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Claudio Langes (born 20 July 1960 in Brescia) is a racing driver from Italy.
In 1978 he won the Italian 125 cc go-kart championship. In subsequent years he competed in Formula 3 and in Formula 3000, where his best result was a second place at Pergusa-Enna, achieved in 1989 with a Lola Formula 3000.
Reaching Formula One in 1990, he failed to pre-qualify for all 14 of the grands prix that he entered with EuroBrun (still a record). Aside from Gary Brabham and Bruno Giacomelli in the Life entries, and at times Bertrand Gachot's Coloni, Langes was always the next slowest, often several seconds slower than his teammate Roberto Moreno before the cash-strapped team was closed. Langes later raced in touring cars. From a statistical point of view, those fourteen failures to pre-qualify make Langes the least successful driver in the history of Formula One.[citation needed]
Racing record [ edit ]
Complete International Formula 3000 results [ edit ]
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap.)
Complete Formula One results [ edit ]
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
References [ edit ] |
Canada, O Canada! Canadians tend to get a bad rap, because Americans are more or less in charge of the world and we’re jerks like that. Whenever we need affordable prescriptions, or a place to crash for a few years when they start the draft up, you’re always there.., and we’ve been less than gracious. We make fun of your flag, your baseball teams, the way you talk, and the fact that you’re part French… sorry about that, honestly (er, the making fun of you part, not the French part).
Canada, sadly, hasn’t received the attention it deserves as a bastion of nerdery — probably because you’re culturally and linguistically not that different from us. We’re often surprised to learn that a particular actor, writer, artist, or fictional property is Canadian. We at Topless Robot felt it was high time your nation was honored for everything it has contributed to our subculture. These 10 items by no means represent all things nerdy and Canadian, so feel free to add anything you feel might have been left out in the comments, eh? (Sorry. We had to do it at least once.)
10) Day Job Orchestra
There are not many details available online concerning DJO, an indie progressive rock trio out of Pickering, Ontario, and consisting of Michael Thorne, Pete Swann, and Christ Robertson — not even on the band’s official website. While their music is quite interesting, they are mostly known as the YouTube sensation who redub scenes from popular movies, commercials, clips from C-SPAN, and, most famously, Star Trek with whatever random, nonsensical statements they can think of and whatever fits the mouth movements of the characters on screen. This inspired process has given us nuggets of genius like “Go f*ck a fruit basket”, “I like my ice extra cold”, and “Did you know Christ was a werewolf?”as well as several disparaging remarks about the city of Hamilton, 9/11 conspiracy theories, and gallons upon gallons of apple juice. All in all, they’re very funny, very nerdy, and very Canadian.
9) Reboot
In 1994, Vancouver, British Columbia (home to more nerdy TV shows than you can shake a hockey stick at) gave nerd-dom its very first all-CGI half-hour television series. Created by Gavin Blair, Ian Pearson, Phil Mitchell and John Grace, ReBoot followed the adventures of the inhabitants of a computer world known as Mainframe. This setting was deliberately chosen by the creators since it made the limitations of 1994’s CG technology an integral part of the character design rather than a liability (i.e. blocky characters with mechanical movements). Unfortunately, the groundbreaking series didn’t last long in the U.S.; it was canceled in ’96 after Disney bought ABC, only two seasons in, while in Canada it continued until 2001 (though season 3 did show up in the States on Cartoon Network in 1999). Regardless, the show remains a nerd landmark.
8) The Kids in the Hall
Nerd-dom’s secondfavorite sketch comedy troupe (after Monty Python, obviously) first appeared on CBC and HBO in 1989 and later moved to late nights on CBS. Reruns were shown on the Comedy Channel — the network that would become Comedy Central. Scott Thompson, David Foley, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCullough, and Mark McKinney formed their comedy troupe in 1985 and named it after an old Sid Caesar quote: If one of his jokes bombed, Caesar would claim it was written by “the kids in the hall,” his term for a group of young writers hanging around the studio. In 1988, Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels saw The Kids’ show in Toronto, and smelled a potential TV series. I’ve always considered The Kids in the Hall‘s relation to its “big brother” Saturday Night Live to be somewhat analogous to the U.S.’s relationship to Canada; SNL is bigger, flashier, and has more popularity (or at least more notoriety), while KITH is smarter, subtler, and much more consistent. And even though SNL might be leaps and bounds more famous and successful, but it’s also had long periods where it’s been frankly godawful, KITH maintained a high standard of quality and humor throughout the entire run of the series — it didn’t really have any “off” periods or seasons, though their humor did lose a little of its edge when they started making shows for CBS in 1993. Which is the better show (or country, for that matter) is, of course, purely subjective.
7) Scott Pilgrim
Canadian artist/writer Bryan Lee O’Malley named the star of his now-famous graphic novel series after a 1998 song by the Canadian band Plumtree called “Scott Pilgrim”. O’Malley was heavily influenced by Japanese shonen manga, and drew particular inspiration from a book called Even A Monkey Can Draw Manga by Koji Aihara and Kentaro Takekuma, even though the only manga O’Malley had read was Ranma ?. Scott Pilgrim became a sort of Japanese-North American hybrid; manga-influenced visually and stylistically, but grounded in the life and experiences of a Canadian 20-something slacker-geek. The series has done a great deal not only to make Toronto a nerd landmark, but its popularity has fed the “Nerd Boom” of the 2000s and 2010s. In 2005, O’Malley won the Doug Wright Award for Best Emerging Talent for the first volume of Scott Pilgrim, the Joe Shuster Award for Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Cartoonist (Writer/Artist) in ’06 and the Harvey Award in ’07. In 2008 Wizard magazine ranked Scott Pilgrim 85th on their list of the “200 Greatest Comic Characters Of All Time” and in 2010 O’Malley received his first Eisner Award for Best Humor Publication. The 2010 film adaptation: Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, directed by Edgar Wright of Shaun of the Dead fame and starring Arrested Development‘s Michael Cera was well received by critics and nerds, but not a huge commercial success… though it has become reasonably popular on DVD and Blu-Ray.
6) Nathan Fillion
Only 14 episodes of Joss Whedon’s sci-fi Western Firefly were made, and only 11 of them made it to air in its initial run. And if that was all the Edmonton, Alberta-born Nathan Fillion had starred in, he would still probably have made this list. His performance as Captain Malcolm “Mal” Reynolds was a large part of the reason the show’s immense fandom arose, and why a show that barely got any TV ratings somehow managed to get a major motion picture sequel. His work as Captain Hammer in Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog was even shorter, but just as memorable (very few people could have delivered the line “The hammer is my penis” as perfectly as Fillion). What’s just as impressive is that Fillion is clearly a nerd himself, whether campaigning to play Uncharted‘s Nathan Drake, pretending to be Green Lantern (above), inserting Firefly references into his otherwise non-nerdy procedural Castle, or playing with a lightsaber, alone, at home. He’s also really funny. In full disclosure, Fillion wasn’t the only Canadian on Firefly; Jewel Staite, who played the perpetually hard-up mechanic Kaylee, was born in White Rock, British Columbia, and has acted in such sci-fi shows as Stargate: Atlantis and Warehouse 13 to boot. But Entertainment Weekly never put her on the cover and called her a geek god. We’re also pretty sure she never got caught playing with a lightsaber on her front lawn, either.
5) The Stargate Franchise
Science fiction doesn’t have the best record for television longevity. Furthermore, shows based on movies have an even greater reputation for abject failure… which makes the success of the Stargate TV franchise particularly noteworthy. Stargate, a film that often goes unmentioned when compared to the enormous box office success of director Roland Emmerich’s other films such as Independence Day, didn’t merely survive adaptation to the small screen. Executive Producers Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper managed to turn a relatively forgotten effects driven sci-fi adventure flick into a fictional universe that thrived for nearly 15 years and three series (granted, Stargate: Universe was a bit of a letdown).
The first two Stargate shows, SG-1 and Atlantis, were among the highest rated programs on the Sci-Fi Channel (later SyFy), and their popularity helped establish the network. All three shows were joint Canadian-American projects produced in Vancouver — also the home of such popular SF programs as Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda, Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict, Space: Above and Beyond, Eureka, Sanctuary, and Warehouse 13. SG-1 lasted an unprecedented 10 seasons and two straight-to-DVD feature length films, Stargate: Continuum and Stargate: Ark of Truth. Atlantis survived a respectable five seasons, and a DVD movie was planned to close out the series called Stargate: Extinction, but the project was mothballed in 2011. Universe barely finished two seasons — no great loss, to be perfectly honest. The Stargate franchise offered a great venue for Canadian actors and writers to share their talents with the world… well, at least as much of the world as watches science fiction TV.
4) Sydney Newman
We were amazed to learn that the original creator of probably the most quintessentially British sci-fi series ever made was a full-fledged, native born Canadian. Sydney Cecil Newman was born in Toronto, Ontario, and made a name for himself during WWII producing propaganda films for the Canadian government. This work caught the attention of the CBC, and Newman began working in television. His talents were then noticed by the Associated British Corporation, who controlled BBC rival ITV. They offered him a job producing, and Newman moved to England. His first big success was 1961’s The Avengers (no, the other one), which became an international sensation. After this, the BBC offered Newman the position of Head of Drama, and he left ITV at the end of ’62. In 1963 Newman, an avid science fiction fan, created the phenomenon that is Doctor Who. Among the aspects to the series that Newman is directly responsible for are the concept of a time machine that is larger on the inside than the outside, and the basic character idea of a mysterious “Doctor.” He is believed to have coined the title, but this has been debated (some say the title was conceived by producer Rex Tucker). After two producers turned him down, Newman hired his former production assistant, Verity Lambert, to produce the show. It was her first job producing, and she was not only the youngest, but also the only female drama producer at the BBC in ’63 (she is credited with, among other things, creating the Daleks — a decision Newman was not pleased with at first).
Although Newman passed away in 1997, his contribution to the show has not been forgotten: In the 2007 episode “Human Nature”, The Doctor (as “John Smith”) gives the names of his parents as “Sydney” and “Verity”, and a character in 2010’s “The End Of Time” is named Verity Newman in honor of the show’s creators.
3) Wolverine
Wolverine, a.k.a. Logan, a.k.a. James Howlett, is hardly the only Canadian superhero; The Great White North has its own superteam Alpha Flight (of which Wolvie has been a member, of course). However, my discussions with a Canadian comics aficionado (that’s right, real, live Canadians were consulted in the compiling of this list!) have led me to believe that many Canadian fans see Alpha Flight as annoying, if not offensive caricatures and stereotypes. So I decided to stick aolely with Wolverine. First appearing in 1974 in The Incredible Hulk #180, Wolverine was created by writer Len Wein and Marvel art director John Romita, Sr., and first drawn by artist Herb Trimpe. He appeared here and there in several different comics as a mysterious agent of the Canadian Ggovernment before joining the X-Men’s “all-new, all-different” roster in Giant-Size X-Men #1 (1975). His character was further developed by X-Men writer Chris Claremont, the infamous Frank Miller, and Canadian-born artist/writer John Byrne. Byrne championed the character and kept him going when Claremont (who preferred Nightcrawler) was considering dropping him. Byrne, as a non-fictional Canadian, didn’t want to lose the X-Men’s only Canadian member.
Wolvie has, over the years, become arguably the most popular character in the X-Men, emerging as he did in the post-Vietnam antihero boom, a period when violent, anti-authoritarian, morally complex superheroes were supplanting the pro-establishment “boy xcout”-type characters of the previous generation. Along with appearing in several X-Men titles, Wolvie has also done stints in the aforementioned Alpha Flight and the Avengers, as well as starring in his own comic, and a slew of flashback and origin miniseries detailing his long and colorful past. Hugh Jackman has so far portrayed him on the big screen five times (if you count the cameo in First Class).
2) Joe Shuster
Canada has provided the comics world with a number of talented writers and artists, but none is as well-known and acclaimed as the man the Canadian Comic Book Creator Awards Association named their award for excellence after: Joe Shuster, co-creator of Superman with partner Jerry Siegel. That’s right, folks; everyone’s favorite crusader for “Truth, Justice, and The American Way” is half-Canadian. Toronto native Shuster and Cleveland, Ohio-born Siegel began their collaboration by writing a science fiction fanzine, and later broke into comics when they started writing strips for National Allied Publications (the future DC Comics). It took the duo six years to find a publisher for their first Superman story before National Allied Publications picked it to be the title feature of their new periodical, Action Comics, in 1938. Aspects of Shuster’s Canadian upbringing worked their way into the story: Clark Kent (who was modeled after a combination of Harold Lloyd and Shuster himself) originally worked for The Daily Star, named for Toronto’s newspaper, which Shuster worked for as a boy. Furthermore, the cityscape of Metropolis was based on Shuster’s memories of downtown Toronto.
In order to get their creation published, Siegel and Shuster sold the rights to the character to the nascent DC for $130 and a contract to continue providing new material. Because of this, Siegel and Shuster went uncredited as the creators of the world’s most famous superhero for almost 40 years. Decades of legal wrangling finally culminated in 1975, when DC’s parent company Warner Communications, granted the duo a lifetime pension of $20,000 a year plus health benefits, along with their names on the Supes byline (primarily to foster good publicity for the upcoming Superman movie). Siegel continued to work steadily in the business, but unfortunately Shuster faded into relative obscurity, finally leaving the comics industry in the ’70s due to his failing vision. Happily, Shuster eventually received not only the recognition he sought from DC, but from the comics world at large as well: He and Siegel were inducted into both the comic book industry’s Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1993, as well as receiving the aforementioned Joe Shuster Award in 2005. In Toronto, the street Joe Shuster Way is named in his honor.
1) William Shatner
Who else could possibly top a list honoring Canadian Nerdity? The Shat is not only Canadian, he’s Quebecois; both his parents were the children of Eastern European Jews who immigrated to Montreal, and he was born and raised in the city’s C?te Saint-Luc neighborhood (his paternal grandfather changed the family name from “Schattner” to the more Anglicized “Shatner”). His acting career began in his hometown with the Montreal Children’s Theatre. In 1951 he appeared in his first Canadian film, The Butler’s Night Off, then received a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce from Montreal’s McGill University in 1952 and became business manager for the Mountain Playhouse (also in Montreal) before joining the Canadian National Repertory Theatre in Ottawa. In 1954 Shatner began performing at the Shakespearean Stratford Festival of Canada in Stratford, Ontario, alongside future Star Trek VI co-star Christopher Plummer. That same year he was cast as Ranger Bob on the Canadian Howdy Doody Show (yes, there was such a thing). Four years later he appeared in his first Hollywood feature, portraying Alexei in MGM’s production of The Brothers Karamazov. He worked steadily in television for the next eight years, appearing on shows such as Route 66, The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, The Outlaws, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents before nabbing the role that would define the next 40 years of his career: Captain James Tiberius Kirk of the Starship Enterprise, the lead role on the second pilot episode of Star Trek “Where No Man Has Gone Before” (a more “studio-friendly” show than Roddenberry’s first pilot, the rather cerebral “The Cage”). The rest is nerd history.
In 2011, The Shat received the Governor General of Canada’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement, as well as an honorary Doctor of Letters from his alma mater, McGill University. |
Following the recent update to the Second Life Terms of Service, which disallows trading of Linden dollars (L$) on third party exchanges, we’ve heard from some users outside of the US who are concerned that it may now be more difficult for them to purchase L$ to use in Second Life.
With a credit card, you can purchase L$ on the LindeX using 27 different currencies, including EUR, GBP, JPY, and AUD. If you don’t have a credit card, you can also use PayPal, which can be connected directly to a bank account in more than 193 countries and regions. If you put payment info on file for your Second Life account, you can also purchase L$ right in the Viewer with the “Buy L$” button. If you’ve never done it before, check out this helpful
:
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Now, to give users more options and make it easier to purchase L$, we’re launching a pilot program of Authorized Resellers of L$. These sites are authorized by Linden Lab to purchase L$ on the LindeX and then resell those L$ using a variety of international currencies and payment methods. To be clear: per the Terms of Service, these resellers will not be allowed to purchase L$ outside of the LindeX (i.e. they will not be able to buy L$ back from users and cash people out). The list of Authorized Resellers participating in the pilot program is available here.
If you would like to receive an application to the program when it formally launches, please send an email to [email protected].
We know that users are also concerned about the length of the LindeX’s cashout process and the limited choice of currencies when selling L$. We’re currently investigating ways to improve that experience for users while still providing superior fraud protections, and hope to hasten the cashout process and offer new currency options in the future. |
Philip Campbell Smith, who allegedly hacked former army spy's computer for News of the World, convicted of conspiring to illegally access private information for profit
A man at the centre of allegations that computers were hacked for the News of the World has been convicted of conspiring to illegally access private information for profit.
Until Monday legal restrictions meant that what is known about Philip Campbell Smith's alleged involvement in computer hacking could not be reported.
Smith is alleged to have hacked the computer of a former British army intelligence officer in 2006 as part of a commission from the News of the World. In a tape recording, Smith says he was in contact with Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor who went on to become David Cameron's director of communications. Smith also claimed Coulson was in his mobile phone directory.
Smith is understood to be under investigation by a Scotland Yard inquiry, Operation Kalmyk, which is examining allegations that email hacking may have been used against several dozen targets.
The allegations against Smith highlight growing concern over computer hacking. Met officers are known to have approached leading members of the Labour party as possible victims, including Gordon Brown, the former No 10 communications chief Alastair Campbell, the former Northern Ireland secretary Peter Hain, and Tom Watson, the backbench Labour MP who has been particularly vocal in the phone-hacking scandal. If any of the Labour figures were targets, it is not known who carried out the hacking and for whom.
The computer that Smith is suspected of hacking belonged to the former British intelligence officer Ian Hurst.
The computer hacking involving Smith is alleged to have been carried out in July 2006 by sending Hurst an email containing a trojan virus that copied Hurst's emails and relayed them back to the hacker. It is claimed this was commissioned by Alex Marunchak, who was a senior editor on the News of the World when it was edited by Coulson.
The material accessed by the hacker included messages concerning at least two agents who had informed on the Provisional IRA: Freddie Scappaticci, codenamed Stakeknife, and a second informant known as Kevin Fulton. Both men were regarded as high-risk targets for assassination. Hurst was one of the few people who knew their whereabouts and the emails contained information capable of disclosing this.
Hurst found out that Smith had hacked his computer and went on to tape him confessing to it. Sections of that confession were broadcast last year as part of a BBC Panorama programme. Hurst told the Leveson inquiry into press standards that he had been shown a seven-page fax by the BBC containing material from his computer.
Hurst said the hacker worked for a private investigator, Jonathan Rees, who was in turn working for the News of the World. Rees ran a firm called Southern Investigations and last year was acquitted of murdering a former business partner, Daniel Morgan.
Rees has worked as a private investigator for the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror and the News of the World. He was jailed for trying to frame a woman, and on his release from prison in 2004 he resumed his work for the News of the World, then being edited by Coulson. The defunct Sunday tabloid paid Rees up to £150,000 for his services and a bug placed by police in his south London office recorded corrupt officers taking cash for information.
An internal police report said Rees and his network were involved in the long-term penetration of police intelligence and that "their thirst for knowledge is driven by profit to be accrued from the media".
Hurst told the Leveson inquiry of admissions that Smith (referred to as "X" due to the legal reporting restrictions) had made to him, which were covertly recorded: "He states for a three-month period, and all documents he could access via the back door trojan: our emails, the hard drive, social media, the whole range of – I mean, he didn't say this, but the trojan that we've identified would have allowed the cam, your web cam, so he could have actually seen me or my kids at the desk."
Smith was arrested in 2009 and his computers seized, but Hurst was not told his computer had been hacked until October 2011.
Panorama claimed that Marunchak had decided to target Hurst during the summer of 2006. It claimed he hired Rees to do the job, and Rees subcontracted it to Smith. Marunchak denies the allegations.
MI5 became aware that Smith had targeted Hurst's email in an attempt to find the location of Scappaticci. They made no approach to Hurst, apparently on the grounds that he was preparing to write an unauthorised book about his experience in Northern Ireland and could not be trusted. They may have taken steps to alert Scappaticci. They then asked the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) to investigate.
Hurst told the Guardian that police "missed a number of opportunities to investigate".
"In 2007 they chose not to do anything about it," he said. "In 2009, after the arrest of Philip Campbell Smith, they came again into information that my computer had been hacked and chose again to do nothing. Even in 2011 they didn't seem that interested."
Hurst said he had taped meetings and conversations with Smith, during which the private investigator had said he was in contact with Coulson. Hurst says he is prepared to provide his tape recordings of Smith making admissions about computer hacking and the alleged relationship with Coulson to Leveson.
In one recording made by Hurst, Smith said: "I got introduction in [sic] Andy Coulson … on my phone, he's the first name that appears before yours. I ended up deleting it." Smith is also alleged to have hacked the email of a former police officer who was acting as a police informer known as Joe Poulton. This happened between September 2005 and January 2006. This informer had been providing information about Rees and his private detective company called Southern Investigations. The hacking exposed the informer and is alleged to have been ordered by Rees.
At Leveson, Sue Akers, who is leading the Met investigations into hacking, confirmed details about Operation Kalmyk, a sub-inquiry of Tuleta.
Kalmyk is investigating the allegations in the BBC Panorama programme.
"This relates to illegal accessing of computers belonging to others for financial gain and this is the one of them that has been a full investigation as a result of the scoping exercise that Tuleta has undertaken," Akers said.
The NoW has admitted liability for hacking into the actor Sienna Miller's email in September 2008. At the high court in January counsel for News International, Michael Silverleaf QC, said the NoW had unlawfully accessed the emails of the son of the serial killer Harold Shipman and the freelance journalist Tom Rowland.
Christopher Shipman has said he had been shown and provided with copies of emails dating from 2004 that had been intercepted by the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who was regularly commissioned by the newspaper. The News International chief executive, Tom Mockridge, has denied his company's newspapers were involved in any hacking of Hain's computers.
In a separate case, Smith and three others – Adam Spears, Daniel Summers, and Graham Freeman – pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud by illegally obtaining confidential information. The trials were held at Kingston crown court but their outcome could not be reported until Monday.
That was to avoid prejudicing another case against Campbell Smith, which ended on Monday with him pleading guilty to possessing three rounds of ammunition.
The trials did not involve allegations of hacking being carried out for media clients.
The case about the obtaining of confidential information involved the tactic of blagging. The case was investigated by Soca and the activities took place between 16 January 2007 and 19 May 2009. Soca officially says the operation did not involve computer hacking. But a source with knowledge of the case said: "There could have been hacking. There is some suggestion they got mobile phone passwords and pins to hack voicemails and text messages." The source said computer hacking was also possible: "They might have trojaned."
The men convicted are believed to have been able to get information from banks, Interpol, the Criminal Records Bureau and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA).
Summers was the blagger, with work being subcontracted to him. Smith and Freeman were business partners in a private investigation firm, Brookmans International. Freeman, who lives in Spain, would email or phone Smith about the work and investigators believe Smith would then pass the work on to Summers.
In an email to a client in March 2007 about why their charges of up to £5,000 may seem high, Freeman wrote that police and Interpol databases that may be accessed were "not open to the general public and are tightly regulated", meaning that "should we be apprehended a custodial sentence" may be handed out.
In an email from Smith which was copied to Freeman, he discussed trying to get information from the DVLA: "My contact is trying to get this information without causing too many waves".
Smith wrote that if his contacts suspected he may be uncovered he would "drop it like a hot potato" adding: "It is getting tougher to get this information … and ensure there are no footprints left behind".
Spears is a former detective inspector with the Metropolitan police. |
My previous posts on concurrency in ActiveRecord have been some of the most popular on this blog (which I’d like to think means concurrency is getting more popular in Rails-land), so I’m going to share what I know about some new concurrency architecture in Rails5 — which is no longer limited to ActiveRecord.
(update: Hours before I started writing this unawares, matthewd submitted a rails PR for a Rails Guide, with some really good stuff; have only skimmed it now, but you might wanna go there either before, after, or in lieu of this).
I don’t fully understand the new stuff, but since it’s relatively undocumented at present, and has some definite gotchas, as well as definite potentially powerful improvements — sharing what I got seems helpful. This will be one of my usual “lots of words” posts, get ready!
The new architecture primarily involves ActiveSupport::Reloader (a global one of which is in Rails.application.reloader ) and ActiveSupport::Executor (a global one of which is in Rails.application.executor ). Also ActiveSupport::Dependencies::Interlock (a global one of which is at ActiveSupport::Dependencies.interlock .
Why you need to know this
If you create any threads in a Rails app yourself — beyond the per-request threads a multi-threaded app server like Puma will do for you. Rails takes care of multi-threaded request dispatch for you (with the right app server), but if you’re doing any kind of what I’ll call “manual concurrency” yourself — Thread.new , any invocations of anything in concurrent-ruby (recommended), or probably any celluloid (not sure), etc. — you got to pay attention to be using the new architecture to be doing what Rails wants — and to avoid deadlocks if dev-mode-style class-reloading is happening.
If you’re getting apparent deadlocks in a Rails5 app that does multi-threaded concurrency, it’s probably about this.
If you are willing to turn off dev-mode class-reloading and auto-loading altogether, you can probably ignore this.
What I mean by “dev-mode class-reloading”
Rails5 by default generates your environments/development.rb with with config.cache_classes==false , config.eager_load==false. Classes are auto-loaded only on demand (eager_load == false), and are also sometimes unloaded to be reloaded on next access (cache_classes == false). (The details of when/how/which/if they are unloaded is outside the scope of this blog post, but has also changed in Rails5).
You can turn off all auto-loading with config.cache_classes==true , config.eager_load==true — the Rails5 default production. All classes are loaded/require’d en masse on boot, and are never unloaded. This is what I mean by ‘turn off dev-mode class-reloading and auto-loading altogether’.
The default Rails5 generated environments/test.rb has config.cache_classes==true , config.eager_load==false. Only load classes on demand with auto-loading (eager_load == false), but never unload them.
I am not sure if there’s any rational purpose for having config.cache_classes = false , config.eager_load = true , probably not.
I think there was a poorly documented config.autoload in previous Rails versions, with confusing interactions with the above two config; I don’t think it exists (or at least does anything) in Rails 5.
Good News
Previously to Rails 5, Rails dev-mode class-reloading and auto-loading were entirely un-thread-safe. If you were using any kind of manual concurrency, then you pretty much had to turn off dev-mode class-reloading and auto-loading. Which was too bad, cause they’re convenient and make dev more efficient. If you didn’t, it might sometimes work, but in development (or possibly test) you’d often see those pesky exceptions involving something like “constant is missing”, “class has been redefined”, or “is not missing constant” — I’m afraid I can’t find the exact errors, but perhaps some of these seem familiar.
Rails 5, for the first time, has an architecture which theoretically lets you do manual concurrency in the presence of class reloading/autoloading, thread-safely. Hooray! This is something I had previously thought was pretty much infeasible, but it’s been (theoretically) pulled off, hooray. This for instance theoretically makes it possible for Sidekiq to do dev-mode-style class-reloading — although I’m not sure if latest Sidekiq release actually still has this feature, or they had to back it out.
The architecture is based on some clever concurrency patterns, so it theoretically doesn’t impact performance or concurrency measuribly in production — or even, for the most part, significantly in development.
While the new architecture most immediately effects class-reloading, the new API is, for the most part, not written in terms of reloading, but is higher level API in terms of signaling things you are doing about concurrency: “I’m doing some concurrency here” in various ways. This is great, and should be a good for future of Just Works concurrency in Rails in other ways than class reloading too. If you are using the new architecture correctly, it theoretically makes ActiveRecord Just Work too, with less risk of leaked connections without having to pay lots of attention to it. Great!
I think matthewd is behind much of the new architecture, so thanks matthewd for trying to help move Rails toward a more concurrency-friendly future.
Less Good News
While the failure mode for concurrency used improperly with class-reloading in Rails 4 (which was pretty much any concurrency with class-reloading, in Rails 4) was occasional hard-to-reprodue mysterious exceptions — the failure mode for concurrency used improperly with class-reloading in Rails5 can be a reproduces-every-time deadlock. Where your app just hangs, and it’s pretty tricky to debug why, especially if you aren’t even considering “class-reloading and new Rails 5 concurrency architecture”, which, why would you?
And all the new stuff is, at this point, completely undocumented. (update some docs in rails/rails #27494, hadn’t seen that before I wrote this). So it’s hard to know how to use it right. (I would quite like to encourage an engineering culture where significant changes without docs is considered just as problematic to merge/release as significant changes without tests… but we’re not there yet). (The docs Autoloading and Reloading Constants Guide, to which this is very relevant, have not been updated for this ActiveSupport::Reloader stuff, and I think are probably no longer entirely accurate. That would be a good place for some overview docs…).
The new code is a bit tricky and abstract, a bit hard to follow. Some anonymous modules at some points made it hard for me to use my usual already grimace-inducing methods of code archeology reverse-engineering, where i normally count on inspecting class names of objects to figure out what they are and where they’re implemented.
The new architecture may still be buggy. Which would not be surprising for the kind of code it is: pretty sophisticated, concurrency-related, every rails request will touch it somehow, trying to make auto-loading/class-reloading thread-safe when even ordinary ruby require is not (I think this is still true?). See for instance all the mentions of the “Rails Reloader” in the Sidekiq changelog, going back and forth trying to make it work right — not sure if they ended up giving up for now.
The problem with maybe buggy combined with lack of any docs whatsoever — when you run into a problem, it’s very difficult to tell if it’s because of a bug in the Rails code, or because you are not using the new architecture the way it’s intended (a bug in your code). Because knowing the way it’s intended to work and be used is a bit of a guessing game, or code archeology project.
We really need docs explaining exactly what it’s meant to do how, on an overall architectural level and a method-by-method level. And I know matthewd knows docs are needed. But there are few people qualified to write those docs (maybe only matthewd), cause in order to write docs you’ve got to know the stuff that’s hard to figure out without any docs. And meanwhile, if you’re using Rails5 and concurrency, you’ve got to deal with this stuff now.
So: The New Architecture
I’m sorry this is so scattered and unconfident, I don’t entirely understand it, but sharing what I got to try to save you time getting to where I am, and help us all collaboratively build some understanding (and eventually docs?!) here. Beware, there may be mistakes.
The basic idea is that if you are running any code in a manually created thread, that might use Rails stuff (or do any autoloading of constants), you need to wrap your “unit of work” in either Rails.application.reloader.wrap { work } or Rails.application.executor.wrap { work } . This signals “I am doing Rails-y things, including maybe auto-loading”, and lets the framework enforce thread-safety for those Rails-y things when you are manually creating some concurrency — mainly making auto-loading thread-safe again.
When do you pick reloader vs executor ? Not entirely sure, but if you are completely outside the Rails request-response cycle (not in a Rails action method, but instead something like a background job), manually creating your own threaded concurrency, you should probably use Rails.application.reloader . That will allow code in the block to properly pick up new source under dev-mode class-reloading. It’s what Sidekiq did to add proper dev-mode reloading for sidekiq (not sure what current master Sidekiq is doing, if anything).
On the other hand, if you are in a Rails action method (which is already probably wrapped in a Rails.application.reloader.wrap , I believe you can’t use a (now nested) Rails.application.reloader.wrap without deadlocking things up. So there you use Rails.application.executor.wrap .
What about in a rake task, or rails runner executed script? Not sure. Rails.application.executor.wrap is probably the safer one — it just won’t get dev-mode class-reloading happening reliably within it (won’t necessarily immediately, or even ever, pick up changes), which is probably fine.
But to be clear, even if you don’t care about picking up dev-mode class-reloading immediately — unless you turn off dev-mode class-reloading and auto-loading for your entire app — you still need to wrap with a reloader/executor to avoid deadlock — if anything inside the block possibly might trigger an auto-load, and how could you be sure it won’t?
Let’s move to some example code, which demonstrates not just the executor.wrap , but some necessary use of ActiveSupport::Dependencies.interlock.permit_concurrent_loads too.
An actual use case I have — I have to make a handful of network requests in a Rails action method, I can’t really push it off to a bg job, or at any rate I need the results before I return a response. But since I’m making several of them, I really want to do them in parallel. Here’s how I might do it in Rails4:
In Rails4, that would work… mostly. With dev-mode class-reloading/autoloading on, you’d get occasional weird exceptions. Or of course you can turn dev-mode class-reloading off.
In Rails5, you can still turn dev-mode class-reloading/autoloading and it will still work. But if you have autoload/class-reload on, instead of an occasional weird exception, you’ll get a nearly(?) universal deadlock. Here’s what you need to do instead:
And it should actually work reliably, without intermittent mysterious “class unloaded” type errors like in Rails4.
ActiveRecord?
Previously, one big challenge with using ActiveRecord under concurrency was avoiding leaked connections.
I think that if your concurrent work is wrapped in Rails.application.reloader.wrap do or Rails.application.executor.wrap do , this is no longer a problem — they’ll take care of returning any pending checked out AR db connections to the pool at end of block.
So you theoretically don’t need to be so careful about wrapping every single concurrent use of AR in a ActiveRecord::Base.connection_pool.with_connection to avoid leaked connections.
But I think you still can, and it won’t hurt — and it should sometimes lead to shorter finer grained checkouts of db connections from the pool, which matters if you potentially have more threads than you have pool size in your AR connection. I am still wrapping in ActiveRecord::Base.connection_pool.with_connection , out of superstition if nothing else.
Under Test with Capybara?
One of the things that makes Capybara feature tests so challenging is that they inherently involve concurrency — there’s a Rails app running in a different thread than your tests themselves.
I think this new architecture could theoretically pave the way to making this all a lot more intentional and reliable, but I’m not entirely sure, not sure if it helps at all already just by existing, or would instead require Capybara to make use of the relevant API hooks (which nobody’s prob gonna write until there are more people who understand what’s going on).
Note though that Rails 4 generated a comment in config/environments/test.rb that says “If you are using a tool that preloads Rails for running tests [which I think means Capybara feature testing], you may have to set [config.eager_load] to true.” I’m not really sure how true this was in even past versions Rails (whether it was neccessary or sufficient). This comment is no longer generated in Rails 5, and eager_load is still generated to be true … so maybe something improved?
Frankly, that’s a lot of inferences, and I have been still leaving eager_load = true under test in my Capybara-feature-test-using apps, because the last thing I need is more fighting with a Capybara suite that is the closest to reliable I’ve gotten it.
Debugging?
The biggest headache is that a bug in the use of the reloader/executor architecture manifests as a deadlock — and I’m not talking the kind that gives you a ruby ‘deadlock’ exception, but the kind where your app just hangs forever doing nothing. This is painful to debug.
These deadlocks in my experience are sometimes not entirely reproducible, you might get one in one run and not another, but they tend to manifest fairly frequently when a problem exists, and are sometimes entirely reproducible.
First step is experimentally turning off dev-mode class-reloading and auto-loading altogether ( config.eager_load = true , config.cache_classes = true ), and see if your deadlock goes away. If it does, it’s probably got something to do with not properly using the new Reloader architecture. In desperation, you could just give up on dev-mode class-reloading, but that’d be sad.
Rails 5.0.1 introduces a DebugLocks feature intended to help you debug these deadlocks:
Added new ActionDispatch::DebugLocks middleware that can be used to diagnose deadlocks in the autoload interlock. To use it, insert it near the top of the middleware stack, using config/application.rb : config.middleware.insert_before Rack::Sendfile, ActionDispatch::DebugLocks After adding, visiting /rails/locks will show a summary of all threads currently known to the interlock.
PR, or at least initial PR, at rails/rails #25344.
I haven’t tried this yet, I’m not sure how useful it will be, I’m frankly not too enthused by this as an approach.
References
Beginnings of basic overview docs at rails/rails #27494
ActiveSupport::Executor is at this writing an empty sub-class of ActiveSupport::ExecutionWrapper. Rails.application.executor is an anonymous sub-class… of ActiveSupport::Executor? I think? Hard to tell exactly Rails.application.executor is actually doing. Executor Tests.
Rails.application.executor and Rails.application.reloader are initialized here, I think.
Not sure the design intent of: Executor being an empty subclass of ExecutionWrapper; Rails.application.executor being an anonymous sub-class of Exeuctor (which doesn’t seem to add any behavior either? Rails.application.reloader does the same thing fwiw); or if further configuration of the Executor is done in other parts of the code.
Sidekiq PR #2457 Enable code reloading in development mode with Rails 5 using the Rails.application.reloader, I believe code may have been written by matthewd. This is aood intro example of a model of using the architecture as intended (since matthewd wrote/signed off on it), but beware churn in Sidekiq code around this stuff dealing with issues and problems after this commit as well — not sure if Sidekiq later backed out of this whole feature? But the Sidekiq source is probably a good one to track.
A dialog in Rails Github Issue #686 between me and matthewd, where he kindly leads me through some of the figuring out how to do things right with the new arch. See also several other issues linked from there, and links into Rails source code from matthewd.
Conclusion
If I got anything wrong, or you have any more information you think useful, please feel free to comment here — and/or write a blog post of your own. Collaboratively, maybe we can identify if not fix any outstanding bugs, write docs, maybe even improve the API a bit.
While the new architecture holds the promise to make concurrent programming in Rails a lot more reliable — making dev-mode class-reloading at least theoretically possible to do thread-safely, when it wasn’t at all possible before — in the short term, I’m afraid it’s making concurrent programming in Rails a bit harder for me. But I bet docs will go a long way there. |
Understanding the Illinois Medicaid Redetermination Project
For the past several months, the Illinois Policy Institute has published ongoing updates on the progress of the Illinois Medicaid Redetermination Project, or IMRP, which has garnered significant interest over time. Some people may not remember why IMRP was launched; I do. After all, this was among the many topics I discussed when the Medicaid...
For the past several months, the Illinois Policy Institute has published ongoing updates on the progress of the Illinois Medicaid Redetermination Project, or IMRP, which has garnered significant interest over time. Some people may not remember why IMRP was launched; I do.
After all, this was among the many topics I discussed when the Medicaid reform working group invited me to present to them last year. The project largely owes its start to state Rep. Patti Bellock, R-Hinsdale, who had filed similar stand-alone legislation that was later incorporated into Public Act 97-689. Bellock, who has been a leader on Medicaid reform for many years, also worked with Institute staff and former senior fellow John Stephen, a national Medicaid expert who also contributed to Gov. Pat Quinn’s 2009 blue-ribbon committee charged with identifying long-term solutions to the state’s financial crisis, when drafting the legislation and related amendments.
IMRP was designed to help root out waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicaid program by requiring enhanced eligibility verification for those enrolled in the program. Medicaid has long been a prime target for wasteful spending, winding up on the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s list of high-risk programs year after year. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, eligibility determination errors account for most of Medicaid’s improper payments.
Illinois law already required state workers to perform annual eligibility checks to ensure that those receiving Medicaid benefits were actually eligible for the program. But, as the Auditor General reported earlier this year, state workers consistently failed to ensure the program’s integrity.
That report found that several cases were missing documentation in their eligibility files in fiscal year 2012, the year before the state began the IMRP. Some files were missing evidence that income had ever been verified. In some cases, state workers didn’t bother to collect paystubs at all, but simply “verified” the applicants’ wages verbally, through handwritten notes or by comparing it to previous applications. Other files were missing evidence that the state workers had verified Social Security numbers, citizenship or residency. In fact, some files were missing the redetermination applications altogether.
And those problems were just for the annual checks that the state workers bothered to do at all. The Auditor General also noted that between 15 percent and 20 percent of Medicaid cases were overdue for their annual redetermination throughout the year. The delays for these cases ranged anywhere from three months to more than five years.
So lawmakers took action. They ultimately enacted a law that required enhanced verification of income, residency and identity information for individuals on Medicaid. This reform was structured in a similar manner as the award-winning integrity program that Pennsylvania launched in 2011.
In January 2013, Illinois brought in independent experts to perform the enhanced verification required by the IMRP. Those experts have reviewed nearly 451,000 cases so far. These cases can represent more than one individual. At the end of fiscal year 2012, for example, the state had roughly 1.3 million Medicaid and CHIP case files, though it had nearly 2.8 million enrollees.
Of the cases reviewed so far this year, the vendor has identified more than 223,000 cases that were ineligible for benefits. Another 51,000 cases were eligible for some benefits, but not the benefits they were receiving. For example, some individuals enrolled in Medicaid may only qualify for programs with greater cost-sharing. In other cases, the parents may no longer be eligible for benefits, but their children are. Overall, the review has yielded an eligibility error rate of more than 60 percent.
When the state receives a recommendation from the independent vendor to cancel benefits for a particular case, the state gives the enrollee an additional 20 days to submit documentation showing they are still eligible for benefits. The state then removes individuals from the program after verifying that they are no longer eligible.
So far, the state has only processed about 60 percent of the recommendations it has received. Of the cases it has finalized, more than 53 percent have had eligibility errors. Another 170,000 cases have been completed by the vendor but await state review.
Those attempting to defend the status quo and argue that Medicaid waste is a minor problem are now highlighting the fact that the error rate of the cases the state has processed is lower than the error rate of the independent vendor. Of course, the state is processing recommendations at about half the speed as the vendor, with more cases piling up each week.
They also point to the fact that not all cases recommended to be canceled are actually canceled. While that’s true, many of the state’s disagreements with the vendor concern how many people in the case should be removed from the program. When even one individual in the family’s case remains eligible for some benefits, the case is recorded simply as changed, even if some individuals in those cases are ultimately removed from the rolls. It’s also important to note that the state cancels or changes about 15 percent of the cases recommended to be continued and finalizes cancellations for about 10 percent of the cases recommended only to be changed. Some of the other disagreements with the vendor’s recommendation come from enrollees sending in information after the initial audit had been completed. Other disagreements occur when changes in household size or income occur after the audit was completed, meaning the individuals are now eligible for Medicaid, but were ineligible at the time of the audit. It’s unknown how long some of those individuals were ineligible for benefits before those changed circumstances.
The state defends this high eligibility error rate by insisting that the cases reviewed so far were the low-hanging fruit: those cases that the state thought had a high likelihood of no longer being eligible. They assert that “almost all” of the audited cases were this low-hanging fruit. But Maximus, the independent contractor, has already reviewed nearly 451,000 cases. These reviewed cases represent somewhere around 25 percent to 30 percent of all Medicaid cases. So how much low-hanging fruit is there? Does the low-hanging fruit make up 35 percent of the program? 40 percent? 50 percent? More? And isn’t that entirely indicative of why the IMRP was launched in the first place? The state had been completely inept at ensuring program integrity, even when they apparently knew about what they now consider low-hanging fruit.
According to the state, each additional case reviewed has a lower likelihood of error as the case before it, given that they are moving down the list from higher risk to lower risk. But the eligibility error rate among the cases the state has finalized has remained relatively stable since at least June. Keep in mind that nearly three-quarters of all of the cases finalized since the program began have occurred since June. So despite the fact that the cases being reviewed are becoming less and less risky, the error rate remains mostly unchanged.
Maybe the eligibility error rate will eventually decline. But even if it does, the state has already moved forward with cancellations for more than 110,000 cases, likely representing between 175,000 and 200,000 individuals. That’s no small pittance. After all, that’s more people wrongfully receiving benefits in Illinois than the total number of people receiving Medicaid benefits in nine states.
But now these efforts are under attack. The American Federation of State, Municipal and County Employees has initiated a legal challenge which may slow or halt this progress. AFSCME wants the state to terminate its contract with the expert vendor reviewing eligibility and instead hire new dues-paying state workers to do the job. Never mind the fact that state workers’ failure to do the job adequately prompted the state to hire an independent vendor in the first place.
Quinn has announced that he intends to fight the legal challenge, but one has to wonder whether his heart is really in that fight. After all, the gubernatorial campaign season is heating up and AFSCME has donated more than $304,000 to Quinn since 2002. Is Quinn simply going through the motions on fighting this challenge? Will the General Assembly have to finally step in and amend the law to make explicitly clear that this contract and the project can move forward despite AFSCME’s protests?
But one thing is clear: waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicaid program is a significant problem. Lawmakers pushed the IMRP to help address some of these concerns, after years of failure by the executive branch to ensure program integrity. |
This article is about a/an actress in Power Rangers Lost Galaxy.
Cerina Vincent (born February 7, 1979) is an American actress, and model best known for playing the Yellow Ranger Maya in the television series Power Rangers Lost Galaxy. Outside of Power Rangers, she gained notoriety for playing a naked foreign exchange student in the film Not Another Teen Movie, and Marcy in Cabin Fever.
After filming on Lost Galaxy was completed, she reprised the role of Maya for the Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue 2-part episode Trakeena's Revenge.
She also attended Power Morphicon in both 2010 and 2012, as a member of the "Pretty and Powerful" panel in the latter year.
Contents show]
Filmography
Film
Fear Runs Silent (V) (1999) played June
Power Rangers in 3D: Triple Force (V) (2000) played Maya/Yellow Galaxy Ranger
Not Another Teen Movie (2001) played Areola
Cabin Fever (2002) played Marcy
Final Sale (2004) played Cerina
Murder-Set-Pieces (2004) played Beautiful Girl
Intermedio (2005) played Gen
Conversations with Other Women (2005) played Sarah the Dancer
It Waits (2005) played Danielle 'Danny' St. Claire
Seven Mummies (2006) played Lacy
The Surfer King (2006) played Tiffany
Sasquatch Mountain (2006) played Erin Price
Pennies (2006) played Kimberley
Dynamic:01: The Best of DavidLynch.com (V) (2007) played Girl 2
Everybody Wants to Be Italian (2007) played Marisa Costa
Return to House on Haunted Hill (V) (2007) played Michelle
Just Add Water (2008) played The Mrs
Fasion Victim (2008) played TV Reporter
Toxic (2008) played Malvi
Chasing Happiness (2009) played Andrea
Complacent (2010) played Myah
Television
Power Rangers Lost Galaxy (All 45 Episodes) (1999) played Maya/Yellow Galaxy Ranger
MTV's "Undressed" (3 Episodes)
S02E14 played Kitty S02E15 played Kitty S02E16 played Kitty
Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue (2 Episodes) (2000) played Maya/Yellow Galaxy Ranger
S08E29: Trakeena's Revenge: Part 1 S08E30: Trakeena's Revenge: Part 2
City Guys (1 Episode)
S04E26: Blast from the Past (2001) played Nicole
Malcolm in The Middle (1 Episode)
S02E21: Malcolm vs. Reese (2001) played Carly
Dead Last (1 Episode)
S01E07: Gastric Distress (2001) played Sorority Girl Cindy
Felicity (1 Episode)
S04E04: Miss Conception (2001) played Denise Jensen
Ally McBeal (1 Episode)
S05E19: Another One Bites The Dust (2002) played Penny
Son of a Beach (2 Episodes)
S01E02: Silence of the Clams (2000) played Sorority Girl S03E05: Witness for the Prostitution (2002) played Mandy
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (1 Episode)
S05E19: 4x4 (2005) played Gwen
Palmetto Pointe (1 Episode)
S01E02: Hello, Goodbye (2005) played Girl at Party
Bones (1 Episode)
S02E06: The Girl in Suite 2103 (2006) played Denise
Manchild (TV Movie) (2007) played Nina
Wifey (TV Movie) (2007) played Goldie
Two and a Half Men (1 Episode)
S03E12: A Little Clammy and None Too Fresh (2008) played Lulu
Gary Unmarried (1 Episode)
S01E12: Gary Dates Louise's Teacher (2009) played Miss St. James |
news The Opposition has demanded that the Government release a full business plan for its heavily revised version of the National Broadband Network.
In a statement, Shadow Communications Minister Jason Clare alleged it had been three years since a “full” business case for the project was last released.
“On 8 August 2012, NBN Co released its 2012-15 Corporate Plan, containing financial and deployment forecasts until 2040,” said Clare. “This followed the release of NBN Co’s initial 2011-14 Corporate Plan in December 2010.”
In comparison, said Clare, all the Abbott Government had released so far was “a heavily redacted Strategic Review” and a “threadbare 2014-17 Corporate Plan which simply repeated the headline assumptions from the Strategic Review”.
Clare alleged that that since the Strategic Review was released in December 2013, finalisation of nbn’s deal with Telstra had been delayed by a year, IT costs to implement the Coalition’s Multi Technology Mix approach had blown out by approximately $1 billion and the scale rollout of Fibre-to-the-Node (which Clare said the Coalition promised would begin by mid-2014), had still not commenced.
“The HFC rollout is severely behind schedule,” Clare added, “with NBN Co to meet only a fraction of its target to connect 2.61 million premises by December 2016. The NBN is rolling out slower than Malcolm Turnbull promised, and it is more expensive than he promised. Yet, nearly two years into Malcolm Turnbull’s tenure as Communications Minister, he has still not released a full business plan.”
Clare pointed out that in Opposition, Turnbull had been a strong voice calling for the Labor Government of the day to be transparent and release business cases relating to the NBN project.
“In 2010, Malcolm Turnbull introduced a private members bill demanding that the Government release NBN Co’s business case,” said Clare. “In 2013, after the previous Government had released NBN Co’s 2011 and 2012 Corporate Plans, the demands kept coming. In 2013, Malcolm Turnbull even criticised the process of submitting draft Corporate Plans to Government.”
“Malcolm Turnbull’s time is up. The Australian public deserve to know how much his second-rate network will cost, and how long it will take to build.”
In June, the Senate passed a motion ordering Turnbull and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann to release “a complete and unredacted copy” of nbn’s latest corporate plan, as prepared by the company itself, as well as a complete and unredacted copy of the 2014-2017 nbn corporate plan. In addition, the Senate also ordered the Ministers to hand over an unredacted copy of the nbn Strategic Review.
However, Turnbull and Cormann evaded the Senate order — stating, among other arguments — that the most recent corporate plan had not yet been completed and was still in draft form. Turnbull has been considering a draft of nbn’s latest corporate plan since at least April this year.
Delimiter has invited Minister Turnbull to respond to Clare’s statement.
opinion/analysis
I would make several points in regard to Clare’s statement this morning.
Firstly, yes, of course, Minister Turnbull should release the nbn Corporate Plan — immediately. Not only would it be hypocritical of him to hold onto it indefinitely, given his previous stance on this exact same matter in Opposition, but it’s the right thing to do. The NBN is an important project and the public deserves to know what’s happening with respect to it. Secondly, the Minister has had the plan since April, which is long enough to have gone through it with a fine tooth comb. Enough is enough. It’s time to get this document out there.
However, I would also note that Labor is also being hypocritical about this matter. During the tenure of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, the Coalition and the Greens had to drag this exact same document out of Labor. And there are plenty of NBN-related documents which Labor has never released and is in fact still hanging onto.
Furthermore, Labor appears to believe it will find some kind of ‘smoking gun’ relating to the failure of the Coalition’s MTM vision if it is able to go through the new nbn corporate plan itself. As Senator Conroy and Clare would be aware, it is unlikely that this will happen. The plan will have been massaged to exclude any ‘gotcha’ moments.
What we end up with is a somewhat farcical interchange between the Government and the Opposition. Both are being hypocritical about this matter. Meanwhile the Australian public is not getting — and will not get — the transparency with regard to the NBN project that it deserves. Just another day in Canberra.
In a general sense, many people, including myself, are very uneasy about the ongoing process where government business enterprises such as nbn submit drafts of their corporate plans to their minister, and then incorporate feedback after a lengthy consideration period. This smacks of a lack of independence on the part of GBEs and of political interference, and there are strong arguments that the practice should be stopped. I believe GBE corporate plans should be created by GBEs, independent of the political process — and then published on their websites. If Ministers are concerned, they have many other opportunities — including writing Statements of Expectation — to direct GBEs on how to conduct their operations.
Image credit: Parliamentary Broadcasting |
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
River Ganges in India, for centuries, has been revered for its “self-cleansing and special healing properties”. More than 450 million people depend on the waters of Ganges for many aspects of their life. In 1896, one of the first published works on Ganges water by Ernst Hankin, a British bacteriologist demonstrated antibacterial property of Ganges water against Vibrio cholera [1]. Further work by French microbiologist D’Herelles in the beginning of the twentieth century established that the antibacterial property of Ganges water to be due to a factor, later named “bacteriophage” [2]. The above said studies were conducted during the period of Crown rule in India and a significant number of founding studies on Ganges were carried out mainly by British and French microbiologists. Such studies on Ganges led to the introduction of bacteriophages to the world. Bacteriophages are the prokaryotic viruses that solely infect and/or destroy the bacteria. Bacteriophages were associated with the special property of river Ganges [1, 2].
Interestingly, our study for the first time has shown the presence of bacteriophages against putrefying and pathogenic bacteria in the waters of Ganges even at its origin (Fig. ). The origin of river Ganges is known as Gomukh. Geological studies have proven that the Himalayas had emerged at a site where the Tethys Ocean once existed, as a result of collision between the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates. Hence, Himalayas’ marine origin is known and it has been intriguing to find marine fossils high in the Himalayas [3].
Notably, the physical property of water at the Gomukh is also unique, as observed during the sampling, loads of sediment gushes out in force along with water at this origin site which is due to the melting permafrost. Typically the Himalayan permafrost [4] melts and forms the origin of Ganges. We believe the bacteriophages trapped at a much earlier time scale in the Himalayan permafrost as abiotic particles are being released gradually with the melting permafrost, thereby making a seed source of bacteriophage at Gomukh. To the best of our knowledge this is the first ground breaking finding of its kind.
A recent publication shows that 30,000 years old frozen giant virus was discovered deep in the Siberian Permafrost, was revived and still infectious [5]. Interestingly, another group has isolated a temperate bacteriophage from Antarctic Dry Valley environment against Psychrobacter—an extremophile and studied its genomic aspects [6]. The above stated findings literally encourage and prompt for further groundbreaking possibilities with exploring bacteriophages and its revival in the frozen Himalayan permafrost. |
Sean Payton, New Orleans Saints host Tampa Bay Buccaneers 2016
The Rams are expected to pursue New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton.
(David Grunfeld, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
ATLANTA -- The gears have been put into motion for a possible end of Sean Payton's time with the New Orleans Saints.
The Los Angeles Rams are expected to ask permission this week to speak with Payton about their head coach opening, according to two sources familiar with the situation. General manager Mickey Loomis would be open to trading Payton, the sources said.
Payton and Loomis met for about an hour in the Georgia Dome after the Saints-Falcons game Sunday to discuss Payton's future, according to a source.
The source added it's still too early in the process to know the compensation the Saints would ask the Rams for in return for Payton.
Reports of Payton's possible interest in L.A. surfaced less than a month ago after the Rams fired Jeff Fisher. Payton explored options last offseason to leave the Saints, as well, with Indianapolis and San Francisco as possible destinations.
Payton, who has been coach of the Saints since 2006, wrapped up his third straight 7-9 season after the team's 38-32 loss in Atlanta on Sunday.
When asked if he planned on being the Saints coach in 2017 during his postgame press conference, Payton replied, "Next question."
The Saints' sub-.500 record of late coupled with Payton's pricy salary is one of the reasons the Saints are open to trading the coach, according to a source.
Payton received a five-year contract extension through 2020 worth $45 million last January after his flirtations with other teams. |
The vision of Peter Schmeichel running up to meet David Beckham’s corner kick in the 1999 Champions League final is one of those iconic footballing images that will live long in the memory as will the actual corner itself. From the two corners in injury time, Manchester United scored the two goals to win the game. The lesson to be learnt from those, apart from not giving up until the whistle goes, is the importance of taking a good corner. Therefore it is a routine that many teams dedicate hours of training to.
As with most things in football, different leagues have different styles of play so we decided to see if the various leagues around the world had differing results when it came to the taking of corners. The time frame we focused on, due to the various start dates of the many leagues, was for the last 12 months.
First things first, we looked at which league has the highest number of corners per game. As can be seen in the table below, the highest number of corners per game takes place in the Brazilian Seria A with the Spanish and English leagues not far behind. It is interesting that the league with the joint lowest is another South American league – the Argentinean Primera División. We can thus see that geography has no impact on the table itself.
When it came to the goals being scored, we first looked at all goals scored directly from corners. Once we had this number, we widened our search to include all goals that were scored from a period of play that begun with a corner. The numbers presented regarding the goals scored direct from corners were a bit of a surprise with the little heralded Norwegian Elitesrien leading the table. At the other end of the spectrum we saw the Australian A-League who had less than half the number of goals scored direct from corners than that of the Norwegians.
When it comes to goals in general from plays originating with a corner, we saw that the league that produces, on average, the highest number of goals from corners is again the Norwegian Elitesrien with over 4% of the corners taken in Norway ending with a goal. This is in contrast with the Argentinian Primera División, where the number of corners is already lower, and only 2.42% of their corners land up with a goal being scored.
With the new Eliteserien kicking off this weekend, we can expect this trend to continue so fans of the various teams in Norway should sit up and take notice when their teams get a corner!
Pictures Courtesy of:
www.flickr.com/photos/50086693@N02/7205404440 |
Rah! Rah! Rah! to Arizona's Queen Creek High football team for its anti-bullying effort.
Players including the star quarterback have rallied behind Chy Johnson, a 16-year-old special needs student who was tormented by kids at school, reports 3TV News and azfamily.com.
The players now eat with her at lunch and watch her back.
Johnson's daily life was far different before. She came home crying every day and the bullies "threw trash at me," she said in the interview.
Chy's mother, Elizabeth Johnson, contacted Carson Jones, the popular starting quarterback, for help. She reached out to the right guy. According to Fox Sports Arizona, Jones is not only a leader of the Phoenix-area school's undefeated football team, but is a straight-A student who's active in his church and in charity work.
All Chy's mom wanted was a name or two of those responsible. Instead, Jones went the extra yard, joining Chy at lunch with other teammates. They keep an eye on her the rest of the school day, too. Varsity players Tucker Workman and Colton Moore also spearhead the effort.
“They’re not bullying her anymore because they’ve seen her with us or something," Jones said.
Chy has a brain disorder called microcephaly, making her head smaller and her life expectancy much shorter -- perhaps 25 to 30 years, the New York Daily News notes.
But school has become a lot more tolerable for the 16-year-old sophomore now that she has a winning team on her side. "They’re not mean to me, because all my boys love me," she told azfamily.com.
Click through the slideshow below to see more photos of Chy Johnson hanging out with her new friends.
SLIDESHOW: |
Those of us on Barack Obama mailing lists have wondered why the masters of fundraising haven’t stopped pushing for more donations. After all, Obama won … last week. Recounts won’t affect the substantial victory; this isn’t 2000. Yet we keep getting e-mails, supposedly from people like Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, and especially David Plouffe, telling us that Obama and the DNC desperately need more of our money — and Andrew Malcolm does the math. He reprints the missive from Plouffe:
Here’s what he said: “We’ll get to work transforming this country. But first, we need to take care of the DNC.” Did we hear that right? Now that Obama’s the president-elect, the top priority is the Democratic National Committee? To drive home the point elsewhere in the same e-mail Plouffe adds: “Before we do anything else, we need to pay for this winning strategy.” Don’t worry, you still get the Victory T-shirt for this $30. But it sounds like pretty much everything else is on hold. This change stuff is looking to be an expensive process, even before it gets started.
The DNC raised $100 million dollars on top of the $600+ million raised by Obama. The latter was a record-breaking number, and the DNC’s wasn’t too bad, either. Instead of simply spending what they raised, though, Howard Dean took out massive loans that left the Democrats in the red by $15 million.
In government, we call that deficit spending, something Democrats decried during the 2006 elections. And who gets to pay for all the overspending and fiscal mismanagement? The contributors who already coughed up record amounts of money for Hope and Change, that’s who. And the new administration will hold the Hope and Change hostage until it gets all of the loose change possible first, Plouffe tells us.
In a way, this is truth in advertising. The Democrats have given us a clear example of how they will govern for at least the next two years. In fact, we may all wind up wearing shirts that say, “The government took all of my wealth, and all they shared was this lousy T-shirt.” |
Plenty of things are holding back the hydrogen economy. One of them is the cost of hydrogen fuel cells. A British company now says it has slashed costs by replacing platinum with a liquid that makes fuel cells affordable to automobile manufacturers.
The company, ACAL Energy, said in an email that it has developed its FlowCath catalyst with backing from "a leading car manufacturer" that it declined to identify.
Hydrogen fuel cells typically produce electricity by catalyzing oxygen and hydrogen. The conventional process relies on platinum, a rare and expensive metal. FlowCath gets rid of 80 percent of the platinum by using a liquid chemical catalyst inspired by detergent - an idea applied by co-founder Andy Creeth, who is a former chief scientist at soap seller Unilever.
The technology strips out 25 percent of costs "in mass market volumes" and "dramatically enhances the cell's longevity," the company said. That could be a key advantage, since platinum itself is known to provide durability. The technology can also help shrink fuel cells, which could make it easier to fit them into cars.
ACAL is not the only outfit trying to take the platinum out of fuel cells. Among others: A couple of U.S. Department of Energy teams are working on it, one at Brookhaven National Laboratory and another at Los Alamos National Laboratory; Brown University scientists have proposed a cobalt-graphene catalyst. Less recently, Monash University in Australia demonstrated a polymer catalyst, and Case Western Reserve University as well as the University of Dayton, both in Ohio, have shown how carbon nanotubes can work in place of platinum.
But Runcorn, England-based ACAL looks just about ready to go, noting that it's "in discussions with a number of major auto-makers" aimed at licensing the technology.
Three weeks ago, Ford, Renault-Nissan and Daimler joined forces to develop an affordable, mass market, hydrogen powered car by 2017. A UK government report earlier this month predicted that there could be 1.5 million hydrogen cars on British roads by 2030.
ACAL's backers include the unnamed auto company, as well as Belgian chemicals company Solvay and The Carbon Trust, a U.K. low carbon advisory group with strong ties to German industrial company Siemens.
It has hired a new CEO, Greg McCray, to oversee its licensing business model. McCray was CEO of Antenova, a British firm that provides antenna technology to smartphone and consumer electronics manufacturers.
Now, if only someone would license a way to economically obtain hydrogen in the first place. And transport it.
Image from Unilever
Cycle through this list of previous hydrogen and related stories on SmartPlanet:
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com |
Story highlights Chinese media say a pig farm admits to dumping pigs into Huangpu River
A porcine circovirus is found in a water sample
Weibo users voice skepticism over assurances of water safety
A Chinese farm admitted to dumping dead pigs into Huangpu River, which had about 6,000 bloated carcasses pulled from its water this week, state media reported.
The labels in the ears of the pigs indicated Jiaxing City as their birthplace, according to Xinhua, the Chinese state-run news agency. The city is south of Shanghai, in the Zhejiang Province.
Earlier, local Chinese media had suggested the dead pigs had come from the area with local officials blaming dumping on "local pig farmers who lack awareness of laws and regulations."
The city's government said a total of 70,000 pigs died from "crude raising techniques and extreme weather" at the beginning of the year, according to Xinhua. But it also insisted that the collected corpses were disposed safely.
The selling of diseased pigs appears to be a bigger problem in the area as on Wednesday, a court in Zhejiang Province, issued prison sentences for 46 people convicted of selling meat from diseased pigs, Xinhua said.
The sentences ranged from six months to 6 and a half years in prison, the report said.
Shanghai water concerns
The "dead pig dumping scandal" in Shanghai has been growing since Friday, Xinhua reported.
Chinese officials have said they expect to find more carcasses in the river -- but they insist the Shanghai water is fine.
The scandal has incredulous residents one-upping each other on the country's popular microblog service, Sina Weibo.
"Since when is finding dead rotting pigs in a major river not a public health problem?" Weibo user, @Muyunsanjun2011, asked. "Answer: When this happens in China."
JUST WATCHED Dead pigs found floating in river Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Dead pigs found floating in river 00:52
A report in the Shanghai Daily newspaper earlier Wednesday said that no pollution had been found in the river.
"Since apparently, the water has not been contaminated, big leaders, please go ahead and have the first drink," Weibo user,@_Nina_Burbage quipped.
However, a later water sample was found to contain a porcine circovirus, Xinhua said.
The World Health Organization says there are two types of porcine circoviruses, but neither is known to cause disease in humans.
An official from a Shanghai water plant was quoted in Xinhua saying, "If the water is contaminated, we will put more the disinfectants and activated carbon to purify the water."
'Dead pigs all around'
Sanitation workers, clad in masks and plastic suits, have been fishing the bruised pig bodies surfacing in the Huangpu River. The pink, decomposing blobs have wreaked foul odors and alarmed residents.
"There were dead pigs all around and they really stunk," one local resident told CNN. "Of course, we're worried, but what can you do about it? It's water that we have to drink and use."
If the water treatment process is very effective and can handle the sudden glut of contaminants, it's possible to minimize the impact, said Julian Fyfe, a senior research consultant specializing in water quality at the University of Technology Sydney.
However, "most treatment plants would not be designed to accommodate that level of shock loading. It's such an unusual event," he added.
Fyfe spoke in general terms about water quality issues, as he is not involved with Shanghai's water treatment.
"If they are chlorinating heavily, which a lot of places may do, especially if they've got a very polluted water body to start with, then the effects could potentially be small," Fyfe said.
Pig corpses that have been in the water for days would leak blood, intestinal fluids and other pollutants, which could alter the taste and color of tap water.
Many residents have begun drinking bottled water due to fears of contamination, according to the Global Times, a Chinese newspaper.
Ripe for satire
The agricultural commission in China said it had tested organ samples from the pigs and the results suggested the animals had contracted a porcine circovirus.
On Tuesday, national officials acknowledged the pig incident in a press conference Tuesday.
"According to monitoring statistics, there's no evidence to show that there's an outbreak of any major animal epidemics," said Chen Xiaohua, the national vice minister of agriculture. "But in the meantime, the incident shows how we need to improve our work in the future."
The situation appeared ripe for satire.
A movie poster for "Life of Pi" was doctored and replaced with "Life of Pigs," with the main character's boat filled with dead pigs, and the water dotted with the bruised corpses.
One weibo user, @Fujiadiandianxiaoya, joked: "I finally figured out why drinking boiled water makes me gain weight -- because it is in fact pork soup!"
Local authorities say they're looking into how the pigs ended up in the river. |
A model train which is part of a collection of recording artist Neil Young's most prized possessions being put up for auction by Julien's Auctions in Los Angeles, California, U.S., December 9, 2017, is shown in this photo provided November 2, 2107. Julien's Auctions Gallery/Handout via REUTERS
(Reuters) - Singer-songwriter Neil Young’s extensive collection of model trains have fetched nearly $300,000 at auction, along with classic cars and musical equipment owned by the 72-year-old folk-rock icon.
Young, a model train enthusiast for decades, offered more than 230 pieces at Julien’s Auctions in Los Angeles from his collection of Lionel trains, including a custom-painted Commodore Vanderbilt 4-6-4 locomotive that sold for $10,000.
Several cars that Young owns were also sold. A 1953 Buick code 76X Roadmaster Skylark convertible with a steering wheel hub that says, “Customized for Neil Young,” went for $400,000, the auction house said on Saturday.
Young, best known for his Woodstock-era songs as well as his work with the bands Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young has said the vast model train layouts at his California ranch helped him connect with his son Ben, who has cerebral palsy.
Other items auctioned off on Saturday included some of Young’s guitars, amplifiers and microphones.
A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Bridge School in California, which Young’s ex-wife Pegi Young co-founded in 1986 for children with severe speech and physical impairments. |
Breitbart Senior Editor MILO spoke at Michigan State University today giving a speech titled ‘Reclaiming Constantinople,’ where left-wingers attempted to block doors to the venue, preventing attendees from getting inside. Protesters at the event were arrested and escorted through the lecture hall by campus police.
Protesters outside the event engaged in rowdy chanting prior to MILO’s talk. Unbeknownst to them, they were also joined by MILO as his crew, who infiltrated the protest for several minutes only to reveal the troll to cheers from MILO fans waiting outside.
Soon police were forced to arrest protesters. According to a police sergeant at the event, approximately eight protesters were arrested after refusing to clear the sidewalk and allow access to the event.
The protesters were handcuffed and escorted by police through the lecture hall, continuing to chant anti-MILO and anti-Trump slogans the entire time.
Watch the full video of the incident below. |
A surgeon that seriously injured a woman after he accidentally stapled her vagina during routine surgery three years ago has been stood down after another 'significant clinical incident.'
This time the doctor - previously on a $350,000 yearly salary - left a middle-aged man with 'massive urological trauma' during a botched hernia operation, the Gold Coast Bulletin reported.
The doctor, who conducted the surgery at the Robina Hospital on Queensland's Gold Coast, was stood down on February 1 and is now being investigated by the Office of the Health Ombudsman and the Health Practitioners Agency.
A surgeon has been stood down and is being investigated after two significant accidents during surgery
In 2013 the doctor stapled a woman's vagina during bowel surgery, while his latest mistake happened at Robina Hospital on the Gold Coast, and left a man with 'significant urological trauma' after hernia operation
According to the publication, staff had previously expressed their concerns that the ageing doctor had been allowed to continue performing surgery.
Professor Marianne Vonau, Gold Coast Health's executive director of clinical governance, education and research, said the hospital had taken a number of precautionary steps to ensure safety of patients.
'There was a previous incident involving the same surgeon in 2013. In response Gold Coast Health implemented a number of measures to ensure safe outcomes for our patients,' she said,
'The surgeon has been working under a restricted scope of practice and there were no other clinical incidents from that point until now. Throughout this period we were aware of concerns raised by staff.'
A private source told the Gold Coast Bulletin the latest incident was a result of a 'major techincal error.'
'The patient had a major injury to the bladder and rectum. It will take some time to recover from that,' the source said.
The 2013 case that saw a female patient with a stapled vagina happened during bowel surgery. |
. Recognizing the differences between conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army is now selecting a contractor to upgrade the 22-year-old Remington bolt-action rifle to become a more effective killing machine. The Army will pour about $5.6 million into upgrades to the M24, with the new gear expected to be delivered to troops by this fall. The M24's barrel is being modified to shoot heavier .300 Winchester Magnum rounds, instead of the 7.62mm NATO ammunition, which should extend the rifle's maximum effective range by hundreds of yards to a maximum of about 1400 yards. The suppressor will reduce the noise and flash of the gun so snipers can stay in their hiding positions much longer after they fire.
The Army is also adopting a new chassis that allows for more "real estate" on the rifle—meaning the ability to attach accessories, especially much-needed night-vision devices that clip on directly to the rail in front of the scope. The scope itself will be improved, adding a variable power system that can reach 16.5x to 25x magnification. The Army will also fit the rifles with a rangefinder so troops will no longer have to perform calculations on distance. "The engagement is a lot farther [in Afghanistan] than in Iraq," says Milo Afong, a former Marine Corps sniper who researched the experience of snipers in Afghanistan for his new book, Hunters: U.S. Snipers in the War on Terror. "You are looking at higher altitudes and less populated areas."
In Afghanistan, U.S. snipers have encountered a tougher enemy than in Iraq—one that is willing to stay and fight and generally has the advantage because they know the hiding places. "They know tactics, they know how to shoot, move and communicate. They know how to set up ambushes," Afong says. "You just have to be on your toes at all times, and you have to put yourself one step or two ahead of the enemy."
Afong says that for snipers engaged in urban combat in Iraq, the traditional training and mantra of waiting for 'one shot and one kill' fell by the wayside. Sniper teams in Iraq often selected, observed and reported on the targets without actually taking the shot, acting instead as the eyes for raiding teams that would capture or eliminate the enemy. When caught in the speed of battle, snipers have to turn to snap shooting, says Afong. "The window of opportunity is very, very small," says Afong. "You just have to pick your shots." |
Thank you sincerely kind stranger for the gifts and for the card.
I am an incredibley snacky person so the Crasins and Apple Chips did not last long. Sadly, this week I have been working nights and I get employee meals for dinner then so I have not been able to utilize the other ingredients (WHICH INCLUDE: SALT, HONEY, PEANUT BUTTER, KETCHUP, COCUNT CHOCOLATE DRINK, CHOCOLATE, WINE, AND A SHARK STRESS BALL). I'm really looking forward to cooking with said shark.
The cookbook is going to become a lovely go to for hosting dinner nights and I am already in the works of trying the Garlic Cheesecake. And the game was a nice edition to the book as well.
And finally thank you for hand writing a card with a beautiful mural on it. I wanted to let you know that I have started studying the GRE and have settled on Oregon to study. Portland preferred but there is another Public Health Promotion program at Oregon State University. The letter was a very nice inspiration to start getting my priorities into gear and we hopefully may speak again soon.
I tried to get it all in one pic but I'm missing one item (can you guess which?)
Thank you again and I hope to speak to or see you in the future! -PickelySpice (Kevin) |
The Brigade is a non-profit living history association dedicated to recreating the life and times of the common soldier of the American War for Independence, 1775-1783. Members represent elements of all the armies then involved: Continental, Militia, British, Loyalist, German, French, Spanish, and Native American forces plus civilian men, women and children.
Since 1962 the Brigade has been recreating a broad spectrum of the 18th Century. It’s activities include military encampments, tactical exercises, firelock shooting competitions, craft demonstrations and social activities. The Brigade also conducts annual schools and educational seminars featuring experts from several fields of 18th Century study.
The Brigade maintains a modest research library and publishes an educational journal, The Brigade Dispatch , a regularly scheduled newsletter, the Brigade Courier , and periodic instructional booklets and papers.
Membership is open to all persons.
Visit us on Facebook
The Brigade of the American Revolution
Subscribe to our newsletter, Click here to sign up.
Subscribe to our forums, now located on this site. Visit the forums page to sign up. |
Provincial police say charges have been laid in two separate investigations involving aggressive motorcycle riders in the Toronto area.
In an incident early on July 23, 2016, a man died when he collided with a transport truck as a group of motorcyclists travelling together on Highway 401 slowed traffic while performing stunts on the highway.
In a separate incident, on Sept. 22, 2016, on Highway 427 near Dundas Street, police say a group of motorcyclists were conducting similar activities of slowing traffic while other riders performed stunts.
OPP say this resulted in a road rage incident between a motorist and the motorcycle riders in which a female passenger in the car was assaulted. The driver of the car fled the scene and was chased by the riders before crashing in Mississauga, Ont.
Police say officers executed six search warrants on Tuesday at several locations throughout the Toronto area, seizing four motorcycles and arresting five people.
A 33-year-old Richmond Hill man is charged in both incidents, while a 35-year-old woman and a 38-year-old man, both from Toronto, and a 32-year-old man from Newmarket, Ont., and a 24-year-old man from Mississauga are charged in the July 23 incident. All are charged with several counts, including dangerous operation of motor vehicle causing death.
Sgt. Kerry Schmidt said four motorcycles have been seized and additional arrests and charges are expected. |
Skip the video: The Box | Final Thoughts
Michigan’s local food scene is exploding with new artisan products and specialty goods. Mitten Crate sends a deliciously curated assortment right to your doorstep every month. We strive to bring you the best tasting and most unique products made right here in Michigan. Sign up yourself, or send a crate to family and friends, and see what “Michigan Made” is all about! Cost of the box reviewed: $35/mo + Free S&H
Total Price: $35
Renews Automatically
READ THE NOTE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE REGARDING SHIPPING!
I thought I’d try something a little different this time around. Living in the Washington, DC, area, I have a lot of friends who are from all around the United States. What better way to bring them a little bit of nostalgia than to subscribe or gift a box containing goods from their home state? Well, dagnabbit, that’s exactly what I did! Over the coming months I’m hoping to grab some boxes from places such as New York, Philadelphia, Alaska, Washington state, Hawaii and more!
Luckily, the U.S. Postal Service put this package in a secure place for me to pick it up! The box itself was a little bit hefty so I knew that there were probably going to be fragile and breakable items inside such as jars. Leaving it on my doorstep in the middle of summer probably would have been a bad idea, too.
Final Thoughts
I’m a little mixed on this. I mean, I think it is a fun idea but I think I may have to rethink the execution. If I was to receive a box like this from my home state I’d be pretty excited but the flaw with this is that even though this contains goods from your state you may not be familiar with many of these companies. It is a problem with any type of regional food and hyper-local goods.
The other problem I’m facing is that I’m not tasting any of these items so giving a full on review leaves me a little bit at a disadvantage. GAH!
If you are familiar with any of these items – or if you received a box with goods from your home state – I’m confident that it would bring back great memories. Or maybe you’re just proud of your state so you’ll be ga-ga over something made there. I’ll get better reaction when I deliver this and see what my friends think. Until then, if you’re from Michigan and you want a taste of home then check out the Mitten Crate!
NOTE!
If you elect to gift this crate rather than getting the monthly membership you’re going to wind up paying for shipping and handling. Membership – monthly $35 payments – gets you free shipping. Doing the one off $35 crate as a gift will require you to pay $7 to cover shipping. |
So much for post-feminism.
The world of networked hurt that descended on the spiteful media enterprise that is Rush Limbaugh revealed a tenacious, super-wired coalition of active feminists prepared at a moment's notice to blow the lid off sexist attacks or regressive health policy. When Limbaugh called Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and “prostitute” in response to her testimony before Congress on contraception costs, he may well have been surprised by the strength of the response. But he shouldn't have been.
At latest count, nine advertisers have pulled the plug on Limbaugh. [Update: 12 advertisers and two radio stations.] Each was effectively targeted on Facebook and Twitter by an angry and vocal storm of thousands of people calling for direct action. The campaign was almost instantaneous, coordinated by no individual or organization, and entirely free of cost. Prominent feminist organizers told Forbes that it was social media's terrible swift sword, led once again by Twitter and Facebook-savvy women, that dealt Limbaugh the worst humiliation of his controversial career, and in many ways, revealed the most potent "non-organized" organization to take the field on the social commons in the age of Occupy Wall Street and Anonymous.
"Given that much of the increased vocabulary and awareness about gender in the national discussion comes through social media and from young people, I think that instances like this one should give those who claim that young people don't care about feminism pause!" says Rebecca Traister, a contributor to Salon and author the important feminist history of the 2008 Presidential race, Big Girls Don't Cry. "Young people are the ones who know how to use social media in this way, and look at the kind of impact it's having."
"What's most interesting to me is that in the last two years or so specifically, women have been leading the charge online to campaign for themselves against this kind of abuse, largely thanks to advances in social networking," said media technologist Deanna Zandt, author of Share This! How You Will Change the World with Social Networking. "In the past, we'd have to wait for some organization to take up the cause-- create a petition, launch an email campaign -- and outside of traditional feminist movement types, those campaigns rarely reached widespread acceptance."
"Women aren't waiting to be told what to do or which petition to sign, they're just doing what we do best: talking and connecting," agreed Allison Fine, senior fellow for progressive think tank Demos.
It's the next chapter in many ways to the story that hit the public consciousness with the strong, active online reaction to the Susan G. Komen Foundation's decision to cut funding to Planned Parenthood a month ago. The response was quick, massive, and targeted. My own social graph (on both Facebook and Twitter) lit up like a summer fireworks display after sundown - stirring conversation, concentration around hashtags and shared media, and truly crowdsourced action.
"What we're seeing right now is a continuation of the networked response to the right-wing war on women's health that began with the Komen reaction a few weeks ago," said Fine. "It is across generations and extra-organizational with individual women using a variety of social media channels to connect with other women and create their own protests."
Yet it would also be a mistake to view the semi-organized reaction to Limbaugh as purely another battle between left and right on the American political spectrum. While Limbaugh's sexist words have to been seen in the light of a Republican Presidential race that has, inexplicably, placed an opposition to contraception and women's health at the center of its increasingly nasty public debate, the roots of El Rushbo's humiliation also run deeper than spectrum ideology and political parties.
You can see those roots, for instance, in the brilliantly-organized campaign in late 2010 against two prominent liberal voices: filmmaker Michael Moore and talk show host Keith Olbermann. Feminist blogger Sady Doyle took Moore to task for posting bail on behalf of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange after rape accusations brought by two women in Sweden confined him to custody in England, and her supporters battled both Moore and Olbermann for being dismissive of those accusations and implying they were a set-up to derail Assange's exposure of U.S. government secrets.
Wrote Doyle in December, 2010 in a post that ignited a firestorm: "We are the progressive community. We are the left wing. We are women and men, we are from every sector of this community, and we believe that every rape accusation must be taken seriously, regardless of the accused rapist’s connections, power, influence, status, fame, or politics."
Thousands of activists then used the #mooreandme tag on Twitter to (successfully) demand apologies from Moore and Olbermann. That campaign disproves the assertion by Fox News political analyst Kirsten Powers in the Daily Beast that "the real fury seems reserved only for conservatives, while the men on the left get a wink and a nod as long as they are carrying water for the liberal cause."
But Powers does indeed have a point that casual misogyny among men in the media rather easily crosses ideological lines - and just as clearly, the new feminist moment online is in part a strong and serious pushback against a culture that divines a narrow, almost forgiving attitude toward violence and sexual assault against women. Among the feminist bloggers from more recent generations, tactics like the Slutwalk - and a strong effort to expose a culture of violence to the light of day - point to a renewed and yes, combative new stance. On the left, when prominent figures like Assange and Dominique Strauss-Kahn were accused of sexual violence, a new network of women stood ready to push back on political commentary that seemed to excuse or invalidate the charges. Feminist blogger Lindsay Beyerstein wrote that the target of these new protests was "the inaccurate stereotype that rape is an uncontrollable frenzy of lust that women provoke in men. That's like imagining all theft as an uncontrolled frenzy of consumerism."
When he used the word "slut" to describe Sandra Fluke - linking the need for contraceptives to a kind of rampant (and distasteful) sexual desire in women that society shouldn't pay for - Limbaugh casually played the flip side of the classic "she asked for it" defense of sexual assault. The Republican Party's most potent media figure may well have reckoned that talk radio's legendary reach and loyal conservative audience would easily sustain a few harmless raindrops of outrage on the roof.
But he was (perhaps fatally) wrong.
There was a powerful, decentralized social venture lurking on the digital network - totally empowered and working with a toolset as potent as Clear Channel's microphones.
"I think the feminists were always out there, but often isolated from one another or overwhelmed by the amount of work to be done and lack of time in a day," says feminist writer Kate Harding. "Social media allows us to work together quickly and publicly for something like a boycott or twitter campaign--(mostly) without the distractions of in-group politics or disagreement on any number of other issues--and that creates an energy that makes it feel so much more like a unified movement, even when people are still quite loosely connected."
Philanthropy measurement guru and social ventures blogger Lucy Bernholz believes that the immediate feedback loop of the social networks drove both the Limbaugh and Komen protests - even without visible leadership or a budget.
"The dynamics of the media are such that if you’re engaged about something, be it Komen or Limbaugh you can drive your action, measure it, and add it into a larger effort," said Bernholz. "If something resonates, you pass it on. If it doesn’t, you try something else. It’s like the supposed Facebook mantra 'code wins.' Everyone who participates in these networked action can see - and measure – immediately, what resonates with others and they can work fromt here."
Adds Kate Harding: "I think the public aspect is really important. #mooreandme, the Limbaugh boycott, the Komen/Planned Parenthood uproar all worked because there was somewhere to express ourselves visibly. Who knows how many feminists were sending letters and making phone calls over similar instances in the past? But without any way for an outside observer to measure it, the target of a boycott or letter-writing campaign was never forced to acknowledge that criticism publicly. When your brand's Facebook wall is overtaken by feminist outrage, you can't just write it off as a few man-hating cranks and continue on as usual."
After the 2008 campaign, Traister's book painted a rosy path for feminist organizing that seemed a stretch at the time, at least to me. In Hillary Clinton's failed campaign, she wrote, "women's liberation movement found thrilling new life."
Yet her words now seem prophetic - and indeed, the sheer breadth and strength of the wired feminist network is impressive.
"Some of what we're seeing now feels more coordinated in a way that fits with a maturation and increased confidence of online activism and with a media that, post-2008, is better trained to hear and report on this kind of response," says Traister. "That last part really matters, and is really relevant coming out of 2008: There is an increased sensitivity around gender and around race and around sexuality that I think was not part of the national conversation ten or even five years ago.
"That makes a difference when Rush Limbaugh calls someone a slut in 2012." |
Circuit of The Americas, a nearly 3.5-mile road course near Austin, is interested in hosting a Verizon IndyCar Series race so long as it doesn’t conflict with an existing event. But COTA shouldn’t be concerned that—the race track should, instead, be worried about its 1.5-mile asphalt neighbor up north.
Track president Bobby Epstein said COTA would be interested in IndyCar so long as the track could make it work with a bunch of “calendar limitations,” NBC Sports reports. But people can be quick to forget, as it seems Epstein has been: COTA’s neighbor 230 miles north near Dallas, Texas Motor Speedway, isn’t fond of sharing series with it. Texas Motor Speedway already has an IndyCar race.
Here’s what Epstein, whose track has hosted Formula One each fall since it opened in 2012, told NBC Sports:
“We didn’t want to have conflicting messages to the fans of competing products, I would say. I think we didn’t want to have competing products, and we still don’t. “But if the calendar works out to where you could do perhaps IndyCar in the spring and F1 in the fall, then we should certainly look at the calendar and see if we can make it work out.”
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Because MotoGP’s COTA date takes place in the spring and the track doesn’t want a race in the summer or too close to F1, Epstein said there “are some stars that need to align” to make an IndyCar date happen. But he also has to avoid the wrath of TMS president Eddie Gossage, who doesn’t appear to have commented on Epstein’s recent IndyCar claims—although it’s only been a few days—but has been pretty adamant about keeping series for himself in the past.
Epstein said early this year that he’d been in talks with NASCAR officials about a potential COTA race, which would probably be incredible to watch considering NASCAR and road races make for a great show.
But Gossage was not thrilled, citing a “regional protection clause” that keeps things like NASCAR from going to other tracks in the state during the series’ contract with TMS. He told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in March that TMS had dibs on NASCAR:
I don’t blame [COTA] for wanting NASCAR races, it’s just that they’re 20 years too late. I don’t think they know the business, or they wouldn’t be saying such things.
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The anger from Gossage doesn’t make much sense, really. IndyCar ran the Houston Grand Prix, in Texas, in both 2013 and 2014, and these two tracks aren’t exactly straight-up competition. Texas Motor Speedway is a 1.5-mile asphalt oval, whereas Circuit of The Americas is a 20-turn road course.
Who cares about details, though! After getting mad about NASCAR being double booked with Austin’s F1 race, Gossage also said in 2014 he’d wave bye-bye to IndyCar if it added a race at Circuit of The Americas:
If IndyCar wants to run in Austin, (my response is) ‘God Bless You, it’s been a nice 18 years, have fun. We don’t need another (race) in the market to cause people to make choices and decisions.’ We have not only earned loyalty in IndyCar, we’ve paid dearly for it (in sanction fees), huge sums of money that nobody else in the history of IndyCar racing has been required to pay to keep it.
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So, like we said, COTA: Good luck. If you’re really serious about snagging an IndyCar race, you’re probably going to need all the well wishes you can get. |
Graphene, in concept, has been around since the latter half of the 1800s, but it wasn’t until just over a decade ago that scientists were actually able to isolate atom-thick sheets of carbon, “a million times thinner than paper, stronger than diamond, and more conductive than copper,” as described by American Physical Society.
Since then, scientists and researchers have been uncovering the many unique properties of graphene, finding applications in water purification, hydrogen fuel cells, rechargeable batteries, even photovoltaic solar power. Is there anything graphene can’t do? As research and development teams can’t help but grin at the possible ways that graphene could change the world as we know it, we keep finding glimmers of hope for actual commercialized graphene-based products.
Sunvault Energy, a Canadian renewable energy company, says that graphene-based supercapacitors, developed by UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles), have the potential to change the way that we charge portable electronic devices, from smartphones to electric vehicles. Sunvault Energy manufactures photovoltaic solar panels which, of course, generate renewable solar power. In turn, some kind of energy storage system is required for such a setup to be of any use, which is where UCLA’s graphene-based supercapacitors come in.
Under a new joint venture company, Supervault Energy combines Sunvault solar power with supercapacitors in a single device. The result is a fast-charging high-energy all-in-one device that can be scaled from smartphone size to electric vehicle charger size, as well as smartgrid and microgrid applications. Sunvault says that smartphone-sized systems might be able to recharge via solar power in just seconds, and electric vehicle battery packs in just minutes, though the solar power application on the electric vehicle isn’t particularly specific.
Looking forward to hearing more from Supervault Energy, especially since the news of the joint venture was just released today.
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The retrial of a civil lawsuit against the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office and a sergeant who fatally shot Seth Adams in 2012 will be going to a new jury earlier than expected.
U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks has agreed to take over handling the lawsuit and the retrial has been brought forward to July 10 in federal court in West Palm Beach.
The first trial lasted a month and ended in a mistrial with a hung jury in mid-March. Senior U.S. District Judge Daniel T.K. Hurley had planned to retry to case in October but all of the parties involved said they would prefer an earlier date.
The judges agreed to transfer the case and Middlebrooks, in an order issued Tuesday, scheduled jury selection to begin July 10.
The nine jurors in the initial trial deadlocked 8-1. Attorneys for Adams’ parents, Lydia and Richard Adams, had asked the jury to issue a verdict of $10 million or more regarding the fatal shooting of Adams, 23, in the parking lot of A One Stop Garden Shop in Loxahatchee Groves.
Adams, who worked and lived on the family-owned property, was shot dead in May 2012 by Sgt. Michael Custer, who was working undercover. Custer testified he thought his life was in danger when he shot Adams. The family says Custer used excessive force and the Sheriff’s Office botched the investigation.
[email protected], 954-356-4533 or Twitter @SentinelPaula |
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Oct. 1, 2014, 7:11 PM GMT / Updated Oct. 1, 2014, 5:37 PM GMT
The U.S. government delayed the dismantling of some nuclear warhead components to protect against a foreign threat: asteroids. The nuclear component, called the canned subassembly (CSA), contains highly enriched uranium. Several of them were scheduled to be dismantled in 2015, but are now being kept until senior government officials can evaluate their usefulness in "planetary defense against earthbound asteroids," according to a Government Accountability Office document reported on first by the Wall Street Journal. It might sound like the National Nuclear Security Administration watched "Armageddon" one too many times, but it's not science fiction. NASA has provided funding to several researchers studying how nuclear devices could knock asteroids off course or blow them into pieces. In 2013, an asteroid exploded near Chelyabinsk, Russia, releasing the energy of nearly 500 kilotons of TNT — around 30 times the energy released by the bomb dropped on Hiroshima — and injuring more than a thousand people.
IN-DEPTH
SOCIAL
— Keith Wagstaff |
Rorion Gracie's idea of using the Ultimate Fighting Championship to raise awareness for the martial art of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was wildly successful as Royce Gracie won three of the first four UFC tournaments. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu schools began to spring up and thrive all over California and other parts of the United States but for as much attention as the art received there were many fans who just enjoyed the fights.
No Holds Barred fighting was becoming a sport unto itself, complete with combat athletes training for the events and fans anticipating the event. The pay-per-view buy rates for UFC events steady climbed and disagreements began to breakout between the Gracie family, the promotor Art Davie, and the TV executives of the PPV companies. Rorion wanted minimal rules, no time limits and for contests to as closely resemble an empty handed street fight as possible, while those on the TV side of things wanted to make it more viewer friendly.
The debate around adding time limits was particularly tense. The original UFC had featured a time limit, but Rorion was able to have it removed from future events. However, when Royce Gracie's match with Dan Severn ran over the alloted PPV time and thousands of UFC fans were enraged when they missed Royce's dramatic triangle victory, Rorion was forced to accept time limits.
Rorion was unhappy with the current direction the UFC was taking but the Gracies were convinced to take part in on last UFC for a special match.
UFC 5 was set to take place on April 7th, 1995 in Independence Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina and would be unlike any UFC event before it. While UFC 5 would feature a tournament, promoters had decided that format was too unreliable to provide the matches fans wanted to see. UFC 3 was supposed to be the big rematch between Ken Shamrock and Royce Gracie but both fighters had been forced to withdraw due to injury, so promoters took chance out of the equation and scheduled the first UFC Superfight.
Ken Shamrock was the reigning King of Pancrase, a Japanese Professional Wrestling promotion that specialized in live fights, known as "shoots". Before Shamrock returned to the UFC he faced rising star Bas Rutten in his first title defense in 1994 and had a classic match that Shamrock won via submission. So in March of 1995 Shamrock again faced Rutten a won a very quick kneebar victory.
(Ken Shamrock vs Bas Rutten 2 Pancrase: Eyes Of Beast 2 via KShamrockNo1)
With his crown defended Shamrock returned to the United States to seek his much sought after revenge for his loss to Gracie. Shamrock had spent years planning his revenge and training to defeat the Brazilian's guard, and he came to UFC 5 extremely well prepared. The match was given a 30 minute limit with five minutes of overtime if the match was able to continue, effectively making it a 35 minute match. Shamrock planned to stay inside Royce's guard and attack to body to sap the Brazilian's strength. Once Royce was sufficiently drained, Shamrock would finish him. Royce came to the cage with the same basic strategy he had used in the pervious four UFC events, drag the fight to the ground in any fashion he could and then allow his grappling prowess to carry the day. Shamrock took Royce down right away and the two battled in the guard. Shamrock was able to strike to the body but Royce was able to defend to the point where the 30 minutes passed without much action.
Referee "Big" John McCarthy stood the fighters up to start the final five minute overtime. When Royce threw a push kick Shamrock landed a right hand that opened a cut under Royce's left eye. Shamrock then took Royce down and spent the rest of the fight attacking that cut.
Time expired and since there were no judges, the fight was declared a draw. Most fans and media considered it a victory for Shamrock however, as he was the first man to meet Gracie's vaunted guard head on and not just survive but control a fight. After the fight both fighters embraced and showed great respect for the other's toughness.
In the aftermath of UFC 5, Rorion Gracie relinquished his role with the UFC, citing the addition of time limits and now a discussion of adding judges that were destine to turn this from true fighting into a game. Rorion felt the UFC had served its purpose for spreading the awareness of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and had no interest in creating a new sport. Rorion sold his interest in the UFC to Semaphore Entertainment Group (SEG), the UFC's television partner. Royce left with his older brother, leaving Ken Shamrock atop the UFC.
More MMA Origins
Exploring Fight Sport's Ancient Roots | Getting Medieval | Vale Tudo and the Original MMA Rivalry |Carlson Gracie Changes Jiu-Jitsu and Vale Tudo | Catch Wrestling Travels To Japan | American Experiments
The challenger to Shamrock's perch atop the UFC after UFC 5 was clear. Dan Severn, the runner up at UFC 4, had returned to the Octagon and ran roughshod over the competition.
While many credit Mark Coleman with the advent of the ground-and-pound strategy in the UFC, it was Severn at UFC 5 who laid the foundation for wrestlers in MMA.
Dan Severn after winning the UFC 5 Tournament (Photo by Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)
At UFC 4 Severn took his opponents down, sometimes with some serious force, but was content to just grapple with them. This time around Severn used hands, elbows and knees to batter opponents into submission once on the ground. At one point when facing Russian Oleg Taktarov, Severn opened a fight ending cut with a knee from side control.
Before Shamrock could face Severn, Pancrase required him to return to Japan to defend his title again, this time in a rematch against Pancrase founder Minoru Suzuki. This second match with Suzuki highlights one of the difficulties in dealing with Pancrase, it never truly separated from its pro wrestling roots. While many of the fights were true "shoots" some of the matches did have predetermined outcomes, known as a "work".
The creators of Pancrase did not see themselves as pioneering a new sport but rather finding a different way to sell pro wrestling in Japan, and sometimes business calculations took precedence over the competitive nature of their athletes.
What we do not know is how many works took place in Pancrase. The majority of matches were shoots and most of the works are pretty obvious, like Shamrock's win over Matt Hume which featured Shamrock suplexing Hume and then backflipping directly into mount. Shamrock's 1995 title match Minoru Suzuki is another known work of Pancrase. The reasoning being that Pancrase wanted a Japanese born athlete to defeat Shamrock and hold the title so that Japanese fans would become more invested in the championship. So Shamrock lost via kneebar after allowing Suzuki to dramatically escape a fully extended armbar. While Shamrock would fight in Pancrase again, he would never again be allowed a title shot as his focused turned more firmly to his home country.
So after losing the King of Pancrase title Shamrock traveled to Capser, Wyoming where he faced Dan Severn in a superfight at UFC 6. The system that SEG had decided to implement was for the superfight to determine the UFC champion and for the tournament to determine the next challenger, though both superfight winner and tournament winner are awarded a UFC title belt.
The tournament portion of this card started with a bang as Tank Abbott, a pro wrestler and street brawler, made his MMA debut with a vicious knockout of Hawaiian martial arts expert John Matua. An interesting historical side-note, since Rorion Gracie wasn't there to insist on no gloves being worn Abbott wore fingerless gloves, becoming the first fighter in the UFC to wear that style of glove, which is required now by the modern rules. Patrick Smith, a veteran of UFC 1 & 2, also took part but had to withdraw when he suffered an injury in his first round victory.
Abbott won his first two matches with quick TKOs but in the finals he was drawn into a prolonged match by Oleg Taktarov, the Russian defeated by Severn at UFC 6.
An experienced Judoka and Sambo fighter, Oleg won all his pervious matches by submission and was able to use his grappling to hold off Abbott. As the fight wore on the elevation caused both fighters to slow, but Oleg was able to take Abbott's back and apply a rear naked choke to become the first European UFC tournament Champion.
In contrast to the protracted tournament final the superfight seemed to be over in a flash. Shamrock and Severn were both wrestlers by nature and engaged in some standing clinch work. But when Severn tried for a double leg against the fence, Shamrock was able to lock on a guillotine choke and force Severn to tap out.
Ken Shamrock and Dan Severn grappling in the clinch at UFC 5 (Photo by Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)
Ken Shamrock was finally UFC champion, and while his reign would be just under a year in that time he would fight in the UFC three more times. His fight with Oleg Taktrov would end in a draw that would have long lasting ramifications for MMA in the United States at UFC 7.
At UFC 8, Shamrock won his second UFC superfight when he submitted Kimo Leopoldo with a kneebar. At UFC 9, Shamrock would lose his title to Dan Severn in the first real clunker of a UFC title fight. Dubbed "the Detroit Dance" Shamrock and Severn spent much of the match not engaging one another.
Shamrock took part in one additional match against Brian Johnston at the 1996 UFC Ultimate Ultimate fight card before Shamrock left the UFC for the World Wrestling Federation. While Shamrock would return to MMA in 2000, at the time of his first retirement from MMA he was one of the most accomplished fighters in the world. |
Netflix has always been a proud contributor to the open source world. It's fascinating to see how each of their libraries facilitate a lot of tasks and can help create your development in a tremendous way.
In this series of blog posts - The Netflix stack, using Spring Boot - I'll be going over some of the libraries which Netflix has created and how to incorporate them into your Spring applications. As always, it'll be more of a hands-on experience as this blog post will basically just be an overview of what you can find in the accompanying repository.
Eureka
Today we'll be looking at Eureka. The Netflix Eureka Github introduction:
Eureka is a REST (Representational State Transfer) based service that is primarily used in the AWS cloud for locating services for the purpose of load balancing and failover of middle-tier servers.
Basically, the Eureka infrastructure is set up as a client-server model. You can have one or multiple Eureka Servers and multiple Eureka Clients. It's a registry where clients (your microservices) can connect to (register), making your Eureka server aware of where your microservices are located, how many there are and if they're healthy or not.
As I have always done in my blog posts, I'll accompany this with a Github Repository serving the sole purpose of giving you a working example.
It's the first time I'm doing a series of blog posts on the same subject. Therefore, I'll create branches for each part, which can individually be checked out. I'll try to keep everything up to date with the newest versions like I'm doing with all of my other examples.
Gradle Setup
My build tool of choice is Gradle, so the entire example will be based on a Gradle configuration. The configuration will consist of a parent, which will include all the microservices, who can be deployed individually. For this example, we'll only have one microservice (the Eureka Client) and one Eureka Service.
Our parent project will be just like a basic parent pom in maven and will facilitate the build of the entire project and microservices. I choose for this setup as it is easily approachable by someone who just wants to check out the code. Check out the Gradle structure in the repository. It's not hard to set this up, but it can be an example of how to set this up.
Eureka Server
By default, a Eureka server will also be a Eureka Client, trying to connect to the Registry.
application.yml - our configuration
In our setup, however, we want 1 main Eureka Discovery Service other clients can connect to. This is the minimal configuration we would need.
server: port: 8761 eureka: instance: hostname: localhost client: registerWithEureka: false fetchRegistry: false serviceUrl: defaultZone: http://${eureka.instance.hostname}:${server.port}/eureka/
EurekaServer.java - Bootstrap the application
@SpringBootApplication @EnableEurekaServer public class EurekaServer { public static void main(String[] args) { SpringApplication eurekaServer = new SpringApplication(EurekaServer.class); eurekaServer.addListeners(new ApplicationPidFileWriter("eureka-server.pid")); eurekaServer.run(); } }
Registering a Service
Registering a microservice is just as easy as creating a Eureka Server. Here's an example of the configuration.
server: port: 9000 spring: application: name: notification-service eureka: client: serviceUrl: defaultZone: http://localhost:8761/eureka/ instance: preferIpAddress: true
All you need to register the application to the Eureka server would be
@SpringBootApplication @EnableEurekaClient //or @EnableDiscoveryClient public class NotificationMicroService { public static void main(String[] args) { SpringApplication notificationMicroService = new SpringApplication(NotificationMicroService.class); notificationMicroService.addListeners(new ApplicationPidFileWriter("notification-micro-service.pid")); notificationMicroService.run(args); } }
Running the Example
We provided a startup script which you can build and run all the services. the only prerequisite is that you need Gradle in order for this to run.
./startup.sh
to stop the services, simply run
./stop.sh
Watching Our Services
By default, spring boot Netflix provides a UI on top of the Eureka Server. In our example, we've deployed it to http://localhost:8761/, so navigate to it and watch the health of your Eureka Server and Client.
You'll see something like this.
As you can see, after starting up the server and client, the notification service has registered itself.
Coming Up
This model of microservices that register themselves to a global registry will have a lot of advantages when it comes to building one or multiple applications using a microservice architectural approach. Eureka on its own won't have that much of use, but as you'll see in the future blog posts, Eureka will be the key element to locate all of our microservices.
The Github Repository
As we said before, this is not just an ordinary blog post. It's more of a guide on how to set up your environment to quickly start working with the discussed technology. That's why we're always making sure we have an accompanying GitHub repository available, so people can easily see how it works and have a working example at hand.
The repository that's accompanying this blog post is a bit different. Each time I'm releasing a new part of this series of blog posts, the repository will have a new branch, which will contain the new technology that will be discussed. In the end, I'll hope to come up with a nice example of how all the technologies can work together. |
On Jan. 4, 2015, Daerius Churchill walked along Bruce Randolph Avenue on his way to a recording studio to make music with friends when someone began shooting from a passing car.
Churchill collapsed on the sidewalk. He died less than an hour later at a hospital, becoming the first homicide in Denver in 2015.
By year’s end, 50 people would be killed on Denver’s streets, making it the most violent since 2006.
Homicide victims Daerius Churchill, 22
John Shoeboot, 53
James Brown III, 42
Abdul Muhammad, 22
Francis Canham, 66
Marlow Jenkins-Martin, 27
Randy Canister III, 19
Tyrael Adams, 28
David Edwards, 53
De.Anthony Williams, 30
Jeffrey Starks, 27
Rachel Aboytes, 21
Edward Evans Jr., 62
Abdul Muhammad, 61
Christopher Flores, 21
Nolan Ware, 22
Dominique Perez, 26
Armando Uribe, 34
Samuel Grady, 61
Camille Harrell, 29
Harry McCabe Jr., 25
William Romo Rodriguez, 41
Javion Johnson, 1
Carlos Ruiz-Reyes, 22
Eric Walker, 46
Jorge Lopez-Ramirez, 17
Dydrick Martin, 47
Derrick Wilford, 36
Karla Garcia, 1
Jose Frias-Olivas, 61
Judith Katchen, 78
Tracy Winn, 48
Dwayne Banks Sr., 33
Darren Bloomquist, 49
Jeremy Garcia, 29
Bobby Brown, 34
Donald Johnson, 26
Travis Kimbrough-Sanders, 34
Sergio Evelyn-Moe, 28
Dareon Tarbor, 30
Isaiah Roquemore, 28
Jacob Wiens, 24
Eric Hines Jr., 27
Christopher Nelson, 32
Cristian Martinez, 21
Joel Gomez-Chavez, 20
Gregory Carlson, 54
D'Andre Mayfield, 20
Jeffery Scherff, 44
Renita Jackson, 51
The Denver Post tracked the city’s homicides throughout the year to explain how people are killed, where homicides happened and who died. Gangs and guns were common themes, and many of the murders remain unsolved.
Of the 50 killed, 37 died from gunshots. Ten victims, or 20 percent, were white, even though whites make up 80 percent of the city’s population.
Only five were female. The average age was 34. Two neighborhoods bore the brunt of the violence. And an additional seven people were killed by law enforcement.
Denver’s jump in homicides followed a national surge. Still, its projected 2015 murder rate was lower than average among the nation’s 30 largest cities.
Aside from gang violence, dozens of people died at the hands of others in shootings, stabbings, beatings and drownings that were not pinned on gangs.
Denver’s death toll included Judith Katchen, a 78-year-old grandmother who was stabbed and beaten in her home. Katchen, the oldest of those killed, enjoyed playing bridge and followed the stock market.
Two infants — Javion Johnson and Karla Garcia — died before their life stories were written. Their mothers have been accused in their deaths.
And there was Renita Jackson, a 51-year-old mother of two who became the last victim when she was stabbed to death on Dec. 2 at an apartment complex on South Federal Boulevard. Jackson, a mother and grandmother, was known as an avid Broncos fan who gathered her grandchildren for festivities on July 4, Halloween and Christmas.
The killings took a toll on the families of those who were lost and raised concerns about public safety, especially in Northeast Denver where the most violence occurred.
“It’s just really heartbreaking when you have to bury your son,” said Therell Churchill, Daerius Churchill’s mother. “That’s every parent’s worst nightmare and mine has become a reality.”
No one has been arrested in the 22-year-old Churchill’s death. Or Katchen’s. Or Jackson’s. |
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers weren't the only ones after Lovie Smith, as the Detroit Lions were reportedly heavily interested in at least interviewing the veteran head coach. It never got to that point, though: the Bucs got him in the building and didn't let him go without a contract, officially announcing the hiring of Smith today.
In speaking to the Tampa Bay Times, Lovie's son and agent Matt Smith said there was one simple reason why Lovie Smith came back to Tampa. "It's home. That was something it had over other places. The level of familiarity and comfort level was important."
"I just don't want to go somewhere," Lovie said. "I want to go the right place. Tampa is the right place."
As a Bucs fan, that warms my heart. Unlike in previous coaching searches, the Buccaneers had competition for the man they wanted. And they won -- they actually beat out a team, and one with a franchise-ish quarterback, no less, in securing the services of their head coach. I'm not sure that has ever happened before.
I'm sure the private plane ride didn't hurt, though. Somehow that private plane always seems to show up when the Bucs are courting coaches or free agents.
Matt Smith went on to praise the defensive stars the Bucs already have in place, and Mark Dominik's job in getting them. Gerald McCoy, Lavonte David, Dashon Goldson, Mark Barron and Darrelle Revis were specifically mentioned as key pieces, while he also threw some praise towards Mike Glennon.
Most of all, though, Smith's commitment to the team and area stood out. The Bucs and Lovie Smith are clearly and deliberately trying to channel Tony Dungy's ways. Here's to them getting back to that level of sustained excellence. |
François Ravaillac ( French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃swa ʁavajak]; 1578[1] – 27 May 1610) was a French Catholic zealot who assassinated King Henry IV of France in 1610.
Biography [ edit ]
Early life and education [ edit ]
Ravaillac was born at Angoulême of an educated family: his grandfather François Ravaillac, was prosecutor of Angoulême, and two of his uncles were canons of the Cathedral of Angoulême.[2] His father Jean Ravaillac was a violent man whose many misdeeds were a public scandal and caused legal difficulties; his mother Françoise Dubreuil (sister of the canons) was known for her Catholic piety. The son Ravaillac began work as a servant, later becoming a school teacher. Obsessed by religion, he sought admission to the ascetic Feuillants order, but after a short probation, he was dismissed as being "prey to visions." An application in 1606 for admission to the Society of Jesus was also unsuccessful.
Regicide [ edit ]
In 1609, Ravaillac claimed to have experienced a vision instructing him to convince King Henry IV to convert the Huguenots to Catholicism. Between Pentecost 1609 and May 1610, Ravaillac made three separate trips to Paris to tell his vision to the king, and lodged with Charlotte du Tillet, mistress of Jean Louis de Nogaret de La Valette, duc d'Épernon. Unable to meet the king, Ravaillac interpreted Henry's decision to invade the Spanish Netherlands as the start of a war against the Pope. Determined to stop him, he decided to kill the king.
On 14 May 1610, Ravaillac lay in wait in the Rue de la Ferronnerie in Paris (now south of the Forum des Halles); when the king passed, his carriage was halted by a blockage in the street, and Ravaillac stabbed Henry to death. Pierre de l'Estoile, the chronicler, stated of the king:
His coach, entering from St Honoré to Ferronnerie Street, was blocked on one side by a cart filled with wine and on the other by a cart filled with hay... Ravaillac climbed on the wheel of the above-named coach and with a knife trenchant on both sides stabbed him between the second and third ribs.[3]
Ravaillac was immediately seized by police and taken to the Hôtel de Retz to avoid a mob lynching. He was transferred to the Conciergerie.
Trial and execution [ edit ]
During interrogation, Ravaillac was frequently tortured to make him identify accomplices, but he denied that he had any and insisted that he acted alone. His knowing the king's route and the blockage of traffic that put the king within reach excited speculation. The king was on his way to visit Sully, who lay ill in the Arsenal; his purpose was to make final preparations for imminent military intervention in the disputed succession to Jülich-Cleves-Berg after the death of Duke John William. The intervention on behalf of a Calvinist candidate would have brought him in conflict with the Catholic Habsburg dynasty.[4] Ravaillac seems to have learned of the plans; in his tortured mind, "he had seen that the king wanted to make war on the pope, in order to transfer the Holy See to Paris."[5]
At the start of the interrogation, Ravaillac said, "I know very well he is dead; I saw the blood on my knife and the place where I hit him. But I have no regrets at all about dying, because I've done what I came to do."[6]
On May 27, he was taken to the Place de Grève in Paris and was tortured one last time before being pulled apart by four horses, a method of execution reserved for regicides. Alistair Horne describes the torture Ravaillac suffered: "Before being drawn and quartered... he was scalded with burning sulphur, molten lead and boiling oil and resin, his flesh then being torn by pincers." Following his execution, Ravaillac's parents were forced into exile, and the rest of his family was ordered never to use the name "Ravaillac" again.
In January 1611, Mme Jacqueline d'Escoman, who had known Ravaillac, denounced the Duc d'Épernon as the one responsible for the death of Henry IV; she was jailed for the rest of her life. Philippe Erlanger, in his book L'Étrange Mort de Henri IV (1957, rev. 1999), reveals Épernon's association with Ravaillac through his mistress. He concludes that he, the King's mistress Henriette d'Entragues and Charlotte du Tillet planned the assassination. The contrary view, that Ravaillac had no accomplices but his confessors,[7] is expressed by Roland Mousnier in L'Assassinat d'Henri IV: 14 mai 1610 (Paris, 1964).
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ] |
China's housing bubble is losing air
Home prices and sales plunge after China's government intentionally slams on the brakes. Some recent buyers stage demonstrations, destroy real estate offices and demand refunds of up to 40%.
The swift turnaround has stunned buyers such as Shanghai resident Mark Li, who thought prices had nowhere to go but up. The software engineer closed on a $250,000, three-bedroom apartment in August, only to watch weeks later as the developer slashed prices 25% on identical units to attract buyers in a slowing market.
Sales have plummeted. In Beijing, nearly two years' worth of inventory is clogging the market, and more than 1,000 real estate agencies have closed this year. Developers who once pre-sold housing projects within hours are growing desperate. A real estate company in the eastern city of Wenzhou is offering to throw in a new BMW with a home purchase.
Home prices nationwide declined in November for the third straight month, according to an index of values in 100 major cities compiled by the China Index Academy, an independent real estate firm. Average prices in the Shanghai area are down about 40% from their peak in mid-2009, to about $176,000 for a 1,000-square-foot home.
Reporting from Beijing — Falling home values. Debt-strapped borrowers. Real estate woes dogging the economy. It's old news in the United States, but now the air has started to leak from another great housing bubble — in China.
People who made down payments on homes at a China Vanke Co. development protest… (Qilai Shen, Bloomberg )
Outraged, Li and hundreds of others who paid full price trashed the sales office, scuffled with employees and protested for three days before police broke up the demonstration. Walking away now would mean losing the $75,000 down payment that he borrowed from his working-class parents.
"I still haven't told them," Li, 29, said of his home's plummeting value. "It will just make them worry, and it's already too late."
It's all eerily similar to the early stages of the U.S. housing crash. The big difference is that the Chinese government intentionally slammed on the brakes.
Over the last year it has tightened lending and prohibited the purchase of more than one home in several cities, in a bid to discourage speculators and bring down prices. Chinese authorities say they're trying to tame inflation and defuse public anger over housing costs, the fallout from the government's efforts to stimulate the economy with easy credit during the global financial crisis. They have pledged to keep home buying limits in place for the foreseeable future.
But concern is growing about Beijing's ability to engineer a soft landing.
The property sector is a huge employer and now accounts for about one-fifth of China's economic output. Local governments are heavily dependent on land sales to fund public services and to pay off municipal debt. Banks issued record numbers of home mortgages and construction loans, whose collateral is real estate that's now falling in value.
A real estate crash would reverberate well beyond China. The building binge helped fuel a global boom in raw materials including Brazilian iron ore and Chilean copper. And it would hobble an economy the rest of the world was counting on for new consumers and investment opportunities.
The Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development warned last month that a collapse of some major Chinese real estate developers would put the nation's banks at risk, a threat that's "overshadowing" the economic outlook of the world's second-largest economy.
Some analysts, however, contend those fears are overblown.
Hundreds of millions of rural Chinese are projected to move into cities in the coming decades, bolstering demand for new housing.
And Chinese aren't nearly as leveraged as Americans. First-time buyers are required by law to come up with down payments equal to 30% of a home's purchase price; many put down more. Experts say the government could also lift its buying restrictions.
"I don't think China is in danger of a U.S.-style housing crash," said Alistair Thornton, a Beijing-based analyst for IHS Global Insight. "They still retain lot of levers of control should the property market slide faster than expected." |
UPDATE: Tuesday, 2:15 a.m. ET: Sean Combs posted bail hours after his Monday afternoon arrest, The Associated Press is reporting, citing jail records that indicate the 45-year-old rap mogul known as Diddy posted $160,000. Sheriff’s officials, however, told The AP over the phone that the bond was $50,000 and did not give a reason for the discrepancy. Combs will have to appear in court July 13, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said.
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UPDATE: Tuesday, 12:15 a.m. ET: The UCLA Police Department announced it has added to the charges against Sean Combs (recording artist Diddy), and released the following statement:
"UCPD has updated the charges to three counts of assault with a deadly weapon, one count of making terrorist threats and one count of battery. Combs has been booked into the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Inmate Reception Center."
Company: Diddy was defending himself in altercation with UCLA coach. http://t.co/zCUY2aIrZ6 pic.twitter.com/qpBeTIWlfj — FOX Sports (@FOXSports) June 23, 2015
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Original story:
This is not the best way to get your son some playing time.
Music mogul Diddy was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon Monday afternoon after getting into an altercation with a UCLA football coach, according to the school and TMZ Sports. The school notes the weapon in question is alleged to have been a kettlebell.
Diddy, whose son Justin Combs is a defensive back for the Bruins, reportedly confronted the coach who was "screaming intensely" at Justin during a conditioning drill. Diddy is accused of grabbing the coach at the UCLA athletic facility, which led to his arrest.
The coach was Sal Alosi, a UCLA source confirmed to FOX Sports college football reporter Bruce Feldman. If Alosi’s name sounds familiar, it is because he was on the New York Jets’ sideline in 2010 and tripped a Miami Dolphins player who was covering a punt. Alosi was suspended by the NFL for that action.
On Tuesday, TMZ Sports reported that Alosi ‘called out’ Diddy in front of the whole team. Diddy was upset, and had some choice words for the coach.
The school released a statement late Monday afternoon:
Shortly after 12:30 p.m. today, Sean Combs (also known as P. Diddy) was arrested at UCLA’s Acosta Athletic Training Complex on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon, which was a kettlebell. No one was seriously injured and UCPD is investigating. Combs is expected to be transported to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Inmate Reception Center later this evening.
According to Scout.com, Alosi has ‘scratches on his face and his shirt was ripped.’
At approximately noon, Combs and Diddy came to UCLA’s athletic facility, the Acosta Center, while Alosi was in his office, which is adjacent to the weight room. Combs entered Alosi’s office while Alosi was on the phone, and Alosi asked Combs to wait a moment while he finished the call. Many sources who were in the locker room witnessed an angered Diddy enter Alosi’s office, rattling off expletives at the coach. Alosi then instructed interns who were immediately outside his office to alert campus security. A still incensed Diddy then came around Alosi’s desk, saying that he would get campus security on Alosi’s desk phone. Alosi, then, according to witnesses, put up his hand in a non-threatening way, and instructed Combs to get his father out of the office. Diddy then walked into Alosi’s hand, and told Alosi not to put his hands on him.
In the next moment, according to many on the scene, Diddy attacked Alosi, until interns and other personnel pulled off Diddy. The celebrity broke free again at one point and struck Alosi. The personnel were then successful in getting Diddy out of the office and into the weight room, where Diddy picked up a kettlebell, which is a type of barbell, and then swung it at one of the interns.
According to sources, Alosi had scratches on his face and his shirt was ripped as a result of the altercation.
Coach Jim Mora issued the following statement:
“I’m thankful that our staff showed the level of professionalism that they did in handling this situation. This is an unfortunate incident for all parties involved. While UCPD continues to review this matter, we will let the legal process run its course and refrain from further comment at this time.”
Mora’s roster also boasts the son of Snoop Dogg, WR Cordell Broadus. |
In Wisconsin, A Decade-Old Police Shooting Leads To New Law
Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy of the Bell family Courtesy of the Bell family
Race is at the forefront of the current debate over the police use of deadly force. But one shooting in Wisconsin highlights another factor at play when police shoot civilians — the lack of outside investigation. And the decade-old death has led to real reform in the state.
Ten years ago, 21-year-old Michael Bell Jr. pulled up to the house where he lived with his mom and sister in Kenosha, Wis., about an hour south of Milwaukee. A police officer who, according to a police report chose to follow Bell after observing his driving, arrived shortly after. A subsequent toxicology report showed that Bell had been drinking that night.
Dash cam footage from inside the squad car shows Bell exiting the vehicle he was driving, where he was confronted by the officer. The two walked off-camera, where police tried to arrest him. A struggle ensued, and while his mom and sister watched from the house, Bell was shot, point-blank, in the head.
Bell's father, Michael Sr., says he'll never forget the phone call he received on the night of Nov. 9, 2004, from his oldest daughter.
"She called me up: 'Dad, you need to come to the hospital, Michael's been shot.' And then she told me it was by a police officer," Bell says. "And I just I figured it might've been shot in the leg or shot in the arm ... but I came to find out that an officer placed a gun directly to my son's temple and took his life."
It wasn't until later that we realized just how little of an investigation had been done.
Gina Barton, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's law enforcement investigative reporter, covered the story back in 2004. She says that what led to the shooting was one of the officers shouting, "He's got my gun."
"And another officer thought that Mike Bell was trying to disarm his partner," Barton says.
Barton says Bell's mother and sister, who were watching the altercation unfold, heard the officer as well and they tried to yell that Michael Bell did not have the officer's gun.
"But apparently, they either didn't hear that or disregarded it," Barton says.
The Kenosha Police Department's detective division and internal affairs division immediately conducted an investigation. Barton says it didn't take long. Within 48 hours, the department had determined that the shooting was justified, that the use of force was proper and that none of the officers had done anything wrong.
"It wasn't until later that we realized just how little of an investigation had been done," Barton says. "[They] basically just accepted the officers' version of events. So they were cleared really quickly."
Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy of the Bell family Courtesy of the Bell family
As a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force, Michael Bell Sr. says he's been a part of mishap investigations before. He was expecting a long, drawn-out investigation into his own son's death — not a decision made by the same police department in just a couple of days.
"I was just completely appalled," Bell says. He says he knew the police had not even talked to the witnesses or gotten the report back from the crime lab. "So to clear themselves in 48 hours, I was just completely flabbergasted."
Bell says the family was in shock as they went through the difficult grieving process and were trying to make funeral arrangements, so he cautioned patience. But after lab reports finally came back, Michael Bell Jr.'s DNA and fingerprints were not found on the officer's gun.
So in 2010, Bell launched his own investigation.
"I finally made a decision that we're never going to get to the truth of the matter, unless we bring in our own personal investigators," he says. "So we hired an investigative consultant who teamed up with a retired Kenosha police detective."
Gina Barton, of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, says that one of the experts hired by Bell came up with a theory that the gun had probably gotten caught on the rear-view mirror of the car near the scuffle. That mirror was in fact broken after the incident.
"The officer probably thought he had grabbed the gun, because why would an officer say that?" Barton says. "But as far as I can tell, it was a miscommunication and a misunderstanding that lead to [Bell's] death."
In a statement made in 2010, which the police department forwarded this December in response to NPR's request for comment, Police Chief John Morrissey from the Kenosha Police Department said, in part:
"The investigation showed that the actions of the officers were reasonable, appropriate and well within Kenosha Police Department policy, procedure, and training. I am fully confident that the officer's actions complied with the Kenosha Police Department's use of force guidelines."
Barton says that Wisconsin has had many officer-involved shootings and custody deaths. One of the problems that a lot of people in the community have with these situations is that the officer's own department will investigate the use of force.
The investigation showed that the actions of the officers were reasonable, appropriate and well within Kenosha Police Department policy, procedure, and training.
"So if you know this officer, if you've worked with him before, can you really be objective in terms of evaluating that shooting? And is it really proper for the police to be policing themselves?" Barton says.
The Bell family ended up filing a civil suit for wrongful death. Six years later, they received a $1.75 million settlement. But there was no admission of wrongdoing, and the police maintained that Michael Bell Jr. caused his own death.
The family used the settlement money to fund a grassroots campaign. They took out ads in the New York Times, in USA Today and on radio and created TV commercials.
The campaigning went on for years, but Barton says the message really gained momentum after another police incident in 2011, where a 22-year-old man died in the backseat of a police car. The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide.
Bell bought every available billboard in Milwaukee with slogans like: "When Police Kill, Should They Judge Themselves?"
"After we created enough ruckus, the unions ended up sitting down with us and talking with us," Bell says. They told him that if he wanted to take the billboards down, they would work with him in crafting some the legislation he sought.
"I had formulated in my mind what really needed to occur here to make this process better," he says.
The law they put forth would make Wisconsin the first state in the nation to mandate, on the legislative level, that if an officer was involved with a loss of life, that outside investigators must come in and collect the data and investigate that shooting.
If you know this officer, if you've worked with him before, can you really be objective in terms of evaluating that shooting? And is it really proper for the police to be policing themselves?
This past April, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker passed the bill into law.
Gina Barton says Bell was able to work with politicians on both sides of the aisle, and sold the bill as benefiting both the family members of whoever died as well as the officers involved.
"Because if you actually did do everything right, why wouldn't you want a transparent investigation that clears you and that shows everybody why you did the right thing?" she says.
Bell recognizes that their accomplishment with the bill happened with the help of the police. Five police units were even present when Gov. Walker signed the bill.
"I'm not against law enforcement, even though a law officer killed my son," Bell says. "And I do recognize that a number of police officers risk their life to protect people. In fact, police officers need to be part of the solution." |
About
Learning is wonderful-- possibly one of the greatest things people can do. However, it's not always quite so fun. There are brain games, but studies show those rarely work. They just make you better at the game. Talking to people is nice, and watching video's can help.. but without actually solving problems, or having a chance to test your knowledge, you won't make much progress. What if there was a way to learn, and have fun? At the same time?
Scholars quest is exactly that. It's a JRPG/Novel played on a web browser through a text interface designed to test the player and teach him new concepts.
-Story
There will be a story with branching endings and lots of content to explore. The player can interact with the game world in a way similar to the retro game 'Zork.' Your choices through the game will determine between five or six endings. Each ending will be based on a different political/philosophical idealogy. Want to go for the Marxist route? Or perhaps the Libertarian Socialist route?
-Gameplay
The combat will use turn based JRPG mechanics. However, the battles will be incredibly strategic. Each enemy will have unique tendencies and patterns that must be analyzed and adapted to. There will be a variety of weaknesses and special skills. Moves can of course inflict various status conditions, and the player can collect items/weapons/tools. There are also a myriad of classes.
-Education
The story will revolve around a student trying to become a scholar. He'll learn from everyone in the game world and have to work his way through difficult problems. Problems will be designed to require proactivity, resourcefulness, and logic. There will also be actual academies in the school, and the player will need to listen to lectures and answer quiz sheets.
-Subjects
-Self Help (Any public domain self help, or even some modern self help concepts may be present. You'll learn about self management and growth. Even paradigms and dealing with discipline.)
-Philosophy (Anything from Plato to Marcus Aurelius will be present-- quotes are abundant, but public domain works can make a full appearance. You'll have to think like a Philosopher King and lead Plato's Republic!)
-Math and Science (there will be the core subjects up through Calculis, Chemistry and Physics, but also a variety of interesting things. In math you'll deal with competitive math competition work, infinites and fun ideas. In science you'll learn things that are applying specifically to the modern world, as well as all the essentials that lead up to them.)
-English (there will be many full public domain books in the world, and the player will be required to answer questions about them. You'll likely read 20-30 full books before completing this game, if you want full marks.)
-Formal Logic (you'll need to understand Formal Logic at it's highest level before you complete this game. Don't worry though, we'll teach you.) |
Would Rather Read Then Watch a Video?
Note: This is the video's script.Trade is a popular Team fortress 2 non-conventional gamemode. It’s played on custom-made maps.Trading in Team Fortress 2 started September 30, 2010 as this was the day of the mann-conomy update and introduced trading. This date marks the beginning of the trade gamemode and the creation of trade maps. Trading as a concept and gameplay idea has existing for longer then tf2. Trade started in roughly in 35,000 BC in the mediterranean region where early homo sapiens bartered goods between one another. Trade in tf2 hit maximum popularity August 2012. Today there are roughly 310 Trade servers running either full-time, or part-time making trade the number one most popular custom gamemode in tf2.So what is Trade?Trade is a gamemodes in witch every individual players attempts to trade items in their inventures.Trade is a custom gamemodes in which players travel from server to server to post what they wish to trade and hear about what other are willing to trade. Trade is a social gamemode. Rudimentary conversation takes place on Trade servers. Communication is key to the gamemode as it’s required to complete successful trades.Trade’s gameplay, similar to the gamemodes duel, achivements, idle, Mario cart, pokemon and capture the flag consists entirely of deathmatching. There are a few maps that break this rule and have minigame elements, but for the most-part trade’s gameplay outside of actually trading is simply killing opponents.The goals of trade vary from person to person. Within the trading aspect of trade there many common goals. Some players wish to trade their items and steam games in order to make profit. Other players trade because they want a specific item, either for a collection or cosmetic reasons or they trade to get rid of unwanted items.And that’s basically Trade in a nutshell. A time-sink and social experience. A chance to take part in a tradition almost as old as the human race and produce imaginary profit off of eachother. #yoloswagtradingnoobs2013Thanks for watching. Like fav and subscribe. Au revoir. … Oh, and one last thing “April fools.” In text.Thanks for reading. Don't forget to like/fav if you did. |
Wine Announcement
The Wine development release 1.7.34 is now available. What's new in this release (see below for details): - Support for surround sound in DirectSound. - Better text run support in DirectWrite. - Many HTML engine fixes. - More support for WBEM objects. - A few more C/C++ runtime functions. - Various bug fixes. The source is available from the following locations: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/wine/wine-1.7.34.tar.bz2 http://mirrors.ibiblio.org/wine/source/1.7/wine-1.7.34.tar.bz2 Binary packages for various distributions will be available from: http://www.winehq.org/download You will find documentation on http://www.winehq.org/documentation You can also get the current source directly from the git repository. Check http://www.winehq.org/git for details. Wine is available thanks to the work of many people. See the file AUTHORS in the distribution for the complete list. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Bugs fixed in 1.7.34 (total 63): 5137 avifil32 limits itself to max of 1024 frames when writing avis 12295 Star Trek Klingon Academy 1.02: Ship textures are partly invisible 15111 Adobe Photoshop CS2 tools stop working in maximised images 18474 DPP (Digital Photo Professional): Instruments window returns to its starting position (in the center) automatically when the image windows is selected 20015 X-Lite don`t work with ALSA driver correctly 22521 .NET 2.0 SP2 installer fails (RegSvcs.exe bootstrapper expects updated assemblies while GAC update is deferred during install) 22602 KP500-Utils-EN.exe fails silently to extract .kdz files 27616 Warcraft 3: missing mouse cursor 28556 ICQ 7 installer error message 28866 Avant Browser needs HTMLElement_get_isTextEdit 30220 Unhandled privileged instruction when starting Minitab 16 (Sentinel HASP hardlock.sys kernel driver tries to write to CR4/not handled in ntoskrnl emulate_instruction) 30420 pyjamas desktop (python26 + python-comtypes MSHTML.DLL from IE8) fails due to unsupported ReadTypeLib header 30836 Total Overdose: choppy audio playback with Diesel Power 3D sound system 32169 Multiple 64-bit applications crash on startup (GetLocaleInfo() returns improper TCHAR count for LOCALE_IFIRSTDAYOFWEEK) (PowerGrep v4.x, RegexBuddy 4.x) 32888 Compiling Ultracopier 0.4.0.3 inside Qt 5.0.1 results in errors from compiler 32954 Trying to download flash from iexplore crashes in jscript 33809 javascript basic DOM API functions fail 33940 winmm/mci tests hang on PC-BSD 34230 SWGEmu crashes everytime it tries to load 34271 Artemis 2.0 crashes when loading the splash screen 34330 Wine64 does not work on FreeBSD 34864 Call of Duty: Ghosts needs psapi/kernel32 K32EnumProcessModulesEx 35076 Multiple applications/installers fails due to SWbemLocator::ConnectServer being a stub (PSPad 4.5.7, Nitro PDF Professional 6.2.x, eTax 2008, GOG.com games) 35167 Atom Zombie Smasher, Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War GOTY (Winter Assault) on Steam doesn't start with Wine Mono 4.5.2 35173 Loud audio distortion using wine 1.7.6 and up. 35230 Macromedia Freehand 9 demo: invalid path for file association default icon causes stack overflow in winemenubuilder 35253 BOINC 5.8.16: uninstall fails 35364 Multiple applications/installers fail due to WinMGMTS_ParseDisplayName stub (PaintRibbon 1.x, MicroStation V8i) 35403 dplayx interactive tests crash 35420 Stronghold Kingdoms crashes due to ID3DXFont PreloadCharacters being a stub. 35754 WHO Anthro software doesn't work with Mono 4.5.2 (unimplemented System.Configuration.SettingValueElement.Unmerge) 35971 dsound resampler causing clicks in StarCraft when resampling to 48000 36092 Microsoft Office 2013 (15.0) and OneNote web installer crashes on unimplemented function IPHLPAPI.DLL.CreateSortedAddressPairs 36703 PlayOn 3.9.13 settings tool fails to detect system memory size (needs 'Win32_OperatingSystem' WMI class 'TotalVisibleMemorySize' property) 36777 vSphere 5.5 client 'hcmon.sys' driver crashes on unimplemented function ntoskrnl.exe.IoCsqInitialize 36785 Hero Lab 5.x fails to retrieve updates 36822 Multi Theft Auto: San Andreas 1.3.5 'FairplayKD.sys' driver crashes on unimplemented function ntoskrnl.exe.KeSetSystemAffinityThread 36844 Multiple games need X3DAudio1_7.dll (BeamNG v0.3 Tech Demo, Doom 3 BFG Edition) 36937 WinHttpReceiveRequest goes into infinite blocking on 304 responses 36991 WSAStringToAddress("2001::1", AF_INET, …) appears to succeed. 37265 MaxQuant 1.4/1.5 (.NET 4.5 app) needs named entry point 'Shell32.dll.SHILCreateFromPath' in 'Windows Vista' mode 37333 winefile command line does not support paths with spaces 37423 YouTube Downloader crashes 37565 Skype crashes trying to chat with anyone 37658 Endless Space crashes on startup 37684 Free YouTube to MP3 Converter 3.12 installer crashes on unimplemented function msvcr120.dll._wcsset_s 37700 Propellerhead Reason 8 needs COMCTL32.dll.381 LoadIconWithScaleDown() 37701 Propellerhead Reason 8 needs mfplat.dll.MFStartup 37714 Personal Ancestral File 5 crashes when a new line is added in 'Notes' panel 37723 Elevated demo silently exits 37727 Saya no Uta: sound is all over the place after update 37735 Propellerhead Reason 8 installer complains "interface not supported" during install 37752 Airport Tycoon 2 demo fails to load with built-in msvcp70 37757 Windows 8.1 Media Creation Tool: crashes due to unimplemented function VERSION.dll.GetFileVersionInfoSizeExW 37768 hh.exe 37783 N1MM PLUS Logger 1.0 (.NET 4.0 app) crashes on launch (failure to parse registration-free COM/ActiveX info from app manifest) 37787 Cannot install Olympus Viewer 3 37794 Bus Simulator 2012 crashes on startup 37817 Autocad2006 crashes on unimplemented function msvcp70.dll.??0?$basic_ifstream@DU?$char_traits@D@std@@@std@@QAE@PBDH@Z 37836 SteuerSparErklärung 2015: crashes when starting a new tax case 37839 Unable to license IAR Embedded Workbench Kickstart Edition 6.x/7.x (License Manager needs 'Win32_ComputerSystemProduct' WMI class) 37844 PTC Mathcad Prime 3.0 Web installer crashes ('Win32_LogicalDisk' WMI class needs to provide 'VolumeName' property) 37848 For loop %~$PATH:I feature works incorrect - PATH variable size limited by MAX_PATH ---------------------------------------------------------------- Changes since 1.7.33: Aidan Thornton (1): quartz: Implement IFilterGraph2::AddSourceFilterForMoniker. Akihiro Sagawa (2): advapi32: Remove unused parameter. advapi32/tests: Add more KEY_WOW64_32KEY tests for 64-bit. Alex Henrie (4): kernel32/tests: Add tabular UTF-7 encoding tests. x3daudio1_7: Add stub DLL. dpvoice: Decrement reference count in Release functions. kernel32/tests: Add tabular UTF-7 decoding tests. Alexandre Julliard (1): winspool.drv: Don't crash if the ppd directory cannot be created. Alistair Leslie-Hughes (1): jscript: Support PROPERTYGET in Date Value. Amine Khaldi (1): shdocvw: Fix inverted StopWatch forwards. Andrew Eikum (5): winmm: Allow larger MMTIME sizes. mshtml: Support new window targets for FORM elements. mmdevapi: More accurately track device position. wineoss.drv: Don't use SNDCTL_DSP_GETISPACE. dsound: Don't send notify events before played range. André Hentschel (4): loader: Treat BSDs architecture independent for wine64. ntdll: Always define UTIME_OMIT if not yet defined. configure: Fix check for cms. Update copyright info for 2015. Aric Stewart (1): usp10: Correct an off-by-one error in page cache allocation. Austin English (6): comctl32: Add a stub for LoadIconWithScaleDown. include: Flesh out IEnumWIA_DEV_INFO. version: Add stubs for GetFileVersionInfoSizeExA/W. version: Add stubs for GetFileVersionInfoExA/W. include/ddk: Add csq.h. ntoskrnl.exe: Add a stub for IoCsqInitialize. Axel Davy (2): d3d9/tests: Fix volume_dxt5_test getPixelColor check. d3d9/tests: Fix test_3dc_formats getPixelColor check. Bruno Jesus (13): winefile: Allow paths with spaces. ws2_32: Ensure an IPv6 is not recognized as IPv4 in WSAStringToAddress. wininet: Handle CERT_TRUST_IS_NOT_SIGNATURE_VALID in netconn_verify_cert(). avifil32: Remove the 1024 frame limit when recording AVI files. po: Update Brazilian Portuguese translation. po: Update Portuguese translation. ws2_32: Better trace __WSAFDIsSet. iphlpapi: Add a stub for CreateSortedAddressPairs(). include: Add support for WS_ prefixed IPX names in wsnwlink.h. secur32: Always tell the user that libgnutls could not be loaded. cmd: Ensure environment variables fit in memory. ws2_32: Print the correct variable. ws2_32/tests: Show that send/recv functions set last error to zero on success. Dmitry Kozliuk (1): winecfg: Fix title reset when removing application from the list. Drew Ronneberg (2): winemenubuilder: Prevent recursion by calling open_module_icon() instead of open_icon() winemenubuilder: Eliminate an unused variable. Erich Hoover (1): ntdll: Unify retrieving the attributes of a file. François Gouget (11): ws2_32: Add a trailing '
' to a FIXME() call. jscript: Add a trailing '
' to an ok() call. shell32: Fix a trailing '
' in a FIXME() call. shell32: Fix the IDS_PERSONAL hardcoded default. shell32: Reset pszHome if it's not usable so we don't try to reuse it when setting up the Desktop symlink. mshtml: Make create_document_fragment() static. winex11.drv: Make X11DRV_PALETTE_ComputeColorShifts() static. combase: Remove an unused default debug channel. dwrite: Make free_glyph_outline() static. riched20: Move DestroyIRichEditOle() into IRichEditOle:Release(). ws2_32: Add a trailing '
' to a TRACE() call. Gerald Pfeifer (1): wordpad: Avoid an out-of-bounds array access in registry_set_filelist. Hans Leidekker (19): mlang: Add a stub implementation of IMultiLanguage3::DetectOutboundCodePageInIStream. wininet: Use a helper function to remove request headers. wininet/tests: Add a test to show that the Content-Length header is not updated when a request is reused. rpcrt4: Make sure the Content-Length header is set correctly when preparing the out pipe. winhttp/tests: Use a wait event instead of an unconditional sleep in the server thread. advapi32: Return an error from RegSetValueExW if passed a NULL data pointer and non-zero size. wbemprox: Implement Win32_LogicalDisk::VolumeName. wbemdisp: Add a stub implementation of ISWbemServices. wbemprox: Implement Win32_SoundDevice::StatusInfo. wbemprox: Implement Win32_VideoController::VideoProcessor. wbemprox: Implement Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration.DNSHostName. wbemprox: Implement Win32_ComputerSystemProduct.UUID. xcopy: Ignore the /V option. wbemdisp: Add IDispatch support to the services object. wbemdisp: Forward SWbemLocator::ConnectServer to IWbemLocator::ConnectServer. wbemdisp: Add a stub implementation of ISWbemObject. wbemdisp: Add a stub implementation of ISWbemObjectSet. wbemdisp: Add support for parsing WMI monikers. wbemdisp/tests: Add initial tests. Henri Verbeet (3): wined3d: Reject wined3d_texture_create() calls without explicit level count. wined3d: Allow initial texture contents to be specified with wined3d_texture_create(). wined3d: Specify the initial texture contents with wined3d_texture_create() in wined3d_device_create_cursor_texture(). Hugh McMaster (2): msvcrt: Fix a spelling error. msvcrt/tests: Add more tests for _vsnwprintf. Jacek Caban (29): mshtml: Resolve duplicated IDispatch entries as soon as they are processed. jscript: Added test of Date object default value. mshtml: Added IHTMLStyle::styleFloat attribute implementation. mshtml: Improved IHTMLStyle3::zoom stub. mshtml: Handle VT_ERROR in IHTMLSelectElement::add. mshtml: Added IHTMLElement4::focusin semi-stub implementation. d3d11.idl: Added D3D11_APPEND_ALIGNED_ELEMENT declaration. mshtml: Added IHTMLDOMTextNode::splitText implementation. mshtml: Include nsbody reference in cycle collection. mshtml: Added IHTMLElement::get_isTextEdit implementation. urlmon: Store URLs as const char* in mime_tests. urlmon: Skip query and hash part in find_mime_from_url. urlmon: Use find_mime_from_ext directly in file protocol handler. mshtml: Treat empty bstrHref as not specified in IHTMLDocument2::createStyleSheet. mshtml: Added nsIEmbeddingSiteWindow::GetDimensions implementation. mshtml: Added screenLeft and screenTop properties implementation. mshtml: Use standard list to store task queue. mshtml: Flush pending document node tasks before firing onload event. mshtml: Delay onreadystateevent notification if script elemenet is not added by parser. mshtml/tests: Added script element readyState and onreadystatechange tests. mshtml: Correctly handle NULL active element in IHTMLDocument2::get_activeElement. mshtml: Allow '#' to be the first char of resource name in res protocol. mshtml: Introduced new representation of range point and use that in range_to_string instead of trying to iterate by nodes. mshtml: Reimplemented IHTMLTxtRange::moveStart using new range point representation. mshtml: Use new end point representation in IHTMLTxtRange::expand("word") implementation. mshtml: Use new range point representation in all cases. include: Added d3d11_1.idl. mshtml: Use document encoding for scripts. mshtml: Use debugstr_mshtml_guid in omnavigator.c. Janis Lukss (1): wine.inf: Added ProductId registry key also to "Windows NT". Jon Doron (1): kernel32: Fix write_raw_resources to support 32 and 64 PE formats. Jonathan Vollebregt (2): reg/tests: Test for integer overflow. reg/tests: Test REG_NONE. Ken Thomases (2): winemac: Ignore Cocoa child windows which aren't instances of WineWindow. shell32: Don't append a trailing space to the arguments in a shell link if the command info has an empty parameters string. Mark Harmstone (11): dsound: Remove unused struct entries. dsound: Use array for channel volumes. winealsa: Return PKEY_AudioEndpoint_PhysicalSpeakers device prop. dsound: NOP on SetSpeakerConfig. dsound: Get speaker config from mmdevice props. winealsa: Support up to 6 channels. include: Add xaudio2.h. dsound: Parse speaker config. dsound: Do not use panning to set sound position. dsound: Support quadraphonic sound. dsound: Support 5.1 sound. Martin Storsjo (3): combase: Implement creation and deletion of HSTRING objects. combase: Implement functions for accessing HSTRING objects. combase: Implement functions for HSTRING_BUFFER. Marton Balint (1): dsound: Convert freqAdjust and freqAcc to integers. Matteo Bruni (6): d3d9/tests: Remove a couple duplicate lines. winemac: Make the implementation of clearToBlackIfNeeded compatible with core contexts. winemac: Implement wglCreateContextAttribsARB. wined3d: Inline GL_EXT_FUNCS_GEN in load_gl_funcs. wined3d: Prefer the core glActiveTexture function. wined3d: Use the core version of the glBlend* functions. Michael Stefaniuc (11): oleaut32/tests: Remove duplicated subexpressions (PVS-Studio). d3d9: Don't assert for shaders with the wrong vtbl. mapi32/tests: Test the correct return code (PVS-Studio). mscms: Remove always false if subexpression (PVS-Studio). msvfw32: Remove always false if subexpression (PVS-Studio). mlang/tests: Avoid always true ok() checks (PVS-Studio). netapi32: Remove always true conditional expression (PVS-Studio). oledb32/tests: Simplify some ok() checks (PVS-Studio). quartz: Remove always true if subexpression (PVS-Studio). quartz: Remove an unused variable (PVS-Studio). quartz: Simplify code flow logic (PVS-Studio). Nikolay Sivov (34): gdi32: Remove some useless returns. dwrite: Initial GetGlyphRunOutline() implementation. dwrite: Support outlines with oblique simulation. dwrite: Font collection pointer is never null when creating text format. dwrite: Release system collection pointer after using it, not before. dwrite: Added stub EUDC font collection. shell32: Added stub IPropertyStore for a shell link object. dwrite: Split each text range into runs by script. dwrite: Split runs according to BiDi levels. dwrite: Store nominal breakpoint data in layout. dwrite: Update breakpoints in case of inline objects. ntdll: Accept asm.v2 as default namespace. ntdll: Fix 'description' element parsing to allow empty elements. msdmo: Registry API functions don't return HRESULT codes. msdmo: Fix RegOpenKeyExW() failure condition. ole32: Return END_OF_CHAIN for chains starting with special sector values. dwrite: Cleanup layout instance creation, handle memory allocation failures. dwrite: Set string pointer in run description when splitting by bidi levels. msdmo: Use specified category in DMOUnregister(). msdmo: Fix DMOUnregister() when running on clean wineprefix. ntdll: Skip context dependencies that have allowDelayedBinding attribute set. dwrite: Store locale name for each text range. dwrite: Release FreeType resources on dll unload. dwrite: Fix range comparison by locale name. dwrite: Support family name attribute for ranges. dwrite: Unify temp value variable name. dwrite: Move range bounds check to an attribute setting helper. oleaut32: Use CoTaskMem* functions for safearrays. dwrite/tests: Fix buffer overflow when filling test string. dwrite: Create fontface instance for each run. dwrite: Store cluster map and glyph indices for each run. dwrite: Set glyph advances and offsets for each run. dwrite: Store additional properties for gdi-compatible layouts. dwrite: Use gdi-compatible placements in case of gdi-compatible layouts. Piotr Caban (9): msvcrt: Add _wcsset_s implementation. msvcp70: Fix basic_filebuf definition. msvcp70: Fix ios_base definition. msvcr120: Add _fdtest function implementation. user32: Only store dialog focus when window is hidden or inactive. msvcp70: Add basic_ifstream(name, mode) constructor implementation. winex11.drv: Don't resize hidden windows on ConfigureNotify event. msvcp: Fix setting decimal point and thousands separator in numpunct_wchar__Init. msvcp: Fix format parsing in time_put_wchar_put_format. Sebastian Lackner (5): include: Add mferror.h header. mfplat: Implement stubs for MFStartup and MFShutdown. kernel32: Return proper char count in get_registry_locale_info. shlwapi: Add implementation for StrCatChainW. psapi: Implement semi-stub for K32EnumProcessModulesEx. Sergey Kalinichev (1): ntdll: Add stub for RtlSetHeapInformation. Seán de Búrca (1): kernel32: Implement Get{Time,Date}FormatEx. Stefan Leichter (3): shell32: Export SHILCreateFromPath by name too. ntoskrnl.exe: Add stub for KeSetSystemAffinityThread. ntoskrnl.exe: Emulate instruction mov eax,cr4. Yifu Wang (1): msvcp120: Implemented xtime functions. -- Alexandre Julliard [email protected] |
Researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of Eastern Finland have developed new sensing skin technology designed to serve as an early warning system for concrete structures.
‘The sensing skin could be used for a wide range of structures, but the impetus for the work was to help ensure the integrity of critical infrastructure such as nuclear waste storage facilities,’ said Dr Mohammad Pour-Ghaz, an assistant professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the work.
‘The idea is to identify problems quickly so that they can be addressed before they become big problems and – in the case of some critical infrastructure – so that public safety measures can be implemented.’
According to NC State, the skin is an electrically conductive coat of paint that can be applied to new or existing structures. The paint can incorporate any number of conductive materials, such as copper, making it relatively inexpensive.
Electrodes are applied around the perimeter of a structure with the sensing skin then painted onto the structure, over the electrodes. A computer program then runs a small current between two of the electrodes at a time, cycling through a number of possible electrode combinations.
Every time the current runs between two electrodes, a computer monitors and records the electrical potential at all of the electrodes on the structure. This data is then used to calculate the sensing skin’s spatially distributed electrical conductivity. If the skin’s conductivity decreases, the structure has cracked or been otherwise damaged.
The researchers have developed a suite of algorithms that allow them to both register damage and to determine where the damage has taken place.
‘Determining the location of the damage based on the measured electrode potentials is a challenging mathematical problem,’ said Dr. Aku Seppänen, an Academy Research Fellow in the Department of Applied Physics at the University of Eastern Finland and co-author of the paper. ‘We had to develop new computational methods to more reliably determine where the damage is. Ultimately, I think our work represents an advance over previous algorithms in terms of accuracy.’
The researchers have reportedly demonstrated the effectiveness and accuracy of the sensing skin on a small scale, using concrete beams less than a metre wide.
‘Our next step is to extend this to large geometries,’ Pour-Ghaz said in a statement. ‘We want to show that this will work on real-world structures.’
The paper, ‘Electrical impedance tomography-based sensing skin for quantitative imaging of damage in concrete,’ was published in Smart Materials and Structures. The research was partly supported by the Academy of Finland. |
Darain Faraz
Fresh-faced and full of optimism, new graduates are streaming out of their degree ceremonies across the country. LinkedIn data shows that a quarter of the “class of 2015” will take the well-trodden road to London, where many will start their first roles in the City of London. Financial services, IT, accounting and management consulting were all in the top 10 most popular sectors for last year’s graduates.
It may feel like the hard part is over once you’ve signed on the dotted line and entered a graduate scheme, but the initial weeks and months of a job are crucial to future success. You can only make a first impression once, and for graduates new to working in an office environment, it can be a minefield.
Here are a few tips to get you on the right track in your new role:
Show, don't tell
Months of writing job applications can make it all too easy to fall into career clichés. We know that people over-use the words “motivated,” “creative,” “enthusiastic” and “passionate” on LinkedIn, so stand out by injecting personality when talking to new colleagues about your experience.
Use examples of past work to paint a picture, talk about specific projects you’re proud of – and avoid sounding like you’ve swallowed a business glossary.
Polish your professional image
Chances are your employer has spent years honing the business’s brand – and there’s no reason you can’t do the same as a professional. This is true for both your in-office persona and your online presence.
Take note of the office dress code, but remember that it’s better to be too smart than look sloppy. Try to keep your desk in reasonable order and stay away from earphones until you know what’s acceptable.
Your co-workers are likely to look you up on LinkedIn before you set foot in the door, so make sure your photo looks professional, you’ve added your skills and achievements, and update your profile with your new role. You should even consider asking a tutor from university to give you a recommendation before you join – there’s no better first impression than someone else singing your praises.
Be more than your job title
Naturally, your focus when you start a new role will be to prove you can be great at your job, but don’t be afraid to let your colleagues see that you have other interests too.
If you volunteer, tell people about the causes you care about; many companies encourage their employees to donate their time to charities and it can be a great way to pick up new skills. From playing in a local football league to having a burning passion for baking, show you’re a real person.
Don't be an office wallflower
Although you may feel like a lowly grad, remember that your boss is still a human being. A healthy respect is necessary, but where appropriate take the time to talk to them about things, whether work-related or not.
Connecting with colleagues on LinkedIn is a great way to make sure your workmates know who you are. It also gives you the opportunity to show them you’re switched on by sharing interesting content.
Darain Faraz works at LinkedIn. |
Endless US wars mean endless sales for well-positioned US arms makers, but military officials today are detailing a growing effort within the Pentagon to fund not just the weapons they intend to actually buy, but also weapons they figure other people might want to buy in the future.
The Pentagon’s Special Defense Acquisition Fund (SDAF) is meant for exactly that, with officials saying it allows them to “prime the pump” and placing advanced orders for weapons from arms makers “so we can stockpile things when we know there’s going to be an immediate rush or demand.”
In practice a lot of this money is being thrown at the ISIS war, with the expectation that all the nations that have gotten sucked into participating in the US-led coalition airstrikes against ISIS are going to need to buy a bunch of American bombs to drop on ISIS.
Since the US is dropping much of its own substantial collection of bombs on ISIS, this SDAF is being used to put in a whole bunch of extra orders for such bombs and related parts, with the expectation that customers will show up eventually.
While the Pentagon claims perfect knowledge of what other countries are going to want to buy from US arms makers years down the road, any SDAF orders that no one ends up wanting ultimately ends up paid for by the Pentagon, and thrown into the Pentagon’s stockpile, even if they are ordering things that Congress hasn’t authorized them to buy.
This ultimately means the SDAF can be used by the Pentagon to buy anything it wants, above and beyond the appropriations they are actually allowed. Though previously a very small fund, and subsequently a relatively minor deal, officials say last year’s $45 million spending has already doubled this year, and Congress has authorized them spending as much as $1 billion annually out of the fund, so long as the State Department signs off.
SDAF ends up problematic on two fronts because of this, since it will either be used by the Pentagon to get around budget limitations by ordering things no one else wants, or perhaps even more worryingly, the Pentagon may find itself trying to avoid getting hung with equipment it ordered by mistake by steering countries into whatever conflict they anticipated would lead to the eventual sales.
Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz |
Former Florida defensive tackle Dominique Easley was the SEC’s last first-round pick to sign his NFL contract yesterday.
RELATED: Former SEC players receive slick Super Bowl rings
All 11 first-round picks have signed their contracts, and they will be able to buy their parents a house – or three – if they want to. Being the first pick, Clowney signed a four-year, $22.272 million deal – fully guaranteed, including a $14.5 million signing bonus, with the Texans.
Here’s a look at the 11 SEC first-round picks and their NFL contracts:
1. Jadeveon Clowney, DE, Houston Texas (South Carolina)
4 years, $22.272 million fully guaranteed; $14.518 million signing bonus
2. Greg Robinson, OT, St. Louis Rams (Auburn Tigers)
4 years, $21.284 million fully guaranteed; $13.799 million signing bonus
6. Jake Matthews, OT, Atlanta Falcons (Texas A&M)
4 years, $16.43 million fully guaranteed; $10.27 million signing bonus
7. Mike Evans, WR, Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Texas A&M)
4 years, $14.6 million fully guaranteed; $8.96 million signing bonus
12. Odell Beckham, WR, New York Giants (LSU)
4 years, $10.40 million fully guaranteed; $5.89 million signing bonus
17. CJ Mosley, LB, Balitmore Ravens (Alabama)
4 years, $8.78 million fully guaranteed; $4.71 million signing bonus
19. Ja’Wuan James, OT, Miami Dolphins (Tennessee)
4 years, $8.4 million fully guaranteed; $4.45 million signing bonus
21. Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, DB, Green Bay Packers (Alabama)
4 years, $8.33 million, $7.55 million fully guaranteed; $4.38 million signing bonus
22. Johnny Manziel, QB, Cleveland Browns (Texas A&M)
4 years, $8.3 million, approximately $7.802 million guaranteed; $4.3 million signing bonus
23. Dee Ford, DE, Kansas City Chiefs (Auburn)
4 years, $8.15 million, $6.24 million fully guaranteed; $4.25 million signing bonus
29. Dominique Easley, DE, New England Patriots (Florida)
4 years, $7.3 million; $3.63 million signing bonus
Photo Credit: Adam Hunger-USA TODAY Sports |
Abstract
Importance Sedentary behaviors and physical inactivity are not only increasing worldwide but also are critical risk factors for adverse health outcomes. Yet, few studies have examined the effects of sedentary behavior on cognition or the long-term role of either behavior in early to middle adulthood.
Objective To investigate the association between 25-year patterns of television viewing and physical activity and midlife cognition.
Design, Setting, and Participants Prospective study of 3247 adults (black and white races; aged 18-30 years) enrolled in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study (March 25, 1985, to August 31, 2011). Data analysis was performed June 1, 2014, through April 15, 2015.
Main Outcomes and Measures We assessed television viewing and physical activity at repeated visits (≥3 assessments) over 25 years using a validated questionnaire. A 25-year pattern of high television viewing was defined as watching TV above the upper baseline quartile (>3 hours/d) for more than two-thirds of the visits, and a 25-year pattern of low physical activity was defined as activity levels below the lower, sex-specific baseline quartile for more than two-thirds of the of the visits. We evaluated cognitive function at year 25 using the Digit Symbol Substitution Test (DSST), Stroop test, and Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test.
Results At baseline, the mean (SD) age of the 3247 study participants was 25.1 (3.6) years, 1836 (56.5%) were female, 1771 (54.5%) were white, and 3015 (92.9%) had completed at least high school. Compared with participants with low television viewing, those with high television viewing during 25 years (353 of 3247 [10.9%]) were more likely to have poor cognitive performance (<1 SD below the race-specific mean) on the DSST and Stroop test, with findings reported as adjusted odds ratio (95% CI): DSST, 1.64 (1.21-2.23) and Stroop test, 1.56 (1.13-2.14), but not the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, adjusted for age, race, sex, educational level, smoking, alcohol use, body mass index, and hypertension. Low physical activity during 25 years in 528 of 3247 participants (16.3%) was significantly associated with poor performance on the DSST, 1.47 (1.14-1.90). Compared with participants with low television viewing and high physical activity, the odds of poor performance were almost 2 times higher for adults with both high television viewing and low physical activity in 107 of 3247 (3.3%) (DSST, 1.95 [1.19-3.22], and Stroop test, 2.20 [1.36-3.56]).
Conclusions and Relevance High television viewing and low physical activity in early adulthood were associated with worse midlife executive function and processing speed. This is one of the first studies to demonstrate that these risk behaviors may be critical targets for prevention of cognitive aging even before middle age.
Introduction
Increasing observational evidence and results from randomized clinical trials provide support for the beneficial effects of physical activity on cognitive function.1-3 However, global surveillance data suggest that overall levels of physical activity are declining,4 and the percentage of adolescents meeting recommended guidelines for physical activity is low, with even more failing to maintain these levels in adulthood.5,6 Over the life course, levels of physical activity tend to peak in childhood with large declines occurring during early adulthood in conjunction with major life transitions, such as entrance into the workforce and parenthood.6-9 Although early adulthood is a critical period for establishing life-long physical activity habits,10 few studies have investigated the association between physical activity in early adulthood and cognitive function later in life.11-13
Coupled with the increasing prevalence of sedentary or screen-based activities, such as watching television, these trends are of particular concern for upcoming generations of young people.14,15 In middle-aged and older adults, low levels of physical activity and high sedentary behavior are associated with cognitive impairment and dementia,16-18 but the long-term risks associated with these lifestyle behaviors require further investigation. In particular, the longitudinal association of television viewing with cognitive function is not well defined. Understanding the effects of these modifiable risk factors across the life course could be crucial for the development of effective population-based strategies for optimal cognitive aging.
The objective of this study was to examine the association between long-term patterns of physical activity and television viewing time during young adulthood with cognitive function in midlife. We hypothesized that patterns of low physical activity and high television viewing time will be associated with worse cognitive impairment at midlife.
Methods
Study Population
Young adults (aged 18-30 years) were recruited from population-based samples of 4 US cities (Birmingham, Alabama; Chicago, Illinois; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Oakland, California) and enrolled in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study. The study was conducted from March 25,1985, to August 31, 2011. Between 1985 and 1986, the baseline examination (year 0) was completed for 5115 participants. Follow-up examinations were completed every 2 to 5 years over 25 years: 1987-1988 (year 2), 1990-1991 (year 5), 1992-1993 (year 7), 1995-1996 (year 10), 2000-2001 (year 15), 2005-2006 (year 20), and 2010-2011 (year 25). Study protocols were reviewed by institutional review boards at each study site as well as the CARDIA coordinating center at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, and at the University of California, San Francisco. At each examination, participants provided written informed consent. Participants received reimbursement for travel and parking and nominal compensation for participation in the in-person examinations (only). Further details of study recruitment and design are available elsewhere.19,20
Of the 5115 participants, 3499 completed the year 25 visit. To assess long-term patterns of physical activity and television viewing time, we included participants with at least 3 assessments of physical activity, 3 assessments of television viewing time, and a cognitive assessment at year 25. The final analytic cohort included 3247 participants. Participants not included in the analytic cohort had a lower educational level and were more likely to be black, male, and smokers and have diabetes mellitus (P < .05).
Physical Activity
At baseline and each follow-up visit, the Physical Activity History Questionnaire, which provides a reliable measure of habitual physical activity,21,22 was used to assess participation in 13 types of vigorous-intensity (running or jogging; racquet sports; bicycling; swimming; exercise or dance class; job lifting, carrying, or digging; shoveling or lifting during leisure; and strenuous sports) and moderate-intensity (nonstrenuous sports, walking and hiking, golfing and bowling, home exercises or calisthenics, and home maintenance or gardening) physical activities in the past 12 months. Based on the duration of participation (2-5 hours/week) and intensity level (3-8 metabolic equivalents) of each activity, a total activity score was calculated as measured in exercise units. Further details on the questionnaire and scoring have been published.22-24 Previous CARDIA analysis24 indicated that a cut point of 250 exercise units has 97.1% specificity and 70.4% sensitivity for meeting recommended guidelines of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity per week. A long-term pattern of low physical activity over 25 years was defined as reporting levels below the bottom, sex-specific quartile (males, 280 exercise units, and females, 148 exercise units) of baseline physical activity levels for more than two-thirds of the visits. Participants not meeting these criteria were categorized as having long-term patterns of moderate to high physical activity. A long-term pattern of very low physical activity over 25 years was defined as reporting activity levels of less than 50 exercise units for more than two-thirds of the visits.
Television Viewing Time
At years 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25, participants were asked the average number of hours per day spent watching television in the past 12 months. A long-term pattern of high television viewing time over 25 years was defined as reporting activity levels within the top quartile of the year 5 (baseline) visit (>3 hours/day) for more than two-thirds of the visits. All other participants were categorized as having a low to moderate pattern of television viewing time.
Physical Activity and Television Viewing Time
Based on patterns of physical activity and television viewing time, a categorical variable was created to examine the combined effects of both behaviors. Participants were categorized into 3 groups: (1) most active (reference), including moderate to high physical activity and low to moderate television viewing time; (2) intermediate, including moderate to high physical activity and high television viewing time or low physical activity and low to moderate television viewing time; and (3) least active, including low physical activity and high television viewing time.
Cognitive Function Assessment
At year 25, trained interviewers administered a battery of 3 cognitive tests: the Digit Symbol Substitution Test (DSST), which assesses processing speed and executive function (higher scores indicating better cognitive function)25; the Stroop test, which assesses executive function (an interference score was calculated with lower scores indicating better function)26,27; and the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT), which assesses verbal memory (the delayed score was used with higher scores indicating better function).28,29 We defined low cognitive performance as a race-specific score that was 1 SD worse than the mean.
Covariates
We assessed baseline demographic characteristics, cigarette smoking, and alcohol use using self-reports. At baseline, height and weight were measured, and body mass index (BMI) was calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared. Hypertension at baseline was defined as systolic blood pressure of 140 mm Hg or higher, diastolic blood pressure of 90 mm Hg or higher, or receiving antihypertensive medication. Diabetes mellitus at baseline was defined as fasting plasma glucose levels of 126 mg/dL or higher (to convert to millimoles per liter, multiply by 0.0555) or use of diabetes medications. Isoelectric focusing and immunoblotting techniques were used to determine the apolipoprotein E4 (ApoE4) phenotype from year 7 blood samples.30,31
Statistical Analysis
Baseline characteristics were compared by patterns of physical activity and television viewing using unpaired, 2-tailed t tests, Kruskal-Wallis tests, and χ2 tests as appropriate. We used logistic regression to determine the association between patterns of physical activity, television viewing, and a combination of the 2 during young adulthood with poor cognitive performance in middle age. Multivariable models were adjusted for age, race, sex, educational level, smoking, BMI, and hypertension. In addition, we assessed interactions with race, sex, obesity, and ApoE4 phenotype, as well as between physical activity and television viewing. We also evaluated associations between patterns of activity and cognitive performance in linear models. The level of significance was set at P < .05. SAS, version 9.4 (SAS Institute Inc) was used for all analyses. Data analysis was performed June 1, 2014, through April 15, 2015.
Results
At baseline (year 0), the mean (SD) age of the CARDIA participants was 25.1 (3.6) years, 1836 (56.5%) were female, 1771 (54.5%) were white, and 3015 (92.9%) had completed at least high school. A total of 528 (16.3%) participants met the criteria for a long-term pattern of low physical activity and were more likely to be black (314 [59.5%]) compared with those reporting moderate to high physical activity (1162 [42.7%]; P < .001). Participants with low physical activity were more likely to have hypertension (25 [4.7%]; P < .001) and had a slightly lower educational level (mean [SD], 13.7 [2.2]; P < .001) and drank less alcohol (10.7 [21.8]; P = .001) (Table 1).
Compared with participants with moderate to high long-term patterns of physical activity, those with low physical activity were more likely to have poor cognitive performance at midlife on the DSST (low, 21.6% vs moderate to high, 14.5%; odds ratio [OR], 1.62; 95% CI, 1.28-2.04) and Stroop test (low, 16.2% vs moderate to high, 12.3%; OR, 1.37; 95% CI, 1.06-1.78) but not on the RAVLT (low, 22.1% vs moderate to high, 19.5%; OR, 1.17; 95% CI, 0.93-1.47) (Table 2). After adjusting for age, race, sex, educational level, smoking, alcohol use, BMI, and hypertension, the association between low physical activity and poor cognitive performance remained significant for the DSST (OR, 1.47; 95% CI, 1.14-1.90). The results of linear models were consistent with cognitive impairment models.
In a sensitivity analysis, we further adjusted for ApoE4, which did not significantly alter the results. In addition, there were no significant interactions with race, sex, obesity, or ApoE4 for the association between physical activity patterns and poor cognitive performance (P > .05 for all). We also investigated patterns of very low or almost no physical activity. Only 53 of the participants (1.6%) reported very low patterns of physical activity, and after multivariable adjustment (reported as OR [95% CI]), associations with the DSST (2.43 [1.23-4.79]), Stroop test (2.02 [1.05-3.89]), and RAVLT (2.01 [1.05-3.83]) were significant.
A total of 353 participants (10.9%) met the criteria for a long-term pattern of high television viewing. This high level was associated with poor cognitive performance at year 25 on all cognitive tests (Table 3). In unadjusted models, the odds of poor cognitive performance were between 1.5 and 2 times higher for participants reporting high levels of television viewing over time compared with the low to moderate viewers, reported as OR (95% CI) (DSST: high, 27.4% vs low to moderate, 14.3%; OR, 2.26; 95% CI, 1.75-2.93; Stroop test: high, 21.4% vs low to moderate, 12.0%; OR, 2.01; 95% CI, 1.52-2.66; and RAVLT: high, 27.1% vs low to moderate, 19.1%; OR, 1.58; 95% CI, 1.23-2.04). After multivariable adjustment for age, race, sex, educational level, smoking, alcohol use, BMI, and hypertension, the association was attenuated but significant for poor performance on the DSST and Stroop test (DSST: OR, 1.64; 95% CI, 1.21-2.23; Stroop test: OR, 1.56; 95% CI, 1.13-2.14). However, high television viewing time was no longer associated with poor cognitive performance on the RAVLT (OR, 1.14; 95% CI, 0.86-1.53). Further adjustment for ApoE4 did not significantly alter the association with the DSST, but the effect size with the Stroop test increased slightly (OR, 1.81; 95% CI, 1.29-2.53). There were no consistently significant interactions with race, sex, obesity, or ApoE4 for the association between television viewing time and cognitive performance. In models that also adjusted for long-term physical activity patterns, effect sizes for both physical activity and television viewing time were only slightly attenuated, and similar patterns were observed. The interaction between television viewing and physical activity was not significant.
When physical activity patterns and television viewing time were combined, 2473 participants (76.2%) reported the most active patterns of moderate to high physical activity and low to moderate television viewing, 667 individuals (20.5%) reported intermediate patterns with low physical activity and low to moderate television viewing or moderate to high physical activity and high television viewing time, and 107 participants (3.3%) reported the least active patterns of low physical activity and high television viewing time. In adjusted models (results reported as OR [95% CI]), participants with the least active patterns of physical activity and television viewing were more likely to have poor cognitive performance on both the DSST and Stroop test (DSST, 1.95 [1.19-3.22]; Stroop test, 2.20 [1.36-3.56]) (Figure) compared with those who reported the most active patterns. The association with the RAVLT was elevated but not significant (1.39 [0.87-2.22]). Participants reporting intermediate patterns also had elevated odds of poor cognitive performance on the DSST (1.57 [1.23-2.00]).
Discussion
In this biracial cohort followed for 25 years, we found that low levels of physical activity and high levels of television viewing time during young to mid-adulthood were associated with worse cognitive performance in midlife. In particular, these behaviors were associated with slower processing speed and worse executive function but not with verbal memory. Participants with the least active patterns of behavior (ie, both low physical activity and high television viewing time) were the most likely to have poor cognitive function.
Previous longitudinal investigations of physical activity in midlife and late life support our findings.13,32,33 These earlier studies indicated that low physical activity levels are associated with poor cognitive performance and cognitive decline in older adults. Results from the slightly older British 1946 birth cohort34 suggest that greater leisure time physical activity in adults during their mid-30s contributes to less cognitive decline during middle age (43-53 years). A few other studies11,12 have also investigated the effects of physical activity participation at earlier ages, but these relied on retrospective measures. In one investigation,11 regular early life physical activity was associated with better information processing speed in men but not women; in the second study,12 older women who reported more physical activity during adolescence were also less likely to develop cognitive impairment based on a global test of cognition. Similar results were reported in a small retrospective study35 of postmenopausal women in whom long-term, moderate physical activity beginning in early adulthood was associated with better cognitive function in late life. In CARDIA,13 change in cardiorespiratory fitness in young adulthood was also associated with psychomotor speed at midlife, and a more recent prospective study36 examined the association between leisure time physical activity throughout life and midlife cognitive function. Although the measure of leisure time activity was not standardized and patterns of activity over time were not assessed, the study found that participation in leisure time physical activity (defined as participation in sports as a child or adolescent and regular sport or exercise as an adult) for 4 or more days each week was associated with better memory and executive function compared with no leisure time physical activity.
Studies of physical activity and cognitive function among adolescents and young adults have focused mainly on the acute benefits for cognitive function.37 In small trials38-40 that have been limited to short time periods, physical activity among young adults improved visuospatial memory, executive function, and processing speed. In cross-sectional, observational studies,41-43 regular physical activity was also associated with better cognitive function in young adults, but the long-term effects of physical activity on cognitive function during this life stage are unclear.37
Physical activity during young adulthood may preserve cognitive function and contribute to cognitive reserve by increasing neurogenesis as well as synaptic plasticity, particularly in regions associated with executive function and processing speed, but physical activity may also affect other risk factors for cognitive impairment, including cardiovascular risk factors, inflammatory factors, and depressive symptoms.44,45 Observational studies46-49 in middle and late age have also reported correlations between physical activity and higher measures of total brain and gray matter volume as well as lower β-amyloid levels in the brain. Although some studies50 have reported differences in the association of physical activity with Alzheimer disease risk and amyloid deposition by ApoE4 status, we did not find an interaction between physical activity patterns and ApoE4 phenotype. It is possible that physical activity affects cognition through non–ApoE4-associated pathways, or there may be differences in this association by age.
To our knowledge, this study is also one of the first to report an adverse association between increased television viewing time in early adulthood and midlife cognitive performance. Increasing evidence suggests that sedentary behavior, such as television viewing, is associated with cardiovascular disease, obesity, and mortality in adults,51,52 and television viewing in young adulthood has also been associated with worse cardiometabolic risk factors in middle age.53 In addition, television viewing in middle-aged and older adults has been identified as a risk factor for cognitive impairment,54-56 but the content and degree of cognitive engagement may be an important aspect of this behavior to consider.18,57
The effects of television watching on cognitive function may involve several complex pathways. Physiologic studies58-60 suggest that sedentary behaviors, such as television viewing, adversely affect metabolic function by increasing blood pressure as well as lipid and glucose levels. Television viewing may also be associated with different cognitive and social patterns, depression, and poor dietary patterns.61-63 The association of physical activity and sedentary behaviors with cognitive function may also be bidirectional,64 and reverse causation could contribute to the observed associations.65 Even though we did not perform baseline cognitive testing, given the young age of the participants at study enrollment and the fact that they remained in the study for 25 years, it is unlikely that they had clinically significant cognitive deficits.
The CARDIA Study is a well-characterized, large, diverse cohort with follow-up data on measures of physical activity from more than 20 years. It is one of the first studies to examine the longitudinal association between physical activity and sedentary behaviors and cognitive function in a younger cohort with carefully repeated measures. However, there are a few limitations to consider. Although the retention of CARDIA participants was high over the 25 years of the study, it is possible that there was some selection bias owing to loss to follow-up. Both physical activity and television viewing were self-reported. In addition, we were limited to examining the effects of television viewing and were unable to consider cognitively stimulating sedentary activities, such as video games. Although we assessed the domains of executive function, processing speed, and verbal memory, not all cognitive domains were evaluated.
The findings in this study suggest the need for additional investigation in several areas. In particular, early adulthood may be a critical period to promote physical activity for healthy cognitive aging, especially as physical activity levels during this life stage track with activity levels in later life.10,66 More research is also needed to understand the association between screen-based sedentary behaviors and cognitive function, especially clarification of the mechanisms of this association, exploration of the full range of sedentary behaviors, and possible effects independent of physical activity. Regarding population-based health, the effect of sedentary behavior may be especially consequential because the use of screen-based technologies for work and leisure has increased in the past several decades.4,14
Conclusions
Our results indicate that the lifestyle behaviors in early adulthood that were evaluated in this study could have an effect on the risk of cognitive impairment in midlife and support a potential role for both physical activity and sedentary behavior as modifiable risk factors for prevention. Individuals with both low physical activity and high sedentary behavior may represent a critical target group.
Back to top Article Information
Corresponding Author: Tina D. Hoang, MSPH, Northern California Institute for Research and Education, 4150 Clement St, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 116-H, San Francisco, CA 94121 ([email protected]).
Submitted for Publication: August 14, 2015; final revision received October 8, 2015; accepted October 11, 2015.
Published Online: December 2, 2015. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2015.2468.
Author Contributions: Dr Yaffe had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.
Study concept and design: Hoang, Jacobs, Launer, Whitmer, Sidney, Yaffe.
Acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data: All authors.
Drafting of the manuscript: Hoang, Yaffe.
Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: All authors.
Statistical analysis: Hoang, Zhu.
Obtained funding: Reis, Jacobs, Launer, Sidney, Yaffe.
Administrative, technical, or material support: Reis.
Study supervision: Reis, Whitmer, Yaffe.
Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Yaffe serves on data safety and monitoring boards for Takeda, Inc and a National Institutes of Health–sponsored study and is a member of the Alzheimer’s Association Medical and Scientific Advisory Council. No other disclosures are reported.
Funding/Support: The Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study is conducted and supported by grants from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) in collaboration with the University of Alabama at Birmingham (HHSN268201300025C and HHSN268201300026C), Northwestern University (HHSN268201300027C), University of Minnesota (HHSN268201300028C), Kaiser Foundation Research Institute (HHSN268201300029C), and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (HHSN268200900041C). CARDIA is also partially supported by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and an intra-agency agreement between the NIA and NHLBI (AG0005). The CARDIA Cognitive Function Ancillary Study is supported by grant HL122658 from the NHLBI. Dr Yaffe is also supported by grant K24 AG031155 from the NIA.
Role of Funder/Sponsor: The NHLBI participated in the design and conduct of the study as well as collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data. The manuscript was reviewed by the CARDIA Publications and Presentations Committee for scientific content. |
Truckers are hitting the pedal on their paychecks.
Truck drivers' wages grew 7.8% in October, compared to a year ago -- the biggest jump among 60 common professions analyzed by Glassdoor.com, a job-search website. It's also far better than the overall wage growth for all jobs of 2.8%.
"We have a booming economy, we're seven years into the expansion and truck drivers are the front line," says Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist at Glassdoor.
Pay for truckers varies by distance and employer. Glassdoor estimates median pay for truckers drivers -- mostly long haul drivers -- is $54,000. The American Trucking Association says that truckers who work for a private fleet can earn up to $73,000 a year.
The pay is well ahead of other blue collar positions like machine operators ($36,800), construction workers ($36,600) and maintenance workers ($41,179), according to Glassdoor.
Related: The $73,000 job: Truck drivers wanted
Truck drivers have defied the overall trends in the U.S. economy, where wages have grown at a snail's pace since the end of the Great Recession.
There's been a major shortage of truck drivers, who typically require a commercial drivers license. The ATA estimates there's a growing shortage of nearly 50,000 drivers in America. In 2013, the shortage was only 30,000 drivers.
Another reason truckers' wages are going up: it's not a job that a machine can replace yet. And there's a ton of goods that need to be transported, given that the economy has been growing for seven years now, argues Chamberlain.
Related: The $100,000 job: garbage truck workers
At a time when work-life balance issues such as paid leave and flexible schedules are gaining spotlight in the American economy, trucking companies are challenged to recruit and retain workers. Industry leaders say they are challenged to bring in young drivers because of the grueling work demands.
The median age for truck drivers is 49 years old, according to the ATA. The median age for all American workers is about 42 years old, according to the Labor Department.
With overall unemployment low at 5%, truck companies are hard pressed to find new and qualified drivers.
"That's going to force companies to hike up wages to get the employees they need," says Chamberlain. |
"I'm concerned about the potential for friction between the prime minister and the head of state," he said. "That would be, I think, counterproductive. "People will say they have elected heads of state in this country or that country and it seems to work. Maybe.
"I wonder within the Australian psyche if someone was elected with, say, 5 million votes and felt passionately about an issue, whether that might cause a potential problem between the head of state and the prime minister. I'm not saying it would, but I'm saying the risk is there and that is something that would have to be very, very carefully considered. I think the beauty about our present system is that governors and governors-general are not elected and therefore are bound to act on the advice of ministers provided that advice is constitutionally correct and legal." General Jeffery said the governor-general's key function was "to be the constitutional guarantor … to ensure at the federal level that the prime minister of the day behaves himself or herself constitutionally". He said the head of state must be very careful not to upstage the prime minister or talk about policy. "You can't stand up and say what the opposition is proposing in relation to taxation or something is right and what the government is doing is wrong."
The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has put the spark back into the republican debate by promising to consult the public through plebiscites to choose a model to be put to a referendum. General Jeffery stressed he was not commenting for or against a republic. While he had not detected a passionate desire from the public to replace the Queen, "I'm never against change. I think if you can work out ways of better governing the country - that's the way I put it - then fine. We should always look at ways of improving our system of government in the same way we do with business and academia. But you've got to have a foundation and a basis of knowledge from which to make those decisions and I think that … is summed up in having a good understanding of civics."
It was "too hard to say" if a republic was inevitable but a first step should be to educate citizens how the present system works. He pointed to political chaos in other countries. "Some of them are so-called democracies, but they're not democracies because they haven't got the checks and balances in their system, otherwise these things wouldn't be able to take place. "I think [our system] is taken for granted because it's worked so seamlessly and so effectively. Look at the seamless transition of power from Mr Howard to Mr Rudd and the lovely way it was done: the two families having a cup of coffee at the Lodge and handing over the keys … We have had 100 years of political stability and I don't think that's happened by accident. I think it's happened because checks and balances were put in place by our founding fathers, and citizens should understand what they are."
He revealed he had "sent back" about 15 pieces of legislation or items requiring his assent, but would not say what they were. "It might be that I need more information or I think the thing could be better expressed or its not clear in its intent. Invariably departments and ministers correct it. Sometimes they'll withdraw it." |
Perdomo Reserve 10th Anniversary Champagne
Corona Extra
This cigar is a pit of a puzzle to me. I’ve seen it described as mild-bodied and full-flavored–in the same sentence, so I’m really not sure what to expect. What I do know, is that this cigar is orange. Perdomo has gone out of its way to make this the most golden-orange cigar in your B&M. It’s clever marketing, and the stick really does catch your eye, but will this be a nugget of gold, or golden shower? Let’s begin!
Statistics
CotM: April & May 2012
Shape: Parejo
Chosen by: insanemo
insanemo
Size: 5″5/8 x 46
Country of Origin: Nicaragua
Wrapper: 6-year Aged Connecticut Champagne
Binder: Nicaraguan Cuban seed
Filler: Nicaraguan Cuban seed
Color: Claro
Strength: Mild-Medium
Price Paid: $5.40
Smoke Date: 5/20/2013
5/20/2013
Age: 3 weeks
Accessories Used
Bugatti B-2002 lighter with “pyramid” double-flame torch and built-in cigar punch, Handmade English walnut ashtray made by wedgewoodrings.
Pairing
For this extremely gold cigar, I opted to go with Golden Yunnan loose leaf black tea in a small porcelain teapot (Adagio PersonaliTEA) and matching Asian style (no handle) teacup. This was not my most inspired pairing choice, as the fruity flavors of the tea overpowered the mild stick. For those not that familiar with Chinese teas, this is a medium-bodied tea, not that bold.
Appearance/Nose
This cigar was orange. No doubt, that was enhanced by the giant orange band and the fact that it came wrapped in orange-yellow cellophane (not pictured). The band was orange and black with metallic gold embossed highlights. It looked nice enough, but it was huge! (I think I’ve smoke cigars that were smaller than the band on this thing!) The orange and black gave me a bit of a “bumble bee” vibe. The wrapper is silky smooth with one or two very light veins. There appeared to be a double cap, The nose is very light on the wrapper. I only got a bit of hay. The foot smelled of graham crackers.
Construction
The cigar felt a bit light. There were no soft or hard spots. The burn was very quick and even. The ash kept for about an inch before falling, with a very pointy cone left underneath.
Cold Draw
With a little resistance off a punch cut, I got the same graham cracker notes as on the nose, with a bit of grass.
Smoking
First third
The first thing I got was the creamy flavor I expect from a Connecticut. The graham cracker was also very prominent. Surprisingly, there was a decent amount of pepper on the retrohale–I wasn’t expecting that. It lit extremely easily. The resistance that was there in the cold draw disappeared completely. This stick now had a very easy draw. It also burned very quickly, even when resting–this sucker loves to burn!
The graham cracker and cream remained through the first third, with pepper appearing only in the retrohale. The flavors themselves were very mild.
Second third
The second third was more of the same: faint flavors of graham crackers and cream. The pepper in the initial retrohale gave way to a more herbal, basil-mint flavor.
After the gigantic band came off, a grassy flavor began to present itself. Towards the end of the middle third, some woody, sawdusty notes emerged.
Final third
During the final third, I picked out the tastes of buttered toast and wood, though the graham cracker and cream flavors definitely stayed until the end.
Notes
Draw: Easy
Easy
Body: Mild
Mild
Primary Flavors: Graham cracker, cream, herb, sawdust
Graham cracker, cream, herb, sawdust
Smoke Output: Medium
Medium
Smoke Time: 55 minutes
Overall
I like a few mild sticks, but this one just didn’t strike my fancy. The flavors, while interesting, were extremely mild, more “hints” than “flavors” really. and the combination of graham crackers and black pepper in the first third was intriguing, but the pepper disappeared quickly and gave way to a less pleasant basil flavor, that did not mesh well with the graham cracker base. The construction left no complaints, but the stick burned very fast, and gave a shorter smoke time than I was expecting. All in all, this is one of my least favorite of the CotMs, and one I don’t really care to have again. It’s not a terrible stick, exactly, particularly if you want a mild, quick smoke, but it is severely lacking in flavor, personality, and charm. What flavor it did have was a weird combination that just didn’t work for me. As to whether this stick is a gold nugget or golden shower? Shower.
Rating |
My Year in Re-Reading After 40: Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings
Court Merrigan Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jun 7, 2016
BEFORE RE-READING:
Got in a minor Twitter brouhaha the other day about GMO and Roundup™ and the evils of Monsanto, etc. etc. etc.
For me, the discussion is intensely personal because I spent whole chunks of my childhood summers with a hoe, amongst endless rows of soybeans, bandana draping my neck, and bottle of water perched in the dirt on one end of the field, engaging in hand-to-hand combat with weeds. This was in the day before the magic of RoundUp (TM), when farmers routinely mixed up a witch’s brew of pesticide chemicals using their own home-brew recipes, and it still wasn’t enough to keep the weeds from conquering whole fields. Hence, me, as a kid, with a hoe. (To say nothing of the legions of migrants, always Hispanic and invariably polite, who washed over the country each summer for $9-an-acre work.)
But of course this isn’t about big evil agribusiness multinationals or bragging about eating organic food (people on the Internet do this, if you can believe such a thing) or ignorant journalists who wouldn’t know a windrower from a one-pass. It’s about literature.
See, when you grow up like this:
Harvesting beans with my dad, 1979. Safety regulations? What safety regulations?
on a place like this:
The farm off Lake Alice Rd, Scotts Bluff County, Nebraska, 1980
you spend your days longing to be on an epic journey somewhere like this:
No, not NYC [Image credit: Mladjo00]
When you’re a farm kid with a big imagination and it’s a million miles to the city, you do things like make a sword out of a shovel to fell stalks of corn that serve as stand-ins for marauding orcs. (“Jesus, son,” my dad said when he saw the carnage, “we grow that corn to sell, you know.”). You pretend the hills beyond the bean field are magic mountains where goblins stalk and treasure is hid. That pretty girl from two towns over with a bob in her hair who you see at church every Sunday? She’s a princess who’s one burning castle away from setting out on an epic journey with you. (At the end of which I suspected we might kiss, though I wasn’t sure why. Nine year-old fantasies are chaste fantasies.)
Which brings me to this month’s book in my Year in Re-Reading: Pawn of Prophecy, by David Eddings, Book One of the Belgariad.
The main thing I remember about this book: Aunt Pol. She has a white streak in hair, as evidenced on the cover, and she’s a sorceress.
Caption: This isn’t Aunt Pol, but I’m pretty sure Christa Faust stole Aunt Pol’s hairstyle.
Aunt Pol is the only character I can recall by name. There’s also an uncle who’s also a sorcerer, a princess, and a boy. The boy, needless to say, has a magical destiny. He’s a prince, or something, and that’s why he has a pair of sorcerers guarding over his youth. Until it’s time to leave the farm and head out on a grand adventure.
Not so hard to figure out why this book might appeal to a lonesome farmboy.
Hell, I’ve racked my brain, but for the life of me I cannot recall what epic adventure they are setting out for. Rescue a princess? Defeat the dark forces massing in the East? Retrieve a magical scroll? Storm a dark tower? Does it matter?
Not to me, not then, not at nine years old. Swords would get swung, bad guys would get slewn, adventures far, far from the farm would be had. As I recall, the book ends up with the boy-hero fighting a freakin’ god who stands taller than the Empire State Building and also for some reason has a sword, and winning. And getting to be king, or at least knighted. This after travel through dark and dreary forests and facing down a whole host of other, lesser enemies (basically the plot to every video me me from the ‘80s). Maybe those video games stole their plots from Pawn of Prophecy? After all, the book came out in 1982, when Pac-Man was still the height of arcade fun and you turned to Dungeons & Dragons if you wanted questing fun (though I wouldn’t have read it till 1985, or thereabouts).
To be honest, a lot of what I think I remember from Pawn of Prophecy is likely to be derived from any of the other dozens upon dozens of books I devoured as a kid, before some English teacher forced me to read Wuthering Heights and I began to discover that books could be vastly more than mere stories. I recall it was one of those books that I read with such enthusiasm that the very sentences and words almost got in the way of the story. It’s magical, that kind of reading, the kind you don’t get to have as an adult with critical faculties. Reading was a lot more fun back when it required no edification beyond entertainment.
That said, I’m more than a little afraid that the books will be painfully poorly-written, and that it might descend into a long slog to reach the end. I sure hope not. I mean, I don’t expect to be inspired to go attacking local corn stalks with a shovel again, but I hope I won’t be driven to take sanity breaks, either.
AFTER RE-READING:
You know when you watch one of those old-timey movies, black and white and ponderous, where some girl takes about a hundred and fifty years to look at herself in the mirror or the gumshoe walks up the dark alley for roughly seventeen nights? That’s what Pawn of Prophecy felt like at times. Those were a long 258 pages, friends. Though it was gripping in places, the book itself is one long set-up for the four books that follow, a time-honored cliffhanger tradition that reaches all the way back to the earliest pulps and cowboy dime novels from the 1800s. No epic swordfights with actual gods or ginormous battles where whole races of bad guys are exterminated: those come later, evidently. Pawn of Prophecy features a lot of walking and riding and boat-riding and even more talking around round tables, square table, inn tables, stable tables, in castles, inns, fields, forests, and on boats.
And after all that, I still didn’t get to find out exactly what the heroes, a young boy named Garion and his merry band of companions (yes, including Aunt Pol) are after. Only that they’re chasing a bad guy, who’s trying to get to even badder guys, for reasons which are unclear. Oh, there are broad hints: it’s clear Garion will be kicking some evil ass down the road, but if you want to know for sure, welp, read the next (four) book(s.)
No doubt my impatience says a lot more about my acquiescence to the Culture Of Now than it does about Pawn of Prophecy. It’s just the 40-year old in me, ever conscious of the minutes trickling away, irretrievable. Meanwhile, the farm boy in me? He was freakin’ thrilled.
Why? Because:
“At the top of the hill he stopped and glanced back. Faldor’s farm was only a pale, dim blur in the valley behind. Regretfully, he turned his back on it. The valley ahead was very dark, and even the road was lost in the gloom before them.”
Are you shitting me? ARE YOU SHITTING ME? This, this right here, this is exactly what I dreamed about, fighting corn stalks with my shovel. A secret destiny! An adventure with a sorcerer and a sorceress and a warrior and a thief into lands of legend! Enemies on every side, danger lurking about every corner, trusty sword at my side! Ditching the farm for a noble yet mysterious quest!
Practically the oldest story going, in other words. And thus guaranteed to thrill the heart-cockles of lonesome farmboys and would-be farmboys everywhere.
As a boy I loved — L-O-V-E-D — tales of fantasy and magic and high adventure like this book. As an adult? Superheroes annoy me, magic bores me, adventure tales send me a-snoozin’. I haven’t at all understood the resurgence of comic book movies and yeah, I watch Game of Thrones like everyone else, but my least favorite parts are when some sorceress births a demon shadow assassin in shitty CGI. Why? Re-reading A Pawn of Prophecy, I figured it out.
You see, all those years of longing to get somewhere, anywhere but the farm (and not just on some boring highway, but on the back of a noble steed, or maybe a dragon, or at least in a covered wagon with a wizard and a dwarf) left their mark on me. The older I got, the more magic kept on not happening. And as it dawned on me that I was gonna have to do the hard lifting when it came to this living thing and no magical destiny was going to sweep me up in its grand scope, I came to resent any suggestion otherwise. Wizardry? Epic quests? Great destinies? These are the daydreams of childhood, I wisely thought, turning sixteen.
Around which time I moved on to this phase. God, please don’t tell anyone.
Here, meanwhile, is what A Pawn of Prophecy has to say about a magical destiny:
“There’s a world beyond what we can see and touch, and that world lives by its own laws. What may be impossible in this very ordinary world is very possible there, and sometimes the boundaries between the two worlds disappear, and then who can say what is possible and impossible.”
The premise and the promise of a thousand fantasy books, and not a single one of them true. It’s a resentment I imbibed, then somewhere along the line decided it’d be too uncool to admit that I harbored such a resentment, and then forgot about it, and now when I see a tweet for some dumb superhero movie (see???), I’m dismissive.
Now, I don’t know that I’m going to run out and catch up on all the fantastical movies and books I’ve missed in the last couple decades or so (life is still short, and this time of year, it’s baseball practice that’s long) but next time Daenerys rides a dragon, I do resolve to give that nine-year old farmboy a chance to thrill along for the ride.
David Eddings, therapist.
HERE LIETH MONEY QUOTES:
The Medieval Bootstrap: “Don’t make things more difficult for your Aunt just because the world isn’t exactly to your liking. That’s not only childish, it’s ill-mannered and you’re a better boy than that.”
The Club of Moral-Lesson: “I now had more gold than I’d ever had at one time before, but it somehow seemed that it wasn’t enough. For some reason I felt that I needed more.”
“It’s the nature of Angarak gold,” Mister Wolf said. “It calls to its own. The more one has, the more it comes to possess him. That’s why Murgos are so lavish with it. Asharak wasn’t buying your services Jarvik; he was buying your soul.”
The Staff of The Training Montage: “Didn’t anyone tell you it’s customary to jump out of the way after the boar has been speared?”
“I didn’t really think about it,” Garion admitted, “but wouldn’t that seem — well — cowardly?”
“Were you concerned about what a pig might think of you?”
“Well,” Garion faltered, “not really, I guess.”
“You’re developing an amazing lack of good sense for one so young,” Wolf observed. “It normally takes years and years to reach the point you seem to have arrived at overnight.”
NEXT RE-READ:
Back to quotidian reality.
POSTSCRIPT:
So not three days after I turned in this essay, I watched that latest Game of Thrones episode where Danerys did in fact ride a dragon again. Unfortunately, though, I completely forgot my vow to give fantasy another chance, because this was my first reaction:
While it’s true that she does do a lot of speechifying, this does not exactly jive with my aim of regaining that long-lost sense of wonder. I suppose that means I better engage in more therapy. |
ABOUT ME // welcome to my homepage! hopefully you can know a little more about me through its existence. if you want some more direct or detailed information, you could start here. thanks for stopping by! ღゝ◡╹)ノ♡
MY MUSIC // i've been creating music for almost two decades, constantly expanding my use of it as a language to share experiences, senses, and emotions via. this is my full-time occupation. EXTERNAL SITE, OPENS IN NEW WINDOW .
MY GAMES // i love making games, usually by mashing up pre-existing content to make something new. i've been using Clickteam development tools since Klik & Play in the 90s and i'm still not very good at it. it's a lot of fun, though.
MY CHARACTERS // a collection of reference images of my furry characters, or fursonas. these pages have a lot of images and audio, so watch out! these pages also contain nudity and are NOT SAFE FOR WORK (but are not pornographic).
STEPCHARTS // for StepMania. my current charting style is designed for pad play and fits in fairly well with older Dance Dance Revolution mixes in terms of rhythm, motion, graphical fidelity (or lack thereof), and song length.
BMS FILES // beatmania-style simulation files that can be used in any number of players, such as Lunatic Rave 2, BM98, BemaniaDX, etc. these are to beatmania as StepMania and its ilk are to Dance Dance Revolution.
ARCHIVED MEDIA // out of print and hard to find music, video, print materials, and so on. i firmly believe that if something can be digitized then it can and should exist in a post-scarcity state in order to preserve and further culture.
GAME SOUNDTRACKS // i enjoy preparing high quality recordings and remasters of game soundtracks, often from original hardware. i've been doing this ever since i was a kid, recording game music to audio cassette to take with me.
PSX FANDOM // the PlayStation has nearly 3000 games. i've skimmed through and researched over a thousand, and a couple hundred of those wound up being worth documenting. you won't find your Final Fantasies in here. we're talking deep cuts.
OTHER STUFF // dumping grounds for assorted media and creative resources. sample packs, vocal tracks, graphic assets, old work, and so on. it's kind of a mess, but maybe you'll find something interesting or useful. |
Only Silver Point and Monarch could have kept Hostess out of liquidation and kept the Twinkie bakery ovens firing. But they were, ultimately, unable to reach a deal with the unions that represents the workers who make and deliver products like Twinkies, Wonderbread and Ding Dongs. Without large union concessions—what some would say, total union capitulation—the hedge funds decided Hostess would have to die.
As Hostess Brands announces its liquidation, the company's management is blaming a strike by members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union—those damn workers wouldn't accept having their pay and pensions cut and their health care contributions increased just a few years after they made similar concessions in Hostess' previous, mishandled bankruptcy. "The forces most responsible" for the liquidation, CNBC's John Carney writes , "were two hedge funds that control hundreds of millions of Hostess debt and which have finally decided they won't squeeze any more filling into the Twinkie."Hostess has clearly been mismanaged in recent years after having grown through the previous decades in ways that make its structure, including its labor force, especially complicated. But the end game is that private equity firms came in to do what they do: squeeze profits for their own multimillionaire investors at whatever cost to workers and to the company itself. Who cares if tens of thousands of workers are left unemployed and without the means to retire? Not Silver Point or Monarch, as long as they get their money. Who cares if Hostess exists tomorrow? Not Silver Point or Monarch, as long as they get their money.
These union members had faced a slow bleed for years. The only question for them was whether to accept an accelerated bleed and hope it would stop in a few years—but hope that in the knowledge that that was not a priority or even necessarily a desirable outcome to Hostess' private equity owners—or to fight for what they earned. We're hearing, and can expect to keep hearing, a lot about how it's so unreasonable of union members to expect to get the pay and benefits they negotiated and worked for, the pensions they've planned their retirements around. Because this is coming after a generation-long war on pensions and unions and middle-class wages. As AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement, "What’s happening with Hostess Brands is a microcosm of what’s wrong with America, as Bain-style Wall Street vultures make themselves rich by making America poor."
It boils down to this: You don't get to complain about income inequality and the obscene wealth of the top 1 percent and say that it's unreasonable for industrial bakers and truck drivers to send their kids to college and retire before their bodies are completely broken. When we complain about income inequality, we have to understand both sides, that the chipping away at the compensation and value accorded jobs that were middle-class jobs not too long ago is, by design, the flip side of the 400 households with a combined $1.7 trillion. It's not for sport that we think the top 1 percent shouldn't hold nearly 35 percent of the wealth; we have a problem with that because of the poverty and struggle such concentration of wealth creates down the line, where 50 percent of people hold just 1.1 percent of the wealth, where people from the 50th percentile to the 90th have less than 25 percent of the wealth, leaving nearly 75 percent in the hands of the top 10 percent.
Hostess workers are real people, fighting for what they've earned and facing personal economic disaster. But, as Trumka said, this struggle is also part of exactly the broad economic forces Occupy fought and Mitt Romney represented. This is growing economic inequality in action, and standing for these workers' pensions—even if you don't have one yourself—is fighting an economy of hedge funds and for the top one percent. |
The bodacious language of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Keanu Reeves a linguistic icon? That would be an impressive achievement for Reeves, but truth be told, the iconic status doesn’t go so much to Mr Reeves as to one of his most memorable characters – (Theodore) Ted Logan from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989).
Ted just wants to make a triumphant music video with Eddie Van Halen so that he and his buddy Bill (S. Preston) can have a triumphant band. Their dreams could meet a most odious end — unless he passes his history report, Ted’s off to military school. Luckily — the kind of luck you only see in the movies — a guy named Rufus helps them travel through time, where they meet historical figures, like Ghengis Khan and Socrates.
American English isn’t totally heinous or odious, but it is often bogus, or at least used bogusly. Bill and Ted know this, and out of dissatisfaction with the language of everything uptight and cynical, they contrive their own variety of American speech — a unique mixture of apple pie, Slurpee®, and unabridged dictionary. Bill and Ted stand for wide-eyed, laid-back optimism, and their vocabulary reflects their values. Above all, they admonish us, “Be excellent to each other,” in what is obviously a slightly non-normal meaning of excellent — it’s not non-normal, exactly, but it’s a little non-non-normal, which is how the Bill and Ted perspective on life is usually expressed. Oh, “And party on, dudes.”
Station
Perhaps the most novel item of Bill and Ted’s slang is station, which, on 26 March 2004, Julian Alvarez correctly defined as “A term that can mean anything. Also, the name of the most intelligent being according to the movie Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey.” Five of seven Urban Dictionary entries for station in this or related senses mention either Bill and Ted or one of their movies. On balance, station “belongs” to Bill and Ted.
Bill and Ted’s slang reverses everything pretentious — it appropriates dictionary terms usually reserved for resplendent rhetoric, where it often sounds bogus, as signs of what, for lack of a better term, I’ll call “intensive laidbackness.” That most triumphant paradox underlies the life that’s totally station; it’s the key that unlocks the value of Bill and Ted’s lexical repertoire. When you can be resplendent without really trying, you can also love yourself and be excellent to each other, not to mention party on — just one more reason why slang is good for you.
Old slang
It’s difficult to explain Bill and Ted’s iconicity. They haven’t coined the words they use to such memorable effect — egregious, excellent, heinous, most, odious, outstanding, resplendent, stellar, totally, triumphant, and unrivaled have all been in English for a long time. Even the slangiest of their favorite words — bodacious, bogus, and dude — would have seemed ancient to Bill and Ted, had they only known. Green’s Dictionary of Slang records bodacious ‘excellent’ as early as 1907, but the word had been around to mean ‘audacious, insolent’ since 1845, and to mean, as Green puts it, “of a young woman, attractive, esp. possessed of large breasts,” since 1936. Bogus ‘fake, spurious’ has been in play since 1840 and, as a term of disapproval meaning everything from ‘unpleasant’ to ‘unfair’, since 1898. Dude, just to mean first ‘man, guy’ and then ‘person’ has been around at least since 1883, as a term of address — Bill and Ted’s preferred usage — since the 1970s.
In his classic article on dude, Scott Kiesling draws attention to Bill and Ted’s iconic relationship to the word, and Green does the same in his entry for bodacious. But Bill and Ted’s iconic adventure can only be iconic if it’s common knowledge. Urban Dictionary proves how readily everyday speakers connect the slang to Bill and Ted. Sometimes the connection is explicit, as when Pyron, on 26 August 2004, defined triumphant as “Totally fucking awesome and/or glorious, i.e. Bill and Ted.” But sometimes it’s implicit, the connection obvious only to those who know the slang and how it works. On 14 June 2008, FlowersInMidgar2 defined the catchphrase Be excellent to each other as “The greatest and least heinous of all golden rules” — heinous gives the association away. Stellar in its emphatic sense “is a word used when something is most excellent,” according to Matt, on April 16, 2004. Gyrapage, on 16 February 2006, illustrated bodacious with three quotations from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, the most triumphant of which is Ted’s discourse on the Maid of Orléans: “A most bodacious soldier, and general, Ms. Of Arc totally rousted the English from France.” The benefits of time-travel to the study of world history cannot be denied.
Ted’s legacy?
By now, the species of slang so alive in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure is virtually extinct. It’s fresh and incredibly sincere when it comes from the mouth of earlier characters, like Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). It’s quirky but still authentic in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure — there’s nothing bogus about it. Instead, it sounds simultaneously strange and natural, even inevitable — how else would Bill and Ted speak? Bill and Ted don’t speak like surfers or Valley Girls because they don’t think or act like surfers or Valley Girls. The difference between their slang and the others makes all the difference; they speak in a distinct, distinctive, and distinctly American voice.
But we’ll never forget Bill and Ted. When we hear bodacious or station, whose distinctive American voice do we hear? It’s yours, Mr Reeves. Have a most triumphant birthday. Remember to shave. Be excellent to others, and others, I’m sure, will be excellent to you. And party on, dude. |
The State of Wyoming has just announced it will not appeal last week's federal district court ruling, and same-sex couples can begin marrying Tuesday.
On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Scott Skavdahl struck down Wyoming's ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional. Because the judge placed a stay on his ruling pending appeal, couples did not immediately begin filing for licenses. Late Friday, Republican Wyoming Governor Matt Mead notified the court he would not appeal the ruling.
Today, the court removed its stay and tomorrow morning same-sex couples can begin marrying.
"Judge Skavdahl's opinion and order make clear that the decisions in Utah and Oklahoma have left Wyoming with few legal options," said Attorney General Peter K. Michael, KGWN reports. "After reviewing the law and the Judge's decision that binding precedent requires recognition of samesex [sic] marriage, I have concluded that further legal process will result in delay but not a different result."
"We are thrilled that the State of Wyoming will truly live up to its promise as the Equality State and that same-sex couples and their families will no longer live with the indignity of injustice that has caused so much harm to so many people over the years, Wyoming Equality Executive Director Jeran Artery said in a statement. "This is a great day, and we are grateful to everyone who worked so hard to make it possible."
National Center for Lesbian Rights Senior Attorney Christopher F. Stoll also weighed in.
"Starting tomorrow, all Wyoming families will finally be able to share in the security and protection that marriage provides," Stoll added. "Wyoming's same-sex couples will benefit in countless ways from having their relationships recognized and respected by the state, and their children will have the security of growing up with parents who are married. We thank the Wyoming couples who courageously stood up to bring this case so that all Wyoming families can enjoy the freedom to marry."
Freedom to Marry notes Judge Skavdahl's "ruling strikes down Wyoming's ban on marriage for same-sex couples. It comes just over two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the freedom to marry to take effect immediately in 5 different states and cleared the way for marriage in an additional 6, including Wyoming."
Image by National Center for Lesbian Rights via Facebook
Hat tip: Aaron Baldwin
See a mistake? Email corrections to: [email protected] |
H: I believe that Scott will see some success with new games he may make in the future, but his “Make a Difference” speech made me think that he might stop doing games and pursue another career path. I think he will go into telemarketing or some form of communications, like help and support for a company like AT&T, Verizon, etc.
Lets look at the facts: We can hear Scott’s voice in every single game, including FNaF 4, as the Phone Guy. His voice is present in every game which shows he obviously has an affinity for giving instructions over the phone. He has a rich voice, fit for talking with others, and his kind demeanor really encourages people to trust him for the kind of support they are looking for.
So Scott operating the support hotline for a major phone company is extremely likely. After all, it’s a job he loves to do, and he is able to help people as we have seen before in his previous works. He will be the one we want to hear for tech support for sure.
G: I think Scott is going to attempt to mingle once more with his group of Christian animators but winds up making an unpopular horror RPG game called The Rapture.
This gets awkward so he goes back to live in the glory of his FNaF series, commissioning his own voice for personalized voicemail messages, alongside his part-time job at a local Chuck E. Cheese’s.
“Uh, Hello? Hello hello? Hey! Uh, unfortunately, Glazen can’t come to the phone right now, So if you’d like to leave a message, do so after the beep! Good luck, and have a safe rest of the night!“
(Spoiler Alert: he gets fired from Chuck E. Cheese’s for “General Unprofessionalism”)
– H & G |
You know there has to be anxiety in the Jewish community about whether Jews should, without reservation, promote the resettlement of Muslims from Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan in the ME or Somali Muslims from Africa.
Here at the The Jewish Chronicle we see at least the beginning of some honesty about the friction.
Longtime readers know that we have extensively chronicled the activities of the only Jewish federal resettlement contractor HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) on these pages. When you read about local Jewish resettlement groups know that most are subcontractors of HIAS (see their subcontractors here).
Here is the story:
By and large, Pittsburgh’s Jewish community — in line with the American Jewish community in general — has rallied behind efforts to bring Syrian refugees to the United States. Formal statements in support of immigration have been issued by area institutions, winter coats for newly arrived families have been collected, and outraged discourse on social media protesting the Trump administration’s attempts to thwart immigration from Syria and other Muslim-majority nations is common.
But despite the outcry from so many in Jewish Pittsburgh that it is imperative to “welcome the stranger,” others argue that Jewish funds and resources should not be going to help bring Syrians here.
“How can Jews be so smart and yet so stupid at the same time?” said Lou Weiss of Squirrel Hill. “Everyone loves the immigration of people to our country to become Americans. But who’s in favor of bringing in immigrants from a country where they hate gays, where women are subjected to female circumcision and honor killings, and they hate Jews?”
While Weiss may hold the minority opinion on this issue, he certainly is not alone.
“From our perspective, 99 percent of the responses we’ve gotten have been positive,” said Jordan Golin, president and CEO of the Jewish Family & Children’s Service, which so far has resettled 51 Syrian families in Pittsburgh and is scheduled to bring in additional families. “We are aware, though, that there are other members of the Jewish community that have different feelings about this issue.”
You have to go to the end of a longish story to hear more from Weiss:
But for Weiss, the issue of whether Jews should be supporting the effort to bring Syrians to this country is pretty cut and dried.
“Take a look at what’s going on in Europe; that’s what will happen here,” Weiss said, noting the mass migration of Jews from European countries who feel threatened by Islamic immigrants there. “Jewish people are people of immigration. But we have to see who it is we’re welcoming into the United Sates. Syrians are taught Holocaust denial. They are taught that Jews are the sons of apes and pigs. There are blood libel books written by their leaders. Only the Jews would pay to bring them to this country.
“You have to think about this rationally,” he continued. “Who are the immigrants? They hate gays, and they subject women to horrible second-class treatment — not every single person, but as a group. And if you bring them here, ultimately, they will vote. If you think they’ll vote to support Israeli interests, you’re sadly mistaken.”
While Weiss is not one of the individuals who has complained to the Federation or to JF&CS, he nonetheless feels strongly about the issue.
“The anti-Semitism of Syrian Muslims is not a quirk,” he said. “It’s a feature of their culture. I love immigrants. But I don’t love the immigration of people that are anti-gay, anti-women, and anti-Semitic.”
Go here for more of The Jewish Chronicle story, and here for our archive on HIAS. |
By Mark Ward
Technology correspondent, BBC News
Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. Advertisement Art is a problem. Not in the sense that it is a waste of money, often unfathomable and occasionally obscene. It is a problem because of all the things people do it is the activity that cannot be easily explained by consulting their biological urges. It stands out as a uniquely human activity. No other animal goes to such lengths to produce it, consume it and react to it in the way that people do. That's why it is a problem. And a tricky one at that. Patrick Tresset and Frederic Fol Leymarie are trying to shed light on it using a system called Aikon that aims to unpick and then copy how an artist works. The artist is Mr Tresset who has almost a decade of practice as a portrait artist to call on. "We're trying to understand what goes on in the mind of the person performing the act of drawing," said Prof Leymarie. That understanding, gleaned from watching Mr Tresset at work and drawing on his own insights of how he works, has produced a system that uses a robot arm to sketch faces. The robot arm is crude but can produce works of art At no point, said Prof Leymarie, was the idea to create photo-realistic reproductions of faces. Instead the roughness of the finished sketches is key. "It's a cheap robot arm because we are trying to get away from something that's a performance and very well engineered," he said "In part that's because we are trying to capture the different elements and uncertainties that are expected from a human." One key insight that developing the system has revealed is the difference in the amount of time that artists and non-artists spend looking at a subject when they are drawing. Non-artists, said Prof Leymarie, spend their time looking at the paper. By contrast, he said, artists look at the subject and trust their hand to do the reproduction. The collaboration between Mr Tresset and technology has been such that now the robot arm can produce sketches in its own distinctive style. And, said Prof Leymarie, the collaboration does not end there. "He can not only use it as a way to explore and understand what he is doing or what other artists are doing," he said. "He can use it as something more powerful. "It can be used by artists to explore why they end up doing a certain type of art a certain way," he said. Novel art Mr Tresset and Prof Leymarie are not alone in using technology to tickle the creativity of artists and others. At a Digital Expo to show off Goldsmiths College's digital studio, Dan Jones created an installation that helped visitors explore interactive creativity. It bonded motion capture to a virtual landscape. As a participant moved around the enclosed space, clapped their hands or spoke, the landscape was changed in response. Mr Jones said the installation was related to the work he is doing to help scientists and artists explore all facets of their creativity. Dan Jones' installation lets people interact with a virtual landscape In a similar way, he said, the creative journey that artists embark on when producing a work is really only one path through the larger landscape of all the things they could create. "Through a lifetime of practice artists acquire habits and tropes," said Mr Jones. "One way out of that is adopting computational models that supplement their own creative process that can re-shape and re-direct that impulse." Simulations based around small, smart software programs known as agents can help artists reach those areas of that creative landscape that they would otherwise never visit. One product of this work is a system that can improvise and jam with musicians. "What's particularly interesting about it is that it's inherently unpredictable and chaotic," he said. Often it takes musicians to places they have never been before and stretches their ability to improvise, to create. Mr Jones work is also being applied to the sciences to help a group of researchers tackling leukaemia to understand how stem cells react to the disease. The interaction of visualisation and their deep knowledge of the biology could give them a far greater insight into how that system works. Dr Mick Grierson, who oversees the work going on at Goldsmiths, said the projects go to the heart of what it means to be a maker, hacker, scientist or artist. And arguably a human. It is all about curiosity, creativity and innovation. "That's what makes science great, and technology great and art great," he said "It's about playing with ideas. "You try a few things out and see what happens, then try more and more and you come up with something that is genius," he said. Only by building it, seeing and shaping it, can they truly understand. Something any and every maker can identify with.
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His daughter disappeared into Russell’s house. Glenn remained on the steps of his home, looking out over a street that would, in the days and weeks ahead, be haunted by addiction and loss.
Some who know Glenn roll their eyes when they hear him talk like this. He’s a hopeless case, they say. He and Autumn will never quit, never get clean. It’s just a matter of time, they fear, before one or both of them end up dead. But on this day, Glenn was confident. “We called rehab today,” he said.
Glenn and Autumn and Cathy and Carly could once again be family.
He yearned to move his family to a place near Tionesta Creek, deep in the Allegheny National Forest, to the house Autumn called home when she was a child. It’s a safe and isolated place, he said. There’s no dope, no dealers. He and Autumn could finally get clean and stay clean. No more bleary-eyed trips to see the dope man in early morning, no more getting stopped by police with bags of heroin in your lap, no more terrifying moments when you wake from your own overdose to see your partner unconscious and not breathing and so you pound on her chest to keep death away.
Glenn Jeffries said he and his partner Autumn Rudolph wanted to break free of an addiction to opiates so they could get their two daughters back. (Steve Mellon/Post-Gazette)
Glenn’s 41 years of life have etched deep creases in his forehead. Past news stories have, at various times, described him as a murderer and a thief and a hero. He has served more than a dozen years in prison. His neighbors view him as an addict. But in this moment Glenn became a dreamer. He envisioned his daughters back home, living with him and his partner, Autumn Rudolph.
“That’s my daughter,” Glenn said. She’s 6. His other daughter, Cathy, is 8. The girls live with the white-haired man, whose name is Russell.
Then he saw the girl. Her blond hair glowed in the brilliant late-July sun.
Glenn Jeffries was sitting on concrete steps leading to his home across the street, in Santron Avenue’s 100 block. His thoughts were focused on the dark aspects of his life: the sickness that would soon creep up on him, lost opportunities, lost family. “My mom OD’d years ago,” he was saying. “I was in jail. She was eating the gel out of fentanyl patches.”
A car rolled slowly down a strip of cracked gray asphalt known as Santron Avenue, then turned slightly and parked in front of a modest yellow brick house in Pittsburgh's Carrick neighborhood. A tiny girl bounded from the back seat. Moments later, a slender man with thinning white hair climbed out of the driver’s seat and joined the girl on the sidewalk.
Steve Mellon, Rich Lord and Stephanie Strasburg of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette spent five months reporting on and photographing the impact of the opioid drug crisis in the city’s hardest-hit neighborhood of Carrick. This is the second part of their report. The first, Riding OD Road , was published on Nov. 2.
Medical examiner employees wheel Jenn Dolton’s body to a waiting van. (Steve Mellon/Post-Gazette)
Santron Avenue, approximately 600 feet long, follows a bowl-shaped landscape in working-class Carrick, the Pittsburgh neighborhood most ravaged by drugs. Glenn’s home is one of three ordinary houses sitting side by side at the street’s lowest point. In 2017, the potent mix of heroin and fentanyl -- called “dope” by those caught in its orbit -- exerted such a powerful and destructive pull on this small section of Santron that it warped the lives of all who spent time there.
In April, a high school student’s quick action in the middle house stopped dope from destroying her small family. At the height of summer, the house on the left became the endpoint of a reckless ride that nearly proved fatal. And on a drizzly August afternoon, dope ushered death onto the barren back porch of the house on the right, hurling one family into a chasm of pain. As fall approached, a sleepless and grieving father drove along Santron after midnight and posed questions no one would, or could, answer.
*
Jenn Dolton, 35, walked out of the Allegheny County Jail on a cloudy Tuesday in August. Her marriage was a wreck, her kids were gone. She was broke. Her house on West Woodford Avenue, a few blocks from Santron Avenue, was an uninhabitable hulk with no heat, no water and no electricity.
At least now her body was cleansed of the dope that had ruined the past five or six years of her life. Jenn was using 50 bags of heroin a day in early 2017. She told a counselor she’d recently tried to kill herself by overdose.
So Jenn spent February and early March in a drug treatment program in Williamsport, Pa., then moved into a rehab facility in Pittsburgh. She gained weight and talked about selling her house.
In May, she turned herself over to authorities and began serving jail time on drug charges. Her family believes she wanted to clear up the charges and get a fresh start.
Jail was tough. “I really hate my life,” she wrote to her father on June 6, one day after her two children had celebrated birthdays.
Jenn’s letter is a six-page stream of regret, rage, pain and self-pity.
Jenn Dolton’s ID from June 2000.
“I don’t think any of yinz understand … how completely devastated I was when Lisa, Heather, brother (Bill), & a few of other close friends I considered family died,” she wrote. “I wish it would of been me. Not them & I really did try my best to make it me but for some reason GOD decided to keep me in this world to keep causing my loved ones to suffer & this world is hell to me.”
Then she offered good news: She’d not used dope since January, “NOT EVEN ONCE!”
On Aug. 8, her release day, Jenn paused by the cell of a friend, knocked on the window and made the sign of a heart with her hands. “Keep your head up,” Jenn said.
Jenn was free. She was clean. But she had no place to go except the same streets she’d left behind months ago.
“She didn’t have anybody but 16 years of drug friends,” said her mother Diane Dalton. “She was afraid.”
*
One day after Jenn’s release, Glenn Jeffries gripped a dope-loaded syringe in his hand and leaned forward, looking for a vein in Autumn’s neck. Glenn was sitting in the back seat of an old Buick Century rattling along West Liberty Avenue. Autumn sat in the front passenger seat. At the wheel was Glenn’s buddy, Eddie Stasik. The three had just scored some dope in Beechview. The next few harrowing moments became a story they’d tell several times with a mix of nonchalance and amazement in the coming days.
Eddie inherited the Buick from his brother Matthew, who died of a drug overdose in 2015. The vehicle was less an automobile than a rolling, disorganized toolbox, with wrenches scattered on the floorboards and screwdrivers packed into the console.
The car’s movement made things a bit tricky for Glenn. He couldn’t get the needle in Autumn’s vein. Finally, Autumn told Glenn to quit trying, she’d wait until they got home to do the dope. So Glenn found a vein in his own arm. Whatever was in that syringe was now in Glenn’s bloodstream.
Moments later, Eddie made a turn and Glenn slumped over. Autumn turned to see her partner unconscious, his skin gray, his lips purple. She screamed, “Oh my God, Glenn! Glenn!”
By now, Eddie had turned onto Saw Mill Run Boulevard. A traffic light at the Bausman Street intersection turned red. Eddie brought the vehicle to a stop. He couldn’t think. Autumn was screaming. His friend was dying.
Autumn jumped into the back seat. Eddie kept a container of water in his car so Autumn splashed some on Glenn’s face. He blinked but didn’t seem to be breathing. Autumn started CPR.
The light turned green. Eddie accelerated north on a section of Route 51 hemmed in by ugly, low-slung brick buildings and a concrete barrier. “Pull over, pull over!” Autumn screamed. Eddie kept driving. “Eddie, what are you doing? Pull over!”
Eddie made the turn at Ensign Avenue, then pulled into the parking lot of a methadone clinic. A clinic staff member emerged and hit Glenn with the opioid reversal drug Narcan.
Glenn opened his eyes, saw people looking down at him. Eddie heard someone say authorities were on the way. “Let’s get out of here,” Glenn said. Eddie accelerated onto Route 51. The Buick rattled toward Santron Avenue while Glenn sat in the back seat and puked into a bucket.
The next day, Glenn and Eddie recounted their wild ride and Glenn’s brush with death. Eddie later recalled Glenn asking, “Why did you have to save me?” The question would stick in Eddie’s mind for weeks.
*
Terry Fisher, a lanky man of 54 who says he’d surely be dead if not for the quick action of his teenage daughter, lives next door to Glenn and Autumn. Terry knew Glenn as an infant in Fayette County, where they were both raised. Terry moved to Pittsburgh a few years ago and liked city life. He could walk to the corner market and buy cigarettes. In Fayette County, he had to drive miles for a pack of smokes.
His daughter Jalynn, 16, moved in with him in 2014. Before heading to school in the morning, she calls out, “Love you, Dad.” Terry responds, “Love you, too.” It’s a routine.
Terry Fisher lights a cigarette in his home on the 100 block of Santron Avenue in Pittsburgh’s Carrick neighborhood. In 2017, opiates exerted a devastating force on this short section of road. (Steve Mellon/Post-Gazette)
Terry once worked in construction. He built homes in Nevillewood. He worked in Cranberry when it was nothing but cornfields. One day his back gave out. Next came surgery and pain pills. Once the pills ran out, Terry said, he turned to heroin.
Jalynn suspected her father was using dope but wasn’t certain until one morning in April 2017. She was in the second-floor bathroom, applying a bit of makeup before heading off to school when she heard a choking sound. She rushed to the TV room and saw her father unconscious on the floor.
Moments earlier, Terry had opened a stamp-sized packet and dumped its powdery contents onto a table next to his chair. He rolled up a small piece of paper, held it in his nostril and snorted the powder. Then he collapsed.
“OK, call 911,” Jalynn said aloud. She had dealt with her share of crises -- family members screaming at each other, fights, drunken relatives. She always stayed calm by talking aloud to herself, a method her father taught her.
After placing the 911 call, Jalynn knelt beside her father. The choking had stopped. “He’s not breathing,” Jalynn said. She lifted her father’s head. Terry resumed choking. Jalynn knew he was getting oxygen. Then the sound stopped. Jalynn set his head back down, lifted it again. The sound returned. “OK, when I do this, he’s breathing,” Jalynn said.
Terry Fisher in the second floor of his home. (Stephanie Strasburg/Post-Gazette)
Terry floated in a sea of white light, he later remembered. He saw no trees, no sky. He was at ease, relaxed. No fear. With him was a woman with blond hair. She wore a white halter top. She, too, was floating and said nothing, but Terry was ready to follow her wherever she was going. He liked this place and wanted to stay.
Then he heard a voice, faint and in the distance. “C’mon Terry, Jalynn’s here, she’s waiting for you,” the voice said. “You need to come back and take care of your daughter.”
Paramedics arrived at the Fisher house and injected several doses of Narcan into Terry. One paramedic called out to him, mentioning Jalynn’s name. Jalynn sat on a small plastic chair a few feet away and watched.
Terry regained consciousness. Paramedics helped him walk out of his house and into a waiting ambulance.
Now Jalynn was alone. She walked a few blocks to Phillips Park. Was my dad OK? she wondered. What drugs did he do? Will I have to take care of myself?
After a while, Jalynn walked to Carrick High, but she was too anxious for class and returned home. Later in the day, Jalynn was sitting on her front porch swing when she she saw her father walking down the street. Relief washed over her.
Terry stepped on the porch and fessed up. He’d been using heroin for about a year.
“Dad, please stop,” Jalynn said.
Terry promised he would, though staying clear of dope’s impact on Santron would prove impossible.
*
John Sefchick with daughter Jenn as a child. (Family photograph)
As a child, Jenn Dolton had long blond hair often pulled into pigtails. One photograph shows Jenn and her father, John, asleep in an easy chair. Jenn is 4 or 5 years old. She’s in John’s arms, wrapped in a blanket with her eyes closed. She appears angelic.
“Those were the cute years, the good years,” John said.
He and Jenn’s mother, Diane Dalton, were together in the early 1980s and gave birth to two daughters -- Jenn and then Jessica. The couple split in the mid-1980s, and Diane Dalton (her family uses two different spellings of the last name) eventually moved with her daughters to Glassport, a struggling blue-collar town 10 miles from Pittsburgh. The girls visited their father on weekends, and he’d take them to a beach or a park. Jenn attended dance school and liked ponies. John once rented one for her birthday.
By the time she was a teenager, Jenn was living with her mom and siblings above a bar in a three-story apartment building in downtown Glassport. Across the street loomed a boarded-up train station.
It was a tough place to raise a teenager. Diane would call John to say Jenn was drinking or skipping school or sneaking out of the apartment at night.
Then one day, at age 16, Jenn found what she wanted. She was working in the food court at Century III Mall when a young man named Chris Traud, then 18, arrived to meet a blind date. The date never showed up, but Jenn saw Chris, left her job and followed him to his car. When Chris got in, she hopped in, too, and locked the door.
“You have nice shoes, you’re short and stocky, and you’re cute,’” she said to Chris. “‘You have blue eyes and dimples and perfect teeth. You’re perfect.’”
Several weeks later, Jenn discovered she was pregnant.
At first, Chris and Jenn lived with Diane. Then the couple moved into an apartment. Chris worked, making $7 an hour. “Everything was a struggle,” he said. “We scraped by...we was poor but we was happy.”
Diane thought the two were cute together. Chris was always hugging and kissing Jenn, telling her, “I love you.”
Daughter Tanielle was born in 1999. Jenn was a good mother in those days, according to Chris, and she managed the family finances. Son Daylin came along in 2001. Five months later, Jenn and Chris made it official: They said their vows at Richard King’s magistrate office on Brownsville Road.
Chris grew up without a father until a man named Al Leonard entered his life. Al served as Chris’ counselor, but his involvement in the young man’s life soon went much further. “I always felt like nobody cared about me,” Chris said. Al “was the only person who took the initiative to insert himself in my life, make it structurally sound.”
Once Chris and Jenn married, Al helped the couple pay bills. He took them to the zoo, to Kennywood Park. Then he told Chris to pick out a house. Chris and Jenn fell in love with a four-bedroom yellow brick house on West Woodford Avenue. Chris could imagine raising his family there.
In 2002, Al paid the $38,000 sale price, and he and Chris signed the deed.
Jenn selected new carpet, flooring and paint colors. Chris remodeled the bathroom. And for years, the couple hosted family gatherings at their West Woodford home. On Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter, Jenn’s family -- Diane, Jenn’s sister Jessie and others -- came together as Jenn cooked turkey and ham and filled a table with side dishes.
Everyone played games and sang karaoke tunes, Jenn dancing and daughter Tanielle joining in. For the most part, everything seemed normal.
Chris remembers a snowy winter day when he and Jenn walked through the neighborhood, its lawns covered by a blanket of fresh snow.
“I got to walk through this yard,” Jenn said.
“Why?” Chris asked.
“Because it looks too perfect. It’s like my life.”
So Jenn tromped through the perfect yard, marking it with her footprints. Afterward she cried. At the time, Chris couldn’t make sense of it.
*
Glenn Jeffries grew up in the Fayette County village of Lowber, which he calls a “little coal mining town.” He was one of nine boys who hung out together, riding bikes and playing sports.
He attended Frazier High School but didn’t stay long. “I quit school and got a job in a junkyard,” he said. “And then I ended up coming to Duquesne and McKeesport to cut those mills down. Demolition work. Then I went to jail.”
Glenn’s trouble with the law began in earnest sometime after midnight on May 10, 1997, when his father, James Jeffries, led state police troopers along a creek in Lowber. James stopped near some damp soil. “He’s right here,” he told the troopers, according to their report. “I can smell him.”
Police shoveled away a bit of dirt, then hit something soft, the report says. It was a human torso with the initials “JK” tattooed on the skin.
James showed troopers a .22 caliber rifle and a bloody ax, both hidden in bushes. The torso belonged to a man named John Patrick Keane. Keane often hunted and drank beer with Glenn and his brother Jimmy.
Glenn Jeffries came from a troubled past in Fayette County.
Both father and son were soon charged with third-degree murder and abuse of a corpse. Glenn pleaded no contest and agreed to testify against his father. In return, Glenn was sentenced to five to 10 years in prison. James was convicted and sentenced to 20 to 40 years.
Glenn was released after five years, only to land back in prison for a parole violation in October 2004.
Five years later, he was again free. His name soon turned up in Fayette County police reports that accused him of stealing various items -- a log splitter, an air compressor, vinyl windows.
In November 2009, police serving a warrant at Glenn’s Fayette County home encountered Autumn Dawn Rudolph.
Autumn Rudolph asks partner Glenn Jeffries for a light in the couple’s kitchen. (Steve Mellon/Post-Gazette)
Autumn, 37, said she spent much of her childhood near Sheffield, Pa., in Warren County. At one point, she moved with her mother to Rochester, N.Y., and hated it, so Autumn ran away from home at age 13 and lived with a boyfriend. A few years later, the boyfriend was sent to prison and Autumn fell into another relationship that resulted in two daughters. “But I ended up drinking a lot because me and him didn’t get along too much,” Autumn said. “I ended up getting into a lot of trouble. My mom ended up with the girls.”
Autumn lost her job at a state hospital. She moved to Pittsburgh to attend business school and met Glenn in an online forum. The couple’s first date was typically Pittsburgh -- they went to Kennywood Park. She liked Glenn because “he wanted to have fun. He wasn’t real uptight.” The two clicked.
By 2010, the couple had an 11-month-old daughter named Cathy and plenty of trouble. Autumn and Cathy lived in Lowber, in a one-story building with an attic loft that served as a bedroom; Glenn stayed in Pittsburgh because Fayette County cops were looking for him. One day in late April of that year, Glenn hitched a ride to Lowber to visit his wife and daughter.
Around 4:30 the next morning, Glenn and Autumn were awakened by strange “clicking” noises and the smell of smoke. Glenn climbed out of bed, and when his feet hit the floor, he said, “it was like a hot plate.” Fire was consuming the room below.
Glenn Jeffries at home on Santron Avenue. (Steve Mellon/Post-Gazette)
Glenn ran to the room where Cathy slept. Flames were melting the curtains. Glenn grabbed Cathy’s crib by its legs and pulled it out of the room, burning the flesh on his fingers.
He reached down and lifted Cathy -- she was so hot “it was like lifting ham out of the oven,” he said.
Glenn ran out of the house and put Cathy on the ground. Autumn had fled to the roof. Flames poured from windows. Glenn climbed up and helped Autumn to safety.
Sirens neared. Glenn fled. He feared arrest.
Burns covered 80 percent of Cathy’s body, relatives said in news reports. She was treated at UPMC Mercy, then flown to Shriners Hospital for Children in Cincinnati.
One relative told reporters Glenn was “a hero. He went in there and got her. If it wasn't for him, she wouldn't be here, she wouldn't be alive."
A week after the fire, police arrested Glenn as he attempted to visit his daughter at the Shriners hospital.
*
In October 2002, Chris Traud received a card from Al Leonard. Inside was a diamond ring Chris had once given Al, Chris’ insurance cards and $1,000. A note instructed Chris to check on Al’s house in Homestead.
Chris contacted Homestead police, but they already knew. Al had killed himself.
The loss of the one man he could depend on devastated Chris, but Jenn helped him deal with the grief. “She kept me strong when I was weak,” he said.
The couple soon discovered Al had left them more than $100,000. It was his final gift to them, and for a while it seemed like a blessing.
“We took vacations, spoiled the kids,” Chris said. “We had everything we needed. A car and a house. Things were too easy … so I spent it. One hundred grand in two years.”
Chris and Jenn also bought cocaine. Lots of it. The couple had used the drug on weekends, according to Jenn’s mother Diane. But now Jenn and Chris began using daily. Jenn also developed a pill addiction. She told family members the addiction began after she injured herself on a playground slide. Jenn visited one doctor after another in her efforts to obtain prescriptions, friends said.
Still, a sense of normalcy remained at the West Woodford house. Sondra Goller, a teenager living down the street, often visited Jenn. Sondra said Jenn would typically be cooking while Chris and the kids played video games. The family went swimming or to a park during warm months.
Sometime around 2011 or 2012, heroin entered the house.
At first, the couple snorted dope. Then a friend saw them using and said, “You’re wasting it.” He showed the couple how to use a needle. “You never go back to sniffing after you shoot,” Chris said.
Family life quickly crumbled. Strangers showed up at the house and stayed. The kids were hungry, the rooms a mess. Sometimes Tanielle and Daylin came home from school and discovered they’d been locked out of their house. They’d walk down to the Goller home, where Sondra’s mom would feed them.
A text message exchange between Jenn and her daughter, Tanielle, taken from screenshots from Tanielle's phone. * Mom Jenn Tanielle Sat, Apr 29, 9:50 p.m. You did hurt me by doing drubs mom! Just think what if I was standing right infront of you with a needle in my arm killing myself huh? You'd be pissed off yet it's hypocritical because you did it right? So it'd be right for me I'm not saying that I'd ever touch the stuff cause I know what it does. You saw bill od in our OWN KITCHEN now he's dead because of herion do you ever think oh that could be me? And you saying "that's why stay away so you can move on is pretty much pushing us away from you I know I did but I did because I love yinz and don't want yinz to keep getting hurt ur dad has told me how much yinz hated me ur whole life and how much yinz would be better with out me so I been doing what's best for everyone I'm very sorry for everything I did to yinz and yeah I do think bout heather a nd everyone else that's gone but I always think it should of been me and not them u guys don't realize how hard I've worked to be a better person and I d efinitely ain't who I used to be but my life is competely ruined and I'm heartbroken idk wat to do but I'm still trying
Jenn spent most of her time sleeping. She’d wake up for dinner, then fall asleep at the table, her head sometimes plopping into her food while her kids watched. “You’re going to kill yourself, mom,” Tanielle said. Her words had no effect.
Soon the addiction was costing the couple as much as $280 each day. Chris lost his job of 14 years, so he cut grass to make money. It wasn’t enough. Bills went unpaid. Jenn’s father, John, loaned her money for groceries, but the money bought drugs.
Tanielle said her dad taught her to steal food at the UniMart so she and her brother could eat. “He called it his ‘slip-and-slide,’ and he would just slide it up his sleeve,” she said.
When she was about 12, Tanielle watched a man overdose in her family’s kitchen. Her parents “just started freaking out and told me to get upstairs.”
Tanielle remained on the stairs while her father performed CPR on the man until an ambulance arrived. “I felt really nervous, I didn’t know what to do,” Tanielle said.
One by one, utilities at the house were shut off. The kids walked to a neighbor’s house to shower and at night piled blankets on their beds to stay warm. On cold winter mornings they’d wake up to see frost covering the inside of the windows.
Eventually it became too much for Tannielle. After school on a snowy afternoon in January 2015, she walked to Brownsville Road, stood on the steps of a stone church and called police. Then she went home.
“Why would you do this to me?’” Jenn screamed at Tanielle once she learned police were coming. Jenn quickly gathered her drug paraphernalia and ran through the snow to the garage, where she hid the evidence.
Police had no problem finding it. “Her footprints were in the snow,” Tanielle said.
Chris Traud and Jennifer Dolton (top) celebrate Christmas shortly after they met in the late 1990s. Chris in 2017 (bottom left) and Jenn in an Allegheny County Jail booking photograph taken in 2016. (Family photo, top; Stephanie Strasburg/Post-Gazette; Allegheny County Jail photo.)
The kids went to live with Jenn’s sister Jessica in Greensburg. Jenn and Chris were now alone with their addictions. They stripped copper piping from the basement and sold it for scrap. To stay warm, they stole wood from a neighbor’s pile and burned it in the basement. Someone loaned Chris and Jenn a generator, which they placed on their front porch. It ran day and night, supplying electricity. Neighbors complained about the noise, so Chris brought the generator inside, to a second-floor bedroom. The generator was removed after it caused a small fire.
Chris was in and out of jail. After one stint behind bars, he returned home only to be told by Jenn, “You’ve got to leave.” Chris refused and the two argued. Soon a car stopped in front of the house. A man was at the wheel. Jenn ran outside and hopped in.
“I put two and two together,” Chris said. Jenn was working as a prostitute.
He called Jenn and told her to come home in 20 minutes. He’d just bought dope, so he went into the bathroom and sat on the toilet seat, his usual spot when using. “I shot up and made sure it was enough to kill me,” he said. Jenn found him and called 911. First responders revived Chris with Narcan.
From then on, said Chris, “She did her thing and I did mine.”
Chris’ path led again to jail, where he finally made a decision to get clean. “I cried to myself for a week, like a baby,” he said. “I just let go and let God (take over)."
*
By 2014, Glenn Jeffries was out of prison. He’d moved to Pittsburgh to join his wife and now two daughters -- Carly was born while Glenn was serving time. The reunited family lived in a Santron Avenue house owned by Russell Schmitt. Russell’s Christmas tradition of sending money orders to random inmates had brought him and Glenn together.
One day a friend asked Glenn if he could shoot dope in a shed in Glenn’s backyard. Glenn said OK. It was a disastrous move. Dope soon entered the house and both Glenn and Autumn were using. Glenn said the addiction took hold after only a few days. If he and Autumn didn’t use, they got sick. “I thought you could just quit,” Glenn said. “But you can’t just quit.”
By 2017, Glenn and Autumn had developed a tolerance for heroin and were using dope containing fentanyl, a potent synthetic drug that can be lethal even in small doses. The addiction was costing the couple as much as $200 each day.
For a while Glenn earned money by cutting down trees. He had a beat-up old lift truck for that purpose. Sometimes in the summer, he’d chug down Brownsville Road in the vehicle, which then had two mattresses strapped to the roof. Glenn could make up to $700 a day cutting trees, but the money never lasted. Addiction ate it up.
One late summer day Autumn sat on a brown couch in her living room and felt normal. She and Glenn had just injected five bags of dope. “Now I can take my kids bike riding without being sick,” she said.
Glenn plopped down in a nearby easy chair. The house on this day was neat and well-ordered, except for a small pile of clothes in the dining room. Crosses hung on the walls and a large Bible occupied a display shelf, but Autumn said she and Glenn weren’t religious. Pictures of the couple’s daughters filled a frame hanging near wall markings that followed the girls’ heights over the years.
The children now lived across the street with Russell. CYS had placed them there in May, while both parents were in jail. Autumn said her daughters’ removal sent her into a depression and for weeks after her release from jail, she rarely left her couch. On this day she talked about getting clean, getting the kids back and moving to Sheffield so the family could start a new life.
She and Glenn were hoping to get into treatment programs. “He’s gotta go first,” she said, motioning to Glenn. “You can’t be clean when you’re living with a user. We both gotta be in the same boat.” |
Sea unearths secret Nazi bunkers that lay hidden for more than 50 years
Three Nazi bunkers on a beach have been uncovered by violent storms off the Danish coast, providing a store of material for history buffs and military archaeologists.
The bunkers were found in practically the same condition as they were on the day the last Nazi soldiers left them, down to the tobacco in one trooper‘s pipe and a half-finished bottle of schnapps.
This bunker was entombed under the sand dunes until a violent storm swept away the sands three months ago
The bunkers had not been touched since the war
The bunkers were three of 7,000 built by the Germans as part of Hitler's ‘Atlantic Wall‘ from Norway to the south of France.
But while the vast majority were almost immediately looted or destroyed, these three were entombed under the sand dunes of a remote beach near the town of Houvig since 1945.
They were uncovered only because recent storms sent giant waves cascading over them, sweeping away the sand and exposing glimpses of the cement and iron structures.
Kim Clausen, curator of the Ringkoebing-Skjern museum views a heater retrieved from the bunker
Stamps of the German Eagle of Adolf Hitler and the Swastika were also retrieved
They were located by two nine-year-old boys on holiday with their parents, who then informed the authorities.
Archaeologists were able to carefully force a way, and were astounded at what they found.
'What's so fantastic is that we found them completely furnished with beds, 'chairs, tables, communication systems and the personal effects of the soldiers who lived inside,' says Jens Andersen, the curator of the Hanstholm museum.
The discovery of the fully-furnished bunkers was "unique in Europe," said Bent Anthonisen, a Danish expert on European bunkers.
Expert Tommy Cassoe: 'It was as if the Nazis had just left yesterday'
And a third expert, Tommy Cassoe, enthused: "It was like entering the heart of a pyramid with mummies all around. Wat I saw blew me away: it was as if the German soldiers had left only yesterday."
The team working with Cassoe emptied the structures within a few days of boots, undergarments, socks, military stripes, mustard and aquavit bottles, books, inkpots, stamps featuring Hitler, medicines, soda bottles, keys, hammers and other objects.
All of the objects from the shelters have been taken to the conservation centre at Oelgod museum, some 20 miles from the beach to be examined.
The centre's German curator, Gert Nebrich, judged the find 'very interesting because it is so rare.'
'"We don't expect contemporary objects like these to be so well preserved. Maybe it's because they were kept for 60 years in the cold and dark like in a big vacuum," he says, carefully showing four
stamps featuring Hitler's image and the German eagle, found in one bunker.
The Germans left the bunkers in May 1945 after the Nazi surrender.
Historical records show that Gerhard Saalfed was a 17-year-old soldier with the German army when he arrived at the bunker in January 1945.
Germany surrendered on May 8 1945, but it wasn‘t until two days later that he and his fellow soldiers left their remote station.
They shut the steel doors of the bunker behind them on their remote beach and went to the nearest town ten miles away to surrender.
'The remote location of the bunkers and the drifting sands that covered them saved them from being ransacked,“ said Cassoe. |
Speaking to Creative Screenwritng, Deadpool screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick discussed those hilarious opening credits which listed the director as an "Overpaid Tool", the producers as 'Asshats' and the screenwriters as 'The Real Heroes'. Reese and Wernick tried to downplay those credits, saying it was just a bit of fun. "We came up with that actually. We just figured that it was a fun nod to the heartache as we’ve had on this thing over the last six and a half years. Screenwriters aren’t at the top of the food chain in the feature world. They often should be, but sometimes they take second billing. It was a fun, fun way for us to poke fun at the hierarchy. We had heroic moments for sure on this movie."
However, in recounting the gauntlet the Deadpool creative team had to undergo to get the film greenlit by 20th Century Fox, those tongue-in-cheek credits may hold a hint of truth. Speaking to io9 in a separate interview, Reese and Wernick revealed that Fox gave the writer duo and Tim Miller 48 hrs to slash the film's budget by $7 million or the project wasn't moving forward. "We had to carve something like $7-8 million out of the budget in a 48-hour window. And we, as a group, just put our heads together, got creative, and said ‘How do we cut what is essentially nine pages out of a 110 page script?"
Luckily, Miller, Reese and Wernick were able to accomplish the feat by using Gina Carano's character, Angel Dust to fill the henchman role originally intended to be filed by three Marvel characters, Garrison Kane, Sluggo and Wire. They also cut a motorcycle chase scene between Ajax and Deadpool in the opening credits, allowing Ajax to simply slip away when heads were turned. The other big cut was having Deadpool forget his guns on the way to the opening battle on the freeway and the climatic battle on the helicarrier battleship. |
#reddit-philadelphia @ freenode stats by dracoling
Is PhillyBot stupid or just asking too many questions? 30.1% lines contained a question!
tonkatsu_truck didn't know that much either. 26.0% of his/her lines were questions.
The loudest one was MeetupBotPhilly, who yelled 19.5% of the time!
Another old yeller was MeatyHit, who shouted 15.9% of the time!
It seems that jryan_'s shift-key is hanging: 8.8% of the time he/she wrote UPPERCASE.
iconfuseyou just forgot to deactivate his/her Caps-Lock. He/She wrote UPPERCASE 8.1% of the time.
LobsterMan is a very aggressive person. He/She attacked others 19 times.
cachinnate can't control her aggressions, either. She picked on others 10 times.
Poor literal_lol, nobody likes him. He was attacked 14 times.
BombedCarnivore seems to be unliked too. He/She got beaten 5 times.
lickitysplit brings happiness to the world. 27.8% lines contained smiling faces. :)
Getty isn't a sad person either, smiling 18.4% of the time.
mobiLOL seems to be sad at the moment: 8.4% lines contained sad faces. :(
literal_lol is also a sad person, crying 7.6% of the time.
PhillyBot wrote the longest lines, averaging 205.9 letters per line.
#reddit-philadelphia average was 34.3 letters per line.
jryan_ wrote the shortest lines, averaging 17.6 characters per line.
FoolsTP was tight-lipped, too, averaging 17.8 characters.
cachinnate spoke a total of 340643 words!
cachinnate's faithful follower, gk128, didn't speak so much: 241769 words. |
Pitchers With Complete Game Wins During a Doubleheader
As times and traditions of the game change, some things die out. The doubleheader has been one of them. Seldom do teams plan a doubleheader in their schedules, the few that we now see are often regularly scheduled games followed by some sort of make-up game due to a rain out or other reason.
Another tradition that has changed is the use of a pitcher. In the past, it was not uncommon to see a pitcher throw a complete game, even if he wasnt doing well, something that would NEVER happen now, as bullpens were not as developed.
Pitchers would sometimes pitch on back-to-back days or even back-to-back games of those more-common doubleheaders. These two factors made our next feat possible: two complete game victories by one pitcher in one day.
Just let that sink in. Not only did one pitcher pitch in two games back-to-back, but on the same day. Not only did they start these games, they finished both of them, going anywhere from 10 to 21 innings in the process. And finally, not only did they finish these two games, they won BOTH of them! This feat, while mostly forgotten and now virtually impossible, deserves recognition among the most fabulous baseball feats of all time.
Items of interest: You will notice just how much times have changed, as you see that the last time this was achieved was in 1926. Also of note are the extraordinarily fabulous feats of Ed Reulbach, Joe McGinnity, and Dupee Shaw. Reulbach threw both of his complete games for shutouts, while McGinnity and Shaw achieved this feat more than once in one month, with three and two instances, respectively. |
Ubuntu Kylin 16.04 LTS Beta 2 has been released as part of today's Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) Final Beta, bringing a complete redesign of its Unity user interface.
As you may well be aware, users will finally be able to move the Unity Launcher and Dash of the Unity 7 interface to the bottom edge of the screen, thanks to the hard work done by the Ubuntu Kylin developers in the past several months.
Right now, there's no visible option for users to move the Unity Launcher to the bottom, as they will have to run a command in the Dash or a terminal emulator, or use the Dconf-editor utility to achieve that.
But the biggest surprise of the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Final Beta release is the fact that Ubuntu Kylin now ships with the Unity Launcher and Dash at the bottom of the screen by default, as you can see from the screenshots attached at the end of the article.
And that's not all, because it looks like the entire Unity 7 interface has received a fresh coat of paint in the Ubuntu Kylin 16.04 LTS Beta 2 release, thanks to the addition of a new icon theme, a new lockscreen, and many other useful tweaks.
Ubuntu Kylin 16.04 LTS Beta 2 now ready for public testing
Besides the revamped Unity 7 interface, Ubuntu Kylin 16.04 LTS Beta 2 ships today with a rewritten Indicator China Weather component, an updated Ubuntu Kylin Software Center, and Youker Assistant 2.0.6 with an optimized scan display interface.
Moreover, the remote search is now enabled for Unity Dash in Ubuntu Kylin System Settings, and the Plymouth boot splash theme has been updated for the 16.04 release, along with a new kylin-greeter background.
You can download the Ubuntu Kylin 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) Beta 2 64-bit and 32-bit ISO images right now from our website, but please try to keep in mind that this is still a pre-release version, and some errors might be present.
Unity Launcher
Unity Dash |
For the Greek god who was patron deity of this river, see Meander (mythology)
Büyük Menderes River
Büyük Menderes Irmağı
Maeander, Meander, Μαίανδρος Location Country Turkey Cities Nazilli, Aydın, Söke Physical characteristics Source - location Dinar, Afyonkarahisar Province - coordinates - elevation 880 m (2,890 ft) Mouth Aegean Sea - location Aydin Province - coordinates Coordinates: - elevation 0 m (0 ft) Length 548 km (341 mi) Basin size 25,000 km2 (9,700 sq mi) Basin features Tributaries - left Çürüksu River, Akçay River, Çine River
The Büyük Menderes River (historically the Maeander or Meander, from Ancient Greek: Μαίανδρος, Maíandros; Turkish: Büyük Menderes Irmağı), is a river in southwestern Turkey. It rises in west central Turkey near Dinar before flowing west through the Büyük Menderes graben until reaching the Aegean Sea in the proximity of the ancient Ionian city Miletus. The word "meander" is used to describe a winding pattern, after the river.
Modern geography [ edit ]
The river rises in a spring near Dinar and flows to Lake Işıklı. After passing the Adıgüzel Dam and the Cindere Dam, the river flows past Nazilli, Aydın and Söke before it drains into the Aegean Sea.
Ancient geography [ edit ]
The Maeander was a celebrated river of Caria in Asia Minor. It appears earliest in the Catalog of Trojans of Homer's Iliad along with Miletus and Mycale.
Sources [ edit ]
The river has its sources not far from Celaenae in Phrygia (now Dinar),[1] where it gushed forth in a park of Cyrus.[2] According to some[3] its sources were the same as those of the river Marsyas; but this is irreconcilable with Xenophon, according to whom the sources of the two rivers were only near each other, the Marsyas rising in a royal palace.[4] Others[5] state that the Maeander flowed out of a lake on Mount Aulocrene. William Martin Leake[6] reconciles all these apparently different statements by the remark that both the Maeander and the Marsyas have their origin in the lake on Mount Aulocrene, above Celaenae, but that they issue at different parts of the mountain below the lake.
Course [ edit ]
Map of the river's mouth and the evolution of silting of Miletus Bay during Antiquity.
The Maeander was so celebrated in antiquity for its numerous windings, that its classical name "Maeander" became, and still is, proverbial.[7] Its whole course has a southwesterly direction on the south of the range of Mount Messogis. South of Tripolis it receives the waters of the Lycus, whereby it becomes a river of some importance. Near Carura it passes from Phrygia into Caria, where it flows in its tortuous course through the Maeandrian plain,[8] and finally discharges itself in the Gulf of Icaros (an arm of the Aegean Sea), between Priene and Myus, opposite to the Ionian city of Miletus, from which its mouth is only 10 stadia distant.[9]
Tributaries [ edit ]
The tributaries of the Maeander include the Orgyas, Marsyas, Cludrus, Lethaeus, and Gaeson, in the north; and the Obrimas, Lycus, Harpasus, and a second Marsyas in the south.
Physical description [ edit ]
The Maeander is a deep river,[10] but not very broad. In many parts its depth equals its breadth and, so, it is navigable only by small craft.[11] It frequently overflows its banks and, as a result of the quantity of mud it deposits at its mouth, the coast has been pushed about 20 or 30 stadia further into the sea and several small islands off the coast have become united with the mainland.[12]
Mythology [ edit ]
The associated river god was also called Meander, one of the sons of Oceanus and Tethys.[13]
There was a legend about a subterranean connection between the Maeander and the Alpheus River in Elis.[14]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ] |
Some OH&S issues are more important than others.
The issue of mining safety continues to be a hot topic in our resource-rich nation, and mining companies must consider myriad factors to ensure the safety of their workforce: workplace wellbeing and fatigue, emergency and rescue response, eliminating hazards and effective training. These are first and foremost when it comes to enabling the safety of miners, both above and below the surface.
Another important element of any discussion on mine safety is communications, and that debate often leads to an analysis of the communications technology currently deployed on mine sites.
Radio communications has become an Occupational Health and Safety staple, with mines relying on the technology not only for operations, but safety-critical communications. It is the design of the radios - and more recently, the evolution to digital - that has made the radio a must-have on a mine site.
A good way to better understand how important that design is in an emergency would be to try the following experiment. You should have your smartphone within reach and some gardening gloves.
First put on the gloves and imagine you are down a mine shaft in total darkness, needing to make a call to your work mates above ground. Reach into your pocket and see how long it takes you to make a quick call to the "outside world" on your touch screen smartphone.
Now imagine you had a simple radio with a large and easily locatable 'push-to-talk' button on the side, which ran on a dedicated network. You could find that button blindfolded.
This is just one of the many benefits of using radios in mine site communications: very often, it is the simplicity of radio that could save a miner's life in critical moments.
In the past, analogue radio has served this purpose well. But work safety standards have evolved and workplaces now demand a communications system with far greater resiliency, scope and capability - the digital radio.
Analogue, two-way radios have come a long way and have been given a significant facelift. Today, digital radio is to analogue what Blu-ray is to VHS.
More simultaneous talking paths are possible on a digital radio system, and information such as unit ID, status buttons, and enhanced text messages can be embedded into a single digital radio channel.
Digital radio systems can be implemented using existing infrastructure, therefore costing less and taking less time to implement, while existing analogue radios can also be used on a digital platform, further reducing those costs.
Finally, the digital conversion of a user's voice reduces external background noises, so the platform is ideal for reducing environmental noise levels while communicating in, say, a mineshaft.
Open-standard platforms like TETRA, APCO P25, and DMR are three digital standards that are helping extend radio frequency coverage underground and on vast remote sites.
Broadband wireless connectivity is also becoming increasingly important as miners depend on it to connect to, communicate with and control remote applications such as real-time video.
Regardless of platform, the importance of radio for mission-critical mining communications hasn't gone away. If you are ever in doubt of what benefits the trusty radio can provide, just remember back to when you tried to text on your smartphone in the dark in gardening gloves.
Neale Joseph is General Manager Radio Solutions, Motorola Solutions Australia and New Zealand |
To viewers, the messages resembled the normal partisan give-and-take one expects in a political campaign; in fact they came from foreign sources. Many of the rapid-fire salvos came from automated accounts.
In the normal bounds of American politics, such partisan messaging is required by law to account for its source — as in “I’m candidate McAdoo and I approve this message.” But in the riotous world of social media, disclosure is not a high priority.
Now that the scheming is clear, Facebook and Twitter say they are reviewing the 2016 race and studying how to defend against such meddling in the future. Facebook announced Wednesday the removal of 470 fake accounts and pages “likely” engineered in Russia. It requires account identities and can challenge the bona fides of fakers. Twitter does not, nor does it prohibit automated accounts, which can create fake “trends” to attract readers. Between them, the sites have more than two billion accounts.
Russia has not exactly hidden its intentions. In February of last year, a top cyberintelligence adviser to Mr. Putin, Andrey Krutskikh, hinted at a Moscow conference of a possible attack. “I’m warning you: We are on the verge of having something in the information arena which will allow us to talk to the Americans as equals,” he said. Mr. Putin has insisted there is “no proof” Russia is directing the work of “free spirited” hackers — despite decisive American intelligence to the contrary.
Facing the Russian challenge will involve complicated issues dealing with secret foreign efforts to undermine American free speech. National security agencies in Washington have identified Russian involvement in the spread of the email leaks that bedeviled Mrs. Clinton, and the Russian military intelligence agency’s use of hackers to penetrate state voting systems.
But it is unclear whether any federal agency is focused specifically on the problems Mr. Shane and FireEye have illuminated — foreign intervention through social media to feed partisan anger and suspicion in a polarized nation. |
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy is probably the greatest source of conspiracy theories in American history. So it only makes sense that InfoWars’ Alex Jones would descend on Dallas, Texas with about 50 of his most ardent followers to protest what he views as some sort of massive government cover-up.
Jones broadcasted his protest live on InfoWars, and in the clip below, you can see him using a bullhorn to lead his crowd in a chant of “No more lies! No more lies!”
“We are not going to put of with the lies of the globalist anymore!” he screamed. “We are not going to let this country become Communist China! We are not going to see our free speech violated! We are not going to let the globalist and the internationalist media here attack anyone that does not believe the official story!”
Jones confronted a police representative who attempted to get him and the crowd to hold their protest in a designated “free speech zone” where they would be out of the way of the official anniversary ceremony events. “Free speech zone?” Jones asked. “Is North Korea a free speech zone?” When the officials threatens his arrest, he made an analogy to Tiananmen Square in China.
Aside from drawing some extra attention to his website, it’s not entirely clear what Jones’ protest accomplished. But with so much somber reflection happening on television and across the country, the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination would not have been complete without a good conspiracy theory demonstration.
Watch video below, via InfoWars:
[photo via screengrab]
— —
>> Follow Matt Wilstein (@TheMattWilstein) on Twitter
Have a tip we should know? [email protected] |
Welcome!
CoworkingToronto is an innovative collective of independent coworking spaces from across the GTA. Our collective is currently comprised of
15 ‘genuine’ coworking spaces in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
We work together to spread the word about coworking, we share best practices to strengthen our unique communities, and we are proof that traditional ‘competitors’ can collaborate in the new shared economy.
Our goal is to make this website an online community hub for both operators and members of coworking spaces in the GTA. We want to help build better business communities, spread the word about other movements like Jellys and BarCamps, and help foster collaboration and innovation.
We are shaping the future of work in Toronto.
Want to join us?
FIND A COWORKING SPACE NEAR YOU
Want to be a part of the Coworking Toronto collective?
If you run a genuine coworking space within the City of Toronto, please add your details here and we’ll be in touch. |
ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive
Ubuntu Touch summary (week 12)
To : ubuntu-phone <ubuntu-phone@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
: ubuntu-phone <ubuntu-phone@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> From : Ricardo Salveti de Araujo <ricardo.salveti@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
: Ricardo Salveti de Araujo <ricardo.salveti@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date : Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:17:00 -0300
: Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:17:00 -0300 Cc : ubuntu-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, ubuntu-news-team@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
: ubuntu-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, ubuntu-news-team@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Organization : Canonical Ltd
: Canonical Ltd User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:17.0) Gecko/20130311 Thunderbird/17.0.4
Another week and the work keeps moving strongly. The work on apps are
progressing quite nicely, and people is already able to have quite a few
additional functionalities after installing them at the Touch images.
On the Touch side, we started migrating the Qt5 packages to the Qt 5.0.1
release and also rebasing the changes on top of Raring, to have an
easier archive transition once s-series is open for development.
A few highlights from the last week:
- Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre enabled initial bluetooth support for Nexus
7. Support for Nexus 4 should also come in the following weeks.
- The gallery application was renamed to gallery-app. - The telephony application was renamed to phone-app.
- Updates at the media-player and notes-app to make them compatible
with the new SDK and Qt 5.0.1.
- Gustavo Pichorim Boiko continued his work to deliver working test
cases for the telephony application, making them part of the continuous
integration loop.
- Albert Astals Cid pushed quite many fixes for the shell, like using
a ListView for the Carousel component for scalability, making sure the
greeter stays usable for smaller screens, improving Carousel creation
time, fixing play button size, resetting Apps lens content position when
swiping from left and making the previews more flexible with different
screen sizes. He also worked enabling test cases for HUD,
ResponsiveGridView, Revealer, Greeter, FilterGrid and CrossFadeImage.
- Jim Hodapp fixed the video playback so that it works on the Nexus 7
device.
- Oliver Grawert pushed quite a few improvements for the
ubuntu-session script, making a lot easier to customize and add support
for the device pixel specifics by just creating a config file. More
details available at
The ports team was busy as well and many Ubuntu Touch ports received updates. Some of them regularly and daily (just like the normal images on cdimage.u.c). Newly added ports are: - LG Optimus L9 - HP Touchpad - SGS III (Qualcomm TMO)
Also make sure to check https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Devices, as the
list of supported devices keeps growing almost in a daily basis :-)
Thanks to everyone involved at this awesome project, and for putting so
much effort to improve the image and also extending the device support list.
---- Ubuntu Touch runs on tablets, phones and other devices. We are open to suggestions, fixes and new crazy ideas. If you want go get involved, please get in touch: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Contribute -- Ricardo Salveti de Araujo |
Bulgaria, Varna – The Prime Ministers of Greece and Romania and the Presidents of Serbia and Bulgaria, met in Varna on Tuesday, October 3. They initiated a new level of cooperation between their countries.
A new V4 in the Balkans? The Four of Varna, three members of the European Union – Greece, Bulgaria, Romania – and one candidate to the integration – Serbia -, are now cooperating on a higher level, on the model of the Visegrád Group.
“The Four countries might be the doors of the European Union, as they also can be a wall, which protects the Union”, explained the Romanian Prime Minister Tudose.
He stressed also that it was important for everybody to know, that this international cooperation is not turned against anyone, or anything. According to the Romanian Prime Minister, this cooperation group’s purpose is to “better defend their common interests.”
The Bulgarian President Borisov declared that on this Tuesday, “the Visegrád Four of the Balkans” has been established, and its role will” be good for Europe”, as it will give more weight to the four countries’ voices.
The next meeting should be held in Serbia, the only four state which is not member of the European Union yet. |
Caption
Citation: http://www.teamfortress.com/mvm/faq/ ''Q: Do the new items earned in Mann Up Mode affect gameplay? No. All items unique to Mann Up Mode are cosmetic. They are equippable throughout all of TF2, and are tradable. Q: How do I earn these items? There are three ways to earn Mann Up Mode items: 1. Each time you complete an unfinished Mission on your ToDB in Mann Up Mode, you'll earn an item. This will consume the Tour of Duty Ticket you presented to enter Mann Up Mode. 2. When you complete all of the Missions on a ToDB, you’ll earn a random rare item. These rare items can only be obtained by completing ALL Missions in a Tour of Duty. 3. You can also obtain items using Squad Surplus Vouchers (see below).'' This misleading FAQ referrs to the new MvM cosmetics as ''these items'', leading me to believe that answers 1. and 2. were referring also to ''these items'', being MvM cosmetics. Turns out that they're not. Not at all. It's just random tat that nobody wants, and certainly wouldn't pay money for. The entire FAQ suggests that items earnt in Mann up mode will be new cosmetics and that they come in differing levels of rarity, NOT ONCE in the entire FAQ does it suggest that there was a possibility of obtaining regular item drops. I feel VERY short changed. I would have played lots more MvM Mann up but due to this gross miscommunication in what the loot is I don't think I will be. |
Image: TheAmazel via YouTube
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Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your fluid-filled Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here’s what we have so far (send us your events!):
Robotics in Education 2016 – April 14-15, 2016 – Vienna, Austria
NASA Swarmathon – April 18-22, 2016 – NASA KSC, Fla., USA
LEO Robotics Congress – April 21, 2016 – Eindhoven, Netherlands
FIRST Robotics Championship – April 27-30, 2016 – St. Louis, Missouri
International Collaborative Robots Workshop – May 3-4, 2016 – Boston, Mass., USA
ICARSC 2016 – May 4-6, 2016 – Bragança, Portugal
Robotica 2016 – May 4-8, 2016 – Bragança, Portugal
ARMS 2016 – May 9-13, 2016 – Singapore
ICRA 2016 – May 16-21, 2016 – Stockholm, Sweden
NASA Robotic Mining Competition – May 18-20, 2016 – NASA KSC, Fla., USA
Skolkovo Robotics Conference – May 20, 2016 – Skolkovo, Russia
Innorobo 2016 – May 24-26, 2016 – Paris, France
RoboCity16 – May 26-27, 2016 – Madrid, Spain
RoboBusiness Europe – June 1-3, 2016 – Odense, Denmark
IEEE RAS MRSSS 2016 – June 6-10, 2016 – Singapore
CR-HRI – June 6-10, 2016 – Orlando, Fla., USA
NASA SRRC Level 1 – June 6-11, 2016 – Worcester, Mass., USA
Field Robot Event – June 14-18, 2016 – Haßfurt, Germany
RSS 2016 – June 18-22, 2016 – Ann Arbor, Mich., USA
European Land Robot Trial – June 20-24, 2016 – Eggendorf, Austria
Automatica 2016 – June 21-25, 2016 – Munich, Germany
ISR 2016 – June 21-22, 2016 – Munich, Germany
UK National Robotics Week – June 25-1, 2016 – United Kingdom
TAROS 2016 – June 28-30, 2016 – Sheffield, United Kingdom
RoboCup 2016 – June 30-4, 2016 – Leipzig, Germany
Amazon Picking Challenge – June 30-4, 2016 – Leipzig, Germany
Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today’s videos.
MIT has developed a 3D printer that can mix solids and liquids. This is more about advances in 3D printing than it is about robots, but the robotic applications for the technology are certainly significant:
From the press release:
With “printable hydraulics,” an inkjet printer deposits individual droplets of material that are each 20 to 30 microns in diameter, or less than half the width of a human hair. The printer proceeds layer-by-layer from the bottom up. For each layer, the printer deposits different materials in different parts, and then uses high-intensity UV light to solidify all of the materials (minus, of course, the liquids). The printer uses multiple materials, though at a more basic level each layer consist of a “photopolymer,” which is a solid, and “a non-curing material,” which is a liquid.
Since there’s a duckie in the video, we can be confident that we’ll learn more next month at ICRA!
[ MIT CSAIL ]
Festo announced its Bionic Learning Network for 2016, and while there weren’t any birds or ants or kangaroos or anything, there was this giant spherical blimp that can, uh, swallow stuff:
The handling system consists of an ultra-light carbon ring with eight adaptive propellers. In the middle of the ring sits a rotatable helium ball with an integrated gripping element. As a result, both man and machine can interact with each other easily and safely, opening up entirely new possibilities for the workplace of the future. In this future, people could be supported by the spheres, using them as a flying assistance system – for example, when working at giddying heights or in hard-to-access areas.
There’s also this “3D Cocooner,” which is a sort of spider-inspired 3D printer that uses a resin-infused fiber:
With the 3D Cocooner, Festo has developed a bionic technology platform that spins complex and equally stable shapes, which are very similar to these natural structures. In order to convert the soft thread into a solid lattice structure, it is covered with a special resin in the spinneret. As soon as it comes out of the spinneret, a UV light cures the resin-soaked fibre with pinpoint accuracy and hardens it into a sturdy little rod. During the process, the thread can be reset at any point on the lattice structure, where it continues to build. In this way, it is possible to construct even complex shapes in three-dimensional space without any supports.
[ Festo ]
Let me explain what’s about to happen here: at the WeRobot 2016 conference, a bunch of otherwise semi-serious roboticists and law professors took it upon themselves to personally and cooperatively simulate a robot. The guy in the corner with the back to everything is the brain, and the mission of this two-armed mobile robot is to pick up a box. Like most attempts to do something with a robot for the first time, it doesn’t go so well (and you may need to turn your volume up to hear what’s happening):
Featuring David Britton as the brain, Burton Rosenberg as the vision system, Kate Darling as the right arm, and Jo Bac as the left arm. Overall disaster orchestrated by Bill Smart, and video (thank heavens there’s video) courtesy Eduard Fosch.
[ WeRobot 2016 ]
Thanks Eduard, Kate, and Bill!
Remember how much we hate delivery drones? The exception is when delivery drones are, in fact, the most practical way of getting very important things from one place to another, like delivering medical supplies around Rwanda:
You may have recognized a couple people in that video: Keller Rinaudo co-founded Romotive, and Keenan Wyrobek was one of the people who originally brought the PR2 from Stanford to Willow Garage. If anyone can make delivery drones happen in a realistic and useful way, it’s these guys.
[ Zipline ]
For HeboCon 2016 (Las Vegas Edition), Sarah Petkus competed with a robot that had a structure based at least partially on meat. Yes, meat.
And there’s much more to HeboCon than just questionable meat:
[ Sarah Petkus ] via [ Synshop ]
RoboCup European Open 2016 Final MSL League. Tech United in black, Cambada in green:
That second goal was pretty spectacular, whether you’re a robot or a human.
[ RoboCup 2016 ] via [ Tech United ]
MARLO continues to impress with his ability to walk over random terrain and not bite it, even with just six motors and zero (zero!) sensors:
I would just like to reiterate my desire for them to come up with a better way of getting MARLO to stop than just murdering it whenever it’s successful.
[ Michigan ]
Thanks Brent!
I suppose we’re obligated to post this video of a drone carrying a chainsaw, although to be honest, this feel like it’s trying too hard to be cool to actually be cool, if you know what I mean.
[ YouTube ]
I’m not sure if I’ve ever actually seen Romeo walk before...?
[ TheAmazel ]
Matt Reimer is a farmer in Manitoba. He has a problem: “it’s hard to find good labour on the farm to drive the grain cart for a few weeks each year. Also it is a pretty boring job that no one really wants to do.” The solution? “Put an autopilot from drones into my tractor to make it autonomous.” Okay then!
For some reason I really want one of those twelve-wheeled tractors. For no details on where to find one of those, but lots of details on how Matt made his autopilot work, check out his page on Hackaday.
[ Matt Reimer ] via [ Hackaday ]
We’ve been following the progress of the scariest quadrotor anyone has ever seen, and it’s up to full throttle testing (without shredding itself into bits) and can almost lift itself off the ground:
Remind me to stay very very far away from this.
[ McCloud Aero ]
I am continually blown away by the amount of different creative things that you can do with Thymio:
[ Mobsya ]
As far as I can tell, the moral of this video from Sphero is that friends suck, do robotics instead:
And this is why I have no friends!
[ Sphero SPRK ]
Loon Copter swam/flew away from the 2016 UAE Drones for Good competition with a million dollars. Here’s a montage of some pool testing, and from the competition itself:
[ Loon Copter ]
Remember robotics manipulation research before the PR2? Me neither. But Pieter Abbeel does! Here’s towel folding, pre-PR2 edition (2009):
[ UC Berkeley ]
Google Lunar XPRIZE, Episode 4:
Alex Dobrianski emigrated from the Ukraine to Vancouver to build a better life for his wife Luda and their three children. Twenty years later, after launching a career in IT, he staked his retirement money on the GLXP and recruited his son Sergei to help him pursue his lifelong passion for aerospace, which Alex had been forced to abandon in post-Soviet Ukraine.
[ Google Lunar XPRIZE ]
Chris Urmson’s talk about the current state of Google’s self-driving car program from SXSW is excellent, and worth investing an hour in:
Everyone’s talking about self-driving cars these days, but how can you differentiate between hype and reality? In the six years of Google’s project, its vehicles have self-driven over 1.3 million miles, racking up the equivalent of 90 years of human driving experience. Google says its cars can now handle the vast majority of everyday situations it finds on the roads, but what does the path to a driverless future look like? How could it be that self-driving cars be both three and 30 years away?
[ Google ]
Lastly, RI Seminar: Jonathan Hurst from Oregon State University on “Designing Robots to Walk and Run.”
Legged locomotion is a challenging physical interaction task: underactuation, unexpected impacts, and large and rapidly changing forces and velocities are commonplace. Utilizing passive hardware dynamics in tight integration with the software control, with both aspects of “behavior design” considered together as part of the overall design process, can drastically improve the performance of a machine as measured by efficiency, agility, and robustness to disturbances. This design philosophy was recently demonstrated on ATRIAS, a bipedal spring-mass robot. The passive dynamics of the hardware match a simple biomechanically-derived spring-mass model, while the software control relies on the passive dynamics as an integrated aspect of the system behavior. ATRIAS walks using approximately 400W of power, accelerates to a run, handles large unexpected obstacles with no prior knowledge of the terrain, and is the first machine to reproduce the dynamics of a human walking gait. In this presentation, we explain our design philosophy, results with ATRIAS, current work on a successor robot Cassie, and plans for commercialization of this technology by Agility Robotics.
[ CMU RI Seminar ] |
Zimbabwe Use National flag and ensign Proportion 1:2 Adopted 18 April 1980 Design seven horizontal stripes of green, yellow, red, black, red, yellow and green with a black-edged white isosceles triangle base on the hoist side bearing a Zimbabwe bird superimposed on a red five-pointed star. Variant flag of Zimbabwe Name Presidential Flag of Zimbabwe Adopted 1987
The national flag of Zimbabwe consists of seven even horizontal stripes of green, gold, red and black with a white triangle containing a red 5-pointed star with a Zimbabwe Bird. The present design was adopted on 18 April 1980, when Zimbabwe won its independence from the United Kingdom. The soapstone bird featured on the flag represents a statuette of a bird found at the ruins of Great Zimbabwe. The bird symbolises the history of Zimbabwe; the red star beneath it officially stands for the nation's aspirations but is commonly thought to symbolise socialism, and the revolutionary struggle for freedom and peace. The design is based on the flag of Zimbabwe's ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front.
History [ edit ]
The country now known as Zimbabwe was formally known as Southern Rhodesia from 1895 to 1980 — although simply Rhodesia was used locally between 1964 until June 1979 after Northern Rhodesia obtained its independence — and then Zimbabwe Rhodesia between June and December 1979. Southern Rhodesia achieved responsible government in 1923, and thereby became a British self-governing colony following three decades of rule by the British South Africa Company. Following the granting of responsible government a flag was adopted which followed the standard British colonial practice, being a Blue Ensign, defaced with the shield from the Southern Rhodesian coat of arms. This basic design was used until 1968, although a light blue ensign was introduced in April 1964 following the break-up of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. On 11 November 1968, three years after the predominantly white government unilaterally declared independence from Britain, a national flag based on a completely new design was adopted. This was a green-white-green vertical triband, charged centrally with the national coat of arms. This was the first national flag to contain the Zimbabwe Bird, which had been present in the coat of arms since 1924.[1]
In 1979, when the country reconstituted itself as Zimbabwe Rhodesia following the Internal Settlement between the government and moderate black nationalists, a new flag was adopted to mark the transition on 4 September of that year.[2] The flag of Zimbabwe Rhodesia was designed by Flight Lieutenant Cedric Herbert of the Rhodesian Air Force and a member of the Rhodesian Heraldry and Genealogy Society.[3]
The design incorporated the pan-African colours of yellow, black, green and red, with the soapstone bird of Great Zimbabwe, representing an older, pre-colonial source of power and identity in yellow on a vertical black stripe, symbolising the importance of majority rule, and three horizontal stripes, one red representing the blood spilled in the struggle for majority rule, one white, representing the integral part of the European community and other minorities in all aspects of the country's life, and one green, reflecting the importance of agriculture to the country's well-being, but the new design had little support from black politicians, who described it as "the flag with two names", a reference to "Zimbabwe Rhodesia".[4]
In response, the Voice of Zimbabwe radio service operated by Robert Mugabe's ZANU PF from Maputo in Mozambique, carried a commentary entitled "The proof of independence is not flags or names", dismissing the changes as aimed at "strengthening the racist puppet alliance's position at the Zimbabwe conference in London".[5]
This flag was officially superseded in December 1979 when the UK took interim control of the country following the Lancaster House Agreement which ended the Rhodesian Bush War. The UK's Union Jack was used as the official flag of the country, although de facto the Zimbabwe Rhodesia flag continued to be flown, while fresh elections were held in February 1980. At midnight between 17 and 18 April 1980, the country was granted independence by the UK under the name Zimbabwe and a new national flag was adopted,[6][7][8][9] the draft for which had been handed to the Minister of Public Works Richard Hove by an unspecified designer. The initial design did not include the Zimbabwe Bird. This was added at the suggestion of Cederic Herbert, who pointed out its uniqueness and history. The final draft went through the approval of the then-Prime Minister-elect Robert Mugabe.[10] The adoption of the new flag coincided with the swearing-in of Canaan Banana as the country's new president.[7] The Zimbabwe Bird, used on every flag since 1968, is based on a statue discovered from the ancient ruined city of Great Zimbabwe in the country's south-east.[11]
Past flags [ edit ]
Display and use [ edit ]
Display on uniforms [ edit ]
Some police officers in Zimbabwe have the national flag displayed on their uniforms' sleeve tops.[12]
Design [ edit ]
Colours and symbolism [ edit ]
The Zimbabwean flag flying in the breeze
The national flag of Zimbabwe is made up of five different colours: Green, gold, red, black and white.[13] Officially, the colours of the flag of Zimbabwe carry political, regional, and cultural meanings. Green represents the agriculture and rural areas of Zimbabwe. Yellow stands for the wealth of minerals in the country,[8] predominantly gold. The red symbolises the blood shed during the first and second Chimurenga (wars) in the "struggle for independence". The black indicates the heritage, race and ethnicity of the black majority.[8][14]
The white triangle is a symbol for peace.[8] The golden bird,[15] known as the "Great Zimbabwe Bird" is the national symbol of Zimbabwe [8] and is most likely a representation of the bateleur eagle or the African fish eagle.[16][17] It "exemplifies the strong bond that ancestral humans had with animals, nature and spiritual guides" and it is treated with a high level of importance and respect.[18] The red star represents the nation's aspirations, [19] taken to be socialism as promoted by the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), and whose party flag was used as the basis for the flag of the nation.[8][20]
Specifications and the correct rendering of the Great Zimbabwe Bird [ edit ]
Zimbabwe National Flag Specifications showing both renditions of the Zimbabwe Bird
Close up of the Zimbabwe Bird on a flag manufactured in Zimbabwe
The Great Zimbabwe Bird first appeared in an armorial sense when it was incorporated in the coat of arms of Southern Rhodesia, which were granted by Royal Warrant on 11 August 1924.[21] It was first used on a national flag when the full arms were displayed on the Rhodesian flag that was adopted on 11 November 1968. It then appeared alone on the Zimbabwe Rhodesian flag of 1979, and it is now displayed on the flag of Zimbabwe. The arms of 1924 were initially retained by the Zimbabwean Government until a new coat of arms were adopted on 12 September 1981.[22]
Anyone who has been to Zimbabwe or seen a photograph of a Zimbabwean flag made in Zimbabwe will notice that the Zimbabwe Bird is rendered in the same format as it appeared on the arms of 1924 and as it appeared on the Rhodesian flag of 1968 and the Zimbabwe Rhodesian flag of 1979. They will also notice that the red star on which the bird is placed is a regular star. However, a different, rather flattened version of the bird, sometimes displayed on an irregular, flattened star, is often seen on flags that are manufactured outside of Zimbabwe. The origin of this discrepancy appears to be an illustration of the proposed new flag that was first released by the Zimbabwe Ministry of Information in April 1980, just prior to the country attaining full independence.[23] This illustration showed the bird in a flattened version positioned over an irregular star. The poor quality of the illustration, with the star appearing as irregular on the flag, but regular under the description of the meanings on the right, and with the Zimbabwe Bird being omitted completely from where it should be next to the words The National Emblem, would suggest that it was done in haste and without accuracy. Nevertheless, in the absence of a better source, vexillologists outside of Zimbabwe have used this illustration as the basis for their rendering of the emblem on the flag, which has then been copied by many flag manufacturers outside of Zimbabwe. Meanwhile, flag manufacturers inside Zimbabwe continue to produce flags emblazoned with the original version of the bird sitting on a regular star. As a result, there are now two versions of the bird and star - the flattened one and the regular one. Since the flag is the national flag of Zimbabwe, it should surely follow that the version as produced and used in the country itself should be regarded the official version.[24]
Similarities [ edit ]
The colours used on the flag of Zimbabwe are closely shared with that of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front.[25] This is viewed as a sign of humble submission and respect towards the party.[26]
In popular culture [ edit ]
On 7 August 1980, Samora Machel made a famous speech involving the national flag of Zimbabwe, in which he said while holding the flag, "This flag covers everyone. There are no blacks in Zimbabwe, there are no whites, there are no mulattos and Indians, today there are just Zimbabweans."[27]
In Harare, Zimbabwe, every other car has one to many miniature national flags plastered onto it. Sales of the national flag are sky-high in the country.[28] According to Petina Gappah of The Guardian, the flag is a "reminder that the nation was born of pain".[29]
It is a breach of Zimbabwean law to sell products bearing the colours of the national flag of the country.[30]
See also [ edit ] |
Even the tiniest cracks on the surfaces of concrete structures can lead to big problems if they aren’t immediately repaired. Now researchers have demonstrated a sunlight-induced, self-healing protective coating designed to fix cracks on the surface of concrete structures before they grow into larger ones that compromise structural integrity.
Damage control: Concrete structures could one day be able to fix their own surface cracks.
More resilient concrete structures like bridges and overpasses could save governments billions of dollars in annual expenses on repairs and maintenance. In recent years, a growing field of research has focused on developing self-healing mechanisms for a range of materials, concrete included. Several approaches to self-healing concrete have emerged, including attempts to engineer self-healing mechanisms into concrete itself. But the authors of a new paper published in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces say their demonstrated technology represents the first example of a self-healing protective coating for concrete.
Previous approaches to self-healing concrete systems have mostly focused on restoring strength to damaged concrete, says Chan-Moon Chung, a professor of polymer chemistry at Yonsei University in South Korea who led the research. His group chose to focus on protecting the surface, where tiny cracks can allow water, chloride ion from deicing salt or seawater, and carbon dioxide to penetrate the structure, which can lead to harmful deterioration.
The new coating contains polymer microcapsules, filled with a solution that, when exposed to light, turns into a water-resistant solid. The idea is that damage to a coated concrete surface would cause the capsules to break open and release the solution, which then would fill the crack and solidify in sunlight.
Researchers have developed a range of microcapsule-based, self-healing systems in recent years. Generally, they consist of a “healing agent,” often a polymer paired with a catalyst. The systems are designed so that damage brings the healing agent, originally in solution, into contact with the catalyst, which causes the healing agent to solidify. But “there are limitations to this system,” says Chung, such as the availability and cost of the catalyst. Since sunlight induces the key reaction in his group’s new coating, it has the advantage of being “catalyst-free” and potentially inexpensive, he says. Chung says the polymer his group chose as a healing agent is attractive because it won’t freeze even in very low temperatures, and is considered environmentally friendly.
To demonstrate the effectiveness of the coating, the researchers sprayed it on the surface of concrete samples, and used razor blades to apply small cracks. Scanning electron microscopy confirmed that the razor blade caused the microcapsules to release their contents, which filled the damaged area. After the researchers exposed samples to sunlight for several hours, further microscopy showed healing, whereas damaged areas in control samples remained unfilled. Finally, the researchers confirmed that samples with the new coating were far less vulnerable to water and chloride ion penetration than were controls.
Chung says his group’s next task is to determine the optimal composition of the coating, and show that it remains stable over an extended time. He says that, so far, the group has shown that the coating can remain stable for a year. |
TUSCALOOSA, Alabama -- Yes, the standards are high at Alabama. Yes, the expectations are even higher.
But did you realize the Crimson Tide has been winning despite poor performances by sophomore quarterback AJ McCarron?
That is the
about McCarron following Alabama's 38-14 victory over No. 14 Arkansas on Saturday at Bryant-Denny Stadium.
Hayes called McCarron the "glaring weakness" on the Alabama team and blasted the quarterback for being a "game manager" while somehow complimenting predecessor Greg McElroy for having the same qualities.
Playing in a conservative system that famously takes what a defense gives it, McCarron completed 75 percent of his passes Saturday. He threw for 15 more yards than Tyler Wilson, regarded as a budding star quarterback for the Razorbacks.
McCarron threw for two touchdowns and did not have a pass intercepted for the third consecutive game. His second TD pass was a screen pass, but it was sold with an effective play-action fake handoff to Marquis Maze.
If anyone is going to compare McCarron to his predecessor, it would be fair to compare him to McElroy in 2009, during his first season as a starter. He had a good September, an awful October, then led Alabama to the national championship.
Hayes apparently has not noticed that McElroy had Julio Jones to throw to and McCarron does not. Hayes calls Alabama's current wide receivers "vastly underrated." It apparently isn't their fault that they barely are missing McCarron's deep passes.
McCarron is an "uncomfortable quarterback who can't get rid of the ball and takes too many sacks." Two sacks Saturday are too many? And the offensive line gets no blame?
Hmmm. Anyone agree? |
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One day, mankind will jump into spaceships and explore the solar system, and eventually the galaxy and beyond. All that stands in our way so far is a deficit in technology. Until that’s licked, however, we’ll be sending machines in our place. And most of the places we want to explore are rather hard on the computers that enable those machines to function.
High temperatures, caustic environments, and extreme pressures tend to cause problems for computers, and that’s something that NASA is close to solving for one of our solar system’s harshest environments, Venus.
As researchers at NASA’s John H. Glenn Research Center point out in a new paper, Venus has made it impossible for computers to survive for long on its surface due to temperatures exceeding 460 degrees C and pressures exceeding 9.4 MPa. Such an environment is particularly hard on integrated circuits (ICs), limiting the time that a Venus lander can function on the surface to only a few hours even with relatively massive cooling and pressure solutions.
In order to make a trip to Venus valuable, however, landers need to be able to survive for a prolonged period. Long-term atmospheric and seismic activity data is what’s needed on such a trip, to answer a variety of questions about how Earth and other planets in the solar system were formed, and that kind of data takes weeks and months, not hours, to gather.
And it’s not just pressure and high temperatures that are the problem. There’s also the sulfuric acid in the clouds and on the surface that are of concern. Simply put, today’s interconnections between chips simply can’t handle the environment, and of course today’s computers are multi-chip affairs.
NASA Glenn
In response, the NASA Glenn researchers have created ICs with ceramic packaging that have lasted for more than 40 days at 500 degrees C. After further tests intended to simulate the Venus environment were conducted, it was confirmed that the new designs and materials were able to survive for far longer than previous versions — indicating that it’s possible to make computers that can last for multiple days and weeks even in such a harsh environment.
The paper is full of the kinds of technical details only a rocket scientist would appreciate, and if that’s you then by all means delve into its fascinating facts and figures. For the rest of us, it’s enough to know that NASA is succeeding in creating computers that can survive on Venus, making a long-term mission on that planet a less remote possibility. |
“We are an active participant in
creating our own culture.”
Sometimes I am asked about the integration of a specific culture and subcultures in my stories. In terms of my graphic novel series KABUKI, I was creating it twenty years ago when I was in college as my senior thesis in Literature.
I had a friend in my painting and drawing classes who was Japanese, so when I had to choose a foreign language to study, I chose Japanese, which I studied for a couple years. I was learning the language, history, mythology, philosophy and world religions, in addition to my travels to Japan – so I had this rich world of mythology and information that was pouring into my own. The archetypes of that mythology served as a structure for my story for certain reasons.
One of those reasons is this: I was a big admirer of autobiographical comics. Robert Crumb, Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor. I love Ivan Brunetti’s Schizo. But, I was so young in college that I did not feel unselfconscious enough to write an autobiographical story at that age. I didn’t even feel fully formed enough as a human or to have the objectivity to be able to do that. And I did not want to fall into the trap of making the main character an idealized version of myself. So I thought that I could write more unselfconsciously about very personal things in my life if I could write through a veil. Through a mask in a way.
I also thought at that age that I could write something that would be more universal and relatable to readers if they could look at the characters and see themselves, rather than seeing me. I thought that I could tell a personal story, but make many of the details very different from myself. I began with the choice to make the main character a different gender. And then to set it in a different part of the world, with a different culture, and even in the ambiguous near future. That time setting would give me a liberty to turn up the volume and to discuss the present through the metaphors of the past and future. And also to make social-political commentary about our own culture, and many cultures, but through the lens of another. That way, readers can make the connections themselves about their own culture when viewing values through the lens of another.
Another aspect of the story structure is that it is told through the structures of both Western and Eastern fairytales and children’s stories. The first Kabuki volume is a retelling of Alice in Wonderland. The journey from pawn to queen. The classic hero’s journey from childhood to adult consciousness. From low birth and servitude to the most powerful piece on the chessboard that can change direction. The story is also told through the structure of the classic Japanese Ghost Story. These are the main stories of the Japanese Kabuki dramas. Usually, it is a wronged woman, who returns from the next world to set things right in the material world, and exact unfinished business of Earthly designs before her spirit can move on peaceably. So, though the story is firmly set in a crime narrative or speculative fiction story, it can also be viewed as the Japanese Ghost Story from a certain angle.
While the creation of the Kabuki story and character was very much a reflection of my own experiences at that time, it was also benefited from my exposure to an outside culture, its history, mythology, literature, and to a variety of subcultures. And the fascinating thing is, as the story progressed, the latest KABUKI volume, KABUKI: THE ALCHEMY became largely motivated by a new point of view about culture… the idea that culture is not something that we are just born into or something that is fixed and unchanging. We are an active participant in creating our own culture. Everything we do has a ripple effect in creating the current and future culture. And upon realizing that, we have a responsibility to shape the culture.
Much of the theme of KABUKI: The Alchemy is that if we are the creators of our own culture…. If we are unhappy with the current narrative of our own culture, or our world culture, it is not enough to dislike the current narrative. Rather, we have the responsibility of improving and shaping the cultural narrative.
At the time I was making this series, I was also discussing similar ideas with Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk (he ended up writing the introduction to KABUKI: THE ALCHEMY). He sent me a letter including the idea of a “Ken Kesey-like tour bus of different creative professionals” in different fields proving “that human beings create their own culture – they don’t just buy it”.
He also said that his teacher preached that “99% of what any class or workshop does is give the students the license they need to create.”
That line inspired me to have one of my characters (a character with a sort of “art & literature as activism” agenda) in KABUKI: THE ALCHEMY create an actual “ARTISTIC LICENSE” that is given to another character to catalyze their potential. Since then, I include that actual ARTISTIC LICENSE in the back of each of my publications, and readers fill it out as a reminder to themselves and share it with others.
I share it here with you now.
Enjoy David’s 2012 TEDx talk on discovering your purpose and making it a reality: |
In 2011, the metal world fell in love with the grind goat, named Biquette, spotted at a Wormrot show in Mauriac, France, which took place on a DIY farm.
Noisey tracked down the owner of the farm, Flo, who confirmed the goat's passing last month. They learned some fun facts, like Biquette was the goat's name and biquette is French for goat, so the goat's name was literally Goat the goat. Creative!
Biquette definitely enjoyed some grind music:
When did you first notice she enjoyed attending the shows?
While she was here, she always loved concerts, settings with lots of people. As soon as there was someone she had never seen, she stuck up against them for an hour! And when there were lots of people, it was above all a chance to go steal a little tobacco or something else that was lying around! Were there any bands or music she particularly liked?
I remember that during Panzer Cardinal (a band from Toulouse) she spent the entire set at the bassist's feet (who, by the way, was hallucinating a bit). She was most connected to grind (it seems weird to talk like this about a biquette but nevertheless it's true!!!). Seeing as the barn floor where we throw the concerts is wooden, I think that she felt the vibrations in her hooves. The majority of the time she even laid down next to the speakers.
Biquette's cause of death remains unsolved, but if she was with us, she would be happy to know that Wormrot is working on some really heavy material.
[via Metal Insider]
Related Posts |
A bunch of tips for working in DaVinci Resolve 12.5—comin' atcha rapid fire.
If you've been introduced to DaVinci Resolve, Blackmagic Design's NLE/color correction program, liked what you saw, and want to know how to work faster, better, and—just—super good, then you might want to take a look at this video by editor Casey Faris. In it, he gives you a ton of tips that'll help you complete your editing projects from start to finish.
Faris shares a lot of sweet, gooey knowledge in the video—too much, too gooey, and too knowlede-y to provide any kind of list. So instead, here are a few that might be of particular interest to those just starting out.
Project settings...better get 'em right!
Just like with everything in life, you want to start off on the right foot, and the same goes with opening a new project in Resolve. The first thing you'll want to do is open your "Project Settings" and make sure everything is optimized and correct for your specific project, namely your timeline frame rate, video format, and timeline resolution. If you don't get these settings right when you begin your project, you might be looking at some problems later on—trust!
Optimize your media
Sometimes Resolve doesn't play very well with certain media. If you're working with file formats that make the program work overly hard or that it just has a hard time playing back, Resolve gives you the option to optimize it for playback. To do this, select the files you want, right click, and choose "Generate Optimized Media". This will render versions that put less stress on the program, meaning playback will be a lot smoother. (It may take a while to render, so be prepared.)
Take shortcuts! Remap your keyboard
If you're spending a lot of time trimming, deleting, and moving clips around in your timeline, Faris suggests adding shortcuts to make the process more efficient. Resolve gives you the option to remap your keyboard shortcuts, so if you go to "Keyboard Mapping" in your Project Settings, you'll be able to assign pretty much any function to any key you want.
What are some helpful tips you could share with new DaVinci Resolve users? Let us know down in the comments. |
Supporters of Mitt Romney are laying groundwork for another run for president in 2016, though Romney has said he’s not interested. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Mitt Romney is not running for president. But since last week’s GOP midterm election romp, he has cemented his role as one of the Republican Party’s key behind-the-scenes players, nurturing relationships with members of Congress and keeping in close touch with longtime consultants.
According to several top Republicans, Romney made more than 80 phone calls to GOP candidates last Tuesday and Wednesday — including Senate candidates Joni Ernst of Iowa and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — to congratulate them on their victories. He spent election night in Boston watching returns at the home of former aide Ron Kaufman, stopping in later at the Seaport Hotel to congratulate Massachusetts governor-elect Charlie Baker (R) on his win.
Some confidants also continue to prepare the ground for another Romney presidential campaign, despite his continued disavowals of interest. In the days after the elections, a group of Romney supporters began circulating a memo that compared the success of his midterm endorsements with those made by Hillary Rodham Clinton, the front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.
The documents, which were obtained by The Washington Post, concluded that two out of three Romney candidates won their elections, compared with one in three for Clinton.
According to three Republicans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid, Romney’s associates are convinced that, if former Florida governor Jeb Bush does not run, Romney could consider another White House bid. He has told friends that he feels positive about the likely GOP field but also worries that many of the contenders may not have what it takes to beat Clinton.
The GOP gained control of the Senate Tuesday night, taking hold of the legislative agenda in that chamber. Here are three of the policies Republicans are likely to tackle as they take the reins in January 2015. (Julie Percha/The Washington Post)
In two spreadsheets circulated last week, Romney’s “winning percentage” in the midterms is contrasted with Clinton’s. After listing the candidates each of them endorsed, the analysis says that 66 percent of Romney’s picks emerged victorious in the GOP wave, compared with 33 percent for Clinton.
Clinton is marked as having backed 39 candidates, while Romney endorsed 76. There are descriptions of Clinton’s activities on behalf of each candidate, whether it was a rally, a fundraiser, a robocall or just an endorsement.
The Republicans familiar with Romney’s inner circle said the medium is part of the message. To nudge the data-driven Romney, they are deliberately charting returns and his recent political activity in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, knowing that numbers are the best way to win his attention. In chats with him, they also are talking up his standing in the GOP, which they argue has been bolstered by his work for the party this year.
Romney, who was in Washington on Friday to speak at the Israeli American Council’s national conference, has experienced a resurgence of sorts in recent months, as dozens of campaigns asked for his assistance. He spent the final days before Tuesday’s elections in Alaska, where he stumped for Republican Senate candidate Dan Sullivan.
At Friday’s event, Romney sharply criticized President Obama’s foreign policy. “It’s tempting to think he’s just inept,” Romney said, “but the reality is, he does have a foreign policy” — one that is “weakening our military and distancing us from our allies.”
A poll by Democracy Corps, a Democratic group, showed that those who voted in Tuesday’s GOP-leaning elections favored Romney over Clinton, 46 percent to 45 percent. A Des Moines Register-Bloomberg News poll released last month showed Romney as the only potential 2016 candidate who would beat Clinton among likely Iowa voters, 44 percent to 43 percent.
In an interview with Fox News on election night, Romney dodged 2016 questions but noted that he campaigned in 27 states this year. “I am going to continue to fight and campaign for people who I believe in, that can get the country going in the right direction,” he said. |
Two women pass by the poster of movie Monkey King: Hero Is Back in Sanlitun area of Beijing. [Photo/China Daily]
Despite the success of Monkey King, investors need to pick film projects carefully for funding: experts
Chen Zunlang is just one year old but his name has already been emblazoned across the big screen as a producer of China's summer blockbuster movie.
Although he was never captured on film, Chen joined the list of 109 "kiddie producers" with an average age of less than four. All of them were from 89 Chinese families, who invested 7.8 million yuan ($1.23 million) to help market Monkey King: Hero is Back through crowdfunding.
"The model of crowdfunding is born for filmmaking," Lu Wei, executive producer of the movie, said, adding that investors can reap the rewards within a year.
Based on the Chinese legend of the Monkey King, the film has become a smash hit since it was released in July, making a record-breaking 956 million yuan at the box office.
Naturally, this is good news for the 89 families that invested less than 90,000 yuan each. They are likely to make a whopping 200,000 yuan on their investment.
"With the (June) turmoil affecting China's stock market, everyone is looking for new avenues to invest," Lu said. "Apart from being regular financial products, movies are art. They can connect with investors in a deeper way."
The film industry has been quick to embrace crowdfunding, which allows small investors to finance business ventures through online platforms.
"I raised 5 million yuan within 5 hours after I spread the word that I was seeking investment online," Lu said. "We launched the crowdfunding plan (on WeChat, which is owned by Tencent Holdings Ltd) at the end of last year to raise marketing investment for the movie."
But while Monkey King: Hero is Back has been an incredible commercial success and an excellent advert for the power of crowdfunding, many film projects end in financial disaster after flopping at the box office.
"Last year, the total investment in China's filmmaking industry was more than 80 billion yuan while the total box office was about 30 billion yuan," Huang Guofeng, an analyst with consultancy firm Analysys International in Beijing, said. "The majority of investors end up with nothing. It is a very high-risk industry for investment."
Still, this has not stopped small investors hoping to strike it rich. Since crowdfunding is relatively new here, the business model is still evolving, particulary in the creative arts sector such as television and filmmaking.
Figures released by Yingcan Consultancy in Shanghai showed there are about nine online platforms in China offering crowdfunding opportunities for investors in movie and TV projects.
"Nearly half of the platforms have less than 10 projects and about 36 percent fail to raise the target they aim for," the consultancy reported.
Although there are no hard numbers for this section of the crowdfunding industry, the rise of Internet sites points to growing demand.
"We have noticed an increasing number of platforms that offer this kind of crowdfunding services for movies and TV programs, but we don't anticipate explosive growth in the near future. It will be a gradual expansion," Huang, of Analysys International, said .
Already, Chinese online giants Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Baidu Inc have launched Internet platforms catering for crowdfunding opportunities in the film and TV sector.
Liu Chunning, head of Yulebao, Alibaba's site dedicated to support entertainment industry projects, revealed that the platform has raised 670 million yuan for 29 projects, including movies, TV series and shows since last year.
But most of the cash raised was used for marketing products such as posters, toys and other memorabilia. "About 60 percent of the Hollywood economy comes from the derivative products," Liu said.
"Through crowdfunding, movie makers and producers can reach their target audience and engage them as early as the start of production and provide more value-added services for their audience."
Online financing can also help market movies and TV programs in advance, such as Monkey King: Hero is Back, according to Chen Huan, chief executive officer of Hangzhou Xingxiangyi Culture Media Co Ltd.
"Through crowdfunding, producers can get the attention of a potential audience at the very beginning of the process," he said. "By analyzing and researching this target group of people, they can get important information in terms of casting and other decision-making procedures."
Chen's company has come up with a novel idea to push their latest film project, The Hunger Island, which is a science-fiction movie. The plan is to hold a nationwide casting competition to find the stars of tomorrow.
"Anyone who is interested in playing a leading role in the movie can sign up for the competition," he said. "The winner will get a cash reward of 200,000 yuan, professional acting training sessions and the chance to be famous.
"We are not short of investment for the film, but we are considering crowdfunding for a small proportion of the movie when we reach the next stage," Chen added. "It is good for marketing and can also reduce financial risks."
Li Qunlin, chief executive officer of Dajiatou.cn, a peer-to-peer, or P2P, lending platform, is not convinced. His Internet business has launched two crowdfunded TV drama projects, Nvrenhua Simeng and Huakai Rumeng, and considers it a waste of time to just use online finance for marketing.
"The projects on our platforms are equity-based crowdfunding," he said. "Investors can get real returns once the project makes a profit. I believe if you treat crowdfunding as a serious investment, a serious business, it can one day revolutionize the way how the film and television industries are financed."
But finding the right venture to invest in is crucial in a crowded marketplace. Many film projects end up disappearing without trace at the box office. Others just about break even after being released.
For every Monkey King: Hero is Back, there are countless movies consigned to the trash bin of history.
"The problem is you need to pick the projects carefully," Li said, adding that Dajiatou's first TV drama successfully raised 6 million yuan within a month because of its famous producer and array of stars. "We only choose films and TV programs with strong production teams ... we value tight budgets and early-stage investment."
For Lu Wei, the producer of Monkey King, there are bad movies, but there is no such thing as bad crowdfunding. "The most vital thing for the success of crowdfunded movies is whether or not they are good movies," he said.
"Good venture capital firms may have a success rate of 80 percent, while immature firms may see 80 percent of their projects fail. It is the same thing in crowdfunding."
After the spectacular summer hit Monkey King: Hero is Back, Lu is now planning to set up a crowdfunding platform dedicated to picking the most promising film projects for investors. "I hope 80 percent of the movies I choose to crowdfund can succeed," he said. |
16 prospects down, and four to go. We’re in to a selection of players that could make an impact with the Canucks in the very near future, if they were just given an opportunity.
In fact, today’s prospect is already on the big club’s roster, having just recently received his first NHL call up, though he’s yet to make his NHL debut, and there’s no guarantee that it’s coming soon. Nevertheless, we remain high on this offensive defenceman.
Jordan Subban checks in a number four on our midterm list of the Vancouver Canucks’ top prospects.
Qualifications
A quick review the criteria for consideration for the rankings:
The player must be 25 years or younger, and
The player must be eligible for the Calder Trophy next season.
As a result, players that are considered to be “graduated” to the NHL (Brendan Gaunce, Nikita Tryamkin, Jake Virtanen, Anton Rodin) are not eligible.
Statistics
Origins and Projections
The Canucks selected Jordan Subban in the fourth round, 115th overall, at the 2013 NHL Entry Draft. The youngest brother of NHL all-star defenceman P.K. Subban, and once-highly touted Boston goaltending prospect Malcolm Subban, Jordan has been operating in the shadows of his older brothers’ accomplishments for much of his life already.
Despite a small stature (he’s only 5-foot-9), cohort models have always looked good on Subban, particular in the vein of expected production. His consistent offensive dominance at all levels ensures that his statistical matches are potent offensively, even when there aren’t very many of them.
Throughout the season, Subban has held one of the best cohort projections of any Canucks prospect – it’s damn impressive how productive he is at such a young age. Currently, some of his successful matches include Sami Vatanen and Torey Krug, two offensive defencemen who are overcoming their size limitations by providing undeniable value to their team.
As mentioned, the vast majority of Subban’s matches that do stick in the NHL tend to pile up a lot of points – four out of the five current successful matches were rated as first pairing defenders by the pGPS model.
One note on this: the model determines lines and pairing based strictly on production – ie., being among the top 60 scoring defencemen in a season will grant a 1st pairing rating (two 1st pairing defenders on each of the 30 teams) and so on down the line. However, power play scoring is not differentiated. In the NHL, I could see Subban skating on a lower pairing, while piling up points on the power play.
Scouting Report
The Elite Prospects scouting report on Subban provides a succinct summary of his abilities and challenges:
An offensive defenceman whose most prominent hallmark is his hockey sense. Very mobile skater that displays a high top-end acceleration. Offensively, his hockey sense is exhibited through his ability to create opportunities and make those small, meaningful plays along the wall and across the blueline. Backchecks hard but his size limits his physical effectiveness. His hockey sense kicks in defensively when he reads ahead of the play and cuts off passing and shooting lanes. Definitely needs to work on his awareness and proactivity defensively; however, his offensive game is all but elite at this point.
I added the bold for emphasis, because it provides a very accurate depiction of what he’s capable, and what he needs to work on. We’ve talked about Jordan Subban’s strengths and weakness ad nauseum in this space – now it’s time to show you.
There are two comments/responses that we get in regards to Subban above all others. One is, “can he really be worse defensively than Sbisa/Larsen/whoever?”, and the other is, “why don’t they just convert him to forward?”.
I’ll answer the question first, and we’ll just get this out of the way: it’s a terrible idea.
I understand the motivation behind it: guy gets a lot of points but struggles in his own end. Why not put him in an even more offensive position while taking him away from the area where he struggles? While this suggestion means well, it’s unfortunately overly simplistic, and is likely derived from a misunderstanding of Subban’s abilities. To move Subban further into the offensive zone is to limit his ability to do what he’s actually good at – controlling and creating plays from the point.
Subban’s comfort zone is along the top of the blueline, as the Comets like to employ a 1-3-1 formation on the power play that involves heavy rotation of the high man and the forwards on the sideboards. On the first unit, Subban controls the play up top, while Grenier is typically the trigger man at the left circle, and the centre of the unit (originally Michael Chaput, now either Curtis Valk or Pascal Pelletier) distributes from the right circle.
Subban is also adept at changing angles up top to get shots through – something that Troy Stecher has also been lauded for. The difference here is that Subban has a substantially better shot than Stecher does.
Stecher’s advantage over Subban is that he’s considerably more responsible in terms of positioning and anticipation. Subban on the other hand has been known to make poor reads rather frequently, and at the worst times, such as when he’s the last man back.
Which brings us to our other frequently asked question: how bad can he be in his own zone?
The answer, unfortunately, is pretty bad. Subban struggles in multiple areas of defensive play, including position, board battles, gap control, and decision making under pressure. Given time, he can race the puck through all three zones, or make a 60-foot tape-to-tape pass. But when forecheckers bare in on him, he can have trouble making the simplest of plays.
Even while on the power play while charged with leading the breakout, this has been an issue. As a result, he was often saddled with a second defenceman on the power play, in spite of Travis Green’s preference for four-forward units.
These types of mental errors have notably decreased since the beginning of the season, but even so, they are evidence as to why I’m been supportive of the Canucks keeping him in the minors while he irons out these issues. Even now, getting through a whole game without an facepalm-inducing giveaway is a recognizable achievement – which should tell you how far he’s had to come in that regard.
Still, I believe that Jordan Subban is destined to become a full-fledged NHL player. Given his skillset, I see him as a middle-to-bottom pairing defenceman at even strength, tasked with running a first unit power play. I’d postulate that he’s already the best power play quarterback in the organization (including Troy Stecher or Alex Edler) once inside the opposing blueline. It’s everything south of that line that might make Willie Desjardins pull his moustache hairs out.
Which brings us to another question, one that I referenced back during one of Andrey Pedan’s many recalls: can Subban ever thrive in a Willie Desjardins’ lineup?
As a side note on Subban, there’s an argument to be made that he just isn’t Willie Desjardins preferred type of defenceman. He’s a high event player that producing offence while also bleeding it in the other direction. Even though he might come out on top in the end, that doesn’t exactly mesh with the low event, outscore-the-opponent-2-1 hockey that the Canucks have been attempting to play for a lot of this season. Which is why there are a lot of us that believe there’s fire to the smoke that is the trade rumours surrounding him.
As a side note, TSN’s Craig Button was recently asked about trade interest in Subban around the NHL. He noted that there isn’t much of a market for the offensive defenceman at this point, given that every other team is aware of the same defensive issues that the Canucks are worried about. At this point, teams might want to wait to see whether Subban can conquer these deficiencies before offering something tangible for him. Of course, if he did make strides in that area of his game, the Canucks should absolutely be holding on to him.
Subban’s goals-for percentage with the Comets this year is a respectable 51.2%, which is 6.4% better than the Comets are performing when he’s not on the ice. This furthers the idea that, even though Subban can leak goals in the wrong direction, he’s still ending up tilting the ice towards the opposition. He still most certainly qualifies as a high event player. Despite missing six games, no Comets defenceman has been on the ice for more 5-on-5 goals, either for or against, than Jordan Subban. He’s been on the ice for the second most goals for (after Colby Robak) and the second most goals against (after David Shields).
He only recently rose above the 50% mark, and I’d think some of the credit for that achievement belongs to Colby Robak.
Robak has been the Comets’ best all around defenceman this season, and was paired with Subban for several games before Subban’s call up. Prior to that, Subban had spent a lot of the season with younger partners like Ashton Sautner and McEneny, or less reliable ones like John Negrin. The stable presence of Robak did wonders, as Subban was free to be himself and looked less hesitant doing so knowing that Robak would quickly recover turnovers – which in turn seemed to lead to less turnovers.
This is a welcome discovery, as it indicates that if Subban is paired with the right partner, he can contribute without being too great of a risk. The Canucks would do well to experiment with this. Giving the dearth of offence from their defence corps, they can’t really afford not to see what Subban has to offer.
Subban is set to play in the AHL all-star game at the end of the month, though I’m sure the next game he’d like to see himself playing is in the NHL. The Canucks are facing the two worst teams in the NHL on the road over the next two games – prime opportunities to try out a defenceman that could be a big part of the future, if he’s just given the chance. We’ll see if the coaches have the courage to give it a shot. |
The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutras community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.
INTRODUCTION
I’m about to tell you something you already know. Having good music and sound in video games is very important. Yet I think we’re on different pages, because I believe it to be VERY important. If not the MOST important. And here is why:
The visuals in a game mostly talks to your conscious mind. We can immediately notice a beautiful object in a game, or point out a great movement. We are used to talk about the visuals in life, we have a lot of words to describe what we see. We can easily define what something looks like (”the clouds look fluffy and grey-white”) but it tends to be much harder with sounds (”it sounds weird”). Why is that? Because sound mostly talks to our unconscious mind. It takes the highway around your brain, right into the feels. And that is why it is such an important tool in story telling, and that is also why it’s repeatedly neglected by game producers not familiar with the powers of audio.
Before creating games I worked a long time as a composer and sound designer for stage productions. Theatre audio and game audio has a lot in common. There is no timeline (as in e.g. film), so you’re creating a world for the actors / players to exist in. You need to come up with clever ways to dissolve and progress your atmospheres, because there are very few hard cuts during the story telling. I.e. the space is constant, and noticeable changes in sound can easily ruin the immersion. I’d like to talk about some of my ideas regarding sound and music in video games, and give a few simple tips on how to create a thought-through sound experience.
THE CAMOUFLAGE AND THE SUBCONSCIOUS
I’ve read somewhere that it’s the first second of a note that defines what instrument is being played. If you would for instance cut away the first part of a recorded flute playing one note, it’d be hard to hear what instrument it was. On the same note, if someone hears the first second of a flute playing, the listener will know that it’s a flute and will not pay any more conscious attention to it. Voila, we have access to the listeners subconscious area, and we can start manipulating that note into something else. This concept works exceptionally well when creating game sound atmospheres.
Say the player walks into a kitchen, and there’s a big fridge humming loudly. As soon as we’ve seen the fridge and connected it to the sound, the conscious mind will pay no more attention to it. Next, the player opens a locker. Slowly transforming that fridge sound into something else will communicate with the player subconsciously, telling him something is changing, or something is not right. But the player himself probably won’t know why. If we’d slapped a sound right when he opens the locker the sound would have been experienced consciously, and it wouldn’t have worked as well.
TEXTURING A SOUND
We’ve all heard the lonely, out of tune piano in horror productions. There’s a reason why. A great way to create horror is by distorting something that is considered safe and familiar. By taking a piano and bending the pitch, we transform it into something we’re not in control of, hence making it scary. I’d like to say that this phenomenon work on ALL sound and music. I like to call it texturing a sound, by adding layers or effects to familiar sounds. This is where your creativity sets the limits. Sometimes the sounds I create consists of ten different sounds, all working in different parts of the spectrum.
If a door sounds to weak, add the sound of pouring gravel, or boiling water, or a screaming horse. Audio is simple that way, as long as you have a dominant sound, additions won’t make it less believable, only give it a stronger personality.
The only thing that you can’t mess with is reverb. Humans are experts on detecting when a room doesn’t feel right, or two sounds with different reverbs are mixed wrongly. Always work with ”dry” sounds, adding reverb in the very end, or most preferably inside the game engine.
USING THE TECHNO FILTER SWEEP TRICK
Say you want to create a factory atmosphere. A constant, monotone machine sound. Well, you can’t. One minute after listening to that sound the player will go nuts. You need to set the mood during the first 30 seconds or so, and then you’ll have to start adjusting. If a sound is too monotone, it’ll eventually break immersion and the player will hear it consciously. If you start fading down the volume that’ll also be too apparent.
In these cases we have two possibilities: Either we have a number of different machine sounds, which we slowly cross fade in-between. Or we use a filter sweep, constantly adjusting the high, low or mids of a sound. Kind of like the sweep break used in techno, but 50 times slower. A constant change in the EQ create wonders when listening to a sound for a long time.
Slowly blocking different parts of the EQ spectrum can also be a great way to adjust volume.
THE PLACE OF MUSIC
Writing music for games is an entirely different thing than just writing music. It has to melt into everything else, giving support to what is happening, but never telling the whole story. As ordinary music sits right in front of your face, the game music should always be a part of the background.
Every composer works differently, but I'd like to throw in some pointers. Using a reoccurring theme is a wonderful way to tie everything together. Using instruments that conjoins with the sound design of the game is another. Work with contrasts - using monotone music before a melodic part is a great way to amplify emotion. Switching soothing music for dead silence is another. Try to envision your music as a body, and put it into your game. Does it fit? What if I made it smaller? Bigger? What if I replace the head with an ice cream cone? Every game is different, and the only way to know what will work is through trial and error.
When games get this kind of audio treatment, that is when the magic happens. When a snow storm is portrayed with superior audio, when the ending is amplified by a great theme, when the gun firing in your hand feels like it’s about to burst open. That’s when you’ll experience amazing gaming, and without good sound that chance is lost. It’s as simple as that.
Niklas Swanberg is the creator of horror game Sylvio, and is currently hosting a Kickstarter for the development of Sylvio 2. |
The Chinese market has been flooded by Android-based phones, iOS devices, and now even Microsoft is working its way up with Windows Phone. The Chinese government is trying to put a stop to this trend by making its own operating system based on Linux, for phones and tablets.
Breaking away from Google, Apple, and Microsoft might not be so simple, but it seems that the Chinese government is really taking this issue seriously. According to the official announcement, the other operating systems from the companies mentioned above are predisposed to security problems and these issues must be addressed somehow.
The interesting fact is that even Ubuntu has been mentioned among the operating systems with security issues, but not details have been given.
The new operating system will be aptly named China Operating System or COS. It’s being developed by The Chinese Academy of Sciences, The Software Institute, and the Shanghai Alliance Tong Network Communications Technology Co., Ltd.
The new Linux-based operating system intends to feature high-performance native apps, HTML5 applications, and a JAVA virtual machine.
The operating system has been released, but there are no details about the companies who are going to have devices based on COS. |
On its 36th anniversary, Ben Wray speaks to Dennis Canavan, Gordon Wilson and Isobel Lindsay, who all had a part in what has been described as one of the most dramatic nights in UK political history: the vote of no confidence against Labour's minority Government in March 1979
ON 28 March 1979, SNP votes helped bring down a minority Labour government in a vote of no confidence in the House of Commons. Under Margaret Thatcher's leadership, the Tories went on to win the General Election that took place a few months later, and the Conservatives went on to rule Britannia for 18 years. The event is seen as one of the most dramatic in UK political history, and has been used as a stick to beat the SNP with by the Labour party for years since. But as the 2015 General Election nears, and the possibility of a minority Labour government relying on SNP votes to stay in power increases, is there more than petty political point scoring to take from the 1979 experience?
1.) The 40 per cent rule
Gordon Wilson became SNP leader shortly after the 1979 General Election, where he was one of only two (out of 11) SNP MPs who managed to hold onto their seats, and his recollection of the reasons behind the SNP voting against James Callaghan's minority government is calm and clear.
"The SNP's support had been collapsing for a year or two," Wilson tells CommonSpace. "Against that background, combined with the fact that the party felt Scotland had just been robbed of devolution, the National Council [the key decision making body in the party at the time] decided our new strategy would be to give an ultimatum to the government: either accept the yes result of the referendum, or we won't support the government."
The referendum on devolution of powers to Scotland had taken place just weeks earlier, on 1 March. A majority backed a yes vote, but 'The Scotland Act' was not passed as anti-devolution Scottish Labour MPs managed to get a provision passed that stipulated up to 40 per cent of the total electorate had to vote yes.
The referendum had a 64 per cent turnout, and therefore with 51.6 per cent voting yes, it only amounted to 32.9 per cent of the registered electorate. The same vote would have secured an independent Scotland in the referendum last year, but was not enough to secure devolution in 1979 because of Robin Cook's clause (introduced by George Cunningham) in The Scotland Act.
Wilson says a good insight into the mindset of SNP MPs after the 1979 referendum is to look at the intensity and commitment of the independence movement after September's referendum last year.
"Let's imagine there was a referendum now," Wilson says, "and the UK government decides to put an arbitrary number on how much of the registered electorate has to vote yes. And then a majority votes yes, but not a big enough majority to suit the government. Then that same government has a vote of no confidence a few weeks later. Given the movement that exists today, what would those SNP MPs decide to do?
"You have to put yourself in the situation at the time," Wilson concludes.
2.) "What are they going to do? Back the Tories?"
It is highly unlikely the crop of SNP MPs, that is set to grow substantially after May's General Election, will face a referendum scenario to deal with. However, it is well within the realms of possibility that they will face a minority Labour government that has little sympathy with the SNP's cause.
A Labour insider told The Herald that, if there is a minority Labour government, the SNP will not get "anything" in return for Scottish nationalist votes.
"What are they going to do? Back the Tories?" The source said.
Prior to the vote of no confidence in 1979, Callaghan refused to give the SNP any concessions either, and the outcome was that the SNP did vote for the Tories motion against the government.
Isobel Lindsay was on the SNP's national council at the time of the vote, and tells CommonSpace that she, as well as others in the party, thought that "there would be some concessions because Labour would not want to face an election".
"The view that prevailed among Labour ministers was that the SNP would lose their nerve and make sure that a few of their MPs would abstain and that was their expectation right up to the vote," Lindsay added.
This view was based on the fact that Callaghan's minority Labour government had constantly sought to negotiate to stay in power for three years previously. In that time, it had lost many votes in parliament, and scraped through on others.
Lord Hattersley, Labour prices secretary from 1976-79, said in a BBC Documentary that "the sick and the lame were constantly being brought in" to secure majorities for Labour in tight votes.
"There was quite often two or three ambulances in the lobby," he added.
In December 1978, Thatcher had lost a no confidence vote against Callaghan's government by 10 votes, with the SNP's support crucial in propping up the government.
Callaghan had by then already missed his opportune time to call a General Election in the summer of 1978, when his government was ahead in the polls. By the time winter had come round, Labour's pay policy had collapsed in the face of striking trade unions that sought pay rises at a time of high inflation.
The 'Winter of Discontent' saw dead bodies unburied and rubbish pile up on the streets as the trade unions flexed their muscles, and Callaghan's support collapsed.
In this context, Lindsay says: "Labour were almost certain to lose" the General Election, whether they survived a vote of no confidence was fairly inconsequential.
"All the claims of letting Thatcher in are nonsense - Thatcher was going to get in within six months. It was the anti-devolution Labour MPs who undermined their own government and prevented the majority Scottish opinion from prevailing," Lindsay adds.
One Labour Lord, who describes himself as just "a low level foot soldier in 1979", told CommonSpace he agrees that "the SNP cannot be wholly blamed for Thatcher".
"People love to re-write history," he added.
3.) "Sometimes you've got to hold a line"
Could a compromise have been found between Labour and the SNP to prevent the government falling?
Some Labour MPs have admitted that Callaghan was fed up and unprepared to offer the sort of concessions that would have allowed him to win the vote of no confidence.
Appeals were made to Callaghan by Lord Donoghue, head of the Downing Street policy unit, to "make some concessions" to win the vote, but Callaghan was described as "priggish" in response.
He acted, according to Donoghue, like an "honourable vicar in the face of corrupt politicians, when he ought to have done those things to win the vote".
Wilson concurs with this, saying Callaghan "had basically had enough", and the SNP would have been prepared to compromise if Labour offered something.
"If, for example, we had been offered a serious industrial development fund for Scotland," Wilson says, "we could take that to the public and to our party and say: 'we've negotiated a package'."
Wilson says Michael Foot, who would become the next leader of the Labour party, went to Callaghan with an offer to buy off the SNP, but it was rejected by the prime minister.
"To be honest we were desperate for some sort of compromise," Wilson adds. "But we got nothing. So at that point it's retreat, or go ahead.
"If you back down, and just let all your demands go, with no compromises from the other side, people would say we were just bluffers. That we'd never hold the line. So sometimes you've got to hold a line," Wilson concludes.
4.) "Turkeys voting for Christmas"
The SNP held the line, and in the House of Commons, in a famous speech, Callaghan lambasted the Scottish nationalists and the Liberals, who also voted against the government, as "turkeys voting for Christmas".
"We can truly say that once the Leader of the opposition discovered what the Liberals and the SNP would do, she found the courage of their convictions," Callaghan said.
"So, tonight, the Conservative Party, which wants the Act repealed and opposes even devolution, will march through the Lobby with the SNP, which wants independence for Scotland, and with the Liberals, who want to keep the Act. What a massive display of unsullied principle!
"The minority parties have walked into a trap. If they win, there will be a general election. I am told that the current joke going around the House is that it is the first time in recorded history that turkeys have been known to vote for an early Christmas."
Callaghan did seek and win the support of the three Plaid Cymru (Welsh nationalist) MPs by offering them support for slate quarries, an important factor in two out of three of the Plaid Cymru MPs' constituencies.
Labour whips also attempted to convince Callaghan to agree to a pipe line to Northern Ireland to secure the votes of Ulster unionists, and there were also discussions about increasing the number of constituencies in Northern Ireland that would boost the number of Ulster unionist MPs.
Callaghan apparently refused these deals too, but two Ulster Unionist MPs did vote with the government because they got a new deal from Hattersley on Northern Ireland's prices policy.
The flirtation with the Ulster unionist MPs was part of the reason that two moderate Irish republican MPs voted against the government, which was the deciding votes in defeating Callaghan.
The story about how Frank Maguire abstained from voting is notorious. Maguire was known to be sympathetic to Labour, but was on strict orders from republicans not to back the government. When he travelled over to vote he was rushed into meetings with Labour party whips and pressured to vote with the government.
Gerry Fitt, the other independent republican MP, spoke during the debate, saying it would be "despicable" if Maguire voted with the government. Maguire's wife was in the public gallery, and as soon as she heard the speech she found her husband and rushed by this stage a very drunk Maguire out of the parliament and back home.
There was one final way Callaghan could have secured the vote. Dr Broughton MP was fatally ill and in hospital, but wanted to come down for the vote as he was loyal to the party and knew he was going to die anyway. He could have voted from the ambulance in the court, but Callaghan said no.
5.) "If you are given a promise by a UK party, don't believe it"
And the rest, as they say, is history. It was the first time a government had been brought down in a vote of no confidence since 1924. What lessons are there for today?
Wilson says he doesn't think it likely SNP MPs will face a similar situation in the next government, but does concede that a vote over Trident renewal as part of a government budget, for example, could create a similar dilemma as in 1979.
The possible political permutations are difficult to follow: it's not clear, for example, that trident renewal would be part of the government's budget, and therefore it's possible that the SNP could support the government on a "vote by vote basis", as Alex Salmond has described it, and support the government's budget while voting against it on other votes, like over trident renewal.
The complications arise from the simple fact that the Westminster system is not predicated on clear rules: almost everything is subject to political machinations.
Wilson's advice for new SNP MPs entering this Machiavellian political cauldron is not to get "caught up in Westminster politics not relevant to Scotland", and to make sure decisions that are taken are "to the benefit of the people of Scotland, and seen to be so".
"And also," Wilson adds, "if you are given a promise by a UK party, don't believe it."
6.) Salmond and the '79 Group
Wilson says that one of the outcomes of the SNP's decision vote against the government was the rise of a new generation of SNP politicians in the left-wing '79 group', a faction within the party with Alex Salmond among its leading figures.
"One of the '79 group's issues is they were very defensive about bringing down the Labour government, and they didn't want to get into that position again," Wilson said.
Dennis Canavan, who was a Labour MP at the time of the 1979 vote of no confidence before later leaving the party and leading the Yes Scotland campaign in the referendum debate, believes the SNP has "learned from past mistakes".
"Many people, especially traditional Labour voters, never forgave the SNP for voting with the Tories and it took the SNP a long time to recover from their 1979 blunder," Canavan tells CommonSpace.
"But a lot of water has gone under the brige since then," Canavan says. "Labour has lost its soul, whereas the SNP is proposing a social democratic anti-austerity agenda and is standing by its commitment to get rid of trident. Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond have also made it absolutely clear that they will never do a deal with the Tories."
Time will tell if Salmond, a keen student of political history, will take different decisions to his predecessors, and whether those decisions will fundamentally shape Scottish and British political history, like on 28 March 1979.
Picture courtesy of Keir Hardie |
Who says bartenders aren’t looking out for our health? Lately, a fair number seem dead earnest in making sure that patrons get their daily allowance of calcium.
Milk punch, a sweet, cold, elegant blend of dairy and liquor that dates back centuries, has become a hot item on bar menus across the nation. A California milk punch, which typically calls for rum, spices and a rumlike spirit called Batavia arrack, holds down a place at the Coachman, a fledgling San Francisco restaurant where most of the cocktail selections hail from the 19th century, and at Underdog, a new subterranean tavern under the Growler in Lower Manhattan.
Punch House, which opened in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago last year, ladles out an ancient brandy-based formula known as Mary Rockett’s Milk Punch. Eastern Standard, a Boston bar, changes its milk punch recipe every few months, and the New York restaurant Betony offers a different milk punch even more often. Play, the new cocktail bar associated with the Museum of Sex, in Midtown, has a Korovazon Milk Punch made with pisco.
These drinks are not creamy, like the brandy or bourbon milk punches common in New Orleans; they are clarified elixirs. Cold ingredients are combined with hot milk so that the milk curdles; the blend is filtered repeatedly until the liquid becomes clear. This can take hours. Then, typically, the punch rests for a day or so until served. If you don’t have the time, you don’t have this punch. |
Reliance on stellar goaltending, a suspiciously high shooting percentage, grotesque shot-clock differentials: No, it isn't a scene from the House of Hockey Horrors at the Air Canada Centre. Look 500 kilometres to the east.
Statistical indicators suggest a market correction is looming for the Montreal Canadiens, a team that somehow just keeps on winning.
Perhaps the Habs have discovered a methodological loophole in the form of Carey Price, a man who has little use for stats.
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Not likely. Math is unkind that way, but it's a comforting thought if you're a Montreal fan.
As they approach the midpoint of the season – Saturday's tilt against the mighty Pittsburgh Penguins will be their 41st game – the Canadiens hover near the top of the Eastern Conference.
This despite a middling power play, bottom-third possession numbers and the 19th-best goals-scored-per-game ratio in the NHL, which together foreshadow a hard landing at some point.
How to explain a team that so often struggles to move the puck out of its own end yet has the third-best defensive top-line number (goals against per game) in the league?
Well, it might be the C.P. variable.
Since October, 2013, only Boston's Tuukka Rask has posted a better even-strength save percentage than Price among regular starters. And since the Sochi Olympics, no one has (same story if you adjust for shot quality, as the stats site war-on-ice.com does).
The factoid was a surprise to the 27-year-old B.C. product.
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"Sometimes they hit you, I guess," he shrugged.
The bigger picture has diminished in importance for Price, particularly since he started working with goalie coach Stéphane Waite prior to last season.
On Waite's advice, Price keeps a Zen monk-like focus on preparing for the next game.
"I'm not a big stats guy, and neither is Steph … statistics are kind of irrelevant when it comes to preparing for the next game," he said.
Price's .927 save percentage is third among goalies with 25 or more starts, and his goals-against average of 2.20 is tied for third.
More than that, he's become the unquestioned leader of a dressing room that doesn't have a captain this season – and a walking excuse to not pay attention to the indications that the good times can't last.
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"I don't know if the regular measures apply when you have a goalie this good. I would argue we can give up more shots than most other teams without it hurting us as much," said winger David Desharnais, whose production has benefited from a shift away from his natural centre position.
The coaches are more preoccupied with scoring chances – for and against – than any other metric, and Desharnais allowed that the club is keen to clamp down more effectively on gilt-edged opposition chances in the second half of the season.
"You want to get all those numbers down, but at the same time it's been a pretty good season so far, and I think we have a lot more to give," Desharnais said.
Price makes similiar noises when asked if he's found the Holy Grail of goaltending (and of hockey in general): consistency.
"It's like golf: There's always room for improvement," he said, smiling. "If you have 82 shutouts in a season, I guess you might not improve a lot. But if you're not improving, somebody else is. That's the mindset we have around here."
There's a school of thought that goalies actually don't improve significantly over the course of their careers, although long-time observers of Price will quibble with that contention, and his stretch of fine play since Sochi suggests otherwise.
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When teammate Brendan Gallagher was asked if he had observed any changes in his teammate since the gold-medal performance in Russia, he just laughed.
"I notice that he's really good – that's about it. Whenever I score on him in practice, I celebrate," said Gallagher, who has 11 goals on the other guys' goalie this season.
If there's one thing the Habs have shown over the past couple of seasons, it's that it doesn't pay to underestimate them.
After all, they have a player who allows them to bend the usual statistical rules. |
Cameron-Artis-Payne-runner-Bennett.jpg
Auburn running back Cameron Artis-Payne takes a handoff from Nick Marshall on the first day of spring practice on Tuesday. (Julie Bennett/[email protected])
Every good football fan knows the basic statistics: total yards, rushing defense, yards per carry, sacks, tackles, etc. But like any statistic, the basics rarely tell the whole story, and in this series, AL.com aims to identify a few key numbers to watch as Auburn's 2014 season unfolds.
The question: With so many running backs in the mix, could Gus Malzahn use a by-committee approach similar to what LSU has done in the past?
The stat: Single-season carries.
The numbers: In eight seasons at the collegiate level, Malzahn has always had one running back emerge and carry the ball roughly twice as much as any other player at the position. A few backs, like Felix Jones in 2006 at Arkansas and In 2013, that was Tre Mason, who carried the ball 317 times -- the most for any Malzahn-coached running back -- but the rule applies to his time at Arkansas, Tulsa and Arkansas State, too. With the exception of last season, when Cameron Artis-Payne got 91 carries, the No. 2 running back in terms of workload is almost always the speed option: Onterio McCalebb averaged more than 100 carries in his three seasons with Malzahn.
The exception: When Malzahn has a running quarterback like Nick Marshall or Cam Newton, the quarterback can become a featured player in the running game; Newton led the 2010 team in carries by a wide margin, with 264, ahead of Mike Dyer's 182. Even in that scenario, though, the division of carries among running backs remained the same.
Why it matters: With Mason plying his trade in the NFL, there's some thinking that if redshirt freshman Peyton Barber or true freshman Roc Thomas impress early, they could force a committee situation with Artis-Payne. If Malzahn's history is any indication, though, a lead back will grab the role at some point in the season. For example, after three games last fall, both Mason and Artis-Payne had 39 carries. Then Mason carried the ball 26 times for 132 yards against LSU, and their roles were clearly defined. With Corey Grant already entrenched in the speed role, watch the first three games against Arkansas, San Jose State and Kansas State closely. That's likely when the lead back will emerge. |
The State of California has passed a controversial law decriminalizing prostitution for minors by treating them as victims, not criminals, but that has some legislators arguing that in theory, it legalizes child prostitution.
SB 1322, authored by Sen. Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles), was part of a series of bills Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law in that will go into effect on January 1, 2017. While solicitation and loitering with the intent to commit prostitution are misdemeanor crimes, SB 1332 bars law enforcement from charging minors — anyone under the age of 18 — with prostitution.
Thank you @JerryBrownGov for signing SB 1322 and showing that California loudly states that "There is no such thing as a child prostitute!" — Holly J Mitchell (@HollyJMitchell) September 26, 2016
SB 1332 was reportedly adopted on a floor vote of 41 to 27 before receiving Gov. Brown’s signature. Mitchell authored three other bills that address the illegal trafficking of juveniles in California, namely SB 955, SB 1165 and SB 1388; all of them were signed into law.
In an op-ed blasting SB 1332, Assemblyman Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach) writse of the “unintended but predictable consequence of how the real villains — pimps and other traffickers in human misery — will respond to this new law.” He says that while “pimping and pandering will still be against the law,” SB 1332 “will only incentivize the increased exploitation of underage girls.”
The text of SB 1332 states:
Existing law makes it a crime to solicit or engage in any act of prostitution. Existing law makes it a crime to solicit of engage in any act of prostitution. This bill would make the above provisions inapplicable to a child under 18 years of age who is alleged to have engaged in conduct that would, if committed by an adult, violate the above provisions.
A lawyer by training, Allen credits Democrats for being “sincere in their belief that decriminalizing underage prostitution is good public policy that will help victims of sex trafficking.” However, he also notes the “immoral” consequences associated with what sees as the decriminalizing child prostitution and the misguided nature of SB 1332.
“Unfortunately, the reality is that the legalization of underage prostitution suffers from the fatal defect endemic to progressive-left policymaking: it ignores experience, common sense and most of all human nature — especially its darker side,” Allen writes.
AB 1332 also allows officers to take these minors and other sexually exploited youth into “temporary custody”, but only “under limited circumstances,” such as situations in which their lives are at risk.
Allen argues in favor of having police officers take child prostitutes into custody, in order to help these young victims escape their abusive “pimps,” writing, “[m]inors involved in prostitution are clearly victims, and allowing our law enforcement officers to pick these minors up and get them away from their pimps and into custody is a dramatically better solution than making it legal for them to sell themselves for sex.”
Last year, local and federal authorities passed similar measures. On October 21, 2015, Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell announced that minors caught up in sex trafficking will no longer be counted as suspects, but as victims in cases handled through the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department.
One day before McDonnell’s announcement, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors passed a motion unanimously — echoing a phrase coined by child rights activists — stating, “there is no such thing as a ‘child prostitute’.” Instead, anyone under the age of 18 will now be considered a victim.
During an August 6 meeting of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Supervisor Dob Knabe — who was supportive of SB 1332 — stated, “as we all know [the bill] also contains the language that there’s no such thing as a child prostitute.”
On Thursday, the hashtag #CaliforniaDemocrats began to trend on Twitter in response to reaction both for and against SB 1332:
I am so completely disgusted. We should be working to PROTECT children, not legalize child prostitution. #CaliforniaDemocrats — #ThePersistence (@ScottPresler) December 30, 2016
I am a former child abuse prosecutor! California democrats just decriminalized being a victim of child sex traffickers! Kudos! — Sara Spector (@Miriam2626) December 30, 2016
California Democrats recognize children forced into prostitution are not criminals, but victims. Go after pimps & john's, NOT kids. — ♀️ ᵀᴴᴱ – (@Im_TheAntiTrump) December 30, 2016
So #CaliforniaDemocrats is trending because conservatives would rather treat child prostitutes as criminals rather than victims. Sick people — J-San 👨🏫 (@lawdood) December 30, 2016
Glad I switched parties when I did. The Democratic party is an embarrassment.
Disgusting, moral-less, cry babies.#CaliforniaDemocrats — Josh (@JoshNoneYaBiz) December 30, 2016
Allen’s op-ed has stirred a flurry of negative responses from the left. California’s Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León tweeted, “Shame on Republicans who are twisting the facts.”
#CaliforniaDemocrats created a law to protect children who are victims of sex trafficking. Shame on Republicans who are twisting the facts. — Kevin de Leόn (@kdeleon) December 30, 2016
“Unfortunately for Californians, SB 1322 isn’t an outlier — it’s only the tip of the liberal iceberg,” Allen argues. “2017 will see the Golden State subjected to wave after wave of laws taking effect that are well-intentioned but disastrous embodiments of progressive utopianism.”
Follow Adelle Nazarian on Twitter and Periscope @AdelleNaz |
Description: My experience streaming fumbbl. Just a laugh I enjoy both but though it was funny.
Ok so we cant find a game
We've been lloking at the menu
screen for 20 mins
I think we should keep trying
maybe we will find a game
it's fine I'll just play
fumbbl I have a league game
Sir, but the graphics
give me eye cancer
I'd rather watch MML
than fumbbl
I dont care Im playing fumbbl
Where did evereyone go?
There was like 30 people here
People wanted to see new races
I'm playing new races
People would rather watch
ps4 tilt cam streams
who have a +ag krox
And he just made a vanity dodge
Sir, +ag Krox is fun
Rules that work properly are fun
But I cant follow fumbbl
And you didnt understand bb2
then you learnt
All these people who want new races
and you could play them so easily
and dont even start on league tools
Seriously it's a surprise anyone
signs up for admin work on bb2
And then they say fumbbl has bad graphics
Enjoy your polished turd
I just want to play blood bowl
against good opponents
with all the rules
But people want to see
me roflstomp NoseDive
Not play vs a great coach on fumbbl
Did I even mention col?!?
I can play a quicker better game on fumbbl
But people want to see sneaky git black orcs
It's ok sneaky git black orcs are viable
I think I need a drink
Now Fashbinder_
is bming me
Well atleast everyone here likes fumbbl
In the future people will appreciate good gameplay despite graphics.
I guess I'll just play Keerunch |
Ipswich Mall in 2017 - where the people are not. Credit:Tony Moore But they say things are beginning to change. "We still believe," Khadija Hussan said. Ms Hussan said they went to a recent information session about the city heart redevelopment. "And we still believe in it and hopefully they are going to make it."
Beck and Jaydah from North Ipswich at Riverlink. Credit:Tony Moore Most of the Ipswich Mall – beside Ipswich train station – will be demolished from July allowing a $50 million new Ipswich Library, a new civic area and a water park beside the Bremer River to be developed over two years. The overall $150 million plan will see the old Woolworths department store demolished and the Ipswich CBD mall once again opened to the Bremer River for the first time in 30 years. The Icon building on Brisbane Street. It now has more than 1000 state public servants. Credit:Tony Moore Nicholas Street – covered over as the mall – will return as a one-way street and connect up to Bell Street near the Ipswich train station.
The Ipswich Mall – described by traders as "a graveyard" – will be ripped up from August. 'We still believe': Ipswich Mall traders Khadija Hassan and Victoria Doka stand in front of empty shops. Credit:Tony Moore "Demolition works soon to commence to Woolworths area and part of car park to create the site for new office building. Expression of Interest is due to be released this week, and tender packages to be released by end of March," Ipswich chief executive officer Jim Lindsay confirmed with Fairfax Media on Thursday. Agreement was signed on Tuesday night for a new 16,000-square-metre Ipswich City Council building valued at $120 million. The new Ipswich with a new library (front centre), council chambers (centre) and parkland (left).
But the first step will be opening the mall to Bell Street at ground level and installing regular "pop-up markets" to bring people back to the Ipswich Mall. Ten years ago Ipswich City Council approved a new retail centre called Riverlink directly across the river from the old Ipswich CBD. Riverlink has flourished and is now full of brand-name retailers, young families and restaurants. However, the old Ipswich CBD just froze and died. Ipswich is the second regional Queensland city – after Maroochydore – to build a new CBD. Ipswich mayor Paul Pisasale said the long-term restructure of the central Ipswich was not a quick fix.
"This has been going on for nearly 15 years," Cr Pisasale said. "People think you can do it overnight, well you can't. "If I can put the rates up 20 per cent I could, but we can't. We've got to do it by being smart." Ipswich City Council took a $45 million loan from Queensland Treasury Corporation in 2009 and transferred that money in a loan to Ipswich City Properties to redevelop the city's heart, because private-sector owners were loathe to spend money in the city centre. Ipswich City Properties is 100 per cent owned by Ipswich City Council and in December 2016 had assets – i.e. inner-city Ipswich land and properties – of more than $30 million.
Over at Riverlink, one young family from North Ipswich said they had begun to notice the change in the centre of town. "I think Riverlink has just taken off in the last five to eight years and left the city for dead," Ben said. However, his partner Beck said new cafes were beginning to emerge in the old part of town. "There is a lot more foodie places there," she said. "Over here at Riverlink are all the brands you know, but over there is a bit of a resurgence of the foodie type of stuff." What is about to happen?
1. Demolishing buildings along Bell Street and building an inner-city park opposite Ipswich station, renovating Murphy's Pub and having pop-up markets and food carts. Union Place in Bell Street will close in June 2017 to begin the new connection to Nicholas Street. Begins: June 2017; finishes April 2018. 2. Building a new Civic Plaza beside the Bremer River; including the new library, terraced gardens and council building. This faces Riverlink. Begins: August 2017; finishes September 2019. 3. The Laneway Precinct – towards the northern Brisbane and Ellensborough Street block; where two- and three-storey buildings will be built around a "green piazza". It wants to attract units and student accommodation.
Begins: June 2019 as development partners confirmed. 12 years to build a new Ipswich city heart February 2005: Riverlink at North Ipswich gets go-ahead and promises to protect 140-year-old rail heritage. 2005-09: Failed attempts to lure business to Ipswich Mall as River Link takes off. One overseas owner threatens to board up the centre after Council questioned their motives.
Ipswich Mall and Ipswich City Square begins to fade. 2008-09: Bligh Government promises to shift 1200 public servants to Ipswich by 2012. March 2009: Ipswich City Properties formed to buy out Ipswich City Square and the Mall. Ipswich City Properties operates on a 15-year, $45 million loan from Ipswich City Council, which the council borrowed from Queensland Treasury Corporation. December 2011: Nine-storey Icon building begins on Bell and Brisbane streets.
It was sold to Cromwell Property Group for $93 million. December 2013: Queensland Government agrees to fully lease the Icon building for 15 years for public servants. It promised 1200 public servants by October 2014. January 2015: Icon Building has 840 public servants, including 359 from Brisbane. July 2016: Ipswich City Properties decides to redevelop Ipswich Mall. March 2017: Icon building now has 1028 public servants, working either full-time or part-time, from the Departments of Education, Health, Workplace Health and Safety, Infrastructure and Local Government, communities and SEQ Water. National Disability Insurance Scheme staff move in in two weeks.
March 9, 2017: Expressions of interest are called for the redevelopment to begin. |
Bloodbros
I don’t usually get nervous before races, but today is different. Even the pre-race briefing is enough to get my heart thumping in my chest. I furtively scan the faces of my fellow runners, trying to avoid eye contact. One way or another, the next hour is going to be eventful. Two possible outcomes await: a personal best and a top-five finish, or a very public shaming. And that’s because I’m about to cheat.
Not for prize money, you understand (I’m not in that league). Nor to hit a qualifying time for a flagship race. No, this is lower grade stuff. An eye-catching result, an ill-deserved boost to the self-esteem, a chance to indulge in a little online bragging. My social media network is full of runners, quick runners. Wait till they get a load of this.
Am I the only cheat here today? Probably. But I’m certainly not alone in the wider running world. Cheating among amateur runners – and amateur cheating, come to that – is an increasingly common phenomenon, statistically and, particularly, anecdotally. Numerous races report rises in anomalous results that require investigation, there’s a steady trickle of high-profile offenders, and running forums and message boards positively thrum with the issue. Blogs and websites have been set up devoted to catching, exposing and deterring this curious sub-species. Cutting the course is the most common form of cheating. Often it’s a corner for an incremental gain. Other times it’s more flagrant: jumping a barrier to cleave chunks off the course, or hitching a lift to just short of the finish before soaking up the ill-deserved glory. Then there are bib mules – those who carry two or more bibs around the course, registering bogus times for friends or even clients.
For those who keep tabs on this peculiarly modern phenomenon, the names of the most outrageous cheats trot off the tongue with the ease of a roster of Olympic champions: Jason Scotland-Thomson, the personal trainer who ran the second half of the 2014 London Marathon quicker than Mo Farah; Rosie Ruiz, who was briefly the winner of the 1980 Boston marathon before it was discovered that she’d run only the final mile; Rob Sloan, the Sunderland Harrier who was accused of hopping on a spectator bus at the 20-mile point of the Kielder Marathon, before rejoining the race and taking third. He was later disqualified.
And who can forget Natasha Argent, sister of TOWIE star James? The 26-year-old ran 3:48 in the London Marathon – not overly conspicuous until you learn that she ran the second half of the race in a miraculous sequence of sub-four- minute miles, and showed no record of passing several checkpoints. Race authorities asked her to explain the anomalies. She said she’d had a panic attack and got lost on the route.
Derek Murphy has been at the forefront of exposing a string of amateur cheats. The Cincinnati-based business analyst, who hung up his trainers when he ‘got older, got injuries, had kids’, now devotes every spare moment to catching and deterring ‘cheaters’, as he calls them, through his Marathon Investigation website.
So successful has he become that he has informal agreements with a number of events around the world. Murphy’s modus operandi is simple: relentless attention to numbers. Almost everything he needs is out there, he says. Race splits, pacing stats, historical training data. He is measured, calm, analytical – about as far removed from a bile-spewing vigilante as one could hope to meet.
‘It started with a case I discovered of a runner who cut the course in a qualifying marathon,’ he says. ‘It sent me down a rabbit hole from which I haven’t come up yet.’ He’s not sure whether runners are cheating more today, or just getting detected more often, but he believes cheats are getting ‘more creative’. ‘It’s a cat-and-mouse thing and there’s a bit of a thrill to it, definitely,’ he says. ‘You’ll be looking at a runner and there’s nothing in their history to suggest they’re capable of the time they’ve clocked. I can’t quite prove it and then when I do, it’s a bit of a rush.’
The willingness to cheat in low-stakes races is particularly baffling given that is has become exponentially harder to do so in recent years. Not only have dishonest competitors got the likes of Murphy hot on their heels, but stats are everywhere for any online amateur sleuth to pore over: from results- aggregating websites such as Athlinks, looking at a runner’s competitive history, to historical training data through public Strava accounts. Depending on the scale of race, you also might expect to find timing mats clocking your times at intervals throughout; radio communication between marshals or volunteers; and video recordings of starts and finishes.
And then there’s the photographic evidence. Big marathons will have numerous official photographers and innumerable unofficial ones (who doesn’t own a smartphone these days?); pieced together, their images make it possible to create something akin to a stop-frame film of a runner’s entire race. When pictorial gaps appear, suspicions are raised.
Beat the cheat
I encountered an understandable resistance among some race directors to discuss the issue of cheating. Few events wish to be seen as a soft target for posting false times, and there’s tainting by association. ‘It’s not really an issue we want to throw any light on,’ says London Marathon race director Hugh Brasher, adding, ‘We’re not into naming and shaming.’ The race’s policy is to investigate any anomalous results and ask for an explanation from the runner. If they’re still not satisfied, they ask for the finisher medal to be returned and ban the runner for life.
The Great Run Company, whose finishers number more than 250,000 a year, doesn’t just rely on stats to identify cheats. Increasingly it finds that its races are ‘self-policing’, with other runners contacting the organisation to draw attention to suspicious, or downright dishonest, behaviour. For communications director David Hart, cheating is an ever-present concern: ‘I’ve been doing this job for a fair time and I see cheating crop up on a regular basis. There are certain tricks of the trade and a number of serial offenders we have our eyes on. For me it’s disappointing more than anything, but I can well understand the anger of fellow competitors who see themselves being done out of their rightful place – even if that is 3,800th rather than 3,799th.’
South Africa’s Comrades Marathon, the oldest ultra in the world, is less reticent about its cheating problem. At the elite end, it holds the unenviable record for possibly the most elaborate race fraud, when ninth-placed Sergio Motsoeneng swapped bibs with his twin brother, Fika, mid-race in 1999. They were caught when photographs emerged of Sergio’s watch on a different wrist – and a scar miraculously appearing on his left shin.
Sixty-six runners were caught cheating in the historic 90km race last year and, says race director Rowyn James, that number is ‘definitely climbing’. He’s not surprised. ‘The Comrades is a very well respected achievement throughout South Africa. We sometimes get contacted by recruitment agencies. They’ll be checking that a candidate has indeed done the Comrades as they’ve stated. Sometimes they haven’t.’
Comrades has six cut-off points, with timing mats. But to stop runners simply driving between these at an even pace so as not to arouse suspicion, there is an additional measure designed to root out cheaters. ‘We put out two undisclosed mats every year,” says James. ‘We have got to take tangible action to catch and discourage cheating because it could get out of hand. If you don’t take action, runners start to see the event as a soft touch.’
All of which is playing on my mind as my race gets under way. My cheating debut is well planned: I’ve chosen a smaller race, one without timing mats or a squad of photographers, and with a course that handily doubles back on itself. I’ve got a pre-identified hiding spot, a costume change (conspicuous to bland), water to spray over my head in lieu of sweat, and an anguished finisher’s look that I’ve honed through many a (genuine) marathon and ultra marathon. All the pieces are in place.
As I take up a steady pace I can’t help but ponder the motivation for amateur running cheats. Like many modern-day ills, the finger is readily pointed at social media: running, for so long a solo, private enterprise, has now become a public performance. What races you’ve done, what times you’ve clocked – these are badges of honour but also tokens of acceptance to clearly defined social groups.
‘It’s far easier, and more acceptable, to brag about things today and I think that has infiltrated running, too. I think people have always cheated – there’s just more incentive now.’ This is Robert Johnson, the 44-year-old co-founder of LetsRun, a US-based running website that has a million unique users per month. On the issue of cheating, its forum resembles an amorphous, less restrained version of Derek Murphy – identifying and hounding out cheats remorselessly. The site’s tagline is ‘where your dreams become reality’. However, for anyone who’s suspected of cheating, it’s more of a nightmare.
Ask Rob Young from Richmond, west London. In 2016 the self-styled Marathon Man was attempting to break the record for the fastest crossing of the United States on foot, but his unrealistic daily mileages and paces quickly drew the attention of LetsRun and the scandal took off. Eventually, his sponsor, Skins, ordered an independent investigation. Some of the GPS data submitted revealed that his cadence was suggestive of strides close to 50m. The only conclusion? That he spent long periods either travelling in, or on, his RV support vehicle.
Young has since all but vanished from public view and he proved impossible to contact for comment. He’d written on his website: ‘I respect the conclusions of the investigators...I admittedly made mistakes with the data management and recordings, but never did I cheat.’
But isn’t amateur cheating a victimless crime? Is it really any worse than bragging about the number of pints you drank the night before? Indeed, given the way running has supplanted boozing in many people’s leisure agenda, isn’t it merely the modern version of same? As one post on the LetsRun forum put it: ‘I mean seriously, does anyone really care? People cheat at work, at play, and in competition. If a guy at the office isn’t passing off your work as his own, then somebody else is jumping the queue. There’s bigger fish to fry.’
Derek Murphy would disagree but is aware he’s not universally loved. Most in the running community seem to admire his assiduity, but there are plenty of others who see it as misplaced, or even self-serving. One comment I found online said: ‘In many ways you are no better than a cheater, and actually worse because you try to profit off it.’ [Murphy asks for contributions to cover expenses.] A vocal supporter of that view is Chicago-based lawyer Scott Kummer. A podcaster with a running show called Ten Junk Miles, he describes himself as ‘quite possibly the most painstakingly average runner known to man’. But get him started on this subject and he’s off at a bracing pace.
He sees the public shaming tendencies as a throwback to the days of the stocks and is disturbed by the zeal with which people turn to social media to identify alleged offenders – rather than to race directors or the individuals themselves. ‘The notion that we’re going to put these people on social media, where millions of people are going to see it, that’s scary,’ he says. ‘We’re not talking about Paula Radcliffe or whomever; they are public figures who should have to take this kind of stuff. This is often just some 4:30 marathoner, an accountant or something. It’s Schadenfreude Inc in my book.’
His views have been hardened by the plight of a friend, 35-year-old Meghan Kennihan. She ran a small 50km race near her home in La Grange, Illinois, called Earth Day Race. This year they changed the course and she ended up cutting a corner unintentionally. Not a lot – her Strava later showed it was around 0.15 miles.
But the woman she beat (by a margin) into third, got wind of this and headed straight for the 3,000-strong Facebook group they both belong to. ‘It was the most ridiculous thing in the world,’ she recalls. ‘She was hashtagging her posts about me with #coursecutter and #cheater. I challenged her, saying why didn’t she confront me directly. It was particularly bad as I’m a personal trainer and a running coach and a lot of people find me through these groups. This could affect my livelihood.’
Kennihan returned the plaque and medal she was given and wrote a blog explaining the error (the race director later absolved her, admitting that a marshal who should have been directing the runners was on a toilet break). But, like an unwanted tattoo, it’s hard to get rid of a digital footprint, particularly one carrying the hashtag #cheat.
Why bother?
Few organisations have done as much to popularise running in recent years as parkrun. Around 130,000 runners compete in 500-plus events across the country every weekend, and with its free entry, reliance on volunteers, and its family-friendly wholesomeness, it’s the embodiment of the amateur ethos. So has cheating become an issue?
‘I have never given any thought to this, to be honest,’ says a spokesman. ‘I can’t recall anyone ever being accused of cheating. I suppose our model discourages it (almost prevents it) because parkruns aren’t races. Participants only receive a time – there are no winners. So if you did cheat, you’d only be cheating yourself.’
That’s not strictly true. I’ve run one parkrun – Alice Holt Forest, in Surrey – and my result was texted and then emailed to me within a few hours. ‘Your time was 21:59. You finished in 25th place out of 326 parkrunners. You came seventh in your category VM40-44.’ This looks like a race to me – not only against everyone present on the day but also, through the age grade percentage (mine was 62 per cent), everyone in your age group around the world.
And it’s Alice Holt Forest through which I’m now running at a sedate eight-minute-mile pace, pre-emptive guilt coursing through my body. As my chosen spot approaches I slow to a walk, hands on head, then veer off into the forest feigning exhaustion/ illness/a call of nature emergency (my acting skills aren’t quite advanced enough to differentiate). By the time I’ve finished not having a wee, most of the field have passed.
I strip off my fluorescent top and red cap to reveal an anodyne grey vest, and look at my watch: seven minutes have elapsed. I’ve got around 11 to kill. Sun dapples the forest floor; it’s a warm summer’s morning and rather pleasant. Soon I hear a footfall and panting, and a wiry chap in a green vest bounds past. A hundred metres behind him is another runner – he’ll certainly know he’s second. A pause, and three more. Time to make my move. I inch nearer the track, keeping myself concealed, then empty my water bottle over my head and set off up the hill around 20 feet behind the sixth-placed runner.
He’s struggling. I’m certainly not. I pass him, panting theatrically, and emerge on to the crest of the hill and the gauntlet of volunteers marking the finish line. ‘Great effort!’ says one, as I pass, faux pain etched on my face. I stop the clock at 20:06 – around two minutes quicker than my personal best – and go to get my barcode scanned. Slightly illogically, I’m disappointed not to have broken the magic 20-minute mark.
I don’t hang around, walking back into the forest and then looping round to walk down the track I’ve just run up. The trickle of finishers is now swelling and I get to see the vast majority of the 300 or so runners pass. Beaming youngsters; dads with prams; a couple of 70-something ladies holding hands as they chuckle- grimace their way up the hill; and, right at the back, a good three or four minutes after everyone else, a proud mum with her very young daughter – no more than four or five. ‘You’re doing so well, my love – almost there,’ she encourages. I can’t meet their eyes. I feel grubby. This should be the plight of all race cheats, I decide. To walk the course in reverse order, to see the whites of your fellow runners’ eyes.
My official results arrive a few hours later, when I’m sitting at home feeling unsatisfied; running for just eight minutes doesn’t suit me. I post the following on my Twitter and Instagram accounts: ‘Smashed it in my 5km parkrun this morning – took 2 minutes off my personal best, with 20:06. That tantalising “breaking 20” is within reach, it seems.’
I get five likes, two retweets and a sarky comment from a colleague.
Pretty small return for my integrity. I post again a few days later. ‘I’ve got a confession. I cheated in my parkrun.’ A far greater buzz this time. Derek Murphy, whom I’d forewarned, gets in touch. He thinks my margin of improvement would have been just about within the realms of the plausible. ‘It is possible the guy that finished right behind may have decided to look at your history, but short of an eyewitness, I think you would have got away with it.’
I take little pride in that. I do indeed feel like I’ve cheated myself. But, also, strangely, like I’ve cheated the entire sport of running and, by association, anyone who laces up their trainers to pit themselves against others for little more than the fun and satisfaction of doing so. [Duncan contacted parkrun prior to publication to explain what he’d done, and his time has been annulled.]
Robert Johnson puts it best: ‘The average person that runs gets into the sport for a simple reason: the harder you work, the better you get, by pushing your body to the limit. People who cheat in these amateur races – they’re openly mocking that. ‘So if you ask me whether I have a problem with other runners going after them, I’d have to say...absolutely not.’ |
CALDWELL -- The body of a 28-year-old Caldwell man has been recovered after he drowned in Lake Lowell on Memorial Day.
The Canyon County Sheriff's Office was called out to the Lower Dam swimming area at 5:38 p.m. after witnesses saw the man disappear under the water.
Sheriff's officials say Denny J. Denn swam out to a buoy, then went under as he attempted to swim back to shore. The Caldwell Fire Department and the Gem County Dive Team were called in to help search for Denn.
His body was found at 7:44 p.m., 20 yards offshore in about eight feet of water.
The drowning is under investigation.
The sheriff's office urged people to use caution around Lake Lowell and other waterways as temperatures heat up.
Copyright 2017 KTVB |
Young Einstein VHS cover Directed by Yahoo Serious Produced by David Roach
Warwick Ross
Yahoo Serious Written by David Roach
Yahoo Serious Starring Yahoo Serious
Odile Le Clezio
John Howard Music by Martin Armiger
William Motzing
Tommy Tycho Cinematography Jeff Darling Edited by David Roach
Amanda Robson
Neil Thumpston
Peter Whitmore Distributed by Warner Bros. Release date 15 December 1988 ( ) (Australia)
(Australia) 4 August 1989 ( ) (United States)
(United States)
Running time 91 minutes Country Australia Language English Budget $5 million[1] Box office $24.9 million
Young Einstein is a 1988 Australian comedy film written, produced, directed by and starring Yahoo Serious. It is a fantasized account of the life of Albert Einstein which alters all people, places and circumstances of his life, including relocating the theoretical physicist to Australia, having him splitting the atom with a chisel, inventing rock and roll and surfing.
Although highly successful in Australia, and winning an award from the Australian Film Institute Awards, it was poorly received by critics in the United States.
Plot [ edit ]
The film begins with Albert Einstein (Yahoo Serious) as the son of an apple farmer in Tasmania in the early 1900s. He is uninterested in the family business, but shows an interest in science, especially in the study of physics. His interest leads his father to show him his grandfather’s “laboratory”, a shed in the middle of the Australian bush where he made beer. His father tells him that they have tried for years to introduce bubbles to beer, saying that the person who can will change the world forever.
After a day’s worth of heavy drinking, Albert postulates the theory of Mass–energy equivalence (E=MC2) as a formula to split beer atoms to create bubbles in beer. After spending all night preparing, he splits a beer atom (with hammer and chisel), which causes the shed to explode. Albert runs to his parents, blackened from the explosion, carrying the formula and a glass of beer with bubbles in it. His father tells him to head to the Australian mainland and patent the formula. Once arrived, he boards a train for Sydney, where he is introduced to Marie Curie (Odile Le Clezio), a Polish-French scientist studying at the University of Sydney and Preston Preston (John Howard), the pompous manager of the Sydney Patent Office. Marie is fascinated by Albert, while Preston is annoyed by him. Albert tells Marie of his theory, which she finds fascinating.
Once arrived in Sydney, Albert finds lodging in a whorehouse, and finds that the patent office will not accept theories, but only applicable ideas that apply to inventions. Albert leaves and meets Marie at the university, only to upset her professor by erasing his work and writing his own theory, causing him to be comically thrown out. She reiterates his brilliance and is seemingly more taken with him than before.
Meanwhile, Preston is attempting to woo Marie with his upper-class lifestyle. During a performance at a social club, she mentions that Albert’s theory has merit and is extremely interesting. Preston takes this as a challenge to his romantic aspirations and has his clerk call Einstein in to take his formula for safe keeping. Preston then turns the formula over to the Bavarian Brothers, a pair of brewmasters who intend to use the formula to get rich.
Meanwhile, Albert continues inventing things (such as Rock and roll and the electric violin), he also begins a romance with Marie, he takes her to the beach and demonstrates surfing for her. As they are leaving, Marie comments that she wished this moment could last forever. Suddenly, Albert has a realization and comes up with the theory of Relativity on the spot. Marie is amazed that he came up with that so quickly. As they return to the hotel, the clerk tells him that Preston is creating a keg using his formula.
Albert runs to the Bavarian Brothers to tell them that they cannot create this keg, they claim that Einstein is insane and have him committed. On his way to the mental institution, he meets a group of deranged scientists, including Ernest Rutherford. Once committed, his electric violin is destroyed by the nurse and he is kept isolated from the outside world in an electric cell. Marie confronts Preston about his theft of Einstein’s research and his commitment to an institution. Preston counters that Einstein would have done nothing with it and he was trying to help everyone.
Marie infiltrates the institution under the guise of Einstein’s father, she confronts Albert in the shower room and tells him of Preston’s plot. When Albert says there is not much he can do about it now, Marie storms out saying she needs a man of action. Albert rebuilds his violin into an instrument more resembling an electric guitar, he plugs it into the electrified door and plays the instrument, shorting the door out and escaping.
He returns to the hotel to find a note from Marie, saying she has left Australia and returned to France. Albert finds a small steamboat and sails to France to confront Marie. She initially rejects him, but acquiesces when he tells her he’s prepared to stop Preston. They use the Curie family hot air balloon and head to the Nobel ceremony in Paris that night. Many inventors and scientific luminaries are there, such as the Wright Brothers and Sigmund Freud.
Charles Darwin announces Preston Preston is the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize for his discovery of putting bubbles in beer. Preston begins his speech, but is interrupted by Albert, who questions if Preston even knows what happens when an atom is split. When Darwin realizes that Preston has (unknowingly) built an atomic bomb, he orders Preston to stop. Preston scoffs the warning and starts the keg, which starts shaking and building up pressure.
Einstein attaches his guitar to the keg as a way to drain the atomic keg, Marie tells him not to as this would kill him. Albert sends her away and starts playing a riff on the guitar, this seems to work as the keg begins to lose power. Preston attempts to kill Einstein, but is knocked unconscious by Marie. Albert is starting to feel the effects of siphoning off the energy from the keg as he starts to radiate pure energy. This causes a massive feedback, then an explosion.
As the smoke clears, Albert is standing there, blackened (like before in the shed), but otherwise unharmed. He and Marie kiss as the assembled crowd cheers for him. He returns to Tasmania with the keg and the Nobel Prize (in his name). He tells his family that he will give his formula to the world instead of keeping it for personal gain. Marie questions what will happen if governments use that formula to create atomic weapons. Albert naively replies “If you can’t trust the governments of the world, then who can you trust?” Albert steps in front of the mic and says that he has learned a new theory out of this, he then pulls up his guitar and starts playing a rock song to the delight of the assembled crowd.
Cast [ edit ]
Production [ edit ]
Serious first became interested in Albert Einstein when he was travelling down the Amazon River and saw a local wearing a T-shirt with a picture of a physicist on it.[2] The image was that of Einstein sticking out his tongue, taken by photographer Arthur Sasse.[3]
On returning from the Amazon, Serious adapted a previous screenplay called The Great Galute which he had written with David Roach. It was a story about an Australian who invents rock and roll. The two developed The Great Galute into Young Einstein.[4]
The film was created on an extremely low budget, so low that Serious sold his car to generate funds, cameras were borrowed,[5] and his mother cooked for the crew.[6]
Serious managed to get Australian Film Commission support for the movie. By March 1984, an hour of the film had been shot, partly by the AFC and partly by private investment.[7] Serious was then able to pre-sell the film to an American company, Film Accord, for $2 million. This enabled him to raise the film's original budget of $2.2 million.[8] The movie started filming again late in 1985 and went for seven weeks, from 23 September, taking place in Newcastle and Wollombi, near Cessnock in the Hunter Valley, with second unit at various locations throughout Australia. A 91-minute version of the film was entered in the 1986 AFI Awards where composer William Motzing won Best Music.[1][9]
In 1986, Film Accord sued the production to recover its distribution guarantee and the rushes, claiming the film delivered was not the one it had contracted to buy. The dispute was settled out of court.[7]
Serious was unhappy with his first version of the film.[10] Graham Burke from Roadshow saw it and became enthusiastic about its possibilities. Roadshow bought out Film Accord in March 1987, persuaded Warner Bros. to take on the film for international distribution outside Australia, and financed re-shooting, re-editing and re-scoring, resulting in an hour of new material (including a new ending) and new music score (including the addition of songs by bands such as Mental As Anything). This pushed the budget of the film up to $5 million. Warner Bros. contributed A$4 million to the full version of the film, and would go on to spend eight million on marketing the film in the United States alone.[6][11]
Serious' key collaborators in the movie were co-writer David Roach, co-producer Warwick Rodd and associate producer Lulu Pinkus. He has said it helped that they all shared the same vision for the movie which got them through the long production process.[10]
Serious refused to consider making a sequel to the film, as he stated in interviews that he was opposed to them in general.[2]
Reception [ edit ]
Critical response [ edit ]
The film received negative reviews in the United States, with Spin describing the release as a "marketing misfire" due to Warner Bros. "PR department's penchant for overkill".[12] Roger Ebert called it a "one-joke movie, and I didn't laugh much the first time." He postulated that the possible lack of appeal to an American audience was because "[b]y moving Einstein to Australia, he was able to set up comic situations that appeal to the vast and inexhaustible fascination the Australians have about their own isolation and gawky charm. But the jokes don't travel very well."[13] He gave the film one star out of a possible four.[14] The reviewers at the Washington Post were unimpressed: Rita Kempley called the film "dumber-than-a-bowling-ball" and questioned its mass appeal; Desson Howe noted that distributor Warner Bros. had made it a "pre-processed legend" regardless of merit.[15][16] The New York Times was more tempered, noting that though the film was "an uneven series of sketches strung along an extended joke", that the first time director Serious "is a much more adept film maker than his loony plot suggests."[17]
The Los Angeles Times gave a favorable review, saying the film would appeal to younger audiences and that "it's just about impossible to dislike a movie in which examples of the hero's pacifism include his risking his life to save kitties from being baked to death inside a pie."[18] Neil Jillett of Australia's The Age reviewed the film positively, noting that despite some "directorial slackness", the film was "a lively work that is sophisticated and innocent, witty and farcical, satirical and unmalicious, intelligent but not condescending, full of concern with big issues but not arrogantly didactic, thoroughly Australian but not nationalistic."[19] Variety meanwhile thought that the film relied on the performance of Yahoo Serious, who they described "exhibits a brash and confident sense of humor, endearing personality, and a fondness for sight gags."[20] Although giving it a low rating, Leonard Maltin stated, "any movie with 'cat pies' can't be all bad".[21]
In the UK, William Russell for the Glasgow Herald described the film as trying "too hard to be funny for its own good." Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 36% rating based on reviews from 33 critics.[22]
Box office [ edit ]
Young Einstein grossed A$13,383,377 at the box office in Australia.[23] On release in Australia, it became the fifth biggest opening in Australian film history behind "Crocodile" Dundee, "Crocodile" Dundee II, Rocky IV, and Fatal Attraction. It grossed A$1.26 million in the opening weekend, despite being released in only three states.[24] It was only the third film of 1988 to exceed the A$1 million mark at the Australian box office.[24] Young Einstein became the tenth most successful film released at the Australian box office,[25] after being the second most successful Australian film ever on release after "Crocodile" Dundee.[26]
In the United States, it debuted at #8 on opening weekend.[27] US distributor Warner Bros., hoping for similar crossover success as "Crocodile" Dundee, spent US$8 million on a major marketing push.[28] It continues to be regarded as a flop.[29] It ended its US theatrical run at $11,536,599.[30]
The film has been released on DVD in region 1. The DVD is available in Australia by LA Entertainment.
Awards and nominations [ edit ]
See also [ edit ] |
This article is over 3 years old
More than 100 people have died and up to 1 million have fled their homes, with areas of Burma declared disaster zones and India also badly hit
Heavy monsoon rains have continued to lash much of southern Asia, threatening further casualties and more destruction after a week of lethal floods and landslides.
More than 100 people have died and up to 1 million fled their homes as land from Pakistan to Burma was deluged.
In Burma, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi visited one of the country’s many flood-hit areas on Monday, raising her profile amid a national disaster that could have consequences in the general election due later this year.
Thein Sein, the president, has declared four areas of the country disaster zones, after slow and inefficient relief efforts were criticised in the press and on social media.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Burma opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi (centre) on board a boat making its way to a monastery where flood victims are being sheltered in Bago, Burma. Photograph: Khin Maung Win/AP
In India, the chief minister of West Bengal, in the east of the country, described the situation as beyond control.
Local officials said 48 people are thought to have died in the state and hundreds of thousands of villagers have been taken to relief camps. The death toll is thought likely to rise.
Another 28 deaths were reported in Rajasthan, western India, where rescue workers evacuated nearly 1,000 people to higher ground. Five people were killed in the eastern state of Odisha.
The annual monsoon season in the region runs from June to the end of September but, though a lifeline for farmers, often causes hundreds of deaths as well as severe damage to homes and food crops.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Footage of the destruction caused by flooding in India
Poor infrastructure and limited search and rescue capabilities routinely hamper relief efforts. Roads, phone lines and electricity are knocked out by rising waters while poorly maintained sewers overflow and contaminate drinking water supplies. Some villages are cut off for weeks.
India, which receives nearly 80% of its annual rainfall from June to September, has seen a series of disasters caused by excessive rain. In 2013, floods in the mountainous north killed an estimated 6,000 people. Last autumn, a devastating flood hit the disputed region of Kashmir.
In 2010, Pakistan suffered massive floods, killing more than 1,500 people and causing damage estimated at between £7bn and £30bn.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A man takes his daughters home from school on a bicycle through a flooded road in Kolkata. Photograph: Rupak de Chowdhuri/Reuters
This year, the problems have been particularly severe in Burma. Thousands of victims in the poor, unstable state were already in camps for the displaced, including one in Kalay, Sagaing region, where residents described powerful flood waters swamping homes within hours.
“We’ve lost all that we have. Our house is still under water,” Htay Shein, 62, told Agence France-Presse from a temporary shelter in Kalay. “We have seen floods, but never anything like this before. This year is the worst.”
The United Nations warned swollen rivers threaten more areas of the country, adding it could be days before the true extent of the disaster emerges.
“Logistics are extremely difficult. Assessment teams are having a hard time reaching affected areas,” said Pierre Peron, Myanmar spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Rains have also battered the western state of Rakhine, which already hosts about 140,000 displaced people, mainly Rohingya Muslims, who live in exposed coastal camps following deadly 2012 unrest between the minority group and Buddhists.
Pakistan, which has experienced deadly floods at similar times every year since 2010, has seen 116 people die so far. Many casualties were in remote north-western areas.
Dozens have also perished in Nepal following floods and landslides. |
Workplace Shooting Spree Kills 4
Cedric Larry Ford, who allegedly killed three people and injured 14 others on Feb. 25 before police killed him, had been served shortly before with a restraining order meant to keep him away from a former girlfriend, Harvey County Sheriff T. Walton said.
The shootings occurred in a Kansas workplace, along with two other locations. Ford, 38, a Newton resident, was an employee at Excel Industries, one of the scenes, Walton said in a news conference.
Police said the shooter fired from his car and shot people at two nearby locations before unleashing a hail of bullets in the factory, hitting at least 14 people and killing three of them.
Ford later died in a gun battle when a police officer shot him despite taking fire.
At least 14 people were hospitalized, five of them in critical condition.
Walton said the carnage began about 5 p.m. when the gunman opened fire from his vehicle in a location nearby Excel. He hit two vehicles, injuring one person. After that, he went to another location where he shot a person in the leg, police said. From there, he drove to the plant, which manufactures heavy-duty lawn care equipment, where he opened fire before being killed by the police.
Police believe he had at least two guns on him at the time of the shooting. |
Story highlights Teenage from the Philippines is first Olympic figure skater from southeast Asia
Michael Christian Martinez started skating at age 8 at public rink
He has had just two months of full training because of financial factors
A Philippine teenager with a shy, crooked smile and expressive eyebrows -- who also happens to be the first figure skater ever to represent a Southeast Asian country -- qualified for the free skate after his performance on Thursday.
Michael Christian Martinez, the lone athlete for the Philippines, is an unlikely competitor from a country without snow.
Catapulted into the limelight after qualifying last year, his entire home country, which has never won a medal in the Winter Olympics, is rooting for him.
On Thursday, he finished 19th overall with a total segment score of 64.81 which means he'll move on to Friday's final free skate.
"I'd love to qualify for the free skate [top 24]; that would be a big accomplishment for me," Martinez, 17, said in an interview with NBCOlympics.com prior to the competition.
Philippines' flag bearer, Michael Christian Martinez, leads his national delegation during the Opening Ceremony of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
"I don't know what placement I'll get because my training is so different, but we'll see."
It's likely to be a David-versus-Goliath match-up. Facing medal favorites such as Japan's Yuzuru Hanyu and Canada's Patrick Chan, who rank first and second after the short program, Martinez has not benefited from the same intensive training as many of his competitors.
Maria Teresa Martinez, his mother, said her son had full training for two months before arriving in Sochi because of difficulties funding his Olympic aspirations.
Ice skating is a costly endeavor with expenses for travel, equipments and coaches.
His mother told CNN in an email that the family patched together donations from a local shopping mall ice rink, friends and his skating club. She said the family's life saving has been depleted and that their family's farm in Luzon province had been damaged by typhoons last year.
If Martinez hadn't qualified for the Olympics in 2013, he would've had to quit competitive skating because his family couldn't afford it, his mother added.
"Now that he qualified, we are hoping we can finally get support so he can continue, and try to qualify again in 2018, where he will be more matured and more ready physically and mentally," she wrote.
Regardless of how he fares this week, Martinez has come a long way.
Born in Paranaque City, Martinez was stricken with asthmatic bronchitis at two months old. As a young boy, he struggled with sports because of his asthma attacks.
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"I couldn't take up any sport. I tried outdoor sports when I was younger, but I easily got asthma attacks so I stopped," he said in his Sochi Olympic athletes profile.
"I had asthma maintenance medicine when I started skating, since the cold in the rink makes me sick too. But year after year, my health keeps improving, so my mother fully supported me to continue skating. She said it's better to spend the money on skating than in the hospital."
He got his first glimpse of skating after going to a shopping mall with his mother at age 8. He became mesmerized when he saw skaters spinning and jumping.
By age 12, he was competing in European junior competitions and winning gold without a coach, his mother said.
In 2010, he began training in the United States with coaches including John Nicks and Ilia Kulik, she said.
Martinez splits his time between Manila and Los Angeles.
In 2013, he came in fifth at the world Junior Championships in Milan. He is currently ranked 30th by the International Skating Union.
Martinez does not have a dedicated practice rink in the Philippines and has to use a public one, his mother said. In late January, Martinez nursed an inflamed knee, saying it was likely caused by skating on rough ice, according to an interview with Catholic News Service.
Martinez' social media accounts show a smile-prone teenager flashing peace signs in photographs and having the time of his life in Sochi. |
St. Vincent has a new album coming in the fall, official title unknown, but we do know it will include a vocal performance from an underground British artist named “Kid Monkey.” And now we know that Kid Monkey is actually Cara Delevingne.
In an interview with the New Yorker, Annie Clark talks about her new record which will be, in her words, about “sex and drugs and sadness.” There’s a song on the record called “Pills” which includes the lyric: “Pills to grow, pills to shrink, pills, pills, pills and a good stiff drink / pills to fuck, pills to eat, pills, pills, pills down the kitchen sink.” And that’s reportedly all Delevingne, who we’ve previously heard “sing” for her cut on the Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets soundtrack.
As for whether or not Clark’s new album will include some songs about Delevingne, who she dated for a little over a year, the answer is yes. As she told the Guardian on Saturday, “I can only write about my life, and that—dating Cara —was a big part of my life.”
But don’t assume it’s all about that! Clark knows people are going to read into every song on the record, and fans did think the lead single “New York” might have been about the model-slash-actress-slash-singer, even though she says it was a composite. Clark says that it’s sexist to assume her music can only be diaristic in that way. “Women do emotions but are incapable of rational thought,” she said. |
Kevin Pietersen was warned for trying to switch-hit too early © Getty Images
Kevin Pietersen has insisted that he will not abandon his switch hit after receiving a formal warning by the umpires for misusing the stroke during the second Test at the P Sara Oval.
Pietersen, en route to one of the most flamboyant of his 20 Test hundreds, shaped to play the switch hit before Tillakaratne Dilshan was in his delivery stride and later admitted he was not aware of the regulation that prevents him moving prematurely. Pietersen, who made his 20th Test hundred, began to get into place for the shot as Dilshan started his run-up and the bowler twice aborted his run up.
The incident occurred during an enthralling head-to-head between Pietersen and Dilshan, which had already seen Pietersen switch his grip around to strike the bowler through the off side. However, Pietersen then began to set himself earlier for the shot and Dilshan refused to deliver which led to a stalemate.
Asad Rauf, the umpire at the bowler's end, signalled the warning to Pietersen after the second aborted delivery after consulting with his colleague Bruce Oxenford. Pietersen gesticulated towards the officials, clearly unsure about what he was being penalised for. The immediate consequence was that if Pietersen, or any other England batsman, did it again during the innings Sri Lanka would be awarded five penalty runs.
"There's no issue, I just got my timing wrong," Pietersen said. "He said it was a warning because I moved my hands a bit too quick. I don't understand the rules, it's something I found out today, mid-innings, at a pretty unfortunate time. I've just got to switch my hands a little later, which I didn't know. You learn something new every day. Once I'd been warned I enquired about it."
Andy Flower, the England team director, immediately went to the match referee's room for clarification over the issue, his second visit of the match following his questioning of a review against Thilan Samaraweera on the first day. The ball after the official warning, Pietersen reverse-swept again and brought up his hundred. He went on to make 151 from 165 balls as England pushed for their first victory of the winter.
Oxenford, who was at square leg when the warning was given, spoke to Sky Sports after the day's play. "The ICC think switch-hitting is an excellent innovation," he said. "But when the bowler sees intent [in the batsman altering his stance] prior to delivering the ball and stops what can happen is we can get a stalemate situation...the bowler won't deliver because he wants to change his field if he thinks the batsman is going to switch-hit.
"When we get to that situation the way to move forward is to give the batsman an informal warning, then a formal one for time-wasting. If it happens again it's a team warning under time-wasting by the batting side and it's an automatic five-run penalty."
An ICC statement in May 2010 said: "The ICC Cricket Committee adopted the updated directive introduced earlier in the year which prevents the batsman from altering his grip or stance before the bowler enters his delivery stride. Should the bowler see a batsman change his grip or stance prior to the delivery stride the bowler can decide not to bowl the ball."
Graham Ford, the Sri Lanka coach and a mentor to Pietersen, appeared more to speed with the regulation. "The rule is quite clear: if the batsman sets himself up prior to the bowler's release and the bowler sees him and is able to stop the warning is issued. I think for about every single one he set himself up before the release except for the ones straight after the warning. I think it was all handled pretty well."
When Pietersen first unveiled the switch hit against New Zealand in 2008 it provoked debate about the legality of the shot because, for example, if a bowler wants to change from right to left arm (however rare that occurrence may be) he has to inform the umpire and the batsman. There are also implications for what fairly constitues a wide delivery or lbw. However, the MCC approved the shot, citing the difficultly level as a main reason, and hailed it as a good innovation for cricket.
"MCC believes that the 'switch-hit' stroke is exciting for the game of cricket," was the conclusion. "Indeed, the stroke conforms to the Laws of Cricket and will not be legislated against...MCC believes that the 'switch-hit' stroke is a difficult shot to execute and that it incurs a great deal of risk for the batsman. It also offers bowlers a good chance of taking a wicket and therefore MCC believes that the shot is fair to both batsman and bowler."
After this latest incident, the MCC added: "A batsman is still entitled to play the switch-hit stroke but he is only allowed to alter from one stance or grip to another once the bowler has entered his delivery stride. Pietersen should therefore have only been warned if the umpire was certain that Dilshan had not entered his bowling stride before the batsman shaped to play the switch-hit."
Pietersen believes there is more danger for the batsman and says it is a shot he will continue to play - if with slightly different timing.
"Like I said when I played it against New Zealand, I don't think the batsman should get penalised because I'm taking the biggest risk," he observed. "I've always said I'll play to that side of the field when there's no one there. I don't find it a hard shot, I can just manipulate the field when they bowl a leg-stump line. It's a shot worth playing."
Andrew McGlashan is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd. |
The House of Representatives just passed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), a dangerously overbroad bill that would allow companies to share our private and sensitive information with the government without a warrant and without proper oversight. CISPA gives companies the authority to share that information with the National Security Agency or other elements of the Department of Defense, who could keep it forever. The Obama administration issued a veto threat on CISPA earlier this week.
In a statement that we issued just after the House vote, ACLU legislative counsel Michelle Richardson stated, “CISPA goes too far for little reason. Cybersecurity does not have to mean abdication of Americans’ online privacy. As we’ve seen repeatedly, once the government gets expansive national security authorities, there’s no going back. We encourage the Senate to let this horrible bill fade into obscurity.”
We’ll have more tomorrow about the vote and common sense steps that that Congress should take into account as the cybersecurity debate continues; stay tuned.
Learn more about cybersecurity: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook. |
Experience, / By STA, G.M.
Few dishes are more closely associated with Slovenian national identity than potica. The dough roll with sweet or savoury filling is an integral part of any major holiday, but it is Easter when potica consumption reaches its peak.
At Easter potica consumption reaches its peak (Photo: slovenia.info)
Potica is any kind of pastry consisting of a sweet yeast dough rolled out thin and spread with a variety of filling that is then rolled up and baked in a round or square baking dish.
Although sweet walnut poticas are the dominant form, there are dozens of regional and local varieties, with spreads ranging from poppy seed, almond, fig and cream to carob tarragon and, for those who like it savoury, meaty greaves.
According to ethnologist Janez Bogataj, potica features in the cuisines of all Slovenian regions. "Every house has its own secrets and flavours," he writes in the book Creative Slovenia.
While walnut potica is now considered the gold standard, it all started with honey potica centuries ago, honey being among the oldest known sweeteners.
The first written mention of potica dates back to 1575, according to Gorazd Makarovič, a curator at the Slovenian Ethnographic Museum, though at that time it was called "povitica" and was also known as "štrukelj".
It started out as a food for the nobility in the 16th century, before gradually becoming a festive dish of the urban middle class in the 17th century and adopted by the peasant class in the 19th century.
Today almost every household will have potica on the table, though many will eschew the laborious process and just go for the store-bought variety.
The vast majority will probably reach for the walnut variety, but for the more adventurous palates tarragon will be the filling of choice.
As Bogataj notes, Slovenia is in some ways unique in combining tarragon with sugar. "In most other European countries it is used mostly with meat and savoury dishes," he says.
Since we are sure that you will come across "Potica" in the next few days we searched for a recipe and find one here. |
Unlike Bitcoin, which has doubled in the past few weeks (as the predicted Chinese buying onslaught indeed materialized), it hasn't been a good week for spot gold prices which have tumbled from $1,180 to just over $1,100. While the reason for the selling is unknown, with recurring speculation that an imminent Fed rate hike will make holding gold even more unwelcome in real terms (if not in India where gold now pays interest on par with inflation), what we do know is that as of yesterday the total registered gold at the Comex had dropped to a fresh record low following another transfer of "registered" gold into "eligible."
This reduced overnight the total amount of eligible gold by a third to just over 151,000 ounces, or under 5 tons as the zoomed in chart below shows.
And since the gold open interest continues to rise modestly...
... this means that as of today, the gold "coverage" ratio, or the amount of paper claims for every ounce of physical, has just hit a new all time high of 293 ounces of paper per ounce of registered physical.
Curiously, the last time we observed a comparable surge in the Comex dilution ratio took place just two months ago when a comparable "adjustment" reduced JPM's "Registered" inventory by 122,124 ounces. Back then many said the adjustment would be promptly reversed.
Two months later not only has that not happened, but JPM is now down to just 10,777 ounces of Registered while many other vaults continue to see either outright withdrawals or comparable adjustments.
How much longer can this exponential surge in the dilution ratio continue? We don't know, although with less than 5 tons of registered gold left in the Comex vault system, we hope that the mystery of what is really going on at the Comex will finally be unveiled. |
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