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THE man who has accused the Speaker, Peter Slipper, of sexual harassment and fraud was actively working against his boss' re-election as he continued to work in Mr Slipper's office.
The Saturday Age can reveal that James Hunter Ashby was actively promoting the preselection campaign of one of Mr Slipper's Liberal National Party political rivals in a series of YouTube videos while he was working as a media adviser to the Speaker.
James Ashby
The Saturday Age has also learnt that Mr Ashby held a secret meeting with another of the Speaker's political rivals and former Howard government minister, Mal Brough, just two weeks before his explosive claims against Mr Slipper were made public.
The subject of two videos compiled by Mr Ashby is a Sunshine Coast businesswoman, Peta Simpson, who intends - along with Mr Brough - to nominate for the seat of Fisher, now held by Mr Slipper. |
Anglican and Episcopal leaders have signed A Reforming Catholic Confession, which launched online Sept. 12. The confession launched with 250 initial supporters, including 15 Anglican leaders:
The confession affirms doctrines about God the Trinity, Holy Scripture, human beings and their fallenness, the person and work of Jesus Christ, the gospel, the person and work of the Holy Spirit, the church, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, holy living, and last things.
“[T]he one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church is God’s new society, the first fruit of the new creation, the whole company of the redeemed through the ages, of which Christ is Lord and head,” the confession says. “The truth that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, is the church’s firm foundation (Matt. 16:16-18; 1 Cor. 3:11). The local church is both embassy and parable of the kingdom of heaven, an earthly place where his will is done and he is now present, existing visibly everywhere two or three gather in his name to proclaim and spread the gospel in word and works of love, and by obeying the Lord’s command to baptize disciples (Matt. 28:19) and celebrate the Lord’s Supper (Luke 22:19).” |
Surprise, surprise. Donald Trump plans a reversal on one of the centerpieces of his primary campaign — his refusal to raise money or encourage political-action committees to work on his behalf. Trump told the Wall Street Journal that he plans to build a “world-class finance organization” and will start hitting up wealthy donors to compete against Hillary Clinton:
Facing a prospective tab of more than $1 billion to finance a general-election run for the White House, Donald Trump reversed course Wednesday and said he would actively raise money to ensure his campaign has the resources to compete with Hillary Clinton’s fundraising juggernaut. His campaign also is beginning to work with the Republican National Committee to set up a joint fundraising committee after his last two rivals—Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov.John Kasich—dropped out in the wake of Mr. Trump’s resounding Indiana win on Tuesday. “I’ll be putting up money, but won’t be completely self-funding,” the presumptive Republican nominee said in an interview Wednesday. Mr. Trump, who had largely self-financed his successful primary run, added that he would create a “world-class finance organization.” The campaign will tap his expansive personal Rolodex and a new base of supporters who aren’t on party rolls, two Trump advisers said. The new plan represents a shift for Mr. Trump, who has for months portrayed his Republican opponents as “puppets” for relying on super PACs and taking contributions from wealthy donors that he said came with strings attached.
On one hand, this will be good news for the GOP. One of the functions a nominee fulfills is to raise money not just for his own campaign, but also for the party itself. Most high-ticket fundraisers emphasize the latter, not the former, as campaign-finance regulations place a much lower limit on donations to the campaign. When reading news reports of $35,000-a-plate dinners on behalf of nominees, remember that almost all of that goes to the RNC or DNC as “hard money,” which can be spent by the party in support of the organization backing its presidential nominee and/or down-ballot races. Had Trump stuck to his plan to self-fund, the RNC would have lost a big part of its own fundraising opportunities.
As for bringing in people who haven’t been donors in the past, that may be a tough order to fill. As Trump himself notes, most of the people who live in his rarified economic circles engage politically out of necessity and expedience. Both parties have become adept at seeking out and engaging those with cash to spare among the wealthy, and many of them contribute to both parties to ensure influence no matter who wins. Trump may be surprised to find out how many of his friends might already be “on party rolls.”
If the RNC is breathing a sigh of relief, what about Trump’s passionate supporters in the primaries? Part of his appeal came from Trump’s claims that he couldn’t be bought. While Trump did have a super-PAC supporting him (Great America PAC), Trump didn’t encourage it, and he didn’t conduct major fundraisers. He didn’t need the money, as it turned out, and Trump ridiculed his opponents for “selling out” to donors and special interests. Many of those assumed Trump would use his own vast fortune for his general-election campaign, too, although Trump never publicly committed to it. Great America PAC recently hired longtime GOP insider Ed Rollins as chair, and Rollins told donors yesterday that GAPAC will provide key parts of the campaign, including oppo research and polling. That will take a lot of money, and may complicate matters too, as those are usually funded by hard money and accessible to the campaign itself.
Will Trump’s legions of supporters become disillusioned by this reversal by the anti-establishment populist, especially since he waited until literally the day after clinching the nomination to announce it? The WSJ’s Monica Langley and Rebecca Ballhaus write that the change will be “also likely to put off some Trump supporters, many of whom have said his reliance mostly on his own funds makes them trust him more than other politicians.” Doubtful … very, very doubtful. Trump’s attitude is his appeal even more than his wealth, and his core of support is more personal than analytical. It may limit the expansion of Trump’s support beyond its current limits, though, and with Trump’s current general-election polling that might be a bigger problem than fundraising. |
The answer depends on two things: how likely you are to leave the extra money in savings and how good it would feel to wipe your debt out years earlier than your mortgage requires.
THE BASICS First, let’s dispense with the standard boilerplate. Don’t even think about making extra mortgage payments unless you’ve paid off higher-interest debt. Credit card debt is the easiest win here.
Also, if you’re not saving enough to get the full match from your employer in a 401(k) or similar account, increase your savings there first. And don’t make extra mortgage payments if you don’t already have a decent emergency fund set aside.
YOUR REAL INTEREST RATE Now, take a look at the interest rate on your mortgage. That 5 percent? It’s not your real rate if you get some of the interest back each year in the form of a tax deduction.
Let’s say you have a household income of $175,000 and are paying 35 percent of that in total to the state and federal tax collectors. If you pay $20,000 in mortgage interest each year on a loan that charges 5 percent, the deduction effectively brings your taxable income down to $155,000.
As a result, you’re paying $7,000 (35 percent of $20,000) less in taxes than you would have without the deduction. So ultimately, you’re not really paying $20,000 in interest at all; your net cost is $13,000 after you subtract the $7,000 tax savings.
And that makes your effective, after-tax interest rate on your loan just 3.25 percent, which is simply 35 percent (your tax rate) less than the original 5 percent.
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BETTER RETURNS? So any money you set aside in lieu of making extra mortgage payments would need to earn more than 3.25 percent annually. That seems like a reasonable possibility in the future.
In fact, you could have done that well during the supposedly lost decade we just finished. Vanguard Wellington, for instance, a popular low-cost mutual fund that holds about 65 percent stocks and 35 percent bonds and other short-term securities, earned an average annual return of 6.15 percent in the 10 years ended Dec. 31, 2009.
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The Vanguard Balanced Index Fund would not have outperformed our 3.25 percent benchmark, however, as it only returned 2.64 percent over the same 10-year period.
STORING THE SAVINGS Wouldn’t taxes eat into the returns from the money you’d save instead of making extra mortgage payments? Not if you place it into an account shielded from taxes. A Roth individual retirement account would fit the bill here, as would a 529 college savings account or health savings account.
Bruce Primeau, whose note to his financial planning clients at Wide Financial Group in Minneapolis on this topic inspired me to re-examine it, adds that this isn’t simply about keeping more assets under his watch so he can earn a better living. “I’m not telling them that the money has to come to me,” he said. “A 401(k) match beats the return on paying a mortgage off automatically. There’s real estate and buying employer stock through a purchase plan at a 15 percent discount and all kinds of things.”
Then you need to preserve those savings. When extra money goes toward a mortgage, it’s hard to get at it when the urge strikes to flee to an Asian beach for a few weeks of playtime. If the money is not locked up in retirement or college savings, however, you may be tempted to spend it.
THE LIQUIDITY PROBLEM Capital-gains taxes might eventually come due with some of these investments, and the rate could well rise above the current 15 percent long-term rate before too long. Still, having some of your savings in a taxable account makes sense for several reasons.
If you hit a stretch of long-term unemployment after having plowed most of your extra cash into paying down your mortgage, your bank probably won’t pat you on the back for being a good saver and give the money back to you. Nor is it likely to let you borrow it through a home equity loan if you have no income with which to repay it.
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Elaine Scoggins, who had the mortgage department chief reporting to her at a bank before she became a financial planner, suggests imagining a situation where you need to move quickly but can’t sell your home or extract equity to use as a down payment in your new town. Given that possibility, why create more home equity through extra mortgage payments than you have to?
“The whole housing debacle has reminded us all, including me, that real estate is not liquid,” said Ms. Scoggins, who is the client experience director for Merriman, a planning firm in Seattle. “And it takes cash to support it.”
Those who have used their cash in an attempt to be conscientious have learned some tough lessons, meanwhile. Imagine people who scraped together a 5 percent down payment and bought a home in Florida or Arizona in 2005 and then made extra mortgage payments the first two years to try to increase their equity. Now, post-collapse, they owe, say, 30 percent more than their homes are worth and need to seriously consider walking away from the loan — and all of those extra payments.
REASON AND EMOTION So the reasoned case for making no extra payments is very strong. But there’s one counterpoint that almost always carries the day, even when there’s only a mild risk with the financial strategy of putting extra money elsewhere.
And it’s this: I need to be able to sleep at night.
Even Mr. Primeau concedes here. “Emotionally, you’re right, and financially I’m right, and emotionally, you win,” he said. “If emotionally, people want to pay down their debt, then that’s what I help them to do.”
If you’ve just started paying down your mortgage, any extra payments should go toward principal (make sure your mortgage company is applying it properly). That will have the effect of shortening the term of your loan from, say, 30 to 25 years, depending on how many extra payments you make. The extra payments won’t lower your monthly payment, but they will reduce your balance.
Many people who are years into their mortgages — and perhaps paying less in interest and getting less of a tax break as a result — tend to develop stronger feelings about making extra payments. Those feelings are often even more acute as retirement approaches and homeowners become determined to quit work with no debt to their names.
Those who do retire their debt rarely regret it or wring their hands over the big gains they might have scored by investing the money elsewhere. Tim Maurer, a financial planner and co-author of “The Financial Crossroads,” describes the feeling that washes over people who have paid their last mortgage bill as “beholden to no one.”
So he doesn’t feel as if it’s his business to separate people from their emotions if they feel strongly about working toward a debt-free existence. “The whole point of planning is to make life better,” he said. “It’s not to have more dollars at the end of the day.” |
Following the call that OpenOffice.org Council members which were also involved with The Document Foundation and LibreOffice development should resign due to a conflict of interest, two members have now officially stepped down.
During an Internat Relay Chat (IRC) meeting of the council on the 14th of October, Louis Suárez-Potts, Community manager of OpenOffice.org for Oracle, called for members of The Document Foundation to resign from the OpenOffice.org Council. Christoph Noack, former OpenOffice.org Product Development Representative, and Florian Effenberger, former OpenOffice.org marketing project lead and German marketing contact, have responded with formal resignation emails.
Noack says in his email that his "idea of a stable and working open-source environment differs from what I currently perceive when we talk about certain community structure characteristics." Effenberger notes that he feels it's unfortunate that some people view OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice as separate and conflicting projects and that he hopes there will be a resolution in the future.
Update - Charles-H. Schulz, lead of the Native-Language Confederation of OpenOffice.org resigned from the OpenOffice.org Council on the 22nd. Thorsten Behrens, co-project lead on the Graphic System Layer, resigned on the 25th and Sophie Gautier, lead of the French Native Language project, resigned on the 26th.
See also:
(trk) |
Officials and business leaders in Maryland are backing a proposal to elevate U.S. Cyber Command to a unified combatant command — one of 10 charged with carrying out missions around the world — a move they hope will bring prestige and more jobs to the state.
Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger praised the idea on the floor of the House last week, before lawmakers approved the annual defense funding bill, which this year included language directing the Pentagon to make the change.
The Baltimore County Democrat represents Fort Meade, where Cyber Command is headquartered.
The upgrade, he said, "recognizes the fact that cyberspace is the battlefield of the 21st Century."
"It only makes sense to have a command that can respond nimbly to cyber threats and organize our offensive and defensive efforts," he said.
Current combatant commands include Northern Command, which defends North America, Central Command, which prosecutes wars in the Middle East, and Special Operations Command, which oversees special operatons units worlwide.
Officials say raising U.S. Cyber Command to their level would cement Maryland's position as the home of the U.S. computer warfare effort.
Pulling it out from under its current parent organization, U.S. Strategic Command, could also pave the way for it to take on more complicated missions.
Tim O'Ferrall is manager of the Fort Meade Alliance, a coalition of local business leaders who advocate for the Army installation in Anne Arundel County. He said the upgrade would be a huge opportunity for the state.
"It ensures a lot of the discussions that have been happening in and around Fort Meade about growth opportunities become more of a reality," he said.
Cyber Command was established in 2009 with the aim of improving coordination among the Defense Department's computer warfare units.
The command has been working with the service branches to raise a force of 6,000 troops, civilians and contractors to carry out missions. It works closely with the National Security Agency — both are headed by Adm. Michael S. Rogers — to help keep other nations' hackers out of military networks while devising ways of breaking into computers run by U.S. adversaries.
There is such high demand for those forces that some are being deployed before even being declared formally combat-ready.
In February, the Defense Department announced that Cyber Command had been given its first wartime assignment: disrupting computer networks used by the self-declared Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
As Deputy Defense Secretary Robert O. Work put it last month: "We are dropping cyber bombs."
Commanders are now forming a special task force to better coordinate the anti-Islamic State cyber campaign. Joint Task Force Ares is to be led by a three-star general, Cyber Command officials said in a statement.
The idea of elevating Cyber Command has attracted support for years. In 2013, an Air Force officer wrote an article comparing the idea to the creation of Special Operations Command in 1987, which has the twin responsibilities for training commandos and sending them on missions.
Rogers told a Senate committee last month that elevating the organization's status would give it more say in how strategies and budgets are developed at the Pentagon and make it better at its job.
"A combatant commander designation would allow us to be faster," Rogers said.
Despite the support for the change, the White House threatened to veto the House bill, in part because the administration objects to legislators micromanaging the Defense Department.
"The Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should retain the flexibility to recommend to the President changes to the unified command plan that they believe would most effectively organize the military to address an ever-evolving threat environment," the administration said in a statement.
Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said last month it was time to consider cyberwarfare's place in the department's command structure. The Pentagon did not respond to questions about whether the department has made a final decision.
And while the measure has passed the House, its fate in the Senate remains unclear. The Senate Armed Services Committee did not include the idea in the version of the funding bill it released Friday.
Both of Maryland's senators support the move.
"America is fighting a cyber war every hour of every day," Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski said in a statement. "Elevating CYBERCOM to a Combatant Command will give those charged with the defense of our nation more of the tools they need."
A spokeswoman for Sen. Ben Cardin said he was working to have the measure written into the Senate bill.
Mikulski and Ruppersberger both said they think the boost in the command's status could bring more jobs to Fort Meade. The installaion has seen steady growth since 2005.
J. Michael Hayes, the retired Marine Corps general who heads the state Office of Military and Federal Affairs, said any job growth would probably be modest at first.
But as Cyber Command is given more work, he said, it could attract more staff and contracting dollars to develop digital weaponry.
Another spurt could come if Cyber Command were separated from the National Security Agency, because many officials currently have roles in both organizations.
"The assumption would be that there would be less of that," Hayes said.
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In economics, a negative income tax (NIT) is a welfare system within an income tax where people earning below a certain amount receive supplemental pay from the government instead of paying taxes to the government.
Such a system has been discussed by economists but never fully implemented. According to surveys however, the consensus view among economists is that the "government should restructure the welfare system along the lines" of one.[1][2] It was described by British politician Juliet Rhys-Williams in the 1940s[3] and later by United States free-market economist Milton Friedman.[4][5][6]
Negative income taxes can implement a basic income or supplement a guaranteed minimum income system.
In a negative income tax system, people earning a certain income level would owe no taxes; those earning more than that would pay a proportion of their income above that level; and those below that level would receive a payment of a proportion of their shortfall, which is the amount their income falls below that level.[7]
General welfare [ edit ]
A negative income tax is intended to create a single system that would not only pay for government, but would also fulfill the social goal of making sure that there was a minimum level of income for all. It is theorized that, with an NIT, the need for minimum wage, food stamps, welfare, social security programs and other government assistance programs could be eliminated, thus reducing the administrative effort and cost to a fraction of what it is under the current system, as well as eliminating the perverse incentives created by these overlapping aid programs, e.g. when a minimum wage worker who earns a little more nets out with less income because they are newly ineligible for aid. Theoretically, the worker would then be stuck in a welfare trap and would have no incentive to seek higher wages.
A NIT does not disrupt low-wage markets, whereas a minimum wage law makes certain that people whose skills are not sufficient to justify that kind of wage will go unemployed. A NIT would therefore increase the availability of cheap labor, which would enable businesses to do domestically some of the work which they would otherwise have to outsource to other countries.
A NIT could reduce administrative overhead, since the large bureaucracies responsible for administering taxation and welfare systems, with the multitude of rules, thresholds and different applications required, could be greatly reduced or eliminated. The savings from this could then be returned to the people through spending on different government activities, via tax cuts, or any array of different ways.
Specific models [ edit ]
Various different models of negative income tax have been proposed.
One model was proposed by Milton Friedman.[4][6] In this version, a specified proportion of unused deductions or allowances would be refunded to the taxpayer. If, for a family of four the amount of allowances came out to $10,000, and the subsidy rate was 50%, and the family earned $6,000, the family would receive $2,000, because it left $4,000 of allowances unused, and therefore qualifies for $2,000, half that amount. Friedman feared that subsidy rates any higher would lessen the incentive to obtain employment. He also warned that the negative income tax, as an addition to the "ragbag" of welfare and assistance programs, would only worsen the problem of bureaucracy and waste. Instead, he argued, the negative income tax should immediately replace all other welfare and assistance programs on the way to a completely laissez-faire society where all welfare is privately administered. The negative income tax has come up in one form or another in Congress, but Friedman eventually opposed it because it came packaged with other undesirable elements antithetical to the efficacy of the negative income tax. Friedman preferred to have no income tax at all, but said he did not think it was politically feasible at that time to eliminate it, so he suggested this as a less harmful income tax scheme.[5][8]
Flat tax with negative income tax [ edit ]
The effort for reporting and supervision can be significantly reduced by combining basic income with flat income tax. The relationship between gross and net income for individuals can be adjusted to correspond roughly to current relationship at all income levels, implying that income tax is effectively progressive.[9] A flat rate income taxation with tax exemption implements a negative income tax as well as maintaining an actual tax rate progression at extremely low administrative cost. This is achieved by paying a tax on the tax exemption to all taxpayers, e.g. in monthly payments. The tax on the tax exemption is computed by applying the nominal flat tax rate to the exemption. The tax on the income is drawn directly from the source, e.g. from an employer. The tax on income is computed by applying the nominal flat tax rate to the income.
This simple method results in an effective progressive rate taxation (although the tax rate for the taxes drawn at the source is flat) which is positive once the income exceeds the tax exemption. If, however, the income is less than the tax exemption, the effective progressive rate actually becomes negative without any involvement by any tax authority. As for the positive progression, only very high incomes would lead to an actual tax rate which is close to the nominal flat tax rate.
The tax on tax exemption also can be understood as a tax credit, which is paid back once an income has reached the level of the tax exemption. This level marks the point where paid taxes and the tax credit are equal. Above that point the state earns taxes from the taxpayer. Below that point the state pays taxes to the taxpayer.
Example:
The income tax rate is 50%.
The tax exemption is $30,000.
The subsidy rate is 50% and equal to the income tax rate.
Under this scheme:
A person earning $0 would receive $15,000 from the government.
A person earning $25,000 would receive $2,500 from the government.
A person earning $30,000 would neither receive any money nor pay any tax.
A person earning $50,000 would pay a tax of $10,000.
A person earning $100,000 would pay a tax of $35,000.
Flat tax implementations without the provision of a negative income tax actually need an additional effort in order to avoid negative taxation. For such a tax, the exemption only can be paid after knowing the earned income. Flat tax implementations with negative income tax allow the payment or crediting of the income tax at any interval, independent of the amount of the actual income.
Implementation [ edit ]
While the notion has long been popular in some circles, its implementation has never been politically feasible. This is partly because of the very complex and entrenched nature of most countries' current tax laws: they would have to be rewritten under any NIT system. However, some countries have seen the introduction of refundable (or non-wastable) tax credits which can be paid even when there is no tax liability to be offset, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit in the United States and working tax credit in the UK.
In 1971, President Richard Nixon proposed a negative income tax as the centerpiece of his welfare reform program, but the NIT was not approved by Congress; however, Congress did pass a bill establishing Supplemental Security Income (SSI), providing a guaranteed income for elderly and disabled persons.[10]
A policy called negative income tax has been implemented for a certain bracket of low incomes in Israel,[11] but it deviates considerably from the more comprehensive model usually favored by advocates.
Experiments [ edit ]
From 1968 to 1982, the US and Canadian governments conducted a total of five negative income tax experiments. They were the first major social science experiments in the world. The first experiment was the New Jersey Income Maintenance Experiment, proposed by MIT Economics graduate student Heather Ross in 1967 in a proposal to the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity.[12] The four experiments were in:[13]
The New Jersey Income Maintenance Experiment: Trenton, Passaic, Paterson, and Jersey City, New Jersey with Scranton, Pennsylvania added to increase the number of white families, 1968–1972 (1357 families)[14] The Rural Income Maintenance Experiment: Rural areas in Iowa and North Carolina, 1969–1973 (809 families) Gary, Indiana, 1971–1974 (1800 families) Seattle (SIME) and Denver (DIME), 1971–1982 (4800 families) Manitoba, Canada ("Mincome"), 1974-1979
In general they found that workers would decrease labor supply (employment) by two to four weeks per year because of the guarantee of income equal to the poverty threshold.[15]
Advocates [ edit ]
In the United States, Milton and Rose Friedman promoted the idea in 1980 in their book and television series Free to Choose. More recently, a negative income tax was advocated by the Green Party as part of their 2010 platform.[16]
In Australia, a negative income tax is advocated by the Pirate Party as part of their tax policy.[17]
In Slovakia, welfare and tax system reform based on NIT is proposed by classical liberal Freedom and Solidarity party.[18]
In his final book Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967), American civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Martin Luther King Jr. wrote[19][20]
I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective — the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income. — from the chapter titled "Where We Are Going"
Criticism [ edit ]
A common criticism is that the NIT might reduce the incentive to work, since recipients of the NIT would receive a guaranteed minimum wage equal to the government payment in the absence of employment. A series of studies in the United States beginning in 1968 attempted to test for effects on work incentives. Jodie Allen summarizes the key studies:
The Stanford Research Institute (SRI), which analyzed the SIME/DIME findings, found stronger work disincentive effects, ranging from an average 9 percent work reduction for husbands to an average 18 percent reduction for wives. This was not as scary as some NIT opponents had predicted. But it was large enough to suggest that as much as 50 to 60 percent of the transfers paid to two-parent families under a NIT might go to replace lost earnings. They also found an unexpected result: instead of promoting family stability (the presumed result of extending benefits to two-parent working families on an equal basis), the NITs seemed to increase family breakup.[21]
The link between NIT and divorce was later determined to be due to a statistical error.[22]
Another criticism comes from the relative expense of the establishment of such a tax. According to a research project conducted by Rutgers University in 2002, a program of targeted job creation would produce similar wealth redistribution with significantly less cost.[23]
See also [ edit ] |
St Peters local road upgrades Credit:RMS But when the entire WestConnex motorway is complete, some time in 2024, the idea is to turn segments of the site into a park, connecting to the existing Sydney Park by new walkways and cycleways. "I am as proud as hell of this project," Mr Gay said. "It is going to make a hell of a difference to this city," he said. Mr Gay said the project was called the M5 tunnel, to signal its improvement over the old M5 tunnel.
"The old one was crappy and redundant from the day it was opened," he said. "This one will open with three lanes built, marked for two lanes, from day one." The project, however, has been heavily criticised by local residents and politicians, including the Lord Mayor, Clover Moore. They fear it will increase traffic on inner city streets and encourage more car use in Sydney. "Even I was staggered by how big that is," Pauline Lockie, a St Peters resident and campaigner against WestConnex, said of the images of the interchange. "All this for a toll-road where they haven't been able to prove the benefits they keep going on about will be there," she said. The $15.4 billion WestConnex project consists of three stages: a widened M4 motorway and M4 East tunnel from Homebush to Haberfield, the new M5 tunnel from Beverly Hills to St Peters, and a third stage connecting Haberfield to St Peters via Rozelle.
Mr Gay reiterated his comment that Newtown, just north of the new motorway interchange, would become a nirvana once the third WestConnex stage was built. "Those people that put effigies of me in Newtown should be treating me as a deity," he said. Chris Swann, the project director for the new M5 tunnel said about eight hectares of parkland would be added to the existing 40-odd hectares of parkland at Sydney Park. Mr Swann said there would be "up to seven kilometres of new cycleways and pedestrian walkways" that would provide a direct link from Mascot train station to Sydney Park. The project will, however, slice a 12 metre strip from Sydney Park, already owned by Roads and Maritime Services, to widen nearby Euston Road.
Ventilation stacks, about 35 metres high, will be built at Beverly Hills, Arncliffe and St Peters. The contract with Leighton, Dragados and Samsung has not yet been signed, but the government intends to sign it before an Environmental Impact Statement is approved. That statement will be released later this year, as will a separate EIS for the M4 East tunnel component near Parramatta Road. When the project is open in 2019, motorists will have to pay a toll of about $6 to use the road, and will also have to pay that toll to use the existing and free M5 East. |
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The guilty verdict on Thursday against the former SAC trader Mathew Martoma only deepens a mystery about the case: Given the overwhelming evidence against him, why did he fight the charges of insider trading, risking a lengthy prison term, rather than make a deal with the government to cooperate in return for leniency?
After all, Mr. Martoma seemed uniquely positioned to make a favorable deal for himself. He had a 20-minute conversation with the head of SAC Capital Advisors, Steven A. Cohen, the night before Mr. Cohen reversed the firm’s position on two drug companies, Elan and Wyeth, and made a bet that netted the firm $275 million. What did the two men discuss?
And testimony at Mr. Martoma’s trial also suggested that Mr. Cohen is the man the government wanted all along. Prosecutors must have been desperate to hear Mr. Martoma’s version of the 20-minute conversation in return for some kind of deal.
The answer to the mystery may lie in a long-buried confidential report from a disciplinary proceeding at Harvard Law School.
In a motion dated Dec. 6 of last year, the government revealed that Mr. Martoma had altered his transcript to improve his grades, and had used the fabrication to seek prestigious judicial clerkships. He was subsequently expelled from Harvard Law.
That alone wouldn’t have shattered Mr. Martoma’s value to prosecutors. Few cooperating witnesses are Eagle Scouts, especially when they have been participating in what amounts to a criminal conspiracy. However brazen, the Harvard episode might have been portrayed as a serious but youthful transgression by someone overeager to get ahead. Just because someone has done something bad in the past doesn’t mean they’re not telling the truth now.
But how Mr. Martoma handled the Harvard affair, detailed in the confidential report by the law school’s administrative board after what appeared to have been lengthy proceedings, may well have proved devastating to his credibility, and thus to his ability to cut a favorable deal.
“His whole story was a fabrication and then he lied to try to get out of it,” said Bradley J. Bondi, head of the securities enforcement and investigations practice at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, who read the Harvard report. “As a prosecutor, would you want to put this guy on the witness stand? Defense lawyers would make mincemeat out of him.”
Said another former prosecutor, who represented a cooperating witness in the SAC investigation and therefore did not want to be identified, “What’s so spectacular here is the sheer number of lies and deceitful acts. He’s toast when it comes to cooperation.”
According to the Harvard report, the law school registrar, Stephen Kane, summoned Mr. Martoma — whose name was then Ajai Mathew Thomas — to his office on Feb. 1, 1999. A clerk to a federal judge had reported that Mr. Martoma’s transcript seemed to be incorrect. Mr. Kane checked the grades and discovered that they had been altered.
Mr. Martoma admitted to Mr. Kane that he had used the computer system to alter his transcript. But, Mr. Martoma told Mr. Kane, “It was all a joke,” according to a transcript of the Harvard board’s proceedings. That same day, Mr. Martoma also told the school’s dean of students that the fake transcript was “a joke,” adding that he “really did not intend to pursue a clerkship.”
Mr. Martoma insisted that the only reason he altered his transcript in the first place was to impress his demanding parents. (This and other details are from the report, attached as an exhibit to the government’s motion to admit evidence of Mr. Martoma’s expulsion from the law school at his trial. The judge denied the motion, and the jury never learned about it.)
His parents were “ecstatic” at his good grades when he showed them the fake transcript on Christmas Eve, according to his testimony before the board. But a few days later, suffering from pangs of conscience that what he’d done “was wrong,” he claimed he confessed and told them the truth — both his real grades and that he’d altered his transcript.
The Harvard report is silent as to how his parents reacted to that bombshell.
At the time, Mr. Martoma was applying for judicial clerkships. He submitted 23, a number that seems hard to square with someone who didn’t really want one. All the applications contained the altered transcript of his grades.
Mr. Martoma blamed his younger brother. Mr. Martoma said he was rushing to a job interview in California and asked his brother to assemble his clerkship application materials, including his real transcript, which he told his brother was in a filing cabinet. (All the other materials were on Mr. Martoma’s desk, as was the false transcript. He offered no explanation as to why the accurate transcript alone would have been somewhere else.) Instead of going to the filing cabinet as instructed, Mr. Martoma’s brother unwittingly put the false transcript with the other application materials and duplicated them. His mother put the packages in the mail.
Mr. Martoma testified that when he learned that the wrong transcript had been sent, he confronted his brother and was “extremely angry.” The two “had a huge argument,” he said.
But Mr. Martoma’s brother, who testified before the Harvard board (as did Mr. Martoma’s parents) and otherwise appears to have corroborated Mr. Martoma’s account, had no memory of any such encounter. His brother testified that when Mr. Martoma learned that he’d sent the wrong transcript, Mr. Martoma “just left the room.”
On Jan. 26 and 27, the week before he was confronted by Harvard, Mr. Martoma interviewed with three judges on the prestigious District of Columbia Court of Appeals: Douglas H. Ginsburg, David B. Sentelle and Arthur Randolph.
Although Mr. Martoma knew then that the judges had received the altered transcripts with his inflated grades, he said nothing about the matter during his interviews, and didn’t offer a corrected transcript. The reason, he insisted, was that the issue was moot. He no longer wanted a clerkship and was deliberately trying to sabotage the likelihood of getting one by performing poorly at the interview.
To back this version of events, Mr. Martoma offered an email to a Harvard employee dated Feb. 1, the day before he was summoned by the registrar, indicating that he no longer wanted a clerkship. There was evidence that the email was doctored to produce a false date. Harvard’s server indicated the email had actually been sent late on Feb. 2, after he was confronted with the false transcript.
Similarly, Mr. Martoma told Harvard’s dean of students that he had already sent letters to the judges, withdrawing his applications. The letters themselves were dated Jan. 31, consistent with this claim. But they were postmarked Feb. 3 — after the false transcript was exposed. When confronted with this discrepancy, Mr. Martoma changed his story. He said he had written, addressed and stamped the letters on Jan. 31, but hadn’t yet put them in the mail.
If Mr. Martoma was really trying not to get a job offer, he didn’t do a very good job. One of the three judges was so impressed with Mr. Martoma that he personally called him to offer a clerkship. (Mr. Martoma didn’t return the call. By then, he was already in trouble.) A second judge nearly gave him an offer; he described Mr. Martoma as the runner-up. All three judges said they discerned nothing in his demeanor or remarks to suggest he didn’t want the clerkship.
Moreover, Mr. Martoma sent an email about a professor’s recommendation on the morning of Feb. 1, just hours before he was confronted, that read, “just checking to make sure that everything is in order for clerkship stuff.”
In sum, Mr. Martoma wanted Harvard to believe he altered his transcript for the harmless reason of impressing his parents; that he never intended for the judges to get the false transcript, and they received it only because his brother sent it by accident; that he didn’t say anything in his interviews with the judges because he no longer wanted a clerkship; and that various backdated documents support his story.
Does any of this even rise to the level of “the dog ate my homework”?
In deciding to expel him, Harvard concluded that “most members of the board have considerable problems” with Mr. Martoma’s account. His “manner before the board did not lend credence to his account.” It added, “The board was impressed also by the cumulation of improbable occurrences in his account, which made it more difficult to accept his explanation of individual events.”
That would seem to be putting it mildly.
The board concluded that Mr. Martoma “falsified his transcript, interviewed with judges under false pretenses, and gave untruthful answers to administrators at the Law School.”
Now that he’s been found guilty of insider trading, Mr. Martoma might decide to reveal what was discussed in the phone call with Mr. Cohen, perhaps in an effort to get a reduced sentence. But would anyone believe him?
“The Harvard material is devastating,” a former United States attorney told me this week. “And in a criminal context, where you need proof beyond a reasonable doubt, it’s even worse.” (The former prosecutor asked not to be named because of ties to the criminal defense bar, including Mr. Martoma’s lawyers.)
And even if they believed him, unless Mr. Martoma had strong corroborating evidence, like contemporaneous notes or, even better, a tape recording, his testimony would be of little use.
One of Mr. Martoma’s lawyers, Richard M. Strassberg, declined to comment.
Mr. Martoma had the opportunities to succeed in life that most people can only dream of, without having to resort to cheating, lying or breaking the law. He now faces extended jail time — seven to 10 years. He has a wife and three children. Perhaps he’ll show up on Mr. Cohen’s doorstep one day, hoping his silence was appreciated. The message from every criminal defense lawyer I spoke to was that he shouldn’t count on it. Mr. Cohen would be crazy to have anything further to do with him.
Harvard did cite some mitigating circumstances it considered before expelling Mr. Martoma. Among them: He was a co-founder of the school’s Society of Law and Ethics. |
Abstract
One of the strangest and most extensive archaeological hoaxes in American history was perpetrated around the turn of the twentieth century in Michigan. Hundreds of objects known as the Michigan Relics were made to appear as the remains of a lost civilization. The artifacts were produced, buried, "discovered," and marketed by James O. Scotford and Daniel E. Soper. For three decades these artifacts were secretly planted in earthen mounds, publicly removed, and lauded as wonderful discoveries. Because the Michigan Relics allegedly evidence a Near Eastern presence in ancient America, they have drawn interest from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. This article traces the intriguing history of this elaborate affair and Mormonism's encounter with it. At the center of this history lies the investigation of the artifacts by Latter-day Saint intellectual and scientist James E. Talmage. |
Some Canadian employers are willing to incur the added costs of hiring temporary foreign workers because they believe they have a better work ethic than Canadian workers, says the president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
"I can tell you, anecdotally, I’ve had many many emails from small business owners who’ve said that their temporary foreign workers are among the most productive employees, that are doing really high quality work, that have terrific customer service skills and, more than anything, are reliable," Dan Kelly said in a phone interview with CBC News.
The issue of temporary foreign workers has again become a subject of controversy following a CBC Go Public story that revealed that restaurant chain McDonald’s is under federal investigation over possible abuses of the Temporary Foreign Worker program at a franchise outlet in B.C.
The government probe began after a McDonald's employee told Go Public that the fast food outlet is bringing in Filipino workers while cutting local staffers’ hours and turning away dozens of seemingly qualified Canadians seeking jobs.
Won't take day off to 'take their dog to the vet'
Although Kelly said he couldn't comment on the specifics of the B.C. McDonald's case, he said that, unfortunately, he does hear more and more from business owners that "temporary foreign workers are often their hardest working employees" who will "take every late shift or early morning shift that’s offered to them."
"They’re not going to take the day off because they have to take their dog to the vet. They’re going to show up to work on time, they're going to work a full week without disappearing," Kelly said.
"The strengths of some of the TFW workers, in terms of their work ethic is, it pains me to say this, but, sometimes it is better than that of their Canadian counterparts," Kelly said.
Employers who do bring in temporary foreign workers for low-skill jobs must go though huge amounts of paperwork and incur extra costs that include providing their foreign employees with airfare to and from their home country and helping them with accommodations, Kelly said.
A worker makes his way through floating cranberries as the fruit is harvested in Saint-Louis-de-Blandford, Que. Employers who do bring in temporary foreign workers for low-skill jobs must go though huge amounts of paperwork and incur extra costs that include providing their foreign employees with airfare to and from their home country and helping them with accommodations. (Jacques Boissinot/Canadian Press)
"I do think that there are an increasing number of employers who believe that, despite the higher costs that the TFW program often will bring to them," that temporary foreign workers are worth the extra expense because they are more dependable than the domestic workforce. "Sadly, we are hearing that."
Kelly said it's time to have an "adult conversation about the world of work" and that "we have to admit as Canadians that there are certain sectors of the economy and certain regions of the country where Canadians are not particularly excited about working.
"And the retail sector and the hospitality sector in particular often can find somebody that might show up for a couple of days, but then disappears. And what an employer needs is some consistency," he said.
But Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, strongly rejects claims that Canadian workers are less productive than temporary foreign workers. He said the difference is that many foreign workers are compliant, out of fear of losing their job.
'Shameful argument'
"Is it a bad thing that Canadians stand up for themselves and don't allow themselves to be pushed around by their employers in low-wage service sector jobs?"
"What he's saying is that the government should provide low-wage employers with a compliant, pliable group of workers who are afraid to stand up for themselves," McGowan said. "And that when workers stand up for themselves and refuse to be disrespected in the workplace, that that is somehow a bad thing? I think most Canadians would find that offensive."
McGowan said justifying the temporary foreign worker program because it gives low-wage employers access to a "large and growing group of exploitable workers" who won't take a sick day or take time off for a sick child is a "shameful argument."
In the B.C. McDonald's case, Go Public found that records showed several of the Filipino workers were actually paid 20 per cent more than most of the Canadian staff.
Kelly said he wasn't at all surprised to hear that. "This happens all the time," he said.
Kelly said if an employer is in an industry like big full-service restaurants, then the employer is required to pay the industry average. That means they will often end up paying temporary foreign workers more than Canadian workers.
Dominique Gross, professor at Simon Fraser University's School of Public Policy, said the Philippines actually has a program that promotes and trains its citizens to become temporary foreign workers abroad who, in turn, send home money to their families.
The Philippines government sets out rules and organizes training for temporary foreign workers because it doesn't want their citizens to give their country a bad reputation. This means Filipinos are taught how to be disciplined and how to work in high-income countries, she said.
Prof. Gross said that there haven't been any studies comparing the productivity of temporary foreign workers to Canadians. But if Canadian employers believe these workers will be hard-working, reliable, and will have the correct skills for the job, they will be ready to "pay them a little bit more because their productivity is pretty good."
As well, temporary foreign workers can be hired for four years. With a high turnover rate in the restaurant and service industry, employers greatly value workers they know will be with them for a set term.
Removing the spectre of uncertainty in an industry with an ever-changing labour market may be worth the extra money spent on temporary foreign workers, Gross said.
"So they are pretty much assured that for four years, they're going to get pretty good workers," Gross said. "The businesses may be ready to to pay a little bit more for that because potentially it saves money." |
Photo Credit: Isaiah J. Downing
A few short weeks ago, I suggested that the Canucks would be wise to make inroads on a long-term extension for Bo Horvat post-haste. The Canucks announced not long after that they’d signed Ben Hutton to a two-year extension.
Following the announcement of the Hutton deal, Horvat was brought up:
#Canucks GM Benning says management group will now focus on Horvat and they’d like a long term deal there, not bridge. — Dan Murphy (@sportsnetmurph) November 24, 2016
Music to many a Canucks fans ears!
It was originally my intention to include a prognostication into Horvat’s new contract in my last article on the subject. Time constraints such as they are, that never came to fruition. So with that, let’s revisit the notion and dive into what Horvat might expect in a new, long-term deal with the Canucks.
CBA: Impact on Contract
First off, the length of deal is important for Horvat. He will be completing his third full season in the NHL, which means that unrestricted free agency is on the horizon. Article 10.1 of the NHL CBA lays out the ground rules for UFA eligibility:
Given Horvat’s status, any deal over four years in length is purchasing UFA years. With that in mind, it would serve the Canucks well to avoid a four-year pact as it would be nothing short of a platform to the open market. They can land on any side of that mark, but it’s key they avoid four years. Based on Canucks General Manager Jim Benning’s comments, one would have to believe they’re probably taking the over.
That seems a savvy play in the long run. The short-term cost may be slightly prohibitive, but it has the added effect of mitigating long-term damage. A bridge deal, however, grants the Canucks added flexibility in the interim at the expense of tomorrow. Of course, that operates on the assumption that Horvat continues his ascendency up the NHL stats page.
Per Article 11.8 of the CBA, the team cannot provide their player a no-trade clause until they qualify for Group 3 unrestricted free agency:
This means that a no trade clause or no movement clause cannot be applied to Horvat’s contract until 2021-22.
Stats
During Hockey Night in Canada, Sportsnet’s Elliott Friedman mused on Horvat’s oncoming extension and named two players specifically as comparable players to Horvat — Victor Rask and Rickard Rackell. Following up on this, I found that the two jump out as similar players whose contracts might’ve laid the groundwork for Horvat’s.
They’re not the only players, though. I’ve added some more for comparison’s sake. Players like Aleksander Barkov, Nick Bjugstad, Sean Couturier and Vincent Trocheck came to mind.
All of them signed their extensions at different times, so it’s important to use the stats and cap information at the time. Their deals are below:
Player Term AAV 1st year of deal Barkov 6 yrs $5.9M 2016-17 Bjugstad 6 yrs $4.1M 2015-16 Couturier 6 yrs $4.33M 2016-17 Rakell 6 yrs $3.79M 2016-17 Rask 6 yrs $4.0M 2016-17 Trocheck 6 yrs $4.75M 2016-17
The common theme here is a series of six-year deals. Given the cost of UFA years, that makes sense.
These contracts range from $3.8-million on the low end to $5.9 on the high end.
Timing matters here. Barkov, Bjugstad and Couturier were all signed in the midst of their previous contracts. Rask, Rakell and Trocheck were signed at the conclusion of their entry-level contracts. It’s also worth noting that Couturier was in the middle of his bridge deal when he signed long term.
Now, it’s time for some numbers. Let’s look at the players P/60 over the last few seasons and see where each stands.
Horvat Rask Barkov Bjugstad Couturier Rakell Trocheck 2012-13 N/A N/A N/A 0.39 1.16 N/A N/A 2013-14 N/A N/A 1.43 2.01 1.52 1.23 1.12 2014-15 1.69 1.22 1.72 1.75 1.36 1.7 2.03 2015-16 1.43 1.48 2.25 1.24 1.96 1.9 2.18 2016-17 2.11 2.08 1.54 0 1.28 2.59 1.27
With the exception of Horvat and Bjugstad, everyone’s contract year was last season. For accuracy’ sake, I’ve compared Horvat’s production this season to theirs last campaign.
Contract Year P/60 Barkov 15-16 2.25 Trocheck 15-16 2.18 Horvat 16-17 2.11 Rakell 15-16 1.9 Bjugstad 14-15 1.75 Rask 15-16 1.48 Couturier 14-15 1.36
All this goes to prove that Horvat, on this current career trajectory, is trending towards the upper echelon of the league’s young centres. Rask offers comparable production, but always a year ahead. His 2.08 P/60 matches closely to Horvat’s P/60 of 2.11 this season. Rask, however, is already into his extension, though, whereas Horvat’s in his ELC.
Horvat’s production should command somewhere in the $4-million-plus range. Let’s use HERO Charts too, though.
Horvat vs. Trocheck:
Horvat doesn’t match well with Trocheck in every category but looks roughly comparable to Bjugstad. Context is key though. Horvat is just starting to hit his stride. It won’t surprise me if he’s surpassed Bjugstad offensively by season’s end. By that same token, Horvat’s underlying data certainly doesn’t flatter.
All that said, we can reasonably posit Horvat lies somewhere between the two players in ability.
Another thing working in Horvat’s favour is his primary point production. Former Canucks Army writer Dimitri Filipovic wrote a piece for Sportsnet on Tuesday, breaking down primary points around the NHL. Horvat was second in percentage with nine primary points in ten on ice goals for in 5v5 play. One might reasonably expect those numbers to regress, but it’s a valuable snapshot into the impact he’s having on driving even strength offence all the same.
It’s also worth noting is the precedent the Canucks set with Brandon Sutter’s deal. Shortly after acquiring Sutter, the Canucks signed him to a five-year deal with an AAV of $4.35-million. Sutter’s career high is 40 points, from the 2009-10 season. Since then, he’s never surpassed 33. Horvat’s already crested the 40 point plateau and is well on pace to break that mark this season.
Comparing the two with P/60:
Horvat Sutter 2012-13 N/A 1.18 2013-14 N/A 0.94 2014-15 1.69 1.18 2015-16 1.43 1.42 2016-17 2.11 1.36
This pushes the needle closer to $4.5-million per season.
Mitigating Factors
When we just look at the data, it’s clear Horvat is in the lower range of the $4-million AAV on a six-year deal. But Horvat has a lot of leverage in this situation.
Horvat’s on the upswing regarding production, as evidenced by the P/60 marks highlighted above. The Canucks are also in a sticky situation concerning PR. Can they really afford to let this situation drag out into the summer?
If they can’t sign him long term, who is the options to take his role at centre?
At this moment, the Canucks are okay at centre ice with Sutter, Markus Granlund, Henrik Sedin, Brendan Gaunce and Brendan Horvat. But Henrik won’t be around forever, and they are playing Sutter on the wing, and they could very easily lose Granlund or Gaunce in the expansion draft.
Essentially, the Horvat camp has the advantage over the Canucks, for the following reasons:
Canucks have admitted they would like to sign him long term.
Horvat has intangibles that the club values.
The lack of other options for the organization.
The precedent set with Sutter.
A smart representation will see these things and use them to extract as much value as possible from the organization. Given that Horvat’s representation is Newport Sports, it’s an easy conclusion to figure out that they know that have the upper hand here. Elliotte Friedman touched on the subject in this weeks ’30 Thoughts’, mentioning that Newport Sports has a history of waiting it out:
Conclusion
There have been suggestions that Horvat could get Barkov money, but he isn’t quite there yet. That isn’t to say he won’t get closer to that number if his recent point streak continues.
On the flip side, there have been suggestions that Rakell and Rask are his matches. The evidence suggests otherwise.
Given Sutter’s contract, the price likely starts at $4.35-million per season. If this drags out, and Horvat continues to put up points, he will enter the Trocheck and Barkov area of offensive production, despite his underlying numbers struggling. Using what Friedman mentions, that is likely what happens — the Horvat camp waits out for as long as possible, putting pressure on the Canucks.
Had the Canucks had got a head start on this, it likely would’ve resulted in some savings. But at this point, the Horvat train has left the station, and we can only watch as it chugs along to the sounds of a cash register.
If the Canucks had concluded the deal now, the argument could be made that six years at $4.5M per season, would’ve been the ballpark. Now, if the Horvat deal digs its heels in, and the production continues at the same pace or rises we could see $5-million PLUS per season.
My prediction for the deal is 6 years at $5-million per season, with a no-trade clause for the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons.
All data is up to and including games on November 29, 2016.
Contract information from Cap friendly
P/60 data from stats.hockeyanalysis.com |
Three men were indicted for allegedly damaging an emergency helicopter. / Screen capture from Yonhap News Agency
By Lee Jin-a
Three drunken men ― including a doctor ― who allegedly damaged an air ambulance helicopter last month have been nabbed after a month-long police manhunt.
They face multiple charges, including destroying a medical device for emergency patients and unauthorized access to the helicopter that landed in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province. They will also have to pay 2.5 billion won ($2.2 million) spent repairing the helicopter.
Cheonan Dongnam Police Station said Sunday the three men ― two in their 30s and the other in his 40s ― were indicted for damaging the helicopter by climbing onto its top and forcibly moving its tail rotor. The incident happened at the heliport at Dankook University Hospital around 10 p.m. on Aug 11. One of them was a medical doctor and the others salaried men, police said.
"We were drunk so much that we didn't recognize it as a helicopter," a suspect said. Following the incident, UI Helijet, the helicopter's operating company, assessed the damage at around 2.5 billion won. The aircraft will be repaired with money from an insurance company, which will sue the three men. |
The entrance to Sukiyabashi Jiro. Courtesy of Leon Brocard Last week, President Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had dinner at Sukiyabashi Jiro, considered by many to be one of the best sushi restaurants in Tokyo, if not the world.
It's certainly the most famous sushi spot on the planet thanks to the 2011 documentary "Jiro Dreams of Sushi." The three-star Michelin restaurant is located in the basement of an office building near the Ginza station, with a modest wooden counter and only 10 tables in the entire establishment. 89-year-old master chef Jiro Ono serves a tasting menu of roughly 20 courses, for a total of 30,000 Japanese yen (just under $300).
But some people question if the experience is actually worth the money.
While there's no question that diners are eating some of the freshest and most perfectly prepared fish available, the meal is often rushed. The Michelin Tokyo Guide warns "don't be surprised to be finished within 30 minutes." That's the equivalent of spending 1,000 Japanese Yen — or $10 — per minute.
The famous chef Jiro Ono in his restaurant Sukiyabashi Jiro. Screenshot/"Jiro Dreams Of Sushi" Andy Hayler, a food critic at Elite Traveler who has dined at every Michelin three-star restaurant in the world, had a less-than-stellar experience at Sukiyabashi Jiro in 2008. "It was very rushed, and I gather has become even more rushed since," he told Business Insider. "A well traveled American friend went recently and timed it in and out in 28 minutes, his wallet several hundred dollars lighter."
(For those curious, Obama's visit lasted for one and half hours, three times longer than the typical meal at Sukiyabashi Jiro.)
There are a few reasons for Chef Ono's fast pace. Connoisseurs believe that the highest quality sushi is served within five seconds of being prepared, and that diners should not let a bite of sushi rest, but consume it immediately.
Plus, eating those 20 sushi courses over the span of hours could ruin the customers' appetites as they become increasingly full, and they would not appreciate the later courses. Chef Ono's meal lasts less than a half an hour, so there's not enough time for diners to start to feel overly full (it takes about 20 minutes for our body to recognize that it's satiated) and they can better enjoy every perfect bite of sushi.
In addition to the fast pace, however, some people claim the service itself can be hit or miss at Sukiyabashi Jiro depending on who you are and who you're with. Foreigners who don't speak Japanese, known as gaijin, have a hard time getting a reservation at Sukiybashi Jiro in the first place and an even harder time being served. Since Chef Ono doesn't speak English and his son speaks very little, their explanations and any diner questions or requests are often completely lost in translation.
Chef Ono’s Uni (sea urchin) is surrounded by a layer of crunchy seaweed. It’s as creamy as ice cream. Courtesy of Leon Brocard Bringing along a friend or guide who speaks fluent Japanese is not only highly recommended by every reviewer, but often necessary. Some reviewers even describe a hostile relationship between Chef Ono and foreigners, with some going so far as to claim discrimination.
Hayler described the poor service in the 2008 review:
From the moment we sat down, the old gentleman who runs the place, and the chef who served us, regarded us with barely concealed contempt. They spent their time glowering at us throughout. The fish came at a very fast pace, and when at one point my wife stopped for a few moments towards the end and explained (via our translator) that she just needed a moment, they just took her sushi away regardless. "The customer is always right" is not a concept that has caught on at this place.
Many of his readers agreed with his assessment of the service in the comments section, describing their own experiences with Chef Ono. One man even said he and his brother were almost kicked out during a 2011 visit:
As my brother and I entered the restaurant, my brother removed his jacket and placed it on a rack. Before I could reach for my scarf, my brother's jacket was — literally — shoved back into his chest, and he was being pushed in the back towards me and told, "Sorry, no foreigner."
….
My wife, as yet unseen, suggested she try herself — being Japanese — and sure enough, she was treated as if a new guest had come in. When she confirmed our reservation and learned our table was ready, she beckoned us in. They were startled to see us re-enter the restaurant with her, although no apology was forthcoming.
Despite these negative reviews, not everyone experiences poor service at Sukiyabashi Jiro, and most people still agree that the food itself is superb. Obama called it the "best sushi I've ever eaten," and Hayler agreed, telling Business Insider that he thought his meal was "objectively good," but that it still did not compare to other Tokyo establishments such as Sushi Saito, Yoshitake, Mizutani, and Sawada.
Daisuke Nakazawa preparing sushi inside Sushi Nakazawa in NYC. Jiro Dreams of Sushi So if you are comfortable with feeling rushed throughout a $300 meal and potentially poor service, then it's worthwhile to visit Sukiyabashi Jiro and try Chef Ono's truly amazing sushi.
But Japan is filled with fantastic restaurants. Jiro Ono's spot isn't even in the top 30 sushi restaurants in Tokyo by Japanese diners on Tablelog, Japan's Yelp equivalent.
And for those looking for a more affordable and low-key sushi meal in the U.S., New York is now home to Sushi Nakazawa. Owned by Jiro Ono's former protégée Daisuke Nakazawa, the entire meal lasts for two hours and costs only $150 a head. |
How To Make Vegan Pancakes With Only 3 Ingredients!
Christopher Banks Blocked Unblock Follow Following Oct 9, 2017
Are you ready for a deliciously easy way to make pancakes for you and your loved ones this week?
Here at PassionDig we have found a recipe just for You. Only 3 ingredients and a yummy taste, what more could you ask for? :)
Enjoy!!
INGREDIENTS
1 banana
1 cup instant oats (100 g)
3/4 cup plant milk of your choice (185 ml), we used oat milk
INSTRUCTIONS
Grind the instant oats in a blender. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until smooth. Place ¼ cup of the batter in a non-stick skillet (or a lightly greased skillet) and cook for about two minutes for each side. Serve with your favorite toppings.
We would love to see your finished results, so please send them in and make sure to comment below :)
Do you want to uncover new passions or develop your current ones? Head over to PassionDig today!
PassionDig.com
Facebook @passiondig
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Twitter @passionigger |
Odin hangs himself from Yggdrasil for nine days so he can uncover the secrets of the world. -
DENDROFIL FOR YGGDRASIL Aldri før hadde han fått auge på eit venare syn
Den massive asken strakk seg godt utover hei
Med greiner som grodde langt utenfor himmelens bryn
Han merka brått at hans kjøtgeir hadde lagt seg på snei
Stamtreet tillot at Valfader tilnærma seg
Som om det visste kor alt skulle bæra på veg
Røttene slynga seg rundt og vikla seg inn
Harpiks og sevja rant ut av den hardaste knopp
Ravnguden ynda at kvistar fór inni hans sinn
Blader og bark fortærte hans kropp
Spidda nedenfra, Brun kjente seg ekspandert
Ein kartartisk seanse som varte ni netter lang
Midt mellom glede og ve blei han eksaltert
og han gispa der han hang Han lekke som ein sil
Dendrofil for Yggdrasil
Ygg for lenger ned mot det svartaste djup
I bunnen av holet såg han eit strålandes skin
Med sine siste krefter tok han eit svalestup
Der oppdaga han visdom i form av sigil
Då Odin kom til hadde han komt over heile sitt kjød
Med ny forstand sank han ned ifra askekall
Han må ha visst godt om den sikre død
Då han ga fra seg sin viten til Heimdall
-In the future the only way forward will be
to go back.-
1985 Det har gått over hundre år, ein degenerasjon som ingen kunne spå
Heile verden e eit åpent sår med ingen tid te å gro
Elektroder festa til hodet, de har kontroll - inn og utenpå
Null og ett-tall strømme i blodet, me trenge eit år zero
Kan du huska det, den gang før¸r alt gjekk nord og ned
Alt eg vett e at me må komma komma oss vekk
før me ende her i ein dystopisk skrekk
Eg vil hjem til 1985
I metropolen vil sirenene ljoma, fins ingen plass der ein kan gjemma seg
Kloden ligge i ein kunstig koma - umuligt å våkna opp
Auger av stål som ser ned på oss, fanga som kveg i flammene som steg
Ein inkvisitorisk koloss trenge seg inn i vår kropp
Kan du huska det, den gang me ikkje hadde hjernepoliti
Alt eg vett e at me må komma oss vekk
før me ende her i ein dystopisk skrekk
Eg vil hjem te 1985
-A traveller ventures forth into the strange dark night
with hopes of finding himself a new home.-
NATTESFERD Ein eksplosjon av tusen kilo stål
Retning ukjent land
Som ein neve addressert til Gud
Står atmosfæren i brann
For nomaden fantes ingen spørsmål
Om at liv forsvant
Kun iført eit lag av nylonhud
Drar han til altets rand
Lyset glimre med sitt blendande fravær (døande sol)
Ein despo oddysee mellom knivskarpe skjær (i ein pilotstol)
Nattesferd mot ukjend verd
Farvel til alt som du har kjært
Heilt aleina i eit beksvart hav
Isbad i måneskinn
Kakafoni av innvendige stemmer
Slite ut hans sinn
Sulten varsle ein framtidig grav
Rå og kjølig vind
I eit overjordisk maleri som revne
Trer han rolig inn
Lyset glimre med sitt blendande fravær (døande sol)
Ein despo oddysee mellom knivskarpe skjær (i ein pilotstol
Nattesferd mot ukjend verd
Farvel til alt som du har kjært
-The chosen few are gathering to pay bloody tributes
to a bronze idol. May they reap what they sow.-
BRONSEGUD Langt av gårde, inn i den djupaste og svartaste skog
Lumske riter gjort i ly av nattens mulm og mørke
Kapper overalt, agiterte rop og forførande smog
Eit nødvendig løfte om ein snarlig slutt på tørken
Massene blei leda an av ein dyster demagog
Flokken forærte offergaver uten spor av tvil
Hør mesteren forkynna Moloks monolog
Til fortapte fedre uten barnegrav å gå til
Eit sinn som eit kaldt maskineri
Gullet renne som blod i eit slakteri
Hans øyne brenn med evig raseri
Ein bronsegud med null respekt for liv
I prosesjon blei avkom pressa inn i oksemunn
Kjeften fyltes opp med ein sardonisk kaklande latter
Kremerte poder i ein mage uten bunn
Mens disiplene sugde melk ifra idolets patter
Eit sinn som eit kaldt maskineri
Gullet renne som blod i eit slakteri
Hans øyne brenn med evig raseri
Ein bronsegud med null respekt for liv
Satanisk status quo
Dei svakaste må gå
For at hans utvalgte få
Skal få bestå
-Plagued by malevolent gossip and hearsay after her husbands death,
Anne Pedersdotter was burned at the stake, found guilty of being a witch.-
HEKSEBRANN I det iskalde nord
Forekom eit mystisk mord
Absalon Beyer blei senka
Befolkningen mistenkte enka
Kle kjettaren naken
og bind hu fast til staken
Hu lyste dei ut i bann
mens hu gjekk opp i brann
Synden hennas forsvant
Då skamkjøtet lukta stramt
Med eit brev ifra kongen
Kunne hu brygga flere flakonger
Hu kasta farleg sjukdom på ungar
og talte kun med dødens tunga
Kle kjettaren naken
og bind hu fast til staken
Hu lyste dei ut i bann
mens hu gjekk opp i brann
Synden hennas forsvant
Då skamkjøtet lukta stramt
Med bulmeurten fullt utsprunge
Blei nettene så mørke og tunge
Ulykker på rekke og rad
Torden, brann og rein ondskap
Dei geistliges assosiasjoner
til helvete og dets demoner
Bedratt av eigen tjenestejenta
Anne blei av djevelen henta
Hu lyste dei ut i bann
mens hu gjekk opp i brann
Synden hennas forsvant
Då skamkjøtet lukta stramt
Hu lyste dei ut i bann
mens hu gjekk opp i brann
Synden hennas forsvant
De fant ut at hu talte sant (for seint!)
-What a horrible night to have a curse.-
SVARTMESSE Hu reiste seg opp i fra sengen
Månen skinte utover matten
Det gamle uret i stua
Viserene var som frosset i natten
Enken kom seg raskt te domen
Kjerka den var stille som graven
Hu satte seg i den vanlige stolen
Ein likbleik mann justerte på kraven
Å For ei natt
å bli besatt
Presten holdt sin mystiske tale
Brått kjente hu at det kokte i blodet
Bak alteret piska ein djevelsk hale
Ei ukjend tunga kviskra i hodet
Å For ei natt¬
å bli besatt
Eit iskald grep rundt hennas lanke
Glatte skjell som stramma rundt nakken
Hjertet hennas slutta å banka
Då sjelen blei dratt ned gjennom bakken
-When the stars are right the ancient one
will awaken from his deep slumber.-
ONDSKAPENS GALAKSE I ein hemmelig dimensjon
Der seile han gjennom tid og rom
Med mørkets hastighet
Sann syklon av grønn sjukdom
Han lyttar etter strid
og etterlate seg syndrom
Inn i gamle guders tid
Eit utenomjordisk fantom skal foræra oss vår dødsdom
Ondskapens galakse
Kan du hørra vingene flakse
Ondskapens galakse
Han ska legga verden i aske
Likpalass på havets bunn
kosmisk majestet forsere drømmar
Kaller ut til dei som kjenner
Når stjernene har stilt seg rett vil ingen klara å rømma
Ondskapens galakse
Kan du hørra vingene flakse
Ondskapens galakse
Han ska legga verden i aske
Utallige eoners søvn
Han våkner opp av ein svart bønn
Ein ny tidsalder har begynt
Når denne evige gemal reise seg i uhellig vakker triumf
-In a dark and dim forest warriors are preparing themselves
by drinking blood from wolves and bears.-
BERSERKR Brannfakler ildne opp natten
Styrtregn mellom mektige graner
Tiden var kommen for den rituelle jakten
Ensom forlot han sitt følge
Oppfylling av den norrøne pakten
Med kroppen full av Valkyrien sitt mjød
Skal han skjenka udyrets død
Eit blodig offer til vår allvitande gud
Dyriske berserkere i ulv og bjørnehud
Ja, dei var Odins sendebud
I holtet sto han ansikt til ansikt
Med eit mørkt og frådandes dyr
Tennene spådde hans endelikt
Tross visste han tiden ikkje var omme
Dødsøksen hogga kvikt
Bjørneblod fløyt overalt
Han flådde pelsen og ruset seg på dens livskraft
Eit blodig offer til vår allvitande gud
Dyriske berserkere i ulv og bjørnehud
Ja, dei var Odins sendebud
Krigerlauget sto ved stranden
Ein mordermåne er oppstanden
Dei lepjar i seg dyreblod
Slik at drapslyst skal få gro
Kroppen full av psilocybe
I svartsyns øyemed
Uten brynje, bar i bjørneskinn
Gjort til beist med ulvesinn
Dei satte hoggtenner i skjolda
fiendar med henda folda
Hæren visste ikkje kva som traff dei
Då dei blei ekspedert til Helheim
Daude bada i eit hav av rødt
Det var til dette dei blei født
Takk den einaugdes gaver
For at enkar vitjar tomme graver
-His waterbowl conjures only visions
of death and destruction.- |
President Trump made the decision to cut back on his early morning tweets as part of an effort to regain focus following the first month of his administration, according to a new report.
According to the Associated Press, Trump has decreased his use of Twitter in the past few days, ahead of Tuesday's address to Congress, especially in the early morning.
One adviser told the AP the change is a result of Trump no longer watching MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Trump has repeatedly tweeted about a particular subject soon after it was discussed on the MSNBC show hosted by Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, both of whom have been outspoken critics of the president.
In one such incident earlier this month, Scarborough questioned whether chief strategist Stephen Bannon was “calling the shots” in the White House.
Less than an hour later, Trump tweeted, “I call my own shots, largely based on an accumulation of data, and everyone knows it.”
I call my own shots, largely based on an accumulation of data, and everyone knows it. Some FAKE NEWS media, in order to marginalize, lies! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 6, 2017
Scarborough and Brzezinski have previously talked about the president’s tendency to watch their program.
"Even when he claims he’s not watching the show and just sending out nasty tweets about it, we’ll look at the camera — Donald, we know you’re not watching the show, but how are you doing?" Scarborough said on “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert last week. |
HOUSTON - The owner of a Houston-based active-wear company enlisted a big-time NBA star to help determine the size of his donation to Hurricane Harvey flood victims in the Houston area.
The owner of Active Faith Sports, Lanny Smith, said he would donate $1,000 for every shot made out of 25 tries in a free throw challenge. He's got some expert help to determine how much to give.
Smith brought along Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors to put his NBA-honed skills to good use. The donation free throw challenge was posted on Instagram.
Out of 25 shots, Curry made 18. That's $18,000 for Hurricane Harvey relief from Smith. Curry plans to match that amount and give another $100,000 on top of it.
"Our prayers to the family. We've got your back!" Curry said after his final shot.
Smith, a former NBA prospect, founded Active Faith Sports to provide positive and inspiring messages on active wear. The company has support from Curry and several other NBA players.
Copyright 2017 by KPRC Click2Houston - All rights reserved. |
A brief history of Liero
Liero was originally a clone of MoleZ, a similar under ground shooter game featuring moles instead of worms. It was also originally ment to be a top-down-view game. The game was first published in the finnish mbit computer game magazine, all the way back in 1998. It quickly became popular and even won some “game of the week” awards. Not long after it began spreading beyond the borders of Finland.
In 1999, Joosa became “fed up” with game development, and the contstant stream of feedback to handle. Development stopped in January 2000 at the final version 1.33. By this time multiple fan sites for Liero had popped up on the internet. The one which was to become the foundation of the community was "Wormhole - The Ultimate Liero Level Editor". The site had some of the first and fanciest Liero editors to be had. The Liero Blood Increaser could set the blood rate of Liero all the way up to 32750%, The Liero Graphic Editor would let you edit the apperance of the worms, and the projectiles, and of course, Wormhole, the level editor would let you convert BMP files into Liero levels. The community boomed.
In the following years the community moved off the guestbooks and message boards and into the new heart of the community. The LieroNet Forum. Several new editors saw the light of day. The most ground breaking were LieroKit and LieroHacker by Gliptic (Erik Lindroos). This new generation of editor went much deeper into the Liero game files, and allowed editing weapons, changing the palettes, and alteration of the physics.
Simultaneously a somewhat separate community evolved in southern Poland, grounded in the clan “Liga Liero”. The polish community quickly outgrew the international community, but due to the language barrier its strength never truly carried over into the wider world.
The next generation
The next step was the development of the first working clones of the game. The most notable were Wurmz! by Patrys, LOSP by Gliptic, LieroX by JasonB and Gusanos by Basara (not to forget, NiL which was the earliest clone, and the first Liero for Linux). All these projects took the game in new directions. Most of them highly moddable, some with multiplayer features. It is also worth mentioning that inumerable attempts to build other clones were started - and abandoned, including 3D clones, Wii versions and anything you can think of.
Out of these, LOSP is the one which developed into OpenLiero, which in 2007 was renamed “the official new version of Liero” when released as Liero 1.34, and more recently updated to 1.36. Unlike the other clones, OpenLiero is ment to be an exact simulation of the original Liero and still requires the original game files present in order to run. The idea behind it is to preserve the original game feeling, and to allow the game to run properly on more modern systems, including other platforms. The notable differences included in this new version is that some bugs were fixed, such as the notorious game freezes (when the map did not have enough rock on it), the ninja rope bug (where the rope hook would suddenly shift to the lower right corner) and some other minor issues. After some deliberation, new game options were added, but in order to preserve originality, they were hidden away under the F1 key. Most notable was the replay recording feature.
In 2011 Joosa was approached by arand (Martin Erik Werner) with questions about licencing. It turned out he was making yet another clone, this time based on the OpenLiero source code. The goal was to remove all proprietary content from the game so that it could be included in Linux packages. In 2012 the game was released which is why Liero.be as of 2013 features three versions of the game, so as to give the avid Liero enthusiast complete freedom of choice.
As for the community, one can safely say it is dead, although with some smaller communities popping up here and there from time to time. Most of the old community content created between 2000 and 2005 can still be found through way-back-machines, Google searches and not-yet-dead links on the Liero sites you may come across. The best still alive sites are presented above in the resource section.
If you have questions, you may seek expert advice in #[email protected] or the Liga Liero forums.
Have a great time playing Liero! |
In a response to the OPM breach and Tony Scott’s 30-day sprint, many agencies invested in a SAPM solution to manage their privileged users. Unfortunately this does not meet the measure of the requirement of HSPD-12 and multi-factor authentication (MFA) everywhere and the CDM authentication and credential requirements. The reality is that SAPM solutions only cover 5%-10% of the problem. The need for a true Super User Privileged Management (SUPM) is the only way to ensure that everyone in every organization is using a smart card (CAC/PIV) and a PIN, plus a third level of authentication to access all resources. SAPM tools are used by a select few on a select number of assets. This leaves the majority of the organization’s associates and assets open to a breach. This is very dangerous since every organization has a diverse number of heterogeneous resources that the entire organization uses to accomplish the mission. The result is risky behavior that has led to the breaches we have seen in the past.
This is where a single architecture platform that leverages an already existing repository of roles to access every resource in the organization makes sense. Employing such a solution will increase productivity in the most secure compliant manner using MFA everywhere in a very cost effective manner. In order for an organization to achieve true accountability for what resources are accessed by which users, the agency associates must access those resources as themselves, not as “Admin” or “Root.” In today’s environment anonymous access increases an agency’s risk surface tremendously. Having the ability to leverage a SUPM solution using a PIV or CAC card and a PIN, plus a third factor of authentication to support HSPD -12, MFA everywhere and CDM authentication and credential requirement will meet the mark.
Employing just a SAPM tool is akin to putting a screen door on a submarine. It is time for federal government leaders to grasp that shared account password solutions do not meet the measure of HSPD-12 and multi-factor authentication (MFA) everywhere, or the CDM authentication and credential requirements. They must understand that having 5% of their agencies associates leveraging a root password vault solution to checkout passwords is like putting a band-aid on their risk surface area. They need to ensure that ALL agency associates leverage their PIV or CAC card, a pin to employ a “something you have and something you know” access process, coupled with a third method of authentication to ensure they are who they say they are — to reduce the cyber data breach threat that has caused millions of dollars and threatened the security of millions of people. It is time to dismiss the myth that shared account password management solutions are the answer to our cybersecurity problems.
Click here to read our white paper on Best Practices for Privileged Identity Management in the Modern Enterprise. |
Walmart 255 Feet From Oriental?
F
But the email that Oriental’s Town Hall sent out to Town Commissioners on August 22 was not a joke:
The Town of Oriental will be welcoming a Wal Mart Express. Described as an ‘abbreviated version’ of the Super Wal Mart, it will be built outside the Town Limits, near Hudson Town and George Streets. It abuts with Town Boundaries at the Broad Street Extension. It will encompass about 5 or 6 lots, and the building itself will be approximately 12,000 square feet. The property that Wal Mart is purchasing is approximately 3 acres. This Wal Mart will house a pharmacy and a gas station as far as we know.
An email sent to TownDock shortly afterward, stated that the Walmart Express may house a pharmacy and gas station.
(Some residents and writers to TownDock.net’s Letters to the Editor have taken issue with the phrasing in that email about “welcoming” the retail giant. The opponents to the Walmart in Oriental the town shouldn’t be welcoming the retail giant whose presence in other small towns caused the small business there to wither. More on the opposition to the Walmart Express near Oriental in an upcoming story.)
TownDock.net has been providing updates to the story since breaking it on August 22. Here is a compilation of what is known about the project so far.
Two Sites Scoped Out In Pamlico County
Walmart has had engineers and others scoping out two sites in Pamlico County. One, as Town Hall noted, would be just outside the Oriental Town limits and could be the site of a Walmart Express – the smallest store in the Walmart fleet at 12,000 square feet.
Highway 55 and Chris Fulcher’s land 255 feet from Oriental’s town limit where Walmart says it is planning a Walmart Express Store. The building in the distance, owned by the corporation, Quality Marine Services, Inc. for which Fulcher’s wife Deborah is the registered agent, is not on land included in the Walmart plans.
Meanwhile, a site on Highway 55 in Grantsboro, across from the Food Lion is being investigated as well. In that case, the store would be the next size up, a Walmart “Neighborhood Market”. It would be in the neighborhood 50,000 to 70,000 square feet.
As of Friday August 30, Pamlico Building Inspector Skip Lee’s office had not received plans for either site.
Walmart Express Experiment
The Walmart Express stores are mainly grocery stores and the format represents an experiment for Walmart. It’s in “a test phase, a pilot phase” spokesman Bill Wertz said in an interview with TownDock.net.
According to trade reports, the Walmart Express stores, the smallest in Walmart’s fleet, are the giant retailer’s response to the success of the Family Dollar and Dollar General stores during the recession. However, independent visits by several Oriental area residents to Walmart Expresses in Snow Hill, Ayden and Princeton, NC confirm that they are primarily grocery stores, some with a pharmacy in one part of store and an aisle or two of non-grocery goods. In this 12,000 square foot incarnation, it appears the Walmart Expresses will not be, a microcosm of the supercenters but would mainly sell groceries and possibly prescription and off-the-shelf drugs.
A Walmart Express store in Arkansas (Photo from Walmart)
Walmart has opened 20 Walmart Expresses in the country since the experiment started two years ago. Most of them – 15 – are in North Carolina. There are three in Arkansas and 2 in Chicago (one of which, close to a bigger Walmart store, closed after a year.)
At 12,000 square feet, the Walmart Express mentioned for Oriental would be significantly smaller than the Walmart Supercenters, which can be upwards of 100,000-200,000 square feet. However, though small by Walmart standards, a 12,000 square foot store in the Oriental area would be larger than any existing retail. The Dollar General is approximately 9,000 square feet. The Town and Country grocery is approximately 8,000 square feet.
Just 255 Feet Outside Oriental
The projected site is not in Oriental but just 255 feet outside the Oriental town limits on Highway 55.
The “conceptual layout” by Bohler Engineering shows the store being positioned on the east side of Hwy 55/Broad Street Extension. This would put it across the street from George Street intersection of Hwy 55 and diagonally across the two lane highway from the Dollar General.
According to Pamlico County GIS maps and information publicly available at the Pamlico Register of Deeds, the land’s owner is Three Seas Legacy, LLC, one of several corporations owned by Oriental businessman Chris Fulcher.
The “conceptual layout” by Bohler Engineering would have the store positioned on Highway 55. A large portion of land would remain behind it. At bottom of the layout is one of Oriental’s two water towers. At the lower right, a residence at Windward Drive and Gilgo (home to Jim and Barb Barden).
No deed had been transferred as of Friday August 30. (It should be noted that no land has to trade hands; development of the land could happen under a lease to Walmart.)
According to the “conceptual layout” that was given to Town Hall and which Town Hall provided to TownDock.net, the Walmart Express would not occupy the lot with the recently renovated storefront (which decades earlier had been Snooks Gibbs’ grocery.) The Walmart Express property would start just south of that storefront. It would include the lot with the piles of dredging spoil on them.
Walmart Would Pay No Oriental Property Tax But Oriental Would Provide Police Protection
Since this land is outside the town limits of Oriental, Oriental would receive no property tax from Walmart (or the landowner) for that property.
However, the Town – and its taxpayers – would be providing police protection from Oriental’s Police Department. Captain Dwaine Moore says he responds to calls within a one-mile radius of Town under what’s called a Mutual Aid Agreement with the Pamlico County Sheriff’s Department. Moore says that if there were a police call from the Walmart, he would likely be the first law enforcement to arrive.
Site cited for a Walmart Express store 255 feet from the Oriental town line. While getting no property tax the Town would still have to provide police service. This is the view of the site, across Highway 55, from George Street.
Because the land is outside the Town limits, Oriental’s Growth Management Ordinance or GMO does not apply. Among other things, the GMO limits the size of buildings in the commercial (Mixed Use – MU) zones to 8,000 square feet.
Where Will Walmart Get Water From?
If Walmart wanted to be on the Town of Oriental’s water system, it would have to first be annexed in to the town. Mayor Bill Sage confirmed on Thursday August 29 that the Town’s water policy requires annexation for any potential customers of the Town’s water system. Being in the town would require the development of the land to comply with Oriental’s GMO. For Walmart, there are alternatives to tapping in to the Town’s water system: building a pipeline from the site about a quarter mile down Hiway 55 to the county water system’s closest pipes. A second option: drilling a well and using the well water for the store’s needs.
The Bay River Sewer District recently lifted an Oriental-area moratorium on new sewer tap ons, the equivalent of approximately 70 homes. An area resident who checked with Bay River says he was told the Walmart Store would be the equivalent of 3 homes.
Next Stop: Pamlico County Planning Department
For things to go forward, Walmart would have to formally submit plans to The Pamlico Planning Department. In an interview Friday afternoon, Building Inspector Skip Lee said the only contact he has had was with the architects/engineers for the firm developing the plans for Walmart and it was to answer a question. They wanted to know, Lee said, what the wind zone was for the county. (The answer: 130mph, meaning a building should be built to withstand such wind speeds.)
Lee says that he expects that if Walmart does proceed with plans for a store or stores in Pamlico County that they would submit those plans after already checking in and getting permits from state agencies. They include the Division of Water Resources (formerly, Division of Water Quality; renamed by the McCrory administration this year), the NC Department of Transportation. Lee says that engineers would have to “certify the soils.” on the site (which has been used as a dumping ground for spoil from dredging off Oriental’s shore and harbor.)
Once his office receives the permit application to build, Skip Lee says, his office could approve the plans within just 3-4 days.
Highway 55: Is It Wide Enough?
In an interview, Reed Smith, the NC DOT’s district engineer in New Bern says that 2-3 weeks ago, he was contacted by an engineering firm asking about the site on Hwy 55 just outside of Oriental and was shown a general site plan. Smith says he only learned that it was a Walmart store when the news broke in the media.
As you drive in to Oriental, having just passed the Dollar General store on your right, the site for the Walmart Express would be on your left. It is just outside the Oriental town limits. The Walmart Express model is primarily a grocery store. It would be less than 700 feet from the Town-n-Country, the existing grocery inside the Oriental town limits.
TownDock.net asked Smith if the addition of a 12,000 square foot Walmart Express — a grocery store — would necessitate widening the two-lane Highway 55 to include a turning lane. While on the phone, he consulted a trip generation calculator. A “2,000 square foot discount store” he said, would generate an estimated 30 turns an hour during peak traffic hours. Half might be left hand turns across traffic and that falls short of the DOT threshold of 25-30 left hand turns per hour necessitating a turn lane. Therefore, he said, it’s unlikely a turn lane would be needed.
As local residents know, the area already features a Dollar General just across the highway. Asked if, with two retail businesses generating left hand turns, the DOT might consider the cumulative impact, Reed Smith said, “It’s hard to say. I don’t know that we have a way to nail that down.”
Employment Figures
TownDock conducted a survey of several businesses likely to see a downward turn on sales should the Walmart Express open just outside the Oriental Town Limits.
Renee Smith, who runs the Town and Country grocery store 693 feet away, says she has 17 employees. Denton’s Pharmacy has two full time employees and 3 part-time. Village Hardware says it has 2 full time and 6 part time employees. (Employment levels at the Oriental mini-mart are not at this time known.)
Those touting the store in Oriental say it would bring jobs. Those opposed say that any gain will be scrubbed when other business cut back or close down altogether.
——-
Email sent by Bill Wertz, Walmart’s Director of Communications on the East Coast on August 27.
Walmart plans to build a new Express store in Oriental, bringing the community everyday low prices in a smaller format store. The new store, less than a tenth the size of a typical Walmart Supercenter, is designed to make shopping quick and easy for area customers who are looking for affordable prices and find what they need close to home. The new store will have approximately 20 associates and will offer groceries and general merchandise, including an assortment of fresh produce, dairy and meats, dry goods, consumables, health and beauty aids, over-the-counter medicines and more.
The Walmart Express format was created in 2011 to offer low prices, convenient shopping, and a small footprint —an ideal format for urban and rural areas that lack access to larger stores.
Express is still a pilot format. We currently have 20 stores in operation, three in Arkansas, two in Illinois (in Chicago) and the remaining 15 in North Carolina. Our newest Express opened August 21 in Broadway, NC. I can tell you that the North Carolina stores have been very popular. Customers seem to appreciate the fact that they can get more grocery items, including fresh produce, than you can find in a typical convenience store. They also like being able to pick up items that they have ordered at Walmart.com. |
President Nicolas Sarkozy faces a crucial test of his nerve today as a transport strike continues into its seventh day of commuter chaos, and civil servants stage a walkout that could see up to half of France's schools closed and disrupt air traffic control, the postal service and even weather forecasts.
France's rail and bus strike is continuing despite trade union leaders agreeing to begin talks with the government and state employers tomorrow. They are protesting at plans to change special pensions deals which allow certain workers to retire as young as 50 on favourable terms.
But the strike has been prolonged to overlap with Sarkozy's latest industrial headache: an unrelated 24-hour stoppage by public sector workers, including teachers, hospital staff and postal workers. State employees from defence ministry secretaries to weather office staff will stop work in protest at low salaries and public sector job cuts. But the president is said to be standing firm on his modernising agenda, in the face of a "black November" of protests against his reforms.
Sarkozy's senior adviser on industrial relations, Raymond Soubie, insisted that this week's snowballing strikes were not the president's "Thatcher moment". He said the transport workers' pension deals would be reformed, but added: "Sarkozy has not wanted to force it through à la Thatcher, but through dialogue."
Sarkozy, despite his image as an iron-willed moderniser, has so far taken a cautious and soft approach. Unusually for the omnipresent leader dubbed "super Sarko", he has not made a public speech for almost a week, aware that he must not be seen to be crowing victory or humiliating his opponents.
Today the president will address a congress of mayors and is expected to break his silence to explain his reforms to the nation. His opinion poll ratings, though still positive, are slipping, sounding the end of his post-election state of grace.
The striking civil servants' grievances are two-fold. They argue that their salaries are so low that they cannot make ends meet. The issue of "purchasing power" - low salaries that cannot match the rising cost of living - is currently the key concern of the French public. Sarkozy promised to kick-start the struggling economy, but the public complain that they have yet to see an improvement in their purses.
Public sector workers are also protesting against one of Sarkozy's key reforms - his "civil service revolution" to cut the unwieldy state bureaucracy and public administration, the costliest in Europe. Around 5.2 million people work in the public sector, one fifth of the French workforce. Sarkozy has pledged to cut the numbers, starting by not replacing one in three who retire in 2008. This would see up to 23,000 jobs go next year, and at least 11,000 in education.
Gilles Moindrot, head of the SNUIPP union for primary school teachers, told the Guardian: "The French population is growing and to cut [the number of] teachers is incomprehensible. Next September we'll be looking at one teacher per 50 children. For a primary teacher aged 45, an average salary is around €2,000 (£1,400) a month; with the cost of housing, that's barely enough to live on." |
Passengers were horrified to see the pilot leave the cockpit to help out due to cabin crew shortage.
A safety demonstration aboard a flight didn't exactly have the desired effect when a pilot left the cockpit to help out because of a shortage of cabin crew.
Jo Osborn, a passenger on the 10-hour British Airways flight from Texas in the US to London, England, claimed that the pilot was "helping with the safety demo", which typically took place as the plane taxis to the runway, the Sunday Express reported.
"Want me to do it @British_Airways so he can fly the plane?" she asked on social media.
Getty Images A BA spokesperson said there were three pilots and 13 cabin crew aboard the Houston-bound flight.
Airline staff member Lolly replied that there are "normally" two pilots on each flight, adding "Hope this clarifies matters".
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Osborn thanked her for her response but noted that seeing a pilot perform a safety demo was "a first" although "he did a great job pointing out the exits".
The UK airline is investigating the matter but is adamant that there were enough pilots and cabin crew on board.
According to an airline spokesperson, there were three pilots and 13 crew members.
"Our cabin crew and pilots always work as a team to ensure the safety of our customers," the spokesperson said.
Osborne's claim came amid a week-long strike by BA Mixed Fleet cabin crew over wages, which followed months of union strike action.
The Unite union has claimed that cabin crew earn "poverty pay" - an average £16,000 (NZ$28,000) a year, including allowances - while BA has said that none of its staff earn less than £21,000 (N$37,000). |
Yesterday Uber launched its ridesharing service, UberX, in four cities in South Carolina, offering residents of Charleston, Greenville, Columbia, and Myrtle Beach five free UberX rides each until July 24th. Unfortunately, the San Francisco-based technology company’s move into South Carolina could lead to conflicts with Palmetto State regulators.
According to reporting from Charleston’s newspaper, The Post and Courier, the executive director of the SC Office of Regulatory Staff believes that the main issue is whether the Uber business model would fall under the jurisdiction of the Public Service Commission’s regulatory authority. The Post and Courier mentioned that a taxi company in Charleston has developed its own smartphone app to compete with Uber. However, instead of just trying to offer a better rival service, the company, Yellow Cab of Charleston, is one of several taxi companies in South Carolina that are reportedly discussing calling for legislative action against Uber.
Uber and Lyft, another ridesharing company, have run afoul of regulators in numerous jurisdictions, including Virginia, Pittsburgh, and Ann Arbor, MI.
Lyft, which does not currently operate in South Carolina, announced this week that it would begin operating in New York City despite not having permission from the city’s Taxi and Limo Commission (TLC). Uber is now licensed by the TLC, although like Lyft it did not have TLC approval when it launched in NYC.
Companies in the so-called “sharing economy” do not fit well into existing regulatory frameworks. While Uber and Lyft are competitors to traditional taxi services, they are not taxi companies. Rather, they are technology companies that reduce the transaction costs of a familiar task (giving rides for money). It should not be surprising that existing regulations cannot keep up with such changes in technology.
It remains to be seen how regulators and taxi companies respond to Uber’s expansion into South Carolina. Regulators and lawmakers should consider removing already existing regulations in order to allow for Uber and taxis to compete in a fair and free market. Unfortunately, the history of Uber’s expansion is full of examples of regulators favoring out-of-date legislation over the necessary pro-consumer reforms. |
fasssst---- they are worth the money and effort
I got one for my desk top that was refurbished at a fraction of the price of a new one. Refurbished to me means it has been gone over by Sandisk and is probably better than a new one. In transfering information from my old boot disk which was a 120gb ssd3 I was getting speeds of over 6gb per sec showing in the task manager. I also turned off allow files on this drive to have contents indexed. Defrag now was set to never and prefetch and superfetch were also turned off. These all shorten the life of an ssd and add little to an ssd speed. They are for a hard disk. My startup times are very fast once I get past my bios. My bios takes longer than the actual startup when the ssd takes over. I also put a 120gb Sandisk Extreme in my laptop. It's like a new computer. It runs longer on battery ,it's cooler and a hell of a lot faster.Read full review |
U.S. researchers have found yet another reason to get sufficient shut-eye, with those that favour an early to bed, early to rise routine showing more heart-healthy behavior than night owls.
A team of researchers from the University of Delaware, the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University and the University of Arizona College of Medicine looked at the duration and approximate timing of sleep to see if there was a pattern between this and three major cardiovascular risk factors -- smoking, poor diet and sedentary habits — which together contribute to around 40 per cent of cardiovascular deaths in the U.S. and the U.K.
By using data from the U.K.'s Biobank Resource project, which aims to improve the prevention and treatment of a range of life-threatening illnesses including cardiovascular disease, the team were able to look at a large sample of 439,933 adults aged of 40-69 for a four-year period between 2006-10.
During the study participants were asked about their sleep habits, with short sleep defined as less than six hours, adequate sleep as seven to eight hours, and long sleep as nine hours or more.
Participants also defined themselves as a morning person, a more morning than evening person, more evening than morning, or an evening person.
To find out more about how heart-healthy their daily behavior was they were also asked about their levels of physical activity, time spent using a computer or watching TV, fruits and veg intake, and smoking habits.
Results showed that getting the right amount of sleep, and at the right times, reduced the unhealthy lifestyle behaviors associated with poor heart health, with those whose sleep was either too long or too short, and those who went to bed later, more likely to smoke, remain sedentary and eat fewer fruits and vegetables than those who got an adequate amount of sleep and went to bed earlier.
Commenting on the results, Freda Patterson, one of the study's co-authors said, "These data suggest that it's not just sleep deprivation that relates to cardiovascular risk behaviors, but too much sleep can relate as well.
"If we can modify sleep as a central risk factor, we might be in much better position to leverage or modify some of our most stubborn cardiovascular risk behaviors such as tobacco use."
However Patterson did also acknowledge that the study had limitations. Despite a huge number of participants the sample lacked diversity, and as a large part of the data was based on self-report, it was also subject to errors. The team now recommend further study in the area.
The study was published online in the journal Annals of Behavioral Medicine.
Also on HuffPost |
During his annual press conference today the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told NRK that Russia will not accept back the deported refugees from Norway.
– We talk about the people who came to Russia with an intention either to work or to visit relatives. They had not declared that their real purpose of the visit was to flee to Norway, said Lavrov.
– This means that they had deliberately provided false information about the purpose of their visit to Russia. This is why we do not want to take these people back.
In the course of the press conference Lavrov also pointed out that there is an ongoing discussion between Russia and Norway on this issue. The main goal is to reach the compromise which both countries will accept, said Lavrov.
news_5200
The stream of refugees from Russia through Murmansk and Storskog exploded in October. Since then Norway has made several attempts to warn the Russian side to take measures against the coming flow of refugees. However, Russia was unwilling to react, possibly due to the complicated relations with Norway in the light of the Ukrainian crisis, writes NRK.
But when Norway started sending buses with asylum seekers back to Russia in the middle of winter without any money, Russia sent an official note to Norway with a clear message: it is neither proper nor safe to accept hundreds of people this way.
The planned return of asylum seekers to Russia this weekend was temporarily postponed after the request of the Russians. Before that the Russian authorities informed Norway that they were willing to accept people who have legal residence in Russia or so-called multiple entry visa. In any case this number will not exceed 700 people. 200 of them were already sent back to Russia, writes NRK.
To be deported to native countries
Other 4800 asylum seekers are the residents of other countries than Russia and are to be deported to the countries of their origins, notes Norwegian Minister for Immigration and Integration Sylvi Listhaug, according to NRK.
A likely outcome of the unresolved situation now might be a new meeting between the Norwegian immigration authorities and the Russian Migration Office. Such a meeting must take place in cooperation with the Russian Foreign Ministry, which coordinates all contacts between Russia and foreign countries at the moment.
– We are dependent on a good dialogue and effective cooperation with Russia on this issue. This is our primary vision, while Russia has a different view. We must just deal with this situation very professionally, comments Norwegian Foreign Minister Børge Brende.
news_5205 |
Statistically Significant, and kindly contributed to (This article was first published on, and kindly contributed to R-bloggers)
With the election nearly upon us, I wanted to share an easy way I just found to download polling data and graph a few with ggplot2. dlinzer at github created a function to download poll data from the Huffington Post’s Pollster API.
The default is to download national tracking polls from the presidential election. After sourcing the function, I load the required packages, download the data, and make the plot.
library ( XML )
library ( reshape )
library ( ggplot2 ) ; theme_set ( theme_bw ( ) )
dat (pages= 20 )
ggplot ( dat , aes ( end.date , Obama/ ( Obama+Romney ) ) ) +geom_point ( alpha= .5 ) +geom_smooth ( aes ( weight= sqrt ( N ) ) ) +geom_hline ( aes ( yintercept= 0.5 ) , lty= 2 , size= 1 ) +
labs ( title = "Proportion of Vote for Obama" , x= "Last Date of Poll" , y= NULL )
I have used transparency so that you can see when there are many polls on top of each other. You can see that Obama’s lead decreased substantially after the first debate but has crawled back up since then. Of course, I am treating all polls as equal (although I am weighting by sample size) when the truth is that some polls are better than others and some are biased.
To have some more fun, I will show what some of the data from swing states look like. The code below loops through the swing states and downloads the polls. Then it plots the polls for each state in different facets.
swing.states= c ( "ohio" , "florida" , "virginia" , "colorado" , "nevada" , "north-carolina" )
for ( s in swing.states ) {
print ( s )
dat.state (chart= paste ( "2012-" , s , "-president-romney-vs-obama" , sep= "" ) , pages= "all" )
dat.state= subset ( dat.state , select= c ( "id" , "pollster" , "start.date" , "end.date" , "method" , "N" , "Obama" , "Romney" ) )
dat.state$State= s
if ( s == "ohio" ) {
dat=dat.state
} else {
dat= rbind ( dat , dat.state )
}
}
library ( lubridate )
dat$end.date=ymd ( as.character ( dat$end.date ) )
ggplot ( dat , aes ( end.date , Obama/ ( Obama+Romney ) ) ) +geom_point ( alpha= .5 ) +geom_smooth ( aes ( weight= sqrt ( N ) ) ) +geom_hline ( aes ( yintercept= 0.5 ) , lty= 2 , size= 1 ) +
labs ( title = "Proportion of Vote for Obama" , x= "Last Date of Poll" , y= NULL ) +facet_wrap ( ~State ) +xlim ( c ( mdy ( "8/1/2012" ) , mdy ( "11/6/2012" ) ) )
Unfortunately the x-axis didn’t show up very well, but it starts at August 1. There have been quite a few polls in Ohio and Florida, haven’t there? The state polls did not have nearly the same shift that the national poll did in reaction to the first debate. The state with the largest bump is Colorado, where the debate was held.
By just looking at the tracking polls, I think you would make the same conclusions that Nate Silver has with his fancy model. Ohio, Virginia, Nevada, and Colorado favor Obama. North Carolina favors Romney and Florida just barely tips toward Romney as well.
Finally, here are just the smoothed running means, all on one plot. You can see that There was also a first debate effect in Ohio.
ggplot ( dat , aes ( end.date , Obama/ ( Obama+Romney ) ) ) +geom_smooth ( aes ( colour=State , weight= sqrt ( N ) ) , se= FALSE , size= 2 ) +geom_hline ( aes ( yintercept= 0.5 ) , lty= 2 , size= 1 ) +
labs ( title = "Proportion of Vote for Obama" , x= "Last Date of Poll" , y= NULL ) +xlim ( c ( mdy ( "8/1/2012" ) , mdy ( "11/6/2012" ) ) )
Related |
As an energy source, oil has both positive and negative attributes.
Oil is a popular and readily available energy source, but it does have its downsides. Although it is relatively inexpensive when compared to renewable forms of energy production, such as solar and wind power, burning oil generates several types of pollution. Technological advancements are improving access to oil reserves, but the global supply of oil will eventually run out because it is a nonrenewable resource.
Pro: Available and Inexpensive
Several countries produce and refine oil, so the infrastructure for global distribution is already in place. Because it is a liquid, oil can easily be transported through pipeline networks, which move a large amount of oil over great distances relatively quickly. Most buildings and vehicles are made to work with energy generated by oil; the infrastructure exists to connect new buildings to power created by oil-burning power plants and gasoline is the most widely available fuel for vehicles. In contrast, alternative energy sources often require a significant initial investment to install the necessary equipment.
Con: Environmental Damage
Greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, are released into the atmosphere when oil is burned. These gases trap heat in the atmosphere and cause changes in climate that raise sea levels, alter weather patterns and force species to migrate. As an energy source, oil causes several kinds of air pollution, in addition to polluting land and water when it leaks or spills. Massive spills, like the 2010 Deep Water Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, have disastrous consequences for the environment, human health and the local economies that depend on fisheries and tourism.
Pro: Efficient Energy
Almost 50 percent of the oil used in the United States is sold as gasoline. While gasoline alternatives such as ethanol and biodiesel exist, most vehicles need to be modified to use them. Existing infrastructure and vehicle design make oil a convenient energy source. Also, oil's chemical composition makes it an efficient energy source. No other kind of transportation fuel contains as much energy per unit of volume as gasoline and diesel, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Con: Finite Resource
Oil is made when organic matter is subjected to tremendous heat and pressure for millions of years. It is not a renewable resource, so the global supply of oil will eventually be depleted. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that, based on known oil reserves in 2013, the oil supply will last until approximately 2063. Eventually, reliable alternative energy sources need to be developed; several, including solar, wind and geothermal power, are becoming increasingly more convenient and affordable. |
Liga MX is back—and Club Tijuana features more Americans than ever before. Plus: a cool Jozy GIF, news on Michael Parkhurst, a surprised Shane O'Neill, and much more.
BY Josh Deaver Posted
January 07, 2014
12:24 PM SHARE THIS STORY
This week, American observers were offered a brief moment’s solace from the perpetual tragedy that is Jozy Altidore-in-Sunderland, as the beleagured striker delivered an assist in the club’s 3-1 FA Cup win over Carlisle. Receiving the ball at the penalty spot, Altidore made a deft turn and slid the ball to El-Hadji Ba who put the match out of reach and advanced the Black Cats. Despite the contribution—his sixth assist on the season—Altidore scuffed two early chances which lead to some less than favorable reviews among the always fair and even-keeled English press. Altidore and Sunderland will line up against Manchester United on Tuesday in the first leg of the Capital One Cup semi-finals.
Deuce got the start in the first match of his two-month loan spell with Fulham, going 90 minutes in a 1-1 FA Cup draw with Norwich City on Saturday. It was Dempsey’s first match with the Whites since the Texan—who holds a club record with 60 goals—successfully engineered a move to Tottenham Hotspur in 2012. All (American) eyes will surely be on Dempsey this weekend, as he makes his much-anticipated return to Craven Cottage where Fulham will battle compatriot Jozy Altidore and Sunderland in a vital relegation battle.
You can add Jermaine Jones to the list of Americans on the move this winter. The 32-year-old midfielder is reportedly seeking a move from Bundesliga club Schalke, where he has played for seven non-consecutive seasons. On permission from Schalke director Horst Heldt, the hard-tackling midfielder did not travel to the club’s recent training camp in Qatar, rather choosing to remain in Germany in order to find a new club and "assess eventual offers." While MLS is an obvious landing spot, there are a few valid arguments as to why a move may not work.
So many grains of salt are needed during this time of year. What exactly am I supposed to do with a few sentences on an Italian website about AS Roma (and Bundesliga side Werder Bremen) possibly being interested in the mop-topped Rosenborg midfielder? I will give you the link , I suppose.
There’s only one thing a new Liga MX season means: More Xolos! Club Tijuana kicked off its Clasura campaign on Sunday night, battling Atlas to a scoreless draw. Despite the result, the roster selections of new head coach Cesar Farias should buoy American supporters. Four of the five American Xolos saw the field Sunday night with Gomez, Joe Corona (#31) and Greg Garza (#83) getting starts. Edgar Castillo (#29) entered for Corona in the 71st minute, while Paul Arriola remained on the substitute’s bench. Tijuana meets Club America on Friday night.
The Augsburg nightmare is nearly over for Michael Parkhurst. On the books for the Bundelsiga bottom-dwellers since last January, the 29-year-old defender has only registered two appearances for the club since his arrival. After getting a sustained preseason run for the most recent campaign, Parkhurst has only suited up once this year—a situation which has the former New England Revolution man plotting his exit strategy. According to a German report published Monday morning , Parkhurst will not attend the club’s winter camp and is currently in negotiations to "return home." Whether that portends a move to MLS or the Danish Superliga—where he spent five seasons with FC Nordsjaelland—is currently unknown.
Brek Shea to Barnsley isn’t exactly the type of high-profile move that many American observers would have been hoping for at the start of this transfer window. Regardless, the 22-year-old joined the last-place Championship side this week on an emergency 28-day loan from Stoke City. Getting his name on the team sheet some two hours before Barnsley’s mid-week fixture, Shea got the start and played 75 minutes in a 1-1 draw with Birmingham City. As is the case with most of Shea’s performances, national team or otherwise, opinions and reviews vary wildly. Manager Danny Wilson was complimentary , however, saying, “Brek Shea came into the team and had a fantastic 70 minutes or so." Adding, "He'll be a big threat for us going forward." The Tykes return to league action this weekend against Charlton Athletic.
Congratulations are in order for the 24-year-old defender, who received his first senior national team invitation this week for the annual January training camp. It’s not exactly a surprise given his production last season in MLS—notching eight assists for Colorado Rapids—and the relative dearth at the left back position in the American player pool. His ascent becomes all the more remarkable, however, given that Klute was playing in the NPSL, effectively the fifth division of American soccer, as recently as 2012. Let that sink in for a second.
Onyewu’s slow, steady fall from grace continues. On Sunday, English Championship side Queens Park Rangers announced it will cut ties with the former Malaga defender. Onyewu only joined the club in October. The move, according to head coach Harry Redknapp, was originally designed to get Onyewu steady minutes ahead of the World Cup, seemingly predicated on the idea that the 31-year-old had an inside track for an invitation to Brazil. Um, no. Now seeking his seventh team since 2009, future prospects are dimming for Onyewu, who has appeared in just 21 competitive matches in the last two years. A move to MLS could be the final chapter in the long career of the venerable center back.
One of several surprise selections for Jugen Klinsmann’s January national team camp was 20-year-old Colorado Rapids defender Shane O’Neill. In an interview with MLSSoccer.com, O’Neill, who represented the U.S. under-20 national team at last summer’s World Cup and recently returned from a training stint with EPL side Fulham, expressed his surprise in receiving the invitation. “I was pretty shocked,” the versatile defender said. “Obviously, just to get the opportunity to play at this level is fantastic wherever they want to play me.” Despite the invite, O’Neill is still not closing the door on the possibility of representing Ireland, for which he holds dual-citizenship.
In his short time with Championship side Huddersfield Town, Atlanta-born teenager Duane Holmes has been a hit for the Terriers. Lauded by the manager and fans alike , Holmes has made his presence felt primarily as a late-match substitute. On Saturday, in a rare televised appearance, Holmes once again showed he can be a difference maker. He played 32 minutes and sparked the club to a 3-2 come-from-behind win over Grimsby Town. In the 86th minute, Holmes cracked a shot with pace from outside of the box, forcing the Grimsby keeper to parry the effort, only for it to fall in the path of teammate Martin Patterson, who finished coolly. Huddersfield, currently sitting 13th on the table, battle Millwall on Saturday.
ASN Contributing Editor Josh Deaver is a former academic turned soccer obsessive. Follow him on Twitter already. |
CBO Director Douglas Elmdorf testified that debt will exceed 100% of GDP within 25 years and continue to rise, a “trend that could not be sustained” and would eventually heighten “the risk of a fiscal crisis” before the House Budget Committee on Tuesday.
“Although the deficits in our baseline projections remain roughly stable as a percentage of GDP through 2018, as I noted, they rise after that. The deficit in 2025 is projected to be $1.1 trillion, or 4% of GDP, and cumulative deficits over the 2016 to 2025 period are projected to total $7.6 trillion. We expect that federal debt held by the public will amount to 74% of GDP at the end of this fiscal year, more than twice what it was at the end of 2007, and higher than in any year since 1950. By 2025, in our baseline projections, federal debt rises to nearly 79% of GDP. When CBO last issued long-term budget projections in the summer, we projected that, under current law, debt would exceed 100 percent of GDP 25 years from now, and would continue on an upward trajectory thereafter. That trend that could not be sustained. Such large and growing federal debt would have serious negative consequences, including increasing federal spending for interest payments, restraining economic growth in the long term, giving policymakers less flexibility to respond to unexpected challenges, and eventually heightening the risk of a fiscal crisis” he stated.
Click here to read more from Breitbart.com.
A Convention of States can halt the rise of the national debt and force Washington to be fiscally responsible. The best part? Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court can't do anything about it. Click here to find out how. |
Image caption Beijing has been trying to push the yuan as an alternative global reserve currency
China and Brazil have signed a currency swap deal, designed to safeguard against future global financial crises.
The pact, first announced last year, will allow their central banks to swap local currencies worth up to 190bn yuan or 60bn reais ($30bn; £20bn).
Officials said this will ensure smooth bilateral trade, regardless of global financial conditions.
Along with being the world's second-largest economy, China is also Brazil's biggest trading partner.
"If there were shocks to the global financial market, with credit running short, we'd have credit from our biggest international partner, so there would be no interruption of trade," said Guido Mantega, Brazil's economy minister.
The agreement was signed on the sidelines of the fifth Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit being held in Durban, South Africa.
The purpose of this swap is that, independent of the conditions prevailing in the international financial market, we will have $30bn available Alexandre Tombini, Governor, Brazil Central Bank
'Guarantee normal trade'
Trade between China and Brazil has grown robustly over the past few years, with volumes rising from $6.7bn in 2003 to nearly $75bn in 2012.
A large chunk of this growth has been driven by growing Chinese demand for Brazil's resources, such as iron ore and soy products.
Meanwhile, Brazil has also become a key export market for goods manufactured in China.
Brazil's Central Bank governor Alexandre Tombini said the swap agreement would ensure that trade volumes between the two nations did not suffer if a financial crisis in the future hurt global liquidity.
"The purpose of this swap is that, independent of the conditions prevailing in the international financial market, we will have $30bn available which would represent eight months of exports from Brazil to China and 10 months of imports to Brazil from China," he said.
"This is sufficiently large to guarantee normal trade operations."
Bigger yuan role
China has been pushing for a more international role for its currency, the yuan. It has been trying to promote the yuan as an alternative to the US dollar as a global reserve currency.
As part of that push, it has signed a series of swap deals with some of its key trading partners.
Such agreements not only allow central banks to swap currencies, but can also be used by firms to settle trade in local currencies rather than in US dollars, as happens now, since China's currency is not fully convertible to other currencies.
Earlier this year, the Bank of England said that it was in negotiations with its Chinese counterpart to finalise a three-year swap agreement.
Last year, China signed a swap deal with Australia worth up to A$30bn ($31bn; £20bn) to promote bi-lateral trade and investment.
It is also looking at currency pacts with Hong Kong and Japan. |
Hello, and welcome to the year 2016. We have our first female major party presidential nominee in the history of this country so surely we can speak to women about trivial things like college football in a reasoned and equitable manner and
It's 2016. I just shared an awesome picture book this morning about women pioneers in science. We have the first female... Publicado por Tonia Dousay em Quinta, 28 de julho de 2016
ENHANCE
If you can't read it, here is the blown up version of that Texas A&M Chalk Talk pic.twitter.com/LfrIPyWMKa — Anwar Richardson (@AnwarRichardson) July 29, 2016
oh. Oh. OH NO. No, no no. What in the festering green hell is this? Was there a system set up to check this material before it was presented? Did it go straight from one person’s stunted notion of humor directly to the internet for the entire world to see without any sort of review?
Forget the tarnishing of reputation and the potential (and well-deserved) slew of negative attention this may attract on social media. The worst part of this entire fiasco is that you have insulted the intelligence of Aggie Women. Women who have decided to embrace Texas A&M despite not being allowed to attend until the 1960s. Women with the good grace to put up with a lot of shit because they love our university.
Who knows what the vetting process was that went on behind closed doors. But one important thought was left out: without context, this looks absolutely horrible on all levels. Since many women in the crowd were upset by this, we’re guessing that it was not presented as satire at all, and that confirms the worst fears: this was just a big ol’ sexist talking-down to, complete with this rendition of the War Hymn:
We are Aggie women
We are filled with estrogen
Hullabaloo, canek, canek, and back again Maroon & white are the colors we love
We are putting down our dish towels
And taking off our gloves No more lysol or cascade
We want to score Touchdowns
And walk in the parade We are Aggie women & this is our song
Come on...bring it on...no more thong
Hullabaloo..caneck..caneck..and so on
Someone involved in organizing this event somehow forgot that every single thing you do is going to end up on social media. But the lack of awareness pales in comparison to the sheer misogynistic and sexist tone they chose to adopt while addressing a group of adults with degrees from their own University. Here’s an idea: pretend like you’re addressing your mother, wife, sister, or daughter at “Chalk Talk” and see if it still sounds as cute in your head.
Or maybe we don’t need a designated event that’s basically set up for men to talk down to women. |
Ian Bernard (Freeman), host of Free Talk Live appeared in Keene, NH municipal court on Friday to answer a complaint regarding a couch on his tenant's lawn. As reported , judge Eward Burke ordered him taken into custody within seconds and removed to a separate courtroom, where he received 90 days for three contempt charges and 3 days for the couch.
Now, the Keene courthouse is reporting that Bernard returned to court this morning and had the sentences suspended on the three contempt charges, though the charges stand.
The support for Bernard that blossomed over the weekend was tremendous. Websites 93days.com and jailedactivist.info sprung to life and chronicaled the various reports and information surrounding Friday's events.
It now appears that the original complaint about the couch was politically motivated, initiated by a Keene bureaucrat in response to questions posed to her by Bernard on WKBK's Talk Back radio show. |
Clif ‘Cooky’ Crawford was Blackmore’s guitar tech between 1981 and 1988. A couple of months ago his reminiscences started being posted on Facebook and elsewhere. They are, for the most part, an amusing read. Quotes below are unedited for extra flavour 😉
Making of Bent Out of Shape:
by the end of 1982 it was time for another personnel change.this time it was my old friend and employer bobby rondinelli.this came as such a shock to me as it was bobby who brought me to these heights in the music business.i had been on and off with bobby since 1977.anyway a new drummer was needed and we went about auditioning drummers for a long time.we must have had 4-5 guys that were supposed to have made it in but once in the studio it didn’t work out. every drummer i knew came down to play but none really worked out for one reason or another.we were also playing alot of soccer and the new recruits were expected to play.many a drummer who thought they were in good physical shape were very disappointed in themselves as a couple of hours on the soccer pitch usually killed most of them off!!they’d head into the studio after playing soccer and were so tired at this point that their timing would be shot…
Rainbow — Live Between the Eyes:
“live between the eyes” recorded in san antonio texas in middle of 1982 american tour shows rainbow at their peak with this lineup, in my opinion.while joe lynn turner wasn’t as heavy metal a singer as ronnie james dio he did have an incredible voice and range and was always in great vocal shape.bobby rondinelli on drums was a powerhouse and also played better when people were watching. david roesenthal was again in my opinion the best keyboardist to play in rainbow and you could tell by the interaction with ritchie. he loved playing back & forth with david as david was pitch-perfect and could mimic anything ritchie came up with. roger glover was the catylist who held it all down and was a jack of all trades and producer of the album…
Rainbow — Straight Between the Eyes:
after multiple tours in 1981 we went to killington vermont for rehearsals for new lp and new member david rosenthal this was another ski resort area where you can get a large house in the woods and not have to worry about waking anyone up at all hours when inspiration struck. they also had multiple bedrooms and were fairly easy to rent for short periods of time. from there to morin heights canada to le studio 100 miles north of montreal in the heart of the winter. this studio had great reputation and great facilities. the Police had just been there for parts of “ghost in the machine”. it was the home base for Rush as they did multiple things here. the owner guy carboneau was a great guy and nick blagona was the best engineer around and all around fun guy. ritchie liked the snow and solitude of being kind of stranded up in a chalet with nothing but the people working with him and very few distractions. we burned more wood there for staring into fires than the locals did in 6 yrs and then some of the furniture went !
Rainbow Live in Japan and Deep Purple reunion:
…once we got home to new york maybe a week went by and ritchie called me and asked me to pick him up in the morning and take him to greenwich conneticut where he was to attend an important meeting…little did i know i was bringing him to meet with his manger(bruce payne) and ian gillan,jon lord,ian paice and of course roger glover…. i think he told me halfway there but it didn’t sink in until i opened the conference room doors and sitting at the table was these same famous chaps.i was quickly introduced to each of them and immediately shook their my hands.they were all extremely excited to be together and it was a magical feeling as this was the first time they were in the same room together in 11yrs!!….when i got home i called raymond d’addario(production manager) to tell him he didn’t work for rainbow anymore! then i added…because we now work for deep purple!!!!!i think this blew his mind as he had worked for elf when they opened for deep purple back in the day..now he was the production manager for a super group about to start rehearsals in stowe vermont followed by a reunion album recording and a gigantic reunion tour to start in december 1984 in perth australia…
Perfect Strangers rehearsals:
…as all the equipment arrived so did the band and we set up at a place called horizons which was a large ski house on the side of part of a mountain over looking stowe. we used the basement to jam and it came together pretty quickly as they just started playing like they were never apart.ritchie had lots of ideas and i remember roger saying how they were now going to start playing and making a very heavy album.they were all on the same page there…ritchie and jon lord played alot of classical sounding things by themselves and were very much in tune with each other.roger and ian paice would jump in and off they’d go.there was nothing but smiles all around as everyone knew this was going to be big!…we even had some locals sneeking around the property having heard thru town that deep purple were here. it was a very special time as most of the locals soon heard rumours about us being in town and were soon joining us in games of soccer and drinking with us at the pubs…
Thanks to Dima Zykov for heads up. |
It is a wet February night, and we are gathered at Lee and Dan’s suburban apartment. There are five of us — our hosts, plus Alex, Jason, and me. We have a larger group of friends, but the rest of the crew is not into “serious” drugs. The five of us jokingly call ourselves the “Psychonautic Subcommittee” ever since we tried MDMA for the first time together last fall.
Absolute euphoria floods through me, as though each moment of existence is a triumph.
Tonight, it’s time to explore a new psychedelic frontier. We each grind an eighth of an ounce of dried mushrooms, mix it with orange juice, and gulp it down. It tastes of earth.
I am uneasy but excited for my first psychedelic experience. I’ve been reading plenty but I still don’t know what to expect. Lee has taken shrooms many times and absolutely loves them, so I’m glad to have his expertise and infectious enthusiasm. The rest of us are entering new territory.
I feel it in my legs first. They’re wobbly. Then reality begins to seems less real, and more joyous. More flexible.
An hour later I have more energy than I know what to do with. Absolute euphoria floods through me, as though each moment of existence is a triumph. We can’t keep our minds on any task, flitting from one room to another, energetic but aimless, beaming.
We move the couch to the side of the living room in order to make more play room. Then we decide to insulate ourselves from the rest of the boring, sober world, and push the couch right against the door. With manic nods and smiles, we agree that this is a great idea. Jason expresses concern about blocking the only exit of this third-floor apartment, especially since we are using the stove burner to heat a chunk of coal for the hookah. We admit he has a point and move the couch back.
The ceiling swims. I have never hallucinated before, and I laugh like a little kid. It’s so incredible, to see something I know is stationary dancing and shifting. The whole ceiling seems to circle around the sprinkler head, which remains stationary.
I feel like climbing, so I lift myself onto the countertop divider that separates the kitchen from the living room. Four feet higher in the air, I have a much better view of the dancing popcorn ceiling, as well as the lunacy unfolding below. Dan lies face down on the couch and says he is zooming through a dark space with bright lights arranged in geometric patterns. Jason is sitting cross-legged, staring wordlessly into space, his jaw slack and his eyes focused on something only he can see. Lee tells me about Terence McKenna’s “Stoned Ape” theory—that humanity has evolved to its current state largely because of psilocybin mushrooms—but I find it hard to pay attention when the ceiling is dancing before my eyes.
My energy cannot be contained and my attention span has shrunk to a single moment. The shackles of past and future fall away and I am completely consumed by the present. Free of worry, free of deadlines, free of problems. There is only now.
Lee and Jason and I wander into Lee’s bedroom. Jason lies down on the bed, his face buried in the pillow. “Oh my God,” he says after a moment. “I can still see you guys moving around the room. I can see your shadows against some kind of wall. When you talk I can see your mouths move!” Normally we would be inclined to give him a psychiatric evaluation, but tonight we’re ecstatic. High five for clairvoyance!
After a bit I retreat to the carpeted office floor with Alex, closing the door behind me. We wave our hands in front of our faces, watching the overlapping shadows on the ceiling. The room is bathed in new colors every few seconds, as the screensaver on Lee’s computer rotates through different images. My hand leaves faint trails as it passes through space, as though light itself has an echo. The room is transformed into something magical, otherworldly. A sanctuary.
Alex insists that this is the way to trip—by yourself, or with one other person, enjoying the magic of quiet moments and completely exploring this new form of consciousness. He says that when you do normal things, like sitting around the table smoking hookah and socializing, the magic is diminished. It’s not as special, because you’re just doing routine things, and trying to apply your mind to regular tasks. I have to agree. The drug’s effects are most noticeable when I quiet myself into a contemplative state. Then, free to forget reality’s limitations, my imagination runs wild.
Just speaking out loud, trying to cram this transcendent experience into the constraints of everyday language, robs the experience of its magic and drags me back to consensual reality. Engaging with language is tempting because we have so much to share with each other, but the effort is difficult and distracting. I have no words for these feelings. What’s worse, the part of me that is adept at finding words for complex ideas has gone on vacation.
Still, I’ve committed to enjoying this trip with four of my buddies, my fellow explorers. I can always trip alone or in smaller groups some other time. Tonight is our night. I leave the sanctuary to reconnect with the others at the table. Alex joins us a few minutes later. We pass the hookah nozzle around.
Jason has provided poster paper and crayons. I quickly sketch a warthog in purple crayon, and Jason stares at it, astounded. “It’s like it’s alive! The tusks are wet!” Dan draws a smiling cartoon man. The colors bleed off the page and hang in the air like ribbons.
In the kitchen, I bend down and look at the countertop. Shapes appear to rise right out of the counter and into the air, like a city made of Lego blocks. But the shapes keep on moving—blue and white and aquamarine cylinders, rising and falling like pistons in slow-motion. I reach out to touch them, and they immediately recede back into the flat countertop.
Alex says something that stays with me. “Somewhere out there,” he says, “there are five guys just like us, tripping shrooms for the first time.” Statistically, it seems likely enough. Our counterparts, whoever they are, understand this experience; they feel the way we feel. And maybe they’re asking the same question, wondering if we’re out here as well. Parallel tribes of psychedelic voyagers separated by space and knowledge, never to meet and shake hands, but united by the thread of wonderment.
These are the kinds of thoughts that take root in our fertile minds, growing into unexpected tangents and realizations. My thinking process has been tweaked and I love it. I ride each thought to whatever uncharted territory it takes me to.
How did we ever start using terms like “recreational drug use,” “drug abuse,” and “Schedule 1 Controlled Substance” to describe this experience? Only modern Western culture could make this trip to wonderland sound so unappealing. What we’ve discovered tonight is a fairy-tale realm that tops Neverland, Narnia, and Oz. A place where inanimate objects move, colors come alive, conventions and assumptions are cast to the wind, and the giddy energy of childhood is rekindled! Who knew such an enchanted place existed outside the boundaries of everyday consciousness? What else is out there?
We smoke a bowl and I indulge a bit too much, thinking it will be like usual.
I’m lying on the couch when the arbitrariness of our place in the universe crashes down on me. Everything about human culture strikes me as perverse, absurd. I recognize the Ben Folds song playing from the speakers, yet it could not sound more alien. What is a song? What is music? We sit around making noises, and etch these noises into tapes and discs so that other can hear the noises again and again. What’s the point of all that?
And movies: a bunch of people playing pretend in the most contrived scenarios imaginable. The so-called story of any movie is actually a project involving hundreds of people, all intent on duping you, the viewer. They gain your trust in a miniature reality, only to betray it when the credits fall. The dialog is read from a script; the camera angles are precisely executed by professional cinematographers. All of the heroes are actors—phonies, impostors—and the whole “art” a contrivance. And we are happy to sit down and watch these made-up stories about made-up people struggling through made-up conflicts.
How can we possibly become emotionally invested in such trivial games? Don’t we know it’s an elaborate pretense? Even I, a lover of music and film, cannot help but acknowledge the nonsensical nature of both.
Sex, too, strikes me as utterly absurd. Humans are born with what parts? And they do what together? Couldn’t they just shake hands, speak a password, and be done with it? Why the sexual act, with its passion and pleasure, its power over our lives and decisions? How bizarre that we are attracted to one another, that we commune in such a raw, physical act. Sexuality defies logic.
The assumptions that undergird my everyday reality have crumbled and the rest of me is collapsing into the foundation.
It gets a little too real. I start thinking about my life, my relationships, my career—everything I could be doing better. I question my lack of direction, my complacency. It’s my first time with a psychedelic, and I’m getting a taste of just how much it can kick my ass. I remember how ecstasy smooths over the cracks and creases of reality, covers everything in its golden glow of love. Mushrooms, however, make me confront myself. Barriers come down and excuses crouch away like guilty dogs.
Anxiety builds. I want the effects to wear off so I can feel normal. I want the comfort blanket of my ego back, complete with its defense mechanisms. Without the illusion of certainty, without my self-protective lies and assumptions, I feel exposed. Cornered! The assumptions that undergird my everyday reality have crumbled and the rest of me is collapsing into the foundation.
“I feel anxious,” I say, my first step towards escape from this crippling self-appraisal. I talk it through with my friends. This alone is a fight for me, because my natural tendency is to deal with problems on my own; to listen, but rarely to express anything too personal. But tonight I manage to give voice to some of my insecurities. Does anybody have their shit together? Do you know what you want in life, and are you on your way to achieving it? Am I just settling for mediocrity?
They are coming down off the shrooms and reassure me. None of us has it all figured out, they say. But look at us, we’re all okay. And we’re here together. Right?
The anxiety fades away. I am left with my friends on a Friday night. Back to normal, but a new normal. This vacation from everyday consciousness has floored me and it will take some time to put myself back together. My eyes and mind have been opened. |
We’ve heard about robots and air-conditioned spacesuits as potential tools to help in Ebola prevention efforts. But what about simpler, everyday items that are helping today?
Soap and running water
The signs are all over West Africa, where the Ebola virus has infected more than 10,000 people and taken nearly 5,000 lives: “Ebola is real. Wash your hands.” In Liberia, where Ebola has taken the largest toll, the government and international groups have launched public awareness campaigns urging residents to wash their hands with soap and running water (or hand sanitizer if soap isn’t available) to help prevent the transmission of Ebola, which spreads through bodily fluids.
Bamboo hand-washing stations
How do people get running water in areas that lack a sanitation system? Some have turned to the naturally watertight and locally growing bamboo. Holes are drilled in the upper diaphragms of the bamboo stem to create a tube to hold the water. A hole is drilled toward the bottom of the stem and plugged with a stick that can be removed to produce a stream of water. These handy hand-washing stations are used at hospitals, county checkpoints and towns in Liberia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Pesticide-turned-disinfectant sprayers
These ordinary pesticide-style sprayers are filled with chlorinated water and used to disinfect the grounds of Ebola treatment sites, sterilize the bodies of victims before burial and cleanse the protective gear of health workers who come in contact with infected patients.
Trash bags
Fatu Kekula, a 22-year-old nursing student from Kakata, Liberia, made international news when she took care of her entire family who had become infected with Ebola. She didn’t have the white protective suits and goggles that official health workers rely on to stay safe. Instead, she improvised and wore layers of trash bags over her socks and boots, a raincoat and four pairs of gloves. Three of her four infected family members survived and she didn’t contract the disease.
Health authorities much prefer that residents bring people suspected of having Ebola to hospitals to get proper treatment from doctors. But for those who can’t get into overwhelmed hospitals, Kekula’s “trash bag method” of care provided some element of protection.
Doctors Without Borders workers have distributed thousands of home disinfectant kits to those who they have had to turn away from their treatment centers, and to other health workers and people living in densely populated, Ebola-prone areas. The kits include a bucket, chlorine, soap, gloves, a gown, plastic bags, a spray bottle and masks, along with instructions on how to use them.
Pickup trucks
The best ambulance to transport Ebola patients and those who have succumbed to the disease is not an enclosed vehicle like a van, Dr. Isabelle Nuttall, the World Health Organization’s director of global capacities, alert and response, said at a press briefing earlier this month. “It’s a pickup. Why? The driver is protected. The person can be put in the back and therefore, you limit the manipulation of the person.”
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Share. “Because video games affect people.” “Because video games affect people.”
Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander has called video games “a bigger problem than guns.” Speaking on MSNBC's The Daily Rundown, Alexander condemned games but said he doesn’t expect anti-gun or game bills to catch on due to the First and Second Amendments.
"I'm going to wait and see on all of these bills," Alexander said. "I think video games is a bigger problem than guns, because video games affect people. But the First Amendment limits what we can do about video games and the Second Amendment to the Constitution limits what we can do about guns. So the details matter to me. I'm going to be skeptical of any of these proposals and examine them in light of the Second Amendment to the Constitution."
Alexander’s appearance coincides with a Senate hearing today discussing gun violence in the United States. This is one of many instances of video games entering into the debate in recent weeks, following President Obama asking congress to commission a study on violent games and a proposed bill from West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller.
Alexander’s comments follow video game condemnations from other politicians recently, including Senators Leland Yee and Chris Murphy last week and Missouri representative Diane Franklin earlier this month.
Source: GI.biz
Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s associate news editor. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following @garfep on Twitter or garfep on IGN. |
View source on Github
With the latest version (0.1.4) of the mysql library, we now have the machinery needed to use it properly in a concurrent setting. In the past, any multi-threaded use was a little risky, although in practice it seems to have been satisfactory for applications which were not too demanding.
The necessary changes have just been made to the MySQL version of the scaffolding, and are described here. Existing Yesod sites should be updated in a similar manner. This post should give you all you need to know, but further background can be found in the MySQL manual and Roman Cheplyaka's blog.
But It Worked Anyway, Didn't It?
Let's start by reviewing why the mysql library works automatically in a single-threaded program, and why we might have got away with it most of the time in Yesod applications.
The underlying C library ( libmysqlclient ) requires a one-off initialisation, and then each thread in which it is called must be initialised to allocate some thread-local data. However, these actions are carried out automatically when a connect call is made, if they have not already been done. So nothing further is needed in a single-threaded program: a connect necessarily comes first, and it performs the required initialisations.
This behaviour of the connect call probably also explains why we have mostly got away with ignoring the problem in Yesod applications. Warp creates lightweight, Haskell threads by default, and these run in a rather small number of OS threads. When a new connection is opened and added to the pool, the OS thread running at the time will be initialised, as just described. Due to the small number of these threads, there is a reasonable chance that this is the first database action in each of them, resulting in correct initialisation. But there are no guarantees!
Correct Multi-Threaded Use
To be completely correct, we have to do all of the following:
Initialise the library as a whole.
Use bound threads for those which might perform database operations.
Initialise each thread properly.
Finalise each thread to free the memory used by its thread-local state.
The library initialisation is not thread-safe; it needs to be called separately to ensure that subsequent connect calls, occurring in multiple threads, detect that it has been done and do not repeat it themselves. This has been achieved in the scaffolding by calling MySQL.initLibrary from makeFoundation , before any database actions are carried out:
... import qualified Database.MySQL.Base as MySQL ... makeFoundation appSettings = do ... MySQL.initLibrary
The point about bound threads is that they provide a guarantee that related initialisation and database operations really do occur in the same OS thread. However, using them means that OS threads are created frequently, and the argument given above no longer applies, not even as an approximation: the threads definitely need explicit initialisation. They also need finalising to avoid a memory leak - again this is made important by the large number of threads. (There are some situations in which the finalisation can be omitted, but check the documentation carefully before doing so.)
The settings passed to warp can be used to make it spawn bound threads, instead of Haskell threads, and to specify functions to initialise and finalise them. This code shows how it is now done in the scaffolding, in Application.hs :
warpSettings foundation = ... $ setFork (\x -> void $ forkOSWithUnmask x) $ setOnOpen (const $ MySQL.initThread >> return True) $ setOnClose (const MySQL.endThread) defaultSettings
Warp forks a new thread to handle each connection, using the function specified by setFork . The functions passed to setOnOpen and setOnClose are called right at the start of processing the connection, and right at the end, so they are valid places to initialise and finalise the thread for use by the mysql library.
The argument to setFork is a function which creates bound threads. If you are wondering why it is written the way it is, instead of void . forkOSWithUnmask , it simply avoids the need for the ImpredicativeTypes language extension, which is considered fragile and is sometimes broken by new compiler releases!
Unfortunately, forkOSWithUnmask is not exported by Control.Concurrent until base-4.9 (ie GHC 8), so, when using earlier versions, we have to copy its definition into our code:
{-# LANGUAGE RankNTypes #-} ... import GHC.IO (unsafeUnmask) ... forkOSWithUnmask :: ((forall a . IO a -> IO a) -> IO ()) -> IO ThreadId forkOSWithUnmask io = forkOS (io unsafeUnmask)
What About Efficiency?
OS threads are more expensive than Haskell threads, but the difference may not matter much compared to all the other processing which is going on in a real application. It would be wise to do some benchmarks before worrying about it!
One possible optimisation is to make sure that HTTP keepalive is used, since warp creates a thread per connection, not per request. Some reverse proxies might need explicit configuration for this. |
Topics include telemedicine, financial creativity, patient access, MACRA's unintended consequences, and EHR interoperability
BOSTON, MA--(Marketwired - December 01, 2016) -Amazing Charts, LLC, a leading developer of Electronic Health Record (EHR) and Practice Management (PM) systems for physician practices, today issued five health IT predictions for 2017.
#1 Telemedicine will no longer be futuristic.Contrary to popular belief, telemedicine does not necessarily mean live video conferencing with a physician halfway across the country who lacks a full picture of the patient's health status. Patients would rather receive "low tech" remote care from a local primary care physician they already know.
Telemedicine happens whenever an EHR system adds to a patient's clinical chart the messages, pictures, or videos sent securely via smartphone. Use of smartphones for telemedicine will further increase with the introduction of add-on hardware for real-time collection of biometric data such as temperature, blood pressure and pulse.
This trend will be fueled by the expansion of reimbursement for non-face-to-face services. Medicare's new billing code for Chronic Care Management is just one example of how the future of value-based care is not about 15-minute office visits, but instead keeping patients out of the office with follow-up phone calls about medications and answering patient questions via text.
#2 Practices will focus on reengineering patient access.As part of Medicare's new Quality Payment Program, the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) is designed to encourage providers to expand patient access with "practice improvement activities," such as same-day appointments for urgent needs, longer office hours, and after-hours clinician advice.
Physicians also want to shift the responsibilities such as appointment scheduling from the office staff to the patient. Delegating that type of chore to the patient saves the staff time; and, patients not only don't mind doing the work, they perceive value in self-service options that give them total control.
While tablet-based patient intake solutions have not become widespread because the hardware is costly and requires complex systems integration, simple web forms and PDF attachments can get the job done just as well.
#3Physicians will get financially creative.A host of factors is pushing independent physicians to be more financially creative. These include the frustrations of making claims to insurance carriers, the new Medicare fee-for-value payments creating uncertainty in gauging reimbursement levels, and burnout with the "corporate medicine" model of seeing dozens of patients each day for lower fees.
One example of financial creativity is the direct care model which establishes a financial relationship between patient and provider, cutting out the middleman of insurance payers. This model includes concierge and direct primary care, where patients become members who pay a fixed monthly fee for unlimited care. There are also a growing number of cash-only practices for walk-in and urgent care.
Beleaguered small practices under financial stress are also looking for novel ways to generate cash. The new rules allowing reimbursement of telemedicine and other non-face-to-face services will encourage physicians to bill for activities they were already doing for free, such as phone calls with patients to discuss medications.
#4 Physicians will opt out of Medicare thanks to MACRA.Like all well-intentioned laws, The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) will have unintended consequences. Some providers in small independent practices will either opt-out of Medicare entirely, or decline to accept new Medicare patients if they currently fall below the threshold for exemption (less than $30,000 in Part B billings or 100 Part B patients).
To ease small practices into MACRA, the Final Rule issued by the Centers of Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) relaxed many of the requirements for 2017. By 2018, however, MACRA starts to impose more financial risk and stricter reporting requirements with less clarity around the return on investment. Small practices might just drop Medicare altogether and transition to a direct-care practice based on cash, membership, or a hybrid (see prediction #3 above).
#5 EHRs will become more interoperable.The next certification cycle from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) positions the EHR as a secure repository, allowing certified ancillary tools to be "snapped" into it. This will be driven by a new Application Programming Interface (API) called Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR). FHIR is a more granular way to exchange data without the rigid workflow of traditional Health Level Seven International (HL7).
Providers will benefit from the broader choice of technology solutions that can be used alongside the EHR to improve overall outcomes. Amazing Charts is currently developing a FHIR API to connect our EHR with other best-of-breed vendors for solutions such as population health management. This way small practices can leverage their investments in EHR systems to the maximum extent possible.
Furthermore, MIT researchers have proposed a cryptocurrency-backed system (like Bitcoin), called MedRec, for managing medical records that use the Ethereum blockchain. It is a novel, decentralized record management system for EHRs that uses blockchain technology to manage authentication, confidentiality, accountability, and data sharing.
About Amazing Charts
Amazing Charts provides Electronic Health Records (EHR/EMR), Practice Management, and other Health IT solutions to healthcare practices. Based on number one user ratings for usability, fair pricing, and overall satisfaction, Amazing Charts EHR has been adopted by more than 10,000 clinicians in over 7,100 private practices. Founded in 2001 by a family physician, today Amazing Charts, LLC operates as a subsidiary of Pri‐Med, an operating division of Diversified Communications (DC) and a trusted source for professional medical education to over 275,000 clinicians since 1995. Visit www.amazingcharts.com for more information.
Amazing Charts is a trademark of Amazing Charts, LLC. All products or service names mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective owners. |
In everyday life it is commonplace to hear someone say, "I just had a thought about X or Y," or "the thought just occurred to me." For instance, one may have a thought about an event that took place during the last Super Bowl. Thoughts can be idea-like, memory-like, picture-like, or song-like. They are usually short-lived, discrete events, unlike a continuous events such as the constant murmurs of airconditioners and rain. We all experience thoughts and have no problem identifying them and speaking about them to others.
As quotidian as talk about thoughts may be, what thoughts are remains mysterious from a neuroscientific point of view. They are certainly caused by brain function, but we do not yet have a solid idea regarding what it is about brain function that gives rise to them. Is it the particular kinds of neurons involved? The way a single neuron (probably not) or population of neurons fire? Do conscious thoughts require the activation of specific networks of brain regions or of tracts (the information highways that allow for brain regions to communicate with each other)? Do thoughts require activation of perceptual areas of the brain (a controversial notion)? At this stage of scientific , we just don't know.
It seems that, before one experiences a conscious thought, brain processes work behind the scenes to generate the thought. During this opaque process, unconscious representations and calculations seem to be involved. The great Hermann von Helmholtz referred to these behind-the-scenes processes as "unconscious inferences," and Wilhelm Wundt, the father of experimental psychology, referred to conscious thought as a high-level "apperception," because it involves more unconscious analyses and interpretations than does what he considered to be normal "perception," which, to him, could transpire unconsciously.
Edward Chace Tolman—the great experimentalist and theoretician in psychology, after whom the psychology building at Berkeley is named—was the first to demonstrate that thoughts (e.g., about the layout of a maze) influence action. Tolman demonstrated that the maze-solving behavior of the rat could not be due to just external cues but required information that resided only in the rat's mind, information he referred to as a " map." The fancy term for thoughts in cognitive science and is "mental representation," which continues to be a tricky term because some thoughts (e.g., moods, the perception of tinnitus) do not seem to be very concerned with "representing." (There is also debate about whether thoughts are in a perceptual or non-perceptual format.) Tolman was the first to demonstrate systematically that thoughts of some kind are necessary to explain overt behavior.
After Tolman, the great cognitive psychologist Roger Shepard showed that people can actually manipulate these mental representations, as in the case of mental rotation—when one mentally rotates a mental image. (For those interested, the pioneers Gallistel, Barsalou, and Kosslyn, along with others, also contributed to our scientific understanding of what a thought is.) Shepard's experiments involved subjects mentally rotating the kind of cubed object displayed at left.
Here is a demo of mental rotation from Pinker's How the Mind Works: Imagine the number 3 and rotate it 90 degrees counterclockwise. Now place the rotated object on top of a letter V. You should now have the thought of a heart. In many of you this thought will trigger yet another thought—that Valentines Day is approaching. |
The 2015 edition of the PlayStation 4 NPL Victoria could have it all.
14 clubs will compete for top honours in the PlayStation NPL while 20 teams in the NPL 1 division below will fight it out to earn their spot in the top tier next year.
This is the biggest competition to date, and also promises to be one of the most hotly contested given the popularity and interest the competition generated in 2014.
The biggest change in 2015 is the addition of a three-week finals series involving the top six in the league.
Not only does that mean the season will be extended, but the interest levels will remain high well into September.
Defending champions South Melbourne have managed to retain much of their squad, while strengthening their forward line with the additions of Tasmanian golden boot-winner Andy Brennan, and former Bentleigh Greens striker David Stirton.
The title-holders will be in hot pursuit by last year's runners-up Oakleigh Cannons.
Oakleigh Cannons coach and former Gold Coast United boss Miron Bleiberg will be spurred on by last year's lack of honours in not qualifying for either the Westfield FFA Cup or the PlayStation 4 NPL National Finals Series.
Bleiberg has recruited strongly, adding pacey forward Ben Clarke to his stocks, as well as former A-League hardman Steve Pandelidis, while retaining his strongest, and most-consistent, players from 2014.
Heidelberg United is another club which has recruited strongly with the aim of a prolific 2015. Coach George Katsakis will be hoping to better his team's third-place, and has recruited former Box Hill United striker Kenny Athiu in his bid to do it.
Westfield FFA Cup semi-finalists Bentleigh Greens have had their cup success, and now they're firmly focused on the league. The Greens have left no stone unturned in their bid to win the league, bringing NPL Queensland's top striker down to Melbourne in Chris Lucas, as well as bolstering their stocks with some solid local signings.
Melbourne Knights are a team with a proud history, but in 2014, they suffered an injury crisis that crippled their hopes of a successful season. But 2015 is a new year, and with the return of talismanic striker Andrew Barisic, the Knights' front line is looking dangerous.
Hume City were a club with potential in 2014, but inconsistency meant they fell short of that potential. They're another side which has recruited strongly, bringing South Australia's Calvin Mbarga across the border and into a new proving ground.
Northcote City and Pascoe Vale were similarly inconsistent in 2014. On their day, both teams had the capacity to match it with the best teams in the league, but dropped points against teams languishing at the foot of the table.
Dandenong Thunder had two key youngsters in 2014 in Kieran Dover and Matt Millar, and both have departed for greener pastures with Melbourne Victory and Melbourne City respectively. Dandenong was a young side to begin with, and it'll hope it can find two fresh youngsters to fill the holes Millar and Dover have left.
Green Gully started 2014 off defeating Werribee 4-0 in the first week, before losing the next four, including a 6-1 drubbing to Oakleigh. The side has the capability to take points off of the big teams, but will need to be at its best to better the 10th place last year.
Port Melbourne and Werribee only narrowly escaped relegation on the last day of the season in 2014, courtesy of a last minute Weribee equaliser, which consigned Ballarat Red Devils to the second tier.
There are two new additions to the top tier in 2015: Avondale FC and North Geelong Warriors. Avondale FC come into the 2015 PS4 NPL Victoria after five promotions in six years. They're a true fairytale story of a club that has risen up the ranks, and given their performance in 2014, should prove competitive in 2015.
North Geelong Warriors are the opposite. A club with a proud history in the top tier, they made their return to the top flight for the first time in 20 years after a second place finish in 2014.
Victoria’s second division was recently split into two conferences – NPL 1 East and NPL 1 West – to accommodate for six new additions: Eastern Lions, Moreland City, Nunawading City, Murray United, Melbourne Victory and Melbourne City.
In the NPL 1, along with the two A-League sides, it will be the first time a team from the Albury Wodonga region competes against the best in Victoria.
Each NPL 1 team will play every team in its conference twice, and teams in the opposing conference once. The champions of each conference will contest the NPL 1 Grand Final on September 18-20.
The runners-up of each conference will meet at a similar date, with the winner to come up against the 12th-placed NPL team on September 25-27 for a spot in the top division in 2016.
2015 truly promises to be a long and exciting season in Victorian football. |
Story highlights Paul Callan: Women who walk down the street know the humiliating catcalls of men who don't get that it's demeaning
He says in her assault case, Taylor Swift is delivering a message to men everywhere: "Get your groping hands off us"
Paul Callan is a CNN legal analyst, a former New York homicide prosecutor and currently is of counsel at the New York law firm of Edelman & Edelman PC, focusing on wrongful conviction and civil rights cases. Follow him on Twitter @paulcallan. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.
(CNN) Upon leaving CNN studios in New York around lunchtime Wednesday after a busy few days providing on-air commentary on White House stories, I found myself walking behind a professionally attired young woman on 57th Street.
As New Yorkers know, that street, known as "Billionaire's Row," is now lined with construction sites and crowded with construction workers as a colossal wall of skyscrapers is added to Manhattan's skyline.
Traversing such sites is a routine part of life for pedestrians in the city. Males rarely think about it. For women it presents a very different situation. They would not be surprised by the catcalls the young woman in front of me had to endure. She handled the situation with aplomb, never turning her head, and pretending not to hear the calls and whistles, but I imagine her stomach must have been churning.
One would think that particularly in liberal and "progressive" Manhattan this sort of offensive and demeaning behavior would no longer exist. But this is not reality for women in America and in much of the world.
Which brings us to Taylor Swift, who took the witness stand Thursday in her assault and battery case against Denver DJ David Mueller, who, she alleges in a complaint, reached under her skirt and grabbed her buttocks before a concert at Denver's Pepsi Center in June 2013.
Read More |
Share. "The Next Big Thing" is bigger, badder and better. "The Next Big Thing" is bigger, badder and better.
Brock Lesnar is returning to the WWE - in video game form. THQ has confirmed to me that Lesnar, who hasn't been seen in a wrestling ring in over seven years, will be the final character in the game's main roster.
"It's one of those things where… it's part of my history. Without the WWE, I probably wouldn't be where I am today," Lesnar told me via e-mail. "I wouldn't have the high visibility, I wouldn't have had the leverage to come into the UFC. I would have had to do it all on my own. I'm no idiot when I say that when I was with the WWE, the visibility from that company and what they did on a global network for 'Brock Lesnar' as a whole, put me on another level."
Exit Theatre Mode
Lesnar as a character will play very much like you expect, retaining his signature move set, including his signature finishing move, the F5. A brief hands-on with the character indicated that THQ had in fact nailed Lesnar's likeness - he moves and attacks like the monstrous tank you'd expect.
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THQ is updating the star to reflect his current look (mostly that means he has more tattoos) versus his appearance seven years ago. Though he's not a gamer himself, being in a video game made perfect business sense to the former WWE champion. After being gone from wrestling television for nearly a decade, many younger fans have likely never even seen Lesnar in a squared circle.
For those keeping meticulous track, Lesnar's Overall Score in WWE '12 is 92. That's equivalent to superstar Eddie Guerrero, and below a few major names including The Rock (96), Randy Orton (95), Edge (94), CM Punk (95), 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin (95), Triple H (94) and the Undertaker (97). Lesnar will be unlockable through a "brief run with the game through WWE Universe mode" according to THQ.
Of course, being in WWE '12 begs the obvious question - would Lesnar ever consider returning to WWE programming? "It would have to be under the right circumstances," Lesnar said. "I don't know if Mr. McMahon and I could come to the right circumstances. If it was good for me and good for him I think that we could do something. At the end of the day, my life, my character and my profession - I take them very seriously. At the end of the day, if it doesn't help me or my family out, and it doesn't make sense for me to do, then I don't do it. Everything would have to fall in the right place, but would I consider it? Absolutely."
Lesnar noted there is one former WWE superstar who could easily lure him back to the ring - 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin. "[Austin] chicken-sh**ted out on me and walked away and didn't want to participate because he thought that I was getting something too fast too soon and he felt threatened by me." Lesnar also noted there is "a guy that's been on a winning streak for a long time that somebody needs to step up to the plate and finish the winning streak." A suggestion of a match with Cena or the Undertaker, perhaps?
Stay tuned to IGN for more and more on WWE '12. The game hits stores on November 22, 2011. |
On Thursday, Philadelphia's long wait for a bike-share system came to an end with the launch of the 60-station, 600-bike Indego system, which is set to expand in the near future. At the kickoff, volunteers and officials -- including Mayor Michael Nutter -- rode about half of those bikes to their docking stations.
I got to talk to most of the movers and shakers who helped come to fruition. Even more fun, I got to ride with Mayor Nutter's platoon of Indego-ers to a station near City Hall.
The pricing system of Indego is what sets it apart. Instead of a yearly fee with trips capped at 30 or 45 minutes before extra fees kick in, which is the most popular subscription option offered by most other systems, Indego is going with a fee of $15 per month for unlimited one-hour per trips. This allows people to avoid the larger upfront cost of an annual fee, and subscribers who, say, only want to ride during warmer weather can also save some money. Another option is IndegoFlex, which provides a year of access to the system for a base fee of $10, with a per-trip fee of $4 for rides up to one hour long.
Indego is the largest bike-share system in the country that uses BCycle bikes and stations. It's going to be a great addition to Philly, which has the largest bike commute mode share of any American city with more than 1 million people. |
398 Shares
Immigration law imposes a one-year deadline, beginning upon arrival in the United States, within which an asylum seeker must apply for asylum. With very limited exceptions, an individual who misses this deadline becomes ineligible for asylum. Even though the clock is ticking for these asylum seekers, DHS agents and officers do not notify them of this one-year deadline for filing. Too many individuals only learn about the deadline after it’s too late. For others who may attempt to file within one year, agency hurdles prevent them from doing so. For example, those in removal proceedings are required by the immigration courts to file an asylum application only in open court, yet—because of the enormous backlog facing these courts—many asylum-seekers do not have their first hearing until after the deadline has passed, making it simply impossible to file on time.
For years, the U.S. Government has placed unnecessary hurdles—like the requirement that an application be filed in open court rather than with the court clerk—in front of asylum seekers who are attempting to comply with the one-year-time period mandated by law. These bureaucratic obstacles, a well-documented court backlog, and jurisdictional disputes between agencies continue to make it nearly impossible for many who are desperately in need of the protection offered by our asylum laws to meet the deadline. This leaves them ineligible for asylum and subject to deportation to the very countries from which they fled persecution.
In an attempt to bring order and some measure of fairness to what has become an overly bureaucratic and chaotic process, on June 30, 2016, four asylum-seekers filed a class action lawsuit in the District Court for the Western District of Washington challenging DHS’s failure to advise them of the deadline for filing their asylum applications, as well as both DHS’s and the immigration courts’ failure to adopt procedures which would ensure that an individual is able to file an asylum application by the deadline.
The American Immigration Council, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Dobrin & Han, PC, and the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, represent the four plaintiffs, from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic, who sue on behalf of themselves and all other individuals in the United States who are in the same situation.
Since the government has been unable to establish a rational process that will ensure that all asylum-seekers have the opportunity to timely file their applications, it’s time for the court to weigh in and bring order and fairness to the asylum filing system.
Photo by Chris Zúniga. |
Dear Lifehacker, I heard that Microsoft is releasing a new browser with Windows 10. What's new? Should I bother using it instead of Chrome or Firefox? Or is it just Internet Explorer with a new paint job? Thanks, Microsoft Edge of Tomorrow
Dear Tom Cruise,
Well, the good news is: this browser isn't Internet Explorer. While the Windows default has improved over the years, Microsoft has finally given up on it. At Microsoft's Build event last week, the company announced that Microsoft Edge would ship with Windows 10 and replace Internet Explorer for good.
During development, the browser has been called Project Spartan. You can try it out right now if you're running the Windows 10 preview.
Of course, the real question is, can it replace your existing browser? Here's what we think after playing around with it. Keep in mind that this is an unreleased beta and could improve before launch.
Edge Includes A Lot Of Useful Features Out Of The Box
Microsoft announced that Edge would have support for extensions at release, and it's trying to make sure developers can port their extensions as easily as possible. However, the company also isn't waiting around for other services to make their browser useful. Here are a few things Edge can already do:
Cortana is baked right in to get quick answers : Google has done some pretty neat things by adding quick answers and Google Now-like features to search, but nothing quite beats a fully integrated assistant. With Edge, you can select text and right-click to get information immediately, including definition of words, maps of addresses, or information on famous people. Unlike Google's search, you can get that information without leaving the page or opening a new tab.
Annotations and reading lists remove the need for some extensions : Edge allows you to save screenshots of web pages and write notes on them. It also includes a reading list feature that lets you save articles for later. Chrome or Firefox can do this with the help of extensions, but with Edge, it's baked right in. If you're a dedicated Evernote or Pocket devotee, this won't mean much for you. If you just want to save an article every now and then without having to sign up for yet another service, it's right up your alley.
Reading mode strips the crap from articles: It is rage-inducing when you're trying to read an article and giant banner ads push text down, videos fly over the page, or some rogue ad starts making noise. No one needs or likes that crap. While bookmarklets that can strip everything but the text have been around for a while, this is yet another thing that Edge just does.
Most of the time, browsers don't need to do much, and extensions take care of many of the features that you want to add. However, the more crap you add to your browser, the more it gets bogged down (and we'll talk about later). Edge doesn't add a lot of crap, but what it does add is useful.
It's Not Internet Explorer
One of the most long-standing criticisms of Internet Explorer is that it lacks basic interoperability with web standards and other browsers. Put another way: pages that render fine in Chrome, Firefox, and Safari may still be broken in Internet Explorer because it just has to be different. Microsoft Edge is not in that boat.
Part of the reason that IE causes so many problems is because it's historically been the absolute worst for HTML5 compatibility. As this HTML5 compatibility test shows, even the most current version of Internet Explorer ranks 348 out of 555. To compare, Chrome gets a score of 523, and Firefox gets a 444. Edge currently ranks at 390, which is actually higher than it was even just a month ago.
That score could be better, but it also means that Microsoft is intentionally trying to make compatibility a priority. That means that web sites shouldn't render incorrectly as often, nor should developers have to put in extra effort to make sites work on Microsoft's platform.
It's Still Bare Bones, But That's Not A Bad Thing
At the moment, Edge is missing a few features. It doesn't seem to have pinned tabs, an incognito mode, or a few other niceties that we like in our browsers. Of course, it's hard to be too critical just yet. The existing beta doesn't even have the Edge name implemented yet. It's clearly far from done.
However, the fact that it's not complete also means it's not bloated yet. Chrome, for comparison, is a notorious resource hog. Just like Firefox was before it. Perhaps it's because we rely on them for so much, but browsers have a habit of spiralling out of control with their resource usage.
At the moment, Edge's comparative dearth of features and bulk makes it pretty great at staying slim. It might not replace a power user's toolbox, but it is an excellent lightweight alternative. If you have a low-powered laptop, or an older computer you share with the house, Edge may be just what you need. Only the future knows if it will stay that way, but for now, there's a lot less bloat to deal with.
Of course, all of this is from using an unfinished preview of a product that hasn't even finished its name change yet. If you're a hardcore Chrome or Firefox user deploying lots extensions, you probably won't be tempted away immediately. For now, though, it does look promising. Microsoft is making an effort to add genuinely useful features to a browser that's shedding its worst parts and starting over on a solid foundation.
Cheers Lifehacker
Have a question you want to put to Ask Lifehacker? Send it using our contact form. |
What’s $300 million when a project could end up consuming more than $50 billion over its lifetime? That’s what Congress seems to have said about one of the greatest boondoggles by the Department of Energy (DOE): the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MOX).
MOX was conceived more than a decade ago, when the U.S. and Russia were working on converting plutonium into mixed oxide fuel that could be used in commercial nuclear power plants.
The DOE first said it would cost $1.6 billion to build the MOX at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, which was supposed to open in 2007. It’s now 2015 and the plant is still only 65% complete. The final cost of just building the MOX is projected to be $7.7 billion, according to the Government Accountability Office. A study by The Aerospace Corporation also pointed out that the life-cycle cost of the facility will be $47.5 billion, according to the Project on Government Oversight (POGO).
That’s assuming there would be any reason to operate it because the deal with Russia is now over, and there are no other customers lined up to bring their unwanted plutonium to have it converted.
The project has its critics. Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) called the continued funding of the MOX facility a “zombie earmark.” DOE officials are so fed up with the project that they were ready to put it on “cold-standby”—in other words, shut it down.
But backers in Congress, including Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-South Carolina), made sure there was $300 million in the 2014 year-end spending bill for MOX. They even prohibited the Energy Department from using the money to put MOX in cold standby.
Aerospace Corporation’s assessment was based on $500 million per year being appropriated to the project. With the lesser number, it ends up costing more: a life-cycle cost of $114 billion and a completion date of 2100, POGO reported.
What a thoughtful gift for our grandchildren!
-Noel Brinkerhoff, Steve Straehley
To Learn More:
Cost Estimate on Useless Nuclear Facility Skyrockets (Project on Government Oversight)
Energy Dept. Gives up on Expensive Nuclear Waste Plant (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
Cleanup of Radioactive Bomb Waste in South Carolina: The Endless Project (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
The Government Project that is $6 Billion Over Budget and 10 Years Late (by Matt Bewig, AllGov) |
U.S. Space Agency NASA released a video Thursday confirming that a massive asteroid will pass very close to Earth later this month.
In an official statement, NASA executives stated that the asteroid will come closer to Earth than many other man-made satellites.
"This is a record-setting close approach," Don Yeomans of NASA's Near Earth Object Program at Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a video released by NASA this week. "It will come interestingly close, closer than many man-made satellites."
The asteroid, which has been named 2012DA14, will reportedly pass the earth at a distance as close as 17,000 miles. According to a report by NASA, this is the closest encounter known in modern history. The proximity between the two celestial bodies will be closer than previously believed. However, officials clarify that no potential damage will be faced by any of the satellites.
"The odds of impact with a satellite are extremely remote," Yeomans noted. "Almost nothing orbits where DA14 passes the Earth."
The space rock comprises largely of stone and has a length of 150 feet. According to the space agency, asteroids such as these generally pass Earth every 40 years but only impact the planet every 1200 years. While no impact is expected this time round, astronomers expect an impact during the next encounter in 2020.
To avoid any tragedies, NASA has reported that it will be observing the asteroid during the days that lead up to its approach so that it can better estimate its shape, size and trajectory. Astronomers say that it can only provide a clear statement on its path after seven years from now.
According to NASA, the asteroid will be visible February 15, giving astronomers a clear view of the space rock. Watch the video released by NASA below: |
A 0-0 draw at Deepdale wasn't the ideal start but Lambert is expected to have a huge impact at Molineux.
Wolves striker Jon Dadi Bodvarsson has told the Express and Star that the impact Paul Lambert has already had on the squad is clear to see.
Many questioned whether Lambert, whose reputation has been tarnished somewhat by difficult spells at Aston Villa and Blackburn, was the right man to turn around Wolves after they had drifted alarmingly towards the bottom end of the table in the latter stages of Walter Zenga’s brief reign.
However, despite his era beginning with a dull goalless draw away at Preston North End last time out, Lambert’s demand for a high-intensity approach has already got fans talking as has his decision to give a chance to players marginalised by the Italian, including fans favourite Jack Price.
And Bodvarsson, who started up front at Deepdale, says Lambert has already altered the team’s tactics and approach to training.
“One of the biggest differences is the work rate in our game – we’re playing faster, defending better as a unit,” the Icelandic international told the Express and Star. “We’re working on attacking and defending and things are improving.
“Paul came with a plan and it’s a clear message for the guys on the team, what their job is. Everybody is taking it very positively and we’re improving a lot.”
It may take some time for improvements to translate onto the pitch but there certainly appears to be an atmosphere of optimism at Molineux after the excitement that greeted Zenga’s arrival quickly dissipated on the back of poor performances.
SEE ALSO: Wolves boss Paul Lambert admits he is excited by these Molineux players
However, with the club’s ambitious new owners, Fosun International, pledging huge funds to bring the club back to the Premier League, Lambert will be more than aware that he is not guaranteed to get the patience he wants or deserves. |
WANG LIJUN, a nationally-known police chief celebrated for his bare-knuckle tactics, is a very vain man. The former police chief and deputy mayor of Chongqing, a Chinese mega-city of more than 32 million, Wang had a staff of 20 whose sole job was to record, for propaganda purposes, “his most moving and breathtaking moments.” He had his speeches compiled in a book, and circulated it to his police force for close study. Though he never went to college, Wang was nonetheless obsessed with academic credentials, collecting honorary degrees and even adjunct teaching posts at universities across China. He seemed to style himself as a modern-day Thomas Jefferson, a wide-ranging intellectual whose interests extended far beyond his professional field to include calligraphy, inventing, and even fashion design.
Wang’s vanity, however, was dwarfed by his boss Bo Xilai’s lust for power. Bo’s just-completed trial for his part in a massive scandal has captured worldwide attention and may be the most important court case China has seen in more than 30 years.
Had the now-disgraced Chongqing Communist Party chief Bo been born in a democratic country, he might well have reached the very top. By all accounts, Bo was intelligent, hard working, good looking, well spoken, politically savvy and ferociously ambitious. The so-call princeling son of one of China’s founding revolutionaries, Bo matched his elite upbringing with a common-man rhetoric that won a wide audience across China. He was a Chinese George W. Bush or Al Gore, the son of a prominent father who was well-positioned to help guide his son’s rise in the crucial early years of his career.
But Bo’s privileged youth was upended by experiences the likes of which Bush and Gore never knew: when Bo was just 17, the Cultural Revolution began, and Bo jumped in with both feet, leading a group of his high school friends in a Red Guard unit that harassed and beat up perceived class enemies in front of large audiences. When Bo’s father, senior economic czar Bo Yibo, was purged, the tables were turned on Bo Xilai, and he found himself subjected to the very same struggle sessions he had put others through. He would later spend five years in a makeshift prison in Beijing, emerging from captivity in 1972.
One wonders whether that early taste of violence shaped Bo’s worldview, and created within him a penchant for ruthlessness that both aided his rise and led to his downfall.
Wang and Bo, along with Bo’s wife Gu Kailai, are the three key players in the political scandal that rocked China in 2012. On February 6 of that year, news broke that Wang had fled Chongqing for the American Consulate in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, roughly 200 miles west of Chongqing. The story behind Wang’s flight into the arms of American diplomats was a strange and convoluted one: he had assisted in the cover-up of Gu Kailai’s murder of Englishman Neil Heywood in November 2011, and had recently disclosed Gu’s role in Heywood’s death to her husband Bo. In doing so, Wang had hoped that Bo would be forced to shield Wang against the anti-corruption investigators nipping at his heels. Instead, Bo angrily slapped Wang across the face — in front of Wang’s subordinates, no less — and dismissed the allegations against Gu as baseless. Fearing for his life, Wang rushed to the only place he knew was beyond Bo’s reach: the U.S. Consulate.
These events are covered in detail in the breathlessly-titled A Death in the Lucky Holiday Hotel: Murder, Money, and an Epic Power Struggle in China, a book published this spring that is by a pair of Chinese journalists, Pin Ho and Wenguang Huang, who is also known for his work as a translator. It is only the second English language book on the scandal (not counting Jamil Anderlini’s useful but very short e-book treatment in the Financial Times‘s FT Edits series). Ho and Huang’s book followed on the heels of Australian journalist John Garnaut’s excellent effort, The Rise and Fall of the House of Bo, which Maura Elizabeth Cunningham discussed in an LARB “China Blog” post, “Don’t Bet Against the House,” on January 30.
Though A Death in the Lucky Holiday Hotel covers much of the same ground, it is quite different from Rise and Fall: Ho and Huang look to address gaps in the story by including — with the appropriate qualifications — elements that they cannot completely verify. Garnaut is also more interested in the long backstory of Bo Xilai’s rise to power, and the historical backdrop that led to his elevation to the Politburo, the twenty-something member committee that is the near pinnacle of power in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), just short of the Politburo Standing Committee, the seven-member body that actually runs China. Ho and Huang, on the other hand, are much more interested in Bo’s rough-and-tumble tenure in Chongqing.
Ho and Huang’s book has received renewed attention in recent weeks as the Chinese government has finally moved to put Bo on trial, roughly a year and a half after he was stripped of his Party posts, and just over a year after his wife, Gu Kailai, was given a suspended death sentence by a court in the eastern city of Hefei for Heywood’s murder. Bo’s trial began on August 21, on charges of bribery, corruption, and abuse of power, and is expected to be a very short affair: a guilty verdict is virtually assured, and even Bo’s punishment was likely decided in advance by the Chinese leadership.
Ho and Huang are at their best describing Bo Xilai’s political program for Chongqing, which formed the core of his efforts to catapult himself onto the Politburo. Bo’s masterful campaign in Chongqing is often referred to by the shorthand, “changhong, dahei,” or sing red, and smash black. The phrase was a reference to Bo’s clever use of 1960s-era Communist propaganda songs to brand his administration as faithful to the Communist Party’s founding ideals, along with his campaign, spearheaded by Wang, to crack down on organized crime in Chongqing.
What made Bo’s campaign so brilliant was that it extended well beyond propaganda sing-alongs. Immediately after taking office, Bo embarked on an ambitious and hugely expensive agenda of improving access to housing, education, and health care for Chongqing’s middle- and working-class families. Bo also engaged in a wide-ranging city beautification campaign, opening new public parks and planting hundreds of new trees across the metropolis. In order to pay for his programs, Bo ran up huge annual deficits: the city’s fiscal deficit for 2011 was well over 100 billion yuan ($16 billion), according to government statistics. He also made effective use of the assets seized by Chongqing police during their anti-mob crackdown, so much so that some began to wonder whether Bo viewed his moves against the mafia as a fundraising tool.
Bo’s free spending on social services won him many admirers, both in Chongqing and across China. In the view of many leftist academics, Bo was pioneering a new model of public administration, one that was more in line with the Party’s founding values. And to the people of Chongqing, Bo not only broke the back of the mafia, but also gave them better schools, better hospitals, and better homes, seemingly at no cost to themselves.
Given the lack of transparency in public accounting in China, it is impossible to know how, or even whether, Bo’s administration in Chongqing was able to afford its massive investments in public goods. And no doubt much of the public was unaware that the anti-mafia campaign left in its wake an unprecedented wave of human rights abuses against the alleged mafia members and corrupt government officials who were its main targets. Ho and Huang refer to an in-depth study of the anti-mafia campaign by Shanghai-based legal academic Tong Zhiwei, who concluded that the Chongqing authorities regularly violated the rights of those accused of mafia-related crimes, and did not hesitate to torture suspects in order to secure confessions. Over the course of the campaign, thousands of people were arrested, a handful executed.
But the most interesting element of Ho and Huang’s book is the window that it provides into the day-to-day political culture of the People’s Republic. Ho and Huang repeatedly emphasize that corruption is rampant at all levels of government, and is facilitated by close, symbiotic relationships between bureaucrats and businessmen. The sums that high-level politicians are able to accumulate are mind-boggling: official sources estimated Bo’s ill-gotten gains at $26 million, a figure that was seen by most observers as an improbably low sum put forward by the Party to mask the embarrassment that would be caused by disclosing the true scope of his ill-gotten gains. Ho and Huang suggest that some officials, Bo included, have made off with sums that run into the billions. (By contrast, in 2005, in what is believed to be one of the largest corruption cases in US history, San Diego Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham admitted to taking roughly $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors in exchange for steering government contracts their way.)
Given such high stakes, it should not be surprising that Chinese politics is such a brutal game. Ho and Huang’s account is replete with accounts of shifting alliances, backstabbing, and political infighting. Because there are almost no legal constraints on behavior, and because widespread corruption means that anyone is vulnerable, officials can often be cutthroat in their efforts to take down political rivals. Take the case of Wang Lijun’s predecessor as Chongqing deputy police chief, Wen Qiang.
It was perhaps inevitable that Wang and Wen, who was head of the city justice bureau at the time of his arrest in 2009, would come into conflict. As an old Chinese aphorism has it, “two tigers cannot co-exist on one mountain.” To be sure, Wen was almost certainly corrupt: he was known for his close ties to Chongqing’s powerful local mafia, and a search of his home after his arrest allegedly turned up a plastic bag with 20 million yuan (over $3 million) buried under a pond in Wen’s back yard. (The discovery of the bag of cash was later disputed by officials who took part in the raid on Wen’s home.)
But the political motivations for Wang to pursue Wen were equally clear: Wen might well be expected to limit Wang’s authority over Chongqing’s security apparatus, and would likely block Wang’s efforts to place as many of his own men inside the ranks of the Chongqing police as possible. As a holdover from the prior administration, Wen also had no particular loyalties to Bo, and was said to have ignored Bo’s mandates more than once. Wen was also friends with other senior officials who had crossed Bo in the past. For Wang, bringing Wen down would be killing two birds with one stone: it would both allow him to curry favor with his patron Bo and also remove a serious impediment to his own efforts to deepen his hold over the Chongqing police.
With such potential benefits on the table, Wang had good reason to make use of the various extra-legal and highly coercive tactics at his disposal to get Wen. Both Wen and members of his family were publicly smeared in the media, and Wen’s son was detained for nearly a year in order to force him to cooperate. Wen himself was tortured, and the handling of his case was marred by procedural irregularities. Arrested in September 2009, Wen was tried and convicted in record time, and executed by lethal injection in July 2010. Less than a year had passed between his initial arrest and his execution.
Ho and Huang make much of the parallels between Wang and Wen: both were extremely ambitious men who were willing to make maximum use of the police bureaucracy for their own ends, and both cared little for the basic rights protections found in Chinese criminal law. Wen himself saw one additional parallel between himself and the man who brought him down. In their last conversation, just before he was executed, Wen apparently warned Wang, “You’ll meet the same fate as me.”
And indeed Wen was right, up to a point. In seeking refuge inside the US Consulate in February 2012, Wang dodged what he saw as almost certain death. But the international incident he created ensured his former patron’s downfall as well as his own. In September 2012, Wang was tried on a range of charges, including defection, bribe-taking, and abuse of power, and was sentenced to fifteen years. Gu Kailai, the woman Wang had initially shielded from investigation, was given a suspended death sentence — usually commuted to life in prison — for Neil Heywood’s murder in August 2012.
As for Bo himself, he managed, miraculously, to hold on for more than a month after the scandal broke. It was only after the outgoing Prime Minister Wen Jiabao publicly excoriated him at the end of the annual National People’s Congress meeting in March 2012 that it became clear that Bo’s days were numbered. The day after Wen’s comments, Bo was stripped of his position as Party Secretary of Chongqing. Later that year, he lost all of his remaining Party and government posts, and was expelled from the Party altogether in November 2012. But Bo refuses to go quietly. In court, he has contested the charges against him with ferocity and signature flourish, though it is unclear whether his actions have truly caught the authorities by surprise, or whether they are part of a pre-arranged settlement which included an agreement that he would be allowed to contest some of the accusations against him.
The Bo scandal marks the end of an impressive twenty-year run, in which the CCP managed to largely hide from public view any hint of factionalism or political infighting. The Bo scandal peeled back the curtain on elite politics in China to reveal that Party propaganda aside, politics in China is a hard-edged sport, one that is unburdened by clear institutional restraints on power or meaningful public oversight. Instead only a small handful of agreed-upon conventions, hewed to by the elite but still not codified in law, limit the bounds of what is permissible. The Party should see the Bo affair as a wake-up call, a chance to restart the political reform agenda, one that includes strong institutional limits on its own power, a clear dividing line between Party and government, and greater public oversight of government authority. By signaling a renewed commitment to political reform, the Party might well win back some credibility with the public, and buy itself some much-needed time to get its own house into order. As Bo Xilai could attest, better to lose some power than to lose it all. |
Party will also preference Labor ahead of Coalition in every Senate seat, saying it wants to prevent a conservative government
Exclusive: Greens to preference Labor in more than 90% of seats, including marginals
The Greens will preference the Labor party ahead of the Liberal and National parties in 139 of the 150 electorates across the country, including in all marginal seats.
They will also preference Labor ahead of the Coalition in every Senate seat.
The Greens say their local branches in the remaining 11 lower house seats did not want to instruct voters who to give preferences to, so they will be issuing open how-to-vote cards.
The Greens hopes of winning more than one lower house seat in the 2016 election were all but dashed over the weekend.
Liberals to get Labor preferences in three rural seats to fend off Nationals Read more
They had been hoping to win the Victorian seats of Batman, which is held by Labor’s gaffe-prone David Feeney, and Wills, held by the retiring Labor MP Kelvin Thomson.
But the Labor party secured a deal with the Liberals to get Liberal preferences ahead of the Greens in every lower house seat, making it much harder for the Greens to take those two seats.
Penny Allman-Payne, Australian Greens co-convenor, told Guardian Australia the Greens were disappointed that Labor ran “such a vicious attack against the Greens” and “lied about a Greens-Liberal preference deal” in this election campaign, but it was still better to give preferences to Labor ahead of the Coalition.
“At this election the Greens will be recommending to voters to preference the Labor party ahead of the Coalition in more seats than ever before,” Allman-Payne said.
“While we think the Labor party can do a lot better on the issues that matter to many Australians, like climate change and treating people seeking our help with decency, they are a better choice than the Liberals and Nationals,” she said.
“Our priority is to ensure a progressive Senate and to prevent a conservative government and this arrangement reflects that.”
The 11 seats in which the Greens will issue open tickets for preferences are:
NSW: Calare, Lyne, and Riverina
Tasmania: Denison
South Australia: Mayo, Barker, and Grey
Victoria: Hotham, Mallee, Scullin, and Ballarat
Labor was due to announce on Monday that it would give preferences to the Greens ahead of the Liberal and National parties in every lower and upper house seat.
It is a sign Labor believes it can now retain its hotly contested inner-city seats in Sydney and Melbourne for which the Greens have been challenging.
Labor had earlier secured a deal with the Liberals to get Liberal preferences ahead of the Greens in every lower house seat in return for Labor preferencing the Liberals ahead of the Nationals in three rural seats where both Coalition parties are standing. |
Loved by almost everyone, bacon is one of the tastiest foods in the world.
However, it gets a lot of bad press from the mainstream media due to the fact it’s a processed kind of meat.
A point often overlooked is that bacon is relatively nutrient-dense.
So, in the interest of giving some balance to the continuous stream of negative news, here are 43 reasons to eat bacon.
Could it be good for you?
#1. Bacon Raises High-density Lipoprotein (HDL)
The conventional narrative says that bacon is bad for our heart health because it’s full of “artery-clogging” saturated fats.
However, saturated fat has been unfairly demonized. The bulk of studies over recent years show that links between saturated fat and cardiovascular disease have been overplayed (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).
In fact, bacon consumption results in increased high-density lipoprotein levels. Otherwise known as the “good cholesterol,” higher HDL levels have a protective effect against cardiovascular disease (6).
Foods high in fat such as bacon tend to raise HDL levels.
#2. Bacon is High in Potassium
Potassium is an essential mineral, and far too many people are deficient in it.
For instance, less than 2% of US adults are meeting the recommended dietary intake of the mineral (7).
This deficiency is especially important since potassium regulates blood pressure, and low potassium levels are a significant cardiovascular risk (8).
On the positive side, bacon offers a decent amount of the mineral; 17% of the RDA per 100g (9).
#3. It Curbs Hunger and Stops Food Cravings
Food cravings affect many people in modern society. It’s not so surprising when there are hyper-palatable foods available on every street.
Despite many people trying to move towards healthier diets, hunger pangs and cravings for sugary/carb-filled food are common.
The key to beating these cravings is to emphasize foods that increase satiety.
For this reason, bacon is good for you because it provides a combination of fat and protein, the most satiating macronutrient (10, 11).
#4. Significant Source of Protein
As mentioned above, bacon is a decent dietary source of protein.
It provides 13g protein per 100g (12).
#5. Bacon Tastes Amazing
Bacon is delicious and makes any meal taste much better.
And there’s science in this too; according to the BBC, the taste of bacon hinges on chemistry and a complex molecular mix.
#6. It’s Low in Carbs
For those watching their carbohydrate intake, bacon is one of the very best low carb choices.
Per 100g, the macronutrient breakdown looks like this:
Carbohydrate: 1g
Fat: 40g
Protein: 13g
#7. It Has an Amazing Smell
In addition to an amazing taste, it smells pretty good too.
Most people have woken to the smell of bacon coming from the kitchen, and it’s definitely something to help get you out of bed.
And so much more appealing than the idea of toast and soggy cornflakes.
#8. Bacon is Full of Selenium
Selenium is a mineral that is responsible for (13):
Exerting antioxidant effects in the body
Improving thyroid function
Optimizing DNA production
Strengthening the immune system
Notably, bacon contains high levels of selenium: 93% of the RDA per 100g (12).
#9. It Works Well With Literally Anything
Is there a type of food that doesn’t match with bacon?
A variety of cuisines use it in their dishes, and it fits well with so many different foods.
Often seen in BLT sandwiches, carbonara, pizza, English breakfasts, and more.
In recent times, people are even combining bacon with chocolate — and that tastes great too.
The picture on the right shows a recipe for ‘chocolate covered bacon’ which contains:
Bacon
Cacao
Coconut oil
Salt
Sweetener
You can see how to make it here.
#10. Bacon is High in “Heart Healthy” Oleic Acid
Almost everyone refers to olive oil as “heart healthy” and something that belongs in our diet.
Of course, the predominant fatty acid in olive oil goes by the name of ‘oleic acid’ (14).
In contrast, many people refer to bacon as “greasy” and “full of bad fat.”
But guess what? The primary fatty acid in bacon is oleic acid: the very same fat as in olive oil (15).
#11. Nitrate Fears: Overplayed?
There is a fear of the nitrates most commercial bacon contains. Firstly, if you want to avoid nitrates, then you can always choose a smoked uncured bacon. However, this might not be necessary as some of the worries over nitrate may be unfounded.
Chris Kresser writes a nice article, in which he argues the case that these compounds occur naturally in vegetables, are not problematic, and that there’s no real reason to avoid them.
However, as with many things in nutrition, there may be a difference between a naturally occurring substance and a synthetic one. For example, some studies demonstrate that inorganic nitrate consumption (like in bacon) may lead to the formation of carcinogenic N-nitrosamines (16, 17).
But significantly, even if you believe that nitrosamines in bacon can be a concern, research shows that vitamin C inhibits the conversion of nitrate to nitrosamine (18).
Usually, producers add some vitamin C (ascorbic acid) to the bacon. If you still feel uneasy, you could eat some leafy greens with your bacon to up the vitamin C content.
Perhaps the most important point is cooking temperature. Studies show that frying bacon at 210°F results in no nitrosamine formation.
However, some nitrosamines do form at a frying temperature of 350°F (19).
Slightly gentler cooking methods are always a safe bet, and they probably make bacon better for you.
#12. Huge Provider of Thiamine (Vitamin B1)
Thiamine is an essential vitamin that we can find in animal foods.
Bacon is no exception, and provides ample amounts of the vitamin: 100g provides 31% of the recommended daily value (12).
#13. Bacon Contains Choline
Choline is an important mineral and mainly occurs in fatty animal foods. Some of the best sources are liver, egg yolks, and meat.
Unfortunately, choline deficiency is rife in modern times due to the widespread fear of animal fats.
And the mineral is crucial for our body; it plays a role in methylation, DNA, and detoxification systems.
The good news is that bacon is also a good source of choline, and provides 131mg per 100g (there is no RDA for choline) (12).
#14. No Blood Glucose or Insulin Spike
Bacon is extremely low in carbohydrate and very high in fat.
As a result, there are no blood glucose or insulin spikes following bacon consumption.
This fact makes bacon an excellent choice for people with diabetes, as well as anyone who is trying to maintain stable blood glucose levels.
Poor quality foods such as sugar, bread, and other refined carbohydrates tend to skyrocket blood sugar levels.
And higher fasting blood sugar has links to chronic diseases such as Alzheimer’s, cancer, and cardiovascular disease (20, 21, 22).
#15. Full of Saturated Fat
Despite the decades-long fear over saturated fat, more people now realize that naturally occurring saturated fats are not bad for you.
This article by Chris Masterjohn brilliantly explains why saturated fats are so important to our overall health.
Despite mainly providing monounsaturated fat, bacon also offers a decent supply of saturated fat and contains approximately 13g per 100g (12).
#16. It’s a “Paleo” Food (sort of!)
Of course, real cave dwellers didn’t have bacon (nor did they have most of the commercial fruits and vegetables available today).
But bacon does have an extremely long history, and it has been part of diets around the world for centuries.
And the curing of meat was essential prior to refrigeration. Salting pork helped preserve the meat and protect it from bacterial contamination.
#17. Bacon and Eggs
It’s my favorite breakfast and possibly the greatest combination of any two foods: bacon and eggs.
Here is a picture:
Hungry?
#18. Tastes Delicious However It’s Made
Bacon tastes amazing no matter how you cook it.
Whether it’s pan-fried, baked, used in soup or on a homemade pizza — it never fails to taste good.
And any food tastes a lot better with bacon than it does without it.
#19. Bacon Pate
Pate is a traditional food that we can make by mixing butter with pureed meat and seasonings.
In fact, my parents used to give me bacon & liver pate as a child because it was the only way I’d eat liver!
So, pate can be a good way of getting some nutritious organ meats into your diet too.
And any pate that contains bacon tastes great — and it’s quite easy to make.
Here’s a simple recipe:
First, place a pan on heat and melt 5oz butter
Put 10 slices of bacon, 1 small onion, and 2 cloves of garlic into the pan and cook gently
Add 1 tablespoon of heavy cream and any seasonings you like (salt, pepper, Italian herbs, nutmeg, etc.)
Next, after fully cooking puree/blend the entire mixture.
Refrigerate. It will harden in the fridge, and your spreadable pate will soon be ready
#20. It Has a Decent Amount of Riboflavin (Vitamin B2)
Bacon provides a good source of all B vitamins, and riboflavin is no exception.
100g bacon contains 16% of the vitamin B2 RDA (12).
#21. Bacon-Wrapped Sausages
While bacon and eggs take first place, bacon-wrapped sausages come in a close second!
They’re so tasty that they even win a place at the Christmas dinner table.
#22. There’s No Such Thing As Bad Bacon
Have you ever had terrible tasting bacon?
With most foods, the quality can be very different from one meal to the next. For example; steak is one of the most popular foods, but a poorly prepared steak doesn’t taste so great.
In contrast, if you ever have bad bacon…… it still tastes pretty good.
#23. Provider of Iron
As a fatty meat, bacon doesn’t have quite as much iron as leaner meats do.
But it still provides a source of this essential mineral and offers 8% of the RDA per 100g (12).
#24. Bacon Contains Pantothenate (Vitamin B5)
Here’s yet another of the vitamin B family that bacon contains.
13% RDA per 100g (12).
#25. The Real Thing is ALWAYS Best
There are many fake bacon products available which are not the real thing.
They’re also not real tasty nor are they real good for you!
For instance, take ‘vegan bacon’ — the main ingredients look like this:
Water
Soy protein
Soy isolate
Wheat gluten
Soybean oil
Soy protein concentrate
It’s a bunch of soy flours and refined soybean oil, held together by gluten, with added flavorings to give it some taste.
On the other hand, turkey bacon is real food, but it doesn’t match the real thing in the taste department.
Real bacon is always best.
#26. It’s Very Simple to Make
Put it on the oven grill for 10 minutes, or pan-fry for a similar amount of time.
Bacon is simple to make and you can have a meal ready to eat in no time at all.
#27. Helps People Adjust to Low Carb/LCHF
Sometimes, new adopters of lower carb diets face two problems; food cravings and sodium imbalances.
First, bacon is amazing for satiety and can kill sugar cravings dead.
Secondly, it’s also high in salt, so it can be helpful when people first start a low carb diet.
#28. Massive Source of Niacin (Vitamin B3)
Vitamin B3 is otherwise known as Niacin, and it’s a vitamin that gets a lot of attention for its cardiovascular benefits.
Research studies show that Niacin helps:
Raise HDL and lower triglyceride levels and apolipoprotein-B containing lipoproteins (23, 24)
Protect against hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis) (25)
Fight age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease; people with low dietary intake of niacin have increased risk (26)
And the superb news is that bacon provides a huge source of niacin – 58% of the RDA per 100g (12).
#29. There’s No Better Breakfast
I usually eat bacon and eggs for breakfast every Saturday morning.
And there’s no breakfast that I look forward to more.
Bacon and eggs, alongside some mushrooms and a grilled tomato. It is the best breakfast in the world in my book.
#30. Contains Large Amounts of Phosphorus
Phosphorus is another mineral that bacon provides an ample supply of; 56% of the RDA per 100g (12).
It’s essential for building strong bones and plays a vital role in both our skeletal system and dental health (27, 28).
In fact, we can find over 85% of our body’s phosphorus in our bones and teeth (29).
#31. Has a Decent Balance of Fats
As previously mentioned, the predominant fat in bacon is oleic acid– the same type of monounsaturated fat found in olive oil.
And per 100g, the breakdown of fats in bacon looks like this (12):
Total Fat: 40.3g
40.3g Monounsaturated Fat: 18g
18g Saturated Fat: 13.3g
13.3g Polyunsaturated Fat: 4.5g (omega-3: 200mg, omega-6: 4193mg)
The only negative here is the large imbalance between omega-3 and omega-6, which stands at about 20:1 in favor of omega-6.
Too much omega-6 relative to omega-3 can be pro-inflammatory, so we should strive to keep the ratio as close as possible (30, 31).
Pastured pigs may offer a slightly better ratio, but these pigs don’t eat grass and still eat the high PUFA feed.
However, on the positive side, the total amount of polyunsaturated fat is very low.
If you’re avoiding omega-6 vegetable oils and including fatty fish in your diet, then this is unlikely to be a concern.
#32. Decent Supplier of Pyridoxine (Vitamin B6)
Vitamin B6 is necessary for hormone production, brain development, and mood (32).
Bacon offers 17% of the RDA for pyridoxine (12).
#33. Bacon Helps Everything Else Taste Better
Can you imagine a cheese quiche without bacon? Or just fried eggs by themselves?
They’d still be good, but bacon makes them taste that much better.
No matter what dish, bacon helps improve the taste of whatever food you combine it with.
#34. It Can Help You Lose Weight
Of course, this isn’t in a ‘magical pill’ way.
If you eat piles and piles of bacon, then you’ll likely struggle with a few weight problems.
But bacon may help you lose weight indirectly. Due to the impact it has on satiety, a breakfast of bacon sure helps discourage snacking throughout the day.
In fact, many people report success with this and a quick Google of “bacon + weight loss” shows many success stories.
#35. Contributes a Large Amount of Zinc
Another nutrient in bacon’s arsenal is zinc, and the salty meat contains 24% of the RDA per 100g (12).
Zinc is necessary for a healthy immune system, muscular growth and repair, and optimal hormone levels (33, 34, 35).
#36. Source of Magnesium
Bacon is also a good source of magnesium, an essential mineral which is imperative for human health.
Magnesium is critical for a healthy cardiovascular system and influences everything from protein synthesis to blood glucose control and the regulation of blood pressure (36, 37, 38).
Bacon provides 9% of the RDA per 100g (12).
#37. Bacon Improves Mood
Recent research has shed light on improved mood in evenings before a bacon breakfast.
No, I’m just joking… but bacon is delicious and generally makes people happy.
#38. One of the Best Vitamin B12 Sources
High in many B vitamins, bacon also contains 22% of the RDA for vitamin B12 (Cobalamin) (12).
This vitamin helps keep our red blood cells, DNA, and nerve cells in a healthy state (39).
#39. Eating Nothing But Bacon Improves Health?
This one is a bit surprising, and not something I would recommend anyone to do.
But it’s what someone called Dan Quibell did in something known as ‘the bacon experiment.’
In short, here’s what happened:
Dan ate 2lbs (908g) of bacon per day, for 30 days.
He didn’t eat anything else except the bacon
He lost 19lbs weight over the month.
Dan’s health markers such as blood pressure, cholesterol numbers, and liver markers all improved.
This little experiment suggests bacon may be good for you! But, again… I don’t recommend a bacon-only diet.
If you want to read more about this story, you can read an interview on Ketogasm.
#40. Brussel Sprouts and Bacon
Sprouts are a pretty nutritious vegetable, and they taste good too. But, they are just sprouts.
Nobody really thinks about them as one of the most delicious foods (I think).
But pair them up with bacon, and it’s entirely different. While they don’t come close to bacon and eggs, this is a combination that tastes great.
Here are some yummy recipes:
#41 You Can Make Bacon At Home
A lot of people don’t realize, but it’s fairly easy to make bacon at home.
And it can be tastier, healthier, and a whole lot cheaper than buying the stuff from a store.
That said, it does require a bit of work.
If you’re interested in learning more, then here’s an excellent guide to homemade bacon.
#42. It Can Be a Dessert
We saw chocolate-coated bacon earlier on, but there are many other dessert variations of bacon too.
Ever wanted to try low-carb maple bacon pecan muffins? Well, there’s a recipe for that.
And Maria Emmerich has a recipe for some rather interesting bacon ice-cream cones too.
#43. Bacon Lardons
Lardons are thicker, crispier, and juicier slabs of bacon than normal and they taste great.
Originating from France, they are added to a variety of dishes to boost the depth of flavor.
They can also be eaten (and taste just great) by themselves.
Reasons to Eat Bacon
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Is Bacon Good For You?
Firstly, I’d say that unprocessed red meat is a better choice.
But just like cured meats, bacon certainly isn’t as bad for you as the media often make out.
Despite the fears over nitrate, it’s a nutritious food that can fit into a healthy diet.
And waking up to bacon is a whole lot better than some ultra-processed food made of oil, sugar, and flour.
Related Articles
12 Types of Cured Meat: Traditional and Delicious Options |
By Mark Snyder, Detroit Free Press
Former Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez will not be on the sidelines this fall.
Instead he'll be analyzing games for the CBS Sports Network, formerly known as CBS College Sports. Rodriguez, who was fired from U-M in January after a 15-22 record in three seasons, will work games with play-by-play partner Dave Ryan and will also appear in the New York studio, according to a network release.
Rodriguez was involved with the network's Signing Day special, working with analyst Tom Lemming to asses the various classes, including Michigan's.
Because CBS primarily covers the Southeastern Conference and does little with the Big Ten, there is less chance of Rodriguez doing game analysis on a Michigan game – or his former school, West Virginia – but he could offer analysis when he is in the studio.
"Rich is an accomplished, well-recognized coach with a wealth of knowledge about the game," David Berson, Executive Vice President, CBS Sports and President, CBS Sports Network, said in a released statement. "Rich was an integral part of our Signing Day and Draft coverage. We are excited to add him to our already strong line-up of football talent and look forward to showcasing his analysis and insights during the upcoming season." |
President Oleksandr Turchynov announced the appointment of Ukrainian Jewish business mogul Igor Kolomoisky as governor
On Saturday, Mr Kolomoisky said he had accepted an offer from Kiev to head the regional government in his native Dnipropetrovsk region in eastern Ukraine, where he controls a large share of industry and other businesses.
Ihor Valeriyovych Kolomoyskyi born February 13, 1963) is an Ukrainian-Israeli business oligarch of Jewish descent. Kolomoysky has a dual Ukrainian-Israeli citizenship although dual citizenship is not recognized by Ukraine and controls his business empire from Switzerland.[6] Kolomoyskyi is the leading partner of the Privat Group and a de facto chairman of the FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk.
President Oleksandr Turchynov announced the nomination Sunday, as part of reshuffle that saw 16 district heads replaced, the news site gazeta.ua reported.
He is a well known activist in Jewish circles in Europe and Isreal:
Moshe Azman, a chief rabbi of Ukraine, told the Ma’ariv daily that Kolomoisky was among Ukraine’s leading Jewish leader
“Yes, I agreed, because the homeland is in danger,” Mr Kolomoisky, a prominent member and supporter of the country’s Jewish community, told the Financial Times.
Rabbi Shmuel Kaminezki, spiritual leader of the Jewish community in Dnipropetrovsk, praised Mr Kolomoisky and denied Russian claims that extremists out to persecute Russians and other minorities had taken over power in Ukraine.
Ihor Kolomoyskyi’s name in English is also spelled as Igor/Ihor Kolomoyskyi/Kolomoysky/Kolomoisky/Kolomoiskiy/Kolomoyskiy.
Kolomoyskyi is often nicknamed Benya (Беня) (which is a Russian-Jewish short name popular in early 20th century) and Bonifatsiy - after a character of the popular Soviet animated film whose image is visually similar to Kolomoyskyi’s appearance and hair-cut.
According to the Kyiv Post, Kolomoisky is the president of the European Jewish Union, an organization he cofounded in 2011, and a major donor to Jewish causes in Ukraine and beyond. Ukrainian media reports in 2012 estimated his wealth at $3-4 billion. He has interests in the banking sector, metallurgy, chemicals, energy and airlines.
Ihor Kolomoisky, who is a co-owner of the Privat Group and Head of European Jewish Council, to the office.
which brings to mind the billion dollar gorilla in the room : is his appointment heralding a new oligarchy?
The Privat Group, which has not been formalized as a legal entity, is one of Ukraine’s largest business groups and incorporates Ukraine’s No. 1 PrivatBank, as well as oil, ferrous metal, food, agriculture, and transport assets.
Igor Kolomoisky, 51, oligarch and Ukraine’s third richest person with an estimated fortune of $2.4 billion, arrived in Dnipropetrovsk to take charge as the regional governor of the nation’s second most populous oblast with 3.3 million people.
he is not the only one :
Putin may have reason to fear this man :
Kolomoisky referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin as “a small-sized schizophreniac” who “went insane” and whose attempts to “revive the Russian Empire to the 1913 borders can bring world to disaster.”
a little conspiracy for your evening tea:
“It was important to disrupt the planned introductory speech by Gepa (Kernes) and Dopa (Kharkiv Oblast Governor Mykhailo Dobkin). It was planned that after the speech Yanukovych will enter the stage and announce that the Russian military will help ‘to free Ukraine’ (from the new interim government),” Kolomoyskiy said.
and finally this:
Turchynov also appointed a member of the far-right Svoboda party, Sidor Kizin, as governor of the Zhytomyr district.
The party now controls four districts. Its leader, Oleh Tyahnybok, has praised supporters for being the “worst fear of the Jewish-Russian mafia” and several of its lawmakers have called Jews “kikes.”
and this news makes Stormfront very unhappy (do not click if you are allergic to hate)
If true, things could hardly be worse for Ukrainians. Is there any confirmation of this ??
sources used:
The Jewish Daily Forward
The Kyiv Post
JP Updates
Wikipedia
Anti-Semitism.net
for a list of other new Ukrainian govt. officials try Novinite.com |
Remember back in 2013 when that lab-grown burger was rolled out for a taste test? One big problem with the patty was that it cost roughly $385,000 to make. The scientist behind that lab burger says he can get the price down substantially.
Mark Post, a biologist at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, recently told ABC Australia that after tinkering with the process of making the schmeat, it could be produced for about $80 per kilogram.
Since the interview was in Australia I'm assuming the price is in Australian dollars and therefore the price in U.S. dollars would be about $9 for a five ounce patty (the size of the patty rolled out in 2013). If the price quotes was in U.S. dollars it works out to a little over $11. Either way, that's still a bit expensive but a lot more competitive than $385,000.
The real question of course is whether they can make it a tasty burger. |
The numbers and words behind football’s biggest transfer : Paul Pogba to Manchester United
So, now it being officially announced, weeks of expectations and thrill finally came to an end for Manchester United fans around the world as everything goes in United’s favor triggering football’s biggest transfer – Paul Pogba to Manchester United.
THE TRANSFER FEE
The amount Manchester United paid for the move varied from source to source before the transfer but one thing was clear – WORLD RECORD. The highly reliable Di Marzio quoted a figure of £110m gross which includes other fees related to the transfer, so the net payment figure to Juventus by Manchester United will be a little over £100m as claimed by the Italian journalist. And agent Mino Raiola who secured the deals of Henrik Mkhitaryan and Zlatan Ibrahimović earlier in the window will be receiving a figure of £20m+ for Pogba’s move to his boyhood club.
Once the transfer got finalized and was announced officially on August 7th, Juventus surprsingly quoted the transfer fee on the statement as €105m which is around £89m with the fee being paid over 2 financial years. The statement also mentioned there would be an increase in the fee by €5m (£4.6m) if certain conditions are achieved during the course of the contract.
£275,000 a week which is £14.3m in wages and the 23 year old will take home £7.8m after taxes in a year, although other reports claim a higher number. Below is the details of how much Pogba would cost United through his 5 years contract as reported by Squawka Picture Courtesy : Squawka The Express claims that Pogba will earna week which is £14.3m in wages and the 23 year old will take home £7.8m after taxes in a year, although other reports claim a higher number. Below is the details of how much Pogba would cost United through his 5 years contract as reported by Squawka
HAS MONEY SPOILED THE BEAUTIFUL GAME?
Let’s take a look on some legends quotes on the 3 biggest transfers before Pogba’s return to Old Trafford :
Gareth Bale to Real Madrid : £86m “Bale not worth of such a massive transfer fee” – Zinedine Zidane
Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid : £80m “Ronaldo is not worth £80m” – Fabio Capello
Gonzalo Higuain to Juventus : £75m “This did not happen in my time. Too bad that FIFA continues to sleep.” – Diego Maradona Paul Pogba to United : £89m “He is just not worth that amount” – Paul Scholes One thing is very clear from the above words, there will be complaints made on every big transfer move claiming the transfer fee as absurd and the player is not worth that much but we are in the 21st century where football has changed a lot and it’s time we learnt to live with the change and move on or else will get left behind and there won’t be any surprises if this record fee gets broken within another year. World record transfers depicted with the actual fee paid then and the corresponding
value of the fee now after adjusting for inflation It can be learnt from the above graph that although a lot of money has been put into the game of late, inflation has played a more crucial role in the rise in transfer fees which football supporters around the world fail to take notice. Luis Figo’s controversial transfer is worth £57m now and Zidane would have cost Real Madrid £71m today which are very close to the figure of the current transfer record fee of £89m, a 23 year old Paul Pogba is not yet equal to the likes of the galacticos Zidane and Figo but that is where the extra money has been put in when the difference in the quality of the players are also considered, but let alone the transfer fee is looked upon, there is no significant difference to be seen.
WILL ZLATAN‘S JERSEY SALES FUND POGBA’S MOVE?
Few days back Zlatan posted a pic on Instagram along with Pogba with the caption reading “My shirt brought him back” and when Paul Pogba was linked to United heavily couple of weeks back for a 100m move, there was a strong rumour going around social media claiming Zlatan Ibrahimović’s shirt sales have made £76 million for the club in the first week thereby becoming a significant part of the payment for Pogba. But, how true is this?
A look into the official numbers from the financial statements of the club for the past 3 years, it can be seen that the club sold around 2 million jerseys in the previous seasons with the average price of the jersey being £80. On an average it is presumed a football club of United’s stature gets 20 percent from the jersey sales and the major part of the rest goes to the kit manufacture.
Applying the above logic, the club will make around £30m by way of jersey sales in a season and this includes jerseys bought with players name other Ibrahimovic, personalised names and jerseys without print. Thus, the internet’s bizarre claim of Zlatan’s jersey sales funding for Pogba is proven wrong.
UNITED ARE BOX OFFICE
It is estimated that the Manchester United PLC will generate a £500m revenue for the calendar year 2016 after posting a record third quarter revenue of £123.4m. If the half-a-billion revenue is achieved by Ed Woodward & co, it would be a massive increase of 26% from £395m in 2015 and £70m more than previous record revenue which was achieved in 2014. “We can do things in the transfer market that other clubs can only dream of.” – Ed Woodward It is estimated that the Manchester United PLC will generate arevenue for the calendar year 2016 after posting a record third quarter revenue of £123.4m. If the half-a-billion revenue is achieved by Ed Woodward & co, it would be a massive increase of 26% from £395m in 2015 and £70m more than previous record revenue which was achieved in 2014. Although the club’s revenue is not generated equitably throughout the year but if an average is to be considered, the revenue will be £1.4m/day. So, by the time Pogba was first linked to United on June 25 to the day he is expected to make his debut on August 19 against Southampton, Manchester United would have already generated revenue equivalent to the world record transfer fee.
The Times went with a report stating Pogba’s signing will rope in £40m for the club in the first year alone through several sponsors with the commercial department of the club working on a marketing strategy to pair the midfielder with Zlatan Ibrahimovic for several promotions. The world record signing has also been a major boost for Manchester United’s kit sponsor Adidas with the German sports giant teasing the fans in some fashion, the French international signed a £30m personal deal with Adidas earlier during the year. And not to forget United have already signed EA Sports as official video games partner with Pogba leading the promotion pictures.
CAN POGBA BE WORTH THE HUGE SUM?
There have been high profile transfer moves before where the player was worth every penny the club paid for him just like in the case of Cristiano Ronaldo and also there have been big money transfers which have failed miserably.
Only time will tell whether or not Pogba can live up to the fee but it also depends upon whether he can pull his magic on a cold rainy night at Stoke against Joe Allen.
Written by Abdul Razik. 19 years old. 8 years as a Manchester United supporter. Admin at MUFC Chennai. Huge fan of the statistical part of the beautiful game. You can follow my blog at razikfooty.blogspot.in |
This time last year, everyone was celebrating what seemed like a step toward recovery for the endangered Southern Resident killer whales (SRKW), which make their home around the San Juan Islands. After a low in 2014 of just 78 individuals, the birth of eight new calves in 12 months looked like great news for this dwindling population. The last of the newborns, named J54, was first seen on December 1, 2015, and brought the population up to 85.
Not since 1977 (one year after the Orca Survey study began) had so many calves been born in a 12-month period. It was no surprise that 2015 was referred to as a “baby boom” and many were hopeful that this signaled a population on the rise.
Unfortunately, what was cause for celebration at the end of 2015 turned to cause for alarm by the fall of 2016. Not long after the birth of J54, his mother, an orca named J28 or "Polaris," began showing signs of poor body condition. By July, she was clearly emaciated and by mid-October she was gone. Not long after J28 was last seen, her infant calf was seen in extremely poor health, barely breathing, being carried on the head of his older sister. Without milk to sustain him, J54 did not have a chance at survival.
We will likely never know the exact cause of death for J28, but reproductive issues and complications from pregnancy for Southern Resident killer whales have been more common in recent decades. The loss of reproductive age females is a huge problem for this population. Young productive mothers are dying too soon to replace the older females who are no longer reproductively viable. The miscarriage rate is well over 50 percent of pregnancies and a large percentage of newborn calves do not live long enough to become reproductively successful members of the Southern Resident population.
What exactly is causing these reproductive issues is unknown, but nutritional stress, environmental stress and toxins are likely culprits.
Whether the whales know it or not, we humans have an interesting relationship with them. Many of us spend a lot of time thinking about what they need, whereas the reciprocal is highly unlikely. We argue and posture about what is best for them, and how best to help them survive.
At the end of 2016, the Center for Whale Research will have completed our 41th year of research. We are keenly aware that there are a combination of factors limiting the survival of the Southern Residents. The recently approved Kinder-Morgan pipeline in British Columbia will cause a seven-fold increase in oil tankers moving through the whales’ designated critical habitat. This increase in shipping will exponentially increase both underwater noise and the potential for a catastrophic oil spill that would likely wipe out the entire population of whales and irreversibly damage the fragile Salish Sea ecosystem.
Biopsy studies have shown that the Southern Residents are highly contaminated with toxins such as DDT, PCBs and PBDEs which depress immune systems and negatively impact reproduction, as shown in other marine mammals. And then, of course, there is the lack of salmon. Without enough to eat, all these impacts (as well as any others that we may not even be aware of) are exacerbated. Chronic food scarcity is known to cause illness and reduced lifespans in many other mammals, including humans.
The Center for Whale Research has become vocal this past year in calling for salmon recovery by way of habitat restoration, fisheries management and removal of dams where appropriate (such as on the Klamath and Snake Rivers). As researchers, we believe we have a responsibility to put our findings in the hands of policy makers, those tasked with recovering the whales, their prey and the ecosystems that support us all. As Ken Balcomb, founder and senior scientist of the Center, said recently “I can’t just sit around and count these whales to death.”
As for the future, there are some things we can do better to help the whales. As the whales continue to change the way they use their core summer habitat, expansion of monitoring efforts will allow better documentation of their health, population dynamics and behavior. It’s vital that a 3-river system approach to salmon restoration be taken that includes the Fraser, Skagit and Columbia rivers which are the key sources that provide the wild salmon that the whales need to survive. Above all we must continue to be a voice for the whales by forging stronger partnerships among federal and state agencies, nonprofits and scientists and continuing to make the whales’ dire plight known to policymakers, media, educators and the community of people, such as yourselves, who want to see this population not just survive, but thrive.
As we wrote this article, yet another Southern Resident has turned up dead. J34, also known as Double Stuff, a beloved young male of J pod, was found floating off the coast BC’s Sunshine Coast on the 21st of December. The exact cause of death is unknown, however, preliminary necropsy results described by Canadian Officials on scene state that J34 suffered from “blunt force trauma” to his head and neck. This type of trauma can be defined as physical injury resulting from forceful impact to the body. The necropsy (like an autopsy) revealed that he also had a hematoma which indicates that he was alive for some amount of time after the injury. Paul Cottrell, Pacific marine mammal coordinator with Fisheries and Oceans Canada said “the damage may have been caused by a vessel strike or other 'heavy contact,’ but investigators are waiting on tissue tests and other results to determine exactly what happened.”
The death of J34, brings the year’s losses to six individuals, plus three neonates that were never given names. After all the gains of 2015, we are now back to having only 79 southern residents.
Unfortunately, we cannot offer you the same rosy picture that was presented at the end of 2015. The whales are not in great shape. With the increased shipping traffic, threat of an oil spill, and ever shrinking chinook salmon populations, we must face the reality that the future does not look as bright as we would have it.
But we must not give up. In the hundreds of years that these whales have suffered our presence and all the impacts we bring, one thing seems clear: The whales are resilient. Although immeasurable by most standards, they have made some recovery since the time that nearly a third of their family members were captured or killed for marine parks like SeaWorld. Thankfully they don’t appear to hold a grudge against us for that. And despite the dismal numbers of returning chinook throughout the whales’ range, they continue to return to the Salish Sea, searching for the salmon that were once so abundant. |
Forty-five years ago this week, May 16,1969, the face of modern medicine changed forever when 15-year-old Robert Rayford, sometimes identified as “Robert R.” due to his age, died in a St. Louis, Missouri hospital. He was a slender, uncommunicative street kid whose condition left doctors distressed, perplexed — and scared. Although no one knew it at the time, Robert R’s was the earliest confirmed case of HIV/AIDS in North America. Rayford’s death was a mystery to doctors, who could not account for his symptoms. The true cause of his death remained unidentified until 1987.
This young man’s story is one of tragedy. He spent all 15 or 16 years of his life (some sources list his birth date as February 3, 1953 but no one knows for sure) in a poor African-American ghetto in St. Louis. Of his enigmatic life, little else is known. Described by medical personnel as being “mildly retarded,” Bobby Rayford first checked himself into Barnes Hospital in St. Louis in the early Spring of 1968. His doctors were baffled by his symptoms. His swollen loins were covered with open, infected sores. He struggled while breathing, was razor thin and pale as a ghost.
Doctors suspected some form of cancer at first, but subsequent tests revealed the patient had herpes, genital warts, and a severe case of chlamydia. The infection spread, in the form of purple colored lesions, to his legs, causing a misdiagnosis of lymphedema, an infection of the lymph nodes. He said that he had been suffering from these symptoms for at least two years, or since he was about thirteen years old. When doctors suggested a routine rectal exam, Rayford steadfastly refused. The doctors, like most of America at that time, did not think to ask about homosexual contact. It wasn’t until later that the doctors noted in Robert’s medical charts that he was likely gay and speculated that the young man refused the exam for fear of “evidence” being found therein.
When asked about his sexual history, Rayford became dodgy, at first calling himself “the stud of all time” and later claiming absolute celibacy. Still later he claimed to have had sex just once, “with a neighborhood girl,” and that he started to feel sick shortly after that encounter. Strangely, although doctors suspected that Robert was highly promiscuous, they never considered the possibility that he had been molested. All moral judgements aside, clinicians were helpless as they watched the teenager slowly waste away before their eyes from a disease they were unable to diagnose and powerless to treat. During his first months in the hospital, doctors tried everything they could think of to stop the spread of this mysterious malady. They cut back on his water and salt intake, administered drugs to promote water loss, wrapped and elevated his legs, all intended to reduce the swelling. Nothing worked, and the inflammation moved up his body and into his lungs. Finally they tried powerful antibiotics and were cheered in late 1968 when Rayford’s condition seemed to be stabilizing.
By March 1969 the patient’s symptoms returned with a vengeance and his condition steadily deteriorated. He had increased difficulty breathing, and his white blood cell count plummeted. The doctors determined that his immune system was shutting down. By all accounts, this uneducated street kid maintained his dignity in the face of inevitable demise. In the words of Dr. Memory Elvin-Lewis, who attended to him during his final days, “He barely said ‘boo.’” Finally, he developed a raging fever and at 11:20 p.m. on May 15, 1969 Robert Rayford died, never knowing of his place in history.
For lack of a more precise diagnosis, Robert’s death was attributed to loss of vitality, intractable fluid imbalance and lung disease. An autopsy revealed numerous other problems, including evidence of a rarely seen cancer called Kaposi’s sarcoma. In this case, “KS” manifested itself in the form of small purplish lesions discovered on Rayford’s left thigh and within his soft tissues. Kaposi’s sarcoma is a rare type of cancer most often found in elderly men of Mediterranean or Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. Today, KS is taken as almost certain proof of AIDS, but in 1969, its significance was not understood.
For the next 18 years, doctors and researchers continued to search for a solution to the mystery of Bobby Rayford. So mystified were they that they saved samples of Robert’s tissues and blood for nearly two decades, hoping that future advances in medical science and technology would help them solve the puzzle. Finally, in October of 1987, the riddle of Robert R.’s illness was solved, and the answer was nothing short of astonishing. New tests of the dead boy’s preserved blood, brain and organ tissue samples led to a grim conclusion: Robert R. almost certainly died of AIDS, making his the earliest case of the killer disease ever discovered in the United States.
However, as you may imagine, Bobby Rayford’s most awful claim to fame is not without controversy. Although a review of the case was eventually published in the medical journal “Lymphology” in 1973, many believe that the perceived immorality of the disease’s alleged contraction stifled the search for a cause, treatment and a cure. After the autopsy, blood and tissue samples were kept in cold storage at the University of Arizona but after the October 1987 revelation there was no further follow-up, in part because the samples disappeared.
Robert R’s case is the classic chicken or the egg argument. After all, his illness had to come from somewhere. Rayford said he never traveled outside the Midwest and had never received a blood transfusion. Since doctors concluded that Rayford’s AIDS infection was contracted through sexual contact, it must be presumed that AIDS was present in the U.S. before Rayford’s symptoms arose in 1966. Rayford told doctors he had never visited big cities such as New York, Los Angeles, or San Francisco, where the HIV-AIDS epidemic was first observed in the United States. The commonly accepted trajectory of the HIV/AIDS epidemic is Africa to Haiti to U.S. to Europe and finally to the rest of the Americas. But Robert never left the region, much less the country.
Doctors, investigating the case in the early 1980s, speculated that Rayford may have been a male prostitute. That assumption was made when the medical community believed the progression from initial infection to the diagnosis of AIDS took only two and a half years. Ironically, researchers believe that it was precisely because the St. Louis gay population was small in number by comparison that enabled the Bobby Rayford strain of HIV/AIDS to die out. Therefore, St. Louis did not become a hotbed of AIDS activity.
The saddest aspect of this entire story is that all of this happened before anyone had ever heard the term “AIDS” (which stands for “Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome” by the way). Robert Rayford has been described variously by history as mildly retarded, sexually promiscuous or as a male prostitute. I have yet to find any account, and believe me I have read many, that calls him a man. In his case, the medical community was operating under the same social mores society was slogging through in the Nixon years. Scientists have found the same telltale “KS” evidence in African children as young as three years old. If we accept this scientific fact, could it be possible that Robert R. was born with it, rather than contracting it through nefarious means?
In one of his rare communicative moments, Rayford told the doctors that his grandfather “had the same symptoms.” This might suggest a congenital immunodeficiency, and that other factors may have exacerbated this problem rather than caused his illness and eventual death. So even if Robert were lying about his sexual history, there is little else to suggest that he contracted his KS lesions from gay sex. Instead, based on his statement about his grandfather’s similar symptoms, Robert’s lesions may well have developed from the inside outward.
There is one final theory about this first AIDS case in America that I will put forth for all of those who love to sink their teeth into a good conspiracy theory. In the book The River, a theory is advanced that Robert became vulnerable to the illnesses during the 1950s when the Army Chemical Corps conducted open-air chemical warfare tests in American cities. These included 35 aerosol releases in and around St. Louis. Most of those tests were conducted in low income neighborhoods, allegedly to minimize public resistance to such tests. One of those test areas was only half a block from the house in which Robert was born. These tests, conducted at the height of the Cold War, were explained away to local officials as being simple smoke screen experiments designed to shield U.S. cities in the event of a Soviet attack.
Decades later it was revealed that those tests involved zinc cadmium sulfide, a mixture of zinc sulfide and cadmium sulfide. It’s frequently referred to as a fluorescent particle because it glows in ultraviolet light. This quality makes it easy to trace for efficacy after the fact. However, cadmium is a highly toxic metal that is even more pernicious when spread through the air. Because the kidneys absorb it quickly, it is commonly associated with kidney failure, leads to cirrhosis of the liver and causes severe damage to the lungs and body cavities. All of these conditions were noted in Robert R’s report. Also, the effects can be passed by a mother to her fetus, so it’s entirely possible that Robert may have developed the seeds of his illness while still in the womb.
We’ll most likely never know the whole truth about the death of Robert Rayford — in part because we weren’t looking for the answers in the context of AIDS. We are content to label him as the first victim of a terrible epidemic that ran unchecked through our nation during the Moral Majority driven Reagan Revolution. Most of the knowledge gained about AIDS in the two decades between Robert Rayford’s death and ultimate diagnosis came from research and development, not from doctors and hospitals, but from the victims themselves. We Americans owe a great debt of gratitude for our understanding of this dread disease to those who have suffered, and often died, while searching for a cure — Robert Rayford, a mere medical footnote in history, among them.
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. Contact Al directly at [email protected] or become a friend on Facebook. |
Tonight on Big Brother, we see Caleb Reynolds move into the Big Brother 16 house. Unlucky Caleb is the first Big Brother 16 houseguest to garner controversial headlines. Unfortunately, if last season is any indication, he won't be the one and only. Countless racial, homophobic, and misogynistic remarks made Big Brother 15 not-so-much fun. Are we headed down the same path for Big Brother 16? One peek at Caleb's social media accounts suggests we are, indeed, headed down the same path.
CLICK CONTINUE READING FOR MORE!
After President Obama was re-elected, Caleb posted on Instagram, “YEAH FOR OBAMA HE GETS TO SHRED THIS COUNTRY APART FOR ANOTHER 4 YEARS ONLY GOD CAN HELP US NOW!!!"
Then, in response to a negative comment directed at him, Caleb argued, “You believe in murder? You agree with f*gs? I guess so but I don’t agree with murdering a innocent baby which he clearly doesn’t mind. Nothin has changed in these last four years. Your just a democrat that wants that Muslim monkey in office. I’m done with you, your dismissed.”
Also, a YouTube video of Caleb beating a poor pig to death surfaced, with the caption “Caleb had to swim across the river to get a hog and forgot his knife!! But no worries he used a stick instead.”
Is it too much to ask Big Brother to thoroughly investigate their applicants' social media accounts during the casting process? Oh, who am I kidding, of course they do. When it comes to the racial and homophobic slurs on Caleb's account, Big Brother either didn't care or they moved Caleb from the "maybe" pile to the "media attention jackpot" pile.
Several of Caleb's family members came to his defense, insisting he is not a racist and it's not fair to judge him based on something he wrote two years ago. Is there a statute of limitations on racial slurs on Instagram?
Tamara Tattles wrote a great post about the Caleb controversy. So someone claiming to be Caleb's cousin (Natasha) commented: "Tamara & everyone else, you should really read your bible. Nothing negative on here about Caleb Reynolds is True. This site is overwhelmed with judgmental ignorant people who are simply jealous." I seriously cannot stand the "jealous haters" whiners.
"Sorry you are not brave enough to enlist in the military, nor slaughter pigs so others can eat, nor hold people accountable for God’s word," she continued. "Get over yourself. You all need to learn to be better people and understand your 5th amendment. His & our families beliefs about anything is nothing to come out of your mouth. All you need to know about the real Caleb Reynolds is he is a good hearted character who is going to have you laughing your butt off at the big screen, doing what he loves, making people smile."
Natasha concluded, "So words of advise, unless you know Caleb personally, keep the negative out of your mouth. Thank you to all the #teamcaleb fans out there, we are VERY proud of him!"
TELL US – YOUR THOUGHTS ON PART ONE OF THE BIG BROTHER 16 PREMIERE? IS IT FAIR TO JUDGE CALEB FOR HIS POSTS?
Photo Credit: Cliff Lipson/CBS |
Photo: Bernard Gotfryd/Getty Images
1. “I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’”
The actual advice here is technically a quote from Kurt Vonnegut’s “good uncle” Alex, but Vonnegut was nice enough to pass it on at speeches and in A Man Without A Country. Though he was sometimes derided as too gloomy and cynical, Vonnegut’s most resonant messages have always been hopeful in the face of almost-certain doom. And his best advice seems almost ridiculously simple: Give your own happiness a bit of brain-space.
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2. “Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.”
In Cat’s Cradle, the narrator haplessly stumbles across the cynical, cultish figure Bokonon, who populates his religious writings with moronic, twee aphorisms. The great joke of Bokononism is that it forces meaning on what’s essentially chaos, and Bokonon himself admits that his writings are lies. If the protagonist’s trip to the island nation of San Lorenzo has any cosmic purpose, it’s to catalyze a massive tragedy, but the experience makes him a devout Bokononist. It’s a religion for people who believe religions are absurd, and an ideal one for Vonnegut-style humanists.
3. “Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder, ‘Why, why, why?’ Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand.”
Another koan of sorts from Cat’s Cradle and the Bokononist religion (which phrases many of its teachings as calypsos, as part of its absurdist bent), this piece of doggerel is simple and catchy, but it unpacks into a resonant, meaningful philosophy that reads as sympathetic to humanity, albeit from a removed, humoring, alien viewpoint. Man’s just another animal, it implies, with his own peculiar instincts, and his own way of shutting them down. This is horrifically cynical when considered closely: If people deciding they understand the world is just another instinct, then enlightenment is little more than a pit-stop between insoluble questions, a necessary but ultimately meaningless way of taking a sanity break. At the same time, there’s a kindness to Bokonon’s belief that this is all inevitable and just part of being a person. Life is frustrating and full of pitfalls and dead ends, but everybody’s gotta do it.
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4. “There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”
This line from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater comes as part of a baptismal speech the protagonist says he’s planning for his neighbors’ twins: “Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.” It’s an odd speech to make over a couple of infants, but it’s playful, sweet, yet keenly precise in its summation of everything a new addition to the planet should need to know. By narrowing down all his advice for the future down to a few simple words, Vonnegut emphasizes what’s most important in life. At the same time, he lets his frustration with all the people who obviously don’t get it leak through just a little.
5. “She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is doing.”
A couple of pages into Cat’s Cradle, protagonist Jonah/John recalls being hired to design and build a doghouse for a lady in Newport, R.I., who “claimed to understand God and His Ways of Working perfectly.” With such knowledge, “she could not understand why anyone should be puzzled about what had been or about what was going to be.” When Jonah shows her the doghouse’s blueprint, she says she can’t read it. He suggests taking it to her minister to pass along to God, who, when he finds a minute, will explain it “in a way that even you can understand.” She fires him. Jonah recalls her with a bemused fondness, ending the anecdote with this Bokonon quote. It’s a typical Vonnegut zinger that perfectly summarizes the inherent flaw of religious fundamentalism: No one really knows God’s ways.
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6. “Many people need desperately to receive this message: ‘I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.’”
In this response to his own question—“Why bother?”—in Timequake, his last novel, Vonnegut doesn’t give a tired response about the urge to create; instead, he offers a pointed answer about how writing (and reading) make a lonesome world a little less so. The idea of connectedness—familial and otherwise—ran through much of his work, and it’s nice to see that toward the end of his career, he hadn’t lost the feeling that words can have an intimate, powerful impact.
7. “There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too.”
Though this quote comes from the World War II-centered Mother Night (published in 1961), its wisdom and ugly truth still ring. Vonnegut (who often said “The only difference between Bush and Hitler is that Hitler was elected”) was righteously skeptical about war, having famously survived the only one worth fighting in his lifetime. And it’s never been more true: Left or right, Christian or Muslim, those convinced they’re doing violence in service of a higher power and against an irretrievably inhuman enemy are the most dangerous creatures of all.
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8. “Since Alice had never received any religious instruction, and since she had led a blameless life, she never thought of her awful luck as being anything but accidents in a very busy place. Good for her.”
Vonnegut’s excellent but underrated Slapstick (he himself graded it a “D”) was inspired by his sister Alice, who died of cancer just days after her husband was killed in an accident. Vonnegut’s assessment of Alice’s character—both in this introduction and in her fictional stand-in, Eliza Mellon Swain—is glowing and remarkable, and in this quote from the book’s introduction, he manages to swipe at a favorite enemy (organized religion) and quietly, humbly embrace someone he clearly still missed a lot.
9. “That is my principal objection to life, I think: It’s too easy, when alive, to make perfectly horrible mistakes.”
The narrator delivering this line at the end of the first chapter of Deadeye Dick is alluding both to his father’s befriending of Hitler and his own accidental murder of his neighbor, but like so many of these quotes, it resonates well beyond its context. The underlying philosophy of Vonnegut’s work was always that existence is capricious and senseless, a difficult sentiment that he captured time and again with a bemused shake of the head. Indeed, the idea that life is just a series of small decisions that culminate into some sort of “destiny” is maddening, because you could easily ruin it all simply by making the wrong one. Ordering the fish, stepping onto a balcony, booking the wrong flight, getting married—a single misstep, and you’re done for. At least when you’re dead, you don’t have to make any more damn choices. Wherever Vonnegut is, he’s no doubt grateful for that.
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10. “Literature should not disappear up its own asshole, so to speak.”
Vonnegut touchstones like life on Tralfamadore and the absurd Bokononist religion don’t help people escape the world so much as see it with clearer reason, which probably had a lot to do with Vonnegut’s education as a chemist and anthropologist. So it’s unsurprising that in a “self-interview” for The Paris Review, collected in his non-fiction anthology Palm Sunday, he said the literary world should really be looking for talent among scientists and doctors. Even when taking part in such a stultifying, masturbatory exercise for a prestigious journal, Vonnegut was perfectly readable, because he never forgot where his true audience was.
11. “All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental.”
In Vonnegut’s final novel, 1997's Timequake, he interacts freely with Kilgore Trout and other fictional characters after the end of a “timequake,” which forces humanity to re-enact an entire decade. (Trout winds up too worn out to exercise free will again.) Vonnegut writes his own fitting epigram for this fatalistic book: “All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental,” which sounds more funny than grim. Vonnegut surrounds his characters—especially Trout—with meaninglessness and hopelessness, and gives them little reason for existing in the first place, but within that, they find liberty and courage.
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12. “Why don’t you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Why don’t you take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon?”
Even when Vonnegut dared to propose a utopian scheme, it was a happily dysfunctional one. In Slapstick, Wilbur Swain wins the presidency with a scheme to eliminate loneliness by issuing people complicated middle names (he becomes Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain) which make them part of new extended families. He advises people to tell new relatives they hate, or members of other families asking for help: “Why don’t you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Why don’t you take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon?” Of course, this fails to prevent plagues, the breakdown of his government, and civil wars later in the story.
13. “So it goes.”
Unlike many of these quotes, the repeated refrain from Vonnegut’s classic Slaughterhouse-Five isn’t notable for its unique wording so much as for how much emotion—and dismissal of emotion—it packs into three simple, world-weary words that simultaneously accept and dismiss everything. There’s a reason this quote graced practically every elegy written for Vonnegut over the past two weeks (yes, including ours): It neatly encompasses a whole way of life. More crudely put: “Shit happens, and it’s awful, but it’s also okay. We deal with it because we have to.”
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14. “I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled ‘science fiction’ ever since, and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal.”
Vonnegut was as trenchant when talking about his life as when talking about life in general, and this quote from an essay in Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons is particularly apt; as he explains it, he wrote Player Piano while working for General Electric, “completely surrounded by machines and ideas for machines,” which led him to put some ideas about machines on paper. Then it was published, “and I learned from the reviewers that I was a science-fiction writer.” The entire essay is wry, hilarious, and biting, but this line stands out in particular as typifying the kind of snappishness that made Vonnegut’s works so memorable.
15. “We must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
In Mother Night, apolitical expatriate American playwright Howard W. Campbell, Jr. refashions himself as a Nazi propagandist in order to pass coded messages on to the U.S. generals and preserve his marriage to a German woman—their “nation of two,” as he calls it. But in serving multiple masters, Campbell ends up ruining his life and becoming an unwitting inspiration to bigots. In his 1966 introduction to the paperback edition, Vonnegut underlines Mother Night’s moral: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” That lesson springs to mind every time a comedian whose shtick relies on hoaxes and audience-baiting—or a political pundit who traffics in shock and hyperbole—gets hauled in front of the court of public opinion for pushing the act too far. Why can’t people just say what they mean? It’s a question Don Imus and Michael Richards—and maybe someday Ann Coulter—must ask themselves on their many sleepless nights. |
Box office leader “Wonder Woman” has won the top prize at the 18th annual Golden Trailer Awards.
The event was held Tuesday night at the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills, Calif., and drew more than 1,000 attendees.
Open Road Entertainment and AV Squad’s work for the “What She Is” trailer for Warner Bros.’ “Wonder Woman” won the best of show prize along with the top honor for best fantasy/adventure trailer. Warner’s “Lego Batman” won five awards.
The Golden Trailer Awards go to 115 different categories but only 17 were handed out live on Tuesday at the Saban. A selection of the winning trailers can be seen at the Golden Trailer Awards’ website.
Warner Bros., which includes HBO and New Line Cinema, took 26 awards. Fox, (including 20th Century, Searchlight, FX, and FXX) won a total of 15, while Disney, and Netflix each took seven. Universal, Sony (including Screen Gems), and Lionsgate each earned six.
Among vendors, Mark Woollen & Associates took 10 trophies, followed by AV Squad with eight. Trailer Park and Concept Arts both won six while Buddha Jones and Create Advertising took home five. Creative agency LA was awarded eight awards for its trailer and poster campaigns.
Related Viola Davis Explains Her Wonder Woman Obsession 'Aquaman' Outpacing 'Wonder Woman' in Fandango Pre-Sales
Wayne Brady served as host and master of ceremonies for the second year in a row. Presenters included Elisabeth Rohm, Pooch Hall, Chad Stahelski, Sugar-Lyn Beard, Tichina Arnold, and Dania Ramirez.
Judges included Jordan Vogt-Roberts, Jon Watts, Kenneth Branagh, David Cross, Matthew Modine, Craig Mann, Avram Noble Ludwig, Mark Osbourne, Li Bingbing, Anthony McCarten, and Stahelski.
AWARDS PRESENTED DURING THE LIVE STAGE SHOW INCLUDE:
Best Of Show
Wonder Woman, Warner Bros., Open Road Entertainment/ AV Squad
Best Opening Weekend
Captain America: Civil War, Disney/ Marvel
Best Action
Baby Driver, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Create Advertising London
Best Animation / Family
The Lego Batman Movie, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Rogue Planet
Best Comedy
The House, New Line Cinema, mOcean
Best Documentary
I Am Not Your Negro, Amazon Studios/Magnolia Pictures, Mark Woollen & Associates
Best Drama
Dunkirk, Warner Bros., Buddha Jones
Best Fantasy /Adventure
Wonder Woman, Warner Bros., Open Road Entertainment/ AV Squad
Best Horror
IT, New Line Cinema, Buddha Jones
Best Independent Trailer
Manchester By The Sea, Amazon Studios/ Roadside Attractions, Mark Woollen & Associates
Best Music
Logan, 20th Century Fox, Rogue Planet
Best Summer 2017 Blockbuster Trailer
Atomic Blonde, Universal/Focus, AV Squad
Best Teaser
Blade Runner: 2049, Warner Bros., Wild Card
Best Thriller
A Cure for Wellness, 20th Century Fox, Trailer Park, Inc.
Golden Fleece
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Trailer Park, Inc.
Most Original Trailer
The Nice Guys, Warner Bros, Big Picture
Trashiest Trailer
Bad Santa 2, Broad Green Pictures, mOcean
OTHER AWARDS
Best Independent Trailer (for film budget shot under $1 million)
Deep Water: The Real Story, Blackfella Films, The Trace House
Best Motion/Title Graphics
Atomic Blonde, Universal/Focus, AV Squad
Best Romance
The Light Between Oceans, DreamWorks, Mark Woollen & Associates
Best Original Score
La La Land, Lionsgate, Mark Woollen & Associates
Best Sound Editing
Atomic Blonde, Universal/Focus, AV Squad
Best Trailer – No Movie
The Kill Team, Cornerstone, Intermission Film
Best Video Game Trailer
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Activision, gnet
The Don LaFontane Award for Best Voice Over
I Am Not Your Negro, Amazon Studios/Magnolia Pictures, Mark Woollen & Associates
Best Foreign Action Trailer
Collide, Universum Film GmbH, Trailerhaus GmbH,
Best Foreign Animation Family Trailer
Loving Vincent, Cinema Management Group, Zealot UK
Best Foreign Comedy Trailer
David Brent: Life On The Road, eOne, The Editpool
Best Foreign Documentary Trailer
I am Bolt, Universal Pictures International, Zealot UK
Best Foreign Drama Trailer
Lion, The Weinstein Company, Zealot
Best Foreign Graphics in a Trailer
Loving Vincent, Cinema Management Group, Zealot UK
Best Foreign Horror Trailer
Evolution, IFC Midnight, Mark Woollen & Associates
Best Foreign Independent Trailer
Jawbone, Vertigo Releasing, Intermission Film
Best Foreign Music Trailer
Raw, Focus World, Motive
Best Foreign Romance Trailer
My Cousin Rachel, Fox Searchlight Pictures, Create Advertising London
Best Foreign Teaser
Lady Macbeth, Altitude Film Entertainment, Intermission Film
Best Foreign Thriller Trailer
The Girl With All The Gifts, Saban Films, Picture Production Company
Best Foreign Trashiest Trailer
The Lure, Janus Films, Jump Cut
Golden Fleece Foreign
A Few Less Men, Studio Canal, The Solid State
Most Original Foreign Trailer
Evolution, IFC Midnight, Mark Woollen & Associates
Best Action TV Spot (for a Feature Film)
John Wick: Chapter 2, Lionsgate, AV Squad
Best Animation / Family TV Spot (for a Feature Film)
The Lego Batman Movie, Warner Bros., Buddha Jones
Best Comedy TV Spot (for a Feature Film)
Baywatch, Paramount Pictures, Workshop Creative
Best Documentary TV Spot (for a Feature Film)
13 th , Netflix, AV Squad
Best Drama TV Spot (for a Feature FIlm)
Arrival, Paramount Pictures, Buddha Jones
Best Fantasy Adventure TV Spot (for a Feature Film)
Doctor Strange, Disney, Trailer Park, Inc.
Best Foreign TV Spot (for a Feature Film)
Train to Busan, Well Go USA Entertainment
Best Graphics in a TV Spot (for a Feature Film)
Moonlight, A24 Films, GrandSon
Best Horror TV Spot (for a Feature Film)
Don’t Breathe, Screen Gems, The Refinery
Best Independent TV Spot (for a Feature Film)
Moonlight, A24 Films, GrandSon
Best Music TV Spot (for a Feature Film)
La La Land, Lionsgate, Seismic Productions
Best Original Score TV Spot (for a Feature Film)
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Walt Disney Studios, AV Squad
Best Romance TV Spot (for a Feature Film)
La La Land, Lionsgate, Mark Woollen & Associates
Best Sound Editing in a TV Spot (for a Feature Film)
Sully: Miracle On The Hudson, Warner Bros., The Editpool
Best Summer 2017 Blockbuster TV Spot (for a Feature Film)
Guardians Of The Galaxy 2, Disney/ Marvel, Aspect
Best Teaser TV Spot (for a Feature Film)
Sausage Party, Sony Pictures, Viacom Velocity
Best Thriller TV Spot (for a Feature Film)
A Cure for Wellness, 20th Century Fox, Trailer Park, Inc.
Best Video Game TV Spot
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, Sony PlayStation, PlayStation Creative
Best Voice Over TV Spot (for a Feature Film)
The Lego Batman Movie, Warner Bros. Pictures, Transit
Golden Fleece TV Spot (for a Feature Film)
Assassin’s Creed, 20th Century Fox, Rogue Planet
Most Original TV Spot (for a Feature Film)
Sully: Miracle On The Hudson, Warner Bros., The Editpool
Best Action (TV Spot / Trailer / Teaser for a series)
Narcos, Netflix, Transit
Best Animation / Family (TV Spot / Trailer / Teaser for a series)
Simpsons, FX Networks, We Are Royale
Best Comedy (TV Spot / Trailer / Teaser for a series)
Last Week Tonight, HBO, mOcean
Best Documentary (TV Spot / Trailer / Teaser for a series)
Get Me Roger Stone, Netflix, Create Advertising Group
Best Drama (TV Spot / Trailer / Teaser for a series)
Big Little Lies, HBO, Mark Woollen & Associates
Best Fantasy Adventure (TV Spot / Trailer / Teaser for a series)
Stranger Things Season 1, Netflix, Trailer Park, Inc.
Best Foreign (TV Spot / Trailer / Teaser for a series)
The Silent Valley, HBO Europe, Good Hands
Best Graphics (in a TV Spot / Trailer / Teaser for a series)
American Horror Story, FX Networks
Best Horror / Thriller (TV Spot / Trailer / Teaser for a series)
Westworld, HBO, Motive
Best Independent (TV Spot / Trailer / Teaser for a series)
I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore, Netflix, Create Advertising Group
Best Music (TV Spot / Trailer / Teaser for a series)
Westworld, HBO, Concept Arts, Inc.
Best Original Score (TV Spot / Trailer / Teaser for a series)
Better Call Saul S2, Netflix, Buddha Jones
Best Promo for a TV Network
Netflix Empowering Women, Netflix, mOcean
Best Sound Editing (in a TV Spot / Trailer / Teaser for a series)
Legion, FX Network, Create Advertising Group
Best Voice Over (in a TV Spot / Trailer / Teaser for a series)
Designated Survivor, ABC Entertainment Marketing, In-House
Most Original (TV Spot / Trailer / Teaser for a series)
American Horror Story, FX Networks
Best Action Poster
The Magnificent Seven, Sony, Ignition
Best Animation / Family Movie Poster
Pete’s Dragon, Walt Disney Studios, Cold Open
Best Billboard
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Warner Bros., Concept Arts, Inc.
Best Comedy Poster
The Nice Guys, Warner Bros., Concept Arts, Inc.
Best Documentary Poster
Lo and Behold, Magnolia Pictures, P+A
Best Drama Poster
Hacksaw Ridge, Lionsgate, LA
Best Fantasy / Adventure Poster
Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Walt Disney Studios, LA
Best Foreign Poster
The Man Who Was Thursday, Picturesque Films, Good Hands
Best Horror Poster
Alien: Covenant, 20th Century Fox, InSync Plus
Best Independent Poster
Moonlight, A24, InSync Plus
Best International Poster
Get Out, Universal Pictures, LA
Best Motion Poster
The Birth of a Nation, Fox Searchlight Pictures, Motive
Best Romance Poster
La La Land, Lionsgate, LA
Best Summer 2017 Blockbuster Poster
Wonder Woman, Warner Bros., Concept Arts, Inc.
Best Teaser Poster
Kong: Skull Island, Warner Bros., Concept Arts, Inc.
Best Thriller Poster
Split, Universal Pictures, LA
Best Video Game Poster
Halo Wars 2, 343 Industries/ Microsoft Studios, Concept Arts, Inc.
Best Wildposts
Dr. Strange, Walt Disney Studios, LA
Most Original Poster
Simpsons 600, FXX, LA
Trashiest Poster
Jon Glaser Loves Gear, truTV, BPG
Best Comedy TV Series Poster
The Simpsons 600, FX Network, The Refinery
Best Documentary/Reality TV Series Poster
American Crime Story: The People Vs. O.J. Simpson, FX Networks, Ignition
Best Drama/Action TV Series Poster
Big Little Lies, HBO, Leroy & Rose
Best Horror/Thriller TV Series Poster
Fight of the Living Dead, YouTube Red, Cold Open
Most Innovative Advertising for a Feature Film
Arrival, Paramount Pictures, M3 Creative
Most Innovative Advertising (for a TV Series / Streaming Series)
truTV, truTV and Movement Strategy
Most Innovative Advertising for a Video Game
Fantastic Contraption, Northway Games, kertgartner.com,
Most Innovative Advertising for a Brand / Product
The Tale of Thomas Burberry, Black Label Productions, Intermission Film
Best Viral Campaign
Rings, Paramount Pictures, Thinkmodo
Best TrailerByte for a Feature Film
The Lego Batman Movie, Warner Bros. Pictures, Transit
Best TrailerByte for a TV Series/Streaming Series
Fargo S3, FX, LA
Best pre-show Theatrical Advertising for a Brand
"Universe", Dolby Laboratories, Dolby Laboratories
Best Opening Title Sequence or Closing Credit Sequence
XXX: Return of Xander Cage, Paramount, Greenhaus GFX
Best Opening Title Sequence or Closing Credit Sequence for a TV/Streaming Series
Big Little Lies, HBO, Mark Woollen & Associates
Best Radio / Audio Spot
The Lego Batman Movie, Warner Bros., Trailer Park, Inc.
Best Trailer for Book or Novel
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Warner Bros., Jax
Best Film Festival Poster
Madame Butterfly, Thunderbird Releasing, Picture Production Company
Best Film Festival Trailer
America’s Art Colony, Crash & Sue’s, Provincetown International Film Festival |
The most unfair theme Survivor has ever done is cast two different seasons of Fans vs Favorites. From the get-go, producers are sending out 10 players who have no actual shot at winning the game. The fans are rookies in the Survivor world. They have never dealt with the harsh conditions of living in a desolate area. They’ve never had to find their own food, make their own shelter or even try to spark a fire while fighting the elements.
Having done it before, some for 39 days, some for less, is a gigantic advantage. Every favorite except for Francesca Hogi had a wealth of knowledge that the fans couldn’t lean on in order to survive those first few days. In Micronesia, things were even more slanted in the favorites’ favor simply by the fact that Ozzy Lusth was on the beach doing his nature boy act for everybody. It should come as no surprise that in both seasons, the favorites entered the jury portion of the game with a numbers advantage.
What’s even more unfair is that the favorites have an advantage before even starting the game. While the new players have no knowledge of who they are about to play Survivor with, most returning players have a deep pool of alumni contacts. The minute they are informed they are going out to play again, they can safely surmise that they won’t be the only returning player. That means that on both Fans vs Favorites, half of the players came in with pre-game alliances and the other half came in blind. Some of the “fans” likely didn’t even know who some of the returning players were.
If having essentially no chance to win the game wasn’t enough, being a fan on a Fans vs Favorites season also means being ignored by the show. Why would the producers focus on Joel Anderson when he is the dollar store version of James Clement and they have the real one hanging out on the other tribe? A lot of the Survivor audience loves familiarity and the producers know this. Many of the fans across both seasons don’t even have a defined personality on the show. Everybody gets cast for a reason. Something in their personality speaks to the casting crew and yet in both Fans vs Favorites seasons, the majority of the fans become washed out.
Let’s just take Micronesia’s group of fans for example since I have recently re-watched the season. Mary Sartain? There’s a reason “Mary who?” became such a big Survivor meme. She was a potential showmance partner for Mikey B and that was the extent we saw of her. Mikey B? He was depicted as sort of the leader of the fans but he was blindsided like Mary was. These are two of the most soulless blindsides the show has produced. How are we supposed to care they got taken out unexpectedly when we don’t know a thing about them? Joel was an ox who was also sort of an asshole. Tracy Hughes-Wolf is the older outcast with strategic chops that goes too early. Jason Siska is an interesting case. He gets a fairly big edit but all of it is simply to point and make fun of him. He is portrayed as an extremely overconfident idiot. Jason finds an idol and it’s clearly fake and he’s the only one not to see it. When he throws a challenge to gain favor with the cast, everyone plans on voting him out despite their promises and he is only saved by Cirie capitalizing on the moment to send out Ozzy. On his boot episode, Jason gets duped by the women into not playing his idol and goes home looking foolish. Even when he throws it back to Borneo by eating a rat, Parvati calls him a loser for trying to impress the favorites. Jason can’t win. Alexis Jones kind of had a thing with Ozzy in between his thing with Amanda Kimmel and then she was idol’ed out by Amanda. She was also sort of a Black Widow Brigade member in the same way that you made your little sibling play as Tails in Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
Alexis.
Then you have Natalie Bolton who has one of the most uneven edits the show has ever created. For the first 10 episodes, she has two confessionals. Then she suddenly explodes for seven in episode 11 when she talks about flossing teeth with Jason’s jugular and other assorted bat-shit insane sayings. Are we supposed to think that she wasn’t saying crazy stuff like that for the first 10 episodes? No. The producers just had no reason to include any of it because she wasn’t yet part of Cirie Fields and Parvati Shallow’s story. It’s just startling to have this seemingly normal but boring woman hang around for 10 episodes to suddenly turn into Lorena Bobbitt 2.0 and then fade back into obscurity until jury questioning when she tries to romance Parvati.
Probably the three fans who get the most fully fleshed edits are Chet Welsh, Kathy Sleckman and Erik Reichenbach. Erik’s is easy to see why. He goes deep into the game and becomes the last man standing. He is a very real challenge threat to the women and he keeps pulling out wins to stay alive. Erik is also shown throughout the season to be lacking in life experiences, slightly naïve and generally soft-spoken. The women see this in him and use it to manipulate the immunity necklace off of his neck so they can promptly vote him out. It’s one of Survivor’s marquee moments and while Erik is its unfortunate star, he handles his blunder with a lot of poise and definitely makes good out of a bad situation. It isn’t really surprising that out of 20 fans across two Fans vs Favorites seasons, he is the only one they have ever brought back. Erik is a nice presence on the season who makes his mark without feeling forced or out of place.
Chet gets the edit of a man who is quite likely the least fit to play Survivor in the history of casting. Not in a sense of his physical abilities but Chet’s general ineptness at all things survival. If Chet had ever been sent to Exile Island alone, he may very well have died. It’s one of Jason’s highlights of the season that he did not let the man starve to death as they shared the beach together. In challenges, Chet is more of a limp noodle than Pearl Islands’ Ryan Shoulders could ever hope to be. He comes close to actually dying when being dragged around by Joel in the “tag the other side” challenge.
Despite being an obvious first boot, Chet keeps surviving round after round through no effort of his own before finally being mercy killed. We don’t get to see a full on exploration of Chet’s character but seeing him as someone on the show who is clearly not built for anything Survivor has to throw at him is interesting for his time on the season.
As for Kathy, she gets an interesting edit because of her psyche as the season goes on. Early on, she is the tribe’s annoying older woman. She marvels at being out on the island and meeting an openly gay man for the first time. Because the fans can’t help but screw themselves over, Kathy survives the first few votes after her temporary immunity idol is used up at the tribe’s first tribal. The longer she stays in the game, the more she starts to unravel mentally and starts to really lose her sanity.
Going through casting, Kathy neglected to tell producers that she was on antidepressants and had been for a while. Since she hadn’t told them, by the time she had to go out on the island, she knew she wouldn’t be given medication and decided to quit her pills cold turkey. It turned out to be a terrible idea. As we see Kathy edge more and more towards unhinging on the show that is her going through a very real withdrawal period because of her medication. She pulls herself from the game and is considered to be a quitter by the show but really, Kathy is medevac’ed for her own safety. By the time she was leaving the island, she was considering cutting off one of her fingers to be pulled from the game. Obviously that isn’t something the show wants to delve too deeply into and without Kathy informing them of her prescription in casting, they couldn’t have known but the edit does a nice job of showing Kathy being mentally unable to cope with the game. To see her go from a bubbly woman who goes through so many firsts on the island into a sad, broken woman who just can’t deal with the realities of being on Survivor is sobering for many fans. Her Reddit AMA is one really worth going through for her great insight into the season.
Kathy can no longer handle the game.
In a way, Kathy is a great microcosm for many fans who would like to do the show. She watches on television and gets the highlights. She sees a few minutes of rain or the tribe finding food and putting together a shelter. On TV, it all seems like fun. When she actually goes out and experiences it 24 hours a day for days on end, Kathy realizes that she signed up for something she didn’t really understand. We all would like to think of ourselves as master strategists who would dominate the game but placed out there, starving, cold and without our loved ones and what would we really become?
For Kathy, it’s great that she got a pretty deep characterization despite having a tough time on the island. Imagine being someone like Jason, Alexis or Natalie and coming back after going pretty far into the game and seeing how the show portrayed your every move. We are all the stars of our own lives and their perspective on the screen is never really shown. They are just fodder for the stars of the season, Cirie, Parvati, Amanda, and Ozzy to use and react to. Short of being non-playable characters in a role playing game, the fans get treated like secondary citizens to the favorites’ star billing. It may have been expected but it isn’t fair. For the fans, it’s like sharing a birthday with your sibling and you get a pair of socks while your sibling gets a car.
Hopefully the producers have realized that while fans may enjoy watching all-star seasons, we aren’t interested in seeing 10 people who don’t have a shot at winning and won’t get much camera attention. Either go full-on all-stars and let us be disappointed in peace or give us a brand new cast to enjoy. In my free time, I sometimes like to imagine how a season featuring both tribes of fans would play out. Is Mikey B a breakout star? Maybe Hope Driskill turns out to be the next Parvati. We will never know because the show forced them into becoming lambs for the slaughter. |
Each of the four cardinal elements - earth, air, fire, and water - can be incorporated into magical practice and ritual. Depending on your needs and intent, you may find yourself drawn to one of these elements more so that the others.
Water is a feminine energy and highly connected with the aspects of the Goddess. Used for healing, cleansing, and purification, Water is related to the West and associated with passion and emotion. In many spiritual paths, including Catholicism, consecrated water can be found – holy water is just regular water with salt added to it, and usually a blessing or invocation is said above it. In Wiccan covens, such water is used to consecrate the circle and all the tools within it. As you may expect, water is associated with the color blue, and the Tarot suit of Cup cards.
Let’s look at some of the many magical myths and legends surrounding water:
Water Spirits
Many cultures feature water spirits as part of their folklore and mythology. To the Greeks, a water spirit known as a naiad often presided over a spring or stream. The Romans had a similar entity found in the Camenae. Among a number of the ethnic groups of Cameroon, the water spirits called jengu serve as protective deities, which is not uncommon among other African diasporic faiths.
For residents of the British Isles, many local bodies of water such as streams and wells were host to water spirits - and often these took on the role of local deity. Historians say it became a popular custom to toss a bit of silver -- coins, pins, etc -- into a sacred body of water as an offering to the god or goddess of that area.
Dowsing for Water
Dowsing is the ability to find a water source in a previously unknown area via divination. In many parts of Europe professional dowsers were hired to locate new places to dig wells. This was typically done with the use of a forked stick, or sometimes a copper rod. The stick was held out in front of the dowser, who walked around until the stick or rod began to vibrate. The vibrations signaled the presence of water beneath the ground, and this was where villagers would dig their new well.
During the Middle Ages, this was a popular technique for locating new springs to use as wells, but it later became associated with negative sorcery. By the seventeenth century, most dowsing had been outlawed because of its connection to the devil.
Ocean Beings
The Orkney Islands are the home of a number of fascinating myths and legends about the magical power of the sea. The ocean is the home of Finmen and mermaids, selkies and sea monsters. In Celtic mythology, a water horse called a kelpie haunts the shores and rivers of Scotland and Ireland.
If you're planning a trip to the beach, be sure to read up on Seven Ways to Use Beach Magic.
Water Magic and the Moon
The moon is tied to the ebb and flow of tides around the world. A phenomenon known as lunar tide occurs during the full and new moon phases - during these phases, the gravitational forces create a very high tide and a very low tide.
Use water for divination by scrying during the full moon.
Country Folklore
An English rural custom says that a woman who splashes too much water around as she does laundry or washes dishes will be cursed with a husband who drinks to excess.
Spilling water from a bucket on the way back from a well or spring can bring misfortune - unless, of course, you return to the source and make an offering to appease the spirits of the place.
In parts of Appalachia, it is believed that if you dream of crossing water there will be an illness in your family. If your dream includes muddy or stagnant water, then back luck is on the way.
In Hoodoo and other folk magic traditions, vervain is used to make Van-Van oil - this is simply a blend of vervain and a base oil, simmered and strained. This oil is used to provide magical protection and clear away evil energies. In many forms of folklore, vervain is associated with workings that decrease lust - however, the scent of vervain is a well-known aphrodisiac.
Water Gods and Goddesses
These are some of the many deities associated with water: |
It was once the darling of Asia's newly industrialized economies, but following a less-than-stellar growth report card for the June quarter, economists are increasingly divided on South Korea's economic outlook.
"We don't see a drastic improvement in momentum in the second half of 2015 to compensate for this quarter's weak performance," HSBC said in a note Thursday. "Consumer woes will likely persist as high household debt levels weigh on consumption and tourist arrivals plunge. Exports are unlikely to pick up as growth momentum remains subdued."
The main culprit is the outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in the country of 50 million, which claimed the lives of 36 people and infected more than 186 following the first diagnosis on May 20. The spread of the deadly virus chilled consumer sentiment and a burgeoning tourism industry, exacerbating the woes of an already-fragile economy battling with struggling exports and prompting the government to announce a 22 trillion won ($19.8 billion) stimulus package, aimed at supporting businesses hurt by the MERS crisis.
"While difficult to quantify, the reach of the disease certainly diminishes interest in some economic activities and has cut down on foreign tourism," Tim Quinlan, an economist at Wells Fargo Securities, said in a note Thursday. "Sales from things like on-premise food sales and hotel stays are lost."
Read MoreMERS forces Korea central bank to cut rates to record low
Asia's fourth-largest economy expanded a meagre 0.3 percent on-quarter in the April-June period, the Bank of Korea (BOK) estimated on Thursday, down from 0.8 percent in the first quarter and slightly below a 0.4 percent increase tipped in a Reuters survey.
On a year-on-year basis, the economy grew 2.2 percent - the slowest pace in more than two years and below analyst forecasts of 2.3 percent. Following the data release, the won hit a fresh two-year low against the greenback.
Earlier this month, the central bank lowered its 2015 economic growth forecast for the third time this year, from 3.1 percent to 2.8 percent.
But, while analysts from top international banks have revised down their growth forecasts for 2015 following Thursday's GDP print, the degree of pessimism differs.
Read MoreIs MERS a teapot tempest for South Korea shares?
Darkening outlook?
HSBC is perhaps the most bearish of the lot, cutting its full-year growth forecast to 2.4 percent from 2.8 percent.
"We aren't confident about an export-led recovery materializing. Even if the growth omentum in the U.S. and EU improves, Korea's exports are more levered to emerging markets and China in particular," it said.
Exports, which account for more than half of the economy, have fallen every month this year, partly due to the won's strength against a weakening Japanese yen and euro.
HSBC is also not counting on the government's fiscal stimulus, which is expected to have a "limited impact on growth after accounting for the fall in tax revenue."
As such, a drastic improvement in the second-half of 2015 will be unlikely, paving the way for "one last interest rate cut" in September by the BOK, the report said.
Read MoreFree visas: South Korea steps up efforts to lure Asian tourists |
As 2017 comes to a close, we have spent the last few months asking ourselves some basic questions—where can we currently have the greatest impact for wild animals, and how do we increase that impact?
In our view, the focus of our work should be primarily on social change. Currently, there are only a handful of viable strategies for reducing wild animal suffering, most of which have unknown consequences or involve widespread depopulation of wild animals. While we aren’t opposed to such far-reaching actions, we do believe some amount of conservatism is needed, especially given the relative lack of knowledge about the experiences of animals and about the kinds of experiences that there are more generally.
So, we took a look at what we’ve done for the last year, and have built a new strategy for the next year, which is more focused on programs and social change research.
2017 in Review
Research
Qualitative
Quantitative
Administrative
Fundraising
While we currently are staffed by one part-time contractor and three volunteers, we have been fundraising in order to both build our research capacity and to develop new programs. Our intention is to keep funds primarily allocated to new programs, and not to paying employees, as our volunteer capacity is high enough to manage the organization for the next year.
Mistakes
Essay Contest
We received no quality submissions for our 2017 essay contest, and did not award the prize. Dedicating time to this may have been a waste of resources, and our funding for the contest will likely now be used to a better end.
We believe that it is possible that the essay contest format is not a good enough motivator for people with insight in the area of social change, and if they have insight into the field, they will likely share those thoughts independently of participation in an essay contest.
So What's Next?
New Website and Blog
Within a month we will be launching a new website and blog. Utility Farm was never intended for people outside the movement, but our new site will be. Our focus will be on engaging biologists and other researchers with a goal of growing the body of research on wild animal welfare, and increasing awareness of wild animal issues more broadly. Our hope is that by building a stronger understanding of how animals suffer in nature, we will be able to better address it in the near future. We see this project as capacity building, as opposed to directly affecting animals.
Utility Farm will remain the centralized hub for people in the movement, and will feature research that informs our social change work.
New Video Content
We’ve begun working on new video content on the lives of animals in the wild, with the intention of dispelling myths of what life is like for wild animals. This content will be aimed at people outside the movement.
New Research
We intend to continue conducting studies and qualitative research, but to keep our focus on social change.
Experimental Granting / Intervention Programs
We will begin experimenting with granting and intervention programs. Our intention is to use existing nonprofits and influence their activities to reduce suffering in the wild.
We will continue researching the viability and impact of current interventions, such as ongoing wildlife sterilization and vaccination programs in the US.
If you're interested in seeing this project grow, please donate to support our work. |
As I dug deeper, I realized there was a hole in the story of the start of the drug war—a large and cavernous one. It is possible to piece together how this all began through the eyes of the cops, the doctors, and the addicts. But as I read on, I found they were all obsessed with a fourth force—the new army of drug dealers that was emerging all around them. I wanted to know their stories, and how they saw the world. But drug dealers don’t keep records. There is no National Heroin Dealers’ Archive to consult. For a long time, no matter how hard I looked, it seemed that this was a tale that could never be retrieved. Their memories died with the people who knew them, and they are all gone now.
But then I found out there was one exception. The first man to really see the potential of drug dealing in America was a gangster named Arnold Rothstein—and I slowly realized it was possible to piece him back together in quite a lot of detail. He was so egotistical he actually invited journalists to write about him—and he was so powerful he didn’t worry about the police reading it. He owned them. There have been a number of biographies written of him, and even more important, I found out that after he died, his wife wrote a detailed memoir of her life with him, explaining exactly what he was like, in lush novelistic detail.
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There was only one problem. Every copy of his wife’s memoir seemed to have disappeared. Even the copy at the New York Public Library had vanished sometime in the 1970s. I eventually tracked down what seems to be the only remaining copy, in the Library of Congress, so I sat there in the shadow of the Senate and tried to reconstruct him piece by piece. This is the story I found—of how Arnold taught the world to deal drugs.
*
In the mid-1920s, Arnold Rothstein would stand on a street corner by the flickering neon crush of Times Square, waiting for someone—anyone—who owed him money to walk by.
The streets of the city were thick with people in hock to Rothstein, and—like Anslinger—he could make people afraid just by looking at them. At first glance, though, it was harder to see why. He was 5 feet 7, pale and baby-faced, with small, feminine hands. He never fidgeted, or drank, or raised a fist. He refused even to chew gum. He was sober and smart to the last thread of his perfectly tailored suits, but everybody in New York City knew that Rothstein could have you killed just by snapping his fingers—and that he had bought so many NYPD cops and politicians that he would never be punished for it.
Rothstein’s wife, a Broadway chorus girl named Carolyn, had a habit of driving past, and she would call out to him. But she, too, was afraid. Later, she would write:
Often on my way home in a car, I would have myself driven slowly up Broadway, past Forty-seventh to Fiftieth street. It might be a cold night, or a rainy one. Or it might be snowing. But more often than not, Arnold would be there. I would ask him to come home. He would shake his head and say: “I’m waiting to see someone to collect from” . . . He would stay out in all kinds of weather to collect small sums, even amounts as low as fifty dollars. Yet, he might have made thousands that same day. The amounts, it always seemed to me, were not what counted so much with Arnold, as the percentages. He was playing with chips, and the chips must show a profit.
It was the height of the Jazz Age, and Arnold Rothstein was the most feared man in New York City. After he had shaken down enough cash from people for the day, he would sit until long after dawn in Lindy’s, a café in the throng of Times Square, and orchestrate his network of fraud, theft and extortion. At the tables around him were the members of the Manhattan underworld and overworld huddled together: actors and songwriters, boxers and their managers, columnists and Communists, cops and criminals. Carolyn said it was like a “water hole in the jungle where beasts of prey and their natural enemies gather under a very real, but invisible, flag of truce for refreshment.”
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On one of these nights, at a table nearby, two men were writing a musical whose main characters were based on Arnold and Carolyn; they were going to call it "Guys and Dolls." The musical would be funny. Arnold, though, was not; when he laughed, everybody thought it was strangely artificial. “I learned that when he laughed the laughter was a surface demonstration, a combination of the movement of face muscles synchronized with a sound, counterfeiting, but not partaking of, hilarity,” Carolyn recalled years later.
But to us, Arnold matters most for just one reason. He was about to be handed the biggest black market in history.
*
Nobody could understand how Arnold got this way. His father—who had witnessed his toddler son standing over his sleeping brother with a knife—was one of the most beloved men in Manhattan’s Jewish community. Avraham Rothstein’s family had fled vicious anti-Jewish mobs in Russia for the Lower East Side in the 1880s; Avraham started out sewing caps, then worked his way up in the garment trade and eventually became a wealthy cotton goods dealer. If you had a problem in the Orthodox Jewish community, you’d come to him, and he would adjudicate: he was so scrupulously fair they called him “Abe the Just.”
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They would call his son a lot of things, but never “just.”
Even as a small boy, Arnold had one marked quality beyond his coldness: an astonishing ability with mathematics. He could manipulate numbers and odds in a way that startled people. From the age of twelve, he knew that his father wouldn’t dream of carrying cash from the setting of the sun on Friday night to the end of the Sabbath the next day, so Arnold stole the money from his wallet, played craps, and won so often and so big he could always replace the cash without anyone’s noticing. By the time he ran away from home at seventeen to be a traveling salesman, Arnold knew he could crack card games better than anyone else.
He was starting to regard himself as a superman, far above the dumb herd, explaining later: “There are two million fools to one brainy man.” He was the brainy man, and he was going to get his due from the fools.
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And the Brain—as he now insisted on being called—soon discovered the greatest truth of gambling: the only way to win every time is to own the casino. So he set up a series of underground gambling dens across New York City, and when they got busted, one after another, he invented the “floating” craps game: a never-ending craps shoot that skipped from shadowy venue to dusky basement across the island. He carried the cash on him, up to a hundred thousand dollars at a time, and he obsessively counted the money, by hand, again and again. He had a tactile relationship with cash. The crinkle of banknotes was his music and his muse. He took no pleasure from the games themselves, only the end result; even after years spent at racetracks, he couldn’t tell one horse from another. He knew only their statistics, and the cash that would whir his way at the end.
No matter how much money he had, Rothstein always believed he was behind and had to find a way to make more. When he first met his future wife, Carolyn, at a friend’s party, he said he was a sporting man. “I thought that a sporting man was one who hunted and shot,” she wrote. “It wasn’t until later that I learned all a sporting man hunted was a victim with money, and all he shot was craps.” On the night of their wedding, he told her he would need to pawn her engagement ring to free up funds, and she handed it over without complaining.
He guarded his money without a smile. One day, a gambler Rothstein knew called him long distance. He said was broke and desperately needed five hundred dollars to get back to New York and back in the game.
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“I can’t hear you,” Arnold said into the phone. The gambler kept repeating his request. “I can’t hear you,” Arnold repeated. The caller fiddled with his phone until the operator interrupted:
“But Mr. Rothstein, I can hear him distinctly,” she said.
“All right,” Arnold replied, “then you give it to him,” and hung up.
He was used to rigging bets. “I knew my limitations when I was fifteen years old, and since that time I never played any game with a man I knew I couldn’t beat,” he said. At the racetrack, he would pay jockeys to throw the race, and gradually, year by year, he took this to a higher level. The bets got bigger and his winnings got more improbable, until he finally reached the biggest, most watched, most adrenaline-soaked game in America: the World Series. Fifty million Americans were listening in 1919 when, against all the odds and every prediction, the Cincinnati Reds beat the far-and-away favorites, the White Sox. Long after the gasps were silent and the stadium was full only of echoes, the reason emerged: Rothstein had paid eight White Sox players to throw the match. All eight players were charged with fraud—and all were mysteriously acquitted.
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In accounts of Arnold’s story, I found that word appearing again and again: “mysteriously.”
A man like Arnold Rothstein would always have been able to ferret out some criminal opportunity, but Arnold was handed two of the largest industries in America, tax-free. He immediately spotted that the prohibition of booze and drugs was the biggest lottery win for gangsters in history. There will always be large numbers of people who want to get drunk or high, and if they can’t do it legally, they will do it illegally.
“Prohibition is going to last a long time and then one day it’ll be abandoned,” Rothstein told his associates. “But it’s going to be with us for quite a while, that’s for sure. I can see that more and more people are going to ignore the law . . . and we can make a fortune meeting this need.”
Under prohibition, dealers were starting to discover, you can sell whatever crap you want: Who’s going to complain to the police that they were poisoned by your illicit booze? Outbreaks of mass alcohol poisoning spread across America: in one incident alone, five hundred people were permanently crippled in Wichita, Kansas. But the market for illegal alcohol would live on for thirteen years, and then Franklin Roosevelt—desperate for new sources of tax revenue—would make it legal again in 1933. The greater gift, Rothstein saw, was in the market for drugs. They, surely, would stay banned far into the future.
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At first the street peddlers had controlled the trade, and they got their supply in one of two ways: by staging heists of legal opiates as they were delivered to hospitals, or by ordering in bulk from legal suppliers in Mexico or Canada under fake company names. In 1922, Congress cracked down on this. Rothstein saw that these small-time crooks were missing the bigger opportunity anyway: this, he concluded, was a task for industrial manufacturing and industrial-scale smuggling. He sent his men to buy in bulk in Europe, where factories could still legally make heroin, shipped it over, and then distributed it to street sellers across New York and beyond.
For his system to work, Rothstein had to invent the modern drug gang. There had been gangs in New York City for generations, but they were small-time hoodlums who spent most of their energy beating each other up. Arnold’s gangs were as disciplined as military units, and he made sure they had only one passion: the bottom line. That is how, by the mid-1920s, Rothstein and his new species of New York gang controlled the entire trade in heroin and cocaine on the Eastern seaboard of the United States.
*
We need to freeze the frame here for a moment, as Arnold stands by Times Square in the afternoon of the Jazz Age, looking for people who owe him money. At this moment, the heroin clinics are being shut down by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics across the United States. This is a hinge point in history. It is the moment when the control of drugs is transferred to the most dangerous people. As the result of the Harrison Act and its subsequent hard-line interpretation by Harry’s bureau, it is passing from Henry Smith Williams and his colleagues to Arnold Rothstein and his thugs. It wasn’t by the law of nature. It was by political decree.
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*
When it came to addicts, Rothstein was as repulsed as Anslinger. The day he found one of his associates sucking on an opium pipe, he threw him out. But it’s not hard to see why Arnold stuck with his new trade. The World newspaper reported: “For every $1000 spent in purchasing opium, smuggling it into the country and dispensing it, those at the top of the pyramid collect $6,000 or more in profit.” Arnold soon discovered that when you control the massive revenue offered by the drug industry, individual police and politicians are easy to buy. His profit margins were so vast he could outbid the salaries cops earned from the state. “The police,” a journalist wrote in 1929, “were as gracious to him as they were to a police commissioner.” This is why every time Arnold Rothstein was caught committing violence, the charges “mysteriously” vanished.
Arnold tamed the police with an approach that, years later, would be distilled by his successors, the Mexican drug cartels, into a single elegant phrase: plato o plomo. Silver or lead. Take our bribe, or take a bullet. Every now and then, there would be a police officer who refused to accept these ground rules. When two detectives, John Walsh and Josh McLaughlin, broke into one of Rothstein’s illegal dens one night, he shot at them, suspecting they were robbers. The judge dismissed the case. A journalist asked: What’s “a little pistol practice with policemen as targets” when you are Arnold Rothstein?
He did to law enforcement what he did to the World Series: he turned it into a performance the watching public believed was real, when it was in fact a puppet show. Enough of the players on the field worked for him to guarantee his success every time.
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But no matter how rich he got, he lived exactly the same, eating at Lindy’s late into every night. There was only one luxury he allowed himself. He paid a dentist to remove every one of his teeth, and insert shiny white ones in their place.
*
At some point, Arnold began to kill. This is where the camera lens of history becomes misted up and it gets harder to see what really happened. For obvious reasons, nobody recorded the names and details of Arnold’s victims. We can only infer that they existed through hints here and there. Everyone—even hardcore gangsters—was terrified of him; we know you don’t get that reputation only through wisecracks. There is only one of Rothstein’s likely victims whose name is traceable now. The biographer David Pietrusza was able to dig it up—and that is because the victim was the third richest man in the world.
One day, Arnold met in a hotel on East Forty-Second Street with Captain Alfred Lowenstein, a financier so rich that when the Germans seized Belgium during World War One, Lowenstein reputedly offered to buy it back with his own cash. With Rothstein, the captain signed the biggest drug deal in history up to that point, a plan to mass-market a range of opiates to a growing new market. Soon after making the pact, he got on his private plane and flew to Europe.
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When the plane landed, Captain Lowenstein was not on board. The staff said he had gone to the toilet and not come back. The New York Times reported that “it was practically impossible to open such a door if the plane were flying at ordinary cruising speed.” Presumably, whatever Rothstein got in the deal up front, he kept.
As I pieced together Arnold’s story in the shadow of the Capitol, I kept thinking of all the dry sociology studies I had been reading about the drug war—and they began to make sense. They explain that when a popular product is criminalized, it does not disappear. Instead, criminals start to control the supply and sale of the product. They have to get it into the country, transport it to where it’s wanted, and sell it on the street. At every stage, their product is vulnerable. If somebody comes along and steals it, they can’t go to the police or the courts to get it back. So they can only defend their property one way: by violence.
But you don’t want to be having a shoot-out every day—that’s no way to run a business. So you have to establish a reputation: a reputation for being terrifying. People must believe that you are so violent and brutal that they are too afraid to even try to pick a fight with you. You can only establish that reputation with attention-grabbing acts of brutality.
The American sociologist Philippe Bourgois would give this process a name: “a culture of terror.” But the first person to notice and begin to articulate this dynamic was a half-drunk, nicotine-encrusted tabloid journalist, Donald Henderson Clarke, whose beat was to hang out in bars, from Midtown to the Bowery, with Rothstein and his fellow thugs.
It is hard, he wrote, to convey “the fear with which Rothstein was regarded. Get in bad with a Police Commissioner, or a District Attorney, or a Governor, or anyone like that and you could figure out with a fair degree of certainty what might happen to you on the basis of what you had done. Get in bad with Arnold Rothstein, and all the figuring in the world wouldn’t get you anywhere. It’s true that nothing might happen to you but Fear. But that’s an awful calamity to come upon any man.”
Arnold’s men sprayed bullets across the city with the cheerful abandon of wedding guests tossing confetti. One of his chief henchmen, Jack “Legs” Diamond, was on the receiving end of so much return fire he was nicknamed “the human ammunition dump for the underworld.” But Rothstein and his men seemed always to come out on top, and as a result, nobody dared to cross them. One day, Arnold was on the subway when some anonymous pickpocket silently stole his pearl stickpin, the only personal adornment he had ever loved. Over dinner, with his mirthless laugh, he explained to some other gangsters how he’d been robbed: “Me, the wiseguy. What do you think of that?”
The next day, a package arrived at his house. It contained the stickpin and a note reading, “The guy who took it didn’t know who you were.”
*
While Arnold spread his terror, his wife, Carolyn, was virtually a prisoner in his house. He forbade her from going out after 6:00 p.m., or to be contacted by anyone. He said it was because the police were constantly watching. He controlled everything about her: he ordered her not to bob her hair, saying she would “lose all dignity” if she did. At night, she recalled in her memoir, she would sit up listening to the roulette wheel from the underground gambling parlor her husband ran across the street. She could figure out if the house was winning by listening to whether the croupier was speedily raking in the chips or more slowly counting them out.
As she waited up for him, the fragment of a memory from years ago kept coming back to Carolyn. When she was a dancer, she had cha-cha’d all over the country in a comedy show called "The Chorus Lady." Once, on a train chugging through Pennsylvania—or maybe Kansas, she forgot the precise location—she had seen a long lazy row of country houses lit only by the flickering kerosene lamps inside. She tried to picture the lives of the people inside: calm and cool and safe.
Arnold came home every morning around five or six and immediately indulged his only addiction: glugging quarts of milk and eating trays of cakes in a frenzy. A giant leather screen hung in front of the windows to block the light. He woke at three in the afternoon and always groaned the same thing: “I don’t feel well.” He had a headache, or indigestion—his repressed way, perhaps, of dealing with what he must have known: that he could be killed at any moment.
He always promised Carolyn he would get out once he had enough, but she slowly realized there would never be enough for him. Besides, if he let go of the reins of violence for even a moment, he would be killed by the Rothstein wannabes jostling in the alleys of Broadway. Any sign of weakness would mean a bullet in an alleyway. “It’s too late. I can’t do it,” he told her. “I’ve gotten into it, and I can’t get out of it.”
He had always been freakishly fearless. One day, a gunman shoved a revolver into his stomach and demanded he hand over five hundred dollars. “When you get five hundred dollars out of me you’ll need it to pay your funeral expenses with,” he said. “Now think that over.” Yet beginning around 1926, something happened to Rothstein, and for the first time in his life, he seemed afraid. He was told that there was a serious threat to his life, and not long after, a man roughly the same height and appearance as Rothstein left his building. He was met by two gun-toting men who told him to get into their car. It was only after they had taken the man several blocks that they cursed: “We got the wrong man.”
One night not long after that, Arnold woke Carolyn up, ashen-faced.
“I’ve just had a terrible experience,” he said. He had arrived at their apartment building and tried the door, but it was locked. “I rang the bell and knew it was sounding because I could hear it. Then I saw the elevator man lying on the couch. I thought he was bound and gagged.” Arnold ran several blocks to find a policeman—but when they returned, the door opened easily. Nothing was wrong.
Everything was in its place, except Arnold’s nerve. He was losing it.
In 1927, a car he used was found riddled with machine gun bullets as it waited for him outside the Hotel Fairfield on West Seventy-Second Street. Not long after that, Carolyn asked for a divorce. He knew what was coming—and so, in the end, it did. Arnold Rothstein was forty-seven years old when he staggered into the service entrance of the Park Central Hotel on Fifty-Sixth Street at 10:50 p.m. on November 5, 1928. The Brain had taken a bullet to the gut.
“Get me a taxi,” he said. When the cops came instead and asked who did it, he mumbled: “If I live, I’ll tend to it; if I die, the gang will.”
It took him more than a day to die, in a hospital in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. As he lay there semicomatose, his lawyer and his mistress, a twenty-seven-year-old chorus girl (another one) named Inez Norton, “guided” his hand to write a new will. They thought they would inherit a fortune, but in fact, once his endless shuffling of money was picked apart, it turned out Arnold’s massive running debts exceeded his assets, and his lawyer and mistress got nothing. As it happened, Rothstein had taken out a fresh life $50,000 insurance policy the Saturday before. The check hadn’t reached the company: the payment was never made.
The police didn’t want to investigate the murder—they didn’t want to lift the lid and unleash on themselves all the criminal and official forces swirling around Rothstein’s corpse. “It was as if no one, lawman or criminal wanted to be close to this murder in any way,” Rothstein’s biographer, Nick Tosches, wrote. Eventually, a rival gambler named George McManus was charged with the murder, but he was acquitted by the jury. From then, Tosches says, “until today, the mystery has grown. Speculation has run and roamed wildly in a desire to identify not only the hand that pulled the trigger, but also the interplay of hidden forces that controlled the hand.”
It was only a year after I first learned about this, on the streets of the deadliest city in the world, Ciudad Juárez, that I realized the significance of that moment.
This was the bullet at the birth of drug prohibition, and nobody knows where it came from, even now. It is like the bullet that claimed the Archduke Ferdinand at the start of the First World War: the first shot in a global massacre.
Rothstein’s domination of the East Coast drug trade shattered as that trigger was pulled—from that moment on, drug dealers would be engaged in a constant conflict to control the distribution of drugs.
The drug war analyst Charles Bowden says there are in reality two drug wars going on: there is the war on drugs, where the state wages war on the users and addicts, and then there is the war for drugs, where the criminals fight each other to control the trade.
The war for drugs was launched in earnest in the Park Central Hotel in Manhattan as Arnold Rothstein lay bleeding.
There would be many more bullets, but I was going to learn on my journey that Arnold Rothstein has not yet died. Every time he is killed, a harder and more vicious version of him emerges to fill the space provided by prohibition for a global criminal industry. Arnold Rothstein is the start of a lineup of criminals that runs through the Crips and the Bloods and Pablo Escobar to Chapo Guzman—each more vicious because he was strong enough to kill the last. As Harry Anslinger wrote in 1961: “One group rose to power over the corpses of another.” It is Darwinian evolution armed with a machine gun and a baggie of crack.
And I was going to see that, like Rothstein, Harry Anslinger is reincarnated in ever-tougher forms, too. Before this war is over, his successors were going to be deploying gunships along the coasts of America, imprisoning more people than any other society in human history, and spraying poisons from the air across foreign countries thousands of miles away from home to kill their drug crops. The key players in the war continue to be either Anslingers or Rothsteins—the prohibitionist and the gangster, locked together in a tango unto the far horizon. The policy of prohibition summoned these characters into existence, because it needs them. So long as it lives, they live.
The scream that tore through Harry Anslinger, the bullet that tore through Arnold Rothstein, and the laws that tore through Edward Williams’s medical practice—they are part of all our lives, whether we have a direct relationship to illegal drugs or not.
Excerpted from "Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs" by Johann Hari. Published by Bloomsbury. Copyright © 2015 by Johann Hari. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved. |
Graphics chip powerhouse Nvidia (NVDA) is poised to make hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenues in fiscal 2018 thanks to the Nintendo Switch, according to a new report.
RBC Capital Markets analyst Mitch Steves predicts Nvidia’s top line may see a boost of $300 million-$400 million in fiscal 2018 just from sales of the Nintendo Switch, which is powered by Nvdia technology. That’s because the game maker Nintendo (NTDOY) will reportedly double production of its brisk-selling Switch console this year from 8 million units to 16 million.
The move from Nintendo comes on the heels of higher-than-anticipated demand for the Switch, which has been hard to find online and in-store, even at third-party retailers like Amazon (AMZN), Best Buy (BBY) and Target (TGT). Indeed, Switch reviews have mostly been positive about the device’s unique design. Nintendo, for its part, said this April the Switch “sold faster in its launch month than any other video game system in Nintendo history.”
RBC Capital Markets’ Switch estimates indicate a nice boost in incremental revenues for Nvidia, which reports first-quarter 2018 earnings on Tuesday. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker and recipient of Yahoo Finance’s Company of the Year title for 2016 benefits from Nintendo’s production increase, given a customized version of its Tegra X1 chip powers every Switch device.
“We think the incremental 6-8M units could add $300-400M to the top line (3-4% growth to annual revenue on a $50 ASP),” wrote RBC Capital Markets analyst Mitch Steves in the report. “This is a notable metric given that the Wii U sold ~13.5M units since its release in 2012 and 10M+ in the first 12 months are unlikely reflected in current estimates.”
Wall Street analysts are expecting Nvidia to report earnings of $0.66 per share on $1.91 billion in revenues when the chip maker reports quarterly earnings on Tuesday after the markets close. Nvidia has historically been known as one of the leading graphics chip makers in the world, with products commonly found in personal computers.
However, over the last 24 months, the company has turned its focus to newer areas including auto, data centers and artificial intelligence — a relatively nascent technology transforming nearly every industry, from agriculture to e-commerce.
“AI is eating software,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told TechCrunch in an interview last week. “The way to think about it is that AI is just the modern way of doing software. In the future, we’re not going to see software that is not going to continue to learn over time, and be able to perceive and reason, and plan actions and that continues to improve as we use it.”
For Nvidia, that obviously presents a huge market opportunity, provided the company makes smart bets in an already-competitive area.
—
JP Mangalindan is a senior correspondent for Yahoo Finance covering the intersection of tech and business. Follow him on Twitter or Facebook.
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Why it doesn’t matter that Amazon’s most popular service costs it billions
RBC: ‘Amazon has a potential mega-hit on its hands’
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Facebook exec: How Messenger can improve your social life |
Soldiers arrested for participating in an attempted military coup in Turkey told interrogators that they thought they were on exercises when the attempt began, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported.
The group consisting of 10 officers and 67 soldiers was arrested at the Ataturk international airport in Istanbul.
During interrogation, they said they mistook the coup attempt for a training exercise.
"Only when people started to climb the tanks did we realize what was really going on," one of the detainees was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
According to the soldiers, the colonel, who was in command, ordered to step back when police units arrived.
On Friday, a military coup attempt was carried out in Turkey.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan early in the morning on July 16 declared he is in control of the country.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said that all coup supporters were identified and would be apprehended as the country was returning to normal life.
Over 180 people were killed and 1,470 were injured during the events, while nearly 3,000 people have already been detained, according to the prime minister. |
These venture bets on startups that "returned the fund," making firms and careers, were the result of research, strong convictions, and patient follow-through. Here are the stories behind the biggest VC home runs of all time.
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In venture capital, returns follow the Pareto principle — 80% of the wins come from 20% of the deals.
Great venture capitalists invest knowing they’re going to take a lot of losses in order to hit those wins.
Chris Dixon of top venture firm Andreessen Horowitz has referred to this as the “Babe Ruth effect,” in reference to the legendary 1920s-era baseball player. Babe Ruth would strike out a lot, but also made slugging records.
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Likewise, VCs swing hard, and occasionally hit a home run. Those wins often make up for all the losses and then some — they “return the fund.”
Please click to enlarge.
Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures recently wrote that for his fund, this translates to needing at least two $1B exits per fund:
“If you do the math around our goal of returning the fund with our high impact companies, you will notice that we need these companies to exit at a billion dollars or more,” he wrote. “Exit is the important word. Getting valued at a billion or more does nothing for our model.”
We analyzed 40 of the biggest VC hits of all time to learn more about what those home runs have in common.
To do so, we pulled data and information from web archives, books, S-1s, founder interviews, the CB Insights platform, and more.
For each company, we dove into the remarkable numbers they posted before their IPOs and acquisitions, the driving factors behind their growth, and the roles of their most significant investors. Below, we’ll show you our analysis on each specific case.
Note: Unless specifically stated, the “returns” discussed in the sections below are calculated based on the nominal value of the company at IPO or at acquisition. Earn-outs (such as those that apply to, for example, Stemcentrx) and lockups are not factored into those calculations.
Table of contents
Conclusion
1. WhatsApp
Facebook’s $22B acquisition of WhatsApp in 2014 was (and still is) the largest private acquisition of a VC-backed company ever. It was also a big win for Sequoia Capital, the company’s only venture investor, which turned its $60M investment into $3B.
Sequoia’s success was built on its exclusive partnership with WhatsApp founders Brian Acton and Jan Koum.
Typically when early-stage investors put cash into a company, they want to bring on additional investors to drum up more buzz and validate their investment. Startups can end up with as many as five or six different VCs in their cap table. This is common enough that these rounds are often referred to as “party rounds.”
WhatsApp and Sequoia Capital followed a different strategy: Sequoia was the sole investor in WhatsApp’s $8M Series A round in 2011, which valued the company at $78.4M.
Sequoia was the sole investor in the subsequent Series B round as well.
WhatsApp’s founders are known to be iconoclastic. For example, pretty early in the company’s history, they wrote a manifesto against advertising and vowed they would never make money from placing ads in the service and mucking up users’ experience with the app.
So it’s not shocking that they chose to cultivate a single VC as an outside source of capital while raising only $60M of outside equity financing.
Sequoia, for its part, signaled its conviction in WhatsApp’s bright future even as the app scaled to hundreds of millions of users with negligible revenue.
When firms invest with that kind of conviction, they get a large share of ownership — as opposed to when they join a deal with a crowded field of other VCs.
For example, by the time Twitter had raised $60M, it had brought in well over a dozen outside investors. At exit, lead Series A investor Union Square Ventures owned just 5.9% of Twitter.
WhatsApp vs. Twitter funding WhatsApp Twitter Series A Amount raised $8M $5M # of investors 1 8 Lead investor Sequoia USV Series B Amount raised $52M $15M # of investors 1 6 Lead investor Sequoia Spark Series C Amount raised N/A $35M # of investors N/A 6 Lead investor N/A IVP
In contrast, WhatsApp had expressed a desire to only work with a single firm from the beginning.
Sequoia’s well-known trajectory as a Silicon Valley kingmaker and its deep pockets helped it beat out micro-VC fund Felicis Ventures and others for the deal. After an initial $8M investment in WhatsApp’s Series A in April 2011, Sequoia put in an additional $52M in July 2013.
WhatsApp funding & valuation Series A Series B Acquisition Amount invested $8M $52M N/A Company valuation $78.4M $1.5B $22B
When Sequoia invested that additional $52M at a $1.5B valuation, WhatsApp was doing $20M in revenue — meaning Sequoia paid for their shares at an eye-popping 75x+ revenue multiple.
It paid off. By the time Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $22B, Sequoia had invested a total of $60M for around 18% ownership. Their share was worth more than $3B, a 50x return overall.
For Sequoia, the fact that WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook was a satisfying win for another reason.
Ten years prior, Mark Zuckerberg (egged on by Sean Parker, who held a grudge against partner Michael Moritz) had shown up deliberately late to a pitch meeting with Sequoia.
The meeting was meant as a prank — Zuckerberg never intended to let Sequoia invest. He arrived in his pajamas and presented a Letterman-inspired anti-pitch deck entitled “The Top Ten Reasons You Should Not Invest.”
“I assume we really offended them and now I feel really bad about that,” Zuckerberg later told journalist David Kirkpatrick.
Making $3B+ off selling WhatsApp back to Mark Zuckerberg surely took some of the sting off that memory. As well as not being invited to invest in another one of the top VC deals of all time — Facebook.
2. Facebook
Facebook’s $16B IPO at a massive $104B valuation was a huge success for early investors Accel Partners and Breyer Capital. The firms led a $12.7M Series A into Facebook in 2005, taking a 15% stake in what was then called “Thefacebook.”
At the time of the investment, the company had what was considered a sky-high $87.5M valuation.
It wouldn’t be until almost exactly one year later that investors really started flocking to the early social media startup.
In 2006, amidst high user growth and revenue numbers, several firms took part in Facebook’s Series B: Founders Fund, Interpublic Group, Meritech Capital Partners, and Greylock Partners backed the $27.5M round, which put Facebook’s valuation at $468M.
Even after selling off $500M in shares in 2010, Accel’s stake was worth $9B when Facebook went public in 2012, ultimately giving Accel Partners an enormous return on its investment. This bet made Accel’s IX fund one of the best-performing venture capital funds ever.
It was also a bet that Peter Thiel, the very first investor in Facebook, missed out on.
Thiel became an outside board member with his $500K seed investment in Facebook in 2004. At the time, Facebook had what Thiel called “a very reasonable valuation” and about a million users.
Thiel saw Facebook’s unprecedented popularity firsthand. He didn’t invest again alongside Accel and Breyer simply because he felt the company was overvalued. When Facebook raised its subsequent Series A just 8 months after Thiel’s initial investment, he (and much of Silicon Valley) felt that Accel had vastly overpaid.
Thiel made a classic misstep: he failed to perceive exponential growth.
For context, Facebook would turn out to actually look cheap at IPO in retrospect, when its IPO valuation to trailing revenue ratio is compare to that of later exits Twitter and Snap.
Thiel would later call missing out on the Facebook round his biggest mistake ever — and the one that taught him the most about how to think about a company that “looks” overvalued. As he later wrote,
“Our general life experience is pretty linear. We vastly underestimate exponential things. . . When you have an up round with a big increase in valuation, many or even most VCs tend to believe that the step up is too big and they will thus underprice it.”
Today especially, it can be hard to see how Facebook was ever “overvalued.” While Facebook’s 2B active users is impressive, the company’s early exponential growth is even more impressive.
On the other hand, imagine looking at Facebook’s monthly active user growth from the perspective of a potential investor in their Series C in 2006.
With the data points you had available then, Facebook did not look like a sure bet:
Facebook had about 12M users as of 2006, when it was still focused on the college market. Given that between 15 – 20 million people attend college every fall, there was still a reasonable chance (at this point) that Facebook would remain in an academic niche and fizzle out when introduced to the wider world.
Investors had no way to know that people would stick around after graduating. They couldn’t know it would catch on outside academia, and later, in other countries. That’s why Accel and Breyer’s investment at $87.5M seemed like an overvaluation to Thiel and others.
For Thiel, in hindsight it’s clear Facebook’s growth wasn’t following a predictable, linear model. In fact, because it was actually growing exponentially, and the company was undervalued.
“Whenever a tech startup has a strong round led by a top-tier investor (Accel counts), it is generally still undervalued. The steeper the up round, the greater the undervaluation,” Thiel later wrote.
Of course, Thiel is in part being provocative. It’s also possible for there to be pricey rounds that don’t shake out.
It comes down to conviction. An investor must have strong convictions about a company to follow on in the face of a steep valuation jump.
When you have strong convictions, you can do whatever you need to do to expose yourself to as much of the upside as possible — as Eric Lefkofsky did after he helped found Groupon.
3. Groupon
Groupon’s IPO in 2011 was the biggest IPO by a US web company since Google had gone public in 2007. Groupon was valued at nearly $13B, and the IPO raised $700M.
At the end of Groupon’s first day of trading, early investor New Enterprise Associates’ 14.7% stake was worth about $2.5B. But the biggest winner from that IPO was Groupon’s biggest shareholder, Eric Lefkofsky.
Lefkofsky had been involved in Groupon as a co-founder, chairman, investor, and biggest shareholder. He positioned himself on both sides of the Groupon deal through various privately-owned investment vehicles and management roles. The way he did this was controversial. In the end, however, he owned 21.6% of the company. When Groupon went public in 2011, his share was worth $3.6B.
It all started when Lefkofsky helped get Groupon off the ground. He met Groupon co-founder Andrew Mason when Mason started working for Lefkofsky doing contract work. In 2006, Mason told Lefkofsky about his idea for a crowd-sourced voting site called The Point.
In 2007, Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell seeded The Point with $1M. By 2008, The Point was struggling. Lefkofsky noticed some users had used the platform to buy something together in a big group and get a discount. Seeing that this one-off use case could spin out into a much more successful business, Lefkofsky helped Mason pivot The Point into the company that we know as Groupon.
Groupon’s subsequent rounds of funding saw the company bring on New Enterprise Associates (NEA) for its Series A, Accel for its Series B, DST for its Series C, and Greylock Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and more for its $950M+ Series D. But none of those investors did as well as Lefkofsky at IPO.
Round Investors Amount Angel Eric Lefkofsky, Brad Keywell $1M Series A NEA $4.8M Series B NEA, Accel $30M Series C Battery Ventures, Holtzbrinck Ventures, DST Global $135M
Lefkofsky amassed 21.6% of the company by the time of the IPO, 1.5x more than the second-largest investor NEA, and 2.8x what co-founder and CEO Andrew Mason received.
In his roles as co-founder, chairman, and earliest investor, Lefkofsky assumed the plurality of ownership in the company and saw astronomical returns.
Shareholder Ownership at IPO Eric Lefkofsky 21.6% NEA 14.7% Samwer Brothers 10.3% Andrew Mason 7.7% Brad Keywell 6.9% Robert Solomon 6.8% Accel 5.6%
Lefkosky cashed out part of his stake early on. $120M of the $130M Series C round and $810M of the $950M+ Series D round went to stock redemptions for existing shareholders.
Lefkofsky received $386M of that amount via two of his investment vehicles, Green Media LLC and 600 West Partners II LLC. What’s more, he only paid $546 in total for those shares, turning literally hundreds of dollars to hundreds of millions in pre-IPO redemptions — and later, billions at IPO.
Lefkofsky’s position as both co-founder and investor may sound like an unusual strategy, but “playing for both sides” is actually a longstanding practice in Silicon Valley. In the 1990s, it was the model behind the huge success Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers had with the telecommunications company Cerent.
4. Cerent
When Cisco acquired Cerent in 1999, the $6.9B deal was the biggest acquisition ever for a tech company. And for Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which invested $8M in the company, it resulted in a huge multibillion-dollar payday.
Cerent sought investment from a few other firms for its Series C and D rounds — including Norwest Venture Partners, Integral Capital, Advanced Fibre Communication, TeleSoft Partners, and Kinetic Ventures. Meanwhile Cisco invested about $13M to acquire 8.2% of the company pre-acquisition.
No investor did better, however, than Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, whose 30.8% stake became valued at about $2.1B after the stock switch.
Notably, Cerent itself was co-founded and led by Kleiner Perkins partner Vinod Khosla. In this, there were parallels to an earlier Kleiner Perkins home run, Genentech. Genentech was co-founded by Robert Swanson, who was also a former Kleiner Perkins partner.
Thanks to Kleiner Perkins’ reputation and deal flow, Khosla knew the best engineers in Silicon Valley, and he had a keen awareness of what the market needed. The idea for Cerent practically walked into his office; he just needed to find the right people to execute on it.
It started with Raj Singh, who came to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 1996 with an idea for a special Java-specific computer chip. Khosla, who’d invested in Singh’s previous company NextGen, was merely “lukewarm” to the idea. But he had another idea he wanted to pitch to Singh.
“Mr. Khosla told me there was no money to be made in Java, but we talked about doing a [optical] hardware box,” recalled Singh.
Khosla’s view was that the sharp increase in Internet traffic would create a market for a device that could handle large amounts of voice and data.
Khosla had been able to see, from his experience as a VC and from the various companies that came through the Kleiner office, that telecom networks were changing. There was an opportunity to provide a better solution to the problem of connectivity — something cheaper and more flexible that could respond to growing demand.
What Cerent’s technology did was help connect long-haul communications lines and the local telephone and data network. This made it faster and easier for phone companies to transmit data.
And as the number of internet hosts increased, according to a study by the Internet Systems Consortium, the need for efficient optical network technology did, too.
Kleiner Perkins’ 1998 investment marked the beginning of an optical technology bubble, where company valuations skyrocketed and investments flowed. Singh and Khosla staffed out the rest of the company, and within two years, Cisco had purchased them for $6.9B.
As one analyst put it, “Everyone looked at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’ $8M investment in Cerent, and its returns, and it was difficult not to hear the cha-ching!”
Both Lefkofsky (with Groupon) and Kleiner Perkins (with Cerent) were able to win so big in part because they had hands-on operational roles in their investments. By doing so, they were able to expose themselves to much of the upside of their own work.
5. Snap
When Snap Inc. went public in March of 2017 at a $25B valuation, it was the second-highest valuation at exit of any social media and messaging company since 1999.
At the time, the stake held by VC firm Benchmark Capital Partners became worth about $3.2B. The IPO also capped a highly productive series of deals for Lightspeed Venture Partners, whose investment of about $8M grew to be worth $2B.
Lightspeed Venture Partners made its first investment in Snap by backing a $480K seed round in May 2012. Nine months later, Benchmark invested $13.5M in the company’s Series A, as the sole investor in the round. Notably, Benchmark’s investment was led by partners Matt Cohler and Mitch Lasky, the latter of whom would become a mentor to Snap founder Evan Spiegel.
In part, Lasky was able to build this relationship because of a dispute between Spiegel and Lightspeed, which is not uncommon in the pressure-cooker world of early-stage startups, ambitious founders, and seasoned VCs.
Later, in a move reminiscent of Facebook, Snap’s $60M Series B brought a bevy of new investors to the table — among them, General Catalyst, SV Angel, Tencent Holdings, Institutional Venture Partners, and SF Growth Fund. None would see returns as high as Benchmark or Lightspeed.
The key to Benchmark’s success with Snapchat was the firm’s ability to see beyond the app’s public perception. Where others saw a fad, they saw a company.
As late as 2013, Snapchat was thought of as little more than an app for college students to send each other naked photos. When Bloomberg Businessweek did a feature story on the company early that year, the piece included a GIF “cover” showing racy photos that disappeared after a few seconds.
While the public and the media were underestimating what Snapchat would become, Mitch Lasky and Benchmark saw something very interesting going on. When they talked to people about the social media they used, they heard Snapchat mentioned in the same breath as companies like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
After learning more about the company and its founder, Benchmark became convinced that this supposed “sexting” app had a bright future.
“At Benchmark we search for entrepreneurs who want to change the world, and Evan and Bobby certainly have that ambition,” Lasky later wrote on his blog, “We believe that Snapchat can become one of the most important mobile companies in the world, and Snapchat’s initial momentum — 60 million shared “snaps” per day, over 5 billion sent through the service to date — supports that belief.”
“Snapchat’s ramp reminded us of another mobile app Benchmark had the good fortune to back at an early stage: Instagram,” he added.
For investors like Mark Suster at Upfront Ventures, the associations with illicit activity were too much to get over.
“I had just seen (maybe 6 months before) a project called TigerText,” Suster later wrote on his blog. “It was a ‘disappearing text app’ where the founders told me that they named the company because the idea came from how Tiger Woods got caught cheating on his wife because all of his mistresses had evidence that he cheated because they saved text messages from him… That narrative was fresh in my head when I first had the discussion about Snapchat.”
Suster didn’t want to support any app that seemed like its primary audience was cheating husbands. He admits that this was a failure of imagination and a mistake.
“People assume that porn is the first use-case for many new kinds of Internet services, and sometimes it is,” Susan Etlinger at Altimeter Group told the New York Times, recently. That doesn’t necessarily mean, however, that it will be the only, or even primary use case.
One of the first successes for Snapchat came when Spiegel realized that the app’s usage levels were spiking at a small high school in Orange County every weekday between the hours of 8am and 3pm. Spiegel’s mother had told his cousin, a student at the school, about the app. It had spread from there — the kids were using it, in Spiegel’s words, as a “digital version of passing notes in class.”
That was the app that Lasky and Benchmark invested in — not an app for sexting, but one that had undeniable virality and engagement levels even at an early stage.
As the examples of Benchmark with Snap and Accel with Facebook show, coming in early with a large offer and actively guiding an investment to success can be a great strategy.
As we see from the example of King Digital Entertainment, however, that kind of investment doesn’t always take a linear path.
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6. King Digital Entertainment
Activision’s 2015 acquisition of King Digital Entertainment — the makers of Candy Crush Saga — helped grow the conglomerate company into the largest game network in the world, with over 500 million users. The $5.9B acquisition price also made the deal a big success for Apax Partners, the buyout firm that owned 44.2% of King Digital at the time.
The previous year, King’s 2014 IPO was hotly anticipated. King set out a plan to sell 22.2 million shares at a total valuation of $7.6B. The company’s valuation wound up closer to $7.1B, at $22 per share.
Index Ventures, which invested in King in 2005, cashed out shortly afterward, for a return of about $560M on their 8% stake.
Apax Partners also first invested in King Digital in 2005, when the company was still distressed from a point of near-bankruptcy in 2003. It was still 9 years away from its biggest cash cow game, Candy Crush Saga, and the venture capital market for consumer startups was still in a “hangover” from the bursting of the dot-com bubble a few years prior.
Due to a combination of these factors, Apax was able to take a huge stake of King Digital, paying around $36M for 45% ownership in the company.
King Digital’s popularity skyrocketed when the company released Candy Crush Saga in 2012. The app had over 10 million downloads by the end of the year. Within two years, it had 97 million active daily users.
At the time of the company’s IPO 2014, Apax’s stake was worth about 100x what they paid in 2005. This made King Apax’s most successful investment to date.
And King Digital’s total MAUs kept growing:
This growth caught the attention of Activision, a large game maker known for games like “Call of Duty” and “Guitar Hero.” In 2015, Activision approached Apax to ask if the investor would consider selling its shares in publicly-traded King.
However, Apax didn’t just want to sell: the company saw the potential for a wholesale acquisition of publicly-traded King, and its huge 44% stake allowed it to have a significant say in the deal. Apax brought King’s chief executives into their conversation with Activision. The resulting deal happened at a premium to the price at which King had been trading.
Apax maximized the return on its investment by taking an active role in negotiating King’s exit.
Alibaba’s acquisition of UCWeb bears some similarities to this deal: one investor (Alibaba) grew its stake in the company over time and gained a lot of influence. The critical difference is that Alibaba didn’t sell their investment; rather, this investor acquired the company themselves.
7. UCWeb
Alibaba’s acquisition of mobile browser company UCWeb in 2014 was the largest-ever internet deal in China at the time. The deal valued UCWeb at around $4.7B — and additionally played a role in helping Alibaba find its feet in mobile and propel its valuation from $80B to $230B+, a 3x increase.
Prior to the deal, UCWeb CEO Yu Yongfu had famously proclaimed that, despite significant interest, UCWeb would never sell. It took years of effort by Alibaba founder and CEO Jack Ma to change that.
Over the course of 6 years, from 2008 to 2014, Alibaba built a relationship with UCWeb by strategically investing hundreds of millions of dollars and ultimately accumulating a 66% stake in the company. In the end, this relationship paid off in spades.
UCWeb’s earliest VC investors were Morningside Ventures and Ceyuan Ventures, who collectively put $10M into the company in its Series A back in 2007.
At the time, UCWeb had already been working on mobile browsing for a few years, but was generating no revenue from various consumer mobile implementations.
In addition, UCWeb was white-labeling custom mobile browsers and doing consulting for Chinese telecommunications companies. Yongfu made the decision to sell the profitable B2B unit, to allow the company to focus more strictly on consumer technology.
To do that fully, UCWeb needed investment.
In 2008, Jack Ma and Yu Yongfu met for the first time. Alibaba first invested soon afterward, participating in the company’s $12M Series B in 2009. In March 2013, Alibaba made another investment of about $506M in the company — and in December 2013, invested $180M more, in a deal that gave Alibaba a 66% stake in the company.
Rumors soon arose that Morningside wanted out, with Chinese search giant Baidu was looking to buy up their shares.
Yu Yongfu told the media that despite rumors, UCWeb had no interest in selling the business. He rejected the offer from Baidu that reportedly would have valued the company at about $800M, instead insisting that UCWeb would acquire other businesses.
Nevertheless, by 2014, Alibaba would come to own two-thirds of the mobile browsing company now considered “one of the last good acquisition targets” in China, and Ma had scored a board seat.
“Jack Ma has, of all people, one of the best high-level strategic views of the industry,” Yongfu told The Next Web at the time. A few months later, Ma made an offer to buy the company outright, and two months after that, the deal was finalized.
When asked why he was selling now, after years of naysaying, Yongfu told reporters that he trusted Ma: “We share the same vision and the same dream together.”
The acquisition was a strong strategic move for Alibaba, which at the time of its IPO had made it clear that the rise of mobile was something it needed to reckon with as a business. If it could not adapt, Alibaba would be overtaken by companies with stronger mobile offerings, such as Tencent (owner of WeChat) and Baidu.
The acquisition UCWeb was also especially powerful in cutting off a profitable line of business for Baidu, who had previously benefitted from being the default search engine on the UCWeb mobile browser.
Finally, the acquisition also seemed to help prove to investors in Alibaba’s upcoming IPO that the company knew its own shortcomings and was working aggressively to shore them up. While the UCWeb acquisition wasn’t the only factor at play, Alibaba’s valuation did soar from $35B in 2012 to $168B in its 2014 IPO.
The UCWeb acquisition was a multi-pronged success for Alibaba
Crucial to Alibaba’s success in acquiring UCWeb was the fact that Jack Ma had become a trusted partner that had worked with the company for 6 years. This was someone who had believed in UCWeb from the beginning, and not just since the company gained traction. It was also someone who knew the work involved in building a company in an emerging market, and who had done it himself with Alibaba.
8. Alibaba
In 2014, Alibaba sold $22B of stock in what was, and still is, the biggest IPO on record. Fourteen years earlier in 2000, Japanese telecom giant SoftBank had invested $20M for 34% of Alibaba. The IPO gave Alibaba a market cap of $231B — and valued SoftBank’s stake in the company at well over $60B.
Alibaba was pre-revenue and pre-business model when Softbank invested. Masayoshi Son, SoftBank’s founder, made the decision to invest because he knew the internet was about to transform China, as it had already transformed Japan and the United States. He met with 20 prospective Chinese internet entrepreneurs in 1999, ultimately picking one to invest in. His name was Jack Ma.
“We didn’t talk about revenue, we didn’t even talk about a business model, we just talked about a shared vision,” Ma would later say.
“I invested based on my sense of smell,” said Son.
By 1999, Son and Softbank had already made two big investments in the internet. Both companies had been huge successes:
Yahoo!: Softbank invested $2M in Yahoo! in 1995. Three years later, Yahoo.com was the most popular starting point for internet sessions around the world, garnering 100 million page views a day according to BBC news.
Softbank invested $2M in Yahoo! in 1995. Three years later, Yahoo.com was the most popular starting point for internet sessions around the world, garnering 100 million page views a day according to BBC news. Yahoo! Japan: The Japanese spinoff of Yahoo! first went live in 1996. By the beginning of 2000, its stock was the first in Japan to ever trade for more than ¥100M per share.
When Ma and Son first met a few years prior to the investment in Alibaba, Yahoo! Japan was growing quickly. Ma, inspired, started working on his own web portal for the Chinese market.
In 2000, Son rediscovered Alibaba during the above-mentioned scouting trip in China and officially put his support behind Ma’s project.
Fourteen years later, Alibaba’s IPO prospectus listed Softbank as the biggest shareholder with a 34.1% stake. This made Son incredibly wealthy — today, he is Japan’s richest man, with a net worth of $21.6B.
Forbes says that the dot-com crash in 2000 “wiped 99% off of SoftBank’s market cap and close to 90%” off Son’s net worth. Fortunately, his stake in Alibaba has done alright since then — today it would be worth $130B.
The value of the Alibaba stake allowed Son to keep taking out debt to finance Softbank’s operations (and acquisitions), arguing that “SoftBank is a goose that eats debt in order to lay golden eggs.”
Today, Softbank Group is arguably the world’s biggest investor in private companies, thanks to its $93B Vision Fund (which is also backed by deep-pocketed investors like Saudi Arabia and Apple).
Alibaba rode the first wave of the growing Chinese e-commerce market. To onlookers, their success signaled huge market potential. Soon other entrepreneurs and other investors wanted a piece of the pie.
Some time later, the venture firm Capital Today put their support behind a new Chinese e-commerce company: JD.com.
9. JD.com
In 2006, the founder of the Chinese e-commerce company JD.com, Richard Liu, sought a $2M investment to shore up his company’s finances. To do so, he turned to the Chinese private equity firm Capital Today. Instead, Capital Today decided to invest $10M. The decision to invest 5x as much as Liu was asking for proved to be a smart move.
When JD.com went public in 2014, that stake was worth $2.4B.
In the years following Capital Today’s initial investment, Chinese e-commerce exploded — and many other firms began to take notice of JD.com.
Walmart participated in a $1.5B round to the company in 2011. Later, the retail giant sold its entire e-commerce operations in China to JD.com. By February 2017, Walmart’s stake in JD.com reached 12%.
The Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan Board also invested, participating in a $400M private equity round in November 2012. After JD.com went public, the value of those holdings increased to $630M.
For its part, Capital Today succeeded by investing in a tiny upstart in a market that had just lost a giant incumbent. In 2006, eBay had just fled China, after competitor Taobao had taken over the market after a very expensive battle.
Following the Taobao vs. eBay battle was a decade of steady, 25%+ annual growth in the Chinese e-commerce industry, and a huge win for JD.com’s investors.
By 2006, however, JD.com’s money was running low as the company sought to gain its footing in the bruising local e-commerce market. Even so, JD.com’s cash-strapped chairman and chief executive Richard Liu wanted to expand the company’s offerings and build new software.
That was when he approached Capital Today, pitched his vision of a “full-service online retailer,” with a focus on logistics, and asked for $2M.
Capital Today invested $10M, seeing that an internet giant-sized hole had just opened up in the Chinese e-commerce market. JD.com didn’t need to destroy Alibaba and Taobao; it could take only a small percentage of the market and generate a huge return.
The investor’s faith in the company and the market paid off. Today, JD.com continues to grow and take a greater share of the B2C online shopping market in China.
Though JD.com and Alibaba are still technically competitors, they are both growing and trying to capture different niches.
Of course, sometimes startups and investors stand to gain more if they sell to more dominant competitors.
This is what happened when Delivery Hero and Foodpanda butted heads. Delivery Hero won out, but the investors in Foodpanda got a nice consolation prize.
10. Delivery Hero
The European takeout service Delivery Hero went public in 2017 at a valuation of $5.1B. It was a big moment for one of Delivery Hero’s former rivals and biggest investors, Rocket Internet, who acquired a 30% stake in the company two years prior, in 2015. That stake cost them around only $560M, making for a nearly 3x paper return on their investment.
There were plenty of earlier investors in Delivery Hero, including Holtzbrinck and Team Europe as well as Point Nine Capital, WestTech Ventures, Kite Ventures, and ru-Net, among others.
Interestingly, “startup studio” Rocket Internet and Delivery Hero had been rivals once. Rocket had backed a company called Foodpanda that competed with Delivery Hero in the food takeout space.
Until the end of 2016, the two companies both focused on expansion, in different parts of the world:
Delivery Hero focused on markets in Europe, Latin America, and Asia
focused on markets in Europe, Latin America, and Asia Foodpanda focused on markets in India, Mexico, Southeast Asia, Russia, and Brazil
In late 2016, Rocket sold Foodpanda to Delivery Hero, its former rival. The sale was funded by issuing new shares of Delivery Hero to Rocket, increasing their stake to that of 37%. This later translated to a 7.5x return on their money by selling the struggling company to the stronger one.
Instead of competing with Delivery Hero in the crowded food delivery market, Foodpanda was able to join forces with the company — like Uber and Didi Chuxing did in China — to get a bigger win together.
The merger gave Delivery Hero a dominant worldwide position in the takeaway industry.
In 2017, Delivery Hero has seen growth across all regions, with revenue in Europe growing 44% in Q1’17. That success suggests a new model for international companies.
When you try to expand one company across the globe, it can set you up to fight a continual series of guerrilla battles with local competitors. You may have higher odds bringing together many smaller companies with tight, regional network effects.
Rocket — a publicly-traded holding company in Germany run by the Samwer Brothers — have cloned US businesses across many categories and across the globe. The company has found success by thinking about the bigger strategic picture and being able to concede defeat in one battle in pursuit of maximizing returns where it counts, simply in terms of dollars invested. Not from an ego boost that might come from “winning a market.”
This approach has let Rocket Internet achieve huge returns even in spaces where it’s lost market share to competitors. As tech entrepreneurship takes hold across China, India, and the rest of Asia, in addition to Europe, Rocket Internet has seen big wins balance out its losses.
Consolidation across different regions and countries can generate big wins for companies, as well as offering more value to customers. This is exactly what Zayo did with another niche but burgeoning market: local fiber optics providers.
11. Zayo
The American fiber carrier Zayo’s IPO in 2014 represented a huge turnaround for the fiber optics industry. The company exited at a valuation of $4.5B — an encouraging public offering in an industry that had been lagging in the previous decade. That made lead investor Columbia Capital’s stake in 11.4% of the company about $500M.
Zayo’s primary value proposition was how well the company was able to aggregate the offerings of different fiber providers. At the time, the American fiber optics market was made up of regional players. Many had their growth stunted by the 2000s dot-com boom and bust. They were fragmented and mostly undifferentiated.
Zayo came in and began consolidating the industry. They raised aggressively to acquire other fiber network and infrastructure companies, buying a total of 32 companies by the time of their IPO.
More than five firms invested in Zayo’s $225M Series A in 2007, among them were Oak Investment Partners, Battery Ventures, and Columbia Capital. This was just as the optical networking market was beginning to recover from a post dot-com slump. The need for bandwidth (from corporations and homes alike) was increasing rapidly, but most of the companies building out that bandwidth infrastructure were small, straggling, and local.
This created what Zayo called “fiber orphans” — regional fiber networks, disconnected from their neighbors, that couldn’t offer value across their borders. Zayo set out to buy and unite them.
Zayo could take advantage of low prices on companies that had been overbuilt and needed to sell, while remaining confident that there would be a need for their services in the years to come.
Bandwidth needs historically have grown at anywhere from 50% to 100% annually, after all, for many organizations.
Zayo capitalized on geographic opportunity. They identified a fragmented space and saw that companies were offering similar services. Then they consolidated those efforts and collected the returns.
Sometimes it pays to enter a crowded space, if a company has the means to buy up weak players, expand, and execute better than the companies that are already there.
In another part of the world, Mobileye and its investors were able to make history by recognizing another type of geographic opportunity. But instead of consolidating a crowded space, they started building where no one else was looking.
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12. Mobileye
Mobileye was one of the first companies to recognize the future in autonomous driving. The company started building self-driving car technology 10 years before Google launched its self-driving efforts in 2009. Mobileye went public in 2014 at a $5.3B valuation.
In 2017, amid mounting pressure from companies like Google and Uber, some predicted the company’s share price would soon correct — instead, they were acquired by Intel for $15.3B.
The company’s backers included several Israeli investors. In 2003, Mobileye raised $15M from various Israeli entrepreneurs and VCs, including FIBI Holding, Motorola Solutions Venture Capital, Colmobil Group, Lev Levayev, Delek Motors, Solid Investment Bank, Eldan, and Ari Steimatzky.
Colmobil was the only shareholder not to sell any shares after IPO — their 7.2% stake became worth about $1B at acquisition.
The company’s biggest US financial investor, Goldman Sachs, put about $100M into the company back in 2007, instantly giving some early investors in the company a tenfold return. Goldman then took an approximately 12.3% stake and sold nearly all of it when the company went public.
Despite coming to Mobileye significantly later than many of its Israeli VC counterparts, Goldman was still able to make a 10x return on its investment. And it did so by going outside the traditional hubs of startup investing and making a bold bet.
Historically, Jerusalem hasn’t been much of a hub of startup or venture activity— even within Israel. Even today, Tel Aviv is considered the “real” place to build a startup in Israel.
Mobileye, however, began its life in Jerusalem. Despite its reputation relative to Tel Aviv, the city of Jerusalem was actually a highly fertile place for a high-tech company like Mobileye to emerge from back in 2007.
Jerusalem is home to Hebrew University, one of the top-ranked universities for math and computer science in the world. It has a highly-skilled immigration population from Russia and elsewhere, which gave Mobileye a natural pool of talented engineers to pull early employees from.
And it was a professor at the School of Computer Science and Engineering who would go on to start the company: Amnon Shashua, who also studied machine learning at the university, would co-found and serve as CTO of the $15.3B company. Ziv Aviram, his co-founder, studied industrial engineering and management and was known for leading Israeli retail companies.
“During that period, Jerusalem had more resources than anywhere else in Israel – academia, a high-quality population, more funds and multinational corporations such as Teva and Intel. It was fertile ground for the high-tech and startup industry,” Israeli entrepreneur Elie Wurtman told Haaretz in 2016.
Tel Aviv may be the traditional “tech center” of Israel, but there were always good reasons for discriminating VCs to look to Jerusalem as well — the lower rents, easy access to a top university in Hebrew University, a highly-skilled immigrant population, as well as government tax incentives.
Entrepreneur Magazine named it as one of the top 5 places outside Silicon Valley to start a company in 2015.
But geopolitical and economic circumstances made it difficult for Mobileye to raise traditional venture backing. Mobileye was founded in 1999, right before the Palestinian uprising from 2000 – 2005 and the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2002.
Mobileye weathered the harsh startup climate, and by 2013, had a $1.5B valuation.
Today, Jerusalem’s startup scene is growing quickly, and Mobileye’s IPO and subsequent sale to Intel will only accelerate it, as it is leaving billions in the pocket of founders and employees.
As has happened in countless fledgling startup hubs around the world, those fortunate employees — restless, experienced, and hungry — now have the dry powder to go start their own companies and make their own investments.
Companies with experienced founders already have a leg up. And as Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC) has shown, when those founders have a chance to thrive in a needy market, they can knock it out of the park.
13. Semiconductor Manufacturing International
Dick Kramlich’s partners at New Enterprise Associates told him he was crazy when he recommended they invest $100M into Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC), a Chinese semiconductor chip maker.
After SMIC raised $1.7B in its 2004 IPO, however, the deal made NEA many multiples in returns.
Kramlich and NEA got those returns by investing in the Chinese technology market when no other Silicon Valley VCs were taking it seriously.
In 2003, SMIC raised a $630M Series C that included NEA, Oak Investment Partners and Walden International, in addition to a lineup of mainly international firms: Vertex Ventures Israel, Temasek Holdings, H&Q Asia Pacific, Beida Microelectronics Investment, and Shanghai Industrial Holdings.
At the time, China had just recently opened its semiconductor industry to foreign investment, and most US investors had no idea what to expect. It was uncharted territory. There were no definite models to reference and plenty of what Kramlich’s partners called “geopolitical risks.”
Kramlich, however, insisted SMIC was a worthwhile investment.
First, there was China’s growth rate to consider. Even as it slowed down during the late 1990s, it held steady at about 7% or 8%. The US, for reference, grows at an average of about 3.22% per year.
Second, China was (at the time) consuming more semiconductors than any other country on earth. Their rate of semiconductor consumption was growing at 24.8% per year compared to a worldwide average of 3.8%.
Third, the team behind SMIC was made of semiconductor industry veterans from other Asian countries. They’d already built successful semiconductor businesses in Korea and elsewhere, and now it was finally possible to invest in them. The stars were aligned:
A highly experienced team of semiconductor veterans
The biggest and fastest-growing semiconductor market in the world
An economy that was about to enter a period of 9%-13% growth lasting almost a decade
Kramlich and NEA saw this when they flew over to China for due diligence in 2002. Soon after, NEA signed for a $90M investment. Then, in 2003, the firm invested another $30M, for a total of $120 million before SMIC’s IPO.
By 2007, NEA had invested about $300M overall in bets on Chinese companies.
NEA’s success goes to show that the biggest opportunities are often found in risky places. When other investors are scared, that’s precisely when you should be doing your research and preparing your own move.
Knowledge of a local market’s nuances is precisely what led Sinovation Ventures to our next big VC deal — Meitu.
14. Meitu
The 2016 IPO of Meitu, a Chinese photo editing app, was the largest IPO in Hong Kong in over a decade. The company was valued at $4.9B and raised $630M in the public offering. This marked a milestone for the Chinese technology market — and for early investor Sinovation Ventures, which saw up to 40x returns on its investments in the app.
Sinovation led the company’s Series A in 2013. In 2014, the investor was joined by Qiming Venture Partners in Meitu’s $10M Series B round.
What made Meitu a strong investment was that it wasn’t just a copycat. Investor fear of missing out (FOMO) tends to drive over-investment in “me-too” ideas in other markets. Having missed successes like Groupon in the US, investors will go hunting for a perfect copy overseas. These overseas investors tend to miss the local nuance around what it takes to make a product sticky and successful.
Meitu wasn’t simply a photo editing or “face-tuning” app.
Meitu rode in the very unique slipstream of two huge forces in Chinese culture.
First, there was mobile. Right around the launch of the Meitu mobile app, smartphone usage in China started to grow exponentially. That gave the app an organic engine for growth.
Second, there was a growing obsession with beauty. Around the time Meitu launched, China had a very low plastic surgery procedure per capita rate compared to its neighbors. By 2014, 7 million Chinese people were traveling outside the country to get work done.
Investor funding helped Meitu to expand on the back of photo retouching. They now have 23 products.
Meitu Inc’s six flagship apps are Meitu, BeautyCam, Meipai, Beauty Plus, SelfieCity, and MakeupPlus. They routinely fill the leaderboard in the Chinese app store.
As of October 2016, China Tech Insights reported that there were 456M users across all of Meitu, Inc.’s apps. There are significant users bases spanning several countries in Asia, including China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, and Thailand.
The lesson here is to look at local markets and understand what will make a certain product sticky. Copycat companies only understand the idea for the company — context-specific companies can actually nail the execution.
With both Meitu and Semiconductor Manufacturing International, we saw context-specific companies that grew fast amidst bigger macroeconomic shifts in China. Whether it was opening up to foreign investment or the growth of smartphones, these companies rode larger waves to success.
Riding big waves is how many of the biggest companies on this list got to where they are. Those waves aren’t always visible from the outset, though, and they’re not without their abrupt breaks.
In 2000, the entire market for internet startups suffered in the dot-com crash. If you’d invested in Google’s Series A, the value of your investment would have taken a nosedive. It would have taken a lot of confidence in the underlying technology to stay with the company, but for the VC firms that had it, staying on meant a huge return.
15. Google
In 1999, Google raised a Series B round of $12.5M each from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital. A year after Google’s IPO in 2004, those investors’ stakes were worth about $4.3B each — a 300x return.
It took real conviction in the potential of Google to get Kleiner and Sequoia through the market turmoil that came between initial investment and IPO.
Between 1999 and 2004, $1.8T in market value was lost in the crash — NASDAQ lost half of its entire value in 2001 alone.
Kleiner invested in Google in 1999 and the company would launch its initial offering in 2004. During that time, the Nasdaq index reached peak height and then fell sharply.
Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia held on through the turbulence, and even through Google’s IPO, when tech stocks were worth a quarter of what they’d been worth.
By 2004, Google had grown into a company that was worth $23B — absolutely astronomical at the time.
Part of the terms of the Series A investments for both Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia was that Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin bring in an external CEO to run the company.
When Page and Brin tried to backtrack on hiring a CEO for “adult supervision,” Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr almost backed out and sold off his firm’s shares. But ultimately, Doerr chose to stick around, and instead convinced Page and Brin they needed a CEO — by asking if he could introduce them to successful CEOs to understand what the job demanded.
After meeting Steve Jobs, Andy Grove, Scott Cook, and Jeff Bezos, the Google co-founders decided that they also wanted to hire an external CEO. Doerr introduced them to Eric Schmidt, and in 2001 Schmidt was hired as Google’s first external CEO.
Under Schmidt, revenue grew to $1.42B by the time of the IPO and to over $30B by the time Page replaced Schmidt as CEO in 2011.
In later years, founders of other startups began rebelling against getting replaced by professional CEOs and executives. But it was critical that Doerr convinced two incredibly independent founders to bring in an experienced hand. Ultimately, Schmidt’s insight was absolutely essential in navigating the company through the dot-com crash, the most traumatic time in the internet’s history, as well as subsequent growing pains.
Investors like Doerr at Kleiner Perkins invest in theses. They don’t just believe that certain companies are going to be successful — they’ve developed specific beliefs about why those companies will succeed, and this helps them hang on when others might get out.
These principles have also been particularly important to Union Square Ventures in many of their investments. They beat out several other companies for an early investment in Twitter — all because the Twitter founders believed in their investment philosophy.
16. Twitter
Twitter’s IPO raised $1.8B in 2013, valuing the company at about $14.2B. And thanks to a Series A investment, Union Square Ventures’ share of Twitter was valued at $863M.
While many different VCs (CRV, Kleiner Perkins, Benchmark, Insight Venture Partners) would join the later funding rounds for the early social media network, USV was able to get in early, leading the company’s $5M Series A in 2007.
USV beat out four other VC firms for the opportunity to invest largely because of their investment thesis. Founders Fred Wilson and Brad Burnham first decided in 2003 that their firm would “have a thesis, stick to it, and evolve it.” It would strictly set out how each fund’s money was spent — no money would be put in a company or sector that didn’t fit the thesis. And, importantly, they would write about it publicly.
USV’s early blog contained its partners’ takes on all kinds of companies and where the internet might be going. When the young USV analyst Charlie O’Donnell got obsessed with Twitter while attending SXSW in 2006, the rest of the firm did too, and Wilson ended up writing a post about it.
Meanwhile, Twitter was suddenly explosively popular and its infrastructure couldn’t handle it. The company had about 250,000 active users and a growing reputation as one of the most unique social networks out there. Presidential candidate John Edwards was tweeting from the campaign trail, and there were fake Bill Clinton and Darth Vader accounts. Local police stations and fire stations were tweeting.
But the service kept on buckling under the strain. The Twitter “fail whale” screen, featuring a whale held aloft by blue songbirds, appeared whenever the network was out of commission. The screen became well-known as a sign that Twitter was having serious scaling problems.
The Twitter team needed to raise money to hire engineers and fix their infrastructure. Co-founders Jack Dorsey and Ev Williams knew they were going to go with USV, because they’d already read about USV’s vision for Twitter on Wilson’s blog, AVC.
In April 2007, Wilson wrote a post where said he saw Twitter as the “status broadcasting system of the internet.” The web doesn’t have one yet, he wrote, and so Twitter “is going to be it.” It would thereby join companies like Amazon, eBay, and Facebook as one of the crucial services across the modern web stack.
Since they were in agreement on the central thesis, they could also agree that both revenue, and a business model, could be figured out later.
Wilson had already written about figuring out a business model “along the way” when he blogged about USV’s investment in del.icio.us. He later used some of the same language to explain the firm’s investment in Twitter:
“As we stated when we made our investment in Delicious, the question everyone asks is ‘What is the business model?’ To be completely and totally honest, we don’t yet know. The capital we are investing will go to making Twitter a better, more reliable and robust service. That’s where the focus needs to be right now. We’ll have plenty of time to figure out the business model and there are many options to choose from.”
Many VCs had already pulled out of potential deals into Twitter, citing the lack of revenue and lack of any plan to get to revenue. Negotiations for a possible acquisition by Yahoo! fell apart over the meager offer made — $12M — and so the need to fix the service’s uptime problems eventually brought Dorsey and company around to USV.
USV understood Twitter’s desires so well that when Dorsey defended the idea of Twitter during those acquisition talks with Yahoo!, he used Wilson’s own language to do it. From Hatching Twitter:
“I see Twitter as a utility,” Jack said in one meeting with Yahoo!. “A broadcasting system for the Internet.” Then he began to describe his vision for Twitter, noting that it was “like electricity.”
While Twitter confused Yahoo! and most VCs, it did not confuse USV. The firm made that abundantly clear on their blog, and when Twitter wanted to raise money, it came knocking.
Founders don’t have an indefinite amount of time to raise money. To the extent that a VC can make their underlying beliefs about the future and their investing thesis clear, they can encourage deal flow from a stronger, more self-selecting group of founders who are confident they’re teaming up with the right investor.
But a thesis doesn’t just help founders find you, it works the other way as well, as a lens that helps firms spot opportunities. For USV, it helps the firm find companies that the investors believe are growing along successful trajectories. Zynga — and its historically massive IPO — is the perfect case in point.
17. Zynga
Zynga’s $7B IPO in 2011 made social gaming history — and was an important moment for Union Square Ventures, a Zynga investor, which owned a 5.1% stake worth $285.1M when the company went public.
USV’s success with Twitter was about identifying a nascent network and recognizing that powerful and fast-growing networks like Facebook could create equally, if not more profitable companies that grew atop their platforms.
Zynga was less than a year old when USV led their $10M Series A round in 2008. They were joined on the deal by Avalon Ventures, Foundry Group, and Clarium Capital, as well as by angels like Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel, among others.
At this point, it was still early for the “platform era.” The idea of building on top of existing social networks wasn’t a no brainer.
But as USV partner Fred Wilson explained, Zynga’s aim to create web-based games on top of social networks was an untapped opportunity. He believed the company could quickly scale the game based on the network effects of existing social platforms.
This idea grew out of USV’s investing thesis: Invest in large networks of engaged users, differentiated by user experience, and defensible through network effects (the fact that networks become exponentially more valuable and unassailable as they grow larger).
“Building a game network on top of the social web is a big idea,” wrote Fred Wilson of USV. “It starts with great games, both real-time like poker and blackjack and turn-based like Scramble. But the most important thing is to plug into the APIs of the various social networks so that you can easily find out which of your friends are online and ready to play with you. Doing both well is hard and to date, no company other than Zynga Game Network has done that with multiple games on multiple networks.”
Zynga was in a good position to scale up their network by using data on consumer behavior to increase user engagement. Andrew Trader, one of the founding members of the Zynga team, says that the company’s focus on metrics is its most important corporate value.
Notably, Zynga pioneered event-based analytics to innovate and add sticky features and mechanics to their games. They also built their own internal analytics platform called ZTrack to do the heavy-duty analysis. In addition, they created models for analyzing the performance of games and features before they launched, so that they could use the behavioral data they gathered during gameplay to begin iterating immediately.
Zynga’s platform across multiple games meant they could collect user behavior across several different interfaces and encourage users to move from one game to another based on the features and behaviors that were most engaging.
Then, they used this data to inform how they monetized customers’ actions in games. Since many Zynga games are free-to-play and involve the purchase of virtual goods with real money, it was incredibly important for the company to figure out what game events and features users would pay to gain access to. They figured this out early by analyzing user data. This helped them to rapidly grow their revenue from virtual goods.
Zynga could echo the growth of Facebook and build a large, engaged network of their own. TechCrunch reported that Zynga had 1.6M daily active users on Facebook in 2008 and was cash flow positive. This is when other companies and investors started paying attention. This led to a $29M Series B led by Kleiner Perkins and Institutional Venture Partners. USV contributed again in this round.
Before Zynga went public, USV made $26M in share sales. Then they struck gold again in the $7B IPO, making for a 75 to 80x return on their money.
With Zynga, USV was one of the earliest investors and most steadfast believers in Zynga CEO and founder Mark Pincus. In comparison, USV’s investment in Lending Club came late. But their decision to invest in a later round with Lending Club provides a model for how a thesis-driven firm must sometimes rewrite their own rulebook.
18. Lending Club
When the marketplace lending startup Lending Club went public in 2014, its IPO was 20x oversubscribed and its stock jumped 56% during its first day of trading.
At the time of its exit, Lending Club had amassed many prominent backers. But it also had one investor that you might not have expected to see — not because this investor didn’t invest in networked consumer startups, but because it normally wouldn’t start investing in a company past the Series A round: Union Square Ventures.
Lending Club raised its $10.3M Series A in 2007 from Norwest Venture Partners and Canaan Partners. It added Morgenthaler Ventures for its $12 million Series B two years later, and Foundation Capital for its $24.5M Series C a year after that. It wasn’t until Lending Club’s $25M Series D in 2011 that Union Square Ventures invested.
By the time of its IPO, Lending Club’s $5.4B valuation translated to a $400M+ return for Union Square Ventures.
USV’s investment in Lending Club is remarkable because it was one of the first times that Union Square Ventures had invested in a late-stage company without having participated in earlier rounds of fundraising.
Previously, they’d limited themselves from considering these companies. They’d held strong beliefs about investing early and maintaining a large percentage of ownership. A late-stage investment obviously didn’t allow this.
USV had been aware of Lending Club since they were first founded. They’d built an online, peer-to-peer lending platform. Investors could come on Lending Club and lend out money, collecting on the interest, while borrowers could get a loan at a lower interest rate than they would from a bank.
They were interested in the idea of peer-to-peer lending, but initially, chose not to invest in the company. The service only seemed to be attracting risky borrowers. Lenders were losing money. There didn’t seem to be anything special that was keeping users around.
But later, Lending Club made changes to their business model that brought the company in line with USV’s thesis focused on network effects. It also opened the door for real growth for Lending Club. In 2011, Fred Wilson and his team decided to invest.
When Lending Club changed the rules on how it vetted new borrowers and lowered its overall approval rate on new loans to just 10%, it seemed to open the doors to virtuous cycles. Its investors started to see far better returns. Usage started to grow. Suddenly, there were real network effects to Lending Club. With more good borrowers, you’d get more good lenders, and the two would, in theory, grow in parallel. USV’s well-known thesis began to ring true for Lending Club:
Large networks of engaged users, differentiated through user experience, and defensible through network effects.
USV invested in Lending Club from the Opportunity Fund, which had been set up earlier that year. In a blog post, USV explained that their Opportunity Fund would allow them to invest more in their current portfolio companies in later rounds, and to invest in the later rounds of companies that they’d been following but were unable to invest in sooner.
Most investors accustomed to investing at an early stage don’t want to get in that late. It’s a lot harder to get solid returns when the first time you invest in a company is during its Series D. But according to Wilson and his team’s thesis —which Lending Club suddenly fit — it was still the early stages for Lending Club’s network-fueled growth. It would be very much worth the premium to get in.
From the time of USV’s investment in 2011 to the time of Lending Club’s IPO in 2014, Lending Club scaled up their lending rate from $20M/month in originations to $500M/month. In their IPO, they raised $870M.
Recently, USV invested in other marketplace lenders by backing a new credit startup called Upgrade. It’s another venture from Lending Club founder Renaud Laplanche. Earlier this year in 2017, USV led Upgrade’s $60M Series A funding round. In a blog post, USV called Upgrade “Lending Club 2.0” and says that they are excited to continue investing in the marketplace lending model.
USV’s thesis has always stayed the same. But a change in circumstances — the company’s direction and the market’s maturity — allowed USV to see Lending Club in a new light. By the time they invested in 2011, they knew they were making an investment that they had conviction about.
The firmness of conviction may sound like a hard-to-quantify feeling, and it is. But it’s crucial. Conviction helps investors to lean in, and in turn gives more support to growing companies. In fact, investor conviction was essential to fueling another company on our list — Genentech.
19. Genentech
Genentech, a biotech company founded in 1976, made global headlines when it was acquired by Swiss healthcare company Roche in 2009 for $46.8B. As the company’s very first investor, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers received what now-deceased founding partner Tom Perkins once called “one of the largest payoffs in history.”
Through his relentless effort to make Genentech a success, Perkins himself created a new mold for the entrepreneurial venture capitalist.
In 1976, when Perkins led the firm’s investment in Genentech, there was barely any “biotech” industry to speak of. With no expertise in the subject himself, Perkins had to teach himself the basics. Then he had to vet and doggedly nurture one of the most unusual companies to ever hit Silicon Valley.
All along, he considered it highly likely the investment would be a total loss for the firm. And yet, in the end, he felt it had gone perfectly: “I honestly think that if we had to do it all over again, we’d do it the same way,” he said, “I don’t think we made a single strategic error.”
In the mid-1970s, there was skepticism in both the scientific and VC communities on the commercial feasibility of genetic engineering, Genentech’s main focus. Today, there is no such skepticism. And the wider biotech sector drives hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue every year.
Perkins saw market potential for an emerging scientific field. And instead of relying on validation from other investors or companies, Perkins proactively sought out scientific advice from specialized researchers and used that to inform his investment decisions.
In doing this, he was able to help facilitate the growth of a company that everyone wrote off.
Genentech was started in 1976 by Herbert Boyer, PhD, and Robert Swanson, a venture capitalist and former investor at Kleiner Perkins. Both believed the new technology of recombinant DNA could be used in a mass-market therapy. But common scientific and business opinion at this time said this technology was 10 to 15 years away.
Boyer and Swanson began working together in April and funded their project with $500 each. After living on unemployment and a shoestring for a few months, they sought out investment capital. The two brought an 8-page business proposal to Swanson’s former boss, Tom Perkins.
According to an article from the Wharton School, Perkins did his research before making what might have seemed like a crackpot investment. He identified two technical questions that he felt underpinned the potential success of the company. Then he submitted these questions out to specialized researchers, and didn’t commit his $250K investment until he received positive results.
That began a long history between Perkins and Genentech. Perkins eventually went on to serve as Genentech’s chairman. The New York Times reports that he has called Genentech his favorite investment.
Media outlets like Fast Company have cited Perkins’ investment in Genentech as evidence of the firm’s “uncanny knack for signaling out the next big thing(s).” But this overlooks a key detail of the investment: the fact that Perkins nurtured the company’s unlikely vision from the firm’s very beginning and helped it to become the success that it was.
It also ignores Tom Perkins’ own hands-on work as chairman of Genentech. Perkins was known as a pioneer in the movement for VCs to take larger hands-on management roles in their portfolio companies. According to the Financial Times, Perkins’ other founding partners at KPCB, Frank Caufield and Brook Byers, said: “He defined what we know of today as entrepreneurial venture capital by going beyond just funding to helping entrepreneurs realize their visions with operating expertise.”
One thing that hasn’t changed since Kleiner’s investment in Genentech is the general reluctance, among many Sand Hill Road VCs, to invest in biotech. Unless, that is, the entrepreneurs involved can make their biotech company look like a software startup. That’s exactly how Stemcentrx helped Founders Fund make their first biotech investment their biggest exit ever.
20. Stemcentrx
In April 2016, the drug company AbbVie paid $1.9B in cash and $3B in stock to buy Stemcentrx, a small biotech startup. About $1.7B of that was reported to go directly to the company’s largest individual investor, Founders Fund, which invested about $200M in total into Stemcentrx. At the time of the AbbVie deal, the company reached a $10.2B valuation.
Stemcentrx also saw investment from a variety of other investors, many of whom (like Founders Fund) tend not to invest in biotech — among them Elon Musk and Sequoia Capital. Fidelity led the $250M Series G round in 2015.
For Founders Fund, however, this was one of the biggest investments the fund had ever made in a single company. That’s all the more notable due to the fact that Founders Fund is famous for looking for investments in companies and industries other VCs deem too risky. Biotech is a notoriously risky industry, arguably more so than software.
In software, code is always broken for a reason. If you figure out the error, you can make it work again. With human biology, there’s so much we simply don’t know that your entire project could be doomed without your knowledge.
You can put out a minimal viable product of most any software product after a few months and start iterating based on customer feedback. In biotech, you get one shot to make your product work, and you can never fully eliminate the risk that it will simply fail in clinical trials. That’s especially true in the development of cancer drugs, which are more difficult to test than others due to the scarcity of quality cell lines.
In 2013, a paper in Oral Oncology had to be retracted after it was discovered that the widely-used line of cancer cells in the study had been entirely contaminated by HeLa cells. Those cells (known as HeLa because they originated, infamously, in the body of Henrietta Lacks) were used for experiments across the globe before they started proliferating and “taking over” other cells used to study disease.
All around the world, trials have had to be retracted and retraced after discovering contamination in the cancer cells being used for experiments.
For a VC who invests primarily in software, this kind of randomness presents a massive risk. A software startup relies only on code (deterministic, clear) and developing an audience. Over the long term, it can provide unmatched returns on capital. A biotech company can too, but they require more capital upfront — and there’s a high possibility that it will all turn to smoke even with a brilliant team and a brilliant idea.
“You have to get through basic research, preclinical, Phase I, II, and III, and then marketing. So approaching it analytically, the question is how do you discount [the risk of failure at each step]. If you do half on each step, and there are six steps, that’s 2 to the 6th, or 64. So something worth a billion at the end means you start at [a value of] $16 million.
“The thing I don’t like about this as an investor is that the numbers are totally arbitrary. They are just made-up numbers. And our feeling with many biotechs is that people understate these probabilities. They say it’s half, but maybe it’s just one in 10. And even if just one of these steps is one in 10, you are really screwed. I would be very nervous to invest in a company where it gets pitched as a series of contingencies that ‘this has to work, and this has to work, and this has to work.'” — Peter Thiel
In Stemcentrx, however, Founders Fund found “a biotech company that looked like a software company.”
Stemcentrx did everything possible to get rid of those “probabilistic contingencies.” They did things like graft cancer cells into live mice — more expensive than studying them in culture, but far more reliable. Studying cells in culture opens you up to risk that you’re going to discover that you’re working with already-mutated, contaminated cells (like HeLa) without even realizing it.
While it’s more difficult and requires more work upfront to graft cancer into mice, it’s far more likely to generate results that can be extrapolated to humans. Still not anywhere near perfect — but better. The key, for Founders Fund, was seeing that Stemcentrx was devoted to reducing contingencies.
Brian Singerman, who led the investment, outsourced some of the due diligence on Stemcentrx to various biotech experts to ensure Founders Fund wasn’t being taken. He needed someone with experience to explain whether what Stemcentrx was doing could really be a success. When he did, they came back asking if they could invest in the company.
Founders Fund had started out with the same trepidations about biotech that every other investor in Silicon Valley had. They were able to overcome those trepidations by finding a biotech company that acted as if it was a Silicon Valley startup. They went hunting for de-risked investments in a land full of risk — and they found one.
While firms like Founders Fund tend to follow a strategy of finding great companies and allowing them to operate unimpeded, that’s not the only path to success. With Workday, Greylock Partners was about as far from a hands-off partner as you could have. That’s because the company was actually founded by a partner — one Aneel Bhusri.
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21. Workday
Workday’s $637M raise at IPO in 2012 was the highest priced venture-backed public offering since Facebook’s. Unlike Facebook, however, which shrunk once exposed to the public markets, Workday’s stock soared from a starting point of $28 per share to about $50 a share on its first day of trading. For Greylock Partners, that meant turning an investment of about $80M into over $700M for a total 9x return.
The confluence between company and VC was strong in this case. Workday co-founder Aneel Bhusri, who was also a senior partner at Greylock, had noticed a huge transformation emerging in consumer technology. He started Workday, in part, as a bet on the idea that the same transformation would be coming to enterprise technology.
Bhusri’s main thesis was that it was becoming increasingly important to build applications with great user interfaces. There were so many options for software out there (and with the cloud, virtually limitless possibilities) that the user experience had to be good. Faced with the choice between a piece of software people wanted to use and one they didn’t—other things being equal—hiring managers would choose the former.
“From the early days we thought of ourselves as a consumer internet technology company from the underlying technologies we used, and we build enterprise applications on top of that,” he said. “I love to use the analogy that Amazon is a very complex order management system and has a nice user interface. There’s no training manual for Amazon, why should there be a training manual for HR and Finance?”
In human resources and finance, you see many intra-organization users needing to access their tools at key points. They need to check their benefits at the end of the year. They need to update their personal information when they move. Since everyone needs to do these things, Bhusri realized, it should be simpler. The same way that products like Facebook and Amazon made previously complicated processes like communicating with friends or buying products off the web simple, Workday would make these HR processes simple.
It was a thesis bolstered by several high-profile B2C investments that Greylock made in the years leading up to the Workday. Previously, Greylock had focused its investments on companies building core internet infrastructure and B2B companies. They invested in companies innovating on semiconductor design, building out broadband networks, and the sort. Then came 2004, and the consumer internet was in full swing. Friendster was fighting MySpace for social network supremacy. The press was obsessed.
Greylock invested in LinkedIn, which raised its Series B in October 2004. They invested in Wink, which raised its Series A in January 2005; Vudu, which raised its in June; and Digg, which raised its in October. They invested in Facebook, which raised its Series B in April 2006. Each of these companies built products that led with easy to use and clean user interfaces. They were intuitive products that didn’t require the user to “figure them out” the way so much pre-Web 2.0 technology did.
In the case of LinkedIn, they demonstrated that you could bring the style and ethos of the consumer internet to bear on the “professional” sphere. People would use a site that looked like Facebook at work if you told them it was for work. The key to adoption was making something people wanted to use.
At Greylock, Bhusri got this insider’s view on just how these products generated their growth — and he could apply their insights to Workday.
22. Rocket Internet
Copying business models of successful US startups and an aggressive operational style helped Rocket Internet build successful internet companies — from Zalando to FoodPanda — and create millions in revenue. But seven years after its formation, Rocket Internet’s multi-billion dollar IPO was a disappointment. The company had failed to impress public market investors and convince them of its ability to create winners in the future.
Rocket Internet’s 2014 IPO raised over $2B for the Berlin-based startup incubator, valuing the company at approximately $8.49B at the time of the offering.
With its public market debut, Rocket Internet was one of Germany’s biggest tech IPOs since the early 2000s, but was still considered a disappointment. Shares fell nearly 13% to under $47 soon after trading started.
But Rocket had high hopes.
Shortly before the IPO, chief executive Oliver Samwer talked up Rocket’s ambitious future claiming “Alibaba is the model,” referring to the Chinese giant which had a $21.8B IPO earlier that year.
Rocket Internet reported the close of its first equity funding in 2013, 6 years after it was founded by Samwer and his two brothers in Berlin. This $500M deal included Access Industries, Holtzbrinck Ventures, and Kinnevik AB — which maintained an approximate 24% ownership stake in the company.
In less than two years, Rocket Internet had secured additional infusion of capital from corporate investors — Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDTC) and United Internet — which diluted the founders’ and early investors’ ownership share. The Samwer brothers, through their investment arm Global Founders, still held over 50% of Rocket Internet, with Kinnevik and United Internet each controlling over 10% of the company prior to its IPO.
By August 2014, the company was valued at nearly $6B.
Rocket Internet’s ownership at the time of IPO
What did Rocket’s value rest on? The company’s entire promise was based on its ability to pick and develop winning startups. In its IPO prospectus, Rocket Internet classified 11 of its portfolio companies as “proven winners” and claimed 9 others to be “emerging stars.”
The “proven winners,” or the company’s largest and most mature companies, featured e-commerce startups operating across the globe like Jabong (India), Lamoda (Russia), Linio (Mexico/LatAm), and Namshi (UAE), among others.
Rocket’s early success and investor interest in the private market hasn’t quite carried on to the public market as the stock has fallen dramatically since IPO. In June 2017, one of Rocket Internet’s biggest early stakeholders —Kinnevik— sold the last of its stake in the company and called Rocket Internet “one of the best investments Kinnevik has made,” which yielded an annual 90% internal rate of return and six times its invested capital.
Rocket Internet’s network of companies at the time of IPO
23. Qudian
Late-stage investors are allowing tech startups to stay private longer, but Qudian’s 2017 IPO (within four years of founding) is a story of a breakthrough product, rapid fund-raising rounds, and a crucial strategic partnership. Qudian capitalized on lack of regulation in the emerging Chinese alternative lending space to dominate market share and was quick to give returns to its private investors by way of an IPO.
Qudian (fka Qufenqi) raised $900M in its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in October 2017 and was the biggest public listing for a Chinese fintech company in the United States. The listing was oversubscribed and was a particularly lucrative exit for its then 34 year-old CEO, Min Luo, who owned about a fifth of the company before it went public.
Founded in 2014, Qudian started as an e-commerce shopping site targeted towards university students and young professionals, enabling them to borrow money to buy goods and pay back the loans in monthly installments.
In the first half of 2017, Qudian’s revolving credit model offers credit to 7 million young Chinese consumers on a digital platform that is integrated with Alibaba’s products. Luo has emphasized that the company targets young consumers — they are given credit for small items without having to go through the hassle of dealing with a bank (Qudian’s average cash loan amount was about $136 in the same time period).
Qudian’s Credit Approval and Servicing Process
Qudian relies on alternative data sources like the applicant’s e-commerce data, mobile phone records, and social media network to check for creditworthiness.
The company launched with backing from various China-based angel investors. Within 10 months, Qudian raised three rounds of funding from BlueRun Ventures and other investors. The Series B in August 2014 valued Qudian at over $162M, and a $100M Series C round that December led by BlueRun pushed the startup’s valuation to $500M. Ant Financial participated in a $200M investment into Qudian in 2015, adding Qudian’s alternative lending platform to its portfolio of fintech offerings.
The IPO gave Luo a net worth of at least $1.2B, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Among Qudian’s principial shareholders, Kunlun Worldwide held just under a 20% stake at the time of filing. Source Code Capital — which invested in its Series A through E rounds — held about 16%, and Ant Financial-owned API (Hong Kong) Investment Limited held 12.8% at the time of IPO.
Qudian’s micro-lending service based on alternative data collection models was not heavily regulated until late 2017, when the Chinese government told authorities to put a pause on issuing new licenses. The expectation of growing government scrutiny wiped away Qudian shares’ short-lived gain. From its $24 IPO price, its stock had dropped to nearly $13 by mid-December 2017.
In an attempt to diversify sources of revenue amidst looming regulatory threat to its core offering, Qudian launched its auto financing business in November 2017, known as Dabai Auto. The company established 175 off-line showrooms in shopping districts across China by the end of January 2018, and leased out over 4,800 cars as of March 10th.
Amidst fear of unfavorable regulation from the Chinese government, Qudian’s stock struggles in the public market. The biggest backers like Guosheng Financial and Kunlun have sold a nominal stake during the IPO and Guosheng has even talked of the price drop as an opportunity to increase its stake in Qudian. In the Q4 2017 earnings call, CEO Luo announced that he would forgo his salary and any bonus until the company reached a market cap of $100B (Qudian’s market cap was around $5B at the time).
24. Acerta Pharma
Secrecy, a stealthy drug development, and fund-raising history helped Acerta Pharma become a huge multibillion-dollar pharma exit.
AstraZeneca’s majority stake (55%) in biotech firm Acerta Pharma for $4B was one of the biggest VC-backed exits of 2015. As part of the deal, AstraZeneca also had the option to sell the remaining 45% of Acerta Pharma (upon meeting certain regulatory conditions).
In all, the deal valued Acerta Pharma at over $7B.
The company began operations in 2013, aiming to deliver novel targeted therapies to patients with cancer. The company’s lead investigational blood cancer drug — a Bruton Tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor known as Acalabrutinib — posed a great opportunity to build its hematology/oncology pipeline.
Acalubrutinib’s potential as a more potent and selective inhibitor (having fewer side-effects) than approved drugs meant huge potential for commercial success.
Among its financings, the company raised a Series B round from T. Rowe Price. This funding was also raised in much secrecy, with no press release. Part of keeping the news under wraps was that an incumbent company, Pharmacyclics, had a product that Acerta was aiming to disrupt.
The company’s acquisition was a beneficial exit for Series A investors such as BioGeneration Ventures, Brabant Development Agency, Frazier Healthcare, OrbiMed Advisors, as well as Series B Investor T. Rowe Price.
AstraZeneca’s big bet on Acerta Pharma seems to have paid off. In October 2017, the FDA granted accelerated approval of its Acalabrutinib drug — Calquence . This approval was considered especially important for adults with mantle cell lymphoma, a type of cancer that is often diagnosed at a later stage and has a high relapse rate.
25. Nexon
Nexon’s $1.2B IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in December 2011 was one of the biggest gaming exits at the time. Nexon is known for pioneering a play-for-free business model in which gamers only pay for virtual in-game goods, which become crucial to their progress in the game.
Nexon began operations in 1994 out of Seoul, South Korea, but later moved its headquarters to Tokyo. The company has grown into one of Asia’s biggest game publishers, with titles like MapleStory, Mabinogi, Vindictus, Combat Arms, Dragon Nest, and Dungeon Fighter Online to its name.
In 2005, SoftBank Ventures Korea and Insight Venture Partners participated in the only known venture funding round to Nexon.
The company’s IPO was one of two big gaming company exits in late 2011. San Francisco-based gaming company Zynga’s IPO on the NASDAQ exchange was the other, valued at around $7B.
In the US, there was much more hype around Zynga’s IPO due to the company’s strong grasp on the US gaming market.
Since going public, Nexon’s stock has increased by more than 230% — Zynga’s has lost approximately 60% of its value.
Nexon’s biggest advantage over Zynga was facilitating its own in-app purchases. Zynga used social media platforms like Facebook to sell in-app goods because it gave the company access to Facebook’s rapidly growing userbase — but it cost up to 30% in transaction fees.
Nexon had already established its position as an independant game publisher before social media platforms took off in its core geographic markets of Japan, South Korea, and China.
26. Zalando
Sometimes companies that repeatedly return to the private market’s funding well grow overstuffed with financing.
They delay going public and end up floundering because they are unable to tighten up operations enough to turn a profit. Eventually, investors sour on them.
But Zalando is the story of a company that raised hundreds of millions of dollars through equity and secondary share sales before IPO, and still succeeded.
At a $6.8B valuation, Zalando’s October 2014 IPO is the biggest exit of a Rocket Internet portfolio company to date (see above for Rocket’s own exit). Rocket Internet backed the e-commerce platform in 2008, the same year it launched.
Zalando’s company history (source: IPO filing)
Germany-based Zalando was launched with an initial focus on footwear, but has since expanded to apparel. Robert Gentz and David Schneider launched Zalando after a failed attempt at starting a social media platform for students in Latin America, followed by a brief stint working under the Samwer brothers.
Rocket Internet took a majority stake in the startup after a seed round financing in late 2008, where it co-invested with frequent collaborator Holtzbrinck Ventures.
Zalando grew rapidly in its core DACH region (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland), and in August 2010, it closed another round of investment from Holtzbrinck Ventures, Swedish investor Kinnevik, and Tengelmann at a valuation of $484M.
At the close of this round, Rocket Internet still held a huge stake (59%) and Holtzbrinck upped its ownership to 17%, while Tengelmann and the founders owned just over 10% each. Kinnevik held 3% of the company.
Zalando’s expansion continued, but with it came a high burn-rate and a need to raise equity. In February 2012, Zalando raised an undisclosed amount from Yuri Milner’s DST Global for a 4% stake. Later in the year, it raised debt and equity from a host of investment banking and PE firms including JPMorgan Chase, Quadrant Capital Advisors, CommerzBank, and others.
Involvement of late-stage investor DST Global initiated rumors of an impending IPO and raised doubts about Zalando’s ability to perform in public markets. Zalando had been growing fast, but had yet to show an annual operating profit.
But doubts about Zalando’s profit prospects didn’t seem to affect its ability to raise funds. Over the next two years, Zalando went on to raise $650M in funding and multiplied its private market valuation tenfold to about $4.85B. In late 2012, Kinnevik followed on its earlier investment in Zalando with a $376M secondary market purchase at a valuation of $3.76B. Kinnevik reportedly had over 25% direct stake in Zalando after this deal.
Zalando turned a profit for the first time in 2014, when it reported first-half profits of $16M compared to a loss of more than $90M in the same period during the previous year.
Zalando and Rocket Internet both went public in the same week in October 2014, which was one of the biggest months ever for German tech startups, the Samwer brothers, and Kinnevik.
Zalando listed 11% of its shares on the Frankfurt stock exchange at a price of €21.50 ($27.28). Major shareholders like Kinnevik and others entered in the customary 180-day lockup period, which prohibited them from selling their stake in the public markets for 180 days from the first trading day.
Even as the threat of Amazon stealing market share seems likely, Zalando has performed well in its 3.5 years as a public company, with its stock up nearly 150% since IPO and a market cap of $14B+ as of March 2018.
27. Ucar Group
Chinese app-based chauffeured car service Ucar Group held its IPO in July 2016 on China’s NEEQ exchange (AKA The New Third Board) at a $5.5B valuation. It was the biggest IPO of a Chinese tech company in 2016.
Ucar was launched in January 2015 by China’s leading car rental group China Auto Rental (CAR Inc.). Unlike other ride-hailing services, Ucar uses its own professional vehicles and drivers.
Ucar closed its $250M Series A round within 7 months of its launch, valuing the company at $1.25B. Ucar’s partner CAR Inc. invested $125M in the round, and the other $125M came from Warburg Pincus and Beijing-based Legend Holdings.
At the time of this deal, Ucar was already covering 60 cities, largely enabled by its partnership with CAR Inc. CAR Inc.’s founder and CEO Charles Zhengyao Lu’s family also controlled a majority of Ucar at the time.
Moving quickly, Ucar finalized access to additional funds in September 2015, closing a $550M Series B funding round at $3.55B valuation. Previous backers CAR Inc., Warburg Pincus, and Legend Holdings participated in the financing round, joined by Credit Suisse and others. This aggressive fundraising is telling of China’s highly competitive on-demand car sharing market, where Ucar fell third behind Uber and Didi in terms of funding at the time.
In March 2016, tech giant Alibaba had reportedly invested $461M in Ucar for a 10% ownership stake. Alibaba already had stakes in Uber and Didi Kuaidi (formed by the merger of car-hailing rivals Didi Dache and Kuaidi Dache in China), so this investment was done without much media coverage.
In April 2016, Ucar’s CEO Charles Lu confirmed that Alibaba had invested in the company, but said that the tech giant would be transferring its stake to affiliated funds Yunfeng Capital and Yunling Capital at the same price.
Ucar filed for a public listing in April 2016 and was suspected to be “very, very cash-strapped after the cutthroat competition with its rival Didi Chuxing and Uber,” according to an analyst.
Chinese ride-hailing competitors as of August 2016 (Source: WSJ)
Ucar Group was listed for trading in July 2016.
This was a big exit for Warburg Pincus, having invested in both Series A and B round deals to Ucar Group. The New York-based private equity firm has participated in massive funding rounds in Asia tech in the last few years.
Almost one year after its IPO, Ucar received a $353M strategic investment from investor Piccamc, a joint venture set up by People’s Insurance Company (Group) of China Ltd. and Germany’s Munich Re Asset Management Co. China UnionPay and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co. also invested in Ucar earlier in 2017.
Even after Uber conceded in the Chinese market by merging its China operations with rival Didi Chuxing, Ucar continues to struggle to gain market share. Ucar has been supported largely by its strategic partner CAR Inc.’s dominance in the car rental space and additional private investments since its IPO.
28. Webvan
On its first day of public trading in November 1999, online grocery company Webvan closed at a market capitalization of $7.9B, with its stock price rising 65% above its initial offering price.
A darling of Silicon Valley, Webvan was able to attract almost $400M in funding from venture capital firms such as Sequoia Capital and Benchmark. However, Webvan’s hefty warchest, backed by big-name investors, only served to underline its reputation as one of the biggest dot-com failures when it eventually filed for bankruptcy in 2001.
Despite this, Webvan’s initial success is not a surprise.
The company’s vision was bold — to leverage this new thing called the internet to allow people to order fresh groceries to their home at the touch of a button, tapping into a whole market of demand that was not possible just a few years prior. This was no doubt an attractive prospect to investors.
In an era where fast growth was prioritized above all else, Webvan rolled out beyond its home in the San Francisco Bay Area to cities such as Seattle, Chicago, and Atlanta, with an ultimate 26-city expansion plan.
However, the company’s hyper growth masked its shaky foundation.
“[Webvan] committed the cardinal sin of retail, which is to expand into a new territory – in our case several territories – before we had demonstrated success in the first market.” — Michael Moritz, Partner, Sequoia Capital
Webvan’s leadership was not native to the grocery space.
Webvan was founded by Louis Borders (ironically the founder of defunct bookstore chain Borders). Neither its first CEO George Shaheen of Andersen Consulting, nor its second CEO Robert Swan, came directly from the grocery industry.
Given the unique perils of operating in the grocery business, one marked by excessively low margins, a fundamental understanding of pricing, demand, delivery costs, and profitability is critical to long-term success.
Morever, according to Webvan’s former head of technology, Peter Relan, the company geared itself toward the wrong target audience. Instead of catering to customers who could afford the higher cost of grocery delivery, Webvan marketed itself as a company offering “Whole Foods” quality food, and “Safeway” prices.
This put Webvan into a position where it was difficult to become profitable, since it essentially was promising lower prices despite the high cost it took to fulfill and deliver each order.
Beyond pricing, Webvan’s decision to build its own fulfillment warehouses from scratch set the company back even further.
For a cost of up to $40M, Webvan would build a complex automated warehouse designed to fulfill its orders in any given region. This set up an even higher barrier to profitably than the company already faced.
As the company continued to grow beyond its means, it spent almost $800M, even signing a $1B contract with Bechtel to build several more automated warehouses.
However, when the market crashed in 2000, Webvan lost its ability to raise more capital. Given the inability of the company to operate profitability on its own, it was forced to file for bankruptcy and ceased operations.
Almost two decades later, businesses offering grocery delivery can take many cues from Webvan’s ultimate failure.
For example, Instacart taken a different approach than Webvan in its first few years of operation. While Instacart brought in a much smaller amount of revenue, it runs a much leaner business that is reliant on far fewer full-time employees, relying mostly on contracted delivery drivers. Additionally, it completely cuts out Webvan’s massive warehouse costs by leveraging existing grocery stores as fulfillment centers.
Given the continued high cost and complexity of logistics, it remains important for grocery delivery providers to understand the unit economics of their businesses, and potential routes to profitability, before recklessly expanding.
However, as logistics and warehouse innovation continue to modernize, such as with the advent of robotic micro-fulfillment startups like CommonSense Robotics, providing cheap grocery delivery may become a more realistic proposition going forward.
Unfortunately, this will be a few decades too late for Webvan.
29. Qualtrics
Qualtrics’ explosive $8B exit is significant for the company, which remained free of venture funding for over a decade.
It is also the largest VC-backed enterprise software acquisition in history (in terms of first-time exits), edging out Microsoft’s $7.5B acquisition of GitHub in October 2018.
The 10 Largest VC-Backed Enterprise Software Exits in History (First Exits) Rank Company Exit Valuation Date 1 Dropbox IPO $12.62B 3/23/2018 2 Qualtrics Acquired by SAP $8.00B 11/11/2018 3 GitHub Acquired by Microsoft $7.50B 10/26/2018 4 Workday IPO $4.49B 10/12/2012 5 DocuSign IPO $4.41B 4/27/2018 6 Veeva IPO $4.40B 10/16/2013 7 AppDynamics Acquired by Cisco $3.70B 1/24/2017 8 Octane Acquired by E.piphany $3.41B 5/8/2000 9 MuleSoft IPO $2.90B 3/17/2017 10 FireEye IPO $2.35B 9/20/2013
The Utah-based customer survey software company was started by CEO and co-founder Ryan Smith and his father Dr. Scott Smith (a university professor) in 2002. The startup initially focused on selling to academics, beginning wi |
When Oxfam’s 2016 Davos Report revealed that 62 people own half of the global wealth many were shocked by this finding and attributed it to high poverty levels in low-income countries. However, wealth inequality is also a problem in rich countries like the US. The OECD found that the wealthiest 10% of US households own 76% of the total wealth, while those at the bottom 40% of the distribution have no wealth at all. To make matters worse, the 2008 Great Recession wiped out the wealth of many American families, and they failed to regain it in the ensuing recovery. Research done by Levy Institute’s Pavlina Tcherneva found that in the aftermath of the Great Recession, real incomes of those in the bottom 90% of the US income distribution have fallen, while those in the top 10% have enjoyed all the gains of the recovery.
These trends are the result of neoliberal “free-market” policies implemented since the 80s, which emphasized tax cuts, deregulation, and weakening of labor protections, all under the guise of increasing efficiency. Trade deals, while not the sole culprit, have played an important part in the downward pressure on wages for American workers and the loss of numerous domestic manufacturing jobs. The rise in global trade has created severe competition for many American workers, many of whom have lost their jobs or been forced to accept pay cuts. Trade agreements put in place by the US offer corporations the necessary legal protections to safely relocate their business overseas. While proponents of trade agreements continue to insist these will create new jobs for American workers, the opposite has been true. For example, the Economic Policy Institute estimates that almost 700,000 jobs have been lost as result of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), despite it promising to create 200,000 new jobs for American workers.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an agreement between 12 countries, which together make up for 40% of world trade, is considered by Obama a key element of his legacy and follows a “pro-market” approach similar to most policies of the neoliberal era. This pact will eliminate tariffs, and impose and enforce stronger patent protections overseas while also reducing restrictions for tech companies to enter foreign markets. Obama’s administration promises the deal will “level the playing field for American workers & American businesses,” and “strengthen the American middle class.” However, a closer reading of the provisions of the agreement offers a different interpretation. The TPP will strengthen the power of multinational corporations, expand their influence over governments, and increase profit margins at the expense of American workers.
Amongst the most concerning provisions of the TPP is one that gives corporations an easy path towards suing governments and thus undermining their sovereignty. The treaty agrees to establish an Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), through which corporations can challenge domestic laws in countries that are part of the TPP. These challenges would be resolved through arbitration, rather than traditional courts. The arbitration process is led by panels composed of three corporate lawyers, only one of whom is government appointed. As Elizabeth Warren warned in this Op-Ed, the provision “would allow big multinationals to weaken labor and environmental rules.”
Those arguing in favor of the TPP claim it will allow the US to write the rules on how trade with Asia should be conducted. Yet this argument fails to mention that it’s American corporate interests that will write the rules. Free trade with the countries participating in the TPP is already established, and this agreement does not open up new opportunities for trade; rather it sets the terms in favor of business interests. The TPP will further erode bargaining power of American workers, who will face increased legal scrutiny over protections they enjoy. By solidifying the legal power corporations enjoy abroad, the agreement will facilitate smooth relocation and outsourcing of more and more jobs. This additional threat to job security for American workers will increase downward pressure on their wages, while the profits of corporations will grow, thus upholding the trend of rising income inequality. It is not a coincidence that as the global influence of corporations increases, so does disparity of wealth.
The positive impacts the TPP might have on the economy would be absorbed by the wealthy, while average American workers would suffer the negative consequences. The TPP protects large multinational corporations; yet offer few safeguards for lower-skilled domestic workers. Overall, it is reasonable to argue that the TPP would only further exacerbate income inequality by tilting the balance even further in favor of big companies. However, it is also unrealistic to argue that by rejecting the TPP and other trade agreements the US can bring back all the manufacturing jobs it lost.
American policymakers need to realize that it is vital to draft agreements that take into account the needs of working people, and not just of corporations; that there is an active need for policies that can once again strengthen the American middle class. Otherwise, the discontent of workers who continue to see their incomes decline and job prospects worsen will allow fringe candidates such as Donald Trump, who foster racist and xenophobic rhetoric, to rise to power. Although the solutions offered by Trump make little economic sense, he gains in popularity by recognizing that American workers have been disadvantaged by various trade deals.
It is urgent for policymakers to stop pushing for policies that expand income inequality, and to look for strategies to reverse this trend. In the late 1970s full employment was abandoned as a policy goal, labor protections were eroded, finance deregulated, and taxes for the wealthy reduced. Seeing the consequences of these changes in the falling living standards of most Americans and exploding income inequality, it is time to take action and work to rolling back these policies. Pushing for more agreements amongst those same lines, such as the TPP, will only make matters worse.
By Lara Merling
Illustration by Heske van Doornen
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Department of Homeland Security and U.S Navy hacked
Digital-corruption" hacked into subdomains of both sites and leak database info on Department of Homeland Security and U.S Navy websites once again at Major Risk. This time hacking group called "" hacked into subdomains of both sites and leak database info on pastebin
https://www.smartwebmove.navsup.navy.mil/ and twicinformation.tsa.dhs.gov using Blind SQL-Injection method. In its announcement on the pastebin.com website, the group said it has leaked database from The Database include Usernames, Passwords, Email ID's, Security Questions - Answers of all users. Hackers shout:
say("#FreeTriCk #FreeMLT #FreePhantom");
say("Knowledge is power!");
say("NAVY.MIL, care to share some of your staff information?");
Department of Homeland Security and U.S Navy websites are hacked lots of times in past one year by Different hackers from all over world. |
Experts predict widespread, damaging and pervasive effects on Britain if no agreement is reached before planned EU exit in 2019
Leaving the European Union without a deal in place would have, “widespread, damaging and pervasive” effects on Britain’s economy and legal system, a report says.
Even after the general election wiped out the Conservatives’ majority and denied Theresa May the increased negotiating mandate she asked the public for, she has stuck with the mantra that “no deal is better than a bad deal”.
But a report by The UK in a Changing Europe, which brings together experts from politics, law and economics, finds that exiting in March 2019, when the Article 50 process is due to end, without first striking an agreement, would hit everything from the nuclear industry to the security of legal contracts.
Professor Anand Menon, of Kings College London, said: “Our findings show a chaotic Brexit would, at least in the short term, spawn a political mess, a legal morass and an economic disaster. This report makes it clear ‘no deal’ is an outcome the British government must strive to avoid.”
The report examines the risks of four no-deal scenarios, including a “timed-out Brexit”, where the two-year deadline set when Theresa May triggered article 50 in March expires without agreement; and a “premature Brexit”, with talks breaking down before the deadline, because Britain walks away.
A “cliff-edge” Brexit would result if the exit deal is struck, resolving issues such as Britain’s share of EU liabilities, but no new free trade deal is reached in time – a fear that has prompted the chancellor, Philip Hammond, to push for a “transitional” period to offer businesses certainty. And worst of all, a “chaotic Brexit” would mean no deal at all, even on the terms of exit.
The report finds that any of these scenarios would leave a myriad of unanswered questions about whether planes could legally take off; whether nuclear materials could be transported safely; and which bodies would judge whether drugs could be safely used.
The government’s EU (withdrawal) bill, published last week, creates the power for ministers to create new regulators to take over jobs currently carried out by European Union bodies, and to bring all EU laws on to the UK statute book.
But the government faces formidable hurdles in passing the legislation and carrying out the reforms necessary, even if a deal is struck with the EU in time.
“No deal doesn’t mean the country would come to a stop. But even under relatively benign conditions and with time to prepare, the impacts would be widespread, damaging and pervasive,” Menon said.
The warning comes after it emerged that the government has spent £1.2m of taxpayers’ money defending legal action, including the case brought by Gina Miller to force Theresa May to offer parliament a vote before formally embarking on Brexit.
The annual report of the Department for Exiting the European Union, published on Wednesday, showed legal costs were the most significant area of expenditure after staffing.
In total, David Davis’s department spent £3.7m on legal costs. Of that, £2.2m went on commissioning legal advice on policy from government lawyers. And of the remainder, £1.2m was accounted for by two legal cases – the article 50 case and a separate action over Britain’s membership of the European Economic Area.
Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesperson, Tom Brake, said: “This £1.2m bill is a kick in the teeth for taxpayers. The Conservatives fought every step of the way in the courts to try and avoid proper scrutiny over Brexit, now the public is having to pick up the tab.” |
The budgets passed by the legislature in June and earlier this month - both vetoed by Gov. Robert Bentley -- would have resulted in the closure of all 22 Alabama state parks, the parks director said Tuesday.
That danger remains in place as lawmakers and Bentley continue to haggle over how best to solve a state budget shortfall.
In an interview with AL.com following a news conference Tuesday at Joe Wheeler State Park in Rogersville, state parks director Greg Lein said the potential impact of the budget shortfalls in Montgomery are more dire than when he first said in April that 15 of the parks could be shut down.
Bentley is expected to call the legislature back into a second special session as lawmakers and the governor wrestle over the best solution to pay for state services. Lawmakers have refused to accept Bentley's push for new taxes - opting for steep budget cuts instead -- and Bentley has refused to take his tax package off the table.
In the regular session that ended in June, Lein said the budget legislators passed and sent to Bentley included more than $9 million in cuts to the state parks budget.
"That $9.2 million budget (cut) that the governor vetoed, that was a parks killer," Lein told AL.com. "That would have shut down the parks system. We know that now."
It's a startling revelation after an outcry across the state when Lein first said 15 of the 22 parks were set for closure as a result of the legislature's proposed budget at the time.
While parks like Joe Wheeler, Lake Guntersville and Lake Lurleen were among those targeted for closure, the list could grow to include every park - including original survivors such as Gulf State Park, Wind Creek, Oak Mountain and Monte Sano.
Lein said state parks are seeking level funding for the 2016 fiscal year, which amounts to about $38 to $40 million. That breaks down to about $30 million in parks revenue and $8 million from two state taxes earmarked for the parks.
Lein cited a University of Alabama study from two years ago that assessed the economic impact of the 22 parks on the state at about $400 million annually.
While lawmakers passed a budget in June slicing $9.2 million from state parks, the cuts ballooned to $18 million during the special session. Bentley's refusal to accept the budgets has necessitated a second special session, which the governor has not yet scheduled.
If the legislature prevails in its budget showdown with Bentley, that could be the death knell of the state parks, Lein said. He and a host of others who spoke at the news conference urged people to contact their representatives to share their opinions on potential cuts to state services.
"Every time I think about Alabama state parks, the first thing that comes to mind is happy," said Sandra Burroughs of Mountain Lakes Tourism said. "It's happy times, it's fun, it's family, it's relaxing. That's what everybody's vision for the state parks are. We don't want to lose that.
"I've already been contacting my own legislators. And now I'm going beyond my area. I've called people who have no idea who I am."
Rogersville Mayor Richard Herston spoke on the ripple effect that would result if the parks are closed. He said about 10 percent of his town's budget comes from people visiting Joe Wheeler State Park.
"I encourage you to talk to your legislators and let them know it's time to be businessmen, not politicians," said Chuck Sykes, director of Alabama wildlife and freshwater fisheries division.
Said Burroughs, "This is insane. And we can stop it." |
Jeff's UltraTechnology Blog
The Silicon Valley Forth Interest Group released the notes and videos from their Forth Day in November. I discovered that they had their video camera pointed at the speaker with only the bottom right corner of the video projector visible.
In the SVFIG mail list we heard that the slides from most presenters from Forth Day have now been posted at: http://www.forth.org/svfig/kk/11-2010.html
and that most of the videos can be found at: http://www.forth.org/svfig/videos/fd2010.html
We should expect those two pages to be merged together.
The nice thing about high definition video cameras is that one can put a 4x3 video at 1024x768 resolution in the left side and have a third of the scree left over to capture the presenter on video. One can then remaster it down to a slower frame rate and the lowest resolution that still shows what is on the computer display and being presented. This year there were presentions with big fonts in PowerPoint and presentations with big fonts in colorforth. Both were displayed on the video project for everyone.
Here is a jpeg image of a frame from an HD Video I shot of Chuck's 2006 FireSide Chat. Click on it once or twice to see it in full resolution.
I assumed that that is what SVFIG was going to record to video. This was something I did for years and was happy to let them do instead. But when I looked at the videos for this year I realized that they had filtered out all the video from the video. They had video of the presenter but not the video presented by the presenters.
SVFIG then collected the "Slides" from the people in PDF format so they could offer what some people presented on video to them on their web site. But because they didn't video the video they filtered out all the coloforth presentations and only passed on PDF slides to people instead.
I went ahead and made a few slides from the colorforth screens I used. It isn't as good as the live video where you see what the editor, compiler, simulator, and ide do keystroke by keystroke. But it is better than just a talking head talking about video that you can't see.
I guess I have odd expectations of what might interest people in the Forth Interest Group. The PDF file that Greg Bailey did was generated by a tiny amount of Forth code. I would think people interested in Forth would be interested in the tiny amount of Forth code needed to generate a PDF file. But it seems that they would need the Forth code in PDF format before they could see it at all the colorforth video output was not recorded at this year's Forth Day.
There were about forty people who attended the Silicon Valley Forth Interest Group's Forth Day this year. It was fun seeing friends and hearing about what other people are doing with Forth. It is always nice when people can get together to discuss Forth without anyone objecting to their use of Forth or wanting to take up their time telling them that they should be using something else instead.
I found it interesting that there were more reports on Forth in hardware and software than about Forth software for conventional hardware. In 2009 Leon Wagner of FORTH Inc. gave a presentation where he built a RISC CPU for a FPGA and used SwiftX to compile Forth code for it. This year FORTH Inc. had Brad Eckert show a Forth CPU and generate Forth code for it. Along with Green Array Chips presentations there were other presentations on Forth in hardware and software.
I enjoyed Dr. Montvelishsky's presentation on a 3D steroscopic machine vision application for a robot. It was similar to the one we did for BMW research. The problem with the previous system was that it consumed too much power. They liked the version that could run the whole thing from a small solar cell.
Green Array Chips President Greg Bailey told of plans for 2011 and plans for on-chip flash and/or large on-chip SRAM blocks. He provided some background and insight into the company's strategy.,
I showed some simple F18 processor code examples running in software simulation and on hardware using the Interactive Development Environment. Softsim is available now in the public release of ArrayForth and the IDE will be provided before chips and development boards are shipped to customers. Differences between colorforth and more conventional Forth were shown, differences between Pentium colorforth and colorforth code for targeted Green Array Chips were shown. Differences between software simulation and the Interacitve Development Environment were show.
In Pentium colorforth N FOR NEXT performs N interations and exits and removes the index from the return stack when it reaches zero. On the target colorforth code for F18 processors FOR NEXT counts down past zero so performs N+1 iterations of a loop. The word ZIF which is a sort of forward NEXT so that FOR NEXT loops can perform N interations when that is desired. NEXT takes an address argument left by FOR or BEGIN and resolves the NEXT branch when it is compiled. ZIF compiles an unresolved forward NEXT which is resolved by a THEN.
The words IF and -IF and the associated UNTIL and -UNTIL are also different on Pentium colorforth than in target colorforth. On the Pentium version they use actual Pentium status flag rather than the contents of the top of the stack. So in target colorforth you can say:
... IF
... 0 OR IF
... 0 OR DROP IF
In Pentium colorforth variables are created as variables when they are defined in the editor.In colorforth variables are initialized to zero when created in the editor. In traditional Forth variables were initialized when they were compiled but in ANS Forth they are not. Variables are normally initialized somewhere and in colorforth are often initialized in a sequence of yellow interpreted code after the place where they are defined when the compiler is running. If they have a yellow sequence they will be initialized when the code is compiled. Sometimes variables are initialized in compiled code executed by the application.
In colorforth the variables in the source are actually variables created and tagged by the editor. They are initialized by the compiler or by an application. Because they are live their value, in the source code, will reflect the latest change to their value that has happened.
While a program is running or after it has stopped the contents of the variables in the source code reflect the last change the application made to them because the variables in the source are the application variables. Variables are live in the source code. Numbers and variables in a program are actually numbers and variables in the source itself and make for more powerful programming tools. By itself live variables is a very powerful debugging tool built in at a very low level in the system.
One of the innovations in colorforth is that variables are live. If you look at the source code for a block, edit it or list it, then have a program change the contents of that variable or if you change the contents of that variable on the command line you will see the contents of the variable change on the screen. You don't have to open a special watch window, you don't have to refresh the editor view, a previously edited or listed display of the source code will change on the screen as its contents change in the background.
I would not expect people who have never tried them to easily appreciate how powerful and productive they can be. I have just touched on a couple aspects of these things. The implications of what you can do with them are profound.
It is a powerful thing to be able to do all these things at edit time, at compile time, and at runtime with no effort. Many people are not using Forth tools at edit time so they simply cannot use these features of Forth systems. I can imagine some of it being done in other languages. One can think of it as simply a program treating its source code as data. But it does use database and spreadsheet like features way below the level of files and uses them to contain and manipulate source so that more can be done with it in all time phases.
Variables work a certain way in Pentium colorforth but are not used the same way in the target code for the f18 processors.
Many Forth provide a way to view the stack or give the user a default view that includes a stack view. Some Forth provide a way to specify that you want to watch a variable and see a live view of its contents. They may let you specify a variable to watch or to place a variable's address into a memory watch window. But that is not as powerful as having all variable automatically do that in the editor while giving the abstract source code view.
Like blue words in the source the live variables in the source are an example of how Forth spans more of the time dimension than some language by letting the user specify edit time, compile time, or runtime and do editing and compiling in applications at runtime as well. Live variable in the editor and blue words in Forth are examples of expanding the power of Forth at edit time.
Wil Baden provided excellent examples of being able to cut and paste Forth code in an editor to create macros in Forth that editor can execute by doing a call-back to Forth. In colorforth this whole process is made as simple as possible by saying that blue words execute when the editor encouters them. The first thing I did in my demonstration of colorforth was to turn the word SEEB from white to yellow. This word means "See blue words."
I explained that even though they are not visible on the screen when SEEB is just a comment in white at boot I still see them in my mind because I know a blue word had to perform the return or reverse return or tab that I see there in the colorforth editor display. But when SEEB is executed on boot you actually see the blue cr or -cr or tab on the screen along with the effect that executing it caused. These blue words make spread-sheet and other on-screen macro execution possible and support the use of edited blocks with blue words as templates for other operations.
I showed the Pentium colorforth tools to convert to or from ASCII and to HTML as well. I showed various I/O drivers and utilities such as the ADUIT tool for source code management. The ADUIT utility lets one see blocks that have changed relative to a previous release and let one toggle the block display between the two versions to highlight the change. Like other things in colorforth you can feel that it uses different parts of your brain than a less visual tool which relies on more use of symbol processing in the brain of the user.
I showed the powerful set of tools that do things that are very difficult with ASCII source code in files spread out over multiple directories, disks, or networks. It should be easy to "find" words in a Forth dictionary after they are compiled but when working with source it is very useful to be able to search all sources for all definitions of a given word or all places where it is used or to search for where literal numbers are used anywhere in any source. These things are easy, simple, trival and fast when Forth can do more at edit time. For many people these things are so difficult that they don't do them at all and don't even know what they are missing. One might say that a side effect of being forced to use ASCII files as containers for source are that you don't have a lot of useful and powerful forth tools to make the work easier.
I showed how Pentium colorforth displays the numeric value of a word as it is being typed in to the command line before it is executed. I also showed how it displays what is on the stack on the left side of the command line. If you start with nothing on the stack and type "DROP DROP DROP" then enter "1 2 3 4" you will see that you have a "4" on the stack. You have the word "C" to clear the data stack and set the stack pointer to its default value.
The target colorforth offers the word "unext" which works like NEXT but branches back to slot-0 of the same instruction word in which it runs. It discards any address argument provided by FOR or BEGIN so that it can use the same syntax as NEXT. Instead of a five nanosecond memory operation like NEXT it is a two nanosecond operation so one can adjust the timing of loop timed by unext in two nanosecond intervals. A no-operation or "nop" instruction is specified with a period. Since it is in the stack or alu class of instruction it executes in about one and a half nanoseconds. So with two nanosecond changes and one and half nanosecond changes one can tweak timed operations to about half a nanosecond. Pentium colorforth does not have the equivalent of a unext operation but perhaps it could be added by using a repeat-previous instruction and count down instruction.
In addition to the simple bit-bang pin-toggle loop examples shown the use of I/O and math rouintes in ROM were shown. One can use ROM code to read from the SPI flash, read synchronous, asynchronous, or one-wire asynchronous signals. Other ROM code includes multiplies, fractional math, left and right shifts, triangle trigonometry, polynomial approximation, taps for fir and iir filters, table interpolation, pwm output and more. The software simulator compiles the ROM code along with any user application code and provides a way to get hands-on exerience with using these ROM functions and see some well coded examples of machineForth. With very limited on-chip RAM on each node it is important to understand what the ROM code offers to let programs in RAM be smaller and do more.
At the end of my presentation I ran a little program that fit on one node that copied itself in two dimenstions and carried a bitmap with 144 pixels. On each node it would then index into the two dimensional bitmap and decide if it should stay on or go to sleep and in doing so leave a pixel on or off in the softsim display. I just wanted to see I could write that fairly quickly and get it to fit on single node. I joked that I wanted to show Forth on the simulated chip.
At the end of Chuck's Fireside Chat I presented him with a framed wafer of Forth chips to go on his home or office wall. I has about five thousand clusters of twenty-four Forth processors or about one hundred and twenty thousand Forth processors on one piece of silicon. With thirty-two, forty, or one hundred and forty-four processors per cluster the number of clusters goes down but the total number of processors on each wafer goes up. Ideally if one wanted to use wafer scale chips one would want surface mount flip-chip pads for I/O and if there were clusters they should be connected to one another on-chip using parallel connections like inside of clusters.
SVFIG will put videos of all the presentations on their site at some time in the future.
There are few topics where people make arguments from a position where logic will be of little help. On these topics dialog usually can't go anywhere but to name calling or hate speech. When in a discussion what does one say to a comment like the one made by Christine O'Donnell, "You know what, evolution is a myth. Why aren't monkeys still evolving into humans?" Richard Dawkins said, "spectarularly stupid" but that doesn't forward dialog.
One of those topics is Chuck Moore's colorforth. I understand it is different, very different than the things in computer science that you know or that you do every day. It is natural that you might have no interest or want to deal with something so alien to you.
It is natural that there are people who use a different language than you, you would be an alien in their community. They might look differently, have different tastes in food or style and different rules for proper social behavior. Dealing with an intense exposure to such alien culture is difficult for many people but a bigger part of the modern world. Still most people never do get much exposure to the real details of other cultures.
In any situation the dominant culture will get most of the exposure, this is sort of the definition of a dominant culture. You can't avoid exposure to the dominate culture and it is easy for everyone for the most part to see the parts of it that they are suppose to see as that is part of the culture as well as not see things that they are not suppose to see. Part of culture is to see things the way the culture says they should be seen. That is always part of the culture.
It is easier to understand when a minority culture hates a majority culture that wants them to maintain a low profile or assimalte until they are not a minority culture. Still minorty cultures for the most part don't hate. Most to the hate is a consequence of how some people of the people respond to and focus on the hateful chatacterization of the minority culture.
A minority is likely to have a strong cultural indentiy but also see itself as a part of the larger dominant culture. The dominant culture on the other hand may consider minority culture as alien and not really part of their culture.
But if you are part of a minority culture where almost everything is about the dominant culture there are some special problems that you will have. Your culture can't get the exposure that really define it because what is exposed to everyone is the dominant culture. Often people in a minority culture have a serious concern that the little exposure their culture gets in the dominant culture does not represent them well, has to be limited by definition, and may be represented only in hateful caricature.
People who want to deal with the problems of the a majority culture treating their minority culture badly because the only exposure their culture is given is hateful caricature have some special problems. If you say that a solution is for the majority culture to get more exposure to the real details of the minority culture this goes against the very tennants of the majority culture and the counter argument will be that the minority culture needs more indoctrination and assimilation into the majority culture. This is the problem the minority culture needs to reduce but any attempt to get more exposure that a minority culture thinks represents them properly so that they can be treated fairly is likely to simply produce more hateful caricature of their culture.
If the dominant culture believes that the earth is six thousand years old and bases their world view on a group of facts associated with that fact a minority culture that has a world view based on history and science will have all the cultural problems that happen when a majority culture wants a minority culture to assimalate and blend in. They have lots of proof that ideas like evolution are wrong. Monkeys don't change to humans at the zoo.
What can you say when that is the dominant culture? Promoting science instead of God may be seen as a very bad thing and characterized in a hateful way. If a minority group makes any effort to get the majority culture to address the problem they see through education the response they are likely to get is that there is a problem to be addressed in the educational system that led to an assualt on God and that the clear solution is to get the science out of the educational system and replace it with scripture instead.
My use of the word "God" may make the argument seem very culturally specific and will most likely cause some readers to feel insulted or that their own culture has been assaulted. I appologize for hurting anyones feelings and wish them no harm. I ask anyone who feels any of that to go back and reread the last paragraph but substitute the best words for you to be the opposite of the words "God" "science" "scripture" "education" and reread the paragraph.
For a Christian person who might have felt the tiniest bit of resentment or disagreement with that paragraph they should picture if they were living in a dominanlty Muslim culture based on whatever exposure they have had to whatever they think that culture is like.
Promoting Christianity instead of Islam may be seen as a very bad thing and characterized in a hateful way. If a minority group makes any effort to get the majority culture to address the problem they see through education the response they are likely to get is that there is a problem to be addressed in the educational system that led to an assualt on Islam and that the clear solution is to get all exposure to Christianity out of the educational system and replace it with scripture in instead.
Perhaps you can't relate to either of these cases and want a rather odd variation. I have been doing almost all of my computer programming in the Forth language for the last twenty-five years. Any language creates cultural boundries. I live in a world where there is a dominat programming culture. People cannot avoid exposure to it. They cannnot help but seeing it and all the books all the classes in the educational system are about it. Most of the blogs and websites and discussions are about it.
So I belong to a minority culture where we get very little exposure and the little we do get is mostly hateful caricature. And this hateful caricature is the only exposure in the educational system or the business or hobby computing culture as well. Having said that I am willing to repeat what is common knowledge and suppose to be taught about the minority culture of Forth.
Forth isn't really a programming language at all, it is a religion. Forth is a write only language. Forth's very limited value was only in the past on very small machines. Forth had some value thirty years ago but then C won and Forth died. Forth is a joke. Forth is a cult. There has never been a single decent program in Forth. Forth stinks.
Those are all statements taken from popular magazine articles and columns or that appear again and again in blogs and newsgroup discussions. They are the things the dominant culture say about us and teaches about us. Part of the culture is that this is what people are suppose to say about Forth.
These things seem like hateful caricatures to me. but don't seem out of place in the view of the dominant culture. Every one of those statements are as wrong as they could be and are meant to protect one culture from mixing with another, understanding, or being understood by another.
The problem is no different than the same problem of a minority culture in a majority culture in many other contexts. If you try to address the problem that you think this is an untrue and unfair if not hateful representation of your community and that it just encourages unfair or hateful treatment the effort is seen as an assault on the majority culture which requires that the amount of hateful caricature and dominant cultural indoctrination needs to be increased.
What can you say when the arguments presented are monumentally stupid and hateful? My response has usually been to go away and provide some explanations of what we really do, documentation, code walk throughs, tutorials, benchmarks, essays, interviews, transcripts, and videos that I think represent out culture accurately. Consider that the only exposure the dominate culture gives is that we are dead, religous extremists, or cultists. And in the dominant culture those are about the worst possible things that people can be.
But no matter what you do people argue that they went to wikipedia or google and everything said the same terrible stuff about what your subculture does. They don't want to listed to what we say we do.
You can't avoid exposure to the dominant culture. If you try to get what you think is the tiniest bit of accurate exposure to your minority culture no matter how small may be seen as a major assault on the majority culture that requires a major response. This is suppose to be less of a problem in the American "melting pot" culture. But as is always the case many things are supposee to be diluted until there is no longer any trace of taste of them in the mix because they are just too alien to be accepted within the majority culture.
When the minority culture wants to get what they think is a little fair exposure so that they can be treated fairly rather than in some hateful way the response is likely to be that they need to go away and get more indoctrination into the majority culture until it is no longer a problem. When I try to tell people what it is that I and other Forth programmers around me actually I the dominant culture requires that many more examples of a hateful caricature be produced in response.
What's ironic is that a dominant culture is required to provide more examples of their view a minority culture than that minority culture is suppose to provide of themselves. In the case of my programming culture one of the favorite facts used to prove that the only characturizations that are correct about us are the ones most easily available. In fact there simply is no and had never been any information available to learn anything about Forth at school, at the bookstore, or on the Internet than what the dominant culture provides. And I quoted from that previously.
But as I said before often when confronted by a number of people who all felt that the only characturization that should be provided of what I do or what I and people around me have done should be the sort of thing I quoted above from magazine columns about Forth.
I have told people that there was a lot of actual information about what we really do or really did that got put out in front of the public. Most of what is out there and easy to find if from the C programming culture and which we do not thing characturizes us fairly or accurately. And though much less than the information available about the dominant C language computing culture we have actually put a lot of information out there so that anyone who want to actually understand what it is that we really do can do so.
When people have made it clear that their only exposure to what we do or have done has been hateful caricature I have tried to direct them to the things we have made public about what we were doing. Here is a short history of information we thought characterized what we do and did.
Things from the 80s: cmForth the public domain 6k optimizing native code metacompiler for Novix. Dr. Ting's Footsteps in an Empty Valley. The first dozen issues of More on Forth Engines. Documentation from Novix and Harris. The cmForth port to RTX. The development of the 32-bit 100MHz Shboom. The development of machineForth. Papers on a number of forms of parallel Forth. Presentations on the start of VLSI CAD tool development in Forth. ANS Forth started and was offered details of machineForth for consideration. The ShBoom manual.
Things from the 90s: Chuck's presentations on okad, MuP21, machineForth systems. Full machineForth systems. A megabyte of html describing ANS systems written in machineForth. Dr. Ting and Chuck's VLSI Hacker's Forth toolkit. The OK386 manual. FORML presentations on the evolution of machineForth and the introductions of parallel programming with benchmarks. Presentations on how to program GUI accelerators on Forth chips. ANS Forth finished. Presentations and write up of various applications. The documentation on iTV's 4OS and I21 chip, web browser, email, web host, and dozen web protocols. Forth Linda. Forth DSM. F*F. Dr. Montvelishsky's example of CSP in Forth similar to Occam semantics as a learning tool that runs on a PC using Forth multitasking to learn parallel programming. Dr. Montvelishsky's cordic and math functions in machine Forth that were 50 times faster than Intel's versions at the time. Explanations of colorforth. John Rible publishes college classroom designs and give classes in designing processors with examples from a tiny-RISC and a Forth designs in VHDL. The design class videos and transcripts are made available to the public. Twenty more issues of More on Forth Engines. Dr. Ting puts some VHDL Forth chip designs into the public domain. The nine gigabytes of video presentations and html transcripts hosted at the UltraTechnology site. The workstation in a mouse project.
Things from 2000: Chuck's presentations on 25x. Presentations on how aha worked. More issues of More on Forth Engines. How the public release of the stand-alone colorforth came about. How this version of colorforth worked. Presentations on how OKAD 2 works. Gigabytes of videos of presentations and programming tutorials hosted at UltraTechnology on programming of MISC. Dr. Ting publishes new manuals and presentations on his P16, P24, P24X, P32, and P64 processor designs. Chuck creates his colorforth web site. I add a blog. Presentations about early work at Async Array Devices and how it became IntellaSys. Explanation of the use of various CAD software. Presentations on new features in machineForth and hardware to improve application performance. Presentations on programming in colorforth and VentureForth. Presentations by a dozen Intellasys employees. Explanations and code reviews for a dozen applications and tutorials. Many details of many projects presented to SVFIG or EuroForth or through the IntellaSys website or UltraTechnology. Presentations of Forth soft radio are given. Reports on expensive comparisons between OKAD and convention tools were given. IntellaSys releases VentureForth with compiler, simulator, visualization tools, and a drag and drop framework. SEAforth24 and SEAForth40 designs are provided with detailed manuals. Presentations on ROM code details with lots of examples and code explanations for SPI packet boot, asynchronous autobaud packet boot, syncrhonous autobaud packet boot, 1-wire packet boot, external memory interfaces, analog I/O, interprocess communications, forward and reverse port pumps, math routines, message routing, and Forthlets are given. Methods and example of data-flow analysis and data-flow algebra are given. Arrangements are made for FIG to get free or discount chips from the first IntellaSys wafers. The hearing enhancement project and stereo vision projects are presented. IntellaSys does wafer production runs and describes the details. Explanations for what should happen when IntellaSys went away were given.
Things from 2010: Dr. Ting puts more chip designs into the public domain. Chuck adds a blog. Green arrays forms and gives several presentations. Many code examples are shown again but in improved forms. Green Array Chips GA4, GA32, GA40, and GA144 multi-core parallel Forth chip design documenation is provided. Demonstrations of colorforth softsim and IDE are given. A comparison of the performance of various modern Forth compilers on specific compiling examples and an OKAD like applicaiton are presented and published. More presentations to be provided by various people at the 2010 Silicon Valley Forth Interest Group Forth Day event.
Lots of the stuff I found interesting was never public information and I probably forgot some important things that were made public. In hindsight I think UltraTechnology was far too open and honest about what it was doing. The idea of $5 educational networked Personal Computers with workstation performance that could download Forth programs embeded in video broadcasts and mix input video with computer generated video was seen as an assualt on the dominant culture. It seemed that I had not appreciated the cultural acceptance of the digital divide. But people in some governments and militaries were watching closely and didn't need us to be so public to show interest and follow through. The competition was watching as was in the parking lot at ITV taking pictures of our meetings so they didn't need so much public information either. There were people breaking in and trying to break in to servers to learn about what we were doing. There was interest out there. But the way we are depicted in the dominant popular culture is quite different than what we say about what we were doing.
In retrospect I have wasted too much time trying to use logic to help the Forth haters understand what we do or correct the misreprentation by the competition. But there is that univeral cultural problem to deal with. Better I think to just ignore the haters and people with the spectacularly stupid arguments. Trying to deal directly with them is a waste of time. Now if I can just follow my own advice. It is probably better to just go off and work on some code, documentation, or on the next presentation.
I am suppose to present for the Silicon Valley Forth Interest Group again in a couple of weeks. It is fun to see old friends and hear about what other people are actually doing with Forth. I no longer bother to make videos, write transcriplts, and post it all on my site. But SVFIG does make and post videos of Forth Day presentations so there is more information available to more people about what this minority culture is really about and really like.
What's funny is that as soon as we step outside of a culture that understands the sort of Forth word we do we find people who react like they have heard we have been pursuading people to send us all their money and begin worshiping the devil.
To be honest I don't care whether you would want to do the kind of work we do or not. It would just be nice if the dominant culture could be a little gracious and provide us with an occasional opporutinity to say something about what we do without some group from the dominant culture needing to put on hoods. If they were just willing to let us provide a little description of what we that we think is accurate and fair without feeling a need to provide more counter characterization of what we do to defend and promote the dominant culture.
It used to amaze me that you could give someone the foor for hours to explain how the dominant culture sees software, something you cannot help getting exposed to anyway, at a Forth Interest Group meeting but when the inventor of Forth takes the floor for one hour in the year and begins to explain what he does in a way that he thinks is fair that the previous speaker could interrupt him preventing him from talking to shout things like, "That's not the way a C programmer would approach that ...."
What amazed me was that dominant culture was not willing to give up the floor for even an hour a year in a small group of people gathered to hear about Forth without bringing things to a hault because we obviously needed more indoctrination into the view of the dominant culture and be told again that that is not how C programmers see things. It seemed inappropriate to me but part of the dominant culture is that you are not suppose to see that as inappropariate. It is the responsibility of the dominant culture to indoctrinate minority cultures and get them to assimalate into the dominanat culture. Ok. You can gather to disucuss Forth once a year, but the floor must be given to indoctrination in C instead of Forth lest it get out of hand. But I do understand that this is just a univeral aspect of culture.
Newsgroups and chatrooms have the same problem of course. Discussions of Forth are allowed as long most discussions are about writing C or Perl or Java or MD5 or shells or using operating systems written in C or editors written in anything but Forth or topics where they never even mention Forth. It is the responsibility of the dominant culture to keep things fair and balanced.
Discussions about things like colorforth will solicit demands that you go out and use other languages instead. You don't want to use that, I don't want to stop using myForth. I don't want our customers to stop using ourForth. I don't want to stop using C. I don't want to stop using Perl and Lua. Stop doing that. Go out and learn Perl instead. Go out and learn C instead. No one should do that. Go out and learn Haskell instead. Go out and learn Python instead.
When the subject that some people do colorforth or different ideas comes up some people get very intolerant and don't think people should even be exposed to something that alien. So even if it only gets discussed once a year and Chuck Moore gives a presentation where it will come up then some people will be rather intolerant of letting people who know about the subject described it without the majority of people each giving a more dominant culture point of view and to limit how much minority information will be tolerated. But again it is just a case that dominant culture cannot have very much tolerance towards minority cultural views getting exposure. Cultural stereotypes make things simpler and it is the responsibility of the dominant culture to make sure that its point of view always gets to dominate.
I gave a short presentation today for the Silicon Valley ForthInterest Group. I said that there were several projects I could give presentations on including reporting on couple cute pieces of equipment I could review. I had wanted to look into doing some USB client code. I started by reading about USB and then got a couple devices to help me explore the problem.
I have a tiny litte Beagle Board USB analyzer. It has three USB ports. One you connect to your PC as the user interace and then is has two other ports you put between a USb host and USB client. It provides different views of USB messages at a sort of high level. I also got a tiny logic analyzer that has one chip with a USB connection on one side and 17 aligator clips on the other, one ground and 16 probes. It can capture a meg or so at up up to 16 or 24MHz. With these views I was able to see more about what was going on with USB.
My first analysis suggested that I should implement low level code first to handle resets, bits and packets. I wanted to try to get that on one node in under 64 words of code. The higher level protocol could then be handled by more nodes with access to flash memory to be able to deal with the larger amount of detail at the protocol level. I got the low level stuff mostly working but found the overly simple hardware interace I had set up produced glitches when I switched from bit read to bit right. I got some help from a hardware engineer on what should be a better external hardware connection to USB. Because I had a voltage level converter circuit in the simple design I did the signals looked good on one side of the converter but not the other. I will go back and do more work on it sometime.
I found some cute hardware; RSDV HS MMC. Those are reduced-size dual-voltage High-Speed Multi-Media cards. They work at 1.8v or 3.3v. They are about half the size of a regular MMC. They support SPI at 25MHz. The high-speed ones also have a mode where they use an eight bit data bus instead of a single pin. They can run up to 52MHz and 416MBPS. I want to hook one up in SPI mode so I can have removable flash, usable on a PC also, with gigabyte capacity. I also want to find out whether I can put several of them on a Green Array Chips external parallel bus and drive control signals on them in parallel. It could be used as a very raid solid state hard disk with very high performance. The literature also says that they can be written and erased very quickly for flash devices. I haven't done much with that project yet either.
I showed them the Green Array Chips public colorforth release that has the target compiler and softsim program. I showed them the user interface and a couple of programs that made an interesting visual displays on the interface as you saw the interaction of the 144 core running, communicating, and sleeping. Someone asked about how it worked as both a stand-along boot program and OS on some PC and also ran on Windows on a much wider range of machines and what it put on a PC when you installed it. I mentioned that Green Array Chips had short videos showing how to download and install it and what you got. We also started with some simple stuff showing the user interface, editor and softsim to help people get started.
I showed a version of colorforth with the Interactive Development Environment. I always change my ideas about what to show after I watch other people's presentations. So I pointed out how the softsim interace and the IDE both do the same sorts of things we saw in other presentations. They provide ways to see what is on the stacks and in memory. In softsim you can move a 4x8 node window around to see the most important registers in each of those processors in another area of the display, how the disassembly window worked and could be moved around and how you single step or go or control how many steps are taken before each update of the visual display.
I has showed the IDE before and said it would not doubt be shown again before people got real chips or chips on development boards and wanted to try the IDE on them. There was question or two about the internals, not on the PC but on the target chip and I showed how it set up a path for messages to go from an entry point on the chip accross other processors by executing code on their ports copying messages from one port to another. That way they don't effect the memories or most of the stacks on the nodes that help when you talk to a given node and deal with its stacks and memory in an interactive fashion.
I mentioned that Green Array Chips had been taking orders and the current retail price is $10 for 144 processors or just under 7 cents per computer in the cluster. That also works out to a maximum code execution rate of better than one hundred Forth MIPS per cent of retail cost.
I also mentioned the $1.99 Linux computers that had been mentioned in the SVFIG mail list. These are odd machines. The only I/O they have is USB. If you plug them into a computer with USB but that doesn't boot from a USB port they are just treated as USB Flash sticks. $1.99 USB Flash sticks are not anything too special. In fact there were both $1.99 and $2.99 models where from what I gathered from a brief exposure is that the $1.99 sticks don't have much Flash memory, 64MB or something. But if you plug them into a PC with USB BOOT and boot them up it boots up a Linux system running on the stick and using the PC as a peripheral mostly. The Linux on the stick lets you read/write the PC's hard disk, keyboard, mouse, and screen. It comes with a bunch of tools including a browser and a version of Lua all running on the computer controlling your PC, the USB computer on a stick.
The whole idea seemed similar to John Harbold's presentation on porting gforth to ECOS under a Linux from a USB flash stick. His presentation was about stuff I know next to nothing about. I hadn't tried any of these Linux Computers on a stick as I had been very busy recently. But I brought a box of them into the FIG meeting and gave them away to people who wanted to play with them. Maybe someone will give a report on what they did with them. Maybe someone will port gForth or some other Forth.
I also wanted to see if you could bypass the Windows security, short of encryped files on a PC with USB Boot. Since the idea is that when you boot in Linux on the stick the hard disk on the PC is just a peripheral to your system and you don't have to go through any password security to boot Windows on the machine. So it might be useful to rescue PCs with health problems or with forgotten passwords. Some people know a lot about Windows and Linux and might make good use of these $1.99 Linux computers.
I also did a very fast review of benchmarks I had done to test the performance of Modern Forth Compilers. I explained what I had tested and why and showed the results very quickly. There were some questions about why the results looked like they did.
I said that 353 posts to usenet thread about dictionary hashing options in Forth showed me that many people were interested in how Forth compiler performance could be improved. The reason that so many of the popular modern Forth compilers used hash functions in dictionary searches was to improve their performance.
Before I began a very brief presentation on benchmarking some modern Forth compilers I said,"First let me say that there is not just one way of doing Forth properly. For instance in Dr. Ting's presentation today on eForth for his custom 32-bit processor it is very hard for me to picture any more efficient way to make all the processors he has and test and debug both new hardware and software than the way he described of using eForth.
I said I had been told that modern Forth compilers no longer used the forty year old Forth compiler loop. I will still have to ask again about that on usenet since I still think that most still do use that forty year old loop. I know colorforth and aha don't but that's not most modern Forth compilers.
The loop I was talking about is the one described on page 28 of the Forth Programmer's Handbook. That pages shows the whole classic Interpret/Compile loop used for the last forty years by most Forth and I had been talking about its compile loop in compile mode.
Parse source for the next Forth word.
Search the dictionary for that word.
If found check if it is immediate.
If immediate execute it.
If not-immediate compile it.
If not found in the dictionary try to interpret it as a number in the current number base.
If it is a number compile it as a literal.
If it not a number it is an error.
I am pretty sure that that is still how most Forth compilers work. I realize that the phrase "compile it" has different technical meanings depending on the type of threading or code optimizer the compiler uses. Most modern Forth use subrouinte threading with inlined native code and other native code optimzation but we still use the term compile a Forth word and even have an ANS word to make the meaning portable COMPILE, (compile-comma).
I was told that I was out-of-touch with Modern Forth compilers because I questioned that all compiles take place before you can take your finger off the return key, meet some new 1/4-second compile rule, or are all *instantaneous* as my experience is that they are not like that. Maybe if you are just still doing 1980 sized applications in Forth on your 2010 PC you find your compiles are faster than mine. But to me whatever the term Modern Forth is suppose to mean it should mean something today other than still compiling nothing larger than what we did on the Apple II in 1980.
To see just how out-of-touch I ran some benchmarks against a dozen Forth that I have seen advocated on usenet in the recent past. I downloaded them from the Internet, installed them, ran a few benchmarks, and put the results on a web page.
The people at SVFIG agreed that because Forth applications may make extensive use of the Forth compiler in that compiler performance itself was important there. The 353 usenet posts to the thread "What are my options for dictionary hashing?" in comp.lang.forth this month showed how many people there are concerned about getting good compiler dictionary search performance and fast compilation.
I was pleased to see that when I installed a version of Win32Forth on my machine that it had a Forth kernel compile the rest of the Windows Forth system. I had no expectations that its compilation was going to *instantaneous* as claimed for some Forth systems. Nor did I expect it to meet the new mythical 1/4-second compile time rule claimed for some Forth systems. It wasn't and didn't.
At least in that sense I wasn't too out-of-touch with modern Forth compilers as has been said on usenet. People often claim that Forth compilers are small compared to many other things so compiling one should be a lot faster than a serious modern application. On my 2GHz PC it only took 16 seconds.
You have to very slow hands to not be able to get your finger off the Enter key before the compiler is finished as is claimed for other Forth systems. 16 seconds may not be a long time to compile a fairly small and modest application but it surely is not instantaneous, faster than a single keystroke, or even close to the mythical 1/4-second compile rule. In fact it was sort of what I was expecting given how long it took ten years ago.
Maybe I was a little out-of-touch with modern Forth compilers and their performance at what they do. I wasn't expecting all the results I got. Some things were faster than I expected and some were slower.
I wasn't too surprised that the portable Forth written in "C" was one of the slowest but not the slowest thing I tested. I was a bit surprised that some of the Forth I tested and see advocated so often were a hundred or a thousand times slower than others.
I only downloaded, installed, and benchmarked systems I had seen being advocated on usenet within the recent past. I wanted to be objective and not make any value judgements before or durring testing. But I was only willing to spend an hour or so downloading and installing each system. I included eleven systems in the less demanding tests.
If your Forth system is there and I was not able to download it and get anything to run on it please forgive me. If your Forth system made it into the test then good for you. If you are not happy with the results your Forth system got in the benchmarks then it is up to you to make it better and it is not my fault. All I did was look, measure, and report.
One result of all this was that it made me want to rethink aha and work on an aha 2. I didn't include aha in the main benchmarks because they were all run on the PC I am using now. It has a 2GHz AMD Turion64 processor and aha just runs on F21 with 7 to 25 MHz DRAM and 50MHz SRAM so it isn't really fair to make it run in a race against the 2GHz class of machine. I did include it anyway in a couple of extra lists to show that the approach does have promise for improving compiler performance.
For the last decade the modern PC Forth I have used at work are colorforth and SwiftForth from Forth Inc. and I have used them for different purposes so I have never bothered to do any performance comparisons even on those. I wrote the original VentureForth system for target compiling to IntellaSys chips from a PC and it was run under SwiftForth, gForth, and VFX Forth but was not a compiler for the PC itself. I worked with aha but it was only for the F21.
I suppose I had listened to some estimates that people in comp.lang.forth had given for the various PC Forth system's comparative performance levels but had not ever tested anything or even seen any actual tests that anyone else had ever made. And it turns out that I was a little out-of-touch with the performance of Modern Forth Compilers for my PC. My guess is that you probably are too.
You were not as out-of-touch as me if you can look at the benchmark results and say, "That is exactly what I would have expected." All I could say was that it was sort of what I expected. The exact results and order of the participants on all three tests did surprise me.
I was asked how aha achieved 0.000101 nanoseconds per ASCII character in the comment character per second compile test. I explained that the aha editor puts a tag on comments like other variations of colorforth but does use the Shannon-encoded characters like Chuck's Pentium colorforth. I explained that ANS demoted the use of counted strings because they wanted to reduce conflicts between code that uses a count and address on the stack and code that uses an address that points to the count of a counted string. I explained that I promoted counted everything, not just strings, in aha and the forthlets designed for VentureForth. The counting happens in the editor where it should.
In the big comment benchmark all aha had to do was read the comment tag from the DRAM source, execute a few instructions in fast SRAM to know it is a counted comment. Then it just reads the count, adds it the pointer and it past the big comment field in 202ns regardless of how many characters there are up to the limit of the memory size of the computer. I had only packed two ASCII characters per word so advancing the pointer past one million words of comments was two million characters in 202ns or 0.000101ns per ASCII character. People who didn't with CAD were not used to using picoseconds or femtoseconds. I said, "Yes that's 101 femtoseconds per ASCII character.
Aha does lots of stuff like that. It doesn't work like Forth that follow the forty year old compile loop described in Elizabeth Rather's book. Being able to compile Forth words to executable object code at a maximum rate of about 250 million source words per second on a $1 chip is also a little hard for people who haven't studied it or understand that at times compiling four source words into four executable words in memory takes one memory store.
You might find the rational for the tests and the results of the Modern Forth Compiler Benchmark tests interesting. The web page is Modern Forth Compiler Bencharks.
this is a test this is a test I saw a link to a very nice toy recently. Its related to my life outside of Forth and programming.
There are two web pages about it in French with some wonderful pictures of it and some bigger more expensive toys. If you don't speak French you can get the pages translated using the web.
I had some trouble distinguishing it from the full sized version in some of the photographs. You really have to look closely.
You can see more great photos and read about it at Les Grands Planeurs Rc and Stemme S10-VT de Grard BON...
Some related pages include Martin Hellman's Links to Soaring Photos, a very nice YouTube video of Garret Willat from Sky Sailing in Soutern California, and a great story about an adventure of the late Thierry Thys Spine of the Americas soaring adventure of a lifetime
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Early this month I was directed to check out a blog entry about Yossi Kreinin's experiences with Forth. I found it interesting.
My-history-with-forth-stack-machines on the blog "Proper Fixation (a substitute for anaesthesia)"
I found it quoted me in several sections. The first two quotes I was happy with. Yes I have said that there is a difference between pros and Joes. There is difference. Joes usually want to play and results don't matter much. Joes may be happy to show others just how bad their code is.
Joes may want to learn or just have fun and are likely to do that no matter what they do. Often they want to write their own Forth but have no real reason to do so, no plans for what to do with it, nor any use for it in the future. Pros usually have a goal of doing something that has never been done before and they try to do the best job they can. Their job itself is likely to depend on how good of a job they do.
I tend to have a lot of opinions, more than I am comfortable with at times so I like to try to consider other pointes of view. But one of the things I have trouble understanding is when people say that they want to do Forth and then sit down to write code in "C" or something other than Forth instead. When then finish writing code in "C" they may feel that they have been doing Forth and show other "C" programmers how Forth is about writing code in "C".
What is Forth? Among other things it is compiler. I ran some benchmarks recently on a number of popular modern Forth compilers on my PC. The Forth mentioned in the article was one of them, pForth. I think the "p" is for "portable" like another older Forth in "C", PFE the Portable Forth Environment. (maybe instead the letter P in pForth stands for Paul.)
Forth has always been the most portable and easy to port language going back to the days when it was almost always the first language implemented on every new computer design. But here the term is being used in the sense that many "C" programmers think that "C" defines portability when they focus on the narrow range of machines where "C" is used. By numbers most computers are too small for "C" to make sense. On some machines "C" does offer some degree of portability.
But I wince a bit when I see people promoting a Forth written in "C" when the performance of the system is only about one percent of the performance of Forth written in Forth. Chuck Moore has said many times that good Forth code should be about one hundred times smaller than "C" code. That upsets many "C" programmers. I found it interesting that in every benchmark I had recently done that pForth was almost exactly one hundred times slower than the Forth I use.
We already know that many "C" programmers really don't like Forth at all and many Forth programmers don't like "C" at all. As Chuck always said when you show people Forth a quarter will love it, a quarter will hate it, and half will be indifferent. The ones who hate Forth often have experience with things like "C". Forth and "C" are sort of natural enemies because compete for jobs on the larger embedded systems.
I have even heard people say that they like Forth because it is good as a simple debugger to help them debug their buggy "C" code. While true it is usually a statement that the person only likes 1% of Forth but doesn't know, denies, or doesn't think much of the rest of it. If that is the only good thing they can say about it then I think they hate Forth. It makes me think of a quotation.
" There's nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view that I hold dear." Daniel Dennett
When someone evaluates Forth by looking at something written in "C" because the author knew "C" instead of Forth I wince. When they then show it to others I wince again. I think they are not giving Forth a fair chance at all.
If you show them an awful "C" compiler written in Forth they will tell you it is because Forth is awful. If you show them an awful Forth written in "C" they will tell you it is because Forth is awful. And many people take the 1% performance Forth stuff seriously.
Here we have someone who jumps into Forth, right into the "C", gives it a brief look and writes that he "sort of understood it." Then he showed "C" code. He sort of got it too. That sort of thing usully takes about fifteen minutes.
He then quotes my comments about how professional Forth programmers and hobbiest who write Forth systems for fun don't have much in common. He seemed to get my point too that dead frogs stink.
But he says, "Ouch. Quite an assault not just on a fraction of a particular community, but on language geeks in general."
I hardly considered asking people to consider the nature of what they want to do in the name of Forth an assault. I have written things that were an assault on language geeks in general but that was hardly it. I say that it is not just language geeks but modern society as a whole where the emphasis on language has seriously diminished people's other mental and physical abilities. There are a lot of things that are very much like texting while driving. I just hope it doesn't kill you, your friends, or your family.
I don't mind people using 1% performance Forth, of using 1% Forth, or using Forth only 1% of the time. I only object when they tell others that it is the best Forth can do.
I have written a lot on my history of working with Chuck Moore on the design and programming of a half dozen generations of Forth hardware and a hundred different approaches to Forth software. Look at Chuck's history. He invented Forth and then learned what worked and what didn't by using it exclusively for programming for twenty years. After mastering Forth he declared that, "The software problem is solved." He felt that the problem that remained was that hardware was still inefficient and could be difficult to program. So he set out to take Forth beyond just software into hardware design. He wanted hardware to be Forth software also.
Only after twenty years of full time practice and of mastering Forth software was he prepared to attack the problem of designing hardware in software. In his first two efforts he didn't do it in Forth softwre but used the same conventional tools other programmers used. He was not happy with the ugly, inefficient, difficult to use, black box CAD software that had to be used. He wanted control and to understand everything he was doing. He wanted source to all the tools.
It didn't happen overnight. It was quite a problem to solve. The early days when the National Security Agency released the CMOS component library description to the public. when Chuck was learning from it, and when Dr. Ting wrote the Forth VLSI Hacker's Toolkit were very intersting times indeed.
Most hardware experts denied any knowledge of what their CAD software was actually doing beneith the hood. They had the same attitude as many programmers have, their tools are smarter than they are and they just have to blindly trust in them because there is no hope of them every understanding what they are actually doing.
When Chuck found CAD experts and people who had written CAD code they would almost always say that they could answer questions about 1% of anything because that was the most they knew. The other 99% was a black box that they had to blindly trust. Forth programmers prefer understanding to black boxes and have learned not to rely on blind trust.
After each few years and each generation of new Forth chip designs Forth software evolved too. To quote Marshal McLuhan, "It is a loop. We make out tools and then our tools make us."
But seriously, how can someone design a good Forth CPU without first having written lots of applications in Forth, and profiled their intended applications to know what this processor is going to need to do? Since a person can sort of get Forth in fifteen minutes they can jump into this loop wherever they want but will they have unrealist expectations?
Learning most things requires work step by step, stage by stage under the guidance of good teacher or better yet a master of the art. When people don't do that they tend to just perfect their bad habits. If they don't do their homework in the first place to get a strong foundation then they are likely to be building on soft sand.
The author of the blog wrote, "I defined the instruction set in a couple of hours."
I had ten years of experience programming in Forth and then I spent five more years working with Chuck testing software against possible design variations before we arrived at the F21 instruction set. Maybe I am just slow or Yossi is just that much smarter than I to get his results so fast. This chip's instruction set was designed in a couple of hours by someone with no previous background in Forth programming? He even admitted that he didn't even bother with homework like reading the excellent but twenty three year old book textbook on the subject by Dr. Koopman, "Stack Computers: the new Wave."
The author says he assumes that knowledgable people would have sneered at his machine. I wouldn't have had it been done as a learning project by a ten year old who had done his homework. But this was suppose to be professional quality Forth work. He was being paid. People were counting on him to do a good job and he jumped in with no experience, doing no homework, and designed the instruction set in a couple of hours?
Next the author showed his ability at writing in Forth by leaving Forth behind from the start. He wrote, "The first thing I did was write a Forth cross-compiler for the machine - a 700-line C++ file (and for reasons unknown, the slowest-compiling C++ code that I had ever seen)."
He didn't just leave Forth behind. He says he intentionally left out all the examples that drove him to drove him to Forth in the first place. He said he had no WORD, no COMPILE, no IMMEDIATE, no CREATE/DOES>, no nothing. He did just colon definitions, RPN syntax, and flow control words. One might think he was telling a joke not describing professional software development.
Then I looked at some of the Forth code he had written. Again I winced as it looked like someone who sort of got a percent or two of Forth.
Programmers without experience in Forth often have trouble with the whole notion of stack code at first. They are told that after a while it becomes like riding a bicycle, it is reflex and you keep your balance unconsciously while thinking about the problem being solved. They are told that it is quite natural and easy to do. This code looked more to me like a drunken sailor's first attempt to ride a unicycle blindfolded.
He quotes Chuck as saying that stacks are not popular where Chuck added that he didn't understand why they were not more popular.
Years ago I offered Chuck an explanation for that. I said, "Stacks are about the worst thing in "C" code. Their stacks are complex structures in memory. They are slower than memory itself. They are the source of all sorts of errors. They overflow. They underflow. They throw errors. They are a weak spot that malicious software and and viruses attack. They are completely different than stacks in Forth. When other programmers hear the term stack they think of the worst thing in the language they know."
I added, "It is easy to understand why what they call stacks in other languages are not popular and why Forth sounds so bad to them. To you stacks have come to mean something simple, fast, elegant and easy to program. You think of a stack as not being able to overflow, not being able to underflow, not being able to throw any errors. You think of stack as being many times faster than memory let alone stacks in memory! You think of stacks as faster than general purpose registers. You think of stacks as a mechanism to compress programs."
Look at F21 as an example. It has 2ns stack access and compare that to its 40ns to 140ns access to DRAM or its 18ns access to SRAM. We think of stacks as being smaller, cheaper, and faster than general purpose registers because that's what they are in our designs.
Consider how different stacks are in Forth and "C" by noting that the MuP21 had a total of ten cells in its two stacks. Chuck wrote that it was about the minimal size to allow one to write good Forth code. Compare that to the bug report I found in Bugzilla for GCC bugs. "C" programmers complained that there was bug in their compiler when you specified stack frames larger than 4 gigabytes!
It is hard to imagine a bigger difference in meaning for the same term, stack, than in the minds of those two types of programmers.
Then as if he wanted to prove Chuck's point the author said just the opposite thing as Chuck. He wondered why stacks were so popular at all.
Based on these exactly backwards ideas about Forth the author said that he began to miss a "C" compiler. Is there any wonder why?
He asked, "What does this say about Forth? Not much except that it isn't for me."
My answer to that question would be that it shows that no one likes Forth done in the worst possible way except programmers out to prove how bad it can be.
But in a sense he did seem to get a little of the problem he had. He wrote that a good Forth programmer would probably do everything differently. Indeed.
He quotes me again describing how Forth uses factoring of a problem to simplify it. In the example Chuck explained how other people use SPICE equations to solve three simultaneous differential equations in floating point to get a result to five decimal places that is actually only accurate to about 50% while Chuck carefully scaled his integer computation to get results that are actually accurate to several decimal places and by just doing a couple shifts and adds. But the author didn't get the lesson of fractional integer math at all.
When Chuck showed this line of code to someone he was asked how long it took him to write that line of code. He replied, "About fifteen years." He meant of course that only by making it better and better over and over again for fifteen years did it get to the point that it was as good as it was.
The blog author seemed to understand that he was really not doing quite the same thing as Chuck at all. He wrote, "This is Forth. Seriously. Forth is not the language. He wasn't as blind as many language geeks in that regard. He knew more than those who insist Forth is nothing more than a language syntax.
Then I found something where he quoted me again but didn't get my idea at all. I think he completely misrepresented what I had said. I had heard it before from Forth haters.
He said that according to Jeff Fox doing everything in-house was essentially a precondition to "doing Forth" at all.
What I have actually said is that if you are doing some percent of your work in something other than Forth then you are not spending that time doing Forth. Choosing to use Forth is a precondition to doing Forth.
We have heard all these same arguments before. "C" stacks are terrible so because Forth uses stacks it must be terrible. They can prove Forth is bad by showing us their Forth code. They would only consider Forth when it is in fact a "C" program that runs at 1% of the speed of Forth in Forth. They can write "C" programs in Forth but they are not as good as their "C" programs in "C". When they try (what they call) Forth they miss their "C" compiler.
I don't know why they say they miss their "C" compiler at all when they cling to it like a teddy-bear while claiming to be evaluting Forth. We have heard all that before. I have heard it many times. And I realize that these are the things that "C" programmers tell each other about Forth so they can sleep at night.
I tell the story about when Chuck gave his first public presentation on my chip, the F21. I was so happy that Chuck only talked about what he had done. Not once did he mention Intel, other CAD software or "C", not once! So when he finished I asked I guy I had never seen before what he thought of the presentation and he told me.
He said, "I hated it! He called me an idiot for using "C" all my life."
It is amazing how people people react when hear a factual account of what someone did with Forth. They questions assumptions they made in the past and often get very upset.
In comments and dialogs with other people at the end of the essay Yossi Kreinin said, "This is one of the pitfalls of integers - that they don't represent numbers less than one."
That's a perfect example of someone who has not yet grasped the basics of Forth programming or done any homework on its history. Scaled fractional integer math has always been one of Forth's strong points. He had even previously quoted an example of it and not realized it.
Chuck would often find himself at the opposite end of the computing philosphy spectrum from one well known "C" expert when Chuck started attending Silicon Valley Forth Interest Group Meetings. Chuck would be giving a presentation about his design work on small chips for Forth and say something like, "The best way to do this addition is with a very small adder that uses ripple carry. It is slower for large numbers than a bigger and more complex adder that would make the chip bigger and more expensive and power hungry. For small numbers the smaller adder is faster and thus you have the freedom to do add small numbers faster when you want to and all you have to do is add a nop before the add when you want to add large numbers. It is the best solution for this problem because it only adds a few dozen transistors to the design, lets the code run faster, and offers you more freedom."
Then Chuck would be interrupted by someone shouting, "The best way to do an add is to let the hardware convert the integers into floating point, do a floating point addition, then convert the numbers back to interger for you!"
The "best solution" to put an adder on a chip designed to cost a few cents and draw a few milliwatts is to add a few hundred million transistors so it will work like a Pentium? Someone needs to interrupt Chuck's presentations on the way small Forth chips are designed to tell him that?
It seems that a lot of programmers just don't get what Forth is all about or what small Forth chips are about. Desktop programmers today are so much the mainframe programmers when microprocessors were invented They don't undertand what the terms used in Forth mean because they assume that everything must be like "C" and on hardware designed to run their "C" code.
I found Yossi's blog to be an excellent example of many of the points I have made many times. I found it quite interesting read. Still I am sure my take on it is quite different than what most people will think of it.
01/22/10 Green Array Chips releases colorforth (native PC or Windows based) tools for its new GA4 and GA144 chips. Green Array Chips just released a couple versions of colorforth. These use the compression mechanism and have new color utilities and some of the code from okad2. One release contains the RAM/ROM/packet-compiler, software simulator, and IDE (Interactive Development Environment) for GA4 and the other for GA144. There is email help to get questions answered. I know some people have been waiting for a new colorforth release and others have been waiting for more information on the latest parallel Forth chips. The compilers and simulators and ide for the new chips should satisfy some people for a while. The last time I saw Chuck I mentioned that on my previous visit I had read a couple of chapters from a book I found on his bookshelf. The book was about Einstein and the chapter I read was about a dream that Einstein had that led him down the path toward General Relativity. I told Chuck that I had thought about the account of this dream and saw a parallel. In Einstein's dream he saw a herd of cows in a pasture where a farmer had installed an electric fence. He observed the cows as a group move up to the fence, touch it, get shocked, and all jump into the air at the same time. A little later in Einstein's dream he meets up with the farmer and mentions the cows and the electric fence. The farmer says that he just saw the herd of cows brush up against the fence and get shocked and one after another jump into the air in sequence. Einstein was puzzled by this in his dream because he had seen all the cows jump at once and he didn't want to argue with the farmer about the behavior of his cows. Later Einstein reasoned that from his position the electricity in the fence and the image of each cow being shocked was moving towards him at the same speed. Thus the image of all of the cows, each jumping at the same time was what he saw. The electricity was going one way and the image the other way for the farmer. He saw the same event that Einstein had seen as a sequence of jumping cows with the distance between the cows determining the electricity and light flight time between each witnessed cow jumping event. I said to Chuck, "This makes me think of how I have seen computing for a long time and how most other people see it. I have been watching all the cows all jump at once for a long time. I have said for decades that almost everything is "embarrasingly parallel." Most other people think cows always jump in sequence, that's all they have ever seen!" Many people are struggling with learning to think about programming for parallel hardware. Many of them have always insisted that most problems are really sequential anyway because that's the only kind of computing that they have ever seen from their end of the fence. An interesting subject in parallel processing is superlinear speedup. Some people dismiss superlinear speedup as something only due to increased total memory cache and in some cases it is. But cache is only one of many resources that does not scale linearly when parallel hardware is balanced. All resources are limited, but some things are limited to one per processor and those thing scale very linearly in steps of one. One might say that we have a one word instruction cache in the G18 core. It explains much of the superlinear speedup we see when we split many things out into parallel processes. There are other details. We can't poll a pin in a loop as fast as we can restart and r/w instruction on a pin change. A polling loop introduces a loop jitter into the timing about the size of two loops. A wake-up circuit is a hundred times faster than an event poll loop or interupt. If a processor has to poll multiple pins one expects superlinear slowdown. If multiple processors are used instead to poll one event each things scale in a linear fashion for a while. But one can use the much faster synchronization mechanism on G18 core and get superlinear speedup. It is not just that servicing two or three events will be two or three times slower than servicing one event in a polled loop. When we limit each processor to a single event we can get it to react a hundred times faster than a processor polling a single event in a loop. Some things, like using core as wire, reduce efficiency as measured by number of core. It often makes more sense to do analysis based on power usage or cost than the number of core required. Other core are not as cheap or low power as these tiny core. To get the highest speed the results are not superlinear since some core sleep a lot and only provided limited speed-up services to a neighbor. An instrucion offered to a neighbor can be executed slightly faster by that neighbor than an instruction from its own local RAM or ROM. To get the maximum speed from these little core things have to be split into very small pieces. When the pin I/O or neighbor I/O routing hardware is used parts of programs can be sped up quite dramatically. And using this mechanism allows for some superlinear speedup within a range and in applications with well matched requirements.
12/10/09 Green Array Chips Chips I returned recently from a meeting at Green Array Chips. I had forgotten how much fun it is to be around a group of such talented and creative people. When we were not dealing with plans, colorforth software, or new hardware we talked about other things. At one point I related a story to Chuck about how I had thought about a story I had read in a book on his shelf about how a dream about cows had led Albert Einstein to the theory of relativity was a story that applied to parallel programming. One evening I asked the group at dinner if anyone could explain Bell's Inequality to me. It was a problem that I had been chewing on for a number of years without much digestion and I felt I really started to get a feel for it. I can't explain my understanding of it to a six year old yet but I am working on it. At one point I was talking about the variety of BASIC, JAVA, Python and Forth computer stamps. I mentioned a BASIC stamp programmed in Forth at AMResearch. Charlie told me that he was the person who actually did the programming on that project. He didn't correct the facts I offered when I mentioned the project but I hope I can convince him to talk about that old project at SVFIG sometime. I saw him demonstrate the new target software simulator for OKAD II. Since Green Array Chips plans to release a new colorforth with target compiler, target software simulator, and Interactive Debugger Interface for running interactive Forth environment between colorforth on a PC and real Green Array Chips hardware I think he should give a talk and demo of the new colorforth softsim packages for the Silicon Valley Forth Interest Group. With new GA4 in 8 pin and 12 pin packages, and with the new GA144 back from fab and ready to have new circuits tested and measured and some potential new projects in the works things are pretty exciting at Green Array Chips. There was talk about options and about ways to teach OKAD II and full custom VLSI chip design to secondary school students. There would be much to be worked out but the project does interest me a lot. It will interesting to see what projects work out for 2010.
11/22/09 Silicon Valley Forth Interest Group Forth Day 2009 Plus One The Silicon Valley Forth Interest Group's Forth Day took place yesterday at Stanford and was enjoyed by about the same number of people as last year. It closely followed the agenda currently listed at the forth.org website which is pretty self-explanatory. SVFIG Forth Day 2009 Agenda SVFIG Forth Day 2009 Photos (at Forth.org) There was old stuff, new stuff, evolutionary stuff, and some innovative reports. Video were made and photos taken that will be posted by SVFIG just like last year. There was lots of interesting stuff. I won't comment on it all but am willing to answer a few questions if I can. Dr. Ting had an interesting approach to eForth in C. The report on details of the Forth Foundation Library should be of interest to a lot of c.l.f readers with opinions about library projects as it seems to be pretty mature at this point. Leon did a step-by-step demonstration of how to start a project, compile a system on a chip onto an FPGA with a soft processor core, target compile an application using Swift-X and get it all running very quickly while answering questions and making it all look easy. IntellaSys and Green Arrays had quite a few people attending and a few presenting. I already knew quite a bit about the hearing enhancement project but it was very nice to get a report and hear an actual hearing aid device working. I very much enjoyed Michael's presentation. The algorithms used in this hearding aid are quite sophisticated and the previous prototype which used TI DSP chips was nearly the size of a laptop. I was impressed by how much the size of the application had been reduced in the Forth version for S40. Since only a small fraction of processing power of the S40 is used in the application so much of the device doesn't consume power most of the time and battery life can be maximized. I would live to have one of the devices to play with to host s40 based interacive voice based apps in an ear bud. I talked about the Interactive Development Environment for target chips in colorforth and reviewed a version of the PWM Serial boot packet and/or neighbor boot routine from a GA4 ROM that I had presented earlier in the year to a small audience. I answered the question I had posed for the reader about the little optimization one could do on the routine I had shown. I talked a little about blue words and the design of the target compiler and IDE in colorforth. I talked about the blog entry I had made about optimizing your structures in Forth and got a few nods from Chuck for comments about the example code. I said I wanted to show more than what was normally show to beginners when the subject comes up. My finger is pointing to the GA4 chip which is both talking to the colorforth IDE on an asynchronous serial connection and being booted by the GA32 in the socketed blue board on the right which is also talking to the colorforth IDE over a USB/synchronous serial connection. There is also a small 1.8V to rs232 converter board above the GA4 board. The GA32 is sending a PWM Serial boot packet using XMIT routine at 31MBPS to run test code on the GA4. I pointed out that when one sets up a path to a target node in the colorforth IDE to interactively talk to it as if it were running a Forth interpreter with a command line that it had to be the smallest such Forth system as it uses the minimal amount of RAM and ROM. The minimum RAM/ROM footprint being zero. Chuck showed colorforth code for the Haypress Creek board and using the IDE showed several small applications using a small amount of the resources on the board to generate video and display several clocks in one of three fonts. Greg announced that they would soon be releasing several versions of colorforth with the compressed code, blue and grey words, multiple fonts, watermarks, documentation, and with a target compiler and software simulator for each of the GA4, GA32, and GA144 chips. All other OKAD application programs and the chip designs themselves will of course be stripped from these public colorforth releases. I had wanted to do an interpretive reading of John Gillespie Magee's poem High Flight but there really wasn't time. Chuck commented in his time that he had selected some poems at his website that were meaninful to him.
11/19/09 Silicon Valley Forth Interest Group Forth Day 2009 Minus Two The annual Forth Day in Silicon Valley is comming up this Saturday and I have offered to give a short talk (well short for me, I can still talk your ears off if given the chance). Since I haven't been going down to Silicon Valley on weekdays like I had been doing for a few years to work with interesting people at IntellaSys I look forward to seeing some of them at the Silicon Valley Forth Day get together. Chuck had a party up at his home in the Sierra last month and it was a fun visit. I said I would review some of the blog entries I made this year, and follow up a bit on the presentation I did at SVFIG earlier this year. I will show the Interactive Development Environment for target Green Arrays chips in colorforth. I am using the same IntellaSys board for the GA32 testing as I use with the SEA40. The board has a socket and all the 32 and 40 core designs have been put into the same package so they all work on the development board with the ZIF socket. All it needs is a USB cable to the PC and ventureForth or colorforth will recognize the board and allow target Forth development with incremental compilation. I also have a board with a GA4 that uses an asynchronous interface and is connected to a rs232 converter board. That one can be used with the tower I have that runs colorforth native and has a serial port or I can use it on a windows PC using a USB to serial card. Using colorforth windows hosted I can run two instances of colorforth in different windows. One can be setup to talk to the IDE on the USB bus to the GA32. I could show this setup and show how I used the PWM serial output on the GA32 to boot code on a GA4 while running the IDE to the GA4 in a different window. I can run the tests with either a direct connect between the GA32 and GA4 boards or with a capacitive connect. The only problem is that the GA4 board I have needs a small bench power supply and so isn't as portable as the GA32 board and hauling in a couple of boards and a bench power supply is one more thing to setup for a a demo. I probably will just show a GA32 talking to colorforth. As is often the case this is a year when there are some things we can freely talk about and some things that we can't. Some of the most interesting stuff as always is quite technical but isn't public so it isn't for Forth Day. But what we do with or have learned about the software is fair game as always. I talked about this IDE to SVFIG earlier this year and made a blog entry about it 10/17/09 Green Arrays GA4 Boot Software Simplified Again. But this time I will show the IDE talking to the hardware. I know that there is some debate about what constitutes a minimal Forth system, or a Forth system at all. The ability of the c18 design to execute an instruction stream of Forth opcodes on a real (not virtual) Forth machine removes much of the complexity of traditional Forth systems and reduces the amount of ROM and RAM needed to execute Forth programs. And the minimum is zero. A target c18 processor may have booted to ROM code or it may have booted to the address of multiple shared registers with other c18. In the later case zero words of RAM or ROM or needed on that processor as a neighbor or group of processors can feed it a sequence of Forth code to execute. Originally these chips all booted to ROM and executed some code sequence to be able execute incoming Forth code but over the years the design evolved so that most c18 boot to an RDLU multiport address and go to sleep waiting for Forth code without ever executing any ROM or RAM. These computers take about a nanosecond from powerup to get to a state ready to run incoming Forth programs with a delay of a couple of hundred picoseconds, they run Forth up to 700 million Forth opcodes per second, they draw only a few mw per billions of Forth opcodes per second, have high speed high analog hardware on board, scale in arrays, use about $.01 worth of silicon each, and only need simple Forth tools. The colorforth target IDE uses this to setup paths from the place on a chip where it connects to a target chip to other c18 on that chip. One can change paths and talk to different c18 in the grid at different times. The IDE lets one look at the stack and registers, put literals on the stack, fetch and store memory or registers, dump memory, or load and execute programs on any c18. It provides an interactive Forth user interface running in colorforth on the PC and possibly in multiple c18 nodes acting as temporary message pumps connecting the user at the colorforth console to the interactive Forth user interface on any c18 in the network. I will try to keep the demo simple with just one target chip, GA32, and show how easy it is to turn an lcd on or off on the target board with an interactive command or load and run a test program written in coloforth. I will also talk a little about the design of the code itself. This is after all a group of people interested in Forth and sometimes Forth coding that will the audience. The point I will want to make is that it is MUCH simpler than your typical target Forth not just because the target has no primitive defintions or virtual machine definitions but also because of the way the target compiler and IDE work in colorforth. Some things are done in a way that is very different than that used in almost all ANS Forth target compiling or meta compiling systems, and much simpler. The wordlist problem issues are simply avoided. The word DUP exists as a colorforth macro specifying a colorforth 32-bit stack operation and as a target c18 Forth word specifying a target 5-bit opcode for the 18-bit wide stack in the target compiler or as an interactive command in the target IDE. Color specifies type of use. There is a conflict that is not resolved. The problem that other people address with wordlists is simply avoided. The code is either colorforth code or target code or IDE code at any one time. There is no need to be able to jump between the three environments when using the IDE. Wordlists are not used to mix code in the three environments, things are simply defined in the order needed. When things are simply compiled from source in a programmer specified order many problems are avoided. I'll try to give some of my time to the guys who have made internal changes to colorforth this year. Or perhaps I will just ask them to list the various internal changes. But I would like to see they guys talk about the changes to color tokens, to the editor, the new fonts, the new Green Arrays Softsim application that might get released to the public, the IDE and documentation, and possible plans to make a new colorforth release to the public. Forth day might be a good place to discuss ideas about future changes to colorforth. I may explore that a bit too and see what people think before I do my presentation. I made a trip to Austria in 2007 to work with the team developing the hearing enchancement project for IntellaSys. It is a fascination project. I followed up with a visit with my old friend Soeren Tiedemann in Berlin. He showed me a really great time. One thing I found remarkable was that every morning that I was in Austria or Germany there was at least one morning show from a gliderport somewhere. Rarely does TV show people flying in sailplanes here in the US. The hearing enhancement project moved to the US for porting to IntellaSys technology and was the only project that continued after most everyone working for IntellaSys got laid off back in January of this year. Dr. Montvelishsky stayed on to work on the hearing enhancement project and will be giving an update at Forth Day that I look forward to with great anticipation. As the original author of ventureForth I look forward to seeing what Dennis Ruffer has done with front end. The idea was that we were trying to enable other people to do that sort of thing and it will be interesting to see him demonstrate what he has done with it. I expect to be educated by John Rible's presentation on his new double square root code. And as always I look forward to seeing Chuck give his presentation as he is always entertaining. If I left your presentation out don't be offended I am sure I will enjoy it and will write something about it. It is wonderful to see the technical success with cad, circuit design, chip design, packaging, layout, and system programming. I hope at some point that there will be a project generating financial success so that the details of the technical success can be shared with more people. If you like Forth because it is simple and easy or exceedingly productive then this is good Forth stuff. If you prefer stuff only on the most well troden paths then this probably isn't for you.
10/27/09 What's Wrong in Forth Programs? I followed a link near the end of my last blog entry to Chuck's page about good Forth being only 1% as big as typical C according to Chuck. I found the section of the page "What's wrong with C programs?" to be a gem of information about how Forth is suppose to be different than C. Chuck lists problems intrinsic to C and problems in C style. Let me review Chuck's comments in the context of Forth style. Chuck's comments will be in bold. What's wrong with C programs? * Some problems are intrinsic to the C language: o It has elaborate sytnax. Rules that are supposed to promote correctness, but merely create opportunity for error. Forth starts out with minimal syntax and you add syntax as needed. Syntax limits language and language limits thought. But some people use many more rules for spelling Forth words or more rules for formatting the layout of their code than needed. Rules are dogma. People who have high social dependency and or high latent inhibition will be compelled to fix this problem with Forth by legislating standards and expanding them. o It has considerable redundancy. This increases trivial errors that can be detected. And program size. Brevity is good. A shorter proof is a better proof. Shorter, clearer code has fewer bugs. o It's strongly typed, with a bewildering variety of types to keep straight. More errors. Typing is a crutch for crippled programmers. o As an infix language, it encourages nested parentheses. Sometimes to a ludicrous extent. They must be counted and balanced. Keep as much of it simple Forth as possible. The algorithms and the execution is postfix and it makes it easy when the source code has the same structure. The stack means fewer names and natural postfix notation. o It's never clear how efficiently source will be translated into machine language. Constructs are often chosen because the programmer knows they're efficient. Subroutine calls are expensive. Compilers must be simple and straightforward. You need to be smarter than your compiler. Chuck once questioned why people want complex optimizing compilers, "Because they want to write non-optimal code?" Learn to write optimal code and see in your minds eye what the compiler will do with it. Today students are taught that the processor is impossible to understand (who really understands everything about each model of just Pentium, or even one model?) and that the internals of the OS and compiler are too involved to concern an individual and that what is needed is to stay at an abstracted level of view and ignore all the bugs. The complexity of the processor and the compiler are a status symbol. People actually brag about how the compiler they use is much smarter than they are. This is not suppose to be the case in Forth. o Because of the elaborate compiler, object libraries must be maintained, distributed and linked. The only documentation usually addresses this (apparantly difficult) procedure. Yes, there is this notion that an elaborate optimizing compiler makes it possible to always use the same portable source code. Libraries are worse than syntax when it comes to limiting thought. It is a process of institutionalizing people's mistakes, the same ones fed to the cut and paste generation that does not even grasp the notion of plagerism. * Others are a matter of style: The points above are not just a matter of style, they are the principles from which the design of the language evolved. The Forth language is words. Stacks are needed to make simple words work. Words, stacks, and blocks isn't much but it is Forth. Forth simply isn't about elaborate restrictive syntax, complex rules, redundancy, restricted typing, complex compilers, and portable libraries. These things that aren't there in Forth for good reasons not because we need them. Not only is this some of what distinguishes Forth from C but from a Forth programmer's point of view these are the things Forth was designed to avoid and not the things that need to be added into Forth. According to Chuck Moore these are the things intrinsicly wrong with C that need to be right in Forth. It is easy to corrupt the Forth language design and try to make it more like C but it is really easy to just try to use C style inside of a system designed to be very different than C. What Chuck lists as style errors in C are certainly a good list of style errors to be avoided in Forth. o Code is scattered in a vast heirarchy of files. You can't find a definition unless you already know where it is. Files. That's about all that one needs to say. But Chuck says vast heirarchy and it is certainly true. I have seen Forth programs factored exactly like the C programs they were modeled after right down to the same factoring of source code into hundreds of files in dozens of nested directories that can't be navigated in a portable manner. This is after all the style promoted in the Forth Scientific Library design, much of which seems simply copied from C or Fortran source then expanded in the name of a style of portability found in C. Some promoters call it "good coding be damned style Forth" and others call it, "a shining example" of Standard Forth. Personally I think the term nightmare is more appropriate. It is what makes libraries the nightmare they are. Reason after reason compounded one upon another making each problem at its own layer an order of magnitude worse. Hundreds of files in dozens of directies for a single library component and a plan to put hundreds or thousands of these components into portable Forth libraries. This alone can make things hundreds of times more complex than with a Forth approach. I think it an excellent example of how complex one can make things. Show me the source code you need to list all the source code to a dozen applications each factored by someone else into hundreds of files and dozens of directories from the library. Can you write a word to display all the source to a dozen real applications in a few minutes and a couple of lines like other people do in Forth? I was thinking it would be fun at Forth day to show a two line definition word that lists all the contents of the system in this case compiler, OS extensions, editor, OKAD system and parts, circuit simulator, various design rule checks, chip layout, chip simulation, gds file translation, target compiler, chip descriptions, target ROM code, target testbed code, target RAM code for testing, tethered Interactive Development Envirnoment, a few other apps, and all the shadow screen documentation, and then run it and show everyone all the souce code to everything. o Code is indented to indicate nesting. As code is edited and processed, this cue is often lost or incorrect. This reminds me of a presentation to SVFIG by Wil Baden where he showed rigiorously spelled and visually laid out code and made the comment that the amount of indentation on each line was "correct." I asked what "correct" meant in that context and he replied that "Two characters is the correct amount |
Before there was Google, or Facebook, or YouTube, or even AOL, there was Tim.
Twenty-five years ago, on Aug. 6, 1991, someone asked a question on an internet forum. The response was the first public acknowledgement of the World Wide Web—the backbone on which all websites function, and the genesis of our modern internet culture and arguably the start of the digital communication revolution in which billions of people can now talk to each other, access any piece of information or order pretty much anything they want instantaneously.
The first website, which was literally a website explaining what a website was, went online in November 1992. It was created by Tim Berners-Lee, at the time a researcher at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research). But before the site went live, Berners-Lee brought up the project he was working on—hyperlinks, the technology that allows pieces of information to be linked to each other on the internet—on a Usenet page. Usenet was a pre-web forum when just a couple million people were on the internet; its archives have since been acquired by Google. If you want to find the first rumblings of the modern web online now, you have to trudge through some incompletely archived pages on Google Groups.
Berners-Lee was responding to a question someone asked about whether anyone knew anyone working on the concept of hyperlinks. As one of the people directly working on that exact topic he seemed perfectly situated to respond. Here’s what he said:
The WorldWideWeb (WWW) project aims to allow links to be made to any information anywhere. The address format includes an access method (=namespace), and for most name spaces a hostname and some sort of path. We have a prototype hypertext editor for the NeXT, and a browser for line mode terminals which runs on almost anything. These can access files either locally, NFS mounted, or via anonymous FTP. They can also go out using a simple protocol (HTTP) to a server which interprets some other data and returns equivalent hypertext files. For example, we have a server running on our mainframe (http://cernvm.cern.ch/FIND in WWW syntax) which makes all the CERN computer center documentation available. The HTTP protocol allows for a keyword search on an index, which generates a list of matching documents as annother virtual hypertext document. If you’re interested in using the code, mail me. It’s very prototype, but available by anonymous FTP from info.cern.ch. It’s copyright CERN but free distribution and use is not normally a problem. The NeXTstep editor can also browse news. If you are using it to read this, then click on this: <http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html> to find out more about the project. We haven’t put the news access into the line mode browser yet. We also have code for a hypertext server. You can use this to make files available (like anonymous FTP but faster because it only uses one connection). You can also hack it to take a hypertext address and generate a virtual hypertext document from any other data you have – database, live data etc. It’s just a question of generating plain text or SGML (ugh! but standard) mark-up on the fly. The browsers then parse it on the fly. The WWW project was started to allow high energy physicists to share data, news, and documentation. We are very interested in spreading the web to other areas, and having gateway servers for other data. Collaborators welcome! I’ll post a short summary as a separate article.
Other than dated references to things like the NeXT computer system (the computer and company Steve Jobs developed after getting booted from Apple in 1985 before returning in 1997) and calling the web the “WorldWideWeb” as one word, what’s interesting here is how Berners-Lee envisioned the web being used. He saw it as a place that academics could share information, rather than a place that reality TV celebrities could worry about what phone to get next, or where multibillion-dollar corporations could spring up to categorize and sell advertising against all of its content.
Berners-Lee followed up with a little more information on how hyperlinking would actually work:
The WWW project merges the techniques of information retrieval and hypertext to make an easy but powerful global information system. The project started with the philosophy that much academic information should be freely available to anyone. It aims to allow information sharing within internationally dispersed teams, and the dissemination of information by support groups. Reader view The WWW world consists of documents, and links. Indexes are special documents which, rather than being read, may be searched. The result of such a search is another (“virtual”) document containing links to the documents found. A simple protocol (“HTTP”) is used to allow a browser program to request a keyword search by a remote information server. The web contains documents in many formats. Those documents which are hypertext, (real or virtual) contain links to other documents, or places within documents. All documents, whether real, virtual or indexes, look similar to the reader and are contained within the same addressing scheme. To follow a link, a reader clicks with a mouse (or types in a number if he or she has no mouse). To search and index, a reader gives keywords (or other search criteria). These are the only operations necessary to access the entire world of data. Information provider view The WWW browsers can access many existing data systems via existing protocols (FTP, NNTP) or via HTTP and a gateway. In this way, the critical mass of data is quickly exceeded, and the increasing use of the system by readers and information suppliers encourage each other. Making a web is as simple as writing a few SGML files which point to your existing data. Making it public involves running the FTP or HTTP daemon, and making at least one link into your web from another. In fact, any file available by anonymous FTP can be immediately linked into a web. The very small start-up effort is designed to allow small contributions. At the other end of the scale, large information providers may provide an HTTP server with full text or keyword indexing. The WWW model gets over the frustrating incompatibilities of data format between suppliers and reader by allowing negotiation of format between a smart browser and a smart server. This should provide a basis for extension into multimedia, and allow those who share application standards to make full use of them across the web. This summary does not describe the many exciting possibilities opened up by the WWW project, such as efficient document caching. the reduction of redundant out-of-date copies, and the use of knowledge daemons. There is more information in the online project documentation, including some background on hypertext and many technical notes. Try it A prototype (very alpha test) simple line mode browser is currently available in source form from node info.cern.ch [currently 128.141.201.74] as /pub/WWW/WWWLineMode_0.9.tar.Z. Also available is a hypertext editor for the NeXT using the NeXTStep graphical user interface, and a skeleton server daemon. Documentation is readable using www (Plain text of the installation instructions is included in the tar file!). Document http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html is as good a place to start as any. Note these coordinates may change with later releases.
What started out as a way of connecting researchers, in much the same way that the internet itself started out as a way of connecting universities (and military facilities), has ballooned over the last 25 years into the most important communication tool since the Gutenberg press. Sadly, most scientific research papers are not freely available online, but at least I can easily tell you which type of cookie you are, or which fast-food chain best represents you.
So there’s that. |
OAKLAND — An East Bay resident is among the top winners in a national contest that is known as the Nobel Prize for the nation’s brightest high school students.
Laura Pierson, 17, of the College Preparatory School in Oakland, received an $80,000 award for her use of theoretical algebra to study the representation theory of mathematically symmetric groups in the Regeneron Science Talent Search.
This contest, which is the nation’s oldest and most prestigious science and math competition, was previously known as the Westinghouse and, most recently, the Intel Talent Search; it was sponsored by Regeneron this year.
“I was very surprised, I did not expect to place in the top,” said Pierson, a senior who will attend Harvard University next year and plans to major in either applied math or physics. “It was an incredible experience. And it was really amazing to meet so many smart people who have done many amazing projects and who are so passionate about science.”
Pierson, who placed sixth among 1,749 high school seniors, has been a member of the Berkeley Math Circle since fifth grade. She started taking college math classes in middle school, poured over plenty of math books and attended a host of math camps, she said. Then, she did research through the PRIMES-USA program, where college juniors can be mentored in their research projects via Skype and other technologies by math students who attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“I’ve always loved looking for patterns and finding interesting connections for things,” Pierson said about her love of math. “I like thinking hard about problems and searching for the patterns and solutions.”
And her parents have always been supportive of her love of math. Her father works in the information technology sector, and her mom is a school librarian, she said.
Pierson is also active in theater as both an actor and technician, and volunteers at the Chabot Space and Science Center.
Norm Prokup, Pierson’s adviser at her school, said the research she’s doing in math is so high-level that “it would take most people years to understand what she did, and she’s just 17.”
“She’s extremely rare, and the vast majority of math teachers throughout the span of their careers will never meet someone like her,” said Prokup, a math teacher who also is part of the Berkeley Math Circle.
At the same time, she’s the last person to toot her horn, he said.
“She doesn’t brag. She doesn’t even talk about it really. … I think the attention kind of makes her feel uncomfortable,” he said. “So she acts, she dances, and she does art … she basically has taken the opportunity to be really a well-rounded kid.”
Forty finalists, including Pierson, were honored Tuesday night at the annual Regeneron Science Talent Search Awards Gala in Washington, D.C., for their research projects demonstrating exceptional scientific and mathematical ability. These students join the ranks of other Science Talent Search alumni who have gone on to receive more than 100 of the world’s most esteemed science and math honors, including the Nobel Prize and the National Medal of Science.
Pierson said she hopes she can one day make a difference in solving some of society’s biggest problems as a professor, an engineer and mathematician.
“I enjoy sharing my passion for math and science with others,” she said. |
By Brian Love
PARIS (Reuters) - French police fired tear gas on Thursday at youths who hurled projectiles and vandalized property on the fringes of a student demonstration against the alleged rape of a young black man by police using a baton.
Hundreds of high-school students blocked the entrances to more than a dozen schools in Paris during the unauthorized rally which was largely peaceful aside from the isolated skirmishes. Police made 26 arrests.
The protest comes two months before a presidential election in which opinion polls show far-right leader Marine Le Pen performing strongly on an anti-immigration, nationalist platform.
It was the latest in a series of demonstrations against the alleged police mistreatment of a 22-year-old man identified only as Theo, who remains in hospital with injuries to his anus and head.
One banner at Thursday's rally read "Revenge for Theo!"
He has called for public calm and his family has said they have faith in the French justice system.
The Paris school authority said more than 10 schools had been targeted by youths who piled up rubbish bins and other objects at the entrance gates. In one case, a deputy school director was injured when protesters hurled a fire extinguisher.
Education Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem said she understood young people's "emotion" over the Theo case but called for public calm and denounced the violence.
"I am appealing for calm because excesses like this, violence and blocking entrances to places, are not acceptable. The state will show considerable firmness," she said on Public Senat TV.
Video footage on social media showed a confrontation on the fringes of the rally in the Place de la Nation square in the east of Paris, where riot police in protective gear advanced on groups of mostly-hooded youths in sidestreets.
A helicopter flew overhead and tear gas clouds rose into the air above that square towards the end of the rally.
The Paris police department had warned people to stay away from the protest, saying there was a risk of violent groups causing trouble, as happened over the last three weeks.
Four police officers have been suspended pending an inquiry into the Feb. 2 incident. One has been placed under formal investigation for suspected rape and three others for unnecessary use of force.
So far the protests have not snowballed to the extent of the unrest that 12 years ago drew global attention to the stark contrast between wealthy Paris and the suburbs that surround it.
(additional reporting by Gerard Bon and Jean-Baptiste Vey; Writing by Brian Love and Richard Balmforth; Editing by Richard Lough) |
Los Angeles 2
We recently published an article about how little information there was on the second Los Angeles team. Since then we’ve been doing some digging and have gotten in touch with a source close to the situation. Our source wishes to remain anonymous, but we know them to be very credible.
Who’s in Charge?
This source has reported to us that the owners have allegedly hired Phoenix 1 to run their organization. Phoenix1 currently has teams in League of Legends, Super Smash Brothers and Hearthstone. They have now very quietly stepped up to the big leagues with Overwatch.
Head Coach
We also have had it reported that Phoenix 1 has allegedly hired former Kungarna coach David ‘dpei’ Pei as their head coach. David was with Kungarna for about four months before announcing he was stepping down to pursue opportunities in the Overwatch League.
Players
Allegedly according to our source, Aaron ‘Bischu’ Kim has been signed. There is currently no information on what position he will be playing, or if he will be a starter or a sub. We’ll certainly need to see the rest of the roster before we know for sure but we would assume that he’ll be a sub, or a player that stands in if they sign any 17 year olds similar to NRG.
While we don’t know of any other players signed at the moment, we have been led to believe that there will be more Kungarna players headed to LA – dpei’s connection there makes that a pretty reasonable assumption.
Wrapping Up
We reached out to Phoenix1, David ‘dpei’ Pei and Aaron ‘Bischu’ Kim for comment and have yet to receive one. We will update this post if/when this changes.
We’re always looking to bring more information to light about the league for the fans, if you’d like to get in touch DM us on Twitter. |
The Future of the European Union? Translations of this item: Czech The document does not contemplate a scenario in which the European Union faces collapse, or in which major member states decide to follow the British example and exit the bloc.
The European Commission, in a rare instance of candor, admits that European federalism risks "alienating parts of society which feel that the EU lacks legitimacy or has taken too much power away from national authorities."
The Commission does not consider the possibility that in 2025 it may not even exist. The European Commission has published a document outlining five scenarios for how the European Union could evolve within the next ten years. The so-called White Paper on the Future of Europe, which will be presented at the Rome Summit on March 25, 2017 to mark the 60th anniversary of the European Union, is intended to be "the starting point for a wider public debate on the future of our continent." Each of the five scenarios is based on the premise that "the 27 Member States move forward together as a Union." The document does not consider the possibility that the EU could collapse or break apart, or even that the powers of the EU be significantly curtailed. The document states: "Too often, the discussion on Europe's future has been boiled down to a binary choice between more or less Europe. That approach is misleading and simplistic. The possibilities covered here range from the status quo, to a change of scope and priorities, to a partial or collective leap forward." Nevertheless, for the European Commission, the powerful administrative arm of the European Union, publicly to even consider alternatives to full-blown European federalism is a testament to the growing power and influence of anti-EU political movements in Europe. A "family photo" of the European Commission, headed by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, in 2014. (Image source: European Parliament) Indeed, a document such as this would have been unthinkable before Brexit — an abbreviation for "British exit," which refers to the June 23, 2016, referendum by which British citizens voted to exit the European Union — and the rise of anti-EU populist parties in Austria, Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands, among others. The document admits: "Europe's challenges show no sign of abating. Our economy is recovering from the global financial crisis but this is still not felt evenly enough. Parts of our neighborhood are destabilized, resulting in the largest refugee crisis since the Second World War. Terrorist attacks have struck at the heart of our cities. New global powers are emerging as old ones face new realities. And last year, one of our Member States voted to leave the Union." The five scenarios for the EU by 2025 are: 1) carrying on; 2) nothing but the single market; 3) those who want more do more; 4) doing less more efficiently; and, 5) doing much more together. Scenario 1: Carrying On. This scenario envisions the status quo, with the EU plodding ahead with "incremental progress" from crisis to crisis. The document explains: "Priorities are regularly updated, problems are tackled as they arise and new legislation is rolled out accordingly. The speed of decision-making depends on overcoming differences of views in order to deliver on collective long-term priorities." Scenario 2: Nothing but the Single Market. This scenario envisions a European Union re-focused on the single market, which refers to the free movement of goods, services, capital and people within the bloc: "In a scenario where the EU27 cannot agree to do more in many policy areas, it increasingly focuses on deepening certain key aspects of the single market. There is no shared resolve to work more together in areas such as migration, security or defense. The functioning of the single market becomes the main 'raison d'être' of the EU27." Scenario 3: Those Who Want to do More. This scenario envisions a so-called multi-speed Europe in which some member states proceed with integration in certain areas while other member states do not: "In a scenario where the EU27 proceeds as today but where certain Member States want to do more in common, one or several 'coalitions of the willing' emerge to work together in specific policy areas. These may cover policies such as defense, internal security, taxation or social matters." Scenario 4: Doing Less More Efficiently. This scenario envisions the EU placing greater emphasis on some policy areas, while reducing its focus on others: "The EU27 decides to focus its attention and limited resources on a reduced number of areas.... As a result, the EU27 is able to act much quicker and more decisively in its chosen priority areas.... Elsewhere, the EU27 stops acting or does less.... The EU's weight in the world changes in line with its recalibrated responsibilities." Scenario 5: Doing Much More Together This scenario is the European Commission's preferred option: European federalism:
"In a scenario where there is consensus that neither the EU27 as it is, nor European countries on their own, are well-equipped enough to face the challenges of the day, Member States decide to share more power, resources and decision-making across the board. "As a result, cooperation between all Member States goes further than ever before in all domains.... Decisions are agreed faster at European level and are rapidly enforced. "On the international scene, Europe speaks and acts as one in trade and is represented by one seat in most international fora. The European Parliament has the final say on international trade agreements. Defence and security are prioritized. In full complementarity with NATO, a European Defence Union is created. Cooperation in security matters is routine." The document also offers a glimpse into what European federalism may look like in practice: "Citizens travelling abroad receive consular protection and assistance from EU embassies, which in some parts of the world have replaced national ones. Non-EU citizens wishing to travel to Europe can process visa applications through the same network." The European Commission, in a rare instance of candor, admits that European federalism risks "alienating parts of society which feel that the EU lacks legitimacy or has taken too much power away from national authorities." The document does not, however, contemplate a scenario in which the European Union faces collapse, or in which major member states decide to follow the British example and exit the bloc. In France and the Netherlands — two of the EU's original six founding members — anti-EU presidential candidates are leading in the polls. Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders have both promised to call referenda on continued EU membership. If one or both of those countries were to leave the EU, this at a time when Italy and Greece are at a fiscal breaking point, a collapse of the bloc seems increasingly possible. The European Commission says its White Paper marks "the beginning of a process for the EU27 to decide together on the future of their Union." The Commission does not, however, consider the possibility that in 2025 it may not even exist. Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter. Follow Soeren Kern on Twitter and Facebook © 2019 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute. Recent Articles by Soeren Kern A Month of Multiculturalism in Germany: January 2019, 2019-02-18
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A Month of Multiculturalism in Britain: January 2019, 2019-02-04
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“No, no,” I said and started to explain, then stopped. I hadn’t planned the words that came next, but come they did. “I’d be willing to try holding a snake, though.”
Even Freud would have dismissed as too obvious the symbolism of a closeted lesbian who starts dating a man promptly deciding to try to get over her fear of snakes. But the next morning, there we were, standing in a pet shop across the river in Hoboken, N.J., peering into the tank of a fat white albino snake. A sign read: “Warning: Burmese pythons have been implicated in human deaths due to owner stupidity.”
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” I said.
“You don’t have to hold that one,” Oren assured me. “We’ll find you a starter snake, something small. Here, I’ll bet you could handle this little guy.” He pointed at a ball snake, which, true to its name, was curled up in a ball. “My ex and I had one of these.”
Ah, his ex. She came up in conversation about as often, it turns out, as snakes need feeding (once a week). From the stories, she appeared to be my opposite: petite, outgoing and fearless enough to handle both M-16s and tarantulas.
Not to be upstaged, I said: “Oh, that one looks boring. It’s just lying there. Here, I’ll hold this one.” I pointed to a snake at the far end of the row. It was swaying and appeared to be standing on end.
Up close, the snake I’d chosen was thin and green with a pattern of shimmering white diamonds. It was (even I had to admit) beautiful, and small, too — only about a nickel in diameter and a few feet long. The shopkeeper assured us it would stay small. When it wound its way around my fingers, looking like a row of shiny green rings, I was charmed. “We could name it Pretzel,” I said.
Back in my apartment, Pretzel lounged while Oren and I huddled around my computer, reading up on our new addition. Pretzel was a type of Australian python that must always be kept very warm, we read. And she might grow to 14 feet.
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We could have gone back and demanded the shopkeeper take back his giant-in-waiting. But we didn’t. We couldn’t. Pretzel now had parents and a home. We were going to love her even if it killed us. (Or, rather, even if it turned out she could.)
Colubrine domesticity had its allures. When Oren and I watched television, Pretzel would wriggle from one set of shoulders to the next, and we would laugh and remark on her antics as though she were a baby.
Game-for-anything Oren proved squeamish at feeding time, so I learned to be the one who defrosted the dead mouse from the bag in the freezer and dangled it over Pretzel until she swooped in. I grew to enjoy watching this feat of nature, the hinge of Pretzel’s jaw dislocating in a perfect evolutionary trick — and I loved even more the expression of awe on Oren’s face as he watched me feed her. I was a capable snake mother, it turned out. And he was proud.
When spring came, we bought a plush Eeyore backpack at the Disney store, figuring the fur would keep Pretzel warm, and used it to take her to Central Park. There, I rested my head against Oren’s chest while we watched Pretzel writhe nearby, one more happy family on the lawn.
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One day Pretzel seemed more lethargic than usual, and I worried she was sick. The only snake vet was far downtown, too far for a cab on my budget, so I put on a tank top, draped her around my torso (she’d grown to four feet by then) and followed with two woolen sweaters and an overcoat, hoping to mimic tropical heat. Then I walked to the subway.
Here’s a tip for subways during rush hour: bring a python. By two stops in, my coat was rippling, I was patting it and whispering, and I noticed a man staring at me. By three stops, the ripples were waves. By the fourth, Pretzel was slithering along my neck toward my ear. I heard gasps. When the train doors opened, I had the car to myself.
I loved every minute of it, every side-glance from a neighbor when I greeted Oren at the door with Pretzel slung around my neck. I had her and I had him, too, and the fact of one meant that the other was O.K.
I’d been conventional and timid my whole life, always worried about acceptance. What had bothered me most about being gay was that I wouldn’t be able to marry and have children and that people might think I was weird.
Being gay felt weird in a way that was big and life changing, but having Pretzel felt weird in way that was interesting. Maybe I would never hold a girl’s hand, but I could comment to people prattling on about their cats and dogs: “I have a pet, too. What? Oh, she’s a python. Her name’s Pretzel.” I was so determined to love her I even stopped eating eel sushi in solidarity.
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But try as I might, I wasn’t very good at not wanting to hold girls’ hands — specifically the hand of a brown-haired senior who sat next to me in Race, Class and Gender (of course). As the weeks went by, I became happier to see her and less happy each night to see Oren. One day after class, the brown-haired girl took my hand to show me something, and I felt my chest come alive in a way I hadn’t noticed it wasn’t.
Meanwhile, Pretzel was growing bigger and more resistant to my attempts to pull her away from my neck when she grabbed on too hard. Her tank had become small.
Such a cute little problem she’d been when we got her, such a manageable size. But with each passing month, she’d grown, just as had my suspicions about my sexuality.
Finally I told Oren we were over. The breakup was messy and confusing (especially for him, as I couldn’t offer any explanation), but we got through it. Then there was just Pretzel and I, and the fear that was becoming harder to ignore.
I lasted exactly one week with Pretzel after Oren left. I fed her and afterward, while her stomach was still distended in the cartoonish lump of a mouse, I noticed a wood chip stuck in the corner of her mouth and reached for it. In a flash I had a bleeding triangle of bite marks on my hand.
I started to have nightmares about the jaw I’d once admired. Within days I’d tracked down a snake aficionado who had installed drains in his apartment for what he called a “room-size cage” and was willing to take on another rescue. That night, alone for the first time in nearly a year, with neither man nor beast by my side, I felt closer to my own life than I had in a long time.
THIS story, I’m happy to say, ends well for everyone. Oren found love and married; a few years ago he sent me photographs of their boys, who look like miniature versions of him. They’re now the age when they would be into learning about creepy-crawly things, and their father is just the man for the job.
As for Pretzel (who would be about 12-feet long now), I like to think she’s still writhing around my snake savior’s sanctuary, happily intertwined with her closest snake buddies.
And me? I’ve embraced both my fear of snakes and my love of women. If it’s good enough for Indiana Jones, it’s good enough for me. |
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Every so often, in between watching movies or talking shop on team flights, defenseman Ben Lovejoy will spy his seatmate scanning Twitter and feel the urge to chuck Beau Bennett’s cell out the emergency exit door. Lovejoy keeps an account as well but rarely posts and deleted the app from his phone, too hard on himself after games to mind the peanut gallery. Bennett? Well, six weeks ago the 25-year-old winger posted a picture of himself sitting in the penalty box against Anaheim, with a doctored TV caption that read, INJURY PRONE (PENALIZED AS SAFETY MEASURE).
“It drives me nuts when he makes light of injuries,” says Lovejoy, his smile suggesting a slight dose of tacit tolerance. “I always tell him to stop. But he loves it and he thrives off it. He’s able to poke fun of himself like few I’ve ever seen.”
It’s Thursday night at Verizon Center, and down the hall from the visiting locker room, the fathers of New Jersey’s players wait to continue their annual trip in style. Largely thanks to backup goalie Keith Kincaid’s 43 saves during regulation and overtime, plus two more against Washington’s T.J. Oshie and Evgeny Kuznetsov in the shootout, the Devils won for just the fourth time this month. Bennett, meanwhile, posted a team-high seven individual shot attempts despite finishing with the fifth-least total ice time (13:28).
As his timeline might suggest—see the reweeted picture of an ambulance after the Penguins' run to the 2016 Stanley Cup, which Bennett spent all but one game as a healthy scratch, accompanied by the caption, “Beau Bennett had his own truck for the parade”—it's kind of a big deal that Bennett's playing steadily at all. The 2–1 triumph over the Capitals was his 30th game for New Jersey, where familiar faces were willing to give him a fresh start last summer, and just his 138th overall in pro hockey over the past three-plus regular seasons.
During that span, he’s undergone wrist surgery; required knee braces to skate; hurt himself celebrating a goal; suffered chronic shoulder issues; fallen ill with the mumps; and, for the second time in his career, been cut in practice. Naturally, this all begat plenty of wise-eggs on Twitter. Strangely, dark humor hatched in Bennett. Like…
Someone tweeted this at me...I think the world needs to see it. pic.twitter.com/2KiDoUtRhc — Beau Bennett (@BeauBennett19) July 19, 2016
“It’s all perspective, right?” he said Thursday morning. “I’m still able to play in the NHL. Honestly, the stuff other people deal with.… I went to the children’s hospital a lot in Pittsburgh, and saw little kids battling for their lives. They can’t even leave the hospital, and I’m supposed to be upset because I’m in a locker room with some of the great hockey players of our time? It’s not hard to be a good person. It’s not hard to put a smile on your face.
“I think when I was younger, I was new to social media and new to being in the forefront of media stuff, [and] when people would chirp me and stuff, I just took the high road in terms of deleting my Twitter, because you can’t go at fans. I didn't want to read it. Now, for some reason, a switch went off in my brain, and I love it. It entertains me. The meaner people are, the harder I laugh.”
Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
Never say that Bennett fails to reciprocate the entertainment. A piano player since childhood, he’ll gladly pound out some OneRepublic or Van Halen at parties. When he brought the Stanley Cup back home to California last summer, the celebration included a 200-person party on Manhattan Beach near Los Angeles that moved into a local dockside haunt at night, where they bumped into the Cavaliers’ Richard Jefferson, fresh off an NBA title. In 2010, 45 seconds into the University of Denver’s first preseason practice, then-coach George Gwozdecky spotted Bennett, one of his prized recruits, flip the puck into the air, track it onto his stick, lift the stick into midair, angle the blade at the ground and “spin around like a whirling dervish, with the puck staying on his blade. It blew the guys’ minds.”
“In hockey we have different terms for guys,” explains Eric Tangradi, a former teammate in Pittsburgh’s organization. “We’ll say, ‘He’s such a western Canadian boy.’ Or, ‘He’s such a Quebec kid.’ Well, Beau’s such a Cali kid. He takes a lot of pride in what he does, but at the same time, the California motto is just to have fun, dress like a surfer, be real cool, calm and collected.”
Boy-band hair and beach-body abs aside, Bennett doesn't become the hockey player he is today without home. He started on the roller rinks of southern California, strapping his shoes into the four-wheel skates and puttering around parking lots and parks, where the plastic boards were only several inches tall because the kids weren’t yet strong enough to lift the puck any higher. His first tournament was held outside the old Great Western Forum; games were held from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and afterward, each team got free tickets to watch the Kings play inside at 7. He took up ice hockey around age 8 but kept playing both until high school. The move that floored Gwozdecky and the Pioneers? Courtesy of concrete.
“It’s a lot of one-on-one, a lot of patience,” Bennett says. “No offsides, no hitting, no icing, 4-on-4. The puck’s lighter, the goalies can’t slide, so there’s really an emphasis on passing and playmaking. I wish there was a national roller hockey league, but it’s fun to keep it separate. It’s more laidback, relaxed. You literally can be with your buddies, leave your skates on for all 10 hours of the day, rolling around the rink, eating a cheeseburger, then you warm up in five minutes.”
Bennett stayed in the area until he was 17, longer than most who hope to make it and leave for more hockey-rich areas. He blitzed through one season with the Penticon Vees of the British Columbia Hockey League—120 points in 56 games—and that summer got drafted with the 20th pick by Pittsburgh, the highest anyone from California had ever been chosen.
His freshman season at Denver went well enough (25 points in 37 games) as his off-ice dedication ramped up—“I wasn’t taking it too serious as far as the training aspect, nutrition in B.C.,” he says—and Bennett kicked off his sophomore year with a big goal in a road win over eventual NCAA champion Boston College, which was led by Chris Kreider and Johnny Gaudreau.
Then fate started dealing him some fluky fortune. “There was a collision he made with one of his teammates,” Gwozdecky says, “and the teammate came down just above the cuff of his glove with his skate blade. [He] suffered a really deep gash in and around the wrist area.” Bennett needed surgery, played only 10 games in 2011–12 and turned pro shortly thereafter. “He was a phenomenal talent,” Gwozdecky says. “Had a great knack for seeing people and making plays. He could score. Very patient with the puck. But unfortunately he ran into some real bad luck.”
It would be reasonable to reflect on the roadblocks with anger or remorse, but the truth is Bennett fells quite happy in New Jersey. It was around 8 a.m. in California when the Penguins traded his RFA rights for a third-round pick; assistant general manager Bill Guerin called from the NHL draft floor in Buffalo to deliver the news. Upon hearing that the Devils were his destination, Bennett had no trouble falling back asleep. Between head coach John Hynes and assistant Alain Nasreddine (his former minor-league bosses in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre) and GM Ray Shero, who held the same job in Pittsburgh, Bennett knew he was headed somewhere comfortable.
“It didn’t make me stay awake and think about all the different possibilities, if I had gone to a place with more unknowns,” he says. “It was a pretty seamless transition.” He moved into a loft apartment in Jersey City with his girlfriend and started considering living there full-time; recently, they hosted ex-Penguins teammate Jayson Megna, now with Vancouver, for a dinner of chicken parm when the Canucks were in town. Lovejoy signed a three-year, $8 million deal on July 1, one week after his close friend and road seatmate landed there; the same day, Bennett inked a one-year contract worth $720,000.
Hynes, whom Bennett credits with helping to add physicality and pace to his once-methodical style, has deployed him steadily at 13:47 per game, around his career high; against Washington, he was on the second line alongside P.A. Parenteau and Adam Henrique, New Jersey’s two leading goal-scorers. Pittsburgh GM Jim Rutherford has said other clubs inquired about Bennett, but it’s clear that familiarity backed New Jersey’s bid.
“He’s got to make an impact in the NHL this year in order to continue to play,” Hynes said Thursday. “That’s something both [Shero] and I had talked to him about. He’s a very talented player. He’s been hurt quite a bit.… I think if you look at the upside of Beau Bennett, if he comes in here and he plays well, he can add some offense or skill to our lineup, and he turns into a good NHL player, then it’s a great thing for our organization.”
In other words, now's the time. Through 30 games Bennett’s underlying numbers are strong—the Devils attempt 7.95% more shots with him on the ice at 5-on-5, the best relative mark on the team according to Corsica.hockey—but his only goal came Nov. 23 against Toronto, and, in one more cruel twist, he missed time on injured reserve because of a right leg laceration sustained during practice. “I feel like I’ve been playing well, just the production’s been lacking,” he says. “I hope I don’t shoot 2% for the rest of my career. That would be very poor for me.”
Blunt self-awareness has always been Bennett’s hallmark, which fully explains his turn on Twitter. At one time, the jabs got to him; he’d lie awake at night, brain churning. After going down in a September 2014 practice, he felt compelled to post an apology to fans—“I haven't had the best luck and no one is more mad/sad than me. It's getting embarrassing, I'm sorry”—and soon after shuttered the account.
For some black-humored reason, three straight shoulder injuries last season—suffered “back-to-back-to-back”—helped Bennett round the corner. “It honestly turned me into a mental warrior,” he says. Once, a fan reached out claiming that Bennett had acted like an ass when they met. That bugged him. (“I responded through a DM,” he says. “A miscommunication.”) But self-deprecating tweets during the World Cup about his abilities? Counting “medical insurance” among his Thanksgiving blessings? Dismissing his lack of inclusion on the Stanley Cup? An Instagram bio that begins with "Damaged goods..."? Pretty Cali-kid of him.
“Last year, it was a tough year personally, but our team won,” he says. “I was happy to be there with my friends to cheer them on. I’m glad I didn’t get any recognition because I didn’t do anything to achieve it. But it’s like 20 of your best buddies won the lottery, you’d still be happy for them, and you get to reap a little bit of the benefits even though you were basically just a fan with the best seat in the house.”
And Bennett appreciates a good show. In fact, he remembers seeing a piano in the lobby of the team hotel in D.C. Maybe he’ll pull up the bench after lunch this afternoon, play one of the tunes he’s memorized—maybe “Right Now,” by Van Halen. The lyrics to the second verse go like this:
Miss the beat, you lose the rhythm
And nothing falls into place, no
Only missed by a fraction
Slipped a little off your pace, oh
The more things you get, the more you want
Just trade in one for the other
Workin' so hard, to make it easier, whoa
Got to turn, c'mon turn this thing around |
Chris Herhalt, CP24.com
A man and woman from Toronto have been arrested and charged with numerous offences after a shotgun was allegedly pointed during a road rage incident on Wednesday in Toronto’s Bloordale Village.
Police said a 35-year-old male victim was involved in a road rage dispute with a man and woman in another vehicle, near the intersection of Bloor Street West and Dufferin Street when the male suspect drew a shotgun from his vehicle and pointed it at the victim while uttering threats.
The two suspects fled the area, police said, and were located later by police.
Police said a search recovered a shotgun and shells, along with three other firearms and ammunition.
Nader Al-Jaar, 28, was arrested and charged with 16 offences including threatening death, pointing a firearm and assault with a weapon.
Asma Khan, 22, was arrested and charged with nine offences including weapons dangerous and careless use of a firearm.
Both are scheduled to appear in court at Old City Hall Friday in room 101 at 10 a.m. |
"Rodney Alcala" on @Wikipedia: "For the third trial Alcala elected to act as his own attorney. He took the stand in his own defense, and for five hours played the roles of both interrogator and witness, asking himself questions (addressing himself as "Mr. Alcala" in a deeper-than-normal voice), and then answering them.[36] During this bizarre self-questioning and answering session he told jurors, often in a rambling monotone, that he was at Knott's Berry Farm when Samsoe was kidnapped.[33] He showed the jury a portion of his 1978 appearance on The Dating Game in an attempt to prove that the earrings found in his Seattle locker were his, not Samsoe's;[37] but any earrings he might have worn on the program were obscured by his shoulder-length hair.[38] He made no significant effort to dispute the four added charges.[13] As part of his closing argument, he played the portion of the Arlo Guthrie song "Alice's Restaurant" in which the protagonist tells a psychiatrist that he wants to "kill".[39]" @Curionic
#staycurious
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Alcala?wprov=sfti1 |
The Edward Snowden leaks have revealed a U.S. corporate media system at war with independent journalism. Many of the same outlets -- especially TV news -- that missed the Wall Street meltdown and cheer-led the Iraq invasion have come to resemble state-controlled media outlets in their near-total identification with the government as it pursues the now 30-year-old whistleblower.
While an independent journalism system would be dissecting the impacts of NSA surveillance on privacy rights, and separating fact from fiction, U.S. news networks have obsessed on questions like: How much damage has Snowden caused? How can he be brought to justice?
Unfazed by polls showing that half of the American rabble -- I mean, public -- believe Snowden did a good thing by leaking documentation of NSA spying, TV news panels have usually excluded anyone who speaks for these millions of Americans. Although TV hosts and most panelists are not government officials, some have a penchant for speaking of the government with the pronoun "We."
After Snowden made it out of Hong Kong to Russia, New York Times journalist and CNBC talking head Andrew Ross Sorkin expressed his frustration: "We've screwed this up, to even let him get to Russia." By "we," he meant the U.S. government.
Last time I checked, Sorkin was working for the Times and CNBC, not the CIA or FBI.
When a huge swath of the country is on the side of the guy-on-the-run and not the government, it's much easier to see that there's nothing "objective" or "neutral" about journalists who so closely identify with the spy agencies or Justice Department or White House.
The standard exclusion of dissenting views -- panels often span from hawk ("he's a traitor who needs to be jailed") to dove ("he may have been well-intentioned but he needs to be jailed") -- offers yet another reason why young people, more libertarian in their views, have turned away from these outlets. Virtually no one speaks for them. While a TIME poll found 53 percent of respondents saying Snowden did "a good thing," that was the sentiment of 70 percent of those age 18 to 34.
I teach college journalism classes about independent media. New developments like WikiLeaks and independent bloggers like Glenn Greenwald may scare the wits out of establishment media, but they sure don't scare young people or journalism students.
As media employees at elite outlets have grown cozier with their government and corporate sources (Sorkin is famously close with Wall Street CEOs), they exhibit an almost instinctual antipathy toward those adversarial journalists who challenge powerful elites day after day.
Look at the reactions of some top mainstream journalists to Greenwald, who built up a big readership as a solo blogger before moving his blog to Salon and then the Guardian, where he broke the Snowden/NSA stories. I know several journalism professors who view Greenwald as one of the world's best journalists. He's known as accurate, thorough, well-documented and ethical.
It was Sorkin, the New York Times guy, who declared on CNBC that maybe Greenwald should be arrested: "I told you this in the green room - I would arrest him [Snowden] and now I'd almost arrest Glenn Greenwald, who's the journalist who seems to be out there, almost, he wants to help him get to Ecuador." (After criticism of his comment, Sorkin apologized to Greenwald for having “veered into hyperbole,” but not to Snowden.)
If it's strange for a journalist to suggest another journalist's arrest, it was almost as strange when Sorkin wrote in a Times column that he went down to check out the Occupy Wall Street encampment "after getting a call from the chief executive of a major bank." Sorkin concluded: "As I wandered around the park, it was clear to me that most bankers probably don't have to worry about being in imminent personal danger. This didn't seem like a brutal group -- at least not yet."
Another mainstream media star is NBC's David Gregory (seen literally dancing with White House source Karl Rove in 2007). Since he interviewed Greenwald on Sunday's "Meet the Press," there's been scrutiny of Gregory's factually-misleading question: "To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn't you be charged with a crime?" And of Greenwald's response: "I think it's pretty extraordinary that anybody who would call themselves a journalist would publicly muse about whether or not other journalists should be charged with felonies."
But I'm just as bothered by Gregory's retort -- "Well, the question of who's a journalist may be up to a debate with regards to what you're doing" -- and the ensuing discussion in mainstream outlets questioning Greenwald's bona fides as a journalist.
A Washington Post article ("On NSA disclosures, has Glenn Greenwald become something other than a reporter?") questioned the blogger's credentials as a journalist because he's also an advocate: "Greenwald has appeared frequently on TV to plead Snowden's case as a whistleblower -- an advocacy role many mainstream journalists would be uncomfortable with."
The Post article spoke of "the line between journalism -- traditionally, the dispassionate reporting of facts -- and outright involvement in the news seems blurrier than ever." Libertarian journalist Matt Welch critiqued the article as "historically illiterate."
The truth is that many of the greatest journalists in our country's history -- from Ida B. Wells to I.F. Stone -- were accurate reporters of fact, but hardly dispassionate. And mainstream outlets have always had hybrid reporter/columnists offering both fact and advocacy; one of the most famous, David Broder, graced the pages of the Washington Post for years, including its front page.
Broder was a reporter, columnist and TV talking head -- yet no one questioned whether Broder was a genuine journalist. That's because, unlike Greenwald, the reporting and opinions of a David Broder were militantly pro-establishment, pro-bipartisan consensus.
And Broder's not alone as a hybrid reporter/columnist in the mainstream. Let's not forget the delightful pundit who wanted to "almost arrest" Greenwald. His official Times bio states: "Andrew Ross Sorkin is a columnist, chief mergers and acquisitions reporter, and editor of Dealbook for The New York Times."
The reason Glenn Greenwald's credentials as a journalist are being questioned by some mainstreamers is not that he blurs the line between journalist and advocate. It's because of the anti-establishment content of his journalism and advocacy. |
SEATTLE - Seattle City Council member Debora Juarez announced on Monday a series of meetings to determine what's next with the city's arena situation.
Juarez says the Select Committee on Civic Arenas will hold its first meeting March 27. The time is still undetermined, but will either happen in the mid-morning or late-afternoon.
The committee was formed to explore all of the issues related to a new arena, including transportation, historic preservation, and land use. Juarez said Monday there will be at least 10 meetings, designed to cover a total of 12 topics. Juarez and Council President Bruce Harrell will co-chair the committee. All council members will be a part of the committee.
Juarez says the first meeting will include an overview of Seattle Center, the RFP (Request for Proposals) on KeyArena, and transportation plans and/or changes.
Another meeting planned for April 17 will involve responses to the RFP. The city has asked for responses to a KeyArena renovation proposal five days earlier on April 12.
The committee is expected to meet throughout the summer and also review Chris Hansen's arena street vacation petition for one block of Occidental Ave. South. That was formally introduced to the council last month.
Copyright 2017 KING |
The Qatar-based news network Al Jazeera is an important contributor to the political landscape of the United States, according to the media critic for The Baltimore Sun.
“We have had a narrowing of the conversation about democracy, especially on television,” David Zurawik said Sunday on CNN. “Throughout the media, we’ve become sort of identified with corporate interests and with the powers that be. I think part of that is the economic crunch we have all gone through. Al Jazeera in general is oriented towards what is called global south, which is people south of the equator — people who have been the victims of colonization.”
“You know, in the Middle East, we say Al Jazeera is much more in touch with the street,” he continued. “Well, there’s a street in America, too, that a lot of television, a lot of network, a lot of cable is not in touch with. And in their first week, their first night, I saw them. They did a story on a woman who makes coats for homeless people. You know, in America, we drive right by the homeless. Driving in Washington today, how do the congressmen, how does the president drive down this street and not see what I see today? Al Jazeera sees it.”
The Al Jazeera America cable channel went live on Tuesday.
Watch video, uploaded to YouTube, below: |
"In many tribes, owls were seen as most closely allied with medicine men, rather than warriors or hunters. Lakota medicine men or peju'ta wica'sa respect the owl because it moves at night when people sleep, and the medicine men get their power from dreams at night, clear dreams like the owl's sight, so many Lakota medicine men wear owl feathers and promise never to harm the owl, or else it is believed their powers will leave them. Creek medicine men often carried an owl skin or feather as a symbol of their calling. Ponca medicine men also used owl feathers in their healing ceremonies and Ojibway medicine men placed a stuffed owl near them while they were making medicine, so that it could "see if they do it right." The Pawnee used an Owl Medicine, and among the Pawnee it is said that "the owl is the leading medicine-man among the birds." Finally, owls were said by the Alabama, the Caddo, the Cherokee, and the Lakota, to bring prophetic news, either of the future or of events happening at a great distance, to the few medicine men who could understand them.
The owl's association with medicine men can also be bad news for ordinary folks. If a medicine man used owl power on your behalf, great, but if the medicine man of another tribe used his powers against you, then he could be an evil witch or bad medicine man trying to steal your soul. Because witches or bad medicine men were believed to be able to transform into owls, or to use owls to send death or disease, you could never quite be sure if an owl you saw was a real owl, a transformed witch, or an owl sent on a mission by a witch. The owls most often believed to be shapeshifted witch's were, the Great Horned or Screech Owls. So among the Cherokee, the same word, skili, was used to refer to both witches and Great Horned Owls. The Alabama, Caddo, Catawba, Choctaw and Menomini also associated Great Horned Owls or Screech Owls or both with witches, and the Wisconsin Ojibway also link witches and owls. Small wonder, then, that among many tribes, seeing or hearing an owl is believed to be a bad omen, often signaling serious illness or death to come, especially when a night owl is seen during the day, or an owl is found hanging about the home or village instead of the woods.
It is their connections with death, the afterlife, and rebirth that truly mark owls as a force to be reckoned with for most tribes. First, owls are either considered to be embodied spirits of the dead, or associated with such spirits, by a very wide range of tribes, including the Lakota, Omaha, Cheyenne, Fox, Ojibway, Menomini, Cherokee and Creek. Several of these tribes also have stories of an owl being that stands at a fork in the road in the sky, or the Milky Way, that leads to the land of the dead, letting some souls pass, but condemning others to roam the earth as ghosts forever. Among the Lakota, the Old Owl Woman or hiha'n winu'cala who guards the road to the afterlife at the end of the Milky Way assesses the merits of the souls of the dead with their deeds on earth, letting the good through and sending the bad over the edge and out of the afterlife to wander earth as a ghost or wana'gi for all eternity. A similar belief among the Cheyenne, is that the Old Owl Woman, who is the gatekeeper to the land of the dead, it sits atop the junction at the fork in the Milky Way and decides which souls are shunted onto the dead-end branch.
Among the Ojibway, one word for the bridge over which the dead had to pass to the afterlife is the Owl Bridge. The Lake Superior Ojibway also mention a spirit being with horns called Pacugu which might refer to the tufted "horns" of a Great Horned or Screech Owl, that stands at a fork in the road to the afterlife, blocking the way for evil souls, but helping good ones along on their journey. Another Lake Superior Ojibway story mentions that the last obstacle the soul must pass on its way to the land of the dead is an old woman, perhaps an Owl Woman, who questioned the soul about its life and decided which souls to turn back, punish, or let pass. The Wisconsin Ojibway have a story that relates how the culture hero Nanabozho's brother placed an owl being as the second test for souls as they pass along the road to the afterlife.
The Fox tribe also speak of a soul-bridge that leads to the land of the dead. They say that there are two paths at the soul-bridge, one is red and one is gray. The red path is followed by men, the gray by women. It has been suggested that this is in reference to the two color phases of the Screech Owl, which are also red and gray."
-From Red Nation |
This year has been particularly cruel for music fans. We've lost so many legendary musicians in the span of 12 months that it's hard to imagine those voids could ever be filled. On the other hand, alongside those losses came great gains, as we've witnessed the release of some truly incredible music, especially from Canadians.
In the list of 25 albums below, which was chosen with the help of CBC Music, CBC Radio 2, the Strombo Show and q, we highlight some of those artists, each one of them a potential legend in the making. Our criteria included full-length albums released this calendar year, focusing on primarily English-language, non-classical albums. A list of the best classical albums will be published Dec. 7 on CBCMusic, and ICI musique, our French-language counterpart, has also published its 50 best albums of 2016.
Scroll through the list of the best albums below, and let us know what your favorite Canadian release was this year @CBCMusic
25. Daniel Romano, Mosey
The most challenging thing about Daniel Romano's new album is how uncategorizable it is. Daniel's past records could be seen in many ways as genre-studies – mind you, heartbreaking, genius, emotional and honest genre studies, but albums that explored worlds of punk, folk, and Atkins-era Nashville country. With Mosey, he's made one of the finest yet strangest albums ever from this country. It comes out as a fusion of country music, '60s psychedelia, the first two Leonard Cohen records, and even snippets of minuets that could be owed to Bach. However, as always, he never lets the form dictate the meaning. His song are honest, plaintive, playful, severe and quite brilliant. Regardless of your favourite genre, you'll find something to love in Mosey – they're kind of all in there.
— Tom Power (@tompowercbc)
24. Majid Jordan, self-titled
The buzz surrounding Majid Jordan before the Toronto duo’s self-titled debut felt almost insurmountable. As part of the production team behind Drake’s 2013 hit “Hold On We’re Going Home” — on which they were also featured — Majid Al Maskati and Jordan Ullman (singer and producer, respectively) got the Drake co-sign of approval, eventually hitching to his OVO Sound label on Warner Bros. In summer 2015, after an excellent EP and mixtape from the duo, Drake premiered “My Love,” Majid Jordan’s first single from its upcoming full-length debut (and featuring Drake), on Zane Lowe’s Beats 1. By default, it soared.
But 2016’s Majid Jordan shines best when out from under Drake’s wing. “My Love” is the weakest song of the 12 gloomy, synth-laden tracks, sounding like the superstar lazily signed his name on it simply for effect. Strength lies in tracks like “Learn From Each Other” — a co-production with Illangelo that pulses with the promise of what Al Maskati and Ullman can deliver — and “Something About You,” a seductive, marching song wrapped around Al Muskati’s pleas that he’s ready. In the end, nothing was insurmountable for Majid Jordan — mainly because this full-length debut proved that the duo can successfully stand on their own four feet.
— Holly Gordon (@hollygowritely)
23. Shawn Mendes, Illuminate
The pop machine has given many artists transformations over the years, from Justin Timberlake swerving his ironclad boy band formula into a smoother R&B lane or Taylor Swift trading in her country twang for synth-pop anthems. Shawn Mendes has yet to undergo one of those drastic changes and maybe he never will. For now, Mendes’ second album Illuminate stays the course he set out on three years ago when he attracted a following covering songs on Vine. Mendes keeps the guitar close by as he brings anthemic choruses to life with the help of big drums and crisp production. The focus here isn’t to reinvent Mendes’ sound. Instead, it’s focusing on refining hooks and maturing his subject matter (as evidence on the mildly awkward “Lights On,” which proves that there are still some growing pains to work through). But with infectious hits like “Treat You Better” and “Mercy” here, it’s clear that Mendes is on the right path. Whether that takes him on a trajectory resembling John Mayer’s more than Timberlake’s is entirely up to him, but he has all the right tools to maintain his spot atop the charts.
— Melody Lau (@melodylamb)
22. White Lung, Paradise
For White Lung, 2016 has been a very good year. Not only is the band celebrating 10 years together, but its May release, Paradise, has proven to be a landmark effort among their four studio albums. It represents huge leaps and bounds made in songwriting, vocals and production, and it landed them among the 10 finalists to the Polaris Music Prize shortlist this fall. It is also the band’s most listenable release to date, displaying a new level of sophistication that singer Mish Barber-Way says was just waiting to be unearthed.
“The biggest misconception about our band is that we play punk music,” she told host Louise Burns on the CBC Radio 3 podcast in March. “We don’t. We just play pop songs really fast.”
Make no mistake though, the fury, the energy, and the unapologetic edge of the band is still very present. Take the lyrics from “Kiss Me When I Bleed,” probably the most intense you’ll hear this year: “I will give birth in a trailer/Huffing the gas in the air/Baby is born in molasses/Like I would even care.”
The beauty of Paradise is that it is both accessible and a brutal awakening. It’s also exactly the kind of soundtrack you need on hand if you’re looking to close out 2016 with a bang and not a whimper."
— Andrea Gin (@andreagin)
21. Sarah Neufeld, The Ridge
In a year in which so much really and truly was terrible, I found myself feeling a lot of negative feelings. Not that there wasn’t some joy but the bad feelings — shock, anger, despair, sorrow, hopelessness — seemed to come consecutively, linger and run deep. Sarah Neufeld’s The Ridge allowed me to just feel. It reminded me that music can help us, me, vibrate somewhere in between the feelings that we already have names for and provide some sort of identity — even if only musical — to those that we haven’t quite pinned down yet. The space between shock and revelation, anger and inspiration, hopelessness and elevation was filled with the urgency of “A Long Awaited Scar”, the cardioversion of “Chase the Bright and Burning” together and the stunning beauty of “Where The Light Comes In.” In a year where self-care seemed more important than ever, The Ridge was the perfect soundtrack.
— Judith Lynch (@cbcjudith)
20. Gord Downie, Secret Path
An artist's job is to reflect society back to itself — to bring society to see, hear and feel its own true story, however appalling that story may be. Gord Downie's Secret Path tells the true story of 12-year-old Chanie Wenjack, who died in October of 1966 while running from a residential school in Kenora, Ontario. Chanie died because the unforgiving northern Ontario woods were, to him, less of a threat than the federally-funded institution attempting to teach him that everything about his home, his family and his heritage was wrong and had to change. Downie's songs and the accompanying drawings by Jeff Lemire stand as towers of compassion and truth, as does the clear and brutal 1967 MacLean's article that inspired them — Ian Adams' "The Lonely Death of Charlie Wenjack." That Downie has accomplished this as cancer threatens his own life is testament to the power of the truth he is telling. It may be more comfortable to pretend we haven't heard it, but art is patient. It will reflect this back to us for as long as it takes.
— Tom Allen (@CBCR2shift)
19. Repartee, All Lit Up
The Newfoundland four-piece fearlessly led by frontwoman Megan Warren had been building buzz and collecting accolades on the East Coast for a few years now, and with All Lit Up they finally exploded onto the national scene. It’s a collection of sparkly pop anthems, but don’t let the glittery package fool you. With lyrics like “nice girls can go home cuz there’s no room for those with no backbone” (“Nice Girls”) and the sarcastic dismissal of the idea that girls should “sit pretty, keep everybody happy” (the unbelievably catchy lead single “Dukes”), All Lit Up is a pop album with a riot grrrl’s sensibility.
— Raina Douris (@rahrahraina)
18. Jazz Cartier, Hotel Paranoia
Toronto rapper Jazz Cartier and his producer Lantz released two mixtapes within less than 12 months, a firm statement that their was a new challenger to the throne. “I am the prince of the city, I am the talk of the town,” Cartier raps on his latest, Hotel Paranoia, the hunger in his delivery fitting for someone looking to stake his claim at the top of a city that is currently experiencing a huge number of young princes looking to knock the crown off Drake’s head. On Hotel Paranoia, the rapper could easily fit into the larger “Toronto sound” template established by Drake and Noah “40” Shebib, but at the same time, Cartier finds his own path through his use of aggressive but melodic hooks, a cinematic but trap-heavy production style, his death-defying approach to live shows and, most importantly of all, that fierce vocal delivery. Lyrically, Cartier even distances himself from Drake’s uptown style, boasting, “I’m a downtown legend, everybody feels threatened,” just in case there was any mistaking his intent.
— Jesse Kinos-Goodin (@JesseKG)
17. Clairmont the Second, Quest for Milk and Honey
While he is only 19 years old, Clairmont the Second is an old soul whose future looks extremely bright. There's a couple of reasons for that. Not only had the MC completed a number of well-received mixtapes (while still in high school), but his brother Cola is a member of well-regarded Toronto band the OBGMs and has been mentoring him musically since he was a child. It's the reason why Quest for Milk and Honey is overflowing with confidence and maturity. The 13-track affair finds the young MC rhyming with a wisdom beyond his years, discussing spirituality and exploring vulnerabilities while impressively presiding over the jazzy, soulful production entirely handled by himself.
— Del F. Cowie (@vibesandstuff)
16. DVSN, Sept. 5th
Like many of the acts affiliated with Drake's OVO Sound label, DVSN have cultivated an air of mystery around them with minimal interviews, scarce autobiographical details and shadowy photo shoots. What is left is the music and, given the pedigree of the participants, the album's strength is no surprise. Producer Nineteen85, known for helming Drake's phenomenally successful ""Hotline Bling"" among other tracks, and Toronto R&B singer Daniel Daley comprise the duo's take on sensual '90s R&B. More than a deferential retread, DVSN's adventurous production navigating differing moods and tempos and Daley's aching, soulful voice find the duo putting a firmly 21st century twist on a sound that is primed for revival.
— DFC
15. Donovan Woods, Hard Settle, Ain't Troubled
2016 was a busy year for Donovan Woods. As if releasing a full length record wasn’t enough, he then released an EP They Are Going Away back in September. Woods, who may have once considered himself the songwriter’s songwriter, has now more than proven with his full length that he has so much more to offer. Hard Settle, Ain’t Troubled is an incredible selection of songs about heartbreak (“We Never Met”), 21st century issues (“On The Nights You Stay Home”) and despair (“They Don’t Make Anything in That Town”), among other topics. But what makes his music special is the arrangements, where he can take that sad song and create such a nice groove you might have a second take on what the song is actually about. He also cites his rap group that he formed with friends as a teenager that helps give him some of the lyrical genius in terms of how/where he places the emphasis on words and phrasing in his songs. We all know how much 2016 sucked, and as Woods once said in an interview, “life is full of horrible shitty things,” but at least we have an artist like him that will sing the sorrows of the people.
— Matt Fisher (@MattRFisher)
14. The Weeknd, Starboy
As with everything Weeknd, Starboy goes hard into fetish. And is all the better for it. The object, in the case of this latest entry, is Michael Jackson — specifically Off The Wall era Michael, at his most deadly. The result is an album which pulls no punches when it comes to its pop ambitions. More than coming out party Beauty Behind the Madness, Starboy lays out its objective early and never wavers. Though produced by an impressive array of big name producers — Daft Punk, Max Martin, Diplo, Frank Dukes, Ben Billions, to name a few — the album has a sonic cohesiveness which feels zeitgeist-baiting if not entirely urgent. It’s the necessarily airey neon hit in a year defined by dark, depressing missives.
— Jon Dekel (@jondekel)
13. Drake, Views
Views is the most successful album of Drake’s career. It’s also one of the worst reviewed. The thing is, it’s exactly those parts of Views that people hated the most that made it his biggest album to date. It was too long (it really was), but those 20 tracks made it become the most streamed album ever (more tracks equals higher streaming numbers), a method his one-time cohort the Weeknd recently adopted on Starboy. Critics laid into Views for being self-absorbed and overwrought, even claiming it was too wintery for a summer album, but that’s basically like saying the album is “too Drake.” The thing is, Views also contains a lot of the things that Drake fans have proven, time and again, to love. There’s the answering machine confession as trope (“U With Me”), the hyper local Toronto references (“Weston Road Flows”), the unapologetically jealous narrator (throughout), the Future guest spot (“Grammys,”), corny lines (“Got so many chains they call me Chaining Tatum”), zeitgest capturing pop (“Hotline Bling” and “Once Dance”) and the jacking of popular underground flows, which here also includes patois (“Controlla,” “One Dance,” “Too Good”). On top of that, the production alone makes it one of the most enjoyable albums of the year, with OVO stalwarts Noah “40” Shebib, Boi-1d and Nineteen85 combining for 18 of the 20 credits. It may not be the Drake album we wanted, but it’s the Drake album we deserved for turning his solipsism into success in the first place.
— JKG
12. BadBadNotGood, IV
Toronto jazz nerds BadBadNotGood have earned a reputation as modern hip-hop’s reliable backing band: producing bedrock odes to the soul tracks the genre built its foundation on. On IV, the boys of BBNG finally step up their original game, rising their songwriting to a level that puts them on par with their collaborators. Whether grooving lush orchestration on Charlotte Day Wilson featuring single “In Your Eyes,” smoothing out Muscle Souls soul on “Time Moves Slow” or straight up flexing on instrumentals “Cashmere” and the title track, the album flows with the charm usually reserved for the genre’s greats. All of which makes IV the go-to hip dinner party album of 2016.
— JD
11. Tegan and Sara, Love You to Death
The success of Tegan and Sara never hinged on the intricacy of their guitar parts or experimental keyboards or even the slicked back synths that garnered them radio play last year on their seventh studio album, Heartthrob. The thread that ties it all together, from early hits like “Living Room” and “Speak Slow” to Heartthrob’s breakout, “Closer,” are the twins’ ability to pen and execute a great melody. Love You To Death is filled to the brim with those memorable gems like the bubblegum bursts of “Boyfriend” and “Stop Desire” to the more sweeping emotional arches of “100x” and “White Knuckles.” Here, they build on that clean pop sound they switched to on their last album, one that would go on to influence the sounds of artists like Taylor Swift and Carly Rae Jepsen, and it’s that polished space that lets the hooks shine. It doesn’t really matter what Tegan and Sara will sound like next because, as long as their precise sense of songwriting stays front and center, they are bound to succeed.
— ML
10. Tanya Tagaq, Retribution
Tanya Tagaq's personhood is often packaged in fragments in the media — musician, Inuk, woman, feminist, seal hunt defender, throat singer — when in fact it's her kaleidoscope wholeness that informs her art. She doesn't get to leave pieces of her identity behind, she can't shed her skin or deny her experiences. And Tagaq is never more fully realized than Retribution, her stunning new album which reasserts and reaffirms other aspects of her ratio, that of advocate and agitator, someone who uses her voice, body and art to challenge the patriarchy, white supremacy and colonization. Retribution is a record about rape, and it is her most provocative and remarkable yet. Specific and literal, conceptual and metaphorical, Retribution's thematic complexity is paralleled in the music itself, which is as ferociously metal- and punk-influenced as it is artful, amorphous and visceral. Retribution is exquisitely demanding and intricate, but it’s also Tagaq at her most personal.
— Andrea Warner (@_andreawarner)
9. Wintersleep, The Great Detachment
The first thing you hear on The Great Detachment is Loel Campbell on drums, punching his way to the space where bandmates Paul Murphy and Tim D’eon catch up to start “Amerika.” It’s a bold hand-clapper of an opener, and in February 2016 was a declaration: Wintersleep was back. The Yarmouth-bred, Montreal-based band has always been a tight (and tight-knit) group, and with this sixth album, the three core members are more coiled than ever, having worked with veteran producer Tony Doogan for 11 songs that suggest the band has aged, but has not softened.
With sing-along, dance-ready tracks like “Santa Fe” and “Spirit,” Wintersleep doesn’t let The Great Detachment lull, even when the band slows down (slightly) for songs more rooted in the Wintersleep family tree (“Metropolis,” the Geddy Lee-featuring “Territory”).
“I don't think I'll ever really feel like we've made it,” Murphy told me in July, before the band performed in its adopted Halifax hometown for the first time since this album was released. If anything, The Great Detachment proves Wintersleep’s long past that milestone.
— HG
8. River Tiber, Indigo
Indigo may be River Tiber's first LP, but I've been following Toronto's Tommy Paxton-Beesley for a long time. First, he grew up in my neighbourhood. Second, he's been putting out mostly instrumental EP's and I've been playing them on The Signal for a while now. Earlier work concentrated on guitar. That's what he studied at Berklee College of Music. But on Indigo, Paxton-Beesley steps up to the mic and what a voice he has. Truly a triple threat, not only is he a kick ass player (guitar, cello, trombone, drums and bass), he's a wonderful producer and the voice is the icing on the cake. His soulful voice adds so much warmth and feel to his highly polished and sophisticated arrangements and beats. Wistful and melancholic, Indigo works well in the dark. He's been working with Drake and BadBadNotGood. The next offering could send his career into orbit.
— Laurie Brown (@lauriebrown)
7. PUP, The Dream is Over
By now the backstory of The Dream is Over is well known: Boy screams; boy shreds vocal folds; boy's doctor says "the dream is over"; boy ignores advice and, with his three friends, releases the best Canadian punk record of the year. But what's lost in the boy's (Stefan Babcock) story is how this record single-handedly made pop-punk cool again. After the Good Charlottes of this world managed to suck every last ounce of punk out of the genre, here come PUP with an album that injects the essence of mayhem back into the dying corpse of melodic punk. From snotty opener "If This Tour Doesn't Kill You, I Will" to the rousing finale of "Pine Point," this album delivers on every fist pumping front. Turn this one up loud and follow Stefan's lead — ignore his doctor and scream along.
— Mitch Pollock (@mitchellblack)
6. Hannah Georgas, For Evelyn
A tribute album to Hannah Georgas’ 98-year-old grandmother brings out some of her best writing yet. Her third full length album, For Evelyn, is a great example of the results that can come for songwriters when they push further and deeper than previously explored. For Evelyn has moments of darkness, self-doubt and clarity all wrapped into 11 independently beautiful songs. Sonically the record includes songs that make you want to cry, some to jump around on the dance floor to and others that bring on self-reflection. Vocally, Georgas seems to have become even more confident, her voice more captivating more than ever. The result is an album most artists could only dream of creating at some point in their career.
— MF
5. Basia Bulat, Good Advice
On her fourth standout record, Basia Bulat sounds like she’s singing with a knowing wink and a smile. Heartbreak may have motivated Good Advice, but the Toronto native clearly doesn’t let it get the better of her, or her sound: each song lights up with layers of organs and synths and bright backup vocals, expertly nurtured by producer and My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James. Still, Bulat fearlessly digs deeper than ever before to write an honest account of every emotion that exists in the orbit of heartbreak: the end-of-your-rope patience and pleading in “Let Me In”; the “come-back-or-don’t” ultimatum in “Infamous”; the pretend pick-me-ups we tell ourselves to get through the day in “La La Lie.” It’s all truth, set to a shimmering soundtrack — everything you could want in 2016.
— Emma Godmere (@godmere)
4. Leonard Cohen, You Want It Darker
“I'm not interested in posterity, which is a paltry kind of eternity. ... I'm not interested in an insurance plan for my work."
That's what Leonard Cohen said to Adrienne Clarkson in 1966. He made it very clear he was not in the poet's game to be remembered, but I am not sure I believe him. If he had no interest in poetry that would be timeless, that would fearlessly and dependably address the truths of love and sex and God and dirt and food and bliss and pain and desire long after his time was over, why did he work at it so diligently? Why was he so good at it?
One song on his final album, You Want it Darker, released just weeks before his death, after a career spanning fifty years, is "Leaving the Table":
I don’t need a reason for what I became.
I’ve got these excuses, they’re tired and they’re lame.
I don’t need a pardon. There’s no one left to blame.
I’m leaving the table. I’m out of the game. Author
Sorry, Mr. Cohen. That's the trouble with fearlessly facing life and death as if you don't mind being forgotten: It tends to get you remembered.
— Tom Allen (@cbcr2shift)
3. Andy Shauf, The Party
Concept albums can do a couple of things: they can over-exaggerate otherwise minute details of life to exhausting lengths, or they can transform an everyday situations into a work of art and beauty. Andy Shauf’s The Party not only succeeds at the latter, it resets the parameters of what it means to write a truly beautiful album, redefining what it means to create a concept album. Shauf manages to take the little details of a party — the heart-to-heart conversations between friends, the anxieties between strangers conversing for the first time, the mixing pot of personalities in one room — and turn them into a study on socializing, written by a wallflower, for anybody to enjoy. It's hard to recommend a single track to start with, so just let the record do the job. Turn it on, drink it in its entirety and get to know one of Canada's finest songsmiths and storytellers.
— Kerry Martin (@ohhikerry)
2. Kaytranada, 99.9%
Over the past few years, Montreal's Kaytranada has graduated from redefining the dance floor with his cool-breeze Soundcloud remixes into a bonafide go-to producer for cutting edge, high profile acts. On 99.9%, he took his already heady synthesis of musical styles and developed a cohesive framework in which to insert tightly curated collaborations from a wide swath of musical envelope pushers who, like Kaytranada, often blur genres in their work. The album features a stellar lineup of progressive left-field stalwarts like Little Dragon, 2016 critical darling Anderson .Paak and Toronto's BadBadNotGood. 99.9% also exhibits Kaytranada's most notable trait of bringing attention to the overlooked, coaxing standout performances by Toronto rising artist River Tiber, comeback kid Craig David and reconfiguring forgotten Brazilan obscurities on "Lite Spots."
— DFC
1. A Tribe Called Red, We Are the Halluci Nation
We Are Halluci Nation challenges a history of cultural genocide in the most urgent political statement in music this year. Born from the words of late activist John Trudell — Halluci Nation, "a tribe that they cannot see." — the album is a celebration of inclusivity, catapulting their electric pow wow dance party into a full-blown cultural movement. A Tribe Called Red are three Indigenous DJs, Ian "DJ NDN" Campeau, Tim "2oolman" Hill and Bear Witness, who have united voices from across the world (pan-Africa, South America, Iraq), alongside the likes of Saul Williams, Shad, Tanya Tagaq, Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def) and author Joseph Boyden. Their collective expression seeks truth and reconciliation, not just a connection between people, but all of life.
This message of understanding carries forth through the album's cover, which is the same as the patch stitched into their jean jackets: "500 years and still drumming; Our DNA is the earth and sky." It's a concept album with a beginning, middle and no end.
— Colton Eddy (@coltondaniel)
Explore more
The best Canadian debut albums
Kaytranada essential songs
A Tribe Called Red-have-been never louder |
Regulations Are Making it Difficult for Cybersecurity Firms to Transact in Bitcoin
Due to bitcoin’s pseudo-anonymous nature, which makes it difficult to link transactions to the individuals conducting them, bitcoin has become the new go-to ransom payment method in ransomware attacks. This development has led cybersecurity firms to buy and store bitcoin in case their clients decide to pay the ransom. However, regulations are making it increasingly difficult for cybersecurity specialists to provide this service.
Leading exchange and wallet provider Coinbase has reportedly shut down the bitcoin account of cybersecurity specialist and founder of Night Lion Security Vinny Troia. Coinbase contacted Troia at the end of last year to inquire what the purpose behind his bitcoin holdings are. When Troia informed Coinbase that it was to buy and store bitcoin on behalf of clients who may potentially want to use them to pay for ransoms during ransomware attacks, his account was suspended and he was no longer able to set up a new account under his name or those of family members.
The issue with holding funds that may be used to pay criminals is that it could get regulated firms such as Coinbase in trouble with the financial regulator as well as the law, as this may be deemed as a breach of anti-money laundering (AML) laws. Given the increased scrutiny on bitcoin businesses by regulators, it should not come as a surprise that bitcoin exchanges would rather not see their platform be used to facilitate ransom payments, despite the well-meaning intent of these payments.
On the other hand, making it more difficult for cybersecurity firms to buy and store bitcoin could easily lead to more large-scale disruptions through ransomware attacks such as the global WannaCry ransomware attack that took place in May. In some cases, it is easier for companies to simply pay the ransom to regain access to their systems than it is to try to decrypt their own files. If, however, companies do not have easy access to bitcoin to pay for the ransom, disruptions in important institutions, such as hospitals, could take much longer than necessary. For that reason, many companies have started to hoard bitcoin to mitigate the ramifications of a ransomware attack by simply paying the ransom.
The story of Coinbase and Vinny Troia highlight the need for more dialogue between bitcoin startups and regulators as well as the dire need for cybersecurity laws that specify how ransomware payments should be handled so that financial regulations do not hinder the work of cybersecurity companies that are trying to keep businesses safe from cyber attacks. |
Microsoft is reportedly building a new "light-weight" web browser for its Windows operating system, a move that could allow it to distance itself from its flagship Internet Explorer browser, ZDNet reported Monday.
Code-named Spartan, the new browser will look and feel more like rivals Chrome and Firefox and will support extensions, the report said, citing sources with knowledge of the matter.
Read More Microsoft's aims to catch Amazon in the cloud
Spartan will be bundled with the desktop and mobile versions of the forthcoming Windows 10 OS, the sources told ZDNet. The desktop version will be equipped with both Spartan and IE 11.
The new product could be unveiled as early as January 21 at Microsoft's Windows 10 preview event, according to ZDNet.
Google's Chrome recently surpassed IE as the overall most popular browser in the U.S.. Chrome's market share rose 6 percent, year-over-year, to 31.8 percent, while IE's dropped 6 percent, year-over-year, to 30.9 percent, according to industry analysis by Adobe.
Read MoreApple could grow even bigger: Pro
Apple's Safari browser rounded off the top three with a 25 percent share on desktop and mobile combined, boosted by its dominance in the mobile sphere, the Adobe report said.
Microsoft declined to comment on the matter.
Click here to read the full ZDNet report. |
Canadian filmmaker Mathieu Ratthe is determined to remake The Talisman, a 1984 fantasy collaboration by Stephen King and Peter Straub.
Problem is, director Steven Spielberg has had an iron grip on the rights for the last 25 years.
After failing to get his director reel to Spielberg's camp, Ratthe opted for the next best option: YouTube.
Ratthe uploaded his six-minute video "The Hotel Room" (right) in the hopes of snagging the director's attention – and from the looks of the demo, he might have a decent shot.
It might just be the best King remake in years – remember those 2007 abominations 1408 and The Mist? Both were awful at best, a shame since King's material has birthed some of the best horror films ever.
The short stars Cameron Bright, who recently played a mutant in X-Men: The Last Stand, as a young man struggling to make sense of a glimpse into a strange alternate universe. The visual effects were done by Montreal-based Buzz Image, the team behind the aesthetic of Frank Milller's stunning big-screen adaptation 300.
Ratthe has made his intentions crystal clear by posting the following statement to his YouTube page: "My main objective for creating this piece is to demonstrate my directing ability and my vision to the producers who own the rights to the story: STEVEN SPIELBERG & KATHLEEN KENNEDY."
[via PopCandy]
See also: |
CYS policy ruled too broad
"Because of Fayette County, [the children] lost a year with him that they will never get back."
A 31-page court opinion, in which a federal judge found in favor of a man who had been separated from his children for nearly a year, came about two weeks too late.
The plaintiff, who sued Fayette County Children and Youth Services in June 2008 for violating his due process rights, died Nov. 18 after being injured in a car crash earlier in the month.
He was 31.
"It just makes what was already a tragic situation heartbreaking," said Sara Rose, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania who represented the man in his lawsuit.
Identified in the complaint only as John Doe to protect his three children, the man had been denied even supervised visitation for nearly 11 months between August 2007 and June 2008, after he was deemed a "perpetrator of sexual abuse" for having a consensual relationship with a 16-year-old girl.
He was never criminally charged.
In an opinion issued Monday, Senior U.S. District Judge Donetta W. Ambrose found that CYS violated Mr. Doe's "fundamental parental rights," and that the policy used to remove his children was "conscience shocking."
Ms. Rose was thrilled by the opinion, but said that it being issued on the day of Mr. Doe's funeral was "very hard."
"The situation is all the more tragic because of John Doe's untimely death," Ms. Rose said. "Because of Fayette County, [the children] lost a year with him that they will never get back."
The CYS case involving Mr. Doe began in September 2006, when the agency got a tip about his relationship with the 16-year-old girl.
During the pendency of the investigation, the caseworker involved required that the children live with Mr. Doe's parents. He had been the primary caregiver after he and his wife separated in 2005. But under the plan in place, Mr. Doe was allowed supervised visitation with his children.
He saw them every day.
That situation worked for 11 months. However, when a new caseworker took over, she showed up at Mr. Doe's parents' home about 10 p.m. on Aug. 1, 2007, threatening to place the children in foster care unless Mr. Doe agreed to give up all contact with the children, who at the time were 3, 4 and 6.
Fearing his children would be placed with strangers, he agreed to the plan and entered a sex offender treatment program CYS required for him to even have a chance of being reunited.
There had never been any allegations he abused his children.
Because of his difficulty accepting the separation, Mr. Doe sought counseling for depression and suicidal thoughts. He admitted himself three separate times in late 2007 to an area hospital for psychiatric treatment.
In June 2008, Mr. Doe filed the lawsuit against CYS and several caseworkers, alleging that they violated his due process rights for failing to provide him a hearing -- either before or after his children were taken; for violating his right to have care and custody of his children based on a flawed policy in place at CYS; and for violating his First Amendment rights to associate with his children.
Less than a week after the lawsuit was filed, CYS allowed Mr. Doe to begin having supervised visitation. By Aug. 1, 2008, he was permitted to have unlimited, unsupervised contact with the children.
At the time of his death, the children were living with Mr. Doe, and his girlfriend, now 20 years old, in Brownsville. They also have two children, ages 2 and 8 months.
On Monday, Judge Ambrose issued her opinion, granting summary judgment in Mr. Doe's favor on most of the issues before her.
"Here, while there was an allegation that plaintiff had sexual contact with a minor that was not his child, defendants had no evidence that plaintiff had abused or mistreated his children," she wrote.
The judge went on to say that CYS' policy that called for automatic termination of contact, "is too broad, unreasonable, ignores alternatives, is inflexible and completely devoid of assessments on a case-by-case basis. It is an arbitrary abuse of power."
The decision allows the case to proceed to trial for a jury to determine how much money in damages Mr. Doe is entitled to based on the violations. Because of his death, Ms. Rose said, the case can proceed on behalf of his estate.
"This situation was incredibly difficult for the whole family, and they're going to be dealing with the ramifications of Fayette County's actions for the rest of their lives," Ms. Rose said. "It's really important to make sure this doesn't happen again. He got his kids back, but he wanted to keep fighting this case to make sure this never happened to anyone else."
Paula Reed Ward: [email protected] or 412-263-2620.
First published on November 26, 2010 at 12:00 am |
To Preserve 'America's Gift To The World,' A Jazz Elder Becomes A UCLA Professor
Enlarge this image toggle caption Reed Hutchinson/UCLA Reed Hutchinson/UCLA
Just before 11 o'clock on a crisp Monday night in Hollywood, 82-year-old Kenny Burrell put his Gibson guitar in its velvet-lined case and said goodnight to several members of the Los Angeles Jazz Orchestra Unlimited. He had just finished an intermission-free, two-hour-plus set with the large ensemble, as he has done once a month since the summer. Waiting patiently among the suits and smiles was a 21-year-old guitarist eager to meet his idol. When the room finally cleared, Burrell was amiable and inquisitive, talking to the young fan about music and Michigan, where he grew up.
Thirty-five years after entering music education, Burrell has never been more involved with young people interested in jazz. He is passionate and a little concerned about preserving the legacy of the musical genre he helped define. So he's doing everything he can to ensure that his students have the opportunity to share what he calls "America's gift to the world."
Fifteen years ago, I was one of those kids waiting outside the green room. I later became one of his students at UCLA, where he told firsthand accounts of interacting with Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie while also driving small ensembles with a steely strum.
"There are thousands of fine jazz musicians who have no jobs to look forward to," Burrell says a few days after the concert in his UCLA office. "There is nothing waiting for people who graduate from jazz programs like these schools. There is nothing waiting for them like an L.A. Philharmonic or the New York Philharmonic. No nothing. There are no jobs, and to me that's a shame."
From 10 Weeks To Tens Of Millions
Burrell is a rare musician for his generation. While in his early 20s, he acquired a bachelor's degree in music theory and composition.
"When I was at Wayne State University in the '50s, it was a problem studying jazz, even talking about it in some cases," he says. "So I decided if I had a chance, I would teach jazz."
While waiting for that teaching opportunity, he made himself an essential character in the history textbooks. Burrell made his recording debut in 1951 with Dizzy Gillespie, and has since recorded more than 100 albums under his own name. He also lends his soulful tone to a handful of career-defining Jimmy Smith records, as well as notable LPs by Paul Chambers and Coleman Hawkins. His energy and tone today sound just as assured and unmistakable as they did when he started.
Burrell first became involved in jazz education in 1978, when he taught a 10-week overview of Duke Ellington for UCLA's Center for African American Studies. When he was first offered the position, Burrell says he wasn't quite sure how to approach a subject as broad as jazz.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Christina Limson O'Connell for NPR Christina Limson O'Connell for NPR
"I had to figure out in my mind what would be the most effective thing I could teach for one quarter," he says. "Both logically and spiritually, the name Ellington rose to the top, because much of the history of jazz was in his hands."
In 1996, his success with the Ellingtonia course and an expanding academic interest in the art form encouraged UCLA to offer a jazz studies degree. Burrell was the logical choice to head the program; he enlisted fellow storied musicians like bandleader Gerald Wilson, saxophonist Harold Land and drummer Billy Higgins to help teach ensembles and history classes.
"Kenny started the jazz studies program while I was there, so there were a lot of exciting things happening at that time," trombonist and former student Alan Ferber says. "He always had such a joyful spirit and an elegance with the way he carried himself around campus.
Nearly 20 years later, the program has expanded considerably, thanks to the music-industry heavyweights who live in the surrounding hills. Trumpeter Herb Alpert donated $30 million to UCLA's varied music programs, music executive Mo Ostin donated $10 million to help build a much-needed expansion of the music building, and the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz moved in last year, bringing musicians like Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter to the linoleum hallways.
Of the more than 28,000 undergraduate students at the school, only 35 are jazz majors. But the list of alumni includes not only Ferber, but also saxophonist Kamasi Washington, trombonist Isaac Smith and vocalist Gretchen Parlato.
"[Burrell] is inspiring, warm, very passionate about keeping the jazz tradition alive and well," Parlato says. "I remember, sometime leading up to graduation, he sat me down in a talk of encouragement and preparation. He looked me in the eyes and said, 'You've got it.' That meant the world to me."
A Big Band In Every City
Clearly, not every graduate can be a headliner, and Burrell says he owes all of his students more than just a handshake and a diploma. That led to the Los Angeles Jazz Orchestra Unlimited, Burrell's unofficial post-graduate opportunity for his students as well as the broader Los Angeles jazz scene. It's a swinging large ensemble dedicated to classic jazz repertoire and the writing and arranging of band members.
The Los Angeles Jazz Orchestra Unlimited is not a part of the UCLA jazz studies curriculum, but it does include UCLA staff (trumpeter Bobby Rodriguez, saxophonists Charles Owens and Justo Almario) and graduates (saxophonist Hitomi Oba, trombonist Nick DiPinna) who get plenty of opportunities to solo and earn a regular paycheck.
"What I'm doing there is an orchestra born out of need, out of necessity," Burrell says. "One of the things that prompted me to start this organization is what we were just talking about — better, proper and more accurate recognition of the importance of this music by the community, by the powers that be, by the culture guardians."
Burrell says he hopes to expand his concept of resident jazz orchestras to cities across the U.S., hopefully underwritten by cultural organizations and corporations in much the same way symphony orchestras survive. The potential is rich, but it hasn't proven particularly easy to enact. Nonetheless, at a time when most people are enjoying retirement, Burrell lends his celebrity, his time and his guitar to make his dream happen.
"This is not Kenny Burrell's big band," he says. "This is for Los Angeles. That's what this is about. I welcome all the help I can get. I just want to see it happen. It's good not only for the musicians and the people, but the history of the music. If we don't do something, it's going to slowly disintegrate." |
It is very important to know the concepts of Object Oriented Programming(OOP) before you go for an interview for any of the OOPs languages like Java, C++ or Python. Here I would be listing the mostly asked OOPs interview questions. And would also explain various OOPs concepts.
1. What is Object Oriented Programming?
Object Oriented programming is a style of programming that is based on the concept of objects. Objects advertise the type of data that it will store and the types of operations that it allows to manipulate the data.
2. What are the core concepts of OOPS?
The different OOPS concepts are
Abstraction
Encapsulation
Inheritance
Polymorphism
Composition
Association
Aggregation
Dependency
3. What is Abstraction? Abstraction is a the concept that denotes the extracting of essential details about an item or a group of items while ignoring the inessential details. In Java abstraction can be achieved by defining an Abstract class and extending that class or by defining an interface. public interface Vehcile { public String getModel(); public String getType(); }
4. What is Encapsulation? Encapsulation is grouping of all closely related data into a Class. The class contains all the data and methods. The attributes are not exposed to the outside world by defining them private and the methods are exposed by defining them as public . Essentially it hides the details of how things work and only making the behaviour public . Here is a typical java bean that hides the attributes but exposes the get and set method on the attributes. package com.programtalk.learn.encapsulation; public class Car { private String model; private String type; public String getModel() { return model; } public void setModel(String model) { this.model = model; } public String getType() { return type; } public void setType(String type) { this.type = type; } }
5. What is Inheritance? Inheritance is a mechanism by which one class is derived from another class. In Java, classes can inherit the properties and methods of other classes. The class that is derived from another class is called a subclass and the class that is inherited is called a superclass . Here is nice example of inheritance. A Student is a subclass of Person. So the student can use the properties and methods of Person and doesn’t need to define them again. package com.programtalk.learn.inheritance; public class Person { private String name; private String age; public String getName() { return name; } public void setName(String name) { this.name = name; } public String getAge() { return age; } public void setAge(String age) { this.age = age; } } package com.programtalk.learn.inheritance; public class Student extends Person{ private String grade; public String getGrade() { return grade; } public void setGrade(String grade) { this.grade = grade; } }
6. What is Polymorphism? Polymorphism is a concept that more than one type of objects share a common interface but have a different functionality. Example is that of various shapes. Calling the draw method on any of shapes draws the respective shape.
All Java classes inherit class Object and hence all java objects are polymorphic. Concepts that demonstrate polymorphism in java: Method Overloading: In Java same method name can be given to more than one methods but the arguments or parameters have to be different Here is a simple example. A class Operations defines three methods with same name add but with different argument list. package com.programtalk.learn.methodoverloading; public class Operations{ private int add(int i, int j) { return i + j; } private long add(long i, long j) { return i + j; } private float add(float i, float j) { return i + j; } } Method Overriding: In Method overriding a subclass method changes the behavior of the SuperClass method by redefining the method and overriding its functionality. Here is a nice example of method overriding. the example calls draw() on shape first and it prints “I am a shape”
then it calls draw() on circle and it prints “I am a shape”
then it creates an instance of Circle but assigns it to Shape. This is possible because Circle is also a type of Shape as it extends Shape. Now when draw() is invoked here. It prints “I am a Circle”. This behavior is referred to as virtual method invocation. An overridden method is invoked at run time, no matter what data type the reference is that was used in the source code at compile time. package com.programtalk.learn.methodoverriding; class Shape { public void draw(){ System.out.println("I am a shape"); } } class Circle extends Shape { public void draw(){ System.out.println("I am a circle"); } } public class TestOverriding{ public static void main(String[] args) { Circle circle = new Circle(); circle.draw(); Shape shape = new Shape(); shape.draw(); // this is the interesting case Shape circleShape = new Circle(); circleShape.draw(); } }
Output
I am a circle I am a shape I am a circle
You can also find more details here 7. What is Association? It represents a relationship between two or more objects where all objects have their own lifecycle and there is no owner. Let us take the example of Doctor and a Patient. Both have their own lifecycle. A doctor can see multiple patients and a patient can visit multiple doctors.
8. What is Aggregation? Aggregation is a form of association with all objects having there own lifecycle but there is an ownership. An example here would be like a car belongs to a Person but if the Person object is deleted the car object would not be deleted as it has its own lifecycle.
9. What is Composition? Composition is a special form of Aggregation. If the owner is destroyed then the owned object is also destroyed. The child object doesn’t have its own lifecycle
10. What is Dependency?
Dependency is a a form of relationship in which one object depends on another object. The other may or may not depend on the first object. An Order object depends on Customer object. An Order Object cannot be created without the Customer object.
11. What is multiple inheritance? Does Java support multiple inheritance?
Multiple inheritance is a feature in which an object can inherit attributes and methods of the parent object. Let’s look at various types of multiple inheritance and which of them is supported by Java.
Multiple Inheritance of State: This means ability to inherit fields from multiple classes. Java does not permit to extend more than once class. So this type of multiple inheritance is not supported in Java.
Multiple inheritance of implementation: This means the ability to inherit method definitions from multiple classes. Java didn’t support this type of multiple inheritance untile Java 8. In Java 8 Default methods were introduced. A class can implement more than one interface. And these interfaces can have default methods with same signature. The Java compiler provides some rules to determine which default method a particular class uses.
Multiple inheritance of type: Ability of a class to implement more than one interface. Java supports this type of multiple inheritance.
12. Is Java a pure Object Oriented Programming language?
Java is not a pure Object Oriented language. Java does have support for encapsulation, Abstraction, Inheritance, Polymorphism. But Java fails with a key requirement for pure OOP language which is that every predefined type must be Object. But java has primitive types like int , long , char , float . In pure OOP language all the operations have to be via Object methods but Java allows arithmetic operations like String a= "hello" + " world!"
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(CNN) Sunday marks the five-year anniversary of when Superstorm Sandy hit New Jersey and New York. And Sunday night into Monday morning, it's looking more likely that another big storm will lash the Northeast.
But -- possibly like your Facebook relationship status -- it's complicated.
This forecast banks off newly-formed Tropical Storm Philippe in western Cuba, a low-pressure system swinging a cold front across the eastern United States and a large dip in the jet stream -- which is due to former Typhoon Lan now off the coast of Alaska -- all merging at the same time near the Northeast Coast. The magnitude of the impact depends on whether the weather all lines up.
As these systems come closer together, you may hear people begin to reference the "perfect storm" -- a term used by meteorologists when everything in the atmosphere comes together just right to produce dangerous conditions.
"This is no longer a perfect storm, this is an imperfect storm," CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers said Friday.
The forecast models are still showing a significant storm; it just won't be "perfect."
But don't take the storm lightly. Tropical storm-force winds, coastal erosion and flooding rains are still likely from the Mid-Atlantic through New England. One thing is for certain: This storm system is not forecast to be as strong as Sandy.
The uncertainty lies in the timing
The National Hurricane Center found enough of a circulation Saturday morning to declare the Caribbean system a tropical depression and by 5 p.m. Saturday, it had strengthened to become the 16th named storm this year in the Atlantic.
Philippe isn't expected to become a hurricane and is forecast to quickly move parallel to the East Coast.
Now, this is when it gets more complicated, but stay with us:
Tropical Storm Philippe will funnel tropical moisture, helping to strengthen the amplified upper-level trough in the jet stream -- the level that airplanes fly -- and it will dip far enough south to launch the new low pressure rapidly up the East Coast and act as a bowling lane with the pins set up in the Northeast.
The CNN meteorologists think a low-pressure center that forms off the coast of the Carolinas early Sunday will move up the coast. As it does, it will gather energy and strength from a few different places: The same upper-level system will aid in bringing with it what is called a jet streak -- which simply means an area of very confined, very fast winds. The storm will gather fuel from the warm ocean temperature in the Gulf Stream and it will pick up speed from a weak point in the surface pattern.
But wait, there's more.
At the surface -- the part of the atmosphere we experience -- a cold front will swing through the eastern half of the United States. This front will come out of the same system that is bringing one of the first tastes of winter to the Midwest. This system is typical this time of year and brings rain, sometimes severe storms and behind it, cold crisp air.
By Sunday evening, the storm is off the coast, threatening the Mid-Atlantic. Impacts will begin Sunday evening and last through Monday morning for the major metro areas of Philadelphia, New York and Boston. By Monday midday, the system will quickly exit the US and move to Canada.
How it will impact you
Most of the impacts, again, depend on timing and location. However, some things are inevitable.
The southern tip of Florida will get an increased amount of rainfall throughout the day on Saturday. Everywhere along the East Coast, from Florida to Maine, will experience rain to some varying degree between Saturday and Monday. There could also be a few isolated tornadoes. One struck just southwest of Miami on Saturday afternoon, damaging a few homes and knocking over trees and power lines.
As the low pressure moves up the East Coast, there will be an increased amount of rainfall from Philadelphia to Boston. There will not be enough cold air in place to have snowfall along the coast. Either way, New York City residents will wake up Sunday wondering what happened to the sunny skies of the day before.
The cold air will move in swiftly after the system passes.
Join the conversation Track the latest weather story and share your comments with CNN Weather on Facebook and Twitter.
Temperatures in New York City will go from the upper 60s this weekend to the 50s on Monday.
Gusty winds will move in with the front on Sunday, but the ferocity of the winds' speed is dependent on where the low pressure comes ashore.
There is still a bit of uncertainty with this system. We are, thankfully, nearing the end of a very active hurricane season.
But winter is knocking at the door. |
PHILADELPHIA — Black voters are mostly on board, the numbers among Hispanics are there, but Hillary Clinton is laboring to attract the kind of millennial generation support that powered President Obama’s hope-and-change coalition to two White House wins.
Students shrugged off a visit Monday by Mrs. Clinton to Temple University, saying they’re not getting behind someone they think is too tied to the establishment they want to disrupt.
“The passion just isn’t there,” said Che Raskin, 20, a Clinton volunteer at the university, where the Democratic nominee was making an aggressive pitch to win over young voters.
He blamed the lack of enthusiasm in part on disappointment over Mrs. Clinton defeating Sen. Bernard Sanders, whose far-left run for the Democratic nomination attracted a massive following of young voters.
“They’re warming to Hillary as they realize what the stakes are,” insisted Mr. Raskin.
Evidence of Mrs. Clinton’s ongoing problems with millennials abounded on the campus in Philadelphia, a solidly Democratic city where robust turnout in November is key to Mrs. Clinton’s strategy to keep Pennsylvania in the blue column and keep Republican nominee Donald Trump out of the White House.
The former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state delivered a speech targeting millennial voters to a prescreened crowd of about 250 students, which filled all the seats provided.
The campaign didn’t have to turn away a crowd of students because of the limited seating.
One of her biggest applause lines in the speech was when Mrs. Clinton said that Mr. Sanders helped craft her plan for free tuition at public colleges and reduced student debt.
“Millennials are often anti-establishment, and they think she’s the same as Donald Trump — the left’s version of Donald Trump,” explained Sophie Salerno, 18, a registered Democrat who skipped Mrs. Clinton’s speech.
She would probably vote for Mrs. Clinton, she said, but most of her friends were disinterested in the election.
Recent polls reveled Mrs. Clinton’s eroding support nationally among millennials.
A Quinnipiac University Poll last week showed Mrs. Clinton with 31 percent of the vote among voters age 18 to 34, compared to 48 percent of that vote in August. At the same time, her lead over Mr. Trump narrowed to 5 points from 24 points.
By comparison, Mr. Obama captured 66 percent of the voters age 18 to 29 in 2008 and 60 percent of that age group in 2012.
Mrs. Clinton’s direct appeal to young voters — which included promises of free college tuition, student debt relief, good jobs for college graduates, fighting climate change with green energy jobs and universal broadband internet service — was part concerted outreach effort.
The Clinton campaign dispatched Mr. Sanders and fellow liberal firebrand Sen. Elizabeth Warren to campaign over the weekend at colleges across the swing state of Ohio.
Mrs. Clinton and her allies also revved up their attacks on Mr. Trump, labeling him a racist, bigot and a xenophobe, and warned that he would set back 50 years of social progress in the United States.
“We have to stand up to this hate. We cannot let this go on,” Mrs. Clinton told the students.
She assured them that she was fighting for their causes, including combating sexual assault on campus, police violence against blacks, bullying of LGBT people and illegal immigrants living in fear of deportation.
“They are doing all the right things but not to a receptive audience,” said Democratic strategist Jim Manley. “Young voters don’t necessarily see a difference between the different politicians, and they don’t see any reason not to stay home. I disagree with them.”
He predicted millennials will become more engaged and more alarmed about the possibility of Mr. Trump becoming president as Election Day draws near. “As we get close to the election, they are gong to see they have no other options but to support her,” he said.
The lack of enthusiasm for Mrs. Clinton on the Temple campus did not translate into support for Mr. Trump, with many students saying they despise the New York billionaire but would likely sit out the election rather than cast a ballot against him.
But she needs those young voters to turn out in large numbers, as well as strong support from minorities and women, to replicate Mr. Obama’s victories.
“On this campus, if I wore a Trump shirt, I’d get punched,” said English major Aaron Lynn, 22, a registered Republican. “But it seems like people don’t like [Mrs. Clinton’s] attitude. It seems like she has a sense of entitlement.”
In the speech, Mrs. Clinton said that she understood why young people were cynical about politics and politicians, but warned that they were wrong if they thought their vote didn’t matter this year.
“This is going to be close,” she said. “We need everyone off the sidelines. Not voting is not an option. That just plays into Trump’s hands. It really does.”
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission. |
Xbox’s Phil Spencer Teases Unannounced Games including Japanese Ones: “Can’t Wait to Announce” Them
Giuseppe Nelva March 11, 2014 4:21:25 AM EST
Microsoft Game Studios head honcho Phil Spencer had a few interesting details to share today on Twitter, mentioning multiple unannounced games, including Japanese ones:
This week had unannounced in playing builds, conversation in Japanese. Can’t wait to announce these guys.
Before you hear “Japanese” and you think Shenmue, that’s very unlikely, as Spencer himself specified.
Honestly best path is to convince Sega. They own IP, they have best business case for the game, it’s theirs.
He also mentioned that something is brewing on the Age of Mythology front as well, even if it’s just in the concept phase:
Things are good, thanks for asking. AoM is a good game. We doing some concept work with Age right now. Nothing concrete yet.
Personally, I liked Age of Mythology quite a lot, but I have to say that my attention is diverted when I hear “Japanese Games.” Setting Shenmue aside, I’m quite curious if they’ll be new IP or the revival of some glorious past franchise. |
The first “Undateable Live” of 2016 — and first installment since December 11, 2015 — posted episode-to-episode gains in adults 18-49 and total viewership.
Its viewership figure represents a season high.
Per Nielsen fast national data, Friday’s episode drew a 0.8 adults 18-49 rating and 3.155 million total viewers. The numbers top the 0.7 rating and 2.741 million viewership mark achieved by the 12/11/15 “Undateable.”
The viewership number also bests that of the October 16, 2015 installment, which had previously ranked as the most-watched “Undateable” of the season. It drew 3.133 million total viewers.
“Undateable” has not been a strong ratings performer since moving to Fridays, but it has been a fairly consistent one. It remains unclear whether the combination of that consistency and positive response to the show’s quality will result in an extended future at NBC.
— “Undateable” led into a re-run of “Superstore,” which drew a 0.6 and 2.305 million total viewers. NBC concluded its night with two hours of “Dateline” (1.1, 5.357 million at 9PM; 1.2, 5.833 million at 10PM). |
Must Read California Beer Behemoth Lagunitas Joining Ballard's Brewery Cluster By By Megan Hill
This morning, the jointly-owned and -operated Seattle Cider Company and Two Beers Brewing announced an acquisition by French farmer-run cooperative Agrial. The resulting merger is intended to provide the Seattle companies with the capital needed for continued growth, and founder and CEO Joel VandenBrink promises that nothing will change, at least as far as customers’ experiences with the beer and cider are concerned.
"The merger and further partnership will help Seattle Cider Company and Two Beers Brewing grow through Agrial’s international distribution network, gaining access to developing craft beer and cider communities around the world," a press release says. "It will also allow for needed capital expansion projects for the growing brewery and the cidery. Additionally, the partnership provides Agrial with the opportunity to gain access to the American craft cider and beer market, as well as distribute a selection of its French cidre brand, Louis Raison, to the US."
In a letter posted on Two Beers’ website, VandenBrink details the launch of the brewery in his 600-square-foot apartment more than ten years ago. Since, the company has grown considerably, and the cidery was added in 2013. Both businesses have expanded their production capacity several times over the years, and distribution now reaches several U.S. states as well as international markets. The merger will allow Two Beers and Seattle Cider to further expand distribution in Europe, Asia, and Africa, while Agrial will be able to import its products into the United States.
VandenBrink promises in his letter that the quality of his products will remain unchanged. He also says he will maintain his role as CEO and there will be no change in staff in Seattle. "Our products and our distributors will stay exactly the same and our dedication to Seattle and beyond can only increase with the strength of such a strong partner alongside us," he writes.
Brewery mergers and acquisitions are not entirely uncharted waters for Seattle’s beer scene. In June, Odin Brewing bought Hilliard’s Beer, and last year, AB InBev (the beer giant that includes Anheuser-Busch) purchased Seattle's Elysian Brewing.
So far, via Facebook at least, the response to the Two Beers and Seattle Cider Co news seems positive, with plenty of people offering their congratulations. That's quite different from the vitriolic outpouring that followed the Elysian news, when plenty of critics said stuff like this: |
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