evidence routinely face efforts at censorship.
When it comes to the misinformation from the homebirth lobby that threatens the lives of babies and mothers, I’ve found that sunshine is the best disinfectant. Exposing the deaths of babies at homebirth, the efforts of homebirth midwives to escape culpability for injuries and deaths and the misinformation that leads women to choose homebirth in the first place, I’ve found that there is no better antidote than scientific evidence.
My critics obviously agree that there is no better antidote than scientific evidence. That’s why they can’t debate me and why they want to silence me instead. One homebirth activist hit upon filing multiple false DMCA notices against me as a tool for censoring me from the internet. If an activist can do that to me, what’s to stop purveyors of pseudoscience from attempting to use the DMCA to shut down the free flow of information about climate change or evolution? Nothing, unfortunately.
Don’t be fooled by an obscene photograph. This isn’t about a personal dispute and this isn’t about homebirth. It’s hard to debate when science isn’t on your side; how much easier then to censor instead. |
Most major-college football players with any serious aspirations to play in the pros navigate the process without a lot of notice.
They graduate, they are drafted, they endure training camp and when they make their first 53-man roster, sure, it’s always a big deal for friends and family. But usually it doesn’t warrant the celebration that’s been going on the last few days in West Scranton.
But Matt McGloin’s case is a little different. He wasn’t even supposed to make a major-college roster. Now, he’s playing in the NFL.
When McGloin didn’t get a call on Saturday, it was a very good thing. That meant, against all odds, he’d secured a spot on the Oakland Raiders’ roster for opening day – Sunday afternoon in Indianapolis against the Colts.
This prompted a message from his old coach, drained and decompressing from his own opener in an NFL stadium at the New Jersey Meadowlands:
“I sent him a text when I heard about it and congratulated him,” said Penn State coach Bill O’Brien. “Just couldn’t be happier for him.”
It’s easy to help the gifted student and bathe in the ambient light of talent. But it’s more rewarding for any teacher to spend time with a pupil who needs help, then see that instruction absorbed, understood and embraced to the point of unexpected accomplishment. It validates both the student and teacher. O’Brien has to feel that:
“I think I said in the text: ‘Your parents must be so proud.’ And I got a message from his mom and dad.
“I know Coach [Dennis] Allen’s a heck of a football coach so, if you made that team, you earned it. I can’t say enough about Matt McGloin.”
Oh, his parents are proud, all right. Paul and Cathy McGloin spent the day of truth in Montdale working at a wedding, which is standard procedure for Saturdays when you own a flower shop.
“I was a nervous wreck all day. Saturday morning," said Paul McGloin on Tuesday. "I kept watching our clock here. Of course, it’s a 3-hour difference [from Pacific Daylight Time in Oakland]. I call Matt and say, ‘Did you hear anything?’ He says, ‘Dad, I won’t hear anything. If I get a phone call, that’s how you know you’re cut – you get the phone call. I’m hoping my phone doesn’t ring.’”
The call never came. The only calls were from his anxiety-ridden dad, two or three more before Matt finally drove to the Raiders office and training complex in Alameda, Calif. There was his locker with his name on it.
“I said, ‘Matt, that’s a good sign if you have a new locker.’”
It was. Eventually, at about 11:45 EDT, McGloin texted his two older brothers: “Made it.” He was on the Raiders’ 2013 roster.
Still, there was no confirmation phone call. So, while oldest son Paul Jr. was jubilant, middle son John was cautious: “Maybe it’s just the practice squad. Let’s not anybody say anything until we talk to Matt and hear it from him.”
Little did the McGloins know, Matt was in a meeting until 4 p.m. EDT and couldn’t call yet.
Finally, he did. It was the active roster. McGloin had beaten out fourth-round draft pick Tyler Wilson, a former first-team all-SEC quarterback at Arkansas and will be the Raiders’ third-team QB behind his former Big Ten rival Terrelle Pryor of Jeannette, Pa., and Ohio State (the Raiders’ starter) and second-stringer Matt Flynn. Wilson later cleared waivers and has been placed on the Raiders’ practice squad.
“I was actually in tears,” said the elder McGloin. “Through this whole process. It's surreal to me this is actually happening. My son's a quarterback in the National Football League.”
Throughout the spring and summer there were ups and downs. McGloin played without particular distinction in a Texas vs. The Nation all-star game in March but the workouts in front of NFL scouts were considered more important than the actual game. Then, there was the disappointment of going undrafted even after the Denver Broncos had called the house, Paul McGloin said, to say they probably would pick Matt in the sixth round. Instead, they took Miami-Ohio QB Zac Dysert in the seventh. (He ended up making the Broncos’ 53-man roster on Saturday.)
O'Brien spent a good part of the Sunday after the draft making calls and texts around the NFL trying to help McGloin gain admission into a camp. The Raiders had some interest.
He quickly distinguished himself in rookie camp and again in August, looking more polished and decisive than Wilson, particularly in an early exhibition against Dallas.
And now this: A kid who had to initially walk on without a scholarship to make Penn State’s roster has made it with an NFL club.
Paul and Cathy McGloin have spent the last few days thanking everyone who helped along the way. Said Paul:
“I’ll be eternally grateful to Joe Paterno till the day I die because Joe gave Matt his opportunity. And Bill O’Brien, in his last year saved Matt’s career.
“I left him a message that said: ‘Coach, I want to thank you. Matt is where he’s at because of you.’ Bill’s wife [Colleen] told me at the banquet in December that him and Matt have a very special relationship and I think they do.”
As, clearly, do Matt and his dad. It’s all gravy now to Paul McGloin:
“As a father, it don’t get any better than this. A guy I know said to me: ‘McGloin, you’re enjoying something that very, very few fathers in this world will ever experience.’”
It’s probably a little more enjoyable for Paul McGloin because he is a very different personality than his youngest son who has never been accused of being easygoing. The father is naturally buoyant. Words spill out of his mouth as if pouring from a fountain. He loves people and socializing and his business rewards that.
But then, dad acknowledges he probably never could have continually shoved doubt to the side and achieved something which so few thought possible:
“He’s not like me. I don’t have the drive that Matt has. He has a drive about him that’s unbelievable.
“Even before Saturday, I told, Matt, I said, ‘Matt, whatever happens, happens. You beat the odds, You played in four NFL exhibition games.’ He said, ‘Dad, I’m not done.’”
And so, he’s not.
DAVID JONES: [email protected].
Follow @djoneshoop |
WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan will be returning to WWE television in two weeks on the February 24th edition of Monday Night RAW from Green Bay, Wisconsin.
This will be the night after the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view and the night that the WWE Network launches.
Hogan reached a deal with WWE to return shortly after he left TNA a few months ago. Initially, there was talk of Hogan appearing at the WWE Network announcement from CES in Las Vegas last month, but the decision was made to hold off on Hogan’s return until the WWE Network launch day. We’re told that longtime Hogan ally Jimmy Hart will also be in attendance at the show to promote ‘Legends House.’
As reported over the weekend, the 2/24 episode of RAW will also feature the long awaited return of The Undertaker. |
Private spaceships could be safe enough to transport astronautsto the space station, a group of 24 former NASA spaceflyers told Congress in anopen letter this week.
The astronauts argue in favor of a newplan by President Barack Obama to encourage commercial companies to buildspacecraft capable of replacing the space shuttles as NASA's means to reach theInternational Space Station.
"We believe that the private sector, working inpartnership with NASA, can safely develop and operate crewed space vehicles tolow Earth orbit," the astronauts wrote.
In favor of private spaceships
The letter, sent to members of Congress including Sen. BarbaraA. Mikulski (D-Maryland) and Sen. Bill Nelson(D-Florida), was signed by former astronauts such as Apollo astronaut RustySchweickart and BuzzAldrin, the second man on the moon.
Former space shuttle flyer John"Mike" Lounge, another signatory, said the letter was motivated inpart as a response to critics of the Obama administration plan who argue thatspaceships built by private companies would not be safe enough to trust forflying NASA astronauts.
"It was a reaction to some ofthe letters you?ve seen out there ? to kind of show there is another opinionamong people who have flown in space," Lounge told SPACE.com. He said privatecompanies are just as capable as NASA of designing safe, reliable spacecraft ?in fact, he pointed out, all NASA spacecraft have been built by commercialcompanies, simply contracted by NASA.
"The main thing we were trying to make a clearstatement on, was that the safety of a system isn?t so much a function of whoowns it, so much as what it is, and that simple systems are safer than complexones, and simple missions are safer than complex missions," Lounge said.
In the letter, the astronauts point out that the U.S. AirForce routinely depends on commercial rockets to launch satellites critical tonational security. Furthermore, commercial rockets such as the Atlas 5 andDelta 4 have proven their reliability over dozens of successful launches.
"Commercial space workers and managers care aboutsafety just as much as those working at NASA," the astronauts wrote."Many commercial space workers have come from our Nation?s space programand have deep historical knowledge and understanding of the safety issues forhuman spaceflight, and former astronauts are deeply involved in theengineering, manufacture, and eventual operations of commercialcrew vehicles."
NASA's new direction
The Obama plan for space got a new boost today when theSenate's Commerce, Science and Transportation committee passed a NASAauthorization bill largely based on the new proposal. The bill includesfunding to encourage the building of private spaceships, and also endorses PresidentObama's plan for NASA to focus on designing more ambitious heavy-lift rocketsto carry astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit to an asteroid and Mars.
Finally, the bill added funding for a third and final spaceshuttle mission in 2011 before the three-orbiter fleet is retired for good.
Some criticized the new bill because it decreased the moneyallocated for commercial space from President Obama's original proposal.Instead of about $3.3 billion for private spaceships over the next three years,as President Obama requested, the new bill offers only $1.6 billion over thatsame time period. Some lawmakers are proposing an amendment to add back some ofthe missing funds for commercial spaceflight.
Lounge said the key elements of the Obama plan arepromising.
"I think obviously there's something broken with the traditionalapproach because we are faced with this gap of U.S. capability" to fly tospace after the shuttles retire, he said. "So we've got to do somethingdifferently. This is a way to leverage private company innovation andinvestment in a way that lets NASA put its limited resources into thecomplicated missions."
He argued against critics who say the new plan is a stepdown for U.S. preeminence in space exploration.
"The new direction is not a retreat from human spaceflight? it is the future of human spaceflight," Lounge said. "If we don?tfind a way to do this in a robust way that?s affordable, that's open to newtechnology, open to commercial participation, even open to international participation? I see no way that it's sustainable." |
Wilhelm Steinitz was “a fat phlegmatic little man, with a fine forehead and mussed hair and clothes,” according to one newspaper account. He was also the favorite at the inaugural world chess championship, held in 1886, and an émigré to the United States — Steinitz had adopted the U.S. as his own after emigrating from Europe, later changing his first name to William.
The championship match was a grand tour of the country, beginning in New York, ending in New Orleans, and stopping in St. Louis in between. With $4,000 on the line, Steinitz struggled in the early games and fell far behind. But by the time they reached New Orleans, he had recovered, and America’s first chess champion was crowned.
“It was from Steinitz that the era of modern chess began,” wrote Garry Kasparov, possibly the best player of all time.
But American chess was in the midst of a bleak century, only rarely punctuated by triumph. Paul Morphy, the great chess genius and Steinitz’s unofficial predecessor, died of a stroke in the bath at age 47, just a couple of years before Steinitz won. Contemporary reports described him as “insane,” walking the streets “chattering to himself.” Steinitz died, penniless and mentally ill, in a state hospital in 1900. Bobby Fischer, the only modern American world champion, failed to defend his title in 1975, descended into paranoia and anti-Semitism, and later praised the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Since Fischer’s exit, no American has ever been ranked the world No. 1. Only two Americans — Fischer and Gata Kamsky — have played in the world championship finals in the last 100 years.
But this string of misfortune may be about to end, thanks to some quintessentially American ideals: mobility and prosperity. A trio of players — both native and immigrant — have found their way to the U.S., and each now ranks in the top seven in the world.
Those three, along with the reigning Norwegian world champion, are currently assembled in St. Louis for one of the strongest chess competitions ever held. And that American city has become a lighthouse for the game, featuring top-flight tournaments, world-class venues and varsity chess programs. And fueling it all is an aging multimillionaire who has made the success of American chess his life’s quest after growing up in an orphanage and falling in love with the game as a teenager.
Can the American dream be leveraged into chess glory?
In April, two American grandmasters stood over the shoulder of a third, watching him struggle through a winnable tournament. Hikaru Nakamura (current world No. 7), stood with his arms crossed beneath his floppy dark hair and sideburns. Fabiano Caruana (world No. 3), sparrowlike and wearing a white dress shirt, stood next to him, squinting, with his arms gathered leisurely behind his back. They are two of the three best chess players in the country, and all were vying for the title of national champion. Seated in front of them was the other, commanding a black wooden army of pieces, Wesley So.
As the tournament, which stretched from March 29 to April 9, reached its crescendo, So sat at the board bundled in an eggplant-colored sweater while tied for first place. Tied? He should’ve been crushing this field, and he knew it. He’s the next great hope, after all — the top-rated American and the world No. 2. He still found his way through the remaining games, and held on to win the national championship a couple of days later — his first.
So has an acutely poised approach to a game of chess. His arms hang at his sides. He clasps his hands, left fingers over right, on the table in front of him. He hovers over the wooden battle unfolding on the board, like the figurehead on the prow of a ship. The USS So. Occasionally, if the position is difficult, the USS So takes a hard turn starboard, and the grandmaster stares at the wall and ponders. Every so often, if that doesn’t work, the ship turns port, toward the spectators. Rarer still, he stares right at you.
So is a recent addition to an elite American lineup that now boasts three of the world’s top seven players. The three found themselves in St. Louis on that sunny spring day — and playing under the American flag — in very American ways. Nakamura wasn’t born here (he was born in Japan), but he moved here when he was 2 years old. Caruana was born here (in Florida), but moved away (Spain, Hungary, Switzerland) to train. So wasn’t born here either (Philippines), but moved here (Missouri) to attend college.
It’s not easy to describe what makes So’s game unique — or Caruana’s or Nakamura’s, for that matter. The difficulty arises not only from chess’s vastness, but also from the creeping influence of computers. Chess is a more homogenized game than it once was. “It’s harder to differentiate the thinking of the different players because they’re all using the same programs,” John Donaldson, an international master who captained the U.S. team to a 2016 Olympiad win, said in a phone call.
That being said, some differences do remain. Caruana and Nakamura have very aggressive styles, and Donaldson said occasionally they have to remind themselves to temper this aggression. But a more placid temperament comes naturally to So, and it’s precisely this cool on the board that distinguishes him. His play is consistent, calm and highly theoretical. Unlike the world champion, Magnus Carlsen, who is known for not being especially well prepared when it comes to his opening moves, So takes theoretically established lines and adds in his own fresh strategic ideas.
The three U.S. players’ journeys to the precipice of a world championship have differed, too, but all have been long and some occasionally scandalous. But all hope they’ll end with a world title. Nakamura, 29, is the old hand. He first clinched the country’s No. 1 spot in 2005, and has suffered the Fischer comparisons for years now. “There are very few people out there who have the ability to, I don’t want to say change the world, but make a very big impact, and with chess I feel like I really have that chance,” Nakamura told the Riverfront Times in 2011. So came next, switching his chess allegiances from the Filipino team to the U.S. in 2014. (At the time, he was No. 14 in the world.) Caruana, 25, followed shortly after, defecting from the Italian squad in 2015. “I think I will be world champion someday,” Caruana told The New Yorker.
More players transfer to the U.S. than to any other country Nations that received the highest number of player transfers, 2000-17 COUNTRY NUMBER OF TRANSFERS 1 United States 89 – 2 Germany 55 – 3 Canada 44 – 4 Spain 41 – 5 Russia 36 – 6 France 34 – 7 Bosnia and Herzegovina 32 – 8 Croatia 32 – 9 Turkey 31 – 10 Austria 29 – 2017 data as of April 11. Source: FIDE
Caruana and So’s transfers did not go unnoticed.
Caruana’s transfer required a fee of $61,000, paid to the Italians and FIDE, the game’s international governing body. According to the Italian Chess Federation, Caruana was also offered more than $200,000 a year by the Americans. Some top players, including Carlsen, scoffed at what they saw as a mercenary approach to building an American roster.
probably need an even better squad to go further though, wonder if Caruana and So are still for sale — Magnus Carlsen (@MagnusCarlsen) September 13, 2016
The U.S. Chess Federation recognizes its role in building the American roster this way, but is shy with details. “We get involved because a player of So’s stature carries with it some heavy funding requirements,” its president Gary Walters told me. “FIDE has penalties when you cross and change flags … When you’re Wesley So, we’re talking about tens of thousands of euros to make the transfer. That money has to be paid through U.S. Chess … We typically do not make the payments for players, but we will facilitate the payments.” (FIDE lists So’s transfer fee at 5,000 euros.) The federation operates with a total annual revenue of about $3.8 million in 2015, according to its tax documents.
Who did pay? “I don’t know who paid the transfer fees,” Walters said. The New York Times reported that the United States Chess Federation had created a charitable fund “to help recruit and pay the fees of foreign players interested in moving to the United States.” So has said he paid the fee out of pocket.
Despite their far-flung origins, the American players have, as a group, achieved early success. The U.S. won gold at the Olympiad, the top team chess competition, last year. It was the first time the country had taken gold in 40 years. But the triad aren’t close, and remain professional rivals. At the closing ceremonies after the nationals, as Nakamura nursed a beer at a ballroom table in St. Louis waiting for So to receive his trophy, Nakamura explained to me that his friends generally aren’t top chess players. They’re his competition, after all. I also asked So, over email, if he had good friends in the chess world. “No. This is not a team sport,” he responded. (Although there are occasional team events, such as the Olympiad.) “We respect and admire each other but mostly keep to ourselves because sooner or later we are going to have to play each other and then you might have mental conflict.”
U.S. chess’s plan to shift players to its team has worked out beautifully on the surface. Beneath it, though, its top player has wrestled with family strife and the growing pains of a new life under chess’s spotlight.
At the end of the 2015 national championship, So posted this message to his Facebook page: “Let me state right at the top of this that I write my own emails and NO ONE controls my communication, or when and how I choose to communicate. I am not cut off, isolated, drugged, in bondage or kidnapped. I do not belong to anyone but God. I am a man who wishes to be let alone to find his own life.” He had been forced to forfeit a crucial game for writing notes to himself on a piece of paper, in violation of tournament rules. The indiscretion came, So has explained, as the result of a bout of stress following an international family dispute.
At a dinner party in Minnesota in 2013, So met Lotis Key, a former film actress who has starred in over 75 Asian movies, and Renato “Bambi” Kabigting, a basketball star while in the Philippines. The couple lives in Minnetonka, a leafy Minneapolis suburb. The trio hit it off, and by the end of 2014, So had left college and moved in with them; he began calling Key mom.
According to an account Key gave the Star Tribune, the dispute at the tournament occurred when So’s birth mother, Eleanor So — who now lives in Canada — showed up at the tournament, demanding that he return to school and threatening to cut all ties to the family. A minor scuffle — arm grabbing, yelling — ensued outside the chess club. Eleanor So told the paper that, “Since someone is blocking us access to our own son, we had to try and see him in person to help him.”
The meeting was orchestrated, Key told the Star Tribune, by Wesley So’s former coach at Webster University, Paul Truong, who was upset at having lost his star player when he dropped out. Truong denied this and told me that So’s scholarship had been revoked, although he said he couldn’t discuss why. “We knew that he was going to go through some rough times, and we just wanted to protect him, so we never bothered correcting what the media said,” Truong said. Key told me that So decided to leave school, and turn pro, weeks before his scholarship was withdrawn. “The simple fact is Wesley left because he was unhappy at Webster and had decided to play chess professionally,” she said in an email. A spokesman for Webster declined to comment on why So left the university.
Several years before, Truong, in a separate incident, had been accused of posting obscene messages online under the name of a rival in a campaign to get elected to the U.S. Chess Federation board. (Truong continues to deny those accusations, although they were confirmed by a private investigator hired by U.S. Chess.) He was later ousted from the federation, and the legal dispute was settled.
Despite a strained relationship with So, Truong was optimistic about his future. “Out of all the current players in the United States today, I believe that [So] would have the best chance to be the next world champion,” he said.
Amid this chess-world furor, So’s play has remained placid, and he described his adopted family as a supportive team. “They have had a lot of foster kids over the years and because they are Christians they believe in helping others.” So, too, relies heavily on his Christian faith. And it’s precisely his monkish calm and ascetic approach that fuel his game and intimidate his opponents. “I do not go to parties. I do not ‘hang out,’ I do not play games or use the internet,” So said in an email. “I don’t drink alcohol, use drugs or eat junk food. I don’t even have a cell phone.”
Maurice Ashley, a grandmaster and chess commentator, described So as “playing the best chess” in the world right now, and others agree that So is on the brink of chess’s highest prize. “It’s like he’s in the high Himalayas climbing, and it’s the last 1,000 feet toward the summit, toward the world championship,” Donaldson said. “He’s in rarefied air.”
As I sought to find out more about America’s best chess player, Key got wind of my inquiries. “Why did you try to establish contact with his estranged relatives?” she asked about my having tried to reach his biological family. “Aware that his enemies are always trying to hurt him, we wondered at the curious timing of your trying to locate them in the weeks just before the tournament began.”
I never did reach So’s birth family, and my efforts to arrange more meaningful time with the grandmaster through his adoptive mother were unsuccessful. Key insisted that all communication be funneled through her. “You probably consider our precautions extraordinary,” she said. “Yet consider that when you want to stop an elite skater you try to break her leg. With a chess player, you must break something else.”
The World Chess Championship operates like a fiefdom. The reigning champion, currently the Norwegian Carlsen, is the overlord. He sits in his throne waiting while the rest of the super-grandmasters bloody each other over the course of a grueling two-year cycle. A triumphant performance in several Grand-Prix tournaments, the Chess World Cup or the official world rankings lands a contender in the Candidates Tournament, in which eight survivors battle each other one final time. Exactly one of them wins the right to challenge the defending champion for the title in yet another lengthy series of games. The next Candidates is slated for March 2018 and the next championship match for the following November. Their locations have not yet been announced.
Who might challenge Carlsen? Top players’ chance of winning Candidates Tournament (and challenging Carlsen), based on Elo ratings RANK PLAYER COUNTRY WIN PROB. 2 So 🇺🇸 25.2% 3 Caruana 🇺🇸 19.1 4 Kramnik 🇷🇺 14.5 5 Aronian 🇦🇲 12.5 6 Mamedyarov 🇦🇿 10.8 7 Nakamura 🇺🇸 8.4 8 Vachier-Lagrave 🇫🇷 6.2 12 Karjakin 🇷🇺 3.3 Includes the most highly rated players as of Aug. 1, and the defending world runner-up, Karjakin. Based on data from 2700chess.com
If the Candidates were held today and all three top Americans qualified, which they would if their official ratings are any guide, the Americans would have a better-than-50 percent chance of sending a challenger to face Carlsen, according to my simulations. (Sergey Karjakin, last year’s challenger, qualifies for the Candidates automatically.) Assuming any American that won the Candidates had a fighting chance against the Norwegian, we arrive at something like the following: There is a 1-in-5 chance that the next world chess champion will represent the United States.
Jennifer Shahade, a two-time U.S. women’s chess champion, had a similar outlook, although she hadn’t run any simulations. “I’m also a poker player,” she told me, “and it’s definitely good odds.” She put the chances of an American challenging for the world title in the next two cycles at 55 percent.
Last year, Caruana missed a Candidates victory by one devastating game. The world championship was then held in New York City, where Caruana spent some of his early years, and American observers saw it as a missed opportunity for the game in the States. Few think the full-blown 1972 Fischer fever will take hold again in the U.S. — fueled, as it was, by Cold War implications — but everyone seems hopeful that another chance at glory will come.
“That will be the final sealing of the deal, to say U.S. chess is the best chess in the world, which is the goal,” Ashley told me as he was being miked up to broadcast the next round at the nationals. “That’s how we roll. That’s essential: to be the best.”
Only So himself struck a melancholy note at the whole prospect. “I sometimes feel sorry for [Carlsen] because the pressure is terrible,” he told me over email. “If he even draws a game, people are disappointed. People think they have a right to every bit of his life. I don’t want to live like that.”
But a world championship is the goal. And it’s being pursued with that most American of fuels: money. “A world championship would be spectacular,” said Walters, the U.S. Chess president. “And there are forces here in St. Louis who would put that very near the top of the list.”
On Oct. 10, 2016, at a rally in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, then-candidate Donald Trump was riffing on what he saw as the unfortunate complexity of existing U.S. trade deals. To understand them, he said, “You have to be like a grand chess master — and we don’t have any of them.” At the time, the United States had 90 grandmasters.
Rex Sinquefield was listening to that speech, and he wasn’t pleased. He reached for his cell phone, flipped through his contacts, and rang up Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence.
“I left a long message. I said, ‘I want to explain to you, first of all, what’s going on in St. Louis.’ I said, ‘There are plenty of grandmasters.’ I said, ‘At any point in time, there are probably 25 grandmasters in St. Louis,’” Sinquefield recalled. “Pence called me back … He said, ‘Rex, I had no idea what was going on in your city.’ He said, ‘This is absolutely amazing.’ He said, ‘I’m going to tell Donald. He said, ‘He will be embarrassed and amused.’” (Sinquefield never heard from Trump.)
Sinquefield and I met in St. Louis in April in the midst of the national championship. We sat on the second floor of the well-appointed chess club he founded in 2008. On one side of the room stood chess tables prepared for battle. On the other hung the spoils of the game — gleaming trophies and old photos of American legends, including Fischer. Sinquefield wore a windbreaker over a polo shirt, both emblazoned with the insignia of his club, the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis.
Sinquefield — a multimillionaire or billionaire, depending on your source — is somewhere between a Medici and the Wizard of Oz of American chess. He was raised in Saint Vincent Home for Children, an orphanage just outside the city, and went on to make his money pioneering index funds, after earning an MBA at the University of Chicago. His current home, an 8,000-square-foot mansion on a private street a few blocks from the club, bears some resemblance to a rook.
He pours millions a year into this chess hamlet he’s built within the city’s tony Central West End. Within a literal stone’s throw, there’s the three-story club, which has dues-paying members and hosts elite tournaments, a grandmaster-in-residence, and a high-tech production facility; a hall of fame and museum which houses an impressive collection of Fischer artifacts; a chess-themed diner which shows Cardinals baseball games and chess games on side-by-side TVs; and three “chess houses” which are home to a rotation of visiting players. That’s all on one block, and doesn’t begin to mention the sidewalk chess tables and the 14½-foot-tall king that keeps watch over the street.
A 2015 New York Times article strongly suggested that Sinquefield footed the bill for Caruana’s transfer to the U.S. It’s a suggestion Sinquefield denies. “He paid that fee entirely himself,” Sinquefield said. “We didn’t pay a penny of it.” In either case, there’s no denying that the cash he has laid out has helped attract Caruana and So, and helped to launch a real bid for the world title. Sinquefield predicts an American world champion by 2020. If an American looks poised to qualify, he insisted he’d do everything he could to negotiate with FIDE to bring the match to St. Louis. He even had a venue picked out.
What’s in it for Sinquefield? Is this like some other billionaire owning a baseball team? “This is infinitely more fun than that,” he said, adding that he’d turned down a chance to take an ownership share in the Cardinals.
Instead, Sinquefield says the answer is twofold: First, it’s a passion — a retirement hobby for a wealthy Missourian. He learned the game when was 13 from his Uncle Fred. When we spoke, he had 19 chess games in progress online, and he takes a weekly lesson from Shahade, the women’s national champion. He’s on a first-name basis with most of the best players in the world, and he haunts the club during tournaments, keeping a close eye on the games.
Second, it’s an investment. Sinquefield is a financier, a public policy wonk, and a fiscal conservative. (Another lifelong passion is the elimination of income tax.) He expects that his privately funded improvement in American chess will yield public returns. These could come, he explained, in the form of educational and health outcomes. His club is working to put chess in local schools and, in an effort to improve community relations, to train cops how to teach kids the game. And he’s keeping a close eye on studies in a local hospital on the potentially ameliorative effects of chess on dementia and Alzheimer’s.
“It’s several million a year, easily,” Sinquefield said about what he’s putting into the game. “So far it seems well worth it.”
“It’s a dream — this is the Mecca of chess,” Shahade said. “Obviously, the financial contributions are so considerable and so generous. But a lot of the passion to donate that money is that Rex really absolutely loves chess and sees the multifaceted nature of the game. And he really loves history.”
Sinquefield is only a year younger than Fischer would be if he were alive. The 1972 world championship, and the historic performance that led up to it, struck a nerve, and Sinquefield has been obsessed with Fischer and the game ever since. He effortlessly rattled off Fischer’s conquests on his way to the world title. “It had an impact on everybody,” Sinquefield said, speaking about the patriotic frenzy around the match. “We were all captured by it.”
And we may be again.
Graphics by Rachael Dottle.
UPDATE (Aug. 8, 5:01 p.m.): This article has been updated with comments from Lotis Key on the timing of events surrounding So’s departure from Webster University. |
Valve has posted a new teaser site which declares that "the Steam universe is expanding in 2014." Three symbols tease three announcements in Valve's typically-cryptic fashion, with the first coming 71 hours from the time of this article's writing, also known as "Monday morning."
Nothing else is cryptic about this, though. The teaser site clearly teases the content of the coming teasers: these announcements are about Valve's push to get PC gaming into living rooms, probably with the long-rumored Steam Box .
Additionally, in a talk at LinuxCon 2013 earlier this week, Valve boss Gabe Newell said that the company's next step is "on the hardware side" and talked about "bringing Linux into the living room." That removes any remaining mystery: the clear conclusion is that Valve is announcing a Linux-based Steam Box.
Or this has all been a series of carefully-crafted red herrings, and the announcements are Ricochet 2, Ricochet 3, and Ricochet 4. |
Turks ‘most active Facebook users’
Ahmet Can - ISTANBUL
Around half of all 3.4 billion internet users are also Facebook users, yet this figure hits almost 97 percent in Turkey, said Facebook Turkey Country Director Derya Matraş.
“There are 43 million Facebook users in Turkey; around 30 million of them connect to the social network on a daily basis. This is an incredible rate,” she said in an interview with daily Hürriyet.
Matraş added that some 39 million internet users in Turkey are also active in mobile technologies.
“Due to these tremendous figures, Facebook’s Turkish team has been growing. We are now a part of the Middle East and Africa region, headquartered in Dubai, although the Turkey team works from London. We are developing our organizational structure so as to work with our business partners in closer manner,” she said.
Matraş also said the mobile age has been transforming into a video age, as video sharing activities and technologies have soared in an incredible way.
“The mobile video display rate increased more than six-fold between 2012 and 2015. According to fourth-quarter data from Facebook in 2015, some 500 million people watched at least one video on a daily basis in the previous 1.5 years, making it a huge platform through with more than 8 billion videos on a daily basis. Some 45 percent of videos are viewed via mobile devices. Up to 80 percent of the whole internet traffic is expected to be based on video display by 2019,” she added.
Half of the world’s internet users connect to Facebook, but this figure is a whopping 97 percent in Turkey, making the country’s internet users “the most active Facebook users,” according to the head of Facebook Turkey. |
Cognitive deficits are often associated with acute depressive episodes and contribute to the functional impairment seen in patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Many patients sustain residual cognitive deficits after treatment that may be independent of the core MDD disorder. We tracked changes in cognitive deficits relative to antidepressant treatment response using the patient self-rated Massachusetts General Hospital Cognitive and Physical Functioning Questionnaire (MGH-CPFQ) during a 6-week, double-blind trial of a combination antidepressant treatment (buspirone 15 mg with melatonin-SR 3 mg) versus buspirone (15 mg) monotherapy versus placebo in MDD patients with acute depressive episodes. The CPFQ includes distinct cognitive and physical functioning dimension subscales. Treatment response was determined using the Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology (IDSc30). Treatment responders improved significantly more on the total CPFQ than non-responders (p < 0.0001) regardless of treatment assignment. The cognitive dimension of the CPFQ score favored the combination treatment over the other two groups (ANCOVA: p = 0.050). Among the treatment non-responders, the effect size for the CPFQ cognitive dimension was 0.603 favoring the combination treatment over the over two groups and 0.113 for the CPFQ physical dimension. These preliminary findings suggest that a combination of buspirone with melatonin may benefit cognitive function distinct from mood symptoms and that some aspects of cognition may be specific targets for treatment within a population of patients with MDD.
Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. |
Both nations gear up for World Cup qualifying with a friendly to help celebrate the CSA's centenary celebrations.
Follow Goal.com on to get the latest soccer news directly. Check out Goal.com's page; be part of the best soccer fan community in the world!
The U.S. national team has scheduled a friendly against Canada on June 3. Toronto's BMO Field will host the Americans' first match on Canadian soil since 1997.The friendly, and three subsequent FIFA World Cup qualifiers, mark the Canadian Soccer Association's 100th anniversary."First of all, we are honored to be chosen to be part of Canada's Centenary Celebration," said U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann. "This is exactly the type of challenge we are looking for as we grow the team and get ready for the start of World Cup qualifying. There is a great history in the rivalry, and Canada is a team we could see in the final round of qualifying. It's a win-win for everybody."The United States holds a 13-8-9 record against the Canucks, but only a 3-6-1 record in Canada.“2012, the Canadian Soccer Association’s centennial year, is a crucial season for our team as we continue towards our goal of qualifying for the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil,” said Canada coach Stephen Hart. “We will need the full support of the Canadian soccer community as we work towards the collective goal of reaching a FIFA World Cup.” |
CINCINNATI — It’s difficult not to pause and wonder while walking through a cemetery, at least momentarily, what kind of life stories might exist behind each cold, weathered gravestone.
And until recently, that’s essentially all a person could do — wander and wonder.
But Otter Creek Holdings, a Utah-based technology company that develops genealogy software and websites, says it’s about to change the game.
At a monument trade-show in Cincinnati on Saturday, the company presented a genealogy gathering tool it says could eventually render matrix barcodes, or QR Codes, nearly obsolete in the interment industry with its soon-to-be released smartphone application, “Legacy Mobile.”
Many gravestone makers, including a product owned by Otter Creek Holdings called mylegacymemorial.com, currently offer a service of attaching matrix barcodes to gravestones so family members or other passersby can scan the barcode from their smartphone onsite and be directed to an interactive memorial website page.
And although such monument pages have obvious advantages that make them nearly impossible to replace in the foreseeable future — families can personalize and edit those pages with their own photos, videos and stories — Otter Creek’s “Legacy Mobile” app opens the possibility for anyone to pull up a webpage of genealogy information on any gravesite in a cemetery.
That’s it. Point your smartphone. Shoot. Satisfy your curiosity.
Makers of the app say a decent image of the gravestone is all it takes to connect a user to one or more genealogy profiles about the individual. At least that’s the intended simplicity for users.
It’s a touch more complicated for developers behind the digital curtain, admits Hudson Gunn, vice president of the company’s business development. “Actually, it’s a logistics nightmare to build such a custom platform to do all that it does.”
Instead of searching “a billion records at a time” the app first uses GPS metadata from uploaded photos to filter search results by location, usually by cemetery or city, Gunn told KSL in an interview from the Monument Builders of North America Full Industry Show in Ohio.
After the app drastically narrows the search to perhaps a couple hundred possible candidates in the area, a heavy mix of proprietary algorithms kick in and image recognition gears start to churn. Using optical character recognition, Gunn says the app compares the uploaded gravestone image and its text to an existing, and still growing, gallery of gravesite monument photos, especially from sites like the company’s recently acquired billiongraves.com, a site that took on a healthy 30,000 new users this past year.
But using geocode to grab a location and image recognition science to compare text and photos — both technologies that have been around for a few years — is only half of the app’s recipe. The other portion that could make it the next big thing is wrapped up in the number of personal contacts Devin Taylor, the company’s CEO, has initiated over the years in his effort to connect with more and more partners. After all, the app would be worthless without a mega-database to query for results.
Taylor’s portfolio of data-sharing partners includes familysearch.org, the largest genealogy database in the world, and ancestry.com, the largest for-profit genealogy company in the world.
If a user takes a photo of an unknown gravestone, the app will ask the user if he or she would like to create a record for that person. And because it will be saving submitted photos and collecting more records from crowdsourcing, Gunn says it will grow smarter and more robust over time. He expects it to expand by an additional 7 million records by year’s end.
Gunn said the app doesn’t include advertisements — something usually splashed on most free apps. And he said he expects it to be available for download within the week.
Email: [email protected]
×
Photos
Related Links |
Sonic Mania's return to '90s high-speed sidescrolling action has a release date: August 15. It also has a new trailer with equal parts lovely sketch animations, nostalgia-laden pixel art, and some rad chiptune rock.
If you're one of those lapsed Sonic fans who wishes Sega would go back to the good old Genesis days, this is your moment. Or if you're more excited to see the future of Sonic with Sonic Forces, Sonic Mania should at least be a nice little appetizer at just $19.99 (UK price TBA). It'll be available on PC, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One.
For more needlemouse nostalgia, read our list of the best Sonic games of all time, or join us as we explain 59 Sonic games each in 10 words or less. |
It’s 2pm on an SF day so perfect that I’m actually a little tired of small talk about how nice the weather is.
We’re down on the Embarcadero, where the Bay Bridge dominates the horizon. To my left, a clearly overworked guy in a suit shouts into his phone. To my right, its either an outdoor yoga class or a really in-shape cult.
It’s what sits between these two that I care about, though. There’s a Pokémon sitting there, and I want it.
My favorite April Fools’ jokes are those that are just too good to stay fake; those that start their lives as a fun prank, but somehow harness so much energy that they’re almost forced to materialize into something real.
ThinkGeek’s annual gags are a classic example of this — every year, at least one of their phony products generally ends up being demanded into the real world by would-be buyers.
On April Fools’ Day 2014, the Google Maps team released a trailer for a (then fake) augmented reality game that had its players traveling the real world in search of Pokémon visible only through the lens of their smartphone. Nearly 15 million views and many thousands of “SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!” comments later, they realized they were onto something.
The original (largely CGI) April Fools trailer:
Google’s experiments in augmented reality gaming were spun off into their own company, Niantic. Licensing agreements were worked out with The Pokémon Company. The prank was becoming real. Pokémon Go was born.
When I stopped by Niantic last week, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.
I played a rainbow of Pokémon titles growing up, stopping only because I realized that the games were eating up more of my life than I’d like. I took “Gotta Catch ‘Em All” as a command. I was hooked.
10 minutes into a demo of Pokémon Go, I felt myself getting hooked again. But this time, I might actually be okay with it.
You see, Pokémon Go isn’t like any Pokémon game before it. It’s not a direct port of the Gameboy games so many of us grew up with. If you go in expecting that, you’ll be sorely disappointed.
Borrowing much of what they’ve learned from Niantic’s first game, Ingress, Pokémon Go is almost less of a game in its own right then it is, for lack of a better word, an excuse… but an excuse to do good things, instead of their faster/more convenient alternatives.
An excuse to give that nagging, lazy part of your brain to explain why you’re walking to work when hopping in a Lyft seems so tempting. An excuse to check out a landmark you’ve seen a million times. An excuse to gather with a bunch of friends at a random spot on the Embarcadero on your lunch break. An excuse to make new friends because they happen to play.
Pokémon Go has you walk around the real world to collect items, catch (and hatch!) Pokémon, and meet up with friends to take possession of “gyms” located at historic landmarks and interesting locations.
I meet up with part of the team behind the game and head off to the Embarcadero, a destination about a mile from where we’re starting. We stop at the base of the Bay Bridge on the way. There’s a virtual item cache hiding there — invisible to the real world, but appearing on the map as a purple icon. Tapping into the cache, we’re presented with information about the bridge — some of its history, and some details on its recently opened new section. Inside the cache itself was a handful of basic Poké Balls (which you use to catch Pokémon in the wild), and a Pokémon Egg. We continue our trek.
About 1/4 mile from the Embarcadero, the phone vibrates. We’re passing another landmark: a set of bronze plaques set into the sidewalk describing many of the animals — most of them hidden away in the waters and marshes of the Bay — that make the area their home. I’ve probably walked over these plaques a thousand times and haven’t ever noticed them.
We arrive at the Embarcadero. Specifically, we’re at Cupid’s Span — an iconic, comically huge statue of a bow and arrow piercing through the soil.
PHOTO CREDIT: DAVE NEWMAN ON FLICKR (USED UNDER CREATIVE COMMONS)
The phone vibrates as we approach. I hold it up — there’s a Pokémon nearby! The iPhone’s camera fades into view, showing me a view of the real world. I pan around the area. Sure enough… about 10 feet away, down near the water of the bay, is a Horsea. Makes sense: we’re by the water, and Horsea is a water Pokémon (Horse + Sea = Horsea. Get it?)
I toss one of the Poké Balls I picked up earlier its way; it misses. My fault, or bad luck? As has always been the case with Pokémon, it’s hard to tell. I toss another, and the Horsea is mine.
“You ready for a battle?” asks one of the games’ developers.
“For what?”
“We’re going to take over Cupid’s Span.”
Turns out Cupid’s Span is, in the world of Pokémon Go, a “gym”.
When you create a character in Pokémon Go, you join one of three teams: yellow, blue, or red. It’s up to you which color you pick, though you’ll generally want to pick the same color as your friends. You’re working together, you see, to conquer the world one gym at a time.
To take over a gym, you have to boot out the Pokémon that are already there. You and your friends can work together to take them on; if you win, you get to leave some Pokémon there to defend it. Battles are fairly simple (it seems mostly about tapping the screen quickly vs. the strategy of the original games.) As more players join, gyms get more and more powerful, capable of holding more Pokémon, and thus harder to take over.
“So might it ever reach a point where you’ll need, say, dozens of people to gather together in one place to take over a gym?”, I ask.
“Oh, absolutely”, one of the devs responds. “That’s what’s supposed to happen.”
The timing of Pokémon Go is rather brilliant, finding its way into the world right as a bunch of things converge: Google’s early experiments with Ingress have already proven that people will be damned near obsessed with this general idea — and that’s without having the energy of an existing IP’s fanbase behind it. Augmented reality is just finding its footing, with things like Google’s Tango potentially opening up a whole new world of insane possibilities.
Perhaps most notably, it’s right in the sweet spot of nostalgia for a lot of twenty somethings — the vast majority of whom own a smartphone, and many of whom might (whether you’d agree or not) feel like they “aged out” of carrying around a Gameboy/DS/anything that isn’t a smartphone for the sake of playin’ some Pokémon.
That’s not to say Niantic won’t face any challenges. They’ll have to deal with balancing the gameplay for an ever growing audience, and ever-constant efforts to tear the game apart by people looking for an advantage — things they’ve faced with Ingress, but that will get kicked up to 11 once they bring in a license/following as big as this one.
They’ll also have to figure out the right way to make money. Right now, that means in-app purchases, with the game itself being free. The company tells me that purchases aren’t meant to be huge competitive advantages — they just speed things (like hatching Poké eggs) up a bit. The challenge, of course, is figuring out how much “a bit” is; finding that balance of making things worth buying without pissing off the players who’d rather spend time than money.
Meanwhile, the company is launching a totally optional companion accessory called the Pokémon Go Plus — a tiny Fitbit-lookin’ dongle that acts as a conduit to the game while your phone stays in your pocket. Walk by a Pokémon or item cache, and a multi-color LED will light up to let you know what’s up. For a company with Google roots, it’s a relatively simple device… but added complexity is added complexity, and it’s curious to launch something like this before the fanbase demands it.
The Pokemon Go Plus dongle. Note that it’s a cross between a Poké Ball and the Google Maps pin, which is just excellent
Speaking of fanbase demands, there’s plenty of room for new stuff here as time goes on. While the game looks like it’s already polished to a glassy smooth degree, it currently lacks things the ability to trade Pokémon — a fundamental staple in almost every prior iteration. Niantic tells me that’s something they’re working on, but they don’t expect at launch.
Overall, though, I’m quite excited for Go, and expect to spend a good amount of time with it when it launches for iOS and Android later this year. It makes me want to walk around San Francisco aimlessly. It makes me want to hang out with other nerds fighting for fake ownership of statues. It makes me want to play Pokémon again. |
Monsanto’s Roundup, the glyphosate-based herbicide used in conjunction with many genetically engineered crops, is now the most heavily used herbicide in the history of agriculture, found a recent study.
The study, published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Sciences Europe, noted that just in the U.S., farmers have applied a whopping 1.8 million tons of glyphosate since 1974 when the product was first introduced.
“Worldwide, 9.5 million tons of the chemical have been sprayed onto fields,” reports Newsweek. “For comparison, that’s equivalent to the weight of water in more than 2,300 Olympic-size swimming pools. It’s also enough to spray nearly half a pound of Roundup on every cultivated acre of land in the world.”
ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website
One of the main problems with glyphosate as an agricultural herbicide is the recent rise in resistant “superweeds.”A growing number of U.S. farmers have reported issues with glyphosate-resistant weeds on as much as half of the farms that use glyphosate-based herbicide products.
“Anybody working in agricultural would say it’s a very serious problem,” David Mortensen, a professor of weed and applied plant ecology at Penn State University told Newsweek.
The EPA has also slowly increased allowable limits of glyphosate; since 1996 the amount of glyphosate allowed on corn has increased by 50 percent.
ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website
ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website
But perhaps most concerning is glyphosate’s connection to human health issues. Glyphosate is a known endocrine disruptor, which can cause metabolic function to go wrong, leading to hormonal imbalances and even weight gain.
In March 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer identified glyphosate as a “probable” carcinogen to humans.
That announcement by the WHO led California to propose listing glyphosate-based products on Prop 65, which would require warning labels indicating the product’s connection to cancer. Monsanto recently filed a lawsuit against the state in an effort to prevent having to comply with Prop 65.
Find Jill on Twitter and Instagram
Related on Organic Authority
2.6 Billion Pounds of Monsanto’s Glyphosate Sprayed on U.S. Crops in Past Two Decades
Testing Foods for Glyphosate Toxicity is About to Be a Thing
Monsanto Emails Reveal How It Paid Professors to Lie About GMO Safety
Roundup image via JeepersMedia |
Many Say Economic Recovery Is Still a Long Way Off
Obama’s Ratings Slip Back, Again
Overview
Four years after the recession officially ended, the economic recovery remains a long way off in the view of many Americans.
A new survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted July 17-21 among 1,480 adults, finds that 44% say it will be a long time before the nation’s economy recovers. Smaller percentages say either the economy already is recovering (28%) or will recover soon (26%).
These opinions are little changed from March. But last October, shortly before the presidential election, fewer Americans (36%) said it would be a long time before the economy recovers. At that time, 61% said the economy was already recovering or would recover soon; today 54% say this.
Opinions of current economic conditions, which had improved modestly in June, have slipped back to levels from earlier this year. Currently, 17% say economic conditions are excellent or good, while 82% rate them as only fair or poor. In June, 23% rated the economy as excellent or good, the most positive measure in more than five years.
The survey finds that Barack Obama’s overall job rating, which was more positive than negative in both May and June, is now evenly divided: 46% approve of his job performance while 46% disapprove.
O bama’s job rating among whites is among his lowest ever. Just 33% of whites approve of the job Obama is doing as president, while 60% disapprove. (See the table at the end of this report for a detailed look at Obama job approval.)
Views of Congress remain historically negative: just 21% have a favorable opinion of Congress while 70% view it unfavorably. Opinions of Congress fell to a 20-year low in August 2011, following the contentious debate over raising the nation’s debt ceiling, and have never recovered.
Large majorities across nearly all demographic and partisan groups have an unfavorable impression of Congress. About seven-in-ten independents (73%) view Congress unfavorably, as do 69% of Democrats and 67% of Republicans. Notably, unfavorable opinions about Congress are about as widespread among liberal Democrats (79% unfavorable) as among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who agree with the Tea Party (81% unfavorable).
And views of both political parties are negative on balance. For the Republican Party, this is nothing new: Currently, 33% view the Republican Party favorably while 58% view it unfavorably. That is identical to opinions of the GOP in January, but continues to be among the most negative ratings for the party in more than 20 years of polling.
Opinions of the Democratic Party, meanwhile, are more unfavorable than favorable for the first time since January 2012: 41% view the Democratic Party favorably, while 50% view it unfavorably.
The Democratic Party continues to hold a favorability edge over the GOP, in part because Democrats have a more positive view of their own party (78% favorable) than Republicans have of theirs (70% favorable). Independents have about equally low regard for the Democratic Party (32% favorable) as the Republican Party (31%).
Views of the National Economy
Views of the national economy had been on a positive trajectory until this month. The percentage rating the economy as excellent or good had risen from 13% in January to 23% in June, before falling back to 17% in the current survey.
The share rating the economy as poor fell 20 points – from 49% to 29% – between January and June; currently, 37% view economic conditions as poor, up eight points from a month ago.
Nonetheless, perceptions of economic conditions have become much less negative since the early months of Obama’s presidency. In February 2009, 71% rated economic conditions as poor, the highest percentage ever in a Pew Research Center survey. Almost two years ago, 56% said the economy was poor, 19 points higher than today.
The public thinks that the economic recovery has yet to take hold: 28% say the economy is recovering, 26% say it has not yet recovered but will soon and 44% say it will be a long time before the economy recovers.
People with higher family incomes are more likely than those with lower incomes to say the economic recovery is underway. About four-in-ten (41%) of those with incom es of $100,000 or more say the economy is recovering as do 34% of those with incomes of $75,000-$99,999. Just a quarter of those with lower family incomes say the economy is recovering.
Partisanship also is a factor in these opinions. About twice as many Democrats as Republicans say the economy is recovering (38% vs. 17%); Republicans are twice as likely to say the recovery is a long way off (56% vs. 28%).
Republicans’ views of the recovery have changed little since October, when 52% said it would be a long time before the economy recovered. But higher percentages of Democrats and independents say the recovery is a long way off than did so in October, shortly before the election: 28% of Democrats express that view currently, up from 18% then. Among independents, 47% say recovery will take a long time, up from 40% then. |
Tony Dow, best known for his role as Wally Cleaver on “Leave It to Beaver,” has come on board “The Line Kings,” a feature comedy celebrating the endless enthusiasm of Star Wars fans.
“The Line Kings” is written and produced by Billy Riback and Steve Rubin. Plans are to shoot in Los Angeles in late spring.
“The Line Kings” will focus on a group of rabid Star Wars fans who camp out for four days on Hollywood Boulevard, in front of the iconic TCL Chinese Theatre after Disney announces that the fans who are first in line after four days will win walk-on roles in the next film in the series — leading to a battle royale between two fan groups determined to be first.
Dow has directed episodes of “Harry and the Hendersons,” “Swamp Thing,” “Coach,” “Babylon 5” and “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” Riback worked for five seasons of ABC’s “Home Improvement,” created the Fox series “Ask Harriet” and wrote and produced seven seasons of “The Suite Life of Zach and Cody.” Rubin served as executive producer on Showtime’s comedy feature “Bleacher Bums” and Hallmark Channel’s World War II drama “Silent Night.”
Dow is represented by the David Moss Company. |
We occasionally see apps pulled from the Play Store for trivial (but valid) violations of the rules. Google has been more proactive about enforcing its guidelines, but it's often pointed out it could be more consistent. Case in point: there are, right now, two listings on the Play Store from a warez site called BlackMart that offers paid apps for free. One of them has been up for months and has more than 100,000 downloads. C'mon, Google.
Even a cursory examination of the listing for BlackMart3 and the associated "Hi App Here" will tell you something fishy is going on (don't download them, obviously). The description says plainly that it offers all apps and games for free, even paid ones. The developer name is (no kidding) "BlackMart : get paid apps free." The package name even includes "getpaidappsfree."
What BlackMart3 actually does is serve up a web frame that lists the cracked APKs for download (I blocked permissions and gave the app a quick look, and now I'm off to burn my phone just to be safe). I'm sure there's probably malware listed in these apps—I'd actually be shocked if there wasn't. However, BlackMart3 and Hi App Here don't have any special ability to install apps. It's still just downloading APKs that you need to manually sideload. It also has a ton of ads.
According to the AppBrain page for BlackMart3, it has been in the Play Store since March and has been updated at least once. Why Google didn't catch this is beyond me. It's so obviously offering pirated apps that even a robot should be able to spot it. And you know, even if it wasn't actually offering cracked APKs, you can't distribute an app store in Google Play either. There are so many reasons Google should have caught both of these apps before now.
Please fix this, Google. It's embarrassing. |
Carbon nanotubes are the leading candidate to replace silicon in semiconductor chips after the decades-long run of silicon electronics runs out. And IBM is hoping to usher along that transition with a new breakthrough being announced today.
In the October 2 issue of the journal Science, IBM researchers say they have overcome one of the most daunting challenges around carbon nanotube transistors, which are the building blocks of electronic circuits with dimensions that are measured in billionths of a meter. Carbon nanotubes may be the best way to uphold Moore’s Law, or the doubling of the number of transistors every couple of years. Moore’s Law is the metronome of the modern age, and it enables constant progress in the $335 billion chip industry.
Carbon nanotube chips could greatly improve the capabilities of high-performance computers, enabling Big Data to be analyzed faster, increasing the power and battery life of mobile devices and the Internet of Things, and allowing cloud data centers to deliver services more efficiently and economically, IBM said.
Image Credit: IBM
After decades of progress, the speeds of microprocessors stalled around the early 2000s at 3GHz to 5GHz, mainly because silicon is reaching its physical limits. Carbon nanotubes, by contrast, can operate as transistors (or tiny electrical switches) at dimensions smaller than 10 nanometers, or 10,000 times thinner than a strand of human hair. That’s well below the size of today’s leading silicon technology (14 nanometers).
But those nanotubes are like spaghetti, and they have to be marshaled and controlled precisely to function as electronic circuitry. The contact points for the nanotubes create a lot of electrical resistance, which hinders overall performance. IBM has developed a novel way, at the atomic level, to weld — or bond — the metal molybdenum to the ends of carbon nanotubes to create a completely new contact structure.
Using this approach, the researchers in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., demonstrated the smallest contacts for carbon nanotubes at 9 nanometers, where the performance did not suffer despite the tiny dimensions. IBM’s carbon nanotube results satisfy the contact requirement all the way up to the 1.8-nanometer node (four technology generations of manufacturing technology away), showing that the technology can scale sooner than the industry thinks, IBM said.
Earlier this summer, IBM unveiled the first 7-nanometer node silicon test chip, pushing the limits of silicon technologies. By investing further in carbon nanotubes to replace traditional silicon, IBM wants to pave the way for a post-silicon future and make good come from its $3 billion investment in research and development.
Image Credit: IBM
“These chip innovations are necessary to meet the emerging demands of cloud computing, Internet of Things and Big Data systems,” said Dario Gil, vice president of science and technology at IBM Research, in a statement. “As technology nears the physical limits of silicon, new materials and circuit architectures must be ready to deliver the advanced technologies that will drive the Cognitive Computing era. This breakthrough shows that computer chips made of carbon nanotubes will be able to power systems of the future sooner than the industry expected.”
Carbon nanotubes represent a new class of semiconductor materials that consist of single atomic sheets of carbon rolled up into a tube. The carbon nanotubes form the core of a transistor device whose superior electrical properties promise several generations of technology scaling beyond the physical limits of silicon.
Electrons in carbon transistors can move more easily than in silicon-based devices, and the ultra-thin body of carbon nanotubes provide additional advantages at the atomic scale. Inside a chip, contacts are the valves that control the flow of electrons from metal into the channels of a semiconductor. As transistors shrink in size, electrical resistance increases within the contacts, which impedes performance. Until now, decreasing the size of the contacts on a device caused a commensurate drop in performance — a challenge facing both silicon and carbon nanotube transistor technologies, IBM said.
IBM researchers had to forego traditional contact schemes and invented a metallurgical process akin to microscopic welding that chemically binds the metal atoms to the carbon atoms at the ends of nanotubes. This “end-bonded contact scheme” allows the contacts to be shrunk to below 10 nanometers without the performance of the carbon nanotube devices deteriorating.
“For any advanced transistor technology, the increase in contact resistance due to the decrease in the size of transistors becomes a major performance bottleneck,” said Shu-Jen Han, manager of the nanoscale science and technology group at IBM Research, in a statement. “Our novel approach is to make the contact from the end of the carbon nanotube, which we show does not degrade device performance. This brings us a step closer to the goal of a carbon nanotube technology within the decade.” |
Jim Rogers hope-driven wish is that the politicians were smart enough at some point to say (to the central bankers), "we've got to stop this, this is going to be bad." He adds, on the incoming QEeen, "she’s not going to stop it, first of all she doesn't believe in stopping it, she thinks printing money is good." However, Rogers warns in this excellent interview with Birch Gold, "eventually the markets will just say, "We're not going to play this game anymore", and we'll have a serious collapse." The world is blinded by central bank liquidity, and as Rogers somewhat mockingly notes "if everybody says the sky is blue, I urge you to look out the window and see if it's blue because I have found that most people won't even bother to look out the window..." Rogers concludes, "everybody should own some precious metals as an insurance policy," because as he ominously warns, when 'it' collapses, "there will be big change.
Transcript (via Birch Gold Group)
Rachel Mills, Birch Gold Group (BGG): This is Rachel Mills for Birch Gold, and I am very pleased to be joined today by Jim Rogers, legendary investor. Thank you so much Jim for joining me.
Jim Rogers: I am delighted to be here Rachel.
BGG: So today I wanted to talk a little about stock market highs and Quantitative Easing and inflation and a little bit of Federal Reserve and when is the taper is going to happen and currency wars. But there is one question that I don’t have to ask you, which you get asked a lot, I know, and that is what your secret to being so prescient in the marketplace?
“…if everybody says the sky is blue, I at least urge you to go and look out the window and see if it’s blue because I have found that most people won’t even bother to look out the window…”
JR: As far as I know, I’m not quite sure. I do know that I have learned over the years, always, when nearly everybody is thinking the same way that means somebody’s not thinking that means we got to start thinking about it and see if there’s not another way, another approach. Because if everybody says the sky is blue, I at least urge you to go and look out the window and see if it’s blue because I have found that most people won’t even bother to look out the window. If they see on the television or in the newspaper or something that everybody says the sky is blue, I at least urge them to look out the window. I find that most people don’t want to do their homework, that’s the first problem that many people have, is just doing simple homework.
“…no matter what we all know today, it’s not going to be true in 10 or 15 years…”
Second, I have learned that if everybody says the sky is blue and I go and look out the window and see that it is blue, I have also learned that, well wait a minute, if everybody knows the sky is blue, is that going to change? Now that everybody knows something, is it time to start thinking about “Well maybe tomorrow the sky will not be blue?” And again, most people say “Well everybody knows the sky is blue and that’s all we need to know.” No, it’s not all you need to know because another thing I have learned in my life is that no matter what we all know today, it’s not going to be true in 10 or 15 years. You pick any year in history and go back and then look to see what everybody thought was true in that year, 15 years later the world had changed enormously. Enormously. And yet in that particular year everybody was convinced that this is the way the world was. Pick 1900, 1930, 1950, any year you want to pick, and you will see that 15 years later, the world was totally, totally different from what everybody thought it was at that time.
So I have learned, for whatever reason, to know that change is coming, to know to think against the crowd, that the crowd is nearly always wrong and to try to think for myself. Now, I certainly make plenty of mistakes and have made plenty of mistakes in my life, but these are some of the things that I have learned, to try to think around the corner, try to think to the future if you want to be successful.
BGG: Yeah that’s right. And I read somewhere, tell me if this is true, that you were shorting real estate in 2006?
JR: Yes, yes, 2006, 2007, 2008. Yes, yes. I was short Fannie Mae, I was short all of the investment banks. I was short all the banks.
BGG: And I bet, were people rolling their eyes at you, were they laughing at you?
JR: Oh very much so. I went on television quite a lot in those days saying it’s crazy. And I was on CNBC and I explained that I was short Fannie Mae and had been short Fannie Mae and Fannie Mae finally started to collapse. And the lady said to me, “Well it’s your fault that Fannie Mae is going down, it’s the short sellers that are causing problems with Fannie Mae.” And I explained to her, “Listen lady, if you really think that short sellers are making Fannie Mae collapse, you better get another job, because that’s not the way the world works.” Short sellers do not make Fannie Mae go from $70 to $0, I assure you, the only thing that can make that happen is serious fundamental problems. So yes, everybody knew I was nuts back in those days!
And then, they started blaming it on me and on the short sellers, all of the problems. Nobody likes to take responsibility for their mistakes, certainly not politicians, but it was clear that first they laugh at you, then they ridicule you and say it’s your fault and blame it on you. Eventually they all say, “Oh, well we knew that. We thought of it ourselves! We knew that Fannie Mae was a fraud.” But that’s a difficult and sometimes painful process.
BGG: Sounds like they were attributing more power to you than you actually have!
JR: It’d be wonderful if all I had to do was sell something short and it would go down. Unfortunately it usually goes up when I sell it short, my timing is usually pretty wrong.
BGG: I want to talk a little bit about currencies. It seems that all the major countries in the world are in this race to the bottom to devalue their currency relative to all the others to appease their export industry. Meanwhile, workers and savers are getting killed by the cost of living increases that this is causing. Do you have any observations or predictions about how this currency war is going to end, or can it continue somehow indefinitely? And who wins in a currency race to the bottom?
“Eventually the markets will just say, ‘We’re not going to play this game anymore’, and we’ll have a serious collapse.”
JR: Well, the first thing you need to know is that nobody ever wins a trade war, a currency war, which is just another kind of trade war. Everybody loses in the end, some may temporarily come out ahead but it’s temporary if nothing else. As you have pointed out, the cost of living of many people is going up, and it certainly is, my gosh, in Japan you have a currency that’s down 25% in a year. Well I assure you the Japanese are feeling that because everything that Japan imports has gone up fairly substantially AND even the things that they don’t import are up because the Japanese manufacturers and the Japanese producers can raise prices because they don’t have to worry about competing with the foreigners any more.
“We’ve got to stop this, this is going to be bad.”
So we’re all losing in currency wars. How long can it go on? Well, it can go on as long as politicians can continue to print money. The problem is, of course, eventually the markets will just say, “We’re not going to play this game anymore” and we’ll have a serious collapse. You and I can print money all day long, but at some point, you, I and everybody else is going to say, “Wait a minute, guys, this money is getting worse and worse and more and more worthless, so why don’t we stop playing this game?” I wish the politicians were smart enough at some point to say, “We’ve got to stop this, this is going to be bad.”
But unfortunately they never have, and probably never will. Mr. Bernanke is certainly not going to stop it, because he doesn’t want to go down in history as causing the collapse. Mrs. Yellen, when she comes in, she’s not going to stop it, first of all she doesn’t believe in stopping it, she thinks printing money is good. And she knows – I hope she’s smart enough to know – that if she stops, oh my gosh, it’s going to collapse. So she’s not going to stop. Nobody wants to go down as causing the collapse of the world. So I’m afraid this is going to go on until the market eventually says to them, “Okay, enough is enough,” we have a big collapse and then they’re all thrown out and we can start over.
“Eventually they will try to cut [QE], it will finally cause the collapse, at that point we will have a big change, because they will throw them out, whether it’s the politicians or the central bankers or whoever.”
BGG: Wow, that’s a painful scenario actually. Do you think there is any chance that Larry Summers would have stopped Quantitative Easing at all?
JR: Well, first of all it’s irrelevant because he’s not going to be Federal Reserve Chairman. Second, even if he started, you know, if somebody came in and said, “Okay, we’ve got a terrible problem, we’ve made horrible mistakes, now let’s change things.” And even if everybody in the world said, “You know, he’s right, we’ve got to do something” and they started, well, within a few months or a year or two, the pain would be pretty horrible and then everybody’s going to say, “Well we didn’t know the pain was going to be this bad, this is not what we signed up for.” And then the guy would either be thrown out or assassinated or who knows what!
BGG: Oh yeah, they would blame everything on whoever stopped the party.
JR: Yeah. At first they say “It’s fine, we want to do it”, but once the pain comes, the pain is going to get pretty serious. We had Mr. Volcker who came in, was told “stop the madness” back in the 1970s and he did. Well, Jimmy Carter got thrown out, because he was who had told him to do that, because the pain was so bad. Reagan of course thought it was wonderful, that pain was taking place because that got him elected. And it was help to clean up the problems. That’s what happens, you cause the pain and they throw you out.
BGG: So, you don’t think there is any way they’re gonna make good on their threats or promises to taper?
JR: They might, no I don’t. They might start, as I said, somewhere along the line they’re going to start doing it. But when the pain gets pretty serious, the lady or the person or whoever it is, is going to have real problems. Let’s say that in 2015, Yellen says, “We’ve got to stop this” and they start stopping it, well, at that point it’s going to be pretty serious for the parties in power and they’re going to get thrown out and the next guys will continue to taper because, as I’ve said, they got power because of the tapering and the problems, and they’ll clean up the problems.
But that’s the only way that you’re going to see it stop someday. The market is just going to say, “We don’t want to play.” That’s what happened with Jimmy Carter when he was in, everything was collapsing: bond yields were falling apart, you know, inflation was everywhere. “Thank you Mr. Carter, we don’t want to play this game anymore. It’s absurd.”
BGG: What tip-offs are you looking for for where the top of the market is and when would you start to see the collapse coming? Are there signs that you’re looking for?
JR: Well, I wish I was that smart or it was that easy. Back in the late 1970s, Mr. Volcker was told and he came in and said: “I am going to kill inflation because Mr. Carter has told me to.” And Mr. Carter was very clear that he had to stop inflation. I doubt if we’ll have that kind of scenario again but we would think, we would hope, that the Federal Reserve will announce, you know, that they publish their numbers so we can all see what’s happening. At the moment they are buying a trillion dollars a year – that’s a trillion with a “T” – of assets. Eventually we will see that they stop that if they do or slow it down.
What will probably happen is that they will slow it down at first to see what happens, and if things aren’t too bad at first – and they probably won’t be too bad at first – well what is likely to happen is they will slow it down, things will drop, and then they will rally and the Federal Reserve will say “Hey, this is not so bad, we can do it.” And they’ll cut some more. Things will drop again and then rally, because it will take a while for people to really believe how bad it can get, or will get. And so eventually they will try to cut [QE], it will finally cause the collapse, at that point we will have a big change, because they will throw them out, whether it’s the politicians or the central bankers or whoever … will continue because they like it, they got the job because of the collapse and then we’ll finally start over. But it may be really painful in the meantime.
“I’ve owned gold for many years, I’ve never sold any gold and I can’t imagine I ever will sell gold in my life because it is somewhat of an insurance policy.”
BGG: Sure. And when we do begin the process of starting over, whenever that happens, it will be really good to have something substantial, something real, something other than paper in your portfolio. And that’s what Birch Gold is trying to help people figuring out how to do. So, we’ve always said that precious metals are a type of insurance for the long term. I read in your interview in Barrons that you are holding gold right now and expecting maybe a buying opportunity to come up. Do you still feel that way?
JR: Yes, I’ve owned gold for many years, I’ve never sold any gold and I can’t imagine I ever will sell gold in my life because it is somewhat of an insurance policy. I hope that my daughters own my gold someday, I mean I owned gold, I’ve never sold any gold and if gold comes down and I expect it to go down, doesn’t mean it will, I’ll buy more. I’m certainly not going to sell.
“Everybody should own some precious metals as an insurance policy. So if they don’t have any right now, I would urge them to go buy something.”
BGG: Right. So what advice would you give someone who as of yet has no precious metals in their portfolio right now?
JR: Well, everybody should own some precious metals as an insurance policy. So if they don’t have any right now, I would urge them to go buy something, buy themselves a gold coin if nothing else, and see that it’s not going to hurt. It won’t hurt you to buy the first gold coin, the first silver coin, and from that you start accumulating as your own situation dictates.
First, do your homework, don’t buy gold because you heard me say it or even because you hear you say it. But if people don’t own they should start after they have done their homework. And then they will probably, if they do their homework, most people will then realize, “Oh my gosh, I better have insurance, and gold and silver may get me through serious problems ahead.”
BGG: Yeah. How do you feel about silver? Do you favor silver over gold? How do you feel?
JR: Well, silver is historically down 60% from its all-time highs, so yes, I would prefer silver at the moment because gold is down only what, 30 or 40% from its all-time highs.
BGG: Well, thank you so much for talking with me today. I think we will leave it there. Thank you so much, Jim Rogers.
JR: Thank you Rachel, anytime. Let’s do it again.
BGG: I would love to.
JR: Bye bye.
BGG : Bye, thank you! |
Nintendo is learning from its flops.
The success of the company's latest gaming console, the Nintendo Switch, is the result of lessons taken from the failed Wii U, according to Reggie Fils-Aimé, the president of Nintendo America.
"We worked hard for the Nintendo Switch to make it crystal clear what the proposition is," Fils-Aimé told CNN Tech correspondent Rachel Crane. "It's a home system that you can take on the go, play anywhere with anyone, and that's resonating."
The Nintendo Switch -- part portable device, part TV-linked console -- has been a big hit since its March release. Nintendo now expects to sell 14 million of the devices for the year ending March 2018, up from its prior estimate of 10 million.
For comparison, the Wii U sold just over 13 million units since its launch in 2012. It was discontinued earlier this year.
Related: The Switch is powering Nintendo toward a $1 billion profit
One major difference between the original Wii and Wii U is that the newer console had a touchscreen controller. But overall, the incentive for consumers to buy a Wii U wasn't obvious.
The console also didn't have a consistent flow of new games supporting the system.
"We've addressed that with the Nintendo Switch -- having a steady pace of new launches is critical," he said.
The Switch includes games like "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild," "Super Mario Odyssey" and "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe."
Another issue with the Wii U was that it didn't have "strong support" from Nintendo's third-party partners, Fils-Aimé said.
"Whether it's the big companies like Electronic Arts, or whether it's the smaller independent developer, we need those companies to create content to support us. We have that now with Nintendo Switch," he said.
Related: Super Nintendo mini-console is your new must-have obsession
Nintendo Switch isn't the only recent hit for the company. Its miniature-sized NES Classic Edition and the newer Super NES Classic Edition sold out soon after their respective launches.
The retro-style consoles have the look and feel of the popular gaming systems from the 90s, but are packaged into a smaller and more portable body. The Super NES Classic Edition is likely to be a hot item this holiday shopping season; that is, if you can get your hands on one. The console remains sold out online at retailers like Best Buy and GameStop, but is still available elsewhere like on eBay.
While Fils-Aimé would not disclose whether consumers will see more miniaturized versions of gaming consoles in the future, he said "certainly, we recognize that our consumers love all of this great legacy content."
CNN Tech correspondent Rachel Crane contributed to this report |
DA investigator says former partner led theft of comics, sports memoribilia
Former Harris County district attorney investigator Lonnie Blevins reached up from the witness stand in a courtroom Wednesday and pointed the finger at his old partner on trial for stealing evidence. He said Dustin Deutsch (pictured), another former investigator, made the move after the power went out at a storage unit containing millions of dollars in memorabilia in a criminal case. less Former Harris County district attorney investigator Lonnie Blevins reached up from the witness stand in a courtroom Wednesday and pointed the finger at his old partner on trial for stealing evidence. He said ... more Photo: Sharon Steinmann, Staff Photo: Sharon Steinmann, Staff Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close DA investigator says former partner led theft of comics, sports memoribilia 1 / 3 Back to Gallery
Former Harris County district attorney investigator Lonnie Blevins reached up from the witness stand in a courtroom Wednesday and pointed the finger at his old partner on trial for stealing evidence.
He said Dustin Deutsch, another former investigator, made the move after the power went out at a storage unit containing millions of dollars in memorabilia in a criminal case.
"He said, 'This would be a good opportunity to steal some items from the storage unit,'" Blevins said.
JURY SEATED: Trial starts for former Harris County investigator charged with theft
Blevins, 42, spent Wednesday morning testifying against 44-year-old Dustin Deutsch, his partner and friend since the duo met at the police academy in 2000.
"About 100 comic books were removed by me and Mr. Deutsch," Blevins said. "Mr. Deutsch also took a hockey jersey, an autographed baseball card and a signed baseball."
Deutsch is facing a possible sentence of life in prison, accused of stealing more than $200,000 worth of evidence from a suspect who was later convicted of embezzling $9 million from Tedano, an international crane company.
The suspect in the underlying case converted that staggering amount of money into an outrageously long list of collectibles and memorabilia, including a signed Muhammad Ali robe, a copy of the first edition of Playboy and a $900,000 comic book, the first Batman.
SOUGHT: Texas Rangers join search for Tom Brady's missing jersey
It was exactly because there were thousands of items, Blevins said, that Deutsch convinced him that no one would miss a few comic books.
"He said a lot of this stuff wouldn't be traced," Blevins said of his partner. "He said, 'There's too much stuff. No one person could keep track of all of it."
After the power went out at the north Houston storage unit compound on June 12, 2012, the two investigators waited for other investigators and prosecutors to leave.
"Easy to get, easy to put in the car and easy to sell," Blevins said.
GRUESOME DETAILS: Galveston man gets 7 years in prison for killing dog
Two days later, the duo returned to the storage unit early, took another 100 highly valued comic books then waited for the other investigators to arrive. They took about 200 comic books, most of which were in hard plastic cases and had been professionally graded and valued. Blevins said there were a total of tens of thousands of comics.
"They were put in the trunk of my car again," Blevins said. "My county car."
Blevins is cooperating with a special prosecutor because he was caught selling several comics at a convention in Chicago. After law enforcement became aware that someone was selling comic books that were supposed to be in the evidence cache, the FBI got involved and arrested Blevins.
He pleaded guilty in federal court and faces up to 10 years in prison. He is hoping that his cooperation will be rewarded with less, or even no jail time.
Defense attorneys for Deutsch have made it a point that it was Blevins who was caught. They are expected to argue that jurors should not to trust Blevins.
Deutsch maintains his innocence.
"He didn't do it," Deutsch's lawyer Chip Lewis has said.
The trial, before visiting state District Judge Terry Flenniken, is expected to last through the week.
[email protected]
twitter.com/brianjrogers |
0
It may be strange to type – but the most devastating and on-point Hollywood satire stars an animated horse. BoJack Horseman mercilessly skewers the capricious Hollywood system, the clearest successor to Altman’s The Player. Even more – the show, now entering its third season, has developed into a tragic-comedy on the failures (even in success) of its lead: former sitcom-star BoJack Horseman. At its core, the show is a bleak existential comedy on the horrors of getting what you want and, worse, being yourself.
The third season finds BoJack on the cusp of regaining his super-stardom. He has a new film, Secretariat, set to hit theaters, and there’s even talk of an Oscar nomination. Yet during a grueling press tour, BoJack grows nostalgic for his old life and begins to self-sabotage his rekindled career. It’s not all doom and gloom though – BoJack still mixes in the best absurdist comedy on TV. My favorite bit in the premiere involves a pigeon trying to jump off a balcony to her death – only to discover, to her dismay that she can fly.
At the BoJack Horseman premiere, series creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg, alongside stars Will Arnett (BoJack Horseman), Alison Brie (Diane Nguyen), Paul F. Tompkins (Mr. Peanutbutter) & Aaron Paul (Todd Chavez) discussed the upcoming third season, what drew them to the show, their own tragic Hollywood stories, and the key to being a game show host. For highlights from the event, read below:
Creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg on the overarching theme of the third season: “Here’s a guy (BoJack) who’s thinking about his legacy. [He’s] at a crossroads in his career – thinking about what he’s going to do next, how he’s going to move forward… He’s thinking about what effect he’s had on both the world at large and the people in his life. That was the genesis of a lot of the episodes for the season.
Will Arnett revealed what initially drew him to the show. “I think the first time I read the script it was a shortened version. It was a pilot presentation. It was just really funny at first… and then it destroyed my life.” Bob-Waksberg jumped in – adding, “It’s funny because we pitched the whole season to Netflix; but we never pitched it to the actors. We just sent them the first script. So with every progressive table read as the season got darker and darker, there were moments where the actors would look around and go ‘What did we sign up for. It’s not going to keep going like this, is it?’”
Alison Brie lamented Diane’s downward spiral over the course of the series: “I think Diane has a lot of problems figuring herself out” she said, “In Season 1, I think she really knew who she wanted to be. She had a really hard line on how she defined herself but then realized that she wasn’t really that person. So now she’s just trying to be herself more, be in the moment, embrace the loser that she is…”
What makes Paul F Tompkins the perfect game show host like his character Mr. Peanutbutter? “I think it’s that I’m an enthusiastic person and that I’m enthusiastic about people” Tompkins opined, “I think that one of the amazing things about game show hosts is that they treat everyone as if they are equally fascinating, when in fact very few people who show up on game shows are interesting. If you’re a contestant on a game show, you have to give a fun fact about yourself and then Pat Sajak or whomever has to go down and say ‘You like thimbles… how did you even… we’re so glad you’re here. We’re so happy you’ve ordained to appear on the Wheel of Fortune.’”
Tompkins on what BoJack Horseman gets right about Hollywood: “I think in general everyone’s freaking out all the time. It’s never enough. There’s a lack of perspective. It always seems like there’s this idea in your head that you should be doing better than what you’re doing, that things should be better. Of course — there’s always someone looking at your life going ‘I wish I had that person’s life.’ It’s a huge lack of perspective that you have when you live in this bubble.”
BoJack Horseman isn’t just a Hollywood satire though. Per star Will Arnett: “There are a lot of things [BoJack] gets right about Hollywood and a lot of things it gets right about life. If you look at all these characters where they started in season one and where they are now, I think you could potentially call this show ‘Raphael has decided you’re not exactly who the fuck you think you are and here’s why.’ There’s lot truth there. It can be depressing and it can be sad but it can also be really fantastic.”
What Hollywood experiences influenced the show? Bob Waksberg revealed that an actor who turned down a part had a heavy hand in an upcoming storyline for the third season. “Last season there was an actor we wanted to get for something and I coincidentally bumped into him. I said ‘This is so crazy. We had an offer for you to be on my show BoJack Horseman.’ He was like – ‘Oh my god, I’ve heard about that show and would love to do it. That sounds fantastic. I want you to know no matter what my agent says – I want to do it.’ So I thought awesome but then I got word back from the agent: ‘No thanks. It’s a pass.’ So I was like ‘Did you talk to him? He said he wanted to do it.’ And the agent said ‘Yeah we talked to him. It’s a pass.’ So there’s a story in Season 3 ripped from that headline.”
Paul F Tompkins revealed that in the third season, “you get to see where Mr. Peanutbutter comes from. You get to meet some members of the Mr. Peanutbutter family.” Per Bob-Waksberg, Mr. Peanutbutter and Diane take a trip back to his home country where they meet some of his brood.
The most pressing question of them all: why are there no animal hybrids on the show? Per Bob-Waksberg: “We have very strict rules for what happens on this show. Here’s the logic problem – on our show when two different species have a baby together, it’s either one or the other. It’s not necessarily who’s the mother or father – it’s just going to be one or the other: like brown eyes or blue eyes. The reason for that is because if there were mixes, by this point in animal-human history, it would’ve gotten so mixed up there would be no pure species left… Oh – that sounded a little Nazi-ish.”
The third season of BoJack Horseman premieres Friday, July 22nd on Netflix. |
Some Porter Airlines customers say they are having difficulty trusting the carrier with their travel plans after a series of last-minute flight cancellations over the month of July.
Quincy Korte-King said her flights from Ottawa to Toronto and Toronto to Chicago were cancelled and bumped back five hours on July 28. Then, on her way back on July 31, her flight from Toronto to Chicago was cancelled as well.
"The first time around I thought it happens, it's part of travelling," she said.
"Then the second time around it was a little bit ridiculous — not only that my third flight was cancelled … but they weren't actually telling me 'oh you're a loyal customer, let us give you a free voucher or let us help you get on an earlier flight.'"
The least you could've done is put me on the flight directly before/after. Instead I'll be in YTZ for 4 hours 😑 would be faster to train... <a href="https://t.co/krTgzpFDis">pic.twitter.com/krTgzpFDis</a> —@quincykk
Korte-King said she ended up with a five hour layover at the Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, which was packed with other customers experiencing similar delays.
She said they didn't provide a meal voucher or even allow her to get priority on the next flight to Ottawa since she'd already experienced cancellations.
"I'm pretty disappointed. I'm a loyal Porter flyer. I live in New York, my family lives in Ottawa," she said. "So I use them a lot."
I don't really want to go fly Porter again, because of the experience. - Quincy Korte-King
Korte-King said she wasn't given any reason for the cancellations and only received a $150 voucher for a trip worth $400.
"I don't really want to go fly Porter again, because of the experience," she said. "So I am trying to get them to give me the money as a refund instead of a flight voucher."
Wedding anniversary road-trip
On July 16, Richard Bootsma and his wife Carolyn Bissett had booked a flight with Porter from Ottawa to Newark, connecting in Toronto. They found out their flight was cancelled two hours before takeoff while waiting in the security line.
They'd been rebooked for a flight the next day, which would have cut their three-day vacation in New York City to mark their 10th wedding anniversary too short to make it worth the travel.
"We hadn't planned for this at all, we had non-refundable hotels booked, we had shows booked. We kind of had the whole thing mapped out," Bootsma said.
"We actually had to jump in our car that morning and basically wing it and try to find our way there."
Richard Bootsma holds a printed version of the notice of his flight cancellation from July 16, 2017. (Matthew Kupfer/CBC)
Bootsma said it was frustrating that they couldn't travel the same day and they weren't given a clear explanation for why the flight couldn't go ahead.
The couple was refunded the full cost of the trip — about $950 — and Porter offered $50 vouchers for future flights, though it's unlikely the couple will redeem them, Bootsma said.
"The circumstances of it being a 10-year anniversary, [there was] no reason for the cancellation and no guarantee to get us there in any time that would've made the trip worthwhile anymore," he added. "Probably is going to make us a little leery to travel with them again. I think makes a good case for maybe travelling by rail the next time."
Airline apologizes
Porter Airlines said they could not pinpoint the factors that led to the specific flight cancellations or why passengers weren't communicated with more quickly when the delays happened.
Brad Cicero, a spokesperson for Porter Airlines, said the airline dealt with issues around crew availability and a military airspace closure over Trenton that may have contributed to delays and cancellations on those days.
"We work very hard to maintain a reputation as a service-oriented airline that's reliable for people and we want people to have that trust and that faith in us and we absolutely apologize whenever we're in a position where anyone was let down," he said.
Cicero said neither Bootsma and Bissett's experience or Korte-King's were what the airline wanted and that the vouchers were a gesture of goodwill.
Weather, ground delays lead to cancellations
Cicero said the apparent increase in cancellations this summer is related to longer ground delays and ground stops, which are ordered by air traffic control.
Those ground delays and stops are usually caused by weather, such as thunderstorms, and volumes of flights once weather clears, he added
The delays have increased to "unprecedented" levels, he said, with waits up to five and six hours becoming common, whereas delays between two and three hours used to be considered long.
Porter spokesperson Brad Cicero says there have been more delays and cancellations in the eastern U.S. than usual due to weather. (Gary Cameron/Reuters)
He said it affects the airline's trips to the eastern United States more than other regions.
"It's almost impossible to operate every flight because of the length of the delays. It puts strain on crews, they're only allowed to operate for a certain number of hours based on their schedules. That has a sort of repeat effect across the network," he said.
"That's definitely something we're seeing this summer moreso than any other." |
The Tennessee Titans have to hope that the third time is the charm in looking for a franchise quarterback.
By drafting Marcus Mariota with the second overall pick the Titans are putting the team's fortunes – and those of Coach Ken Whisenhunt and general manager Ruston Webster – in his hands.
Twice before in the past nine years, the Titans have swung and missed in trying to find their first true franchise quarterback since trading Steve McNair in 2005. Both Vince Young and Jake Locker showed some, but in the end, not enough of the necessary qualities it takes to make a franchise QB.
In 2006, at the insistence of owner Bud Adams, the Titans spent the third pick in the draft on Young. Young's initial burst was dazzling, as he helped the Titans rebound from an 0-5 start to finish 8-8 and was named the NFL's Offensive Rookie of the Year, largely on his intangibles and instincts, rather than his throwing of the football.
And though Young posted a very respectable 30-18 record as a starting quarterback, his issues with immaturity and a lukewarm (at best) relationship with his coaches helped in his undoing. But more than that, it was Young's lack of dedication to his craft and the fact that he never grew knowledge-wise beyond anything but an instinct player that played a bigger role in his downfall. The Titans released him, and after a year as a backup in Philadelphia, he never stuck on an NFL roster again after age 28.
After jettisoning Young after 2010, the Titans decided on Locker with the eighth pick of the 2011 draft.
In many ways, Locker was the anti-VY - studious, hard-working and humble to a fault. Locker's main bugaboo, of course, were the many injuries he suffered during a four-year run that eventually played a role in his retiring rather than going through free agency.
For all of his athletic ability (a trait he did share with Young), Locker was also plagued by accuracy issues in his throws at times. And though his football IQ was far superior to Young's, there were still many who questioned his ability to successfully read a defense and make the proper check at the line. It didn't help that he went through three offensive coordinators in three-and-a-half years before finally being benched in 2014.
So what gives the Titans assurances that Mariota will succeed where Young and Locker did not?
It may sound crazy, but Mariota, in the Titans' assessment of him, actually possesses some of positive qualities that both Young and Locker had.
He is on par athletically with both of them, and has that winning type of attitude that helped VY to his early success.
Like both Young and Locker, teammates in college gravitated to him as a leader, though his personality appears to be much more like the low-key Locker than Young.
"At Oregon, we talked about winning the day. That culture for me is kind of instilled," Mariota said. "I’ll kind of bring that with me, and it won’t change who I am, and will hopefully provide some of that here. For the most part, just be who I am and get to know my teammates and earn their respect and move forward from there."
And unlike Locker, Mariota has no serious injury issues to speak of.
But where the Titans believe Mariota can far surpass what both accomplished is in his intelligence. The one thing that convinced Tennessee that a spread-option quarterback who had rarely taken a snap under center at Oregon can eventually excel in a pro-style offense is Mariota's football IQ.
“We feel good about the time that we spent with Marcus,” Titans coach Ken Whisenhunt said of the evaluation process. “I think just from the standpoint of spending time with him there in Oregon and going through his tape, one of the things I really liked in the process was we sent him a book with some information before he came in for the visit with us and we were able to talk about that in our terminology.”
Mariota's recall ability to process information quickly and thoroughly can be a huge asset in the development of his learning curve.
“For me, I think having the ability to recall information, especially at the quarterback position, is really helpful. It’s a benefit to be able to recall certain things, certain coverages during a game, during a series,” Mariota said. “For me, in a transition process like right now, it’s helpful to recall information that’s kind of similar to what’s being run here in terms of an offensive system. Being able to relate the two and being able to learn that way will help me in this transition.”
It was that off-the-charts quality in the Heisman Trophy winner that has the Titans banking that their new franchise quarterback has finally arrived. |
Hello, All!
I know, I promised Hello Waffle swatches yesterday. However, a HUUUUGE headache and not getting home until after dark proved to be the end of that plan. Today… today is a new day. Today is the best day, because it’s my birthday! As such, I decided to take a half day of vacation and came home to do some swatching (and do some final Christmas shopping on the way). So, without further ado, I present to you my very first Hello Waffle order (featuring wine). Expect the ridiculous.
Alright! As this is my first Hello Waffle order, I’ll give a little bit of info! Hello Waffle is a Canada based indie run by one very fun lady, Christine. It’s named after her cat (Waffle, obviously) who seems to be pretty awesome himself. It seems he does tricks, which immediately puts him higher on the scale of … awesome. Yes, I know I use the word “awesome” too much.
I made this order on Black Friday (that’s the 28th of November), it shipped on December first (woah!), and arrived to my house on the …. 8th or 9th of December, I don’t remember which. This is a BIG DEAL, because shipping from Canada to the US (and vice versa) usually takes a bit longer than 5-6 business days!
This was a fairly small order for me, for a few reasons: 1) It was my first time purchasing things on an international scale (excluding one monthly exchange order) 2) It was my first time purchasing from Hello Waffle 3) I was trying to budget 4) The permanent/seasonal collections weren’t available. Having tried them now, I plan another order in the spring, when I can pick up a bunch of things I’ve been wanting for a very long time!
ON TO THE THINGS!
Number 1 (of 4): 23!
Random Ramblings Aided by Wine: This is part of Christine’s 1000 Likes Collection. I’m always drawn to rose golds in a big way, and this is no different. I haven’t worn this in a look yet, but it swatched well! I can’t wait to play around with it some more (which will sadly, probably have to wait until after the holidays)!
Here, enjoy some swatches!
These were, sadly, taken with my cell phone camera (once again). So just imagine them even more detailed and shiny and sparkly and beautiful. I’ve asked for a digital camera that takes good macros for Christmas, so fingers crossed that we won’t have to do this much longer!
Number 2: Portrait of Purrian Gray
[We’re going to take a small time out right here so I can go on about this collection. The credit for dreaming up the Catssic Literature collection goes to artist MAKEUP5EVER (some of whose artwork/thoughts/musings you can find right here). It all began from a post on IMAM and evolved into this Hello Waffle/MAKEUP5EVER collaboration! I can’t imagine anyone more suited to the task of bringing the Catssic Literature collection to life, than Christine. And of course, couldn’t imagine anyone aside from MAKEUP5EVER doing the label artwork! The collection turned out amazing and now we all get to have cat-based literature puns on our eyes! Mwahahahahaaha!]
SWATCHES!!!!!!
Random thoughts: As you (kind of) see, Portrait of Purrian Gray is a gray/white with gold sparkles. I really enjoyed The Portrait of Dorian Gray when I read it growing up; seeing such beautiful artwork and such a beautiful color cemented my need for this shadow! It wasn’t my favorite of the bunch once swatched, mostly because it blended in with my skin too well unless it was over glitter glue, but I have a feeling this will be awesome in the inner corner of my eye!
Number 3: Catticus Finch:
Random thoughts: MAAAAAAAN. This shadow hit me right in the feels. Atticus Finch is one of my favorite characters from classic literature and I adore that he was brought into this collection! I will be blunt and say that I wish there was an entire collection based solely on To Kill A Mockingbird, because I need an eyeshadow based on Boo Radley in my life! So many good ideas are hiding out in this book! Anyways… swatches:
This is suuuuuch a pretty purple in the sunlight, no?
Number four: Franz Katfka:
Random thoughts (still aided by wine): Complete honesty here: I was absolutely bored to freaking tears while reading The Metamorphosis in high school. I couldn’t. I love reading, so, so much, and yet I had such trouble getting interested in this story! However, Christine’s color is lovely and the artwork for this shadow was fantastic, so I wanted it all the same! My in-jar picture doesn’t show the color off NEARLY enough, so here are some swatches (which, by the way, Christine did an amazing job capturing beetle/roach/insect-y brown and turning it into something interesting)!
I may or may not have already been drinking wine when I put the captions on the pictures. My bad. In all seriousness, this color is GORGEOUS. I love greens in a big, big way, and this is a beautiful one! I wore it the other day as a one-shadow wash and it worked out so well! I can’t wait to try it again!
Overall, my only complaint is that these shadows were quite sheer across the board. A good sticky base goes a long way here, but majority of days, I don’t have time (read: I’m too lazy) to use a sticky base.
BONUS TIME!
This has nothing to do with indie makeup, so you can stop here if you wish.
My fiancé is very into bowling right now, and I’ve decided to join the fun. Here is my birthday present from him:
HE BOUGHT ME A BOWLING BALL! I spent thirty minutes or so getting all kinds of random measurements taken, and the holes are drilled just for me. Do you want to know the best part? Do you? This specific line is SCENTED bowling balls, and mine smells like cinnamon streusel. I shit you not! I’m so excited! I kept sniffing it before bowling. It made me feel better, because I’m AWEFUL at bowling!
Advertisements |
Federal NDP Leader Jack Layton says enough members of his party will vote to defeat a Conservative backbencher's bill to repeal the long-gun registry.
NDP Leader Jack Layton has said he wants to submit legislation to fix the long-gun registry. ((Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press))
Layton said Tuesday an "overwhelming majority" of his rural caucus is on his side after consultations at the party's caucus meeting in Regina.
"After all these discussions, I'm very confident that the votes that are needed to continue the registry so that it can be fixed will, indeed, be there," Layton told reporters. "I'm feeling very optimistic about what lies ahead as a result."
With all Liberals and the Bloc Québécois poised to vote on Sept. 22 to halt Tory MP Candice Hoeppner's private member's bill and the Conservatives set to support the bill, the fate of the registry lies with the NDP, which allows its MPs to vote however they want on private member's bills.
This week, the Conservatives launched a series of radio ads targeting New Democrats who previously supported Hoeppner's bill but planned to switch their votes in the upcoming fall session of Parliament.
Six of the dozen NDP MPs who previously voted in favour of Hoeppner's bill have said they will not change their vote to scrap the registry.
Manitoba NDP MP Niki Ashton (Churchill) has yet to indicate how she will vote. And NDP MP Carol Hughes (Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing) has said she will not vote in favour of a Liberal motion to scrap Hoeppner's bill on Sept. 22 but wouldn't say what side she would choose if the bill reaches a vote on third reading.
Hughes said Tuesday she'll announce her decision in her riding.
Layton has said his party will introduce legislation when Parliament resumes next week to make a first-time failure to register a firearm a non-criminal ticketing offence and to waive fees for new licences.
During the last session of Parliament, Hoeppner's bill, C-391, passed second reading 164-137 in a House vote with support from 12 New Democrats and eight Liberals, most of whom represented northern and rural ridings.
While the NDP is allowing a free vote, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has declared Hoeppner's bill a whipped vote, meaning all of his MPs must vote along with the leader or face discipline.
Speaking earlier Tuesday, Liberal House leader David McGuinty would not say whether all members of the Liberal caucus would show up for the Sept. 22 vote.
The Conservatives have denounced the long-gun registry as wasteful and ineffective, arguing it unfairly criminalizes law-abiding Canadians who fail to register a firearm. |
The Eutyphro is a poor choice in this context. Only if you believe an ideal 'intensional' language exists and has some mysterious prescriptive power would you find Socrates' argument persuasive. A definition can be recursive and extensional. It can be the solution to a coordination problem. It can't 'divide reality up along its joints' unless Aristotelianism is a true theory in which case our political system is wrong.
The author, however, is making a more vulgar error than any attributable to Socrates. He says ' One ought to know the moral character of any action one is contemplating. And to know that, one must be as well aware of what one does not know as of what one does. Otherwise, no confident judgment about the rightness or wrongness of one’s own action is possible.' This means no choice under Knightian Uncertainty can comply with a moral code. Normative reasons can only exist if we have an Arrow Debreu type universe with perfect infortmation and no missing markets. In that context, I can specify my own partition of the information set and hire someone else to look at the consequences of my actions w.r.t things I don't know. Then, though acting on the basis of partial information, still I have taken into account 'what I don't know' and so, according to the author, I have acted morally. The problem is that perfect futures markets for everything don't exist. They can't if Life evolved by Natural Selection.
The author thinks 'there are two types of ignorance: ignorance of whether an action is right or wrong; and ignorance of what one does and does not know about right and wrong.' Why does he not say there is a third type of ignorance relating to the way these two types of ignorance interact? Why not a fourth type of ignorance relating to the way the third type of ignorance affects the other two? Why not an infinity of such types of ignorance?
This is an old argument. Socrates was aware of it. Why has the good professor chosen to forget it? Well, he believes Trump is uniquely ignorant. Why? It is because Trump believes what he knows is sufficient for him to make him epistemologically autonomous. Voters who vote, believe the same thing about themselves. Any one offering themselves for election to a public office has to assert epistemological autonomy of a certain type. If it turns out an elected official decides things only on the basis of his astrologer, or priest, or some oracular Think Tank's super-computer, there may be grounds for impeachment.
It is a different matter that some candidates express humility while others are cock-sure. That is mere puffery. Many Presidents have tested the waters in their first 100 days and ended up doing a U turn within 18 months.
In the past, Presidential actions were considered to be constructive of policy and hence as signalling playbook reconfiguration. However, Obama came to the conclusion that the Federal Govt and its Agencies have saddled themselves with a stupid playbook. In foreign policy, the Obama doctrine was 'stop doing stupid shit'. On the domestic front, Obama slogged away at wonkish policy initiatives which have made a difference but for which his party was unable to get credit. This suggests that needful reform should proceed on an alethic, bipartisan, basis. It ought to be off limits to Presidential grandstanding. Similarly in Foreign Affairs, let the President blow off steam by firing off missiles from time to time. That sort of one off virtue signalling is better than striving for a coherent foreign policy which involves rejigging the bureaucracy to do that sort of stupid shit on an industrial scale.
Presidents of America, who often affect a folksy ignorance in order to court popular approval, nevertheless have had a certain leadership role and alethic signalling function. At one time it appeared a good thing if their public signals coordinated the emergence of bureaucracies and alliances between bureaucracies. That time has passed. Knightian Uncertainty is qualitatively different now. Twentieth Century bureaucracies don't tame, but rather exacerbate, problems arising from rapid Technological change. Indeed, the latter are parasitic on the former. The War against Terror replenished Terrorist coffers. The US was paying a lot of money to Pakistan while Osama was living comfortably in the garrison town of Abbotabad. The Europeans, and Hillary, were urging the bombing of Syria and Libya without having learned any lesson from Afghanistan or Iraq. The result was that ISIS got money and turned out to be ten times worse than Al Qaeda. This sort of 'stupid shit' has to stop. Presidents are still welcome to fire off a few missiles in anger- that sort of testing of the other side occurs anyway as part of conventional military doctrine- but what is important is to disntermediate bureaucrats and public intellectuals because it is the ice in their veins which precipitates the big cataclysms. |
Jaap Stam has pledged his future to Reading by signing a new two-year deal at the Madejski Stadium.
Stam's previous contract was due to expire in 2018 but the Dutchman has been rewarded after guiding the Royals to the Championship play-off final, where they were beaten in a penalty shoot-out by Huddersfield.
The club's new majority shareholders Dai Yongge and Dai Xiu Li were keen to ensure 44-year-old Stam was not prised away by other clubs this summer after an impressive debut season in senior management.
Jaap Stam has pledged his future to Reading by signing a new two-year deal at the Madejski
'My sister and I are absolutely delighted that Jaap Stam has agreed to sign a new contract at Reading Football Club,' Yongge said in quotes published on the club's official website.
'We will support Jaap in helping him to build a squad capable of challenging at the top end of the Championship again in 2017-18 and that support will continue throughout the season as we look forward to the challenge of a brand new season.'
Assistant Manager Andries Ulderink and first team coach Said Bakkati, who followed Stam to Berkshire back in June 2016, have also signed new deals at the club.
Chief Executive Nigel Howe commented, 'Jaap, Andries and Said signing new contracts is momentous for this football club and a clear demonstration that Reading Football Club is a great place to be right now.
'Akin to the manager, we are a club with fierce ambition and his commitment to the cause offers us the continuity we need to build on last season's undoubted successes, shape our future with stability, drive and focus and aspire to achieve even more in 2017-18. I'm delighted we have secured his signature.' |
In his latest monthly newsletter, James Dobson warns his supporters that the recent Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage nationwide was not about achieving marriage equality at all, but rather is an attempt to oppress and persecute Christians and destroy Christianity.
The real goal, Dobson reveals, is for gay rights activists to shut down churches, destroy Christian businesses and organizations, and ultimately take control of your children … just like Hitler did:
This Court decision is not about same-sex marriage, except only tangentially. Many gay and lesbian groups have admitted that marriage has never been their primary objective. Instead, it is about everything else. What’s at stake is the entire culture war. To begin, it is an expression of hostility toward people who take their Christianity seriously. As you probably know, certain groups and organizations hate us. It is about weakening the Church of Jesus Christ and limiting what pastors and ministers can say and do publicly. It is about undermining the religious liberties of Christians that are guaranteed by the Constitution. It is about attacking Christian schools, Christian non-profit organizations such as Family Talk, and Christian businesses, hospitals, charities, and seminaries. It is about Christian colleges and universities, and about whom their leaders choose as professors and what their students will be taught. It’s about government funding and accreditation. It is all at risk. You’ll see.
Obergefell will also result in God-fearing laymen being dragged into court for trumped-up charges, such as those thrown at Aaron and Melissa Klein, who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex ceremony. Melissa has, by the way, not only been fined $135,000 for this “offense,” but has now been slapped with a gag order so she can’t even tell her side of the story. What ever happened to freedom of speech?
To continue, the Human Rights Campaign has recently sponsored HR 3185, which is beyond belief. It would allow gay and lesbian activists to persecute Americans in virtually every area of society, including employment, housing and public accommodations, credit, and dozens of other areas of civil life.
There is almost no limit to what will be imposed on the American public as a result of Obergefell. There is every indication that a barrage of court cases has been pre-planned and will be implemented against those who dare to disagree with the government’s view of marriage. Some will lose their jobs for failing to knuckle under.
Some will lose their professional licenses. Some will be persecuted, ridiculed and fined. Some will go to prison. After all, the Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex marriage is an inviolable Constitutional right that will trump other liberties considered untouchable for more than 200 years.
…
I grieve over what will happen to kids in public schools. They will be taught that right is wrong and wrong is right, and that the teachings of Scripture are unreliable and inaccurate. How unthinkable it is that in some states kindergartners, barely out of babyhood, are being taught adult perverse behavior that should never be discussed in the classroom. Soon, publishers of public school textbooks throughout the country will have to re-write and re-illustrate materials to make them conform to the demands of Obergefell. It matters not that these revisions will contradict the beliefs and convictions of Christian parents. It has already become the law of the land in some states.
Anything activists can dream up could be imposed on our children by liberal judges. LGBT propaganda will be blatantly taught to wide-eyed kids who are too young to understand how they are being manipulated. There is no consideration that the messages given will contradict the beliefs and convictions of millions of parents. The wishes of moms and dads will have been overridden and superseded by five Justices who have a better plan for their kids.
This is not the first time in recent history that children have been used as pawns in the hands of tyrants.
I’m reminded of the words of German dictator, Adolf Hitler, spoken as war in Europe approached. He said, “Your child belongs to us already . . . what are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing but this new community.” |
Big East member presidents voted unanimously Tuesday to extend invitations to new members to replenish a league that has lost Syracuse, Pitt, TCU and West Virginia.
No schools were named in the statement released by John Marinatto. Here is what he said after the meeting:
“Our Presidents voted unanimously to extend invitations to specific institutions, including both football-only and all-sport members to join the Big East Conference. I will be speaking to representatives of those schools shortly and look forward to announcing with them their acceptance into the Big East. The addition of these members will extend our reach, bring us to exciting new markets, strengthen our status within the BCS, and lay the foundation for possible further expansion, all while maintaining the high quality and standards our conference is known for.
“In light of the lawsuit filed by West Virginia yesterday, the Presidents also discussed and confirmed our continuing commitment to enforce the conference’s 27-month notification period for schools choosing to leave. The conference believes these claims to be wholly without merit and will explore all its legal options to protect its interests and to ensure that West Virginia lives up to its obligations.” |
Nov 2, 2013; Edmonton, Alberta, CAN; Detroit Red Wings forward Dan Cleary (71) tries to screen Edmonton Oilers goaltender Jason Labarbera (1) while defenseman Andrew Ference (21) looks on during the second period at Rexall Place. Mandatory Credit: Perry Nelson-USA TODAY Sports
Grab your torches and pitchforks: the Detroit Red Wings won’t be bringing anyone new aboard. I hope I’m wrong, but I just don’t see it. The field is weak, and despite the preview I wrote yesterday, I’ve been reading and re-reading about what the Wings are looking for. The smoking gun came courtesy of Ted Kulfan at the Detroit News:
The NHL draft weekend came and went with no trades by the Red Wings, and don’t expect them to be active in unrestricted free agency this week.
Holland and company are not going to commit for very long (think Stephen Weiss) or get into a bidding war over a player that wouldn’t get nearly as much money in an above average free agency group. Any player looking for a long rich deal will not wear the Winged Wheel.
There were all sorts of rumors hovering around Detroit prior to the draft. Would they trade up? Trade down? Package a pick and a prospect to get a big scorer? Top 2 d-man? Despite the smoke screens, the Red Wings were pretty straight forward. From Ansar Khan on May 31: (Bolds are mine).
Holland stressed that much of the club’s improvement must come from within. They need young roster players like Tomas Tatar, Gustav Nyquist, Riley Sheahan, Tomas Jurco, Danny DeKeyser, Brendan Smith and Petr Mrazek to take the next step. They hope sniper Teemu Pulkkinen, who is out of options, can establish himself as an NHL player. They will see if players like Alexey Marchenko, Xavier Ouellet, Andreas Athanasiou and Dylan Larkin will push for jobs in training camp. “Let’s see what young players are ready to play full-time in Detroit,” Holland said. “Part of it (improvement) has to be internal, the development of these young players. Can we make a move that makes us a little better? That’s what we’ll explore over the next month.” But, he added, “We tried to do some things in the last 2-3 years and in many cases our kids were better than the moves we made.
He’s looking at you, David Legwand.
Despite this proclamation, trade rumors persisted. Again, the Red Wings were pretty straight forward. From Helene St. James on June 24th (quotes from Assistant GM Ryan Martin):
“July 1 is as bleak as it’s ever been, so the only way to change the makeup of your team other than July 1 is via trade, and therefore, I think there is a lot of chatter, names being thrown around. There are some pretty high-end names being thrown out. If we were to engage in a scenario like that and picks were changing hands as an option to move up, I don’t really see that happening.”
Again, bolded text was my emphasis. The Red Wings all but telegraphed that they weren’t going to do a thing. Even a week earlier. Last season, the Red Wings whiffed on every single free agent attempt. Holland responded by re-signing Kyle Quincey , and well, all hell broke loose. Follow that link and it chronicles it well. Now, I was in the same company as those angry fans, perplexed the Red Wings would re-sign a defenseman who wasn’t worth the price. But what options did they have? Honestly?
Quincey responded with a solid season, but still a little below his rich deal. To wit, here’s a signing the majority liked. And here we are today:
Weiss has struggled the past two seasons after signing a five-year, $24.5 million free-agent contract on July 5, 2013. Weiss was brought in to fill the second-line center spot vacated by Valtteri Filppula’s departure to Tampa Bay but finished the 2015 playoffs as a healthy scratch.
The first link was from Winging it in Motown, who merely commented on the then-signing. The comments following were pleased with it. As time marched on, it turned out to be one ugly beast. When you find out that Mike Babcock not only pushed for Weiss and the eventual Dan Cleary hand-shake deal, well, how do you blame Kenny for being gun shy?
“My program has been one of loyalty, and there’s good things and bad things that go with that. Way more good, in my opinion.”
Which brings us to Cleary. He’ll be back. Just deal with it. He won’t be wearing a suit and tie. No, he will get his chance to win a spot in Detroit, and after the younger, faster kids beat him out, he will most likely be sent to Grand Rapids. If Jeff Blashill holds on to him, well, his honeymoon with the fans will end faster than a Red Wings playoff series over the past two seasons.
Like the majority of fans, I think it’s time to set sail on Cleary. It has been that way for several seasons. But look at it from Kenny’s point of view. How big of a d-bag would he be if he went back on that promise–whether or not he wanted to bring him back? I know the arguments on the other side of the coin. I’ve made them, too. But Kenny might stand to lose more than just a broken down Cleary if he bailed on that hand shake deal. After all, it is a business. (Continued after poll)
How would you handle free agency if you were Ken Holland? I would still get that much needed defenseman
I wouldn't overpay, but I would trade to upgrade
I actually agree with Ken Holland's vision
Who cares: Kenny is too conservative. View Results
Loading ... Loading ...
I know this isn’t what anyone wants to hear prior to free agent signing. I know that Mike Green and Cody Franson are out there. They are the right handed, top 4 d-man so many have on their armchair checklist. But they will come at a higher price, and probably at a longer duration than the Wings are comfortable with. In addition to those reasons, Holland prides himself on loyalty.
It’s time to read between the lines. This team, as many have clamored for in the past few seasons, will be about the kids. You hire the guy who coached them to a Calder Cup title, and is known to be a player’s coach. You pass on trades that overreach. You don’t overpay in the open market.
If that right person or deal comes along, then sure, it’ll happen. But they won’t force anything. Holland as always erred on the side of caution since the Cap Era began. There is no reason to believe otherwise.
Where does that leave us? We’re about to find out just how good the kids really are. |
PUTTING IN WORK: Rumblefish explains how they protect and license your music through CD Baby, YouTube, and video services
Oh man, how time flies! Last I checked, it was May. Did you miss me?
I’ve been busy though, I swear! It’s not like I’ve been sitting around in my underwear playing PS4. Trust me, I’d love to, but my Playstation is gathering dust. My girl isn’t too happy about that considering she bought it for me for my birthday. Do you know anyone else whose significant other gets upset that they’re not playing Playstation? She’s pretty cool I guess…
Speaking of cool people, I’d like to give a big thank you to Rich Howells, our editor here at NEPA Scene, for letting me get away with not posting in so long. Hi, Rich!
Enough of the small talk – let’s get to business.
One of the things I did over the past few weeks was attend the New Music Seminar in New York City. Running from June 21-23, it was a great conference filled with some informative panels, and I highly suggest attending next year if you can. By far, it was one of the best conferences I’ve been to.
At New Music, I got to sit down with J. Gibson from Rumblefish. CD Baby users might recognize the name; if a YouTube video of one of your own songs has ever received a copyright notice from them, you might be like, “WTF? This is my music.”
Many independent artists are confused by this, and some of them can’t figure out what the purpose of Rumblefish is. J was nice enough to sit down with me and clear up a few things.
What is Rumblefish, and what do they do?
The way J explained it, they offer pre-cleared music for video creation services like Animoto, Amazon Studios, Socialcam, Maker Studios, and more and a “marketplace” for video creators to legally use music in their videos.
He provided the example of a person wanting to create a video for a family event. It would sure be nice to add music to your video, right? Using a video creation service like Animoto (or another video creation service that is part of the Rumblefish network), a user can legally pay for music to use in their family event video. J referred to this as “micro-licensing.”
So for an artist whose music is a part of Rumblefish, the music becomes available for people to purchase in these micro-licensing situations, which is another possible revenue stream.
Rumblefish and YouTube
If you’ve ever released your music through CD Baby and uploaded a video for one of those songs to YouTube, you may have seen a copyright “point of contest” for the music. This could be odd to some people, since it’s their music. How could you be infringing on your own work?
J explained that when it comes to YouTube, the audio can only be delivered by one entity for the audio fingerprint technology to take place. If you’re an independent artist and release music through CD Baby, Rumblefish is the entity that does this on your behalf.
When the artist uploads a video with their audio, YouTube sees it as another point of entry, and the content ID system flags it as infringing.
When this happens, you can do one of two things. J said you can dispute the copyright claim and give a brief explanation why the claim should be removed. This will route to Rumblefish to review and release, or you can let Rumblefish assist you in monetizing your video.
I’ve had this happen to artists that I work with before and, to be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to think about it, but he broke it down in a simple way – the offensive play, and the defensive play.
The offensive play is when Rumblefish uses their system to offer the musical works on platforms like Animoto and Amazon Studios and when they assist you in monetizing your own videos.
The defensive play is when someone uses your work without permission. There’s so much content that it’s impossible for an artist to monitor it. Rumblefish monitors for infringing works and gives the person infringing on the copyright the opportunity to continue using your work by monetizing the video.
If the video uploader decides to monetize it, the copyright holder allows the video uploader to continue using the music in exchange for the revenue from that video. Rumblefish administers this revenue and pays the copyright holder.
Ultimately, this comes down to a few things: understanding copyright (which you can read about in my series starting here), understanding how content ID systems work, and adding new revenue streams.
I’m glad I got to speak with J. He cleared up some things I wasn’t too sure about, and hopefully it clears some things up for you.
Until next time!
Putting in Work: The Beauty of Music & Business is a bi-weekly column filled with thoughts, inspirations, and experiences from a music marketer born and raised in Scranton. Let’s step our game up together. is a bi-weekly column filled with thoughts, inspirations, and experiences from a music marketer born and raised in Scranton. Let’s step our game up together. |
The Kyrgyz soldier stepped quietly out of the dark green bushes and swung his Kalashnikov rifle in the direction of our car. Another emerged and did the same. Their checkpoint was a skinny log dragged across a broken asphalt road heading toward an ethnic Uzbek village and the disputed waters of the Kasan-sai, a reservoir that irrigates the agricultural heartland of the ancient Fergana Valley. With a sleepy shake of his head, the special forces sergeant waved his rifle and made us turn our beat-up Mitsubishi around. “There won’t be any fighting here,” the sergeant said.
At least not today. The quiet of the hot September afternoon was unbroken as we turned around and slowly ground off through the heat. Driving back the way we came through the parched foothills on the edge of the western Tian Shan range, a spur of the Himalayas, we did not pass any other cars.
Launch Slideshow
But it has not always been this quiet. Throughout the spring and summer in 2016, tensions flared after ethnic Uzbek villagers and police blocked access to the reservoir and its water, which lies inside Kyrgyzstan. Uzbekistan drove armored personnel carriers into Kyrgyzstan, and both sides have captured and detained each other’s citizens. Fistfights and potshots have been common. For farmers scratching out a bare existence from increasingly dry land, water is lifeblood, and worth fighting for.
John Wendle
I have come to this remote and haphazard army post, standing between Uzbek and Kyrgyz farmers whose lands both need water, to see for myself the front line of climate change. A 2014 study in the Journal of Climate, published by the American Meteorological Society, reported that the warming rate in Central Asia has been twice the average global warming rate over the same period, and larger than any previous decade, over the first 12 years of the 21st century. As the region heats up, it faces increasing political instability and violence.
This is particularly so in the vast Fergana Valley. Its tangled knot of borders, ethnicities, water rights, decreasing resources, and increasing temperatures makes it a crucible of global warming and human conflict—a place where geography, climate, and politics collide. Indeed, historically violent ethnic divides and regular disputes over natural resources make armed conflict as a result of climate change more likely in this region, one that has already seen hundreds killed in two pogroms over the past 27 years, in part fueled by fights over territory and water.
“These small villages fight almost every day for water and land,” said Altynbek Kadyrov, an agricultural project manager for the U.S. State Department’s Agency for International Development (USAID) in Kyrgyzstan. “As soon as something disrupts their agriculture, they have to fight or do something to ensure that they don’t go hungry in the winter.”
Also in Climate The Hidden Ocean Patch That Broke Climate Records By Dennis Hollier Nothing has caused climate scientists quite as much recent trouble as the so-called “global warming hiatus.” Not only did this approximately 14-year lull in the rise of global mean (or average) temperatures provide fodder for a variety of misguided climate...READ MORE
Down the road from the checkpoint, ethnic Uzbek farmers stacked dried sunflower stalks onto the bed of a dilapidated truck. They were too nervous about the armed standoff over the nearby reservoir to talk. They turned up the music in their truck and laughed nervously as they sweated in the dust and sun.
This has been the situation in this borderland since March, when Uzbek troops cut off the road to the town of Ala-Buka, near the reservoir. This move was sparked after Kyrgyz authorities denied an Uzbek request to repair the reservoir in Kyrgyz territory using Uzbek engineers. The security situation escalated from there and culminated in August with the seizure of a Kyrgyz communications relay tower on a disputed mountaintop by helicopter-borne Uzbek police, who detained a number of Kyrgyz technicians.
John Wendle
And there is reason to fight. The Fergana is the great cornucopia of fruit, vegetable, and cotton farms that once made up the agricultural heart of Central Asia. The wide basin was an oasis of food that built emirates, fed a blossoming of Sufi poetry, and was a stop in its own right on the ancient Silk Road. Today, the flatlands are covered in irrigated fields still famous for their melons, peppers, tomatoes, and strawberries. The Uzbek villages stand in the shade of innumerable poplars, fed on the water streaming out of Kyrgyzstan’s mountains. Sitting above this lush bowl, the rugged lands of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are too mountainous for cultivation, supporting mostly livestock. They remain dry.
But this is all in flux. Climate change will continue to increase the area’s “environmental insecurity,” with the densely populated Fergana Valley being the most vulnerable, reads a 2014 report by the World Bank, which is funding economic research into how climate change will alter how people live around the world. Some 22 million people in the valley depend on irrigation for their livelihoods, and shortfalls in water—due to increased evaporation caused by higher temperatures and because glaciers are disappearing—are predicted to become a bigger problem.
Rasul Kasymov’s rice farm is representative of the region’s problems. To get to his smallholding farm in the village of Kyzyl-Sengir from the historic city of Osh, I drove 45 minutes through parched Kyrgyz countryside, past young boys herding bony cattle, and dusty communities of one-story homes. The Soviet-educated farmer greeted me and guided me down a road to his rice terraces on the floodplain of a river that flows into Uzbekistan.
John Wendle
Open irrigation ditches rushed with silted, blue water on either side of the dusty track and shady willows grew on their banks. Cows and horses drank from the muddy slopes as the water flowed into the surrounding fields. This bucolic scene is typical of the rural Fergana Valley, but the pleasant surroundings obscure the environmental problems.
“We keep telling these guys about climate change,” Kadyrov, the USAID agricultural specialist, said. “There are some good farmers who understand they need to worry about it, but they do nothing.” Because their plots are small, most farmers in the Fergana do not have the money to invest in new equipment or infrastructure, and they are not trained in water conservation.
It’s a hand-to-mouth existence. Much of the water in the canals along this path evaporates, and when it does reach a field, it leaches minerals and salt out of the soil. At the same time, livestock is allowed to overgraze, making the poor earth more susceptible to desertification and erosion caused by flash floods.
We dropped down a short dirt slope to Kasymov’s rice paddies above the river. The irrigation water in the ditch formed a small waterfall. The cool sound of the water splashing into a grassy pool was in contrast to the heat of the day. Below this, the water overflowed and flooded the path in wasteful abundance before running back into the village’s rice fields. The old farmer walked out onto an earthen berm and pulled up a handful of the reddish colored rice for which this area is famous.
“Before there was a lot of water, but now it seems to me that water is becoming less everywhere,” Kasymov said. “The glaciers are melting.” He waved a sheaf of rice at the mountains upstream. “We are dependent on the water here. Without this water no one would live here.” When I asked if there were ever fights over water between farmers he answered, “No. There are no conflicts here. We don’t have any Uzbeks.”
In the Fergana Valley, ethnicity is a volatile issue. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan both have significant ethnic Uzbek minorities of around 14 percent. Layered on top of this is a population exploding across a landscape with limited farmland. Since 2000, the population of the five former Soviet republics in Central Asia has grown by almost 10 million, and this is expected to grow to 95 million by 2050. Of the 65 million people currently living in the region, around 5 million lack reliable access to food.
Climate change represents an enormous challenge to these growing populations. If temperatures continue to climb at their current rate, the World Bank predicts a 10 to 15 percent drop in the water levels of the Amu Darya, one of Central Asia’s great rivers, by the 2040s, and a 10.7 percent drop in the GDP of the region.
John Wendle
Besides ethnicity, evaporation, misuse, population, and poverty, the issue of water is further complicated by the borders in the region. Before the Soviet Union’s breakup, water ran through a united country. Now the water courses through independent countries, crossing disputed borders. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan control most of the sources, while Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan have to either accept what their upstream neighbors give them, pay, negotiate, or try to take it.
What’s more, bubbles of independent ethnic territory exist within Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, where ethnic villages have been cut off from their home countries. Water sometimes crosses three or four borders in just as many miles. The confusing map has caused fights to break out between neighboring farmers.
These altercations, which often lead to the police or military having to be called, inflame preexisting ethnic tensions. Kyrgyz farmers “hate” Tajik farmers, while Tajiks say the Kyrgyz block water, keeping it from flowing downstream. When the water stops flowing, said Kadyrov, the first thought many farmers have about their counterparts across the border is, “We should kill them.” Politicians have used the disagreements over natural resources to stoke ethnic tensions. These exploded once in Kyrgyzstan in 1990 and again in 2010—incidents in which hundreds, if not thousands, of ethnic Uzbeks were killed and tens of thousands were displaced.
One afternoon in Ala-Buka, Akim Orozov, a thick-set, retired policeman, commanded Ala-Buka’s livestock market with an unbelievably loud voice, brokering rough-and-tumble trades with a crushing handshake under the shade of the lot’s lone tree. “The reservoir is ours,” he told me. “It is an important strategic object. We will not give it up.” Like everyone in the area, he understands water intimately. “If [the Uzbeks] don’t have water, they’ll have a drought,” he said. “If there is a war, we will stand with dignity. Let them come.”
Conflicts over natural resources are not new, but as climate change shrinks access to water, their occurrence is bound to rise worldwide. From 1980 to 2010, almost a quarter of all armed conflicts in ethnically divided countries coincided with climate-related natural disasters, reported the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The risk of violence was “exacerbated by anthropogenic climate change and in particular climate-related natural disasters,” the report said, adding that Central Asia is “exceptionally vulnerable to anthropogenic climate change and characterized by deep ethnic divides.”
The analysis noted similar linkages between climate-related natural disasters, ethnic divides, and armed conflict outbreak in Syria, Somalia, and Afghanistan over the past 30 years, citing the “societal consequences” of drought. “We’re not saying there’s a climate disaster and this will cause a conflict, but in the context where it will basically add to societal stress, then this could enhance the risk for the outbreak of conflict,” said lead researcher Carl-Friedrich Schleussner.
John Wendle
Around 10 percent of Central Asia’s population has already been hit by natural disasters since the 1990s. These include mudflows, landslides, heat waves, drought, desertification, earthquakes, torrential rains, and spreading malaria.
In 2015, half a village was destroyed in the mountains of neighboring Tajikistan when a multistory wall of water blasted out of a slot canyon, caused by either torrential rains or a glacial lake bursting its dam upstream. To put this in context, scientists report that more than 2,000 glacial lakes cover Kyrgyzstan. Of these, almost 20 percent pose a hazard of “outburst” and 12 are considered “actually dangerous.” This sounds like a small number, but around 300,000 cubic meters of water sits in dangerously unstable glacial lakes above the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, with a population of around 1 million people. Since 1952, more than 70 “disastrous” cases of lake outbursts have occurred across Kyrgyzstan. These numbers put Bishkek in the crosshairs and illustrate the risks posed by a litany of environmental disasters.
The cowboy whistled piercingly and Barsik, his 140-pound sheepdog, shot over the rolling green humps of the high mountain valley, and chased an errant bull back into the herd. High on the mountainside, Nurdin Orozaliev’s flock of around 500 sheep streamed through the well trimmed grasses of late summer.
The 15,000-foot peak of Chok-Tal was just catching the first rays of the early morning sun, washing the blue monochrome of dawn out of the valley. Nurdin, 52, sprang into his saddle and trotted into the snorting confusion of cattle, guiding them to their pasture for the day.
This is the Kyrgyz high country. In summer, shepherds from across the nation flock to the Chon-Kemin, a 2-mile high, 75-mile long valley in the north. Every summer they bring their livestock here to fatten up on the lush grasses. Nurdin’s morning chores done, he rode ahead toward the loose rock moraines and glacier on the flanks of Chok-Tal.
John Wendle
The Dzhindi-suu, or Crazy Water River, rushed past on the floor of the ravine. This will be their last year at this camp. “The wind coming off the glacier is too cold. My sheep and cattle haven’t fattened up as much as they would have in another side valley,” Nurdin said. But with glaciers disappearing, his grandsons might be able to return here in a couple decades.
“Before, the glacier was visible [from our valley] and now it is not,” said Nurdin, approaching the end of the grass and the start of the rock. The feeder streams of the Crazy Water poured out of the face of the glacier 1,000 feet above us and cascaded down through the boulder field. Jumping from rock to rock, he headed up the mountain. “The glacier is melting. I don’t know how it will be for us in 20 or 25 years,” he said. “It’s a tragedy. It will have a bad effect.”
After more than an hour of climbing through the steep rubble of pink and gray granite boulders, the rocky tongue of the glacier came into view. Sheer planes of dirty ice stepped almost vertically into the sky. Nurdin climbed under an overhang and drank water melting off the curved lip. He grabbed a rock and hacked off a chunk of ice. He held it up to the sun and the piece of glacier lit up, light refracting off the ancient air bubbles locked in the shard.
“The signs are very clear. Almost all glaciers in Central Asia are losing mass,” said Annina Sorg, a Swiss scientist who has made multiple trips to the Chon-Kemin valley to research its glaciers. A study by Sorg and others of the Tian Shan range found annual glacier area losses of 0.36 to 0.76 percent, “causing concern about future water security.” Even in cooler, wetter conditions, glaciers will lose up to two-thirds of their 1955 extent by the end of the 21st century, while in warmer scenarios, they are expected to “disappear completely” by around 2080.
John Wendle
Right now, though, the melt is having a somewhat positive effect, since melting glaciers provide a steady supply of water. But Sorg’s research has shown that “peak water” could be reached by the 2020s. And, regardless of any way the climate could change, “the days of plenty will not last much longer, as summer runoff is projected to decrease.”
Sorg worries how the coming water shortages will be handled across unstable borders between countries and ethnic groups that already distrust one another. “I’m more scared that climate change will lead to war and to political conflicts,” she said. “I would be more afraid of people than of nature.”
Some see an opportunity for action. André Fabian, a project manager in Central Asia with GIZ, a German development agency, believes climate change might ironically offer a solution. The battle over water has made neighboring countries into enemies. “There are the upstream countries, there are downstream countries, and they blame each other for whatever reason,” he said. But the countries have a common enemy in climate change. “They come, and we can talk sometimes, even about the same topics, but under the umbrella of climate change.”
But it is unclear what that means for actual farmers, cowboys, and everyone else in the region—both in parched upstream countries like Kyrgyzstan, and in wet, downstream countries like Uzbekistan. Driving slowly out of Ala-Buka, our Mitsubishi weaved through the overflowing Saturday market between old, mustachioed men carrying giant yellow melons and women in headscarves pulling along young children.
After a 20-minute drive through the dry hills, we reached the grassy edge of the reservoir. Satinbay Mamashev herded his cattle and shouted when some wandered into a burdock thicket. “If I had water, I’d live like a king here,” said the 73-year-old through his long whiskers. “Where they have water, that’s Uzbek agriculture. Where there is no water, that’s my land.” He pointed his shepherd’s stick toward the green of the Fergana Valley. “Without water, it is impossible to live.”
Above us, on a rocky escarpment overlooking the disputed reservoir, stood a Kyrgyz armored vehicle with its guns pointing toward the Uzbek village.
John Wendle is an independent writer, photographer, and videographer based in Kiev, Ukraine. You can view more of his work at www.johnwendle.com and on Instagram. |
This May, the City of Kingston began the long process of reconstructing Division Street between Union and Brock Streets. This came as a surprise to many students living in the area who received no prior notice from the City about the project.
According to the Queen’s Gazette, this reconstruction is due for completion in late fall of 2017 and will “replace aging infrastructure and separate the sanitary sewer and storm sewer systems, which will improve wastewater management during rainstorms.”
One student household located on Division Street sat down with The Journal to discuss their experience of living through the construction during the summer and into the first few weeks of school. According to them, the City never informed them that construction would be starting.
“We didn’t get any notification that there was going to be construction all summer,” Laura O’Grady, ArtSci ’18, said.
To help the community navigate through the chaos of the road work, construction crews created temporary detour walking routes. For several weeks, street traffic was redirected to a pathway that ran along the entire edge of the back, side and front of their home. Having people continually passing by where they eat, sleep and study raised privacy concerns for the students.
Zoe Zimmerman, Sci ’18, says she often cooked in the pitch-black during this time because an illuminated kitchen would expose her to passersby walking inches from her window.
Nolan Ross, ArtSci ’18, reported incidences of individuals walking along the path and “testing the front door” to see if it was unlocked.
With her bedroom on the main floor, Rachel Strauss, ArtSci ’18, said pedestrians knocked on the window directly next to her bed.
“When we chose this house, we [knew we were] very exposed because we’re right on campus… but now I don’t open my curtains at all,” Strauss said. “Even if [people aren’t] watching us, they’ll be drilling a foot away from my window.”
“As soon as you walk outside it’s like a stage because everyone’s right there.”
Ross, Zimmerman and O’Grady also ran into trouble this summer when their water was shut off without warning. While water shut-offs were communicated in advance a few times, Ross said they were given insufficient notice on one occasion and another time there was no warning at all.
Inconsistent communication has remained a theme throughout the construction. On August 9, the house received a notice that they wouldn’t be able to park on the street until September 29. Just this Wednesday, Strauss found herself unable to access her front door due to an excavator being operated on their front lawn — a disruption the students received no warning about.
With the loud construction beginning each day at approximately at 6:45a.m. that can go well into the evening, the group struggles with the noise. Zimmerman and Strauss said they often avoid going home during the day and will only return when the workers are done.
Construction also raised the issue of accessibility for O’Grady this summer when she was on crutches for two weeks. During this time, she began to wonder how residents with permanent accessibility struggles would navigate their day-to-day life.
“Being on crutches and trying to navigate through the construction would’ve definitely been a larger concern had it not been so temporary,” O’Grady said.
While the household did take issue with the effects of construction, their main problem is the lack of direct communication and support the City provided them with.
“Construction does have a negative impact on students who are studying and just trying to feel safe in their own homes, but we’re understanding people,” O’Grady said.
“Obviously city construction has to happen and whatever they’re doing is essential, but I think if you’re going to do that type of construction… [the city] should have some type of team to promote accessibility or accommodations for people that it’s going to drastically effect,” Ross said.
As of Monday, Ross said he was still unaware of exactly why this construction was being done. O’Grady said she only knew from seeking out articles online herself.
“If it’s going to directly affect you, I think there should be some responsibility to explain what’s going on and why,” Ross said.
“I think for future projects that are this big… if they were to have a plan prior and provide us with this plan and give us updates, that would’ve been nice. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.” |
Baloney Meter: Will cancelling F-35 ‘crater’ the Canadian aerospace industry?
OTTAWA — “He’s not giving shipbuilding anything; he’s merely talking about cratering our aerospace industry, which is, as I say, bad policy…. I don’t understand where they’re going with this.” — Conservative Leader Stephen Harper on Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s promise to scrap the F-35 stealth fighter program and channel the savings into naval shipbuilding.
___
One of the cornerstones of the Liberal defence policy is to formally opt out of the Conservative government’s plan to acquire 65 F-35 stealth fighter jets to replace the Air Force’s aging fleet of 1980s vintage CF-18s.
A Liberal government would hold an open competition among the lower-cost competitors, Trudeau has said, noting that there would be no penalty for withdrawing from the F-35 project. Harper said Monday that would “crater” the aerospace industry, particularly in Trudeau’s backyard of Montreal.
Would it?
Spoiler alert: The Canadian Press Baloney Meter is a dispassionate examination of political statements culminating in a ranking of accuracy on a scale of “no baloney” to “full of baloney” (complete methodology below).
This one earns a rating of a lot of baloney. Here’s why.
THE FACTS
In the summer of 2010, the Conservative government signalled its intention to buy the F-35, but did not sign a purchase contract at the time.
Scathing reports from both the auditor general and the parliamentary budget office accused National Defence and Public Works of lowballing the enormous cost of the program and of not doing enough homework on alternatives.
Consequently, the program was put on hold and the Conservatives elected to extend the life of the CF-18s until 2025, forcing the final decision on a future government.
The Lockheed Martin-built F-35 — at US $382 billion — is the most costly weapons program in U.S. military history, one plagued with delays and technical bugs, many of which are related to the development of the fighter’s software.
But it is also one of the most sophisticated military/industrial complex programs in history, where partner nations help Washington finance the development of the aircraft in return for not only a favourable purchase price, but access to sub-contracts for each nation’s aerospace companies.
As of December 2014, 33 Canadian companies have won US $637 million in contracts for both F-35 production and sustainment, according to industrial participation tabled in Parliament by Industry Canada. The same document estimates that over the 40-year lifespan of the aircraft, aerospace firms in this country could receive a total of $10.17 billion.
Since there is no signed agreement, Canada would not face contract penalties for withdrawal — but the aerospace industry would likely fall out of favour, a senior Lockheed Martin executive warned.
“If, in fact, the Canadian government were to decide not to select the F-35, we will certainly honour the contracts that we have here with the Canadian industry, but our approach in the future would be to try to do business with the industries that are in the countries that are buying the airplane,” Orlando Carvalho, executive vice-president of aeronautics at Lockheed Martin, said in a 2013 speech in Montreal.
Industry supporters of the F-35 have also suggested the existing contracts could be in danger of not being renewed if Canada chose to buy elsewhere.
Data from the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada shows there are more than 700 companies of all sizes from coast to coast, employing of more than 180,000 workers, and with net revenue in 2014 of $27.7 billion.
Based upon current figures, the F-35 represents approximately 2.29 per cent of the industry’s total revenue.
Almost three-quarters of the industry is dedicated to manufacturing, while the rest does repair and overhaul. The majority of the growth in the next six years is expected to be in the commercial aircraft market.
WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY
Elinor Sloan, a professor of international relations at Carleton University and former senior analyst at National Defence, says choosing another aircraft wouldn’t be the end of the world.
“Obviously if we didn’t buy that aircraft we wouldn’t get those benefits, but that’s not to say we wouldn’t get benefits from purchasing a different American aircraft,” said Sloan, who noted the F-35 is different from traditional procurements which obliged defence contractors to spend the equivalent of the equipment purchase price in Canada.
“A lot of the (F-35) benefits, of course, are projected. There are projections as to the number of jobs are going to be created. We won’t know it until it happens.”
Going with another aircraft could in fact provide more certainty to the aerospace industry because under a traditional benefits arrangement, the spending would be guaranteed, said defence analyst Dave Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.
What Canada would lose by dropping out of the F-35 program would be access to the cutting-edge technology and know-how that’s going into the jet, he said.
It’s specious of Harper to claim disaster would follow a withdrawal decision, since the Conservative government itself left the door open to leaving, Perry added.
“We have made no decision and made no progress on making a decision in the last year-and-a-half. The government has been very diligent and very consistent in saying it is reviewing all options.”
Adding to the uncertainty, there has also been significant concern in the Canadian aerospace industry that much of the sustainment work on the F-35 would be conducted in the U.S., he said.
THE VERDICT
Withdrawing from the F-35 program would almost certainly endanger the renewal of ongoing contracts and preclude Canadian aerospace companies from bidding on future stealth fighter work.
But there is also the potential for those losses to be mitigated — or even erased. For that reason, Harper’s claim earns the rating of “a lot of baloney.”
METHODOLOGY
The Baloney Meter is a project of The Canadian Press that examines the level of accuracy in statements made by politicians. Each claim is researched and assigned a rating based on the following scale:
No baloney — the statement is completely accurate
A little baloney — the statement is mostly accurate but more information is required
Some baloney — the statement is partly accurate but important details are missing
A lot of baloney — the statement is mostly inaccurate but contains elements of truth
Full of baloney — the statement is completely inaccurate
Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press |
Time and time again, Halsey’s told us we’ll only know her secrets when she wants us to. She’s nothing if not calculating and there’s hidden meaning behind everything she does. Every word is a piece to a bigger puzzle. At the same time, she’s fun and fearless, constantly vocal about body positivity and self-care. From her start as an exalted Tumblr teen, she’s always been someone fans can relate to. She used to tweet about chocolate milk so much that Nestle sent her a case.
Forget surprise releases -- if new Halsey music doesn’t come with a treasure map and a secret code, it’s like it never happened. The 22-year old New Jersey native - aka Ashley Frangipane - tweeted plans to follow up her Platinum-certified 2015 debut Badlands earlier this month, essentially sending her sizable following off on the hunt. The album’s due in June and it’s called Hopeless Fountain Kingdom. That’s about all we know, but for her fans, that title unlocks a wonder world of possibilities.
With Badlands, Halsey created a tourism site for the place she sang about and sent fans there to find clues. Getting one step ahead of her is near impossible. Still, the album two investigation is now open and underway; turns out, she’s been giving us things to find since 2014. I don’t even want to get into how she broadcasted it to a sold out crowd at Madison Square Garden last summer and never said another word about it. She’s said the album feels “gold” and that it’s named after an actual fountain her ex-boyfriend built in Brooklyn. I dug deeper -- scary deep -- to bring you the past, present, and future of Hopeless Fountain Kingdom.
THE PAST
To understand the foundation of HFK is to understand the foundation of Halsey’s relationship with her ex-boyfriend, Zach Merritt. He was the subject of multiple songs on Badlands and the EP that preceded it, 2014’s Room 93. His Tumblr account is full of connections between himself and Halsey. He was the “boy who lived behind bricks.” Oh, and he is Hopeless Fountain Kingdom.
With his Instagram account and ownership of HopelessFountainKingdom.com, there’s no doubt that this name ties back to Zach. He has multiple IG accounts with names that don’t connect back, but their content is another story. It also looks like another project has popped up with connections to Zach, HFK, and bees (more on the bees later).
If all of that isn’t enough, let’s take a trip back down memory lane to the thank you notes on Badlands: Halsey specifically thanked Zach last, and ended his thank you with the letters “HFK.”
THE PRESENT
The most pressing mystery at the current moment is made up of four Twitter accounts that popped up in early March. There are accounts made for two people (Luna and White Nite) and two houses (House of Aureum and House of Angelus). These fit in perfectly with the Romeo & Juliet-style story Halsey has quietly been setting up. She’s been mailing out R&J quotes to her fans, and it’s obvious from her body ink that she connects deeply with the story. No other connections have come to light yet, but I’m keeping an eye out.
READ MORE 5 Essential Halsey Songs
It seems fitting that Halsey would be Luna and Zach would be the White Nite, with Aureum and Angelus their respective houses. Every account has their location set to “anorev;” that’s Verona (the setting of the Shakespeare tale) spelled backwards. The only account without a set location is Luna’s. Does this mean Halsey isn’t yet in the Kingdom? Or that she left?
There’s only 14 tweets between all four accounts, but there’s more here than just the Shakespeare mystery. The first tweet posted by the Luna account was from a poem posted years ago on Halsey’s “se7enteenblack” tumblr account. The entire account has since been password-locked, but screenshots remain.
Then there are the bees.
I don’t know enough about the meaning behind the bees yet, but I know they’re important. They’ve been used as wax stamps on letters to fans, they’ve made guest appearances in Instagram posts and she had to remove “zzzzzzz” from her Twitter bio when she went on hiatus because thousands of fans tweeted her asking about the bees. When she came back from her hiatus, the visual content was all yellow. Maybe the yellow signifies the “light at the end” that’s just the sun in your eyes in “Young God,” signifying entrance to the Kingdom. Maybe it’s a subliminal campaign promoting Coldplay’s back catalog. Maybe she’s the Queen Bee in the Kingdom. Who knows, honestly.
THE FUTURE
Halsey released Badlands, in 2015. One year prior, she was already tweeting about the Kingdom. One of the first questions presented by fans has been, “Where does this album fall in the Halsey Universe?” Is it the prequel to Badlands, explaining what the Kingdom was like before some sort of apocalyptic event? Or does it come next, explaining where she was going when she said she was “headed straight for the castle” in Badlands’ opening track? Halsey has previously stated that Room 93 existed inside of the Badlands. Does the Kingdom exist within the Badlands? Do the Badlands surround the Kingdom? How does it all fit together?
In terms of the music itself, Halsey has a lot of places she can take this album. Her reach and influence are far higher than at the time of her debut, so she has options for how to approach this next step. She’s spent time with Brendon Urie both performing at Coachella and hanging out at Blink-182 concerts. She attended the Women’s March with Katy Perry, whom she tweeted about wanting to be the “older sister she never had” back in 2014. Perhaps you’ve heard her song with the Chainsmokers? Plus, we can’t forget her longtime friendships with bands like The 1975 and 5 Seconds Of Summer. She could have an album full of cool guests, or she could continue on the “no features” path set by Badlands.
Ashley Frangipane’s life has changed immensely since she was a Jersey kid making the trips into Brooklyn that transformed her into Halsey. Her music’s bound to change with it, compounding the fact she’s never been one to follow set patterns to begin with. Room 93 resided somewhere between electropop and alternative, while Badlands -- strong as it was -- didn’t take the head-turning sonic chances suggested by the dynamic personality that birthed it. But back then, she wasn’t a Platinum-selling artist with over four million Twitter followers, a sprawling fiefdom predisposed to liking whatever she releases.
She’s made it to the castle and taken her spot on the throne. Welcome to her Kingdom. |
The civil aviation director in Honduras has disappeared after authorities accused him of issuing pilot licences without those involved being tested.
Guillermo Seamann allegedly issued a total of 39 certificates to pilots and mechanics from Venezuela and Peru.
Authorities said the applicants never came to Honduras but used local lawyers to obtain the licences.
An arrest warrant was issued for Mr Seamann after he failed to show up at his office on Tuesday.
Charter flights
A spokesman for the prosecutor's office, Melvin Duarte, said Mr Seamann had been under investigation for a month.
Mr Seamann is accused of abuse of authority and, if found guilty, could face a jail term of eight years.
It was not clear whether it was a case of easing the application process or that the applicants did not have enough training.
It is not known what use the Venezuelans and Peruvians made of the licences, which were apparently also valid for flying outside Honduras, local media reported.
Mr Seamann has also been accused of improperly awarding permits to US charter companies to fly to Honduras. |
One of the common criticisms leveled at private health insurance companies is that they are profiting at the expense of sick people. But let's take a closer look at the data and see where it takes us. Do private health insurance companies really make unreasonable profits?
How Common is Private Health Insurance?
Before addressing the question about profits, it's important to look at how common having private health insurance really is in the United States. In other words, how many people might be affected by this question.
According to Kaiser Family Foundation data, roughly a third of Americans had public health insurance in 2016 (mostly Medicare and Medicaid). Another 9 percent were uninsured, but the rest had private health insurance that they either purchased on their own in the individual market (7 percent) or coverage provided by an employer (49 percent). Nearly half of Americans have coverage provided by an employer, although 60 percent of them have coverage that's partially or fully self-funded by the employer (that means the employer has its own fund for covering medical costs, rather than purchasing coverage from a health insurance carrier; in most cases, the employer contracts with a commercial insurance company to administer the benefits—so the enrollees might have plan ID cards that say Humana or Anthem, for example—but it's the employer's money that's being used to pay the claims, as opposed to the insurance company's money).
But many Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries also have coverage that's provided via a private health insurance company, despite the fact that they are enrolled in publicly-funded healthcare plans. 33 percent of Medicare beneficiaries are enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans run by private health insurance carriers, and 39 states have Medicaid managed care contracts with private carriers to cover some or all of their Medicaid enrollees. Even among Original Medicare beneficiaries, a quarter have Medigap plans purchased from private health insurance carriers and this number is increasing (it increased 6 percent from 2013 to 2015 alone).
When we put all that together, it's clear that a significant number of Americans have health coverage that's provided or managed by a private health insurance company. And private health insurance companies tend to get a bad rap when it comes to healthcare costs.
Are Insurer Profits Unreasonable?
Numerous articles have been written by people attempting to find coverage during periods of open enrollment. Some of these appear to conflate revenue with profits which adds to the confusion. Of course, major health insurance carriers have significant revenue, given that they're collecting premiums from so many insureds.
But regardless of how much revenue carriers collect in premiums, they're required to spend most of it on medical claims and healthcare quality improvements. And although a common criticism is that health insurance companies pay their CEOs too much, that's more reflective of the fact that CEO salary growth, in general, has far outpaced overall wage growth over the past several decades. There are no health insurance carriers represented among the 40 firms with the highest-paid CEOs, although there are several pharmaceutical companies.
So while a seven or eight-figure CEO salary seems absurd to the average worker, it's certainly in line with the corporate norm. And health insurance company CEOs are not among the highest paid CEOs of large companies. The fact remains that salaries are part of the administrative costs that health insurance companies are required to limit under the Affordable Care Act's medical loss ratio (MLR) rules. And so are profits.
Under the MLR rules, insurers that sell individual and small group health insurance coverage must spend at least 80 percent of premiums on medical claims and quality improvements for members. No more than 20 percent of premium revenue can be spent on total administrative costs, including profits and salaries. And for insurers that sell large group coverage, the minimum MLR threshold is 85 percent. Insurers that fail to meet these guidelines (ie, they spend more than the allowed percentage on administrative costs, for whatever reason) are required to send rebates to their members. In the first six years of the MLR rule implementation, insurers rebated $3.24 billion to consumers.
How Much Do Health Insurers Profit?
If we look at average profit margins by industry, health insurance companies are in the single digits. For perspective, the legal, real estate, and bookkeeping industries have average profit margins in excess of 17 percent. As far as health care goes, there are certainly some very profitable sectors, including medical and diagnostic laboratories and the pharmaceutical industry.
But health insurance doesn't have the sort of profitability those industry segments are able to generate—partly because health insurance is much more regulated. As described above, the ACA effectively limits the profits insurers can generate, by capping total administrative costs (including profit) as a percentage of revenue. But there's no similar requirement for hospitals, device manufacturers, or drug manufacturers.
However, profits in the health insurance industry have been growing in recent years, fueled in large part by growth in the Medicare Advantage and Medicaid managed care markets. The ACA's medical loss ratio rules don't apply to the private plans that participate in the Medicare and Medicaid markets, although those plans have to win contracts with the governments (state governments for Medicaid managed care contracts, and the federal government for Medicare Advantage plans). So they have to provide a net value to the government in order to win those contracts.
Bottom Line on Profits for Private Insurance Companies: Reasonable or Unreasonable?
Healthcare costs are the driving factor behind health insurance premiums. It's true that private health insurance companies pay their CEOs competitive salaries and they must remain profitable in order to stay in business. But their profits are modest when compared with many other industries.
There is certainly a valid argument in favor of removing the profit motive from health care altogether, which is fueling the surge in support for single payer in the U.S. Proponents of a single payer system generally contend that health care is inherently different from other industries, and should not be profit-driven. On the other hand, supporters of a profit-based health care system believe that profit is essential for encouraging innovation and quality improvements.
Currently, health insurers are the only segment of the health care industry in which profits are directly curtailed. In the rest of the industry (ie, hospitals, device manufacturers, pharmaceuticals, etc.), a more free-market approach is taken. There is certainly an argument to be made for eliminating or further curtailing the profits generated in the health insurance industry, but there is a similar argument for reducing or eliminating profits in health care in general. |
Some mothers spoke of wishing to avoid taking children on the subway. Other people talked about rejiggering appointments to keep from having to take the train at rush hour or to avoid going to Midtown Manhattan at all. Irrational gaming took hold — the R train was probably safer than the Nos. 2 and 3; it always seems less crowded. One longtime resident of Williamsburg posted on Facebook that she now felt uneasy in a neighborhood where she had always felt so safe. If, as in Paris, extremists were going to concentrate on harming the young and urbane, out enjoying stylish consumer pleasures, Williamsburg seemed to possess horrific potential as a focus of interest.
If your friends accused you of indulging an overactive neurosis, you could counter that ISIS has not seemed casual about New York. On Wednesday, a video surfaced that appeared to direct a threat at the United States, using imagery of Times Square and a man strapping explosives to himself. In interviews, Police Commissioner William J. Bratton pointed out that the film used old footage and was largely a piece of propaganda, but that the possibility of terrorism was being taken very seriously. Mayor Bill de Blasio stressed that there had been no real, specific threats to the city and that his administration had just established an elite counterterrorism force. The new team, called the Critical Response Command, is made up of more than 500 officers with special training; roughly 100 of them will patrol the city at any given time. Many more have been taught to handle rapid response to simultaneous attacks.
Since 9/11, the Police Department, in conjunction with federal and international investigators, has thwarted 16 known terrorist plots against New York City. The schemes included a planned cyanide attack on the subway system in 2003; an attack on the New York Stock Exchange and Citigroup headquarters in 2006; and planned suicide bombings of the PATH train along with the detonation of jet-fuel storage tanks at John F. Kennedy Airport, also in 2006. With approximately 35,000 officers, the police force is larger than some armies. Lydia Khalil, a former counterterrorism analyst for the department, said the division she worked in had only grown more sophisticated since she left in 2009.
Ms. Khalil also pointed out that the Muslim population of the United States is better off and better integrated than the Muslim population of Europe. “The thing about having an American identity is that it doesn’t force you to give up another identity,” she said. “I was born in Egypt, and I can retain an Egyptian identity here while still being an American. It’s very difficult within the European context to reconcile two identities.” |
Saudi Arabia executions: Philip Hammond condemned by rights campaigners for 'excusing' mass killings BelfastTelegraph.co.uk The UK Foreign Secretary has been accused of “parroting Saudi Arabian propaganda” after he refused to condemn the mass execution of 47 people in the conservative kingdom. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/saudi-arabia-executions-philip-hammond-condemned-by-rights-campaigners-for-excusing-mass-killings-34347306.html https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/article34189434.ece/7f3f5/AUTOCROP/h342/PANews%20BT_P-896a3045-2cc2-4598-921d-5924409062c8_I1.jpg
Email
The UK Foreign Secretary has been accused of “parroting Saudi Arabian propaganda” after he refused to condemn the mass execution of 47 people in the conservative kingdom.
The government says it has expressed its “disappointment” at the killings, which included a prominent Shia cleric and sparked a diplomatic fallout across the Middle East.
Appearing on the BBC's Today programme, Philip Hammond was asked if Britain was willing to be “more robust” in denouncing the actions of its ally.
But he instead preferred to point to the fact that Iran “executes far more people than Saudi Arabia does”, and said: “Let us be clear, first of all, that these people were convicted terrorists.”
According to rights groups, at least four of the 47 were arrested and killed in relation to political protests, including Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr himself.
Read more
British government does not expect Saudi Arabia to proceed with crucifixion of Ali al-Nimr
Saudi Arabia omitted from UK's death penalty strategy 'to safeguard defence contracts'
But when this was put to Mr Hammond, he suggested there was no point objecting to all Saudi executions because “Sharia law calls for the use of the death penalty and however much we lobby countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran… they are not going to end its use”.
The Foreign Secretary also revealed that he spoke to his Saudi Arabian counterpart in December about reports in this newspaper and others that a mass execution was about to take place. “I urged him that they should not go ahead,” he said, but to no avail.
Human rights groups said it was “appalling” that Mr Hammond refused to go beyond the standard assertion that the UK “does not support the death penalty under any circumstances”.
Read more
Saudi-led air strikes in Yemen hit centre for blind people
UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia 'worth £5.6bn under David Cameron'
UK could be prosecuted for war crimes over missiles sold to Saudi Arabia that were used to kill civilians in Yemen
Maya Foa, head of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said the minister appeared to be “alarmingly misinformed about the mass executions”, repeating the Saudi crown prince’s line from an interview with the Economist where he described all those killed as “terrorists”.
“By refusing to condemn these executions and parroting the Saudis’ propaganda, labelling those killed as 'terrorists', Mr Hammond is coming dangerously close to condoning Saudi Arabia’s approach.”
David Mepham, the UK director of Human Rights Watch, told the Huffington Post that “British policy on Saudi Arabia has reached a new low”.
Read more
Robert Fisk: Saudi Arabia has little to worry about – no state has the moral authority or will to attack this butchery
Isis: Having spent billions, the Wahhabists of Saudi Arabia find they have created a monster
How Saudi Arabia helped Isis take over the north of Iraq
Saudi Arabia is playing destabilising role in the Middle East, German intelligence warns
“It is appalling that Phillip Hammond refused to condemn the mass beheadings that took place in Saudi on January 2, including the execution of the prominent Shia cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.
“Yet pressed on the case in this morning’s BBC interview, the Foreign Secretary chose not to criticise Saudi executions but rather to contextualise, explain and seemingly excuse them.”
Reprieve said its figures showed that of the 158 people killed by the Saudi state in 2015, 72 per cent were convicted of non-lethal offenses such as political protest or drug-related crimes.
It added that, despite Mr Hammond’s “welcome” lobbying on their behalves, three juvenile offenders – Ali al-Nimr, Dawoud al Marhoon and Abdullah al-Zaher – remain on death row “and could be executed at any time”.
Independent
Independent News Service |
Nomura, for instance, believes there is a downside risk to its Q1 GDP growth projection of 6.9% y-o-y. (Source: Reuters)
With consumption spends in rural and urban India stifled by the acute scarcity of cash, the economy is set to clock sharply lower levels of growth in the current and coming quarters. While the initial days of demonetisation saw economists merely pruning their growth estimates, the cuts could get bigger.
Nomura, for instance, believes there is a downside risk to its Q1 GDP growth projection of 6.9% y-o-y. “Near-term growth may fall much more than expected,” economists at the brokerage wrote. They alluded to proprietary indicators which had slumped to their lowest level since the series started in 1996 and were consistent with a below 6% GDP growth.
While sales have decelerated across markets, given the larger volume of cash transactions, the hinterland has been hurt far more than urban areas.
Economists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofAML) estimate every month of disruption due to demonetisation costs between 0.3- 0.5% of GDP. Consequently, they are now looking at a FY17 GDP growth target of just 6.9% rather than the 7.7%. At a time when consumption was driving the economy in the absence of investments, the hit to sales of big-ticket items—property, jewellery, cars and other durables—will deal a blow to the economy.
Credit Suisse has reworked its forecast for GDP growth in FY17 to 6.9% from a more robust 7.8% since it feels consumption will grow at a much slower 6.5%, way below the 8.2% anticipated before demonetisation.
“Businesses, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises, and sectors like automobiles and non-bank finance companies will probably see temporary disruptions as well,” the brokerage wrote.
High frequency indicators show the economy has been sluggish (see charts) — the contraction in railway freight together with slowing sales of commercial vehicles is a sign of weak demand. While consumer goods sales had started picking up after the raises for government employees, demonetisation will put the brakes on consumption for the next few months. In the meanwhile, investment continues to be anaemic; gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) contracted for the third straight quarter in Q2FY17 after increasing by sub-1% in Q3FY16.
Consequently, corporate earnings could continue to disappoint; Bofa ML estimates a downside risk of anywhere between 1-6% to its FY17 earnings estimates. To be sure, the recovery reflected in the Q2FY17 results may seem impressive, analysts point out these came off a low base. More pertinently, underlying trends — volumes for instance — have been subdued. BofA points out that Q2FY17 aggregate numbers are somewhat misleading because of the 70 sub-sectors that it tracks, the fewest number at 61% have delivered a growth in earnings before interest and tax (ebit).
“Demonetisation plus GST mean earnings will be volatile for the next 3-4 quarters,” the brokerage wrote recently, adding further downgrades were possible. “Demonetisation measures will not help,” Kotak Institutional Equities (KIE) wrote in a recent report. The brokerage, nevertheless, expects earnings to grow 13% and 20% in FY17 and FY18, respectively. That’s on the back of profits in sectors such as PSU banks, metals & mining and pharmaceuticals getting normalised.
The brokerage cautions that there are potential risks to earnings in sectors such as cement, consumer discretionary and industrials on the back of weaker-than-expected demand and profitability. “Weakness in demand will also hurt profitability disproportionately,” KIE noted. |
The White House on Thursday ripped GOP Sen. Bob Corker Robert (Bob) Phillips CorkerBrexit and exit: A transatlantic comparison Sasse’s jabs at Trump spark talk of primary challenger RNC votes to give Trump 'undivided support' ahead of 2020 MORE (R-Tenn.) for questioning President Trump's stability and competence, calling it a "ridiculous and outrageous" claim.
Last week, Corker lamented that Trump “has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability, nor some of the competence, that he needs to demonstrate in order for him to be successful.”
When asked about the criticism, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders swatted aside the harsh words from the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
ADVERTISEMENT
"I think that’s a ridiculous and outrageous claim and doesn’t dignify a response from this podium,” Sanders said Thursday at the White House briefing.
Corker made his remarks at a Rotary Club meeting back in his home state of Tennessee days after politicians on both sides criticized Trump for his reaction to the violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., where a counterprotester died.
The senator’s comments raised eyebrows both because of his stature within Congress as well as his past support for Trump. Corker is up for reelection in 2018.
Trump has not responded directly to the criticism. |
All nation states are founded on the nationalist belief that each nation has a specific claim to a specific territory. Nationalists can and do recognise other nations claims to other territories, but almost all make an exclusive claim to at least some territory. This claim is, by definition, an expression of group superiority. The members of the nation, according the nationalist movement in question, possess an inherently superior claim to the territory, purely by membership of the group. They do not have to do anything for it. The claim covers not only their claimed right to live there, but their claimed right to exclude others. There is one exception to this pattern: the diaspora nationalism of the Roma. The Roma do not know exactly where their ancestral homeland is located. Therefore, in sharp contrast to other nationalist movements, Roma nationalism does not claim territory. And until they know where it is, Roma nationalists can not attempt to expel the existing inhabitants of that territory. All existing nation states do make a claim of superior right to national territory. In all cases, this claim is made on behalf of a single ethnic group, or a cluster of ethnic groups (titular nation plus national minorities). That the groups are ethnic is the source of most of the racism in ideology and policy. If states were exclusively founded on gender, their ideology might be sexist, but not racist. Conversely, all nation states claim that other groups do not possess that specific right to the territory in question. Irish nationalists believe that the 'Irish people' have a superior right to the island of Ireland, and that the Paraguayan people do not possess this right. They believe that individual Irishmen and Irish women are the bearers of this collective right, and that these individuals can not be denied the right to reside in Ireland. They they do not believe this about randomly selected individual Paraguayans. Ireland has no indigenous ethnic minorities so the definition of the nation is relatively simple. However these beliefs can be held on behalf of more than one national group, but never on behalf of all nations of the world - at least not in any existing nation state. The formal expression of these underlying beliefs is the citizenship and immigration policy of the nation states. Note that nothing stops Irish and Paraguayan nationalists from respecting each others claims, especially since they have no common disputed territory. However, that does not make their claims any less racist. It is often said, that the nation states have widely differing conceptions of citizenship. In fact they all operate in conformity with these two principles of superior claim, and legitimate exclusion. All existing nation states share two other characteristics. No nation state has an absolute open-border policy (totally free immigration), and all nation states allow the acquisition of citizenship by descent. These four characteristics allow Zionism to be considered racist - in the company of other nationalisms, including the quasi-official ideologies of each nation state. The superior claim to national territory is the attribution of a superior quality to members of the national group. The denial of this claim to certain other ethnic groups is the attribution of an inferior status to their members. The lack of an open-door immigration policy means, that these claims are translated into real exclusion. Finally, the acquisition of citizenship by descent is a purely biological mechanism: it is racist in the general sense, but it is also closest to the biological ideologies first described by the term 'racism'. French and German attitudes are said to represent the extremes of citizenship policy, but in fact both states share a biological concept of citizenship. Both illustrate this core policy, despite their differences in emphasis. Germany has a generally restrictive immigration policy, which it relaxed in the 1960's and 1970's to allow labour migration for (West) German industry. The children of the many Turkish immigrants grew up in Germany as foreign citizens, with a Turkish passport and a German residence permit. Even the third generation, often born in Germany of German-born parents, usually speaking only German, were still Turkish citizens. If they committed a crime they were liable to be deported to Turkey, even if they did not speak a word of Turkish and had never been there before. Only in the last few years has naturalisation become almost automatic for the third generation. In contrast, descendants of Germans who settled in eastern Europe, sometimes two or three centuries ago, can arrive in Germany and claim full citizenship. It is not necessary that their parents are German citizens, and they are not required to speak a word of German. The German state will pay for their full integration in German society, because they are considered part of the German 'Volk'. French policies are based on different assumptions, about the effectiveness of French society in transferring its own core values. Living in France for a long period, or growing up in France, is considered to effectively assimilate the migrant or the child. (There is an underlying belief in the self-evident superiority of French values). Naturalisation is therefore easier, and in principle birth in France confers citizenship - but the parents must get there first, for the child to be born there. However in both cases a basic rule applies, which undermines the French pretensions to have a 'non-racist' citizenship and nationality policy. The child born of citizens is a citizen. All existing nation states apply this principle, usually without regard to place of birth. The child born to a French-citizen mother and a French-citizen father, in Zambia, is a French citizen. The child born to a German-citizen mother and a German-citizen father, in Zambia, is a German citizen. No special procedure is required of either the parents or the baby, and no supplementary qualifications. The child of Zambian parents, who have no German or French ancestors and no connection with Germany or France, can make no claim on the citizenship of these countries. Both doors are equally closed. That essential inequality is by definition racist. As an adult, the Zambian child can later try to enter either country, and acquire citizenship. That means going through a special procedure, and meeting certain norms, for instance on educational level. Ultimately, acquiring citizenship might be easier in France, but there is no guarantee there either. This is the reality of nation states: most people got their citizenship from their parents, and they did nothing for it. They certainly did not have to cross the Strait of Gibraltar in a small boat, and spend 10 years picking tomatoes or cleaning toilets - which is what a Zambian might do to acquire legal residence in an EU country. In other words the average citizen, certainly in the richer countries, is complicit in a grand racist scheme. They benefit greatly from their privilege at birth, while others lose horribly. That is presumably why they don't like to talk about the issue, but in terms of human suffering this is the worst aspect of the inherent racism of the nation states. If adults in a western city were arrested, and condemned on the basis of their ethnicity to the typical conditions of life in rural Africa, it would be considered a crime against humanity. Origins and definition of Zionism The racist characteristics of nationalism can be found in the Zionist ideology and in the State of Israel, a nation state. The word Zionism is used today for the foundational ideology of the Israeli nation state - the claims by which it justifies its existence. However Zionism as a nationalist movement is older than that state: past and present Zionism do not always coincide. Zionism is a diaspora nationalism of the Jewish people. In a diaspora nationalism, most members of the national group are not resident on the claimed national territory, and the nation state can only be achieved by 'return' migration. Zionism is an unusual nationalism: it is largely the creation of a single individual, Theodor Herzl. He was the first to make a public claim to a Jewish State, and promoted that idea in Europe. His work reflected the general climate of nationalist revival movements in eastern Europe at the time, especially in the Austro-Hungarian empire. It was almost inevitable, that a Jewish movement would identify Jews as 'a people' when all around them Germans, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Ruthenians, Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, and Hungarians were doing the same. The other historically possible options - a purely religious revival movement, and an emancipation movement - were side-tracked. Zionism is also unusual because, in the early years, there was no clear idea of the national homeland. There was a clear territorial concentration of Jews in Europe, in what is now Poland, Belarus, the Ukraine and southern Russia. However, except for local concentrations, they were in a minority even in this territory. The idea of a Jewish nation state in eastern Europe was never influential in Zionism. Some of the early plans for Jewish resettlement were not even formally nationalist: they made no claim to a state. Resettlement in a British colony, such as Uganda, was for a time the most serious option. The negotiations came to nothing - but the idea influenced British policy, when Palestine became a British mandate territory, after the First World War. By the time of the Balfour Declaration, Zionism was a standard nationalist movement. Zionists claimed to speak on behalf of a people, the Jewish people. They claimed a nation state for that people in Palestine, on the grounds that it was the historic homeland of the Jewish people. The 'Jewish people' for almost all Zionists was (and is) an ethno-national group - and not a religious community. A minority of religious Jews still opposes Zionism for religious reasons. Zionism in the State of Israel When the State of Israel came into existence, it included a mainly Arab minority, now about one million people. Historically Zionism has never recognised any 'national minority' within the nation, the status of (for instance) the Frisians within the modern Dutch nation. For Zionists, the Jewish people is the Jewish nation: Zionism is a mono-ethnic nationalism comparable to Irish nationalism. The present State of Israel generally has the constitutional structure of a secular nation state. It has conceded citizenship to the 'Israeli Arabs', although many will identify themselves as 'Palestinians'. However there is no tradition in Zionism which sees this group ('Arabs' or 'Palestinians') as a constituent minority of the Jewish people. Although many Zionists claimed the territory where Yasir Arafat lived, no Zionist ever saw him as a Jew. There is also no nationalist movement to establish a bi-national state on the former mandate territory of Palestine. Zionism is not such a movement, and the State of Israel does not claim to be a bi-national state. In this respect, Zionism is comparable to Czech nationalism or Slovak nationalism - not to Czechoslovak nationalism.. No Zionists call themselves Palestino-Jews or Judaeo-Palestinians. The State is called Israel, not Filastino-Israel or Israelo-Filastina Within this framework, which includes contradictory ideas about Israeli citizenship, the four racist characteristics can be identified. Firstly, the Zionist movement historically made a claim to territory on behalf of 'the Jewish people', an exclusive geopolitical claim. It claimed that individual Jews had a right to residence in that territory, which did not apply to randomly selected non-Jews outside that territory. None of the early Zionists advocated the ethnic cleansing, which in fact preceded the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 - but none of them believed that non-Jews had a right to the Jewish homeland either. Zionists attribute a superior quality to Jews, namely the exclusive right to the Jewish national territory. The State of Israel, by definition, claims Israeli territory for Israeli's. It attributes a superior quality to Israeli's, although paradoxically that includes the Arab minority with Israeli citizenship. However, the State of Israel is not 'Israelist' - in the sense of consistently presenting these claims for both its Jewish and Arab citizens. In official pronouncements, such as its defensive speech to the Durban anti-racism conference, Israel continues to claim state legitimacy as the national homeland for the 'Jewish people'. It is therefore not correct to say, that in Israel Jewish diaspora nationalism has been succeeded by Israeli nationalism. The legitimising ideology of Israel is still largely Zionism, and not 'Israelism'. Secondly, Zionism attributes an inferior status to members of non-Jewish ethno-national groups: that they lack the absolute right to residence in the Jewish homeland, and to citizenship of a Jewish nation state. The State of Israel confers no right of residence or citizenship on persons born outside Israel, unless they have specific links to Israel, to the Jewish people, or to Judaism. That excludes about 99% of the world population. The only exception to the general pattern of nationalist exclusion is, that the State of Israel extends citizenship to the historically resident Arab minority. However, some groups in Israel dispute even their right to residence, and propose their expulsion as part of a 'peace settlement' - together with the expulsion of Palestinians from all or part of the occupied territories. According to a 2003 opinion poll in Israel (Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies), 31% now support the expulsion of the Arab minority, and 46% support clearance of the territories. The most obvious exclusion, which was not foreseen by the early Zionists, is the status of the Palestinians in the occupied territories. Theodor Herzl never imagined that a Jewish state would be an occupying power, and therefore the de facto government, for a large non-Jewish population. In addition, about three million people belong to the clearly identifiable 'Palestinian-refugee' minorities, in other Arab countries, although most were born in their present country of residence. The State of Israel clearly attributes an inferior status to this population: namely that they do not possess the right to Israeli citizenship. This population is generally equivalent to the 'Palestinian people' in the occupied territories, although it includes small non-Jewish, non-Arab minorities. The members of this population, (primarily Palestinian), can not vote, for instance, and if they did all vote in Israeli elections, it would mean the end of the State of Israel. Again it is true that all nation states operate this exclusion, and none of them extend citizenship to everyone, certainly not to hostile populations. That does not make such policies any less racist, since the exclusions are by definition on ethnic or national grounds. That would not matter so much, if Israeli borders were open to all immigrants: but they are not, and this is the third racist characteristic of Zionism. Israel has one of the highest immigration rates in history, but immigration policy has always been restrictive. Although Israel grants citizenship to the resident Arab minority, it does not permit Arab immigration, even by former residents of its territory. Only those who stayed in their villages in 1948 got Israeli citizenship: those who crossed the front line to the Arab side can not get back - not as a citizen, and probably not as a visitor. Other Arabs, who have no connection with Palestine, can not simply migrate to Israel, nor can most of the world's population. Israeli immigration is essentially for Jews only, and this is the most obviously racist policy of present Zionism. In this case, the State of Israel has a formal and explicit policy of Jewish immigration, which is clearly Zionist. It is the logical consequence of the original Zionist demand for a Jewish state formed by migration, meaning migration of Jews. In one respect Israeli policy differs from most national immigration policies: citizenship can be indirectly acquired on religious grounds. A person who converts to Judaism can be a Jew in the sense of the Israeli Law of Return, if the conversion is accepted as valid by religious authorities in Israel. The convert can then go to Israel (entry can not be legally refused), and can claim Israeli nationality and citizenship. Sometimes this is quoted by Israel's supporters, to show Israel is not racist. In theory, all the inhabitants of the Palestinian territories can sincerely convert to Judaism tomorrow, and on acceptance of their conversion move to Israel. - where they will all presumably live as good and prosperous Israeli citizens. In practice this is absurdly unlikely. And the question is: why should they have to convert to Judaism, when native-born atheist or Buddhist Israelis can still be part of the Jewish people? This is the fourth racist characteristic, equally present in the state policies of Israel and present Zionist belief. It was not very relevant for the early Zionists, who were too far from a Jewish state to think about its future citizenship policy. Nevertheless, it was predictable even at the time Herzl wrote, on the basis of the general characteristics of European nation states (and of the Austro-Hungarian empire where he lived). The child of an Israeli citizen mother and and Israeli citizen father is an Israeli citizen. (I am not sure if this applies to the children of Israeli Arabs, born in the occupied territories). The child acquires this privilege without effort: no application under the Law of Return, no conversion to Judaism, no other qualification for citizenship. The child simply acquires the rights (and duties) of an Israeli citizen through unconscious biological process. The child without this biological advantage (birth, or parentage, or genetic material) does not automatically acquire citizenship. Life in Israel is not always pleasant, and many western Jews hesitate to emigrate there, but within the region an Israeli-born child has the advantage. The child born to Israeli settlers in central Hebron will statistically live longer, be better educated, and have a higher standard of living, then the Palestinian child born in an adjoining house. This advantage is part of the general advantage of being born in a rich country, which about one-fifth of the world's population share. In citizenship and immigration issues, biology determines fate. Not inevitably, but because nation states are structured that way. There is no inherent moral reason why states should limit immigration, or residence, or citizenship, simply on grounds of birth. In fact, it is hard to think of any moral justification for it. It is clearly racist in the general sense of the word, and its derivation from the ideology of nationalism indicates the racist origins of that ideology. The nationalism underlying the nation state Israel, which is accurately called Zionism, is no different in this respect. Here too, Zionism is racist. |
The lurid saga of Rurik Jutting came to an end in Hong Kong early this month when the former British banker was convicted of murdering two Indonesian women at his luxury apartment. One victim was stuffed into a suitcase on an apartment balcony, and Jutting's scheme of rape and torture apparently involved a phone camera, zip ties, a makeshift gag, a hammer, and a serrated knife.
While the case was remarkable for its wanton brutality and glitzy setting, safety for sex workers is elusive at best in Hong Kong—especially when they work in their own (far less glamorous) homes, as per local custom.
The laws surrounding sex work are complicated in the city, where the legal system consists of a tangled yarn of a colonial British past and ever-growing influence from China. While solicitation for "immoral" purposes in public is flatly illegal, prostitution itself generally flies—even if it's not on the books. As the Hong Kong police's public relations bureau put it in an email, "The act of prostitution itself is not illegal."
For sex workers—many of them migrants, who often come from the Chinese mainland—this means in practice that they can offer services, but only if they are alone, in their own apartments. The strange state of affairs has led to the proliferation of what are called "one-woman brothels," stemming from an old Cantonese term that literally translates to "one room, one phoenix." Often tiny, dingy spots, these makeshift businesses are found via word-of-mouth or illegal internet advertisements. And the conditions there suggest Hong Kong's laissez-faire, not-legal-but-not-illegal stance toward sex work is leaving many women at the mercy of predators, some of them cops.
There are roughly 2,700 one-woman brothels in Hong Kong, according to an estimate by Ziteng, the most prominent NGO in the city advocating for sex workers' rights. (The group concedes its tally is just a rough estimate obtained by combing through internet ads.) People working there face an avalanche of risks. Serial killer Nadeem Razaq targeted one-woman brothel sex workers back in 2008, ultimately killing at least three people. (He was found hanged in his cell this month.) And even when workers avoid sociopaths, there are effectively no protections against crimes like robbery or assault when a sex worker has to operate a brothel on their own.
"These women can't expose their business and that makes them vulnerable to danger," says Mabel Au, director of Amnesty International Hong Kong, which is spearheading a campaign to decriminalize sex work in the city and elsewhere. "The law drives them to operate underground, alone, and because of that they face robbery, sexual assault—and they're hesitant to report it the police."
In fact, Hong Kong police have been accused in the past of threatening or entrapping sex workers instead of protecting them from danger. While this is not exactly unprecedented in Western countries where prostitution remains illegal and vice cops are plentiful, critics suggest it is deeply engrained into local policing in Hong Kong.
"It's commonly known that the police go undercover [to arrest sex workers]," explains Patricia Ho, one of the city's most prominent human rights lawyers. "It's part of their job that they go undercover, and certainly some take advantage of their role," she adds, referring to allegations of verbal, physical, and sexual assault at one-woman brothels.
In January, police sergeant Chu Chi-ho was sentenced to 20 months imprisonment for coercing sex from a one-woman brothel worker. "The police do seem to take very decisive action when they have any evidence of an officer doing this type of thing—but, he was off duty at the time," notes Ho, suggesting this was a rare conviction.
Monica*, who's been operating her one-woman-brothel for three months, tells VICE she'd never call the police to report a crime or any other dangerous situation. A sex worker in a brothel next door recently told her that a policeman forced her to shower naked for his own pleasure, she says.
Besides, Monica's already had a creepy brush with the police of her own: While working in a massage parlor, a normal raid escalated when the electricity to the parlor was cut by the cops and she was strip-searched along with the other women. Some employees were asked to jump up and down after they were stripped naked, she claims.
"I'm scared of the police—I don't know my rights, I don't know to what extent they have power, and I'm afraid of being taken to the police station and being coerced in to giving a statement," Monica says. Last month, a cop suddenly entered her apartment without permission, she adds, after she left it unlocked while inside. He was there for a common "license check"—when police check for identity cards.
Fortunately, Monica wasn't in the middle of a job.
Prices are posted in Hong Kong Dollars inside the work apartment of sex worker 'Miss F' in Sham Shui Po on the edge of Mong Kok in Hong Kong on October 8, 2014. Photo by Chris Stowers/MCT via Getty Images
Monica still remembers how excited she was at the prospect of working in the city after growing up on the Chinese mainland. "I thought Hong Kong was heaven before I moved here," she says. Many sex workers in Hong Kong who come from China hail from third-tier cities and rural villages in the provinces.
While Monica has it easier than many other sex workers from the mainland—a marriage to a Hong Kong man permitted her an identity card—sex workers from China often don't have the legal right to work in the city.
"If a woman reports a crime at a one-woman brothel, but she doesn't have an identity card, the police will immediately arrest her," says Pang*, an advocate at Ziteng. "Filing a complaint from jail is obviously difficult. We've heard of one successful case, and one only—it took nine months."
Amnesty's research also suggests the police are more likely to incriminate sex workers than protect them. "The Hong Kong police showed us an internal document that police are allowing undercover identities to entrap sex workers and successfully charge them with soliciting, and then arrest them," Au claims.
Check out our interview with one of Cuba's female skateboarding pioneers.
Mei*, who's been operating a one-woman brothel for 30 years, remembers when a friend of hers—operating a brothel in the same building—met an undercover cop. He availed himself of her services, put down his gun when they were finished, said he was a cop, and left without paying. Mei, who has a local identity card, goes on to say that she's heard stories from friends—who hail from the Chinese mainland and lack identity cards—about being physically and sexually assaulted at their brothels by the police. Ziteng's Pang likewise recounts having worked with multiple women who claim to have endured assaults by cops at their brothels.
"It's important for us to protect ourselves because the cops won't," Mei says. "Even if we call the cops and they come, they verbally insult us and tell us we should have expected something bad to happen because we're prostitutes, and we have no human rights."
When I asked the police's public relations bureau to respond to allegations at one-woman brothels of assault, exploitation, and neglect, a spokesperson did not refute the allegations so much as elide them.
"The primary objectives of police enforcement actions are to prevent exploitation of those engaged in prostitution, combat organized prostitution activities, and minimize the nuisance caused to members of the public," the spokesperson said via email. "Internal guidelines require officers at the rank of Senior Superintendent to closely supervise every operation that involves police agents, to ensure that the tactics employed in gathering evidence (including the extent of body contact with sex workers) are strictly necessary and proportional to the purpose of the operation."
For groups like Amnesty and advocates like Au, there's a difficult road ahead when it comes to decriminalizing sex work—and bringing it out into the open. After all, it took more than a decade for advocates to secure an amendment to the city's sexual discrimination ordinance that barred sexual harassment at the workplace—and that was just two years ago.
"Amending a law is a very long process in my experience," says Au. "But at least decriminalizing sex work will make sex workers visible."
*Last names have been withheld to protect sources' identities.
Follow Justin Heifetz on Twitter. |
SOCIEDAD › TRAGEDIA POR UN TREN DEL SARMIENTO QUE NO PARO AL LLEGAR A ONCE; HUBO 50 MUERTOS Y 675 HERIDOS
La formación salió de Moreno y llevaba 1200 personas. A las 8.32 venía desacelerando, pero 40 metros antes del final dejó de frenar y chocó con el andén. No sabemos qué pasó ahí, dijo Schiavi. Hubo heridos que quedaron atrapados varias horas.
Por Emilio Ruchansky
Imagen: EFE. Imagen: EFE.
La tercera mayor tragedia de la historia de los ferrocarriles argentinos sucedió en hora pico, a la vista de miles de pasajeros y quedó registrada por varias cámaras. Ocurrió ayer a las 8.32, cuando un tren de la línea Sarmiento chocó contra el tope de la estación terminal de Once. Murieron por lo menos 50 personas y 676 resultaron heridas. Según informó el secretario de Transporte de la Nación, la causa habría sido un desperfecto con los frenos. El maquinista, agregó Juan Pablo Schiavi, es un hombre joven, que estaba descansado y permanece en terapia intensiva. A la altura de Caballito se notaba que desaceleraba demasiado antes de llegar a cada estación, como que no podía frenar y el tren iba repleto, vi gente lastimada por el piso, por todos lados, contó Marcelo, un sobreviviente. Anoche, cientos de personas peregrinaban por los hospitales y las morgues. El gobierno nacional y el porteño declararon dos días de duelo y la Presidenta envió un mensaje de condolencia a los familiares de las víctimas.
Al momento del choque hubo una pequeña explosión. Fue el sonido que hizo el segundo vagón, que era un furgón, cuando se incrustó por casi siete metros dentro del primero, donde suele viajar más gente para bajarse cerca de la salida, detalló a este diario el vocero de la Policía Federal, Fernando Sostre, cerca de los molinetes de la Estación Once. En total, la formación llevaba ocho coches y pretendía estacionar en el andén número 2, cercano a la calle Mitre. Viajaban alrededor de 1200 personas.
Schiavi reveló que, de acuerdo con el equipo GPS instalado en el tren, a 10 cuadras de la terminal la velocidad de la formación pasó de 47 a 39 kilómetros por hora; luego, cuando faltaban 300 metros, bajó a 27 y al entrar al andén iba a 26. El último registro muestra que a 40 metros del tope desciende a 20 kilómetros por hora. Eran velocidades habituales. Ahí está la parte de incógnita y de responsabilidad. No sabemos qué pasó porque el conductor estaba en su lugar de trabajo y el tren no paró, dijo Schiavi.
Durante la conferencia, el secretario de Transporte informó que el maquinista Antonio Córdoba, de 28 años, tiene una foja de servicios impecable y tomó la cabina en Castelar. Era su primer servicio del día y estaba descansado, agregó. Córdoba quedó internado en la clínica Fitz Roy y según Omar Maturano, del gremio de maquinistas La Fraternidad, estaba consciente pero muy schokeado: Nadie pudo hablar con él porque no hablaba. Los rescatistas tardaron dos horas para sacarlo.
Tras el impacto y luego de que la mayor parte de los pasajeros bajara, las tareas de los bomberos, agentes de Defensa Civil y de la Policía Federal se centraron en el primer vagón, 2149, y el segundo, 2618, donde la mayor parte de las víctimas falleció aplastada. Entre las escenas más desesperantes estuvo la de un joven de remera azul, aprisionado entre cadáveres, que aguardaba ser rescatado mientras tomaba el agua que le alcanzaban los rescatistas. También se veía personas con medio cuerpo fuera, que luego saldrían en camilla, con las piernas fracturadas.
Sobre el cruce de la calle Mitre y la avenida Pueyrredón, el operativo fue creciendo con las horas: había decenas de ambulancias, carros de bomberos, helicópteros que trasladaban a los pacientes más urgentes y un gran despliegue de la Policía Federal y la Metropolitana. Tuvimos que sacar mucha gente por el techo, usando roldanas y un trípode, comentó Sostre en el hall de la estación, minutos después de que allí se viviera una situación extrema: un niño que acababa de ser rescatado falleció en la camilla, pese a todos los esfuerzos de los médicos por reanimarlo.
Las estructuras de los trenes son muy complicadas y rígidas, se complicó mucho moverlas, las personas estaban atrapadas y aprisionadas entre sí. El trabajo de Bomberos fue tremendo y angustiante por algunos momentos, admitió Daniel Russo, director de Defensa Civil del gobierno porteño. Además de Schiavi y Russo, por la Estación Once pasaron el ministro porteño de Seguridad, Guillermo Montenegro, y el de Salud de la Nación, Juan Manzur, quienes revisaron el operativo conjunto.
Cerca de las escaleras que dan a la calle Mitre, dentro de la estación, se estableció una primera parada para los heridos, que eran divididos por su gravedad, se les colocaba cuello ortopédico en algunos casos y en otros simplemente se los calmaba hasta la derivación. Casi todos los centros de salud porteños recibieron pacientes. La mayor parte fueron derivados a los hospitales Durand (194), Ramos Mejía (50) y Rivadavia (44). También hubo heridos en el Penna, Fernández, Piñero, Argerich, Tornú, Zubizarreta, Alvarez, Santojanni, Vélez Sarsfield y Pirovano.
Estoy buscando a Sonia Torres. Se subió en Moreno, soy la tía. No responde el celular y tenía que venir a trabajar conmigo, hacemos limpieza en varias casas. Ni siquiera sé cómo estaba vestida, pero tenía la costumbre de viajar adelante, decía a Página/12 María Elena Rolón, su tía, en la puerta del Hospital Ramos Mejía. La situación se repetía en casi todos los centros de salud. Por los pasillos circulaban los caranchos, esos abogados dedicados a comenzar litigios tras accidentes.
Pasado el mediodía, con la situación controlada y decenas de guantes de látex tirados sobre el asfalto, la policía científica comenzó a retirar las cadáveres cerca de la salida de la calle Perón. A 400 metros, sobre la misma calle, se veía un perfil del colectivo 92 arrollado por un tren en un paso a nivel del barrio porteño de Flores, el 13 de septiembre pasado, en el que fallecieron nueve personas.
Entre las víctimas fatales, según informó Schiavi, hay más mujeres que varones y hay mucha gente joven. Gustavo, un sobreviviente, mencionó una hipótesis ante los periodistas apostados en el Hospital Ramos Mejía: Mucha gente iba a Once a comprar útiles, mochilas y guardapolvos para las clases y ropa para los chicos. Entre los 50 fallecidos hay un solo menor de edad. De los sobrevivientes que están internados, 50 están graves, con fracturas expuestas y de tórax. A varios debió amputársele alguna extremidad.
Con el panorama más definido, varios dirigentes sindicales plantearon que hay deficiencias del servicio de trenes operados por la empresa TBA. El delegado Rubén Pollo Sobrero aseguró que la formación que chocó fue revisada en el taller un día antes. Horacio Caminos, vocero de La Fraternidad, indicó que algunos de esos vagones son de los años 60 y denunció la supuesta desinversión de TBA: Los trabajadores todos los días tienen que poner los trenes en condiciones para poder salir.
Por el mismo medio, Facundo Moyano, titular de la Juventud Sindical, consideró como macabro lo ocurrido y denunció que la falta de control estatal y la desidia empresaria costó 50 trabajadores muertos. Ambos pidieron que el gobierno nacional quite la concesión a la empresa. TBA emitió por la tarde un comunicado: La compañía lamenta el accidente y envía sus condolencias a los familiares de los pasajeros fallecidos y se mantiene muy preocupada por el estado de salud de todas las personas lesionadas. Los voceros de la empresa evitaron atender llamadas.
Queremos ver si es un accidente y si fue un accidente queremos ver la responsabilidad, por lo que significa para el sistema ferroviario, donde se ha invertido muchísima plata en los últimos años, sostuvo Schiavi. Luego insistió en que hay mucho material para la investigación que lleva juez Claudio Bonadío: el audio de las comunicaciones entre la cabina y el control, el GPS y las cámaras dentro y fuera del tren, entre otras pruebas. En las morgues continuaban identificando cuerpos.
[email protected] |
What was the best part of the Kansas City Chiefs win over the Oakland Raiders? I asked that question to Chiefs fans after the game and got a wide range of answers.
Some said it was the cornerback play, which I agree was excellent even with the circumstances. Some said it was the way the Chiefs inside linebackers attacked Marshawn Lynch which was also awesome. Others said the offensive line, the defensive line and even special teams with four field goals.
What was the best part of the Chiefs win? I say the pass rush coming alive — Arrowhead Pride (@ArrowheadPride) December 10, 2017
My favorite part? The pass rush. The cornerback play is a close second but I’m not sure how sustainable it is to play that well (you can’t play Derek Carr every week).
The Chiefs big plays came from the pressure they put on Carr.
Here are Carr’s stats under pressure (via PFF): 3/9 passing for 35 Yards, one TD, one INT, three sacks and a 43.5 rating.
The biggest thing missing in the Chiefs defense has been the turnovers and I believe a big part of that is that the Chiefs weren’t pressuring the quarterback during their losing streak.
They came out early and got Carr on the first drive in this game. Chris Jones had another play where he hit Carr as he threw and it popped up in the air for an interception. Carr didn’t look comfortable and it showed when he was pressured.
The best thing that can continue is the Chiefs pass rush. It has to be like this in every big game the rest of the way, including Sunday against the Chargers. |
Is it possible the Diamondbacks could become a late entrant in bidding for Asdrubal Cabrera or perhaps Neil Walker?
Chris Owings, who plays regularly between second and shortstop for the Diamondbacks, suffered a fractured middle finger on his right hand. Arizona already had lost shortstop Nick Ahmed (fractured hand). That leaves them with Ketel Marte at short and Brandon Drury at second and Daniel Descalso as the depth — at least until Ahmed returns in about a month.
That seemingly would make Asdrubal Cabrera and Neil Walker potential pieces for Arizona. However, while one Diamondbacks official said the team is exploring possibilities, the strong likelihood was that they would stay as they are at the deadline. This is an area, they believe, that could be addressed in August if need be with players passing through waivers, possibly including Cabrera and Walker if they are not dealt by Monday’s non-waiver deadline.
Jonathan Lucroy has had a poor season, but it still is better (slightly) than what the Rockies have been getting out of their catchers.
So Colorado will hope a change of scenery helps him and what is now his new team after the Rockies obtained Lucroy from the Rangers.
Lucroy is in his walk year and Texas showed no indication it wanted to sign him long term, even after giving up significant prospects for him at the deadline last year. Lucroy has just four homers and a .635 OPS. But Colorado catchers have the majors’ fewest homers (three) and the NL’s lowest OPS (.617).
Using Fangraph’s version of Wins Above Replacement, six of the top 50 relievers already had been traded by late afternoon Sunday: Tommy Kahnle (7), Anthony Swarzak (8), Pat Neshek (9), Ryan Madson (21), Brandon Maurer (40) and David Robertson (46). And perhaps as many as eight more could go before Monday’s deadline: Brad Hand (12), Trevor Rosenthal (13), Jim Johnson (23), Joe Smith (26), David Hernandez (27), Addison Reed (31), Justin Wilson (38) and Brad Brach (39). |
An Anne Arundel County developer wants to tear down Whites Hall, the Gambrills house where Johns Hopkins was born.
Millersville-based Polm Cos. requested a demolition permit for the property on Jan. 13, according to an application obtained by The Capital.
Hopkins, who helped start the hospital and the university named after him in Baltimore, was born in the two-story, red brick house in 1795. His great-grandfather, Gerard Hopkins II, bought the tract of land in Gambrills in 1719 and the house was built sometime between 1784 and 1792, according to state records.
Over the years, the once-1,800-acre property has dwindled, giving way to townhouses and a golf course.
Today, Whites Hall sits on 13 acres of land that Polm Cos. President Rick Polm bought through development interests a decade ago. The company has applied to build an 80-unit, 74,000-square-foot assisted living facility called Spring Arbor on a 10.5 acre plot of land next door.
That project has been a point of contention among some local residents, who have raised concerns about traffic and Spring Arbor's proximity to the Hopkins birthplace. But the developer has not previously discussed plans for the historic site itself.
It was unclear Wednesday what plans Polm Cos. has for the Whites Hall land if the house is razed. Reached by phone, the developer's construction manager Rick Coyle — who submitted the application for demolition — said the request had nothing to do with the proposed assisted living facility.
Coyle would not elaborate on why the company wants to take down the house, and referred questions to Polm, who did not respond to a request for comment.
Though Whites Hall was entered into the Maryland Historical Trust's Inventory of Historic Properties in 1969, the inventory is not a regulatory tool, meaning it doesn't provide special protection for historic sites.
Planning and Zoning officials were not available Wednesday to comment on the demolition approval process, or whether there are any special conditions for approving demolitions of historic properties.
Local historian Jane McWilliams said the property, a rare example of Georgian architecture in that part of Anne Arundel County, is a "wonderful house with a wonderful history."
Hopkins, the descendant of a prominent Quaker family, lived on the plantation until he was 17, where he worked in the fields after his parents freed their slaves in 1807. Whites Hall remained in the Hopkins family until 1910, then passed through several private owners.
The most recent owner, Stephen W. Duckett, bought the property in 1941 and raised Black Angus cattle there, according to The Baltimore Sun's archives. Duckett sold the property and about 51 acres of surrounding land to Polm through his development interests, Severn Run LLC and Hole in One Limited, for $2.5 million in 2005, and lived there until his death, when the property was turned over to the developer.
The house has been unoccupied for several years and its exterior shows signs of disrepair. Its doors and windows have been boarded up.
"It is a shame that we are not taking more notice of the historic buildings of our county that give it so much character," McWilliams said.
Torrey Jacobsen, vice president of the Greater Crofton Council, said county officials told his group as recently as December that they would work with Polm to preserve the house. He said community members offered to help find a buyer for the property if it's put up for sale.
"It's a beautiful, absolutely gorgeous home. Somebody would buy it," Jacobsen said.
He plans to lobby local politicians to try to save the house: "Over my dead body will they knock down the Johns Hopkins home."
An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated White Hall was sold by the family of former White Hall owner Stephen Duckett after his death. In fact, Duckett lived in the house until he died, at which point it was turned over to Polm Cos. |
Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates Sally Caroline YatesFrom border to Mueller, Barr faces challenges as attorney general Hillicon Valley: House Intel panel will release Russia interviews | T-Mobile, Sprint step up merger push | DHS cyber office hosting webinars on China | Nest warns customers to shore up password security House Intel panel votes to release Russia interview transcripts to Mueller MORE says it was "inappropriate" for President Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE to demand a pledge of loyalty from former FBI Director James Comey James Brien ComeyExpect little closure on collusion 'Dear Attorney General Barr': Advice from insiders Rosenstein: My time at DOJ is 'coming to an end' MORE.
“I wouldn’t have done it,” she said Tuesday on CNN when asked if she would have pledged loyalty to Trump. “It’s inappropriate.
“Our loyalty at the Department of Justice should be to the people of United States and to the law and the Constitution, and no one and nothing else.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Yates, who was fired in January for refusing to defend Trump's travel ban executive order, added that she admires Comey, calling him a “straight shooter” and “a very qualified and talented guy.”
Comey’s ouster last week came amid the FBI’s probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, including possible ties between Russia and Trump’s campaign.
The report, published first by The New York Times, said that Trump pressed Comey to pledge his loyalty shortly after his January inauguration. Comey refused.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer last Friday denied that Trump asked Comey to promise him loyalty.
“No,” he said when asked if Trump made that demand. “The president wants loyalty to this country and the rule of law.”
Trump said last Saturday that there is nothing “inappropriate” about asking for a FBI director’s loyalty, while denying he sought Comey’s.
“I don’t think it’s inappropriate, number one,” Trump said on Fox News before denying he made such a request to Comey. “No, I didn’t [ask him to pledge his loyalty]. But I don’t think it would be a bad question to ask. I think loyalty to the country, loyalty to the United States is important.” |
Image caption Jeremy Vine filmed the row with a helmet camera
A woman has been arrested following a road rage altercation with BBC Radio 2 presenter Jeremy Vine.
He was riding home after hosting his show on 26 August when a driver tailgated him, beeping her horn.
Filmed on Vine's helmet camera as he rode in Kensington, west London, she can be seen swearing at him and threatening to knock him out.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed a 22-year-old woman was arrested on Friday on suspicion of common assault.
The altercation took place in a narrow street, with the woman's black Vauxhall being driven close behind the presenter.
Vine, who is about to become one of the new hosts of BBC One's Crimewatch, has declined to comment further, saying the matter is now in the hands of the police.
The woman, who was also arrested on suspicion of committing a public order offence, has been bailed to return to police later in September. |
New research from the University of Georgia has identified the neural pathways in an insect brain tied to eating for pleasure, a discovery that sheds light on mirror impulsive eating pathways in the human brain.
"We know when insects are hungry, they eat more, become aggressive and are willing to do more work to get the food," said Ping Shen, a UGA associate professor of cellular biology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. "Little is known about the other half-the reward-driven feeding behavior-when the animal is not so hungry but they still get excited about food when they smell something great.
The fact that a relatively lower animal, a fly larva, actually does this impulsive feeding based on a rewarding cue was a surprise."
The research team led by Shen, who also is a member of the Biomedical and Health Sciences Institute, found that presenting fed fruit fly larvae with appetizing odors caused impulsive feeding of sugar-rich foods. The findings, published Feb. 28 in Cell Press, suggest eating for pleasure is an ancient behavior and that fly larvae can be used in studying neurobiology and the evolution of olfactory reward-driven impulses.
To test reward-driven behaviors in flies, Shen introduced appetizing odors to groups of well-fed larvae. In every case, the fed larvae consumed about 30 percent more food when surrounded by the attractive odors.
But when the insects were offered a substandard meal, they refused to eat it.
"They have expectations," he said. "If we reduce the concentration of sugar below a threshold, they do not respond anymore. Similar to what you see in humans, if you approach a beautiful piece of cake and you taste it and determine it is old and horrible, you are no longer interested."
Shen's team also tried to further define this phenomenon-the connection between excitement and expectation. He found when the larvae were presented with a brief odor, the amount of time they were willing to act on the impulse was about 15 minutes.
"After 15 minutes, they revert back to normal. You get excited, but you can't stay excited forever, so there is a mechanism to shut it down," he said.
His work also suggests the neuropeptides, or brain chemicals acting as signaling molecules triggering impulsive eating, are consistent between flies and humans. Neurons receive and convert stimuli into thoughts that are then relayed to the downstream mechanism telling the animals to act. These signaling molecules are required for this impulse, suggesting the molecular details of these functions are evolutionarily tied between flies and humans.
"There are hyper-rewarding cues that humans and flies have evolved to perceive, and they connect this perception with behavior performance," Shen said. "As long as this is activated, the animal will eat food. In this way, the brain is stupid: It does not know how it gets activated. In this case, the fly says ‘I smell something, I want to do this.' This kind of connection has been established very early on, probably before the divergence of fly and human. That is why we both have it."
Impulsive and reward-driven behaviors are largely misunderstood, partially due to the complex systems at work in human brains. Fly larvae nervous systems, in terms of scheme and organization, are very similar to adult flies and to mammals, but with fewer neurons and less complex wirings.
"A particular function in the brain of mammals may require a large cluster of neurons," he said. "In flies, it may be only one or four. They are simpler in number but not principle."
In the fly model, four neurons are responsible for relaying signals from the olfactory center to the brain to stimulate action. Each odor and receptor translates the response slightly differently. Human triggers are obviously more diverse, but Shen thinks the mechanism to appreciate the combination is likely the same. He is now working with Tianming Liu, assistant professor of computer science at UGA and member of the Bioimaging Research Center and Institute of Bioinformatics, on a computer model to determine how these odors are interpreted as stimuli.
"Dieting is difficult, especially in the environment of these beautiful foods," Shen said. "It is very hard to control this impulsive urge. So, if we understand how this compulsive eating behavior comes about, we maybe can devise a way, at least for the behavioral aspect, to prevent it. We can modulate our behaviors better or use chemical interventions to calm down these cues." |
If you thought Colin Farrell and Britney Spears made a strange couple, wait until you hear this.
The actor opened up to Ellen DeGeneres on her show Monday about his "romantic relationship" with none other than Elizabeth Taylor.
Farrell met the legendary actress at Cedars Sinai Hospital in 2009, when he was there for the birth of his son Henry and she for getting a stent put in her heart.
"I said, 'Will you tell her I said hello? She probably won't know who I am,'" he said of running into her manager Tim Mendelsohn. "And they go, 'No, she knows who you are.' And I went, 'Wow, cool. Well, tell her I said hello and I wish her the best,' and they said, 'Will do.'"
Unable to shake Taylor from his mind, Farrell had his publicist send her flowers only to find out that Taylor shared a similar idea and sent him an orchid with a handwritten note.
Surprising celebrity couples
A week letter, Farrell, 37, arranged to visit Taylor. "And that was the beginning of a year and a half or two years of what was a really cool [relationship]. It was kind of like the last — it feels like in my head, not hers, I'm projecting — but the last kind of romantic relationship I had.
But before you go dipping your brain in bleach to wipe the mental image of Farrell and Taylor in bed wearing nothing but diamonds, Farrell said the relationship "was never consummated."
Instead, the pair enjoyed late-night phone calls. "It was really cool, and she wasn't much of a sleeper at night, like I'm not, so at two o'clock in the morning, I'd call her," he said. "I'd call her at two in the morning, and the nurse would answer the phone, and I'd say, 'Is she awake?'... And then I'd be on the phone and I'd hear, 'Hello?' And I'd go, 'How's it going?' And we'd talk for a half an hour, an hour, into the wee hours.
"I just adored her," the Irish actor gushed of Taylor, who died in 2011 at 79. "She was a spectacular, spectacular woman. I wanted to be [husband] number eight, but we ran out of road." |
Here is one:
This is basically the 1974 version of a DIMM. It measures 16″ by 11.5″ and holds 16 kilobytes. It’s technically 18 bits wide but only 16 were used in the PDP-11. The raised part in the middle is where the cores are actually stored. Each bit is a little ring with 3 wires running through the middle. By running current through the wires you could magnetize or demagnetize each ring. One interesting tidbit is that reading is destructive! When you read a bit you are actually demagnetizing the ring and the memory controller had to then do a write cycle to restore the bit. You can’t see the rings in the picture (I’m guessing they kept them covered because they were fragile), but you can see some nice pictures and a more in-depth explanation at the Wikipedia page.
The cool thing about the module is that everything is discrete. There’s not a custom chip in sight. Along the bottom and right edges of the board you can see the row and column drivers. On the right you can see 18 instances of the sense amplifiers and inhibit drivers (1 for each bit in the word).
Here’s some pictures of the computer it came out of:
That is a PDP-11/05 that my dad built from scratch. That top part is the main computer (the processor is not a microprocessor, instead it’s made from discrete parts). It was all wire-wrapped by hand. Here’s the back:
I can’t even imagine having the patience to do that! All the colors of wire mean different things, too (they’re grouped by logical parts of the computer–data paths, control paths, clocks, etc). The slots below the board are for expansions cards–electrically they are Unibus but their physical form factor is custom to his computer. Here’s the hard disk controller card:
This disk controller could support 2 10MB hard disks. The computer also has a floppy controller (for 8″ floppy drives) and a RS/232 controller card (3 ports).
It’s funny that I grew up with this computer (and later a PDP-11/34 with 2 rack of equipment) but never cared about what kind of thought and work must have gone into it… I was always way more interested in my pirate Apple ][+ clone that I put together from a kit in second grade (if you’ve never used an Apple ][ before, try this emulator I recently wrote in HTML5). But now my dad decided to get the PDP back up and running so he’s been showing me all the little parts and I think I’m old enough now to appreciate it.
The interesting thing for me about all this old technology was how amazingly straight forward 90% of it is. For instance, the front panel has a keyboard that shifts 3 bits at a time into a shift register and then lets you generate bus cycles (all driven by state machines in hardware). This was instead of the DEC’s computers which makes you enter binary with 16 individual switches–it’s a nice, simple addition that makes it way more pleasant to work with than the standard PDP-11 and it’s totally understandable. |
Ethan Miller/Getty Images
Paul George is still a member of the Indiana Pacers, but the four-time All-Star is reportedly already working behind the scenes to potentially team up with Golden State Warriors guard Klay Thompson.
According to NBC Sports Bay Area analyst Kelenna Azubuike (via 95.7 The Game), George discussed with Thompson the possibility of playing together in Los Angeles when the two-time NBA champion becomes a free agent after the 2018-19 season.
George has one more guaranteed year remaining on his contract with the Pacers. The Vertical's Adrian Wojnarowski reported June 18 that the forward informed Indiana he'll opt out of his deal next summer. Wojnarowski also reported the Los Angeles Lakers were George's preferred destination for the next stop in his NBA career.
While it seems unlikely Thompson would ever leave Golden State, re-signing him may not be straightforward for Warriors general manager Bob Myers. The team has benefited from having its best young players on team-friendly deals, but that's no longer the case after Thompson and Green recently signed extensions. Stephen Curry is in line for a max deal as well this summer.
The cost of retaining all three, plus re-signing Kevin Durant, Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston, will put a serious strain on Golden State's payroll.
That's not to say chances are high Thompson moves on in 2019, but it's at least a possibility if financial concerns essentially force Myers to choose between Thompson and Green, who is a free agent in 2020.
Now, whether Thompson would consider signing with the Lakers is another thing entirely. Los Angeles has a solid young core and added Lonzo Ball to the mix in the 2017 NBA draft last Thursday at the Barclays Center. But even if they acquire George, the Lakers may still be in the process of building toward title contention—rather than having a roster capable of challenging for a championship—in 2019.
Signing with the Lakers may be a tough sell for a star who has two titles in the last three years and will presumably challenge for more over the next two seasons. |
So much has been made of the problematic launch SimCity has enjoyed over the last two weeks. "This is what you get when you make us all connect online." "It's always-on DRM disguised as a multiplayer!" "EA is evil incarnate!" Features were turned off, and server admins and programmers worked like crazy people - I imagine there was some 5 Hour Energy involved - to add more shards and get the SimCity that people paid good money for up to a playable state. It is playable now, for the most part, but I don't want to talk about broken servers anymore. I honestly don't care about the always-connected restriction at all. If multiplayer is what Maxis wanted to focus on, that's fine with me. I also don't want to pass judgment with an official review until SimCity plays exactly how Maxis envisioned, but I feel like I need to get something off my chest:
SimCity is a terribly designed game.
It doesn't feel like it simulates anything resembling a logical human settlement, and the end game revolves around bankrupting your city in order to trade commodities on the world market. What series was EA rebooting? SimCity or Business Tycoon? I imagine the small size of the city plots Maxis provides in its regions was meant for players to experiment often with new and different kinds of cities. A noble idea, but restricting me doesn't really encourage me to start a new city I'll just have to abandon in five hours. How is that fun? All of SimCity's systems impact each other and based on more than 50 hours of actual play time, they drag each other down into a miasma of frustration. It is city simulation for masochists.
Let's look at the traffic problem more specifically. Say your streets get crowded and you decide to place a bus depot to provide municipal public transport and lessen some of the flow of individual cars. You put down some bus stops in what you believe are strategically desirable locations. Fine. When a bus is traveling on your city's streets, the AI decides where the most passengers are to pick up and it goes there. Again, fine, makes sense. When you add more buses to mix though, the code can't handle it and all the buses end up clogging one particular street trying to pick up those poor Sims. Seriously, I've seen 10 buses all lined up, blocking the street and preventing any other traffic from flowing by. You know, like fire trucks on their way to save some burning baby Sims.
It gets worse if a neighbor in your region has an upgraded bus terminal - these buildings conveniently send big buses out into the region to pick up your poor unwashed Sims and supposedly bring them around the region. Again, sounds like a grand idea. The end result, however, is you now have 20 buses packing the street instead of just 10, preventing Sims from getting anywhere. The only way to unstick these monstrous bus caterpillars is to destroy the bus stop. As far as I can tell, adding bus depots and terminals increases traffic problems and does nothing to alleviate them.
Traffic is so important because this whole game is designed about trading stuff from your little hamlet to other towns in the region and the world as a whole. You need a way for goods to transfer, and people to shuttle back and forth to their jobs. The main conduit of travel is the highway which goes through every city plot, but most of these predesigned plots only have one access point to the highway. That means everything traveling by road must travel through one entrance, and traffic inevitably gets backed up for people coming in and out of the city you designed so meticulously. (What happens when one access point to a highway gets overused? You build a new exit, but that's impossible in SimCity.)
Sure, your advisors tell you to build train stations and ferries, but even though thousands of passengers pass through those expensive and budget-draining buildings, it never seems to make a dent in your ground traffic. Wasting more of your precious real estate on putting down (I'm refusing to use SimCity's terminology of "plopping" as it just reminds me of feces) two or three ferry docks or train stations seems like overkill. And you're extra lucky if a specific plot even has access both a rail and water connection - most don't. |
A leading senior constable in Victoria Police has told how cruel, homophobic bullying and threats to taser her drove her out of the force.
Nicki Lewis also claims she heard reports of male police acting in a "predatory" way towards other female police and women in the community.
She told 7.30 she suffered intimidation and threats of violence at the hands of some staff during her time working in regional Victoria for the police force and has raised allegations of male police blackmailing female drivers for sex.
"I heard from five or six people that [a] male officer would pull women over in traffic and give them tickets and then go to [their] house later and say they would cancel the ticket in return for sexual favours," Ms Lewis said in a submission to the Victoria Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission (VEOHRC).
Do you know more about this story? Email [email protected]
Her revelations come on the eve of a landmark inquiry by VEOHRC into bullying and harassment within Victoria Police.
VEOHRC surveyed 5,000 current and former police about sexual harassment and bullying within the force, and conducted 150 interviews.
Former chief commissioner Ken Lay announced the review into predatory behaviour and sex discrimination within Victoria Police in 2014.
Bullying and intimidation dismissed as a 'lesbian drama'
Ms Lewis claims she complained to a male colleague about the bullying she suffered, but it was explained away.
"When I talked about this with a male colleague he said, 'oh, that other lesbian'," she told 7.30.
"He minimised what was happening by treating it like it was just some 'lesbian drama'.
"That sort of homophobic attitude is common."
Ms Lewis said the VEOHRC review should have come sooner, and if it had, she might still have a career within the police force.
She is currently on a disability pension awaiting finalisation of her case.
"I did live for the job," Ms Lewis said.
"So to be stripped of what is most important to you has been devastating.
"It's really hard to set up a new life.
"I've lost everything as a consequence of this workplace bullying."
Co-worker spread rumours Lewis had STDs
Ms Lewis said at the height of her bullying experience she was shunned by many co-workers, one of whom spread false rumours about her having a sexually transmitted disease (STD) and warned others not to touch her belongings.
"I had left my wallet at work and I had a person go into the station to collect it," she said.
"In the foyer of the station, the bullying member said that I had four-five sexual partners on the go and that I potentially had STDs and that she would not go and get the wallet personally because she didn't know what she would catch."
She also claims the individual offered to another person to "taser, baton or shoot" Ms Lewis.
"It shatters your self-belief about yourself, you second question yourself, you wonder whether you are actually all the things they are trying to paint you to be," she said.
"In the end it just escalates to the point where you ... go into work and your heart rate is through the roof and there is nothing you can do to calm yourself down."
VEOHRC Commissioner Kate Jenkins declined to comment ahead of the report's release on Wednesday. |
1. A good story never dies (but Avril Lavigne did, in 2003).
One of the most famous artifacts in the Avril Lavigne conspiracy theory story is the Brazilian blog “Avril esta morta“, dated in May 2011. It’s been six years and this theory still hasn’t been put to bed.
Everyone loves a conspiracy theory and, it appears, is willing to spend chunks of their working day examining the sometimes dubiously curated evidence for a compelling and dramatic (yet often fairly trivial) narrative.
There’s never been a shortage of suspense-loaded dramas in the public consciousness, real or unreal. However, with Netflix and other networks continuing to invest in drawn out true-crime stories like Making a Murderer, it seems there’s a real hunger for stories with macabre themes right now. That might be why the story of Avril Lavigne’s alleged demise has resurfaced again so enormously.
2. There are multiple theories, and the details are very inconsistent.
Some people think she died in 2002, some in 2003, some in 2004. Others, who are just stumbling on the trend, probably think she died this week.
Some think it is her altered handwriting, others that she now prefers wearing dresses as opposed to pants on the red carpet. Some think it is her makeup preferences, others the way that her eyes are a slightly different shape.
But the overwhelming theme is that she is dead and that a body-double named Melissa Vandella took her place.
Maybe it’s not Melissa Vandella, though – we searched for mentions of “Avril Lavigne lookalike” and found people posting fairly convincing pictures of themselves tagged with the words. Maybe it’s not just Melissa Vandella. Maybe there are hundreds of Avril Lavigne lookalikes. Maybe everyone is Aril Lavigne in the right light.
3. It’s pretty hilarious, really.
You only need to have a quick scroll through Twitter to find the “evidence” and resulting sarcasm.
Who’s talking about Avril Lavigne’s death?
Female authors are around doubly as likely as male authors to talk about the conspiracy theory online.
We also thought we’d take a look at what the real fans were saying using Brandwatch Audiences. Trending amongst the tweets of people who use the words “Avril Lavigne” in their Twitter bios (of which there were over 9,000) were pictures of old vs new Avril as well as a picture circling Avril’s nose (a common part of the theory is that her nose shape has changed).
When will it end?
We may not be able to reveal whether the conspiracy theory is true using social data alone, but we know when it will be solved.
the avril lavigne is dead theory will be true unless she posts a picture of her and her look alike together — nicole (@artcapaldi) May 14, 2017
Are you a journalist looking to cover our data? Drop us an email at [email protected] for more information. |
On Wednesday, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) was asked whether he would tie relief funds for Hurricane Harvey to raising the debt ceiling – whether the Congress would follow the Democratic pattern of ignoring the debt in order to blow out borrowing, using a crisis as an excuse. Ryan said that such a plan would be “ridiculous” and “unworkable.” He said, “We’ve got all this devastation in Texas, we’ve got another hurricane about to hit Florida, and they want to play politics with the debt ceiling?”
Within hours, Democrats pitched exactly that plan to President Trump. And Trump bought it wholesale. Trump told the press, “We essentially came to a deal” with Democrats, calling the legislation “very good.” Trump ignored advice from his own team to push for a deal that would extend the debt ceiling beyond the midterms, meaning that Republicans will have to run up against the debt ceiling again before the election. So not only is this fiscally idiotic, it’s politically moronic.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) obviously couldn’t believe her good fortune. “In the meeting, the President and congressional leadership agreed to pass aid for Harvey, an extension of the debt limit, and a continuing resolution both to December 15, all together,” she said along with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in a statement. “Both sides have every intention of avoiding default in December and look forward to working together on the many issues before us.”
Trump’s unwillingness to go to the wall on the debt ceiling – and his willingness to move along with Democrats to raise spending – is demonstrative of the fact that Republicans all too often talk the talk about debt, but nearly never walk the walk.
Here’s the impact: Democrats get to blackmail Republicans over the debt ceiling in December, and Republicans get nothing. And Trump’s on board with Democrats.
Ugh. |
The psychological and physical stress inherent to this time of year has become a unanimous fact of university life — a part of the fall semester's cycle that is dreaded by all and always inevitable. It seems like every year at this time, the administration starts asking questions about why mental health is such an issue on campus, to which the students resoundingly respond with a plea for a reading week. Then time passes, the semester ends and nothing changes. The next year, we end up doing it all over again.
So why does nothing change? What can be done to make real improvements? In a recent article, The Ubyssey reported that largely due to complicated logistics, the odds of getting a fall reading week any time soon was unlikely. The excuses given include problems with scheduling and logistics which do not remotely justify such an absence of progress. The fact that we are now facing another year with the exact same problem as 2015, and all of the years before, is a disgraceful display that demonstrates a fundamental flaw in how the administration views the problem of student mental well-being.
Thus far, the bulk of UBC's mental health initiatives have amounted to little more than superficial band-aids on a larger problem. Stress-balls being handed out on Main Mall, posters with suicide hotlines and promises for increased funding for counselling services are — at this point — too little, too late. Students who will be graduating this year, and those from all subsequent years, will have experienced a degree largely devoid of any meaningful mental health resources with an understaffed psychiatry wing of Student Health Services and limited counselling services at best.
Every year, more students fall through the cracks or find that they are not able to meet their academic requirements. This isn't the generational failing of millennials asking for more time off to procrastinate on homework. It's a serious mental health problem — one of which the effects are plain to see.
In 2012, Queen’s University published a survey focusing on student mental health. Their research showed that 92 per cent of university counselling centre directors across Canada had reported an increase in the number of students presenting “severe psychological issues.” In addition, 89 per cent reported that the severity of the psychological issues that students were suffering had increased, with 97 per cent reporting an increase in the amount of patients taking medication.
They concluded, “Across the post-secondary education sector, most institutions, including Queen’s, are reporting an increase in the number of students with mental health concerns.”
Soon after the report’s release, the Toronto Star published an article which observed an overwhelming openness by Ontario universities to initiate meaningful change in order to help address the issue of mental health. At the time of its publication, 11 of the 20 publicly funded universities had allocated time for some kind of break in either October or November.
That was over four years ago and there has yet to be the same kind of initiative from UBC as what has been demonstrated by its Ontario counterparts. In the span of an undergraduate degree, UBC has been left in the dust and still shows no sign of improving any time soon.
It comes down to the fact that the administration is throwing money and promises at a problem that is caused by them and which they have the power to fix. There is no mystery to it. We all know what the problem is. We all know how to fix it or at least try to. If the administration really wants to prove that they are committed to genuinely dealing with this problem in a meaningful way, they need to get off their asses and just do it — and soon. For some students, this is a problem that does not have the leisure of time to fix.
This is urgent and with every semester that passes, more and more students are driven to stressful, dangerous places that they should never have to go. They deserve better than that. We all deserve better than that. For a university that likes to tout its progressiveness and enlightenment, it should be a point of shame that when it comes to the care and well-being of the students on which its reputation is built, they are are woefully behind everyone else.
UBC, stop dithering. Fall reading week is a necessity that is owed to us, not a luxury that you can organize at your leisure. |
During a recent visit to Kazakhstan for a seminar and Q&A session, Khabib Nurmagomedov told a funny story about an encounter he had with a drunkard at a coffee shop in the United States. According to the undefeated UFC lightweight contender, the drunken man was looking for trouble until he realized whom he had stumbled upon.
"I had an incident in America,” Khabib explained during a recent interview (H/t ToFight.ru). “When I was standing at the cash register, there is a drunken man bothering those who stood in front of him. He stood in front of me. When he came to me, I told him "Calm down, I'm a professional fighter."
According to Khabib, his blunt self-introduction quickly sobered the man up, as he began to realize his mistake. Even the Dagestani native admit that he was more lenient on the man than he would have been back home.
“In the Caucasus, we do not talk and say I am a man, leave me alone,” Khabib added. “In America, I have to say it. Because if I fought there, then I would have to answer before the law. You could put me jail. I warned him, and he abruptly sobered up. I told him ‘I am a professional fighter. I can break your face. You have to calm down.’” |
A WOULD-BE ATM thief has become the internet’s latest laughing stock after Queensland police launched a comical appeal to find the man in question.
Authorities posted surveillance footage, complete with a hilarious soundtrack, of the luckless thief’s attempt to steal an ATM at an Ingham Road, Townsville petrol station on Tuesday evening.
The footage shows a stolen 1997 white Holden Rodeo ute pulling up to the service station.
The man exits the car, throws a concrete block at the door, using what appears to be a mallet to smash in the final pieces.
He then grabs a long, metal chain and heads inside to rig it to the ATM.
WATCH THE COMICAL SURVEILLANCE FOOTAGE IN FULL BELOW
media_camera Not bringing attention to himself at all ...
media_camera After smashing in the door, the thief crawls in. media_camera The thief grabs a metal chain from the back of the ute.
media_camera You might want to move that sunglass rack out of the way.
But little does he know, the chain breaks, leaving the ute attached to ... nothing.
Completely oblivious, he gets in the ute, and pulls away ... with nothing.
media_camera *Snap* media_camera The thief didn’t see this one coming.
media_camera Awkward.
Later, he returns to the scene of the crime and attempts theft number two, but the chain is too short and after a moment’s thought, surrenders the mission.
media_camera Hmm. What to do now?
“The only problem for the offender was that he had not realised that his chain wasn’t attached and when he attempted to drive off he left the ATM behind,” Detective Senior Sergeant Chris Hicks said in a statement.
“Anyone with any information about the vehicle or the male should contact Crime Stoppers.”
Anyone with information which could assist with this matter should contact Crime Stoppers anonymously via 1800 333 000 or crimestoppers.com.au 24hrs a day.
Originally published as Bungling burglar a laughing stock |
Puerto 80, the Spanish company that owns the Rojadirecta sporting website, has asked a federal judge to dismiss the government's forfeiture of its domain names. Calling the seizure "an unprecedented effort to expand both copyright liability and the reaches of civil forfeiture law," the firm argued that only direct infringement, not linking to infringing content, could be the basis for a domain name seizure.
The brief was co-authored by the prominent copyright scholar Mark Lemley of Stanford University and was filed on Friday. It claims that Puerto 80 is—at most—guilty only of assisting the infringement of others, which copyright law calls secondary liability. But, the brief argues, secondary infringement can only lead to civil, not criminal, liability. And only criminal infringement can justify the forfeiture of the Rojadirecta domain names.
We asked New York Law School copyright scholar James Grimmelmann to assess Puerto 80's arguments. He told Ars that Puerto is clearly right that linking to infringing material does not constitute direct copyright infringement. But he was less sure of the other arguments.
For example, the brief argues that criminal offenses must be spelled out in the text of a statute, not in judge-made common law. And it argues that secondary liability doctrines fall into the latter category. But Grimmelmann said that's not so clear. The relevant statute gives copyright holders the exclusive right to "authorize" others to use the work, and the courts have interpreted this as the basis for secondary liability rules. Grimmelmann said he wasn't aware of any precedents on whether there could be criminal liability for secondary infringement, calling it "a fair and open question."
The government could also charge Puerto 80 with aiding and abetting the infringing activities of their users, although Puerto 80 claims the government failed to bring such a charge in its original complaint. Also, the company argues that the forfeiture law the government is using doesn't allow seizures for aiding and abetting others' property.
The outcome of the case could have broad implications for other domain seizures. Many of the seizures we've covered, such as the case of Richard O'Dwyer and TVShack.net, targeted "linking" sites that have not engaged in direct copyright infringement. If courts endorse Puerto 80's legal arguments, it would call into question the legitimacy of all such seizures. |
Announcements Recent Threads You Must Enable Javascript To View This Site. Reply "Suddenly a star. She's headlining the Øya festival, yet..." Share Thread Facebook Twitter Google+ Tumblr LinkedIn Pinterest MySpace Email
Share Thread Go to Previous Thread Next Thread
Go to Please make a selection first new « Prev
1
Next » onelittlewarrior
Senior Translator
Likes: 1,673 Posts: 415Likes: 1,673
Senior Translator "Suddenly a star. She's headlining the Øya festival, yet..." AURONRA aurorafan , and 9 more like this SpeedTag! Quote Select Post
Select Post Deselect Post
Deselect Post Link to Post
Link to Post Member Give Gift
Member Back to Top Post by onelittlewarrior on Suddenly a star. She's headlining the Øya festival, yet wonders if anyone will show up at her next concert
(Translated from Norwegian by onelittlewarrior
(Background story: The art of being oneself. «That’s what you want right there, that’s what you want right there!», talk show host Jimmy Fallon cried after Aurora had performed Conqueror for 8 million viewers in March this year. Aurora (Aksnes) had done what she usually does: dancing her way through the song in her characteristic and jumping manner. Unaffectedly and uninhibitedly. And suddenly a star. After I asked for a meeting it took two months before the girl from Lysefjorden had an hour of free time in her schedule. During the interview she was exactly like I'd pictured her: playful, honest and open-minded. That’s what you want right there.)
In a world of her own.
Everyone wants a piece of her. Aurora herself dreams of living somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
Around the turn of the millennium the area around Lysefjorden consisted mainly of steep mountains, deep gorges and the natural phenomenon Aurora. She used to run around in her funny skirts and blond hair pondering over anything. When she was six she had a go at an electric piano and "found out how it worked". And that's basically what started what today is one of Norway's most characteristic music careers.
In love. - It was just magic how I could make sounds by just pressing the keys. And then to combine them. Four tones may become ten different melodies. I just fell in love and have never stopped playing the piano, says Aurora Aksnes. She continued to make music through her childhood - at the same time dreaming of becoming an author, pianist, astronomer, pediatrician or dancer.
- Haha, there are just so many exciting things to do - including subjects like physics, mathematics and chemistry. I love to figure out how things function.
- And then you ended up a musical artist?
- Yes, I did. And it's fantastic. It really is. We've been on the road since Christmas. USA, Europe. It's just kind of exploded.
- How did this really happen?
Aurora laughs warily. She doesn't really now. It all happened so fast. A few songs were uploaded to Urørt in 2012, then there was the by:Larm festival, then the Øya festival in 2014 and then like a bang: the world. Including the Jimmy Fallon talk show earlier this year, with 8 million viewers.
- I never dreamt it would take off like that. But even if things have happened so fast, the journey has been a number of small steps. I can tell from my shoes; they're just worn out! It feels like I've been touring since last year, which is true, I suppose. Aurora laughs in wonder.
- Since 2 January we've travelled almost every day. I do so many shows so I notice that things are happening, yet it feels very strange and I'm still sometimes confused.
Dressed in a carpet on stage. Aurora did the Øya festival for the first time two years ago, a show that was so successful she decided to quit school as a consequence.
- What's the difference between Øya of 2014 and now?
- The last time I was quite nervous, and we did a lot of preparations for weeks and months. Now Øya is part a bigger tour of mine, and I'm really looking forward to it. It's such a beautiful festival and it'll be nice to be there now that I'm calmer. I'm much more confident and experienced now. Yet I have this tiny voice inside me that asks if anyone will turn up. Believe me, I know there'll be people there, but maybe not that many? I can't really see why they'd want to listen to me. It's difficult to see the side of me that my fans do. Even in Belgium.
- In Belgium?
- Yes, we did a show there in early July. We played a festival at one o'clock at night. Our luggage had been misplaced at the airport and I had to do the show in the clothes I was wearing; a kimono and blanket combo. But I was like, it can't hurt when it's in the middle of the night in Belgium. I've not even been to Belgium before. And then there were 8,000 people there. 8,000! And it was streamed online with me wearing this blanket and my bass player only had his hawaiian shirt on. I guess we were quite the sight. But that's festivals for you. People hope to see something new.
- Are there any negative sides to your success?
- Possibly that I haven't got time to do anything else. I miss reading books in quiet surroundings, hiking in the mountains, picking blueberries. I haven't got the time to do those things now. There are so many things happening and I'm too tired. And I miss my family. I have pictures of them with me. It's good of them not to send me messages and call me too often, that would've made things worse. They understand that I need to be where I am right now.
- Will you ever move back to Lysefjorden?
- To be honest I'd like to live somewhere even more remote. A place without people. Where I can pretend that I'm on my own little planet.
Fooled her piano teacher. Aurora Aksnes writes songs everywhere she goes. She has "at least seven" notebooks with her on tour, partly because she looses a couple along the way. In her books she jots down fragments of the world: a tramp, a hug, calm or chaos, a smell, you name it. Everything is churned through the Aurora filter and comes out in the other end as the fragile, broken and powerful report that we know from her first album.
- Your music sounds very un-constructed. It sounds more like the track of a world that already exists - inside yourself?
- Yes. That's exactly how it is. Spot on!
While travelling it all starts with the lyrics. At home the travel starts with the piano. She just plays. As far as sheet music goes it's just cumbersome.
- I am able to read sheet music at a pinch. But it's like reading a book in French when you've had some French at school - it's very cumbersome and you have to consult your dictionary all the time.
- You fooled your piano teacher?
- Yes, I did. I just learned the classical pieces by heart by listening to them. I'm good at playing by ear. But he found out when I played at this old people's home and I had forgotten the sheets at home but played regardless. Today I'm pleased I'm not very well schooled in music. I don't like it when it becomes too logical. The music looses its life.
- In one song you sing that you it's a long time ago that you saw the world as beautiful. What do you mean by that?
Aurora pauses uncharacteristically.
- Well, you know, I come from this very beautiful place, peaceful and unspoilt. But now that I've travelled so much I've seen things that aren't very beautiful. It seems like the world is worse off now than it used to be, but then again we're flooded with all sorts or news, almost intravenously so. But we have to remember that there are very many good things happening as well. It's so nice when people manage to react calmly when awful things happen around us. It's beautiful to see that even the most awful things generate a lot of love.
- If you were able to change things in the world, what would it be?
- The tendency that we all seem to be driven by fear. It can ruin so much. Fear can influence how you regard people, how you regard a country. And it can stop you from doing what you'd really want to do. I'd remove man's need for power and the tendency to abuse power. Seeing how many create fear in others just to gain power themselves is just sad.
Demon friends. All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend is the title of Aurora's first and so far sole album.
- How do you become friends with your demons at the young age of 20?
- The title alludes to both the the external and the internal. I often see people around me who're looking, in some search of who and what they are. In such a phase people can act in a strange and hostile way. It's important then to remember the nice aspects of these people, remember that they go through this search phase. That way what they do doesn't drain you of your energy. You have to accept yourself the way you are. That way you're able to accept others.
- And the internal?
- Everything that we have around us mirrors what's inside us so it's important to make friends with your inner demons as well. Make friends with the inner voice of yours that tells you that you're not good enough. It's important to remember that you too are a person in search of yourself, that you have positive qualities and that you can still make mistakes.
- What are your current dreams now that you've achieved almost anything an artist could want?
- That's a good question. I really didn't have time to dream about standing on stage and living off my music before I suddenly did it. Hm. So what I dream about now is making an album that is 100% the way I want it. No, not 100%, 98%. I have to learn to accept that not everything turns out the way I want. I have this strong vision with everything that I do but instead of focussing on details I have to accept what these songs - not 100% perfect they may be - mean to so many people. That people listen to them and feel love. Or grief. That's the important thing.
- Can AURORA become so big, making Aurora Aksnes disappear?
- No, never. I have deep roots that are difficult to unroot. AURORA Music is a cloud, otherworldly and magical. Aurora Aksnes is a tree.
(Original article at
(Translated from Norwegian by(Background story: The art of being oneself. «That’s what you want right there, that’s what you want right there!», talk show host Jimmy Fallon cried after Aurora had performed Conqueror for 8 million viewers in March this year. Aurora (Aksnes) had done what she usually does: dancing her way through the song in her characteristic and jumping manner. Unaffectedly and uninhibitedly. And suddenly a star. After I asked for a meeting it took two months before the girl from Lysefjorden had an hour of free time in her schedule. During the interview she was exactly like I'd pictured her: playful, honest and open-minded. That’s what you want right there.)Everyone wants a piece of her. Aurora herself dreams of living somewhere in the middle of nowhere.Around the turn of the millennium the area around Lysefjorden consisted mainly of steep mountains, deep gorges and the natural phenomenon Aurora. She used to run around in her funny skirts and blond hair pondering over anything. When she was six she had a go at an electric piano and "found out how it worked". And that's basically what started what today is one of Norway's most characteristic music careers.- It was just magic how I could make sounds by just pressing the keys. And then to combine them. Four tones may become ten different melodies. I just fell in love and have never stopped playing the piano, says Aurora Aksnes. She continued to make music through her childhood - at the same time dreaming of becoming an author, pianist, astronomer, pediatrician or dancer.- Haha, there are just so many exciting things to do - including subjects like physics, mathematics and chemistry. I love to figure out how things function.- Yes, I did. And it's fantastic. It really is. We've been on the road since Christmas. USA, Europe. It's just kind of exploded.Aurora laughs warily. She doesn't really now. It all happened so fast. A few songs were uploaded to Urørt in 2012, then there was the by:Larm festival, then the Øya festival in 2014 and then like a bang: the world. Including the Jimmy Fallon talk show earlier this year, with 8 million viewers.- I never dreamt it would take off like that. But even if things have happened so fast, the journey has been a number of small steps. I can tell from my shoes; they're just worn out! It feels like I've been touring since last year, which is true, I suppose. Aurora laughs in wonder.- Since 2 January we've travelled almost every day. I do so many shows so I notice that things are happening, yet it feels very strange and I'm still sometimes confused.Aurora did the Øya festival for the first time two years ago, a show that was so successful she decided to quit school as a consequence.The last time I was quite nervous, and we did a lot of preparations for weeks and months. Now Øya is part a bigger tour of mine, and I'm really looking forward to it. It's such a beautiful festival and it'll be nice to be there now that I'm calmer. I'm much more confident and experienced now. Yet I have this tiny voice inside me that asks ifwill turn up. Believe me, I know there'll be people there, but maybe not that many? I can't really see why they'd want to listen to me. It's difficult to see the side of me that my fans do. Even in Belgium.- Yes, we did a show there in early July. We played a festival at one o'clock at night. Our luggage had been misplaced at the airport and I had to do the show in the clothes I was wearing; a kimono and blanket combo. But I was like, it can't hurt when it's in the middle of the night in Belgium. I've not even been to Belgium before. And then there were 8,000 people there. 8,000! And it was streamed online with me wearing this blanket and my bass player only had his hawaiian shirt on. I guess we were quite the sight. But that's festivals for you. People hope to see something new.- Possibly that I haven't got time to do anything else. I miss reading books in quiet surroundings, hiking in the mountains, picking blueberries. I haven't got the time to do those things now. There are so many things happening and I'm too tired. And I miss my family. I have pictures of them with me. It's good of them not to send me messages and call me too often, that would've made things worse. They understand that I need to be where I am right now.- To be honest I'd like to live somewhere even more remote. A place without people. Where I can pretend that I'm on my own little planet.Aurora Aksnes writes songs everywhere she goes. She has "at least seven" notebooks with her on tour, partly because she looses a couple along the way. In her books she jots down fragments of the world: a tramp, a hug, calm or chaos, a smell, you name it. Everything is churned through the Aurora filter and comes out in the other end as the fragile, broken and powerful report that we know from her first album.- Yes. That's exactly how it is. Spot on!While travelling it all starts with the lyrics. At home the travel starts with the piano. She just plays. As far as sheet music goes it's just cumbersome.- Iable to read sheet music at a pinch. But it's like reading a book in French when you've had some French at school - it's very cumbersome and you have to consult your dictionary all the time.- Yes, I did. I just learned the classical pieces by heart by listening to them. I'm good at playing by ear. But he found out when I played at this old people's home and I had forgotten the sheets at home but played regardless. Today I'm pleased I'm not very well schooled in music. I don't like it when it becomes too logical. The music looses its life.Aurora pauses uncharacteristically.- Well, you know, I come from this very beautiful place, peaceful and unspoilt. But now that I've travelled so much I've seen things that aren't very beautiful. It seems like the world is worse off now than it used to be, but then again we're flooded with all sorts or news, almost intravenously so. But we have to remember that there are very many good things happening as well. It's so nice when people manage to react calmly when awful things happen around us. It's beautiful to see that even the most awful things generate a lot of love.- The tendency that we all seem to be driven by fear. It can ruin so much. Fear can influence how you regard people, how you regard a country. And it can stop you from doing what you'd really want to do. I'd remove man's need for power and the tendency to abuse power. Seeing how many create fear in others just to gain power themselves is just sad.All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend is the title of Aurora's first and so far sole album.- The title alludes to both the the external and the internal. I often see people around me who're looking, in some search of who and what they are. In such a phase people can act in a strange and hostile way. It's important then to remember the nice aspects of these people, remember that they go through this search phase. That way what they do doesn't drain you of your energy. You have to accept yourself the way you are. That way you're able to accept others.- Everything that we have around us mirrors what's inside us so it's important to make friends with your inner demons as well. Make friends with the inner voice of yours that tells you that you're not good enough. It's important to remember that you too are a person in search of yourself, that you have positive qualities and that you can still make mistakes.- That's a good question. I really didn't have time to dream about standing on stage and living off my music before I suddenly did it. Hm. So what I dream about now is making an album that is 100% the way I want it. No, not 100%, 98%. I have to learn to accept that not everything turns out the way I want. I have this strong vision with everything that I do but instead of focussing on details I have to accept what these songs - not 100% perfect they may be - mean to so many people. That people listen to them and feel love. Or grief. That's the important thing.- No, never. I have deep roots that are difficult to unroot. AURORA Music is a cloud, otherworldly and magical. Aurora Aksnes is a tree.(Original article at www.aftenposten.no/amagasinet/Aurora-Aksnes---Jeg-hadde-aldri-trodd-det-skulle-ta-sa-av-600553b.html) Reply |
1 of 15 View Caption
Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune Unveiled in 2012, City Creek combines more than 100 stores, offices and high-end residences Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune Unveiled in 2012, City Creek combines more than 100 stores, offices and high-end residences Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune Unveiled in 2012, City Creek combines more than 100 stores, offices and high-end residences Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune Unveiled in 2012, City Creek combines more than 100 stores, offices and high-end residences Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune Unveiled in 2012, City Creek combines more than 100 stores, offices and high-end residences Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune Unveiled in 2012, City Creek combines more than 100 stores, offices and high-end residences Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune Unveiled in 2012, City Creek combines more than 100 stores, offices and high-end residences Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune Unveiled in 2012, City Creek combines more than 100 stores, offices and high-end residences Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune Unveiled in 2012, City Creek combines more than 100 stores, offices and high-end residences Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune Unveiled in 2012, City Creek combines more than 100 stores, offices and high-end residences Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune Unveiled in 2012, City Creek combines more than 100 stores, offices and high-end residences Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune City Creek Center Wednesday April 29, 2015. Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune Sisters l-r Katie Marler and Mindee Heaps capture a quick selfie on the skybridge of City C Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Pedestrians walk across Main Street by City Creek Center Wednesday April 29, 2015. Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune Unveiled in 2012, City Creek combines more than 100 stores, offices and high-end residences |
Last weekend, US President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping officially signed onto the Paris Agreement on climate. Yet, President Obama is simultaneously pushing a trade agenda that directly undermines the US’s ability to address climate change.
A new report from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy finds that the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) involving the U.S. and eleven Pacific Rim countries, totaling nearly 40 percent of the global economy, would benefit high greenhouse emitting industries like energy and agriculture, while restricting national and local policies that respond to climate change.
The report, The Climate Cost of Free Trade: How the TPP and other trade deals undermine the Paris climate agreement, finds that existing trade agreements and proposed new rules in the TPP would impact countries’ climate goals committed to as part of the global Paris Climate Agreement.
“There is a real blindspot for the climate within trade agreements, and particularly the TPP,” says Ben Lilliston, IATP’s Director of Climate Strategies and the report’s author. “Trade deals are driving a form of corporate-led globalization that is highly extractive of natural resources and completely ignores the damage it does to the climate. If we don’t reform our trade agreements and reject the TPP, it will be nearly impossible to reach our climate goals agreed to in Paris.”
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT Help Keep Common Dreams Alive Our progressive news model only survives if those informed and inspired by this work support our efforts
National commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, covering sectors like energy, agriculture, and forestry, are at the heart of the Paris climate agreement. All TPP participating countries have submitted a climate plan as part of the Paris deal. Yet, the IATP report found that the TPP expands the reach of past trade deals that have struck down renewable energy programs supporting green jobs, provided agribusiness more opportunities to challenge regulations that protect farmers and consumers, and limited the ability of countries to regulate dirty energy production like coal mining, fracking, and off-shore drilling. The words, “climate change” do not appear at all in the agreement.
TPP countries like the U.S., Australia and Japan are major producers and users of oil, natural gas and coal. Other TPP countries like Malaysia, Peru and Chile are dealing with expanded mining and agriculture operations that are leading to deforestation. The TPP would grant foreign corporations special rights to challenge laws in other TPP countries that they deem their expected profits by using a secret, extrajudicial trade court.
“Sinking public support for the TPP in the U.S. is creating an important opportunity to reform trade rules,” said Lilliston. “We can’t separate a bad deal like the TPP from the secrecy in which it was negotiated. A new, fair trade agenda must be grounded in greater openness, and a more public debate about objectives, including how to respond to climate change.”
You can read the executive summary and full report at: http://www.iatp.org/climate-cost-of-free-trade |
Image caption Emergency services attended but the man died at the scene
A man has been killed by a train at Govan Subway Station on the south side of Glasgow.
The incident, which is being described by British Transport Police as "non suspicious" happened at about 0910 BST on Wednesday.
Emergency services were called but the man died at the scene. Subway services were suspended for four hours and have since resumed.
Shuttle bus services were in operation while the network was closed.
A spokesman for British Transport Police (BTP) said: "BTP officers attended the line close to Govan Subway Station, Glasgow, on Wednesday, 29 June after a report that a man had been struck by a train.
"Officers from BTP and Strathclyde Police attended the incident, which was reported to police at 9.12am and is currently being treated as non-suspicious.
Services resume
"Paramedics from the Scottish Ambulance Service also attended but the man was pronounced dead at the scene.
"Officers are currently at the scene and inquiries are ongoing to establish the man's identity and inform next of kin.
"A report will be sent to the local procurator fiscal."
A spokeswoman for Strathclyde Partnership for Transport said: "We are all saddened by the death of a man at Govan Subway Station this morning and our thoughts are with his family.
"All subway services were suspended shortly after 9am as a result.
"Passengers were directed to shuttle services from 11am, with trains running between some stations and buses organised to fill in the gaps. A normal service resumed at 1pm." |
DARPA director clear-eyed and cautious on AI
Artificial intelligence has gained serious attention as a solution for complex problems, but the head of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency cautions against viewing it as a panacea.
“When we look at what’s happening with artificial intelligence, we see something that is very, very powerful, very valuable for military applications, but we also see a technology that is still quite fundamentally limited,” DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar said at the Atlantic Council on May 2.
Image analysis, Prabhakar said, reveals some of the technology’s limitations. While AI and machine learning systems are statistically better than humans at identifying images because they can sift through thousands of images in seconds, “the problem is that when they’re wrong, they are wrong in ways that no human would ever be wrong,” she said. In one case, a picture of a baby holding a toothbrush was identified by a machine as a baby with a baseball bat. “I think this is a critically important caution about where and how we would use this generation of artificial intelligence,” she said.
Still, many experts and government officials are urging greater use of automation and intelligent systems so they can operate at “cyber speed” and increase efficiency as datasets grow exponentially. “We have organizations and machines that are capable of sharing information automatically, but … we need more machines to be able to automatically ingest it and act on it,” Philip Quade, special assistant to the director for cyber for the National Security Agency's Cyber Task Force, said last month.
Researchers have already developed cognitive systems to help humans sift through large datasets and identify objects of interest, such as mines beneath the ocean’s surface. Such developments will become increasingly important as DOD expects to increase daily unmanned aerial system intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance sorties by nearly 50 percent by 2019.
Already, the Air Force is “collecting terabytes of data every day,” Lt. Gen. Robert Otto said at an AFCEA NOVA luncheon in February. “It’s the equivalent of -- just in full-motion video -- two NFL seasons a day and analyzing it all.” For Otto, the Air Force deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, tagging metadata and leveraging automation and big data analytics will improve analysis. “My predecessor talked about we’re swimming in sensors and drowning in data, but that’s only true if you can’t analyze everything,” he said.
“There’s a criticism about the intelligence services not connecting the dots. I think of how big data might be able to change that equation -- connect dots that I’m not even thinking about,” Otto said. “Then we can put our attention where it needs to go.”
Prabhakar, meanwhile, signaled high hopes for big data and analytics in optimizing human performance, but she was cautious regarding the capabilities of machines to provide all the answers. “I’m having trouble imagining a future where machines will tell us what the right thing is to do,” she said.
However, she offered an optimistic forecast for AI. DARPA sees limitations as opportunities “to drive the technology forward,” she said. “So today the other thing that we’re doing … is making the investments that we hope will create that third wave of artificial intelligence.” The goal, she suggested, would be machines that look beyond correlations and “help us build causal models of what’s happening in the world … and take what they’ve learned in one domain and use it in different domains -- something that they can’t really do at all today.”
For Prabhakar, deploying AI will have to be in the right place at the right time. “We have to be clear about where we’re going to use the technology and where it’s not ready for primetime, where it’s not really ready for us to trust it,” she told GCN after the event.
Artificial intelligence, for example, can be useful if it immediately provides a jamming profile to military pilots who encounter a new radar signal, she explained. However, a self-driving car making AI-based determinations might be “imperfect in some dangerous ways.”
“I think it’s just important to be clear eyed about what … machine learning can and can’t do,” she said. |
Get the biggest Liverpool FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
At the final whistle all four sides of Anfield stood to show their appreciation.
The overwhelming emotion was one of immense pride. Liverpool FC had gone toe to toe with the Premier League leaders and given them a torrid night.
The bookies will tell you that Chelsea are the hot favourites to book a trip to Wembley on March 1 after they somehow escaped with a 1-1 draw from a one-sided Capital One Cup semi-final first leg.
But this tie is very much alive. Brendan Rodgers' men will head for Stamford Bridge next Tuesday night with a genuine belief that they can finish the job off in the capital.
If the Reds can replicate the same qualities they showcased on home turf then there is no reason why they can't march on to Wembley.
Rodgers was right when he had warned Jose Mourinho they would be facing a “different” Liverpool.
This was a world away from the timid, error-strewn display which Chelsea ruthlessly punished back in November.
On that afternoon there was a gulf between the teams. Not any more. Not when Liverpool perform like this.
The hosts grasped the opportunity to show just how far they have come as they extended their unbeaten run to nine matches. Chelsea were comprehensively outplayed.
The only frustration was that the scoreline didn't illustrate Liverpool's dominance.
Emre Can's clumsy challenge had enabled Eden Hazard to fire Mourinho's side into a flattering first-half lead.
But rather than wilt, the Reds dug deep to produce a remarkable second-half onslaught.
Raheem Sterling, fresh from his sunshine break in Jamaica, restored parity with a stunning individual effort and only the woodwork and the brilliance of Thibaut Courtois denied Liverpool the first leg lead they merited.
There were heroes in red in all departments. Martin Skrtel expertly shackled Chelsea's 17-goal top scorer Diego Costa, while Lucas Leiva ran himself into the ground – constantly winning back possession and keeping the Reds on the front foot.
Attacking wise, Philippe Coutinho was at his mesmerising best and a creative force throughout in the pockets of space behind Sterling.
If Liverpool retain these standards there is good reason to believe Steven Gerrard will get the Hollywood ending his glittering Liverpool career deserves.
The taunts from the away end directed at the Reds skipper, who returned from injury at the expense of Fabio Borini, were emphatically drowned out by the home fans as Liverpool took the initiative early on.
When Lazar Markovic won an early 50-50 tackle with Hazard the Kop roared its approval.
There were moments of real promise with Alberto Moreno's shot deflecting behind off Gary Cahill before the Chelsea defender got a vital touch to prevent Sterling from latching on to Coutinho's pass.
Gerrard then unleashed a thunderous dipping 35-yarder which Courtois did well to tip over the bar.
Belief was starting to surge through Rodgers' side but in the 18 minute they gifted Chelsea the breakthrough.
The Londoners, who had barely got out of their own half, could scarcely believe their good fortune as Can upended Hazard inside the box.
It was naïve from the young German, who has adapted so well to a defensive role in recent weeks, and his mistake was punished as Hazard sent Simon Mignolet the wrong way from the spot.
To their credit, the Reds responded well to that setback but they lacked composure in the final third.
When Moreno's cross was nodded away by John Terry it dropped kindly to Markovic but he scuffed his volley. Skrtel then nodded tamely wide after rising to meet Coutinho's corner unmarked 12 yards out.
Can was clearly desperate to make amends and he embarked on a surging run from halfway but was unable to pick out Sterling and the opening disappeared.
Chelsea were content to sit back and simply soak up the pressure. Courtois turned away Gerrard's free-kick, while Coutinho's long range strike deflected behind off John Obi Mikel.
Martin Atkinson didn't help Liverpool's search for a way back into the tie – harshly booking both Gerrard and Lucas and then on the stroke of half-time turning a blind eye when Costa handled in the box.
So much for that referees conspiracy against Chelsea that Mourinho has been bleating about.
Unperturbed, Liverpool battled on in the second half, desperately trying to find a way through the blue wall in front of them.
They were in desperate need of some inspiration and just before the hour mark Sterling provided it.
There appeared to be little danger when he latched on to Jordan Henderson's pass 40 yards out but he turned away from Nemanja Matic, left Cahill trailing and drilled clinically into the bottom corner.
Anfield erupted. It was the first time Chelsea had conceded in 341 minutes of football.
Having restored parity, Liverpool surged forward in search of greater reward.
Gerrard was inches away from providing it – slamming a left footer against the post with Courtois beaten after Coutinho had teed him up.
The captain made way for Adam Lallana as the relentless Reds continued to turn the screw.
Henderson's strike was beaten away by Courtois, who reacted smartly to deny Sterling from the rebound.
The Belgium international keeper, who was lucky to get away with handling just outside his box, continued to thwart the hosts – clawing away Lallana's rasping strike after the substitute had linked up with Sterling.
The winner didn't arrive but a showpiece Wembley final remains within Liverpool's grasp.
MATCH FACTS
Liverpool (3-4-2-1): Mignolet, Can, Skrtel, Sakho, Markovic, Lucas, Henderson, Moreno, Coutinho, Gerrard (Lallana 70), Sterling.
Not used: Ward, Enrique, Lambert, Manquillo, Borini, Rossiter.
Chelsea (4-2-3-1) : Courtois, Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Filipe Luis, Mikel, Matic, Fabregas, Hazard, Willian (Azpilicueta 88), Costa.
Not used: Cech, Zouma, Ramires, Oscar, Drogba, Remy.
Referee: Martin Atkinson
Attendance: 44,573
Goals: Hazard 18, Sterling 59.
Bookings: Gerrard, Lucas, Filipe Luis, Mikel.
Man of the match : Raheem Sterling. A stunning individual goal from the gifted youngster, who caused Chelsea problems throughout. |
Tea party groups have succeeded in reversing nationally praised school integration policies in Raleigh, North Carolina, decrying the longstanding system as one of social engineering.
The Washington Post reports that tea party pressure has motivated Wake County School District’s largely Republican school board to abolish policies the newspaper describes as “one of the nation’s most celebrated integration efforts.”
“Say no to the social engineers!” was one of their slogans.
The Post hails the existing system as a “rarity,” noting that some of the county’s “best, most diverse schools are in the poorest sections of this capital city. And its suburban schools, rather than being exclusive enclaves, include children whose parents cannot afford a house in the neighborhood.”
The school board is instead considering a system in which poor children are relegated to low-income neighborhood schools, moving away from its current policies where most schools have students from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds.
Critics have sharply denounced the new plans as a form of segregation, noting that poorer children are often minorities and arguing that the new tea party-backed ideas will lead to a new cycle of poverty for the less fortunate.
Chief among them is the NAACP, which has slammed the effort as discriminatory and a new type of racial segregation, and has filed a civil rights complaint in an effort to protect hundreds of students from having to transfer out of their schools.
“So far, all the chatter we heard from tea partyers has not manifested in actually putting in place retrograde policies,” NAACP president Ben Jealous told the Post. “But this is one place where they have literally attempted to turn back the clock.”
Proponents of the new policies note that they do not violate the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 case, “Brown v. Board of Education,” which banned racial segregation, arguing that the proposed new policies are based on non-racial factors.
The move reflects the tea party’s first successes at influencing school board policies in a way that will inevitably affect the sociocultural makeup of schools. |
MARANA, Ariz. – On Sunday at Dove Mountain, about midway through the final match at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem confirmed what his players overwhelming told him early last week – there is no reason to ban anchoring.
“Essentially where the PGA Tour came down was that they did not think that banning anchoring was in the best interest of golf or the PGA Tour,” Finchem said.
Finchem did, however, stop short of suggesting that if the ban, which was proposed by the U.S. Golf Association and Royal & Ancient Golf Club last year, is passed later this spring the Tour would break from the Rules of Golf and create its own set of rules.
“We have not even begun that discussion,” Finchem said.
Finchem also dismissed suggestions that the issue has caused a rift or power struggle between the Tour and USGA and R&A.
“I've read some things that would suggest that this is some kind of a donnybrook between the PGA of America and the PGA Tour on one side and the USGA on the other, and that's not really correct,” Finchem said. “They've asked us to give our comments. All we're doing at this point is saying this is our opinion.”
Anchored putting: Check out more articles and video
The 90-day comment period on the potential ban ends next Thursday and Finchem said he expects a decision on whether golf’s rule makers will proceed with the ban “in the next month or so.”
The USGA released a statement following Finchem’s press conference: “As we consider the various perspectives on anchoring, it has always been our position that (the potential ban) aims to clarify and preserve the traditional and essential nature of the golf stroke, which has helped to make golf a unique and enjoyable game of skill and challenge. It is our plan to take final action on the proposed rule in the spring.”
Finchem’s comments echoed those of many players who participated in two separate conference calls this week regarding the issue. On Monday the circuit’s Player Advisory Council voted overwhelmingly according to multiple players on the call to oppose the ban. Later that day Finchem had a second conference call with the Policy Board to solidify the response, which was sent to the USGA and R&A late last week.
“It felt like, from what we got from the PAC, the majority was in favor of keeping it the way it is. Opposing the ban,” said Steve Stricker, one four player directors on the Policy Board. “It’s not everybody’s thinking, but it is overwhelming lopsided to oppose the ban.”
For Webb Simpson, a member of the PAC and among the estimated 18 percent of Tour players who anchor the club while putting, the vote and written response carried a slight air of vindication.
“A little bit,” Simpson said. “It didn’t look that way at first but the more people looked at it and saw the facts everybody agreed it is a good decision (Finchem) is making.”
For Finchem and the Policy Board the potential problem with the ban was twofold: anything that keeps amateurs from playing the game, and adds to the game’s participation declines, should be closely examined, and from the Tour’s point of view the product has never been better.
Nor did the Tour feel the USGA and R&A made a compelling enough case to outlaw something that has become a central part of the game.
“They can’t prove there is a benefit to using a long putter,” Stricker said. “I never saw anything and they will admit there is no evidence to back that up. In general the game of golf is not in a good spot, why would they try to detract players from playering the game?”
The PGA of America has already come out opposed to the potential ban and the European Tour is expected to draft a formal response before Thursday’s deadline but its stance remains unclear. |
1/28 Long commutes carry health risks Hours of commuting may be mind-numbingly dull, but new research shows that it might also be having an adverse effect on both your health and performance at work. Longer commutes also appear to have a significant impact on mental wellbeing, with those commuting longer 33 per cent more likely to suffer from depression Shutterstock
2/28 You cannot be fit and fat It is not possible to be overweight and healthy, a major new study has concluded. The study of 3.5 million Britons found that even “metabolically healthy” obese people are still at a higher risk of heart disease or a stroke than those with a normal weight range Getty Images/iStockphoto
3/28 Sleep deprivation When you feel particularly exhausted, it can definitely feel like you are also lacking in brain capacity. Now, a new study has suggested this could be because chronic sleep deprivation can actually cause the brain to eat itself Shutterstock
4/28 Exercise classes offering 45 minute naps launch David Lloyd Gyms have launched a new health and fitness class which is essentially a bunch of people taking a nap for 45 minutes. The fitness group was spurred to launch the ‘napercise’ class after research revealed 86 per cent of parents said they were fatigued. The class is therefore predominantly aimed at parents but you actually do not have to have children to take part Getty Images/iStockphoto
5/28 'Fundamental right to health' to be axed after Brexit, lawyers warn Tobacco and alcohol companies could win more easily in court cases such as the recent battle over plain cigarette packaging if the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is abandoned, a barrister and public health professor have said. Getty
6/28 'Thousands dying' due to fear over non-existent statin side-effects A major new study into the side effects of the cholesterol-lowering medicine suggests common symptoms such as muscle pain and weakness are not caused by the drugs themselves Getty Images/iStockphoto
7/28 Babies born to fathers aged under 25 have higher risk of autism New research has found that babies born to fathers under the age of 25 or over 51 are at higher risk of developing autism and other social disorders. The study, conducted by the Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment at Mount Sinai, found that these children are actually more advanced than their peers as infants, but then fall behind by the time they hit their teenage years. Getty Images/iStockphoto
8/28 Cycling to work ‘could halve risk of cancer and heart disease’ Commuters who swap their car or bus pass for a bike could cut their risk of developing heart disease and cancer by almost half, new research suggests – but campaigners have warned there is still an “urgent need” to improve road conditions for cyclists. Cycling to work is linked to a lower risk of developing cancer by 45 per cent and cardiovascular disease by 46 per cent, according to a study of a quarter of a million people. Walking to work also brought health benefits, the University of Glasgow researchers found, but not to the same degree as cycling. Getty Images
9/28 Ketamine helps patients with severe depression ‘when nothing else works’ doctors say Ketamine helps patients with severe depression ‘when nothing else works’ doctors say Creative Commons/Psychonaught
10/28 Playing Tetris in hospital after a traumatic incident could prevent PTSD Scientists conducted the research on 71 car crash victims as they were waiting for treatment at one hospital’s accident and emergency department. They asked half of the patients to briefly recall the incident and then play the classic computer game, the others were given a written activity to complete. The researchers, from Karolinska Institute in Sweden and the University of Oxford, found that the patients who had played Tetris reported fewer intrusive memories, commonly known as flashbacks, in the week that followed Rex
11/28 Measles outbreak spreads across Europe as parents shun vaccinations, WHO warns Major measles outbreaks are spreading across Europe despite the availability of a safe, effective vaccine, the World Health Organisation has warned. Anti-vaccine movements are believed to have contributed to low rates of immunisation against the highly contagious disease in countries such as Italy and Romania, which have both seen a recent spike in infections. Zsuzsanna Jakab, the WHO’s regional director for Europe, said it was “of particular concern that measles cases are climbing in Europe” when they had been dropping for years Creative Commons
12/28 Vaping backed as healthier nicotine alternative to cigarettes after latest study Vaping has been given an emphatic thumbs up by health experts after the first long-term study of its effects in ex-smokers. After six months, people who switched from real to e-cigarettes had far fewer toxins and cancer-causing substances in their bodies than continual smokers, scientists found Getty Images
13/28 Common method of cooking rice can leave traces of arsenic in food, scientists warn Millions of people are putting themselves at risk by cooking their rice incorrectly, scientists have warned. Recent experiments show a common method of cooking rice — simply boiling it in a pan until the water has steamed out — can expose those who eat it to traces of the poison arsenic, which contaminates rice while it is growing as a result of industrial toxins and pesticides Getty Images/iStockphoto
14/28 Contraceptive gel that creates ‘reversible vasectomy’ shown to be effective in monkeys An injectable contraceptive gel that acts as a ‘reversible vasectomy’ is a step closer to being offered to men following successful trials on monkeys. Vasalgel is injected into the vas deferens, the small duct between the testicles and the urethra. It has so far been found to prevent 100 per cent of conceptions Vasalgel
15/28 Shift work and heavy lifting may reduce women’s fertility, study finds Women who work at night or do irregular shifts may experience a decline in fertility, a new study has found. Shift and night workers had fewer eggs capable of developing into healthy embryos than those who work regular daytime hours, according to researchers at Harvard University Getty Images/iStockphoto
16/28 Breakfast cereals targeted at children contain 'steadily high' sugar levels since 1992 despite producer claims A major pressure group has issued a fresh warning about perilously high amounts of sugar in breakfast cereals, specifically those designed for children, and has said that levels have barely been cut at all in the last two and a half decades Getty
17/28 Fight against pancreatic cancer takes ‘monumental leap forward’ Scientists have made a “monumental leap forward” in the treatment of pancreatic cancer after discovering using two drugs together dramatically improved patients’ chances of living more than five years after diagnosis. Getty Images/iStockphoto
18/28 Japanese government tells people to stop overworking The Japanese government has announced measures to limit the amount of overtime employees can do – in an attempt to stop people literally working themselves to death. A fifth of Japan’s workforce are at risk of death by overwork, known as karoshi, as they work more than 80 hours of overtime each month, according to a government survey. Getty Images
19/28 Over-cooked potatoes and burnt toast ‘could cause cancer’ The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has issued a public warning over the risks of acrylamide - a chemical compound that forms in some foods when they are cooked at high temperatures (above 120C). Getty Images/iStockphoto
20/28 Cervical cancer screening attendance hits 19 year low Cervical screening tests are a vital method of preventing cancer through the detection and treatment of abnormalities in the cervix, but new research shows that the number of women using this service has dropped to a 19 year low. Getty Images/iStockphoto
21/28 High blood pressure may protect over 80s from dementia The ConversationIt is well known that high blood pressure is a risk factor for dementia, so the results of a new study from the University of California, Irvine, are quite surprising. The researchers found that people who developed high blood pressure between the ages of 80-89 are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease (the most common form of dementia) over the next three years than people of the same age with normal blood pressure. Getty Images/iStockphoto
22/28 Most child antidepressants are ineffective and can lead to suicidal thoughts The majority of antidepressants are ineffective and may be unsafe, for children and teenager with major depression, experts have warned. In what is the most comprehensive comparison of 14 commonly prescribed antidepressant drugs to date, researchers found that only one brand was more effective at relieving symptoms of depression than a placebo. Another popular drug, venlafaxine, was shown increase the risk users engaging in suicidal thoughts and attempts at suicide Getty
23/28 'Universal cancer vaccine’ breakthrough claimed by experts Scientists have taken a “very positive step” towards creating a universal vaccine against cancer that makes the body’s immune system attack tumours as if they were a virus, experts have said. Writing in Nature, an international team of researchers described how they had taken pieces of cancer’s genetic RNA code, put them into tiny nanoparticles of fat and then injected the mixture into the bloodstreams of three patients in the advanced stages of the disease. The patients' immune systems responded by producing "killer" T-cells designed to attack cancer. The vaccine was also found to be effective in fighting “aggressively growing” tumours in mice, according to researchers, who were led by Professor Ugur Sahin from Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany Rex
24/28 Green tea could be used to treat brain issues caused by Down’s Syndrome A compound found in green tea could improve the cognitive abilities of those with Down’s syndrome, a team of scientists has discovered. Researchers found epigallocatechin gallate – which is especially present in green tea but can also be found in white and black teas – combined with cognitive stimulation, improved visual memory and led to more adaptive behaviour. Dr Rafael de la Torre, who led the year-long clinical trial along with Dr Mara Dierrssen, said: “The results suggest that individuals who received treatment with the green tea compound, together with the cognitive stimulation protocol, had better scores in their cognitive capacities”
25/28 Taking antidepressants in pregnancy ‘could double the risk of autism in toddlers’ Taking antidepressants during pregnancy could almost double the risk of a child being diagnosed with autism in the first years of life, a major study of nearly 150,000 pregnancies has suggested. Researchers have found a link between women in the later stages of pregnancy who were prescribed one of the most common types of antidepressant drugs, and autism diagnosed in children under seven years of age
26/28 Warning over Calpol Parents have been warned that giving children paracetamol-based medicines such as Calpol and Disprol too often could lead to serious health issues later in life. Leading paediatrician and professor of general paediatrics at University College London, Alastair Sutcliffe, said parents were overusing paracetamol to treat mild fevers. As a result, the risk of developing asthma, as well as kidney, heart and liver damage is heightened
27/28 Connections between brain cells destroyed in early stages of Alzheimer’s disease Scientists have pinpointed how connections in the brain are destroyed in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, in a study which it is hoped will help in the development of treatments for the debilitating condition. At the early stages of the development of Alzheimer’s disease the synapses – which connect the neurons in the brain – are destroyed, according to researchers at the University of New South Wales, Australia. The synapses are vital for brain function, particularly learning and forming memories |
By Cole Lauterbach/Illinois Radio Network
CHICAGO – The first snowfall to hit Illinois this fall was no polite dusting, but a record-breaking event.
State Climatologist Jim Angel said Sunday’s snowfall total was the heaviest snow accumulation for a fall-winter season’s first snow at O’Hare International Airport and likely other sites as well.
“It was the greatest first-of-the-season daily total for Chicago at O’Hare Airport,” Angel said. “That’s the biggest one-day jump to the winter snowfall season.”
Sunday’s 6.4 inches of snowfall at O’Hare blew past the old Chicago record of 4.8 inches in November of 1940.
Angel said the snow hit hardest near the Quad Cities, with some areas recording more than 9 inches.
“In the Quad Cities, Davenport had 10.2 inches,” Angel said. “Several other sites also had very sizeable amounts all through that area.”
One of the highest measured totals in the state was Morrison, at 9.4 inches.
Travel south of I-70, and you saw little to no precipitation and temperatures around 40 degrees. “South of Interstate 70 usually has to wait for a week or so to see the average first winter snows,” Angel said.
According to the National Weather Service, the 6.4 inches at O’Hare was only three-tenths of an inch away from the all-time single-day snow total. The previous record for snowfall on Dec. 4 at O’Hare was 4.6 inches in 1964. |
Some things haven't changed since the 1970s. Programming is still done in text files; and though we have syntax highlighting and code completion, source code is still best displayed in monospace.
Other aspects of computing work best with monospace, also. The Unix shells; PowerShell; the Windows Command Prompt. Email is still sent with a copy in plaintext, which has to be wrapped on a monospace boundary. Not least, this persists because HTML email is excessively difficult to render securely, and there are user agents that still work better with plaintext.
In all of these situations, the problem presents itself that the originator has to anticipate how text will be rendered in advance. You cannot just send text and expect the recipient to flow it. You have to predict the effects of Tab characters correctly, and word wrap the text in advance, often not knowing the software that will be used for display. In terminal emulation, e.g. xterm via SSH, when the server sends the client a cha… |
Welcome to Blackgate, a nonlinear visual novel about a town filled with monsters. The who, what, when, where, why, and how are up to you to figure out.
A nonlinear visual novel is just a fancy way of saying 'choose your own adventure'. This is a story where YOU make the decisions. Each decision you make could make or break the narrative to your whim.Blackgate is a mature visual novel of a mostly M/M nature. While there will be a limited number of scenes of a M/F nature, the game is intended to be mostly M/M. The game also contains elements of horror, violence, and some gore (separate from the sexual scenes). Prepare to hate everyone, and everything.Twice a month, we plan to release regular updates for the project such that we can finally reach 'demo stage'. The 'demo stage' is a solid demo that accurately represents what the final product will be. The funds raised here would be used to pay for art assets, production, and editing.Yes there is! Our partner, Goal Publications , is selling the merchandise for this project. We will be adding more and more as time goes on, and you can find it all here Darkgem – Major Scene Artist Lil' Shark - Merchandise ArtistSean - AnthroAquatic Goal Publications – Editor/Merchandise Seller Bane – Writer/Music Producer/OwnerMr. E, who makes the current sprites and background art, wishes to remain anonymous.If you believe you have found any errors (bugs, typos, or glitches), feel free to emailwith the subject “Error”. Use as much detail as possible in your email. Please be patient, and we will do our best to fix them in a timely manner. If you are emailing about typos in the most recent update, please note that the editor usually does not have a chance to look at the content before it is released. These errors will be fixed in the next update.To transfer saves, go into the “game” folder of your currently-installed build. You should see a folder there called “saves”. Just copy and paste that folder into the “game” folder on the new build. Disclaimer: while most times you can transfer your saves, sometimes new variables can cause a corrupt save files. Due to the alpha state of the project, this is always a possibility, and it’s not fixable. We apologize for an inconveniences this may cause.That’s okay! Thank you for supporting us for the time you did. If it’s because of a personal financial situation, we’d love to have you back when you can. If you’re doing so because you’re dissatisfied in any way, please email [email protected] with the subject “Discontinued”. We’d like to try to resolve your issue as best as we can.Contact Patreon directly if you believe there’s a mischarge and need a refund, as we have no control over that.We are not associated with the wikia; it is fan-run.Yes, they are in development. The Android versions have been kept up to date with the help of one of our wonderful fans, Axtin. We will keep the Mediafire link updated on the main page here, but for other mirrors, check the comments of the latest build post. He usually uploads everything to Dropbox and Google Drive as well.There will be an iOS release of the VN when it is completed.Yes! While Blackgate is only the first of many stories HTBH creator Bane wishes to share, we've also begun to support the development of other projects, both existing and new. These projects are written and run by their own separate teams. Right now we are supporting the following projects: Echo (also known as "Project C") is HTBH's first partner project, run by Howly and his team. You play as Chase, an otter who grew up in the town of Echo and is returning home for spring break. Things aren't all sunshine and rainbows, as past events come back to haunt Chase and his friends, creating a story dripping with atmosphere and horror. Project Aego , while already in production before being approached by HTBH, is our second partner project, run by Bit and his team. After living the tragedy of their childhood, you'll play as either Tristan or Cooper--otter twins--as they return to Blue Haven, a city that holds the answers to the dark pockets of their past. With its plethora of noir elements, this is a story you can definitely get absorbed into.HTBH is the production company making Blackgate. We have partnered with Goal Publications in order to bring more furry VNs to the public. If you have a new visual novel you'd like us (Sean, mostly) to help with, check out Goal Publications' submission page to find out how to submit that to us.Ren’PyPythonIf you have any further questions, please ask![By downloading the game you confirm you are 18 years of age or older.] |
"The dataset was created from over 7 million YouTube videos (450,000 hours of video) and includes video labels from a vocabulary of 4716 classes (3.4 labels/video on average," Google wrote on the competition page. "It also comes with pre-extracted audio & visual features from every second of video (3.2B feature vectors in total)."
Google says it'll announce the winning teams at the YouTube-8M Workshop held during the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition in July. With up to $30,000 awarded per team, there's a good chance Google will end up attracting some eager developers. The company is also offering some free Google Cloud credits to early participants.
While the results of the competition won't directly affect consumers for a while, Google software engineer Paul Natsev notes that whatever they learn will be useful across many different types of videos. Hopefully, that could lead to better searching and content filtering down the line on YouTube. |
NEW DELHI: Russia may remain India's biggest defence supplier for the next two decades but its tardy supply of spares and after-sales service is forcing New Delhi to increasingly tap other countries to maintain Russian-origin aircraft, helicopters and other weapon systems.Over the last couple of months, IAF has floated a slew of global tenders for spares and special tools for MiG-23 and MiG-29 fighters, IL-76 and AN-32 transport aircraft, Mi-17 helicopters and OSA-AK surface-to-air missile systems.Now, the Army too has jumped on to the bandwagon for different equipment, which includes a global RFI (request for information) for acquiring "active protection and counter-measure systems" for its T-90S main-battle tanks, which have faced several technical problems since their induction began over the last decade."Yes, the international market is being explored to get spares for our Russian-origin equipment. We will still go to the Russian OEMs (original equipment manufacturer) for specialized spares. But we can get generalized spares at much cheaper rates from elsewhere," said a senior officer.This comes after years of India trying to get Russia to ensure uninterrupted supply of spares and regular maintenance, with even defence minister A K Antony regularly raising it with his Russian counterpart."In some cases, Russia has resolved the issue. But in many others, problems with breakdown and service maintenance spares continue... some acute, some manageable," said another officer.India has had an expansive defence partnership with Russia, with the latter notching up military sales well over $35 billion since the 1960s, leading to over 60% of equipment held by Indian armed forces being of Russian-origin.Ongoing bilateral defence projects are worth another $15 billion. IAF is progressively inducting 272 Sukhoi-30MKIs at a cost of around $12 billion from Russia. The figures will further zoom north with India slated to spend $35 billion over the next two decades to induct 250 to 300 of the stealth fifth-generation fighter aircraft ( FGFA ) from 2020 onwards. |
March 8, 2011 – Dr. Dime
For weeks if not months now fans of the Washington Wizards have been buzzing about possible changes to the team logo. Some want not only a new logo but a new/old name in reverting back to the ‘Washington Bullets’.
While I doubt the Wizards ownership (or the NBA) is too excited about a move back to the ‘Bullets’, especially in light of the Gilbert Arenas locker room gun incident last year, the team has acknowledged they will be making significant branding changes to the team which will include a logo change.
Today, we were reading WithLeather.com (a sports blog gem from Uproxx), and stumbled across what may be either good detective work on the Wizards new logo, or just wishful thinking. Here is what Withleather had to say about what they found (photo of possible logo after the jump):
It’s no news that the Washington Wizards have been in the process of reverting back to their franchise’s classic red, white, and blue color scheme, because I guess that’s what you do when you play in the nation’s capital. But now one image of a piece of NBA apparel seems to have unintentionally leaked what might be the new Wizards logo. Of course, this is just the old logo with the blue and gold swapped out for blue and red.
Head over to Withleather.com to read Ted Leonsis comments about the possible logo leak. |
A soccer ball flown aboard the ill-fated launch of the space shuttle Challenger floats on the International Space Station.
HOUSTON — A soccer ball that was on the ill-fated launch of the space shuttle Challenger has made it to orbit 30 years later, thanks to a shared connection between one of the fallen astronauts and the current commander on the International Space Station.
NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough, the commander of the station's Expedition 50 crew, posted to Twitter Friday (Feb. 3) a photo of the black and white ball floating in front of the windows in the orbiting laboratory's Cupola. His post came less than a week after the anniversary of the Jan. 28, 1986 Challenger tragedy.
"This ball was on Challenger that fateful day," Kimbrough wrote. "Flown by Ellison Onizuka for his daughter, a soccer player." [Remembering Challenger: NASA's 1st Shuttle Tragedy (Photos)]
Kimbrough ended his post by referencing Clear Lake High School (CLHS) in Houston, Texas, and adding the hashtag #NASARemembers.
Like Onizuka, Kimbrough is a "Falcon dad" — his son is currently a junior at the high school and is a member of its Falcon sport teams. (Kimbrough also has twin daughters in their first semesters at college.)
"Space station commander Col. Shane Kimbrough took a piece of CLHS Falcon history into space," the high school announced on its website. "The soccer ball was signed by members of the CLHS girls and boys soccer team in 1986 and was carried onboard the last flight of the space shuttle Challenger by another Falcon dad — Col. Ellison Onizuka."
Onizuka's daughter, Janelle, was a 16-year-old member of the soccer team at the time and is now a "Falcon mom."
NASA portrait of astronaut Ellison Onizuka (1946-1986). (Image: © NASA)
"The soccer ball in many ways has continued the mission my father embarked upon so many years ago," remarked Onizuka-Gillian in the statement released by CLHS. "It has continued to travel and explore space, while inspiring so many through its history."
Ellison Onizuka was making his second flight as a mission specialist when Challenger was lost 73 seconds into flight. Cold weather compromised a seal on one of the twin solid rocket boosters. Gas burning through the wall of the right booster damaged its connection to the vehicle, causing the structural failure of the external tank.
Challenger broke apart, giving way to aerodynamic forces, and fell in pieces into the ocean.
The tragedy claimed Onizuka's life, along with those of commander Dick Scobee, pilot Michael Smith, mission specialists Ron McNair and Judy Resnik, payload specialist Gregory Jarvis and Teacher-in-Space Christa McAuliffe.
NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough seen floating next to the airlock in Japan's Kibo module on the International Space Station. (Image: © NASA)
Several of Onizuka's personal items, including a football, an American flag and the soccer ball were found floating in the water during the retrieval of the wreckage of the space shuttle.
After NASA's investigation into the accident was complete, Challenger's debris was placed into storage in two retired missile silos at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The crew's personal items were presented to their families.
Onizuka's family later returned the recovered soccer ball to Clear Lake High School.
"Thank you Shane Kimbrough for helping a piece of CLHS Falcon history complete its mission in space!" the school tweeted on Friday.
Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2017 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved. |
Four years ago, the Town of Smiths Falls, Ont., took a chance when it welcomed Tweed Inc. to town. The company has since become one of the country’s biggest medical cannabis producers.
When it bought what used to house a Hershey chocolate factory back in 2013, it started out with a few dozen jobs.
“Our future won’t be the past. We’re not going to be the blue-collar industrial town we once were,” Smiths Falls Mayor Shawn Pankow said.
With the additions of a client call centre, packaging rooms, a distribution centre and even more growing rooms, Tweed’s employee base is nearing 300, and matching the more than 600 from Hershey’s peak isn’t out of the question – in fact, there are currently 70 open jobs listed on the company’s website.
Tweed has quickly become the largest employer in Smiths Falls.
READ MORE: Mother, Mother and Classified highlight Tweed Inc. shindig
“What that means to the town is huge,” Cyril Cooper, economic development manager for Smiths Falls said. “We’re already in the business development side working with companies that want to support that cluster, that development.”
Expansion plans announced earlier this summer mean the company will have a footprint as far west as Alberta, and as far east as New Brunswick.
The move was made in order to meet the demand for recreational cannabis, in time for next year’s legalization.
And while it strives to become a global brand, company representatives want to stay true to their roots.
“Our origin and story start in the Hershey chocolate factory,” Tweed communications manager Jordan Sinclair said.
“We’re proud that this is our headquarters and that will never change.”
Expansion plans at the Smiths Falls facility will see the production of edibles, which they say includes chocolate bars – a full-circle trip of sorts for the old Hershey factory. |
In a new report that supports months-old rumors, JoBlo is reporting that Elizabeth Debicki, who has been confirmed as a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 cast but whose identity and role in the film have yet to be officially unveiled, will be playing the film's central antagonist, a villain known as Ayesha.
Also known as Kismet or Paragon in the comics, Ayesha was the "Her" to Adam Warlock's "Him," both of whom were genetic experiments created and imbued with cosmic power by a group called the Enclave.
It's hard to say how much of that will figure into the big screen version of the character, especially with no confirmation as yet that Warlock -- a figure who looms much larger in the Marvel Universe than does Ayesha -- will even be in the film. As noted in the piece, Comic Book Movie broke this back in March.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is in production and principal photography now for a 2017 release. The entire principal cast and director James Gunn return from the first chapter. They're joined by Sylvester Stallone, Kurt Russell, Debicki, Pom Klementieff as Mantis, and more. At this point, most of the new actors' roles are unknown and/or mysterious. Gunn has also said that, aside from Peter Quill, there will be no major characters in the film of human ancestry, thus presumably cutting out those persistent "Avengers cameo" rumors. |
September 2nd-8th, 2019!
Airport Ident. SC00/Woodruff, SC We are looking forward to seeing our old friends and all of our new ones for the biggest general aviation event of the year! Please No Early Arrivals before the first day of the event. Our volunteers are working diligently keeping the grounds mowed and sprucing up the place for your arrival. Triple Tree offers: 7,000 x 400 ft. manicured bentgrass runway
Restored WWII control tower
440 acre site
Unlimited exceptional camping sites
Unrivaled, CLEAN bath facilities with private showers and granite countertops
Over six miles of hiking trails
Fishing yes, you can eat them while on-site
Friendliest staff
Great food
Great educational seminars
Fun social events
Worlds most beautiful aviation facility
FUN, Fellowship and Hospitality - Guaranteed!!!
Please plan to join us for the Triple Tree Fly-In! AOPA Triple Tree Aerodrome article February 2016 click here Check out the Article in EAA on Triple Tree Aerodrome For more videos click here |
Microsoft C Sharp (C #) is one of the worlds most popular programming languages. It was developed as part of Microsoft's .NET initiative. The main power of C# lies in its versitality and it being a Multi Paradigm language supports imperative, functional, generic, object oriented and component oriented programming styles. Expertise in this simple, general purpose and modern programming language is sought after trait for software developers and software architects.
Our course is designed to make it easy for everyone to master this amazing language. It has been divided in to following main sections :
Introduction to C#
Language basics, programming paradigms, Visual Studio and writing your first program
Basic Programming Structures
Data types, Operators, Arrays
Iteration and Jumps
Loops, Conditionals and methods
Object Oriented Programming
Classes, Interfaces, Access Modifiers, Nullable Types, Interfaces, Nested Types and Generics
Advance Features
Delegates, Events, Lambda Expressions, Operator Overloading, Extension methods, Anonymous types, Dynamic Binding, Prepressor Directives, Collections
LINQ
Linq queries, Linq Operators, Linq Queries, Linq to SQL
C # Network Programming
Streams, Streams Architecture, Directory Operations, Networking, Using HTTP, Threads and Tasks
This amazing training will help you quickly master all the difficult concepts and will the learning will be a breeze. So lets get started.. |
Site’s founding president, who became a billionaire thanks to the company, says: ‘God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains’
Facebook’s founders knew they were creating something addictive that exploited “a vulnerability in human psychology” from the outset, according to the company’s founding president Sean Parker.
Parker, whose stake in Facebook made him a billionaire, criticized the social networking giant at an Axios event in Philadelphia this week. Now the founder and chair of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, Parker was there to speak about advances in cancer therapies. However, he took the time to provide some insight into the early thinking at Facebook at a time when social media companies face intense scrutiny from lawmakers over their power and influence.
'Our minds can be hijacked': the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia Read more
Parker described how in the early days of Facebook people would tell him they weren’t on social media because they valued their real-life interactions.
“And I would say, ‘OK. You know, you will be,’” he said.
“I don’t know if I really understood the consequences of what I was saying,” he added, pointing to “unintended consequences” that arise when a network grows to have more than 2 billion users.
“It literally changes your relationship with society, with each other. It probably interferes with productivity in weird ways. God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains,” he said.
He explained that when Facebook was being developed the objective was: “How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?” It was this mindset that led to the creation of features such as the “like” button that would give users “a little dopamine hit” to encourage them to upload more content.
“It’s a social-validation feedback loop … exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.”
Parker, who previously founded the file-sharing site Napster, joined the Facebook team in 2004 five months after the site had launched as a student directory at Harvard. Parker saw the site’s potential and was, according to Zuckerberg, “pivotal in helping Facebook transform from a college project into a real company”.
In 2005, police found cocaine in a vacation home Parker was renting and he was arrested on suspicion of possession of a schedule 1 substance. He wasn’t charged, but the arrest rattled investors and he resigned shortly after.
Thanks mostly to his brief stint at Facebook, Parker’s net worth is estimated to be more than $2.6bn. He set up the Parker Foundation in June 2015 to use some of his wealth to support “large-scale systemic change” in life sciences, global public health and civic engagement.
Parker is not the only Silicon Valley entrepreneur to express regret over the technologies he helped to develop. The former Googler Tristan Harris is one of several techies interviewed by the Guardian in October to criticize the industry.
“All of us are jacked into this system,” he said. “All of our minds can be hijacked. Our choices are not as free as we think they are.” |
Major oil companies should not have a say in the redesign of Alberta's school curriculum, say critics.
A document posted on the Alberta Education website this week shows companies like Cenovus Energy, Suncor Energy, Stantec, PCL Industrial Contractors and Syncrude Canada have been recruited to "help draft Alberta's future curriculum for our students."
The partnerships are part of a two-year education curriculum redesign, announced last month by Premier Alison Redford.
NDP Education critic Deron Bilous told the Calgary Sun the move is "appalling."
"We've got corporations sitting down and redesigning curriculum. It's no longer educators and experts. Is the purpose to develop, or is it to make young workers for the oil companies?" he asked.
Specifically, the plan includes Suncor Energy and Syncrude Canada consultation in the K-to-3 redesign, which doesn't sit well with Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner Mike Hudema.
“It’s time that the Alberta government realizes that what’s good for the oil industry isn’t what’s good for the rest of Alberta and especially not our children. While oil may run our cars for now it shouldn’t run our government or our schools. Ever," he told DeSmog Canada.
However, Education Minister Jeff Johnson told the Edmonton Journal the province welcomes the opinions of critics and parents and it's possible the model could change in the future, depending on the feedback received.
“We want the economy involved in the education system,” Johnson said Tuesday. “If we’re going to build a relevant education system, we need the voice of the employer, the business community, economic development — we need those people at the table.”
Oil and gas companies have shown increased interest in curriculum design in recent years, eager to partner with schools and teachers.
Canada's largest oil and gas lobby group, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), partnered with the Royal Canadian Geographic Society to create 'Energy IQ' — an in-class learning curriculum designed to "teach Canadians about growing demand, the energy mix, emerging technologies, regulatory requirements and much more."
In a blog post written for Huffington Post Canada last year, Cameron Fenton, National Director of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition, said 'Energy IQ' focuses on the positive aspects of Canada's energy industry, ignoring other parts of the conversation.
"As a private company CAPP has a right to try and spread their spin by buying up advertising. As a publisher, Canadian Geographic has the same rights to work with whoever they want in putting out their magazine. They are more than welcome to erode their own credibility by putting out a magazine with CAPP, but neither of them have a right to bring Canada's biggest oil lobby and public relations organization into schools."
The Alberta government expects the curriculum changes to be rolled out by the 2016 school year.
Alberta Education curriculum redesign by Mariam Ibrahim
Also on HuffPost |
Xbox One and Windows 10 owners looking forward to crossplay support for ARK: Survival Evolved will have to wait a little longer. Studio Wildcard Co-Founder and Creative Director Jesse Rapczack shared that the Play Anywhere feature has slipped during an ID@Xbox Twitch livestream Thursday.
As Inquisitr previously reported, Studio Wildcard was targeting a December release for Play Anywhere support with ARK: Survival Evolved, but it was not guaranteed. Lead Developer Jeremy Stieglitz noted it was being worked on as a side project while the studio has been focused on adding new content, new features, and a PS4 release leading into the open-world survival title exiting Early Access sometime in Spring 2017.
The work “requires reformatting ARK’s application handling to work with Universal Windows Platform,” Stieglitz explained at the time. “Hard to predict exactly when it’ll be ready to release at the moment, but it’s looking like December!”
Play Anywhere support will have to wait until January, at least. Rapczack did confirm Studio Wildcard was working with Microsoft to ensure those who purchased ARK: Survival Evolved for the Xbox One will automatically be given the game as a free download for Windows 10 PCs too.
[Image by Studio Wildcard]
Rapczack also confirmed once again Windows 10 owners will be able to set up their own dedicated servers to run ARK: Survival Evolved. Presumably, server hosting companies will take advantage of this to offer server rentals for those that want to run their own ARK server without dealing with the hardware and connection details.
Additionally, the Creative Director hinted at the possibility a Windows 10 PC owner might be able to run a dedicated server and play ARK: Survival Evolved at the same time. This would mean running the server as a separate application, but this is not guaranteed and was only mentioned as a possibility Studio Wildcard is currently exploring.
Despite the lack of Play Anywhere support for December, ARK: Survival Evolved players on the Xbox One do have new items to look forward to. The 748.0 update is currently scheduled for December 14 and will finally bring Xbox LIVE Achievements to the game. It’s not known yet if Achievements will be reward retroactively, but Rapczack did say they will be available for the hardest challenges in the game, as well as some of the simplest. These will also be added to Steam while PlayStation Trophies were previously confirmed.
Another major feature to be included in the December update is the addition of Procedurally Generated Maps (PGM). The ability to create semi-randomized maps was introduced to the PC version of ARK: Survival Evolved a little over a month ago. It required additional work and testing to get it on the Xbox One, but Studio Wildcard revealed plans to mix up the Extinction servers with the PGMs.
The 748 patch release will coincide with Studio Wildcard taking the official Extinction Servers offline temporarily and setting them up to run with Procedurally Generated Maps going forward. This means when the server resets itself every month, it will provide a new start on a unique map.
[Image by Studio Wildcard]
Meanwhile, new content will include the addition of four new dinosaurs: the giant snail, Achatina; a nocturnal two-legged carnivore with the Megalosaurus; the Triceratops cousin, Pachyrhinosaurus, and the cowardly lizard, Moschops.
There is also a complete revamping of the caves on The Island map. They’ve been given a graphical and performance overhaul along with new challenges to attempt to complete for better loot.
The oft-delayed Breeding Phase 3 will also be added with this patch. This adds family trees and mutations when breeding dinosaurs. PC players are still discovering what happens when you inbreed. Reddit user silverbullet1989 shared an image of a Spinosaurus with a neon green belly, for example.
There is still no word yet on if Xbox One owners will receive the Winter Wonderland 2 event for the Christmas holidays. PC owners are currently scheduled to receive it on December 21 with the 253.0 patch.
Further out, the Tek Tier is coming to the PC with the 253.0 patch and should hit the Xbox One two to four weeks later. Underwater cave systems and base building is scheduled for early in 2017.
[Featured Image by Studio Wildcard] |
IRKUTSK, Russia -- Russia has labeled him a pedophile and child pornographer who posted naked photographs of his 5-year-old daughter on the Internet, then fled Russia to escape a 15-year prison sentence.
But Yoann Barbereau, the former Irkutsk branch director of the nonprofit Alliance Francaise cultural organization, says he was framed by Russian computer hackers and law enforcement.
He says he thinks he became the target of so-called “discredit tactics” because of a “troubled local situation” in Irkutsk, strained Franco-Russian relations, and his “cultural sphere” connections with a mayor who was elected in opposition to President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party.
Now, back in his native France after three years of trouble in Russia, Barbereau has a story as full of intrigue as the 19th-century Russian novels that attracted him to Siberia in the first place.
It is a tale of geopolitical intrigue, local power struggles, international diplomacy, alleged rot in the legal system, and an extraordinary overland escape across the world’s largest country.
Barbereau says he is determined to clear his name in a case where police have “lost” crucial evidence used to convict him and where a key witness says she was coerced by investigators into giving false testimony against him.
But Russia's Foreign Ministry stands firmly behind Barbereau’s conviction and says he committed another crime by illegally fleeing the country.
“Russian authorities intend to take all necessary measures to ensure that Barbereau takes responsibility for his actions,” the ministry said in a statement in November after Barbereau's return to France.
Escape From Siberia
After police took him from his Irkutsk home with a bag over his head in February 2015 and seized his computer, Barbereau spent 10 weeks in a Siberian detention center, 20 days in a Russian psychiatric hospital where he says a 15,000-euro bribe was extorted from him, and 16 months under house arrest awaiting a verdict.
When I was in the forest, I met wolves. But meeting wolves was not the worst thing...The real danger lay in the approach to the border, as I knew that Russian border guards have dogs...And I knew that there can be snipers in the border zones and I could be shot.”
In September 2016, just before the Kuibyshev District Court convicted him as a child pornographer and sentenced him to 15 years in a Siberian labor camp, Barbereau removed the electronic ankle bracelet he'd been ordered to wear and wrapped the GPS tracking device in aluminum foil.
He put his mobile phone on a bus going to Mongolia to throw authorities off his track, then posed as a French tourist to get rides to Moscow using a long-distance carpooling service.
In Moscow, he says he went straight to the French Embassy, where he expected diplomats would quietly smuggle him back to France. But that never happened.
Instead, the embassy gave him refuge while, he was told, negotiations took place “at the highest level” about his case -- including “direct talks” between Putin and then-French President Francois Hollande, and then between current French President Emmanuel Macron, Putin, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
After 14 months at the embassy, Barbereau says, he “decided to take responsibility” for his situation.
“If they could not get me out, then I had to get myself out of Russia,” Barbereau told RFE/RL.
Slipping out of the embassy unnoticed in the early autumn, Barbereau says he bought equipment for forest trekking -- “a backpack, a compass, a GPS navigator, a survival knife, food, water, essentials.”
“I didn’t inform anyone in the embassy, as I knew there could be wiretapping,” he says. “I organized everything myself” after months studying satellite maps of Russia’s western borders.
Then he set off to sneak across the border into a Baltic state that he declines to name.
“When I was in the forest, I met wolves. But meeting wolves was not the worst thing. They passed near me without a clear intention to attack,” Barbereau says. “The real danger lay in the approach to the border, as I knew that Russian border guards have dogs to detain those trying to cross over -- dogs that not only injure but also kill. And I knew that there can be snipers in the border zones and I could be shot.”
Once across the border and in the European Union’s visa-free Schengen Area, it was easy for Barbereau to return to France.
On November 10, back in his hometown of Nantes, Barbereau called for a French “judicial investigation” to review the evidence used against him at his trial and recognize what he describes as the inanity of Russia’s accusations against him.
He also announced that his lawyer, Olivier Arnod, was filing complaints against Russian authorities with the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for “violence, extortion of money, piracy of his computer data, and invasion of his privacy.”
Meanwhile, France's Foreign Ministry says Barbereau "received consular protection from the moment he was implicated" in the case.
The ministry says "many steps" were taken with Russian authorities "for the sole purpose of finding a solution that would allow Yoann Barbereau to return to France."
Evidence 'Falsified'
Barbereau told RFE/RL he fled house arrest in Irkutsk because his trial was unfair and it was obvious he had become a pawn in a bigger political game.
“The charge itself was based on evidence that was falsified,” Barbereau told RFE/RL.
Barbereau says he presented "important evidence proving my innocence” and demonstrated that "there were manipulations by the Irkutsk police, or by the FSB (Federal Security Service) with police participation."
"But the judges were not interested in it at all," he says.
"There also was evidence of unauthorized access to my computer by hackers who attacked my WiFi connection and used it to publish private photos,” he says, including several naked photos of Barbereau and his daughter, Eloise, sitting on a couch.
Barberau says the photos captured an innocent moment after a shower.
Barbereau’s Russian former wife, Darya Nikolenko, who divorced him after his arrest and moved to France with their daughter, says she also considers the photos to be a private family moment and not pornographic.
But Barbereau says that after the images were stolen by hackers, they were combined by somebody else in a video that included images of children being sexually abused.
That video was published on a social-media website that provides advice on parenting to young mothers in Irkutsk.
A website moderator removed the material within minutes, but that was long enough for a 23-year-old mother to copy it onto an optical disc and, 10 days later, give it to the FSB to become evidence in the future trial.
An independent computer forensic examination of the disc could provide evidence on the veracity of Barbereau’s claim that he was framed.
But a senior police investigator in Irkutsk reported in December 2015, after the trial court returned its guilty verdict, that the optical disc had gone missing from the evidence room and that “there are reasons to believe the mentioned evidence has been lost.”
Recanted Testimony
Barbereau’s former wife tells RFE/RL she believes he is innocent.
Nikolenko says authorities in Irkutsk forced her to sign a false statement against her former husband -- threatening to throw her in prison and send Eloise to an orphanage if she refused.
Nikolenko also says a videotaped statement she read out as court evidence had been carefully written for her by an investigator named Aleksei Ius.
She says their daughter also was manipulated and coerced by authorities into making false statements about being molested.
RFE/RL has obtained transcripts of those interviews, which suggest the 5-year-old was coached by interrogators about how to answer in order to “help papa be released sooner.”
According to the transcripts, Ius told the young girl: “Do you remember? We talked with you, that we must tell the truth, so that papa would be released sooner? Remember?”
But Eloise repeatedly denies that any improprieties were committed by her father until, after much persuasion, she seemingly understood how the interrogators wanted her to answer.
Whose Order?
Barbereau says he thinks he got caught up in a “troubled local situation” at a time when Franco-Russian relations already were strained by the European Union’s sanctions against Russia over its military actions in Ukraine.
Barbereau’s position at Alliance Francaise-Irkutsk -- which received funding from the French Embassy, as well as the city of Irkutsk -- made him a highly visible member of the city’s French expatriate community.
He says that made him a target for “discrediting tactics” by police and FSB agents in Irkutsk -- particularly in late 2014 when, just weeks before Barbereau’s arrest, France halted the delivery of two French-built Mistral navy warships Russia had purchased.
“There was a feeling of frustration on the part of many Russians, and no doubt, on the part of representatives of the authorities,” Barbereau says. “It created a climate of its own kind.”
“I myself wonder who could have ordered this,” he says. “I don’t have an exact explanation, but one possible explanation is the fact that I was very close to the mayor of Irkutsk at the time, Viktor Kondrashov -- who was [elected to the mayor’s office as] an opponent of United Russia, in opposition to Vladimir Putin.”
Barbereau says he worked a lot with Kondrashov “in the cultural sphere” without engaging in local politics.
“Shortly after my arrest, the elections in Irkutsk were canceled and Mayor Kondrashov was replaced by a city manager who was appointed directly,” Barbereau says. “It seems that someone wanted to get rid of this mayor, and probably I was too close to him.”
Barbereau says he also thinks his case was seen as a “career growth” opportunity for police and FSB agents who decided to “bring a case against the Frenchman and plant evidence against him.”
“I think that this is in a sense a parallel system -- the FSB and the police, where someone’s private situation, unfortunately, can solve many things in Russia, especially in the regions,” Barbereau said.
Written by Ron Synovitz in Prague with reporting by RFE/RL Russian Service correspondent Sergei Khazov-Cassia in Moscow and by RFE/RL’s Sibir-Realii in Irkutsk |
Istanbul (CNN) In the bitter debate over where a Russian warplane was flying when Turkish aircraft shot it down, the United States took Turkey's side Monday.
The available information indicates the warplane shot down last week was in Turkish airspace, State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said at a Monday press briefing.
Moscow has steadfastly maintained its jet was over Syria when it was downed.
The State Department announcement came after the body of a Russian pilot who died after the jet was shot down along the Turkey-Syria border was flown back to Russia, according to Russia's Ministry of Defense.
Col. Oleg Peshkov's body arrived Monday at the Chkalovsky military airport near Moscow, according to a statement from the ministry.
Russia's state-run Sputnik news agency reported that Peshkov's body was met by Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu and Russian air force Commander-in-Chief Victor Bondarev.
Peshkov will be buried in Lipetsk, Russia, as requested by his family, Sputnik reported.
Photos: Turkey-Syria border: Russian warplane crashes Photos: Turkey-Syria border: Russian warplane crashes A Russian warplane goes down in Syria's Bayirbucak region, near the Turkish border, on November 24, 2015. Hide Caption 1 of 6 Photos: Turkey-Syria border: Russian warplane crashes The Turkish military says it shot down the unidentified warplane, contending it repeatedly violated Turkish airspace. Hide Caption 2 of 6 Photos: Turkey-Syria border: Russian warplane crashes Turkey's semi-official Anadolu Agency cites Turkish presidential sources in reporting that a Russian SU-24 was "hit within the framework of engagement rules." Hide Caption 3 of 6 Photos: Turkey-Syria border: Russian warplane crashes The Anadolu Agency reported that a parachute was also seen leaving the jet before it crashed. The fate of the airman remains unclear. Hide Caption 4 of 6 Photos: Turkey-Syria border: Russian warplane crashes The Turkish government is strongly opposed to the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. Russia, however, has backed Assad, and has had warplanes active over Syria. Hide Caption 5 of 6 Photos: Turkey-Syria border: Russian warplane crashes Heavy smoke has been seen in the area where the plane fell.
Hide Caption 6 of 6
Turkey and Russia disagree on whether the Russian plane was in Turkish airspace when it was shot down, as well as whether any warnings went out to the crew.
Russia says its planes were bombing ISIS militants in the area, though Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said only Turkmen -- "our brothers and sisters" -- were in that region of Syria.
The incident left one pilot dead; another was rescued.
Erdogan: 'Let's talk'
After days of tough talk after the incident, Erdogan struck a more conciliatory tone Saturday, saying his government was "really saddened" by the matter and insisting he did not want to ramp up tensions.
JUST WATCHED Erdogan: We won't apologize for downing Russian plane Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Erdogan: We won't apologize for downing Russian plane 06:54
"We wouldn't have wished this to happen. But, unfortunately, it did," he said at an event in Balikesir.
"We hope that the tensions with Russia will not grow and result in more saddening incidents."
Erdogan appealed for dialogue, saying the U.N. climate change conference in Paris, which he and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to attend, would be a good place to have such talks.
"We tell Russia, 'Let's talk about this issue within its boundaries, and let's settle it,' " Erdogan said Saturday. "Let's not make others happy by escalating it to a level that would hurt all our relations."
However, his comments fell short of the apology Moscow has demanded.
Putin signs punitive decree
Putin has accused Turkey of trying to bring its relations with Russia to a "dead end," calling the incident "a stab in the back" and tying Turkey to terrorists.
JUST WATCHED Putin warns Turkey of 'serious consequences' Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Putin warns Turkey of 'serious consequences' 02:20
On Saturday, he signed a decree authorizing punitive economic measures against Turkey.
The decree partially suspends "visa-free" travel between the countries, mandates that Russian travel agencies stop selling tours to Turkey -- a major tourist destination for Russians -- and bans charter transportation between the nations, according to Sputnik news.
The decree also prohibits the import of certain Turkish goods and, starting next year, will prevent Russian companies from hiring Turkish citizens, Sputnik said.
The ordeal has raised questions about international leaders' ability to come together to combat ISIS, which has taken over swaths of Syria and Iraq and claimed attacks in Europe, Asia and Africa.
JUST WATCHED Turkey warns Russia not to 'play with fire' Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Turkey warns Russia not to 'play with fire' 01:41
French President Francois Hollande has been meeting with world leaders over the past week in an attempt to strengthen international efforts to destroy the Sunni extremist group
But the tension between Turkey -- part of the NATO alliance -- and Russia, which has been conducting its own campaign of strikes against rebel groups in Syria, would appear to complicate those efforts. |
Detroit Lions 2015 training camp cuts
The Detroit Lions have waived guard Al Bond.
(Mike Mulholland | MLive.com)
With the deadline less than four hours away, the reports of Detroit Lions' roster cuts are starting to roll in quickly. Joining tight end Casey Pierce and cornerback Crezdon Butler on the list is undrafted rookie guard Al Bond. This
. The 6-foot-3, 315-pounder out of Memphis appeared in all four preseason games for the Lions, playing 51 total snaps. Bond had been buried on the depth chart at a deep position group, which included Larry Warford, Manny Ramirez, Taylor Boggs and first-round draft pick Laken Tomlinson. Once he clears waivers, Bond is eligible for the Lions practice squad.
-- Download the Detroit Lions MLive app for iPhone and Android
-- Follow Justin Rogers on Twitter
-- Follow MLive Sports on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram |
Image caption The conviction of Mark Bridger has raised questions about access to illegal material on the internet
Search engines such as Google should do more to restrict access to online pornography, a government adviser on child internet safety has said.
John Carr says internet companies should block links which paedophiles use to find pictures of abuse.
It comes after a court heard April Jones's murderer Mark Bridger searched for child abuse and rape images.
Campaigners backed the call as Google said it has a "zero tolerance" policy to child sexual abuse content.
Mr Carr, a member of the government's Council on Child Internet Safety, said Google and other search engines should reset their default search setting to the safest option - blocking access to legal as well as illegal sexual images.
Those wanting to reach such material would have to register to search for other content, which would deter many from doing so, he argued.
Mr Carr told BBC Radio 4's Today programme internet search engines did prevent access to web addresses that contain child abuse images.
But he said one of the "key routes" paedophiles used to find content was through adverts containing "code words" that are placed on legal hardcore pornography sites.
He said: "Google's moral leadership is essential here. They are the biggest player in this space in the world. If they did it, I think others would have to follow."
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption John Carr urges Google to "be proactive"
Vile trade
Mr Carr said there was "no question" that some men who look at child sex abuse images go on to carry out abuse.
Earlier, speaking to BBC Radio 5 live he said: "There is enough evidence to suggest that if we can put more barriers towards guys getting to child abuse images, fewer of them will do it and more children will be safe."
He said between 15 and 50 per cent of men who previously had no involvement with child abuse images would go on to physically harm children once they accessed them.
It has been suggested that some internet companies are reluctant to change their search settings as it would drive users to sites unwilling to change their policy and put them at a competitive disadvantage.
Children's charity the NSPCC said April's killing highlighted the increasing evidence of a link between disturbing and violent images of children online and serious sexual assaults.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Google's Scott Rubin explains how the search giant deals with images of child sexual abuse
"April's death will hopefully lead to effective measures to stamp out this vile trade," acting chief executive Philip Hoyes said.
'Personal' involvement
Google's director of communications and public affairs, Scott Rubin, says the company has a zero-tolerance policy on child sexual abuse content and is already working with the Internet Watch Foundation to get rid of child sex abuse sites.
He said: "I have a little girl. For us at Google, there are many of us who are parents.
"This is personal, so we fight incredibly hard to support organisations like the IWF here in the UK, the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children in the US, who provide us regularly with addresses of websites that contain this illegal material, and we immediately take them off our site.
"When we learn of it through our users, for example, we report it to the appropriate legal authorities and we do everything we can to respond as quickly as possible.
We need to invest in the work that's done to identify and locate these offenders earlier, and to interdict their behaviour before they step into the real world and harm a child Jim Gamble, Ex-head of Ceop
"I know that others in our industry do the same thing and it concerns me when I hear people claiming that we're not doing anything, because it gives parents and others the impression that companies like Google don't care - and the opposite is true. We care deeply about this."
Paedophile Bridger was found guilty at Mold Crown Court on Thursday of abducting and murdering five-year-old April in Powys last October.
Investment call
During his trial, the jury was told that police had found a library of pornography on his laptop which included violent images of children.
BBC political correspondent Chris Mason said Bridger's conviction had renewed the debate about what could be done to limit access to such material online.
Commons Home Affairs Select Committee chairman Keith Vaz told the Times newspaper that the case had shown "we need to act to remove such content from the internet".
He called for a code of conduct to ensure internet service providers "remove material which breaches acceptable behaviour standards".
A former head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop) called for more investment in identifying potential abusers.
"We need to invest in the work that's done to identify and locate these offenders earlier, and to interdict their behaviour before they step into the real world and harm a child," Jim Gamble said.
Life sentence
Bridger, 47, of Ceinws, Powys, claimed he had accidentally run April over and could not recall where he had put her body.
But a jury unanimously convicted him in a case lasting four-and-a-half weeks.
The judge branded him a "pathological liar" and "a paedophile".
April went missing on 1 October 2012 near her home in Machynlleth, sparking the biggest search in UK police history. Her remains have never been found.
Bridger was given a whole-life tariff prison sentence, meaning he must spend the rest of his life behind bars. |
UPON A CHILL WIND,
THE ELDWURM COMES
The season may be changing, but the cold still has the power to bite. Winter Wyvern has arrived, ready to let you blanket the battlefield in her icy shadow. Take wing to soar over obstacles and sap an enemy's strength from afar, or pierce gathered foes with shards of fragile ice. Or wrap your allies in a frozen cocoon to let them hibernate and heal, while you curse your opponents to turn their weapons on one of their own. With Winter Wyvern on the field, the warmth of spring may never come.
ARCTIC BURN
Soar upon an icy gust to fly over obstacles, and strike enemies from afar with attacks that remove a percentage of their health.
SPLINTER BLAST
Shatter a block of fragile ice on an opponent that launches splinters into nearby enemies.
COLD EMBRACE
Encase an ally in a healing cocoon of ice that renders them immune to physical attacks.
WINTER'S CURSE
Freeze an enemy in place and strike those around them with a curse that causes them to attack their frozen ally. |
One of the biggest departures from Star Wars tradition that was taken by Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was the lack of an opening crawl to set the stage for the movie to come. However, even though we didn’t see one in the final movie, we did find out that there was once an opening crawl that was part of the original draft of the script.
The existence of a Rogue One opening crawl was further confirmed just a few days ago when director Gareth Edwards confirmed in a Reddit AMA that Gary Whitta wrote one in the first draft of the script. But he said that we would have to bug him to find out what it entailed. Thankfully, someone was able to follow up with the writer, and now we have some clarification on the matter.
UPDATE: Apparently writer Gary Whitta’s memory isn’t what it used to be. It turns out the Rogue One opening crawl did exist in the first draft of the script, but was removed when he did revisions. He reached out to us on Twitter to clarify his previous comments. In addition, we got some brief details about what that opening crawl entailed. Our original story follows, and you can find the update with details on the opening crawl after the jump.
io9 spoke to Gary Whitta not long after Gareth Edwards gave everyone that trailer to follow, and Whitta clarified, “It was never actually in a draft of the script. It’s just in a document, like a story document that I wrote.” Then he went on to explain how the discussion about the opening crawl (and some of the other traditional elements of Star Wars) went behind the scenes
“Literally in the very first days working on the film we were asking ourselves those questions. Like ‘What makes these :standalones different? Do they have opening crawls? Do they have John Williams music? Do they have all the same furniture and trappings? Do you do the Kurosawa wipes? Or do find your own language?’ Initially Gareth, a hardcore Star Wars fan, was like ‘You’ve gotta have an opening crawl.’ We wanted to have all the things we grew up with. And so as an experiment, purely because it was fun to try and write one, I wrote one. But it was never in a script. It was never actually in a draft.”
It’s likely we’ll never see that opening crawl, but even if we did, it would only offer insight into an entirely different version of the movie. There were some drastic changes made to the story that Gary Whitta wrote, as well as the first draft of the script, when Chris Weitz was brought in to write a second draft. There were characters in the final movie that weren’t even part of Whitta’s original draft, including the favorite duo Chirrut Imwe and Baze Malbus.
In the end, Whitta thnks that Rogue One is better without an opening crawl anyway:
As we started to embrace the idea more and more that these films were going to be different, and they didn’t have to be beholden to all the same laws as the original films, we were like, ‘You know? We’re better off without it.’ And I understand there are some people out there that really want things the way they want them, and they’re upset there isn’t an crawl. But I feel like it was a really great way to make the bold statement at the very beginning, literally the very first frame of the film: this is not like the Star Wars films you’ve seen before.
As we’ve mentioned before, the opening crawl would have had a somewhat difficult time setting the stage when you consider the fact that the first sequence takes place roughly 15 years before the events that follow in the rest of the film. So much time passes between the opening scene and the rest of the movie that the opening crawl wouldn’t really be able to tell us anything that helps set up the movie like the rest of the Star Wars saga installments.
UPDATE: For those curious, a reader reached out to us with details from an appearance Gary Whitta made at the Salt Lake City Comic Con FanX this past weekend. Whitta wouldn’t give any specific details about the content of the opening crawl, but he did reveal that in addition to having three paragraphs that end with ellipses as you would expect, it did have the exact same word count as the opening crawl from A New Hope.
We’ll have more on Rogue One soon as the press heats up for the film’s digital release on March 24 followed by the Blu-ray and DVD release on April 4. |
Source: Wikimedia Commons/Artist Not Listed
Now that Bill Clinton has become a vegan, he is a member of two very small minority groups — living ex-presidents and people who do not consume any animal products. True, there are more vegans than ex-presidents. But the number of vegans is also quite small — less than 0.8% of the U.S population.
It's not really surprising that so few Americans are vegans who not only give up pork chops and steak, but also ice cream, cheese, honey, AND pizza. What is more surprising is the relative rarity of vegetarians — people who simply do not eat any meat. Every three years, the Vegetarian Resource Group commissions a national survey on the diets of Americans. The graph below shows their statistics on the percent of Americans who eat animals at least some of the time. Between 1994 and 2009, the percent of meat-eaters in the United States varied between 97% and 99%. (A research team from Yale University puts the number of "strict" vegetarians at less than 0.1%.) Whatever the exact numbers, it is clear that Americans are not en masse forsaking burgers and barbecue for tofu.
Why Do So Many "Vegetarians" Umm...Lie About Their Diets?
Source: HHerzog
If there are so few true vegetarians, what about all those books that claim we are in the midst of a dietary revolution? Don't believe them. The reason for the widespread but mistaken that America is rapidly going veg is the mismatch between what people say they eat and what they actually eat. Take a 2002 Times/CNN poll on the eating habits of 10,000 Americans. Six percent of the individuals surveyed said they considered themselves vegetarian. But when asked by the pollsters what they had eaten in the last 24 hours, 60% of the self-described "vegetarians" admitted that that had consumed red meat, poultry or fish the previous day. In another survey, the United States Department of Agriculture randomly telephoned 13,313 Americans. Three percent of the respondents answered yes to the question, "Do you consider yourself to be a vegetarian?" A week later the researchers called the participants again and this time asked what they had eaten the day before. The results were even more dramatic than the Times/CNN survey: this time 66% of the "vegetarians" had eaten animal flesh in the last 24 hours.
How can so many people square their identification as a "vegetarian" with the fact that they regularly eat animals? Often, they adopt a morally convenient definition of the term vegetarian. To me, the term vegetarian describes the of a person who does not eat animals — period. One of my , on the other hand, considers herself a vegetarian because she only eats creatures that "swim or fly." Another vegetarian told me that she does not eat animals that have a face — and she does not think that fish have faces.
The Campaign to Moralize Meat-Eating Has Failed
In 1975, the philosopher Peter Singer published his ground-breaking book Animal Liberation which jump-started the contemporary animal rights movement. Since then, animal protectionists have achieved some impressive successes. The number of dogs and cats killed in animal shelters each year has plummeted by 90%, and states like Florida, Arizona, Oregon, Colorado, and California have enacted legislation to improve the conditions of animals on factory farms. In contrast, the 30-year campaign by animal activists to equate meat with murder has hardly made a dent in our collective desire for flesh.
The great paradox of our culture's schizoid attitudes about animals is that as our concern for their welfare has increased, so has our desire to eat them. In 1975, the average American ate 178 pounds of red meat and poultry; by 2007, the number had jumped to 222 pounds. And while the number of cattle killed for our dining pleasure has decreased by nearly 20% since the publication of Animal Liberation, the number of chickens killed in American slaughter houses has jumped 200%. According to a recent report by the highly credible Humane Research Council, if you include dairy and eggs, an astounding 920 pounds of animal products slides down the average American's throat each year.
"Moralization" is the cultural transformation of a preference into a value. Attitudes toward cigarette is an example. About the same time the animal rights movement was gearing up in the 1970s, the anti-tobacco forces were also getting their act together. Since then, the rate of smoking among American adults has dropped from nearly 50% to less than 25%. In contrast, the number of meat eaters has remained stable, hovering around 98%.
The argument against eating animals is powerful on ethical, environmental, and heath grounds. (See this essay by the philosopher Mylan Engel.) Why has the effort to make smoking a issue been so successful while the anti-meat campaign has failed? I blame it largely on biology, though meat industry propaganda also plays a role. Meat, it seems, is more addictive than nicotine. Chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, love meat. In terms of nutrients and calories, you get a lot of bang for the buck in meat, and many paleoanthropologists argue that the explosion in the size of the human brain over the last two million years was fueled by meat. The most "natural" of our with animals may well be our desire to eat them. The problem is that being "natural" is not the same thing as being "morally right."
Vegans as Moral Heroes
In his book, The Happiness Hypothesis, the psychologist Jonathan Haidt discusses his reaction to reading Peter Singer's argument against animals. He writes, "Since that day, I have been morally opposed to all forms of factory farming. Morally opposed but not behaviorally opposed. I love the taste of meat, and the only thing that changed the after reading Singer is that I thought about my hypocrisy each time I ordered a hamburger."
Meat inhabits the psychological territory that Al Pacino's character in The Devil's Advocate refers to as "the no-man's land between mind and body." Most people (including me) are like Haidt when it comes to meat. We succumb to the whisperings of our . Maybe that's why I regard ethical vegetarians and especially vegans as moral heroes. Unlike most of us, they take ethical issues seriously. They enter the fray between mind and body...and they win.
Is President Clinton up to the task?
Bill, I'm rooting for you.
...................................................................................
For other posts in this series on the complexities of the human-meat relationships see:
Why Do Most Vegetarians Go Back To Eating Meat
Having Your Dog and Eating It Too
Eating Disorders: The Dark Side of Vegetarianism
Hal Herzog is Profressor of Psychology at Western Carolina University and the author of Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard To Think Straight About Animals. |
Okay, let's be honest, when was the last time you actually wrote a unit test for a Rake task? My guess is NEVER.
Unit testing Rake tasks is a pain in the ass to say the least. Most developers "work around" unit testing Rake tasks by extracting logic out of the Rake task and into an actual unit testable Ruby object, still leaving the actual Rake task untested. This may be acceptable for some developers, but any technology that is prohibitively difficult to test should be a red flag that something is wrong. This also can leave significant coverage gaps if your Rake task is parameterized and requires any parsing of CLI options.
Now, if you extract logic out of your Rake task and into a good old testable Ruby object, why is the extra boilerplate (and untested) Rake task even necessary? Let's get rid of that extra layer of indirection and complexity and simply use Thor instead.
The beauty of Thor tasks is that they are Plain Old Ruby Objects and a Rake-like task runner all in one. Your tasks are now 100% unit testable without jumping through hoops, and your code is consolidated into one easily maintainable location.
Go from this...
# Rakefile task :do_something do MyCommand . new . run end # lib/my_command.rb class MyCommand def run # do something here end end
To this...
# lib/tasks/my_command.thor class MyCommand < Thor desc 'do_something' , 'do some work' def do_something # do something here end end
Seriously, it's that easy. Life on the Thor bandwagon is great from here on out. You'll never look back at Rake...until...
Rails Environment Dependencies
Undoubtedly, there will come a time where you will want to write a Thor task that relies on your Rails environment. Seems simple right? Good old Rake made it easy:
task :do_something => :environment do # Rails environment is loaded end
So, how do you do this in Thor? The thor-rails gem is my recommended solution. Include the Thor::Rails module into your Thor command, and the Rails environment will automatically be loaded just like the Rake :environment dependency.
class MyCommand < Thor include Thor :: Rails desc 'do_something' , 'do some work' def do_something # Rails environment is loaded and available! say Rails . env end end
Gem Extensions
Rake has been around for a long time, and the Ruby community has built a considerable collection of extensions and integrations. There were two critical features that needed to be addressed in order to complete the migration from Rake to Thor...
Performance Monitoring (NewRelic)
NewRelic is my goto solution for application profiling and the newrelic-rake gem has been an excellent addition to introspect performance of Rake tasks.
The newrelic-thor gem brings that same profiling support to your Thor tasks with no code changes. Can't get much easier then that!
Exception Tracking (Honeybadger)
Honyebadger is an excellent solution for tracking application exceptions. They even package tracking of Rake exceptions right into their core gem.
The honeybadger-thor gem adds similar exception tracking to your Thor tasks. Just drop the gem into your app and you're set! Hopefully, this feature will be integrated into the core honeybadger gem sometime soon.
There's simply no excuse to not write tests for your code, and Rake tasks are most definitely code. But instead of delving into the depths and horrors of how to unit test Rake tasks, my answer is to simply leave your Rake in the yard and use Thor.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.
Disqus |
× Classic ’80s arcade with full-service bar coming to downtown Winston-Salem
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Reboot Arcade Bar is expected to open in mid-February in downtown Winston-Salem, according to the Winston-Salem Journal.
The business is a classic ’80s arcade, providing more than 60 1980s and 1990s arcade and pinball machines as well as a full-service bar featuring craft beers and cocktails.
The arcade’s most recent game is from 1993. Among its classic arcade game offerings are Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Centipede and Mario Bros.
Reboot is going into 3,700 square feet previously occupied by The Yoga Gallery at 534 N. Liberty St.
Owner Ian Purdy said that there are a number of arcade bars throughout the country. He said one opened in Chapel Hill in 2015 and another opened in Charlotte last year, but he doesn’t know of any in the Triad.
Purdy, an avid gamer, grew up in upstate New York but has lived in the Winston-Salem area for nearly 20 years.
“I actually hold a world record on an old arcade game called Crystal Castles,” Purdy said. “I got into collecting and repairing arcade games about two years ago.”
A similar arcade-bar is planned for downtown Greensboro. Boxcar, which combines craft beer and mixed drinks with classic and modern video games, is planned to open in a renovated warehouse on West Lewis Street, in downtown’s south side, according to the Greensboro News & Record. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.