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The excitement around New York City FC isn’t reserved for Patrick Vieira’s club’s run to the top of the Eastern Conference in Major League Soccer. The Club’s Academy teams began preseason Monday with a vastly different look than a year ago. “Last year it was just the one team with a couple of coaches and now we’ve grown into a full staff. They will be training out of St. John’s University [during the season] and there will be two teams and younger teams who will watch the older kids play,” NYCFC Sporting Director Claudio Reyna said. “It really starts to build out and feel more like an Academy where there’s kids of different age groups we’re looking to develop.” Archbishop Stepinac in White Plains is the preseason home base for the U-13/14 and the U-15/16 squads. They are also joined by U-12 and U-13 City Select teams, comprised of players from NYCFC’s 11 youth affiliates, who train before the Academy sessions. “For some players it was their first official training session with New York City FC and it was a special moment. It’s exciting and fun and obviously they’re building relationships both on and off the field,” Reyna said of the opening of preseason Monday. “It’s gone from one team to four with a lot of coaches around. It’s a very nice evolution of the Academy to see.” Stepinac’s location, a short distance from the first team’s training grounds and where many of the first team players live, helps create an important synergy between the first team and Academy sides. On Tuesday, midfielder Mehdi Ballouchy watched the Academy train and Thursday night Vieira will be on the sideline observing the session. “It’s turned out to be a really good location for that reason,” Reyna said. “Patrick will be out with one of the assistant coaches, our players will stop by, our Academy coaches can easily come to our training facility and prepare for the sessions throughout preseason around the first team and then drive over.” That bond between the first team and Academy is vital, according to Vieira. “This is really important for them to understand they are part of this football club and there is a pathway and a relationship between the first team coaches and the Academy coaches,” Vieira said. “It’s a journey for them, a long journey and we will have to give them the support they need.” RELATED: New York City FC Academy Adds Coaching Staff Vieira understands first-hand how crucial those relationships are after working with the Manchester City Elite Development Squad before coming to NYCFC. “They will come watch training, they will spend time eating with the first team, sitting next to [Andrea] Pirlo, David [Villa], Tommy [McNamara], playing ping pong with some of the first team players. It’s important for us, for what we try to do here.” The connection isn’t just between the players. It also includes the Academy coaching staff, who will have meetings every couple of months with the first team staff to discuss strategy and tactics. But their interaction won’t be strictly reserved for those meetings. “Yes there are meetings, but the Academy coaches also feel comfortable to watch the training sessions and they can pick their brains in the office or over a coffee,” Reyna said. “I think that’s really where you learn and steal ideas from each other. Our first team is very open to it and our Academy is excited to have that as a sounding board to get better a coaches.” Reyna said the Club’s philosophy on how to play and how to train is shared with the first team and the Academy sides. “It’s very much the idea that we want to play in the same way and be a team that plays the right way in its collective game with all 11 players involved in moving the ball,” Reyna said. “At the same time, though, it’s important to still have flexibility because every team has some slight differences in how they may set up.” And when Academy players watch first team training sessions, they will see a lot of the same drills and exercises their coaches utilize. “When they see the team train and play they’ll be able to watch their specific positions in terms of what they work on in the training sessions, their responsibilities and how they attack and defend,” Reyna said. This time next year, there will be another Academy team with the oldest players inching closer to perhaps a coveted spot on the first team or the chance to play college soccer. That’s the long-term goal. In the short term, Reyna is eager to watch the squads improve each time they step on the field. “We’re excited for this upcoming season, to see these guys grow,” Reyna said. “Every day, every week and every single training session is very important for our players to develop a professional attitude in the way they train and focus to get better. We saw that with the first Academy team from last season. The improvements they made collectively and individually were great to see.” |
The Paris prosecutor, François Molins, said in an interview on the radio station France Inter on Friday morning that it was “obvious” that the attacks had been coordinated from abroad, by people in Syria but also by individuals “who pushed fanaticism and professionalism” to the point of coming to monitor the terrorist operations from France and Belgium, he said, mentioning Abdelhamid Abaaoud. Mr. Abaaoud, who died in a police raid on a hide-out in St.-Denis on Nov. 18, is believed to have helped organize the logistics of the attacks. Referring to a separate incident, Mr. Molins said in the interview that investigators were unsure about the identity of a man who was shot and killed by officers as he tried to attack a police station in Paris on Thursday. Mr. Molins said that the man may have given a false identity in 2013 when he was stopped for theft by the police in the south of France, when he claimed to be Moroccan and to have been born in 1995. Police officers found a piece of paper on the man’s body with the Muslim profession of faith, a drawing of the flag of the Islamic State and a pledge of allegiance to the extremist group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The paper also referred to the situation in Syria as justification for the man’s attack. But the note identified the man as Tunisian, not Moroccan, and used a different name than the one given in 2013, Mr. Molins said. A cellphone with a German SIM card was being analyzed by investigators, he added. Mr. Molins, who has been at the forefront of multiple terrorist investigations in France and who rarely speaks directly to the news media, said that 2015 had been an “extremely difficult” year but warned that 2016 would be no different. He said that the authorities were confronted with a “protean” terrorist threat involving not only highly organized and coordinated attacks but also isolated acts by individuals receptive to Islamic State propaganda. “There is absolutely no reason to be optimistic, because we have a growing threat and a shape-shifting threat, which leads me to say that today ‘risk zero’ does not exist and might never exist,” Mr. Molins told France Inter. “It might be hard to hear, but it has to be known.” |
WWE News: New WWE Studios comedy project Feb 14, 2013 - 05:34 PM WWE Studios is partnering with producer Edward R. Pressman and Blum-Hanson-Allen Films to develop the action comedy movie Cruisin' For A Bruisin. "It focuses on two rule-breaking ex-cops who get back together to take revenge on the crooks and corrupt senator who murdered their mentor," according to a Deadline.com story. Powell's POV: There's no work yet as to whether this film will include any WWE wrestlers as cast members. Personally, I'm hoping for a Kane and Daniel Bryan buddy cop movie. Yes, Kane would wear the mask in my movie. RECOMMEND THIS ARTICLE: READ OUR INSIDER NEWS BEFORE ANYONE ELSE! BECOME A MEMBER FOR JUST $7.50 A MONTH (or less with a year-long sub) - GET THE FIRST LOOK AT EXCLUSIVE INSIDER DOT NET NEWS, TONS OF EXCLUSIVE AUDIO CONTENT, MEMBER MESSAGE BOARD ACCESS, START YOUR OWN BLOG, AND VIEW THE SITE WITHOUT ANY ADVERTISING: SIGN ME UP (or MORE INFO) Email This Article | Printer Friendly Page | Back to Main Listing RELATED ARTICLES FROM MGID AFFILIATE SITES... Loading... |
Hello Listeners, I have a private gig in Cincinnati in late October. Rather than fly straight home, I would like to play a few concerts. So…where should I go? Since you’re the ones I want to play for, I’m going to ask you! Here is a list of cities in the region that I’ve either never or rarely visited. Some of them are North-ish and some of them are South-ish. If you would really come to see me perform in any of these cities, vote and then we’ll crowdsource a week long October tour. This is still a work-in-progress so thank you for doing this experiment with me. I hope to play near you sooner rather than later. Celloly yours, Zoë P.S. If you have a reasonable suggestion for a city not on this list, please enter it. By reasonable, I mean a place no more than 500 miles from Cincinnati ;-) We’ll do something like this again for the rest of North America. GA IN KY MI NC NY OH ON PA SC TN WV P.P.S. If you haven’t already, you might want to make sure you’re on my mailing list so that you’ll know when I have a concert in your ‘hood. |
Some move for work. Some move for school. Some move for love. Some move to come home. There are as many stories about why people move to Thunder Bay, Ont., as there are people who move here. All week, CBC Superior Morning is bringing you some of their stories. Data released from the 2016 census showed that the census metropolitan area's population grew by just 25 people compared with the 2011 census—from 121,596 to 121,621 people. So we chose 25 people to profile. Here is the final group of five. Feras Battah Originally from Saudi Arabia, Feras Battah moved to Thunder Bay in 2013. (Feras Battah) For Feras Battah, Thunder Bay has become a second home. Battah was born in Saudi Arabia, and moved to Canada in 2011, then Thunder Bay two years later when he began studying electrical engineering. And now, he can't imagine himself anywhere else. "I started from zero," he said. "Now I feel like this is home. Now I'm trying to find a job here." "I feel I belong to Thunder Bay, I fit in this place." His parents do ask if he's coming home, and while he plans such a trip, he can't give them an exact date, because, as Battah puts it, "I want to stay here." Katie Stevens Katie Stevens came to Thunder Bay to work with the TBSO. (Katie Stevens) Katie Stevens came to Thunder Bay for work. In her case, that was a position with the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra. Originally from Almonte, Ontario, a small town near Ottawa, she sees parallels between Thunder Bay and her hometown. "I find that after living in Calgary and Toronto and Thunder Bay, that Thunder Bay has a small-town vibe." "You go to the grocery store, you see everybody you know." Corrina McKay Corrina McKay said racism in the city makes her feel unsafe and uncomfortable. (Corrina McKay) Life in Thunder Bay has been challenging for Corrina McKay. She's a young Indigenous woman, and as such, it can be difficult trying to go out in public, especially at night, McKay said. That extends to her relationship with her peers, too, as many of them are non-Indigenous. "I feel like the racism in Thunder Bay makes me feel uncofortable, and it's scary and I don't feel safe," she said. "I can feel the racism; it really does take a toll." There are agencies in the city, such as the Indigenous Friendship Centre, that she reaches out to. "It kind of helps," she said. "I depend on my friends a lot. I can't imagine what I'd be doing if I didn't have them around." Carly Forbes Carly Forbes, right, came to Thunder Bay to study nursing at Lakehead University. (Carly Forbes) Carly Forbes came to Thunder Bay to study nursing at Lakehead University. And, she admits, she had no plan to stay after finishing the program. Things changed quickly, however. "A few weeks after moving here I made a really great friend," Forbes said. "We met, actually, at a protest. She was one of the organizers, and we became really good friends." "A couple years later, we started to date." Another factor was the fact that she found a permanent, full-time position at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre. "In southern Ontario ... as a white person, I don't have to think about colonialism in the same way," Forbes said. "Whereas here, you have to think about it every day, because the impacts of it are so raw and real here." Ken Ogima Ken Ogima came to Thunder Bay to work for Fort William First Nation. (Ken Ogima) Ken Ogima was born in Dryden, but raised in Thunder Bay. He then spent about 20 years living in Alberta, returning to Thunder Bay to work as Fort William First Nation's CEO. His experience here has shown him that Fort William First Nation and Thunder Bay are very important to each other's success. "Racism is not only isolated to Indigenous and non-Indigenous," he said. "It's all of us together, and we're one big community." "If Thunder Bay is going to be successful, then we have to be successful here on Fort William First Nation, and vice-versa. And that goes straight across the board, with any social issue." "We all have to be at the table." Ogima said he loves Thunder Bay, and what gives him hope for the city is that "We are all willing, in some way, to work together." |
Description Celebrate the anniversary of Rez Infinite with this memorable scene from the all-new Area X level! This is a full-featured dynamic theme, including customized icons, sounds, and more! Give your PlayStation®4 system’s home screen a personal touch with this special theme. Themes can be downloaded to give your on-screen display a completely new look, changing the background, icons and colours to match your favourite game or style. After downloading, you can select the theme you want to use via the Themes option on the PS4™ system’s Settings menu. After downloading, you can select the theme you want to use via the Themes option on the PS4™ system’s Settings menu. Download of this product is subject to the PlayStation Network Terms of Service and our Software Usage Terms plus any specific additional conditions applying to this product. If you do not wish to accept these terms, do not download this product. See Terms of Service for more important information. Library programs ©Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc. exclusively licensed to Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe. Software Usage Terms apply, See eu.playstation.com/legal for full usage rights. © 2001 Sega © 2016, 2017 Enhance Games |
On the other extreme side of the spectrum are the wanderlusters – or explorers, rebels, thrill-seekers, whatever you want to call them – who can’t sit still and have a constant itch to explore. They have a thirst to see and experience as much of the world as possible. A thirst cannot be quenched no matter how many journeys or vacations they take. There’s no one place that they call home, because home is everywhere. It turns out, there’s a scientific explanation. In 1999, four scientists from UC Irvine published a paper titled “Population Migration and the Variation of Dopamine D4 Receptor (DRD4) Allele Frequencies Around the Globe” that explored the migration patterns and gene pool distribution of pre-historic human beings. They were originally researching for links between dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) and Attention Deficit Disorder. While conducting the study, they discovered another weird correlation: people with the DRD4 genes tend to be thrill-seeking and migratory. And almost all study participants with this gene had a long history of traveling. From the study’s conclusion: “As previous research has shown, long alleles of the DRD4 gene have been linked to novelty-seeking personality, hyperactivity, and risk-taking behaviors … It can be argued reasonably that exploratory behaviors are adaptive in migratory societies…usually harsh, frequently changing, and always providing a multitude of novel stimuli and ongoing challenges to survival” “The findings revealed a very strong association between the proportion of long alleles of the DRD4 gene in a population and its prehistorical macro-migration histories.” The DRD4 bearers were genetically pre-disposed to migrate, but only a small portion of the human genetic pool contains this trait. Whereas most of the population preferred to “[develop] intensive methods for using limited amounts of land”, these DRD4 thrill seekers actively sought out uninhabited lands “for more successful exploitation of resources in the particular environment” These wanderlusters were the crucial movers who pushed human civilizations out of Mesopotamia, spanning societies into Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. Other studies have supported this finding. In an investigation published by the National Geographics, journalist David Dobbs set out to find out why human beings travel. From the article: “No other mammal moves around like we do,” says Svante Pääbo, a director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, where he uses genetics to study human origins. “We jump borders. We push into new territory even when we have resources where we are. Other animals don’t do this. Other humans either. Neanderthals were around hundreds of thousands of years, but they never spread around the world. In just 50,000 years we covered everything. There’s a kind of madness to it. Sailing out into the ocean, you have no idea what’s on the other side. And now we go to Mars. We never stop. Why?” Why indeed. All evidence pointed to the DRD4 gene again. Dobbs found that there are dozens of studies that correlated DRD4 gene with increased desire to “explore new places, ideas, foods, relationships, drugs, or sexual opportunities; and generally embrace movement, change, and adventure.” The natural desire to explore is most intensely expressed in children, who aggressively form hypotheses in their minds and experiment. Can I place this block on another one without toppling over? Will I get the cookie if I cry or ask nicely? What happens if I hit the person who takes my toy, will they give my toy back or fight back? What if I hop over this fence I’m not suppose to; will I find new things to do? Such ruthlessly efficient hypothesis testing makes children natural adventurers. And people who retain this adventurous trait in adulthood are the explorers. The ones who dare to venture into unchartered territories. The ones who push human civilizations forward. Read this next: |
A flash of light has been spotted in the skies above the north and north-east by dozens of social media users tonight. A member of the Aberdeen Astronomical Society explained it was likely to have been an exploding meteor. The internet was awash with reports of a “big white flash” at about 7pm. Witnesses across the Highlands and Aberdeenshire said they had seen the explosion – but said that it was not accompanied by any thunder. Facebook user Wayne MacDonald was first to post CCTV footage of the massive flash online from Inverness. And videos were uploaded by many people to a popular Facebook group called Scotland by the Roadside. Highland councillor Ken Gowans told the Press and Journal he had witnessed the flash. “I was standing in my upstairs room on the phone, blethering away and the next thing there was this big flash. It was a fair size, and a light, greeny colour. “I phoned the police. They said they had received numerous reports of it. “It was almost due south from where I am in Westhill. This thing was massive – but there was no sound.” Social media erupted as people took to Twitter to debate what caused the flashes – with several tweeting the Royal Astronomical Society. Did you see the flashes or hear a rumbling? Let us know and send in your pictures/video to webpix@ajl.co.uk @RoyalAstroSoc 18:50GMT Report long flashes of light above Inverness. Sustained 1-3sec flashes across sky. Daylight colours. No thunder. ?? — Conor O'Hara (@SigilArts) February 29, 2016 Anyone local just see a bright flash lighting up whole sky. Not lightning. Reports of brilliant meteor like object. — John Poyner (@rothiemoon) February 29, 2016 Did anyone else see that big white flash in the sky about 20 minutes ago? (Coming into Inverness on A96) — Jackie Hendry (@JackieHendrySNP) February 29, 2016 |
My name is Matt, and until last night at around 8 p.m. PT, I was a LeBron James fan. It’s probably more accurate, really, to say that I have been a LeBron defender. The Decision? I said we should give him a break. Was it a tone-deaf moment? Sure, but didn’t it also raise literally millions of dollars for the Boys & Girls Club? I always envisioned a scenario wherein LeBron was sitting on his couch playing some video games, and Maverick Carter walked up behind him and said, “Hey BronBron,” because in my visions Maverick always calls him BronBron, “ESPN is gonna donate 3mil to the Boys & Girls Club in your name if we announce your free agency decision live on television…” Then LeBron – never looking away from his Call of Duty game – says, “Yeah, seems cool,” and literally doesn’t think about it again until he’s sitting on stage talking to Jim Grey. At which point, in my possibly misguided vision, LeBron thinks for the first time, “This might not be a great look…” Shortly thereafter, when LeBron, Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade held a relatively offensive display of hubris at the American Airlines Arena in Miami — “NOT ONE, NOT TWO, NOT THREE, NOT FOUR, NOT FIVE…” — I said, “Well who WOULDN’T be excited!” and moreover, “Maybe they really COULD win 6 or 7 or 8 with that core…” When LeBron has flopped and whined and politicked his way into beneficial referee treatment, I have said, “Get used to it, folks — this is how the NBA works.” When people said, “He wants to pass, he doesn’t have that killer instinct,” I raved about his determination to make the right basketball play. When tired old critics said it was wrong for him to take two weeks off mid-season to rest his legs, I called them old and told them to shut up. Perhaps more to the point, though, I have always cherished what LeBron IS, and embraced his true greatness, rather than worry about what he’s not or what he may have done wrong along the way. A physical marvel with a brain for basketball that seems to rival any player in the history of the game. A truly decent person in his interactions with folks — something I have seen firsthand in my capacity as occasional Warriors’ TV stats dude — who goes out of his way to maintain relationships. A funny, engaging person who seems to have success in every arena he steps into. You might call me naive, but I’m for celebrating greatness while we have it, and that’s always been my approach towards LeBron James. But that’s over now. I can’t be a LeBron James fan anymore, because self-respect is important to me. Monday night, LeBron James collided with Draymond Green in the second quarter of a not-so-hotly contested game between the Cavs and Warriors. Here’s the play: Let’s try to unpack this — Marv Albert, calling the play, says “Looks like a shot to the chest…” Chris Webber, the color analyst and resident former player, says, “I know this for a fact – [Richard] Jefferson is doing what we call fronting… This wasn’t that hard of a foul, it’s not going to end the world…” He goes on to say, “That’s just a regular foul, I don’t care what year it is…” We then get to see replays, which CLEARLY show that LeBron, while he takes a decent shot to the chest, is not touched in the face. At worst, Draymond’s shoulder grazes James’ beard. He then, as we have come to expect, flails his arms in the air, falls to the ground and puts his head in his arms as if he’s really struggling to process the massive blow he has just been dealt. In fact, one could argue that if anything made contact with LeBron’s face it was his own arm as he flopped dramatically to the floor. When he finally DID find the strength to rise to his feet (courageous warrior that he is) LeBron proceeded to rub his jaw for the next 5 minutes, as if it had been hit. This is not out of the ordinary, we have come to expect it not only from LeBron but from many of the great players in this league. It’s obnoxious, it’s certainly not ideal, but it happens; and there may be no way to put that genie back in the bottle. We already know flagrant fouls are called on contact that would quite literally have been a “play on” 15 years ago. And we know that players do — and likely will continue to — exaggerate contact in an effort to draw flagrant fouls, because they’re worth it. Not to mention, you and I know that the foul occurred around 5:45 or 6p PT, and I didn’t stop being a LeBron James fan for about 2 hours after that. It was LeBron’s fraudulent and embarrassing postgame bitch-fest that lost me. LeBron James on collision with Draymond Green: I'm alright, I'm a football player pic.twitter.com/AV47493Ln7 — KNBR (@KNBR) January 17, 2017 “I think his shoulder hit me in the face…” Except no, it didn’t. We all saw it NOT hit you in the face about 25 times. Perhaps a beard graze, certainly not a shot to the mouth. “… but it happened so fast, I didn’t even know who it was…” I can’t prove he knew it was Draymond. I can, however, look at the video of the play and see that he does, clearly, see that SOMEONE is coming, because he raises his arm to brace for a collision. He knew it was coming, unequivocally, and frankly I find it hard to believe that a guy who can literally recall almost every play of his CAREER and where all the players were on the floor would fail to recognize one of his chief rivals just before a collision. But then we get the coup de grace: “… but I’m alright, I’m a football player.” No, sir, you are most definitely not. A football player would be embarrassed to flail to the ground and lie with his head in his arms for three minutes after a love tap to the chest. A football player would run THROUGH that contact and continue straight to the rim. A football player would CERTAINLY NOT double down on over-dramatizing contact after the game. I can’t tell you why this was the final straw for me, except to say that perhaps it is one thing to flop, and to cajole officials into favorable treatment, and even to politick in postgame media sessions in the interest of future favorable treatment. Those may not be the most honorable behaviors, but they are understandable and justifiable. To tout your own toughness and metaphorically bang your chest after doing so (because, apparently, literally banging your chest would cause you great injury) is quite another thing. Furthermore, LeBron is simply too good for these antics — he is probably the most perfectly naturally-suited basketball athlete in the history of the sport. Nobody has possessed his combination of size, speed, skills and feel for the game. He does himself and the game a discredit when he engages in clownish ref-baiting and he loses all credibility when he attempts to hang a medal of valor on a blatant flop. I suppose I must concede here that LeBron is still doing pretty well. He’s still the best player in the NBA. He’s still a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer, a multiple champion, an athletic marvel and a basketball genius. He’s still as adored, worldwide, as much as probably just about any living human being. He has one less fan, though, and he didn’t have to. |
Thomas Johnson was angry Monday about his situation in life, police said. The former football player who could do no wrong at Skyline High School and Texas A&M was out of football and out of his home. And police say he took out his rage on a jogger he hacked to death at random Monday morning in northeast Dallas. Authorities said Johnson, 21, admitted to detectives that he used a “large bladed knife” to kill jogger David Stevens, 53, just before 8 a.m. on the White Rock Creek Trail. “It appears Mr. Johnson picked this victim at random,” Deputy Chief Rob Sherwin said. “Absolutely random. He just attacked him. … It’s just very unusual. It’s quite shocking.” Johnson walked away from the scene and asked a man a few blocks away if he could use his cellphone to call 911, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. Another man had also called 911 and said he saw a man in a hooded sweatshirt hit a jogger several times in the head with a sword. Police said Johnson told dispatchers that there was a man on the trail “laying down with a sword in his head and not moving.” That’s how police found Stevens, who died at Texas Health Presbyterian of Dallas. Police found Johnson, who had taken the man with the cellphone and another man to see the body, sitting next to a concrete pillar nearby with blood on his pants. “I need to talk to you,” he told an officer, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. “I just committed capital murder.” The officer asked what he meant. Police said Johnson replied, “It’s like when you don’t wake up.” Johnson will be charged with murder. He is currently in the Dallas County Jail. Monday was a grueling day for Dallas homicide detectives. The jogger was one of four people who were slain in three unconnected attacks, all not far from White Rock Lake. Johnson’s family couldn’t be reached for comment Monday. Johnson’s precipitous fall from grace began in 2012, soon after the freshman snagged three receptions in the Aggies’ stunning upset of the No. 1-ranked University of Alabama. The former Skyline Raiders star mysteriously vanished days after that big game. He resurfaced unharmed, but authorities, university officials and his family offered no explanation for his disappearance. He never played college football again. The Aggies will host the Crimson Tide again this weekend in what would have been Johnson’s senior season. Some close to him said last year he intended to return to football. But Johnson was arrested in 2014 on charges of evading arrest, burglary of a habitation and auto theft in Dallas County after he allegedly broke into his aunt’s house and stole her minivan and money. The aunt told police then that Johnson “had been causing problems in the family for a long period of time,” according to an affidavit. He declined a jailhouse interview with The Dallas Morning News then and was supposed to go into rehab. Johnson received probation for the crimes, but court records show prosecutors filed papers last month to have his probation revoked because he tested positive for marijuana and failed to meet other conditions, including paying fees. Although Monday’s attack was apparently a random act, Deputy Police Chief Andrew Acord said in an email to area residents that they should take precautions, such as bringing a friend and leaving behind valuables, before they use the trails. Layers of crime scene tape at the trail stopped several cyclists in their tracks Monday morning. Marc Mumby, a Friends of the White Rock Creek Trail board member, said he hadn’t seen anything like that in the 35 years he had ridden on the trail. “The trail is still pretty darn safe,” he said. Still, Mumby, 63, said he was disturbed. He said he wouldn’t let his wife be alone on the trail. “This is Dallas, and it’s a city, and stuff happens,” he said. “It’s just unfortunate it happened on the trail. It’s a place where people go for recreation and fun.” Cindy Kindel, 58, said she was leery of riding the trail alone, even in the daytime. She said the stabbing Monday seemed to confirm her worst fears. “It’s so wooded up here, and it’s so dense,” she said. “Anyone could come out of the brush at any time.” Kindel, who is self-employed and lives in the White Rock area, said she would be more cautious from now on. “It’s iffy to come out here by yourself. I’m in pretty good shape, but that wouldn’t stop anyone from knocking me off the bike,” she said. “I’m very hesitant to come out here. But I felt like it was a bright day and it was a good time of day to come out here. But I’m always on guard when I’m here.” Staff writer Kate Hairopoulos contributed to this report. xxx |
For the first time, the International Space Station (ISS) will house a Chinese experiment. The research is to be on board the ISS next year. A Chinese experiment is being readied for launch toward the International Space Station (ISS) in what could be the forerunner of a larger space-cooperation agenda between the United States and China. NanoRacks, a Houston-based company that helps commercial companies make use of the space station, has signed a historic agreement with the Beijing Institute of Technology to fly Chinese DNA research to the orbiting outpost next year. No commercial Chinese payload has ever flown to the orbiting lab before. Space-policy experts said they viewed the agreement as a significant step in shaping possible future joint work by the two spacefaring nations. [Latest News About China's Space Program] Cooperation prohibited Over the past few years, the law has prohibited NASA and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) from cooperating with China on space activities. That prohibition was originally signed into NASA-funding appropriations bills by Republican Congressman Frank Wolf (Virginia), who chaired the House Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee before retiring last year. The final law that Wolf put in place — P.L. 113-235, the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015, which is in effect today — states that no funds may be spent by NASA or OSTP to "develop, design, plan, promulgate, implement or execute a bilateral policy, program, order or contract of any kind to participate, collaborate or coordinate bilaterally in any way with China or any Chinese-owned company unless such activities are specifically authorized by law after the date of enactment of this act." However, the new NanoRacks deal is a commercial arrangement, and experts consider it legal. Obeying the rules Jeffrey Manber, NanoRacks' managing director, told Space.comthat he's delighted to be working with China on getting the nation's experiment on board the ISS. "We're excited to have a world-class organization that is contributing to our collective knowledge about what happens long term with the immune system during space travel," Manber said, adding that a recent visit to the Beijing Institute of Technology's School of Life Science left him extremely impressed. "They are not a lab that dabbles in space. … This is a life sciences research group focused on what we can learn from microgravity," Manber said. [The Human Body in Space: 6 Weird Facts] Manber said NanoRacks worked very hard to obey the rules of the Wolf amendment. "The White House has informed us that the agreement conforms to the Wolf amendment," Manber said. DNA mismatching The Chinese experiment headed for the ISS investigates how the space environment affects DNA, which serves as the genetic material for life as we know it. (Some viruses rely on a molecule called RNA, but scientists argue about whether or not viruses are truly "alive.") Chinese researchers are readying a payload to be taken to the International Space Station next year. The experiment is designed to determine if space radiation and microgravity cause gene mutation. (Image: © Beijing Institute of Technology) Making use of a 7-lb. (3 kilograms) device to be housed on the ISS, the Chinese research seeks to determine if space radiation and microgravity cause mutations. The research will focus on mutations to genes encoding antibodies, parts of the immune system that identify foreign objects. A prior experiment flew aboard China's uncrewed Shenzhou 8 spacecraft, which launched in October 2011. Shenzhou 8 docked autonomously with China's Tiangong 1 space module, then returned safely to Earth in mid-November 2011. [Gallery: Tiangong 1, China's First Space Laboratory] The Beijing Institute of Technology's School of Life Science often publishes its results in Western scientific journals and interacts with the European research community and multiple U.S. universities. Prudent discussions "This [ISS] project underwent a succession of prudent discussions and careful deliberations before we reached the agreement," said Deng Yulin, dean of the School of Life Science. "The results will answer some very important questions on life sciences," Deng said, according to an Aug. 8 story in China's state-run newspaper China Daily. "There has been no official cooperation in the space field between China and the U.S. for a long time, so I hope this project enables us to explore cooperation methods between the two space powers," Deng added. The NanoRacks contract, valued at $200,000, includes delivery of the Chinese experiment to the U.S. side of the ISS via a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft. The experiment will then be placed within the Japanese Kibo module for a planned 15 days. Deng told China Daily that NanoRacks offered his institute "very favorable terms," including the payment schedule. The project is a commercial one that serves only scientific purposes, he added. "My university is an educational entity, and the project is a business activity, so I don't think it will violate the U.S. law," Deng said. Rational action The NanoRacks agreement with the Chinese spurred reactions from several space-policy experts, such as Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. "Past U.S. policy of trying to isolate Chinese space activities, toward [the goal of] influencing, or pushing, China to change its policies — in areas from human rights to the development of anti-satellite capabilities — hasn't worked and in some cases has been overtly counterproductive to U.S. interests," Johnson-Freese said. As a result, Johnson-Freese told Space.com, "changing our approach in ways that do not involve technology transfer seems a rational action." It is in U.S. interests to better understand how China's decision-making process works, to have China act as a responsible player in space and to have a group within China advocate for nonaggressive policy toward the United States in space, Johnson-Freese said. Lone holdout "Given that the rest of the world is working with China in space, being the lone holdout has not worked in our favor in any of those areas," Johnson-Freese said. "Hopefully, this experiment on the ISS will be a positive step forward toward all of those goals." She noted that her views do not necessarily represent those of the Naval War College, the Department of the Navy or the Department of Defense. "I see this [China/NanoRacks agreement] as a commercial arrangement that has potential scientific benefits and [that] complies with existing laws and regulations," said Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. "Whether it's a precedent for future activities remains to be seen," Pace told Space.com. Space-cooperation dialogue Statements by U.S. politicians show that there may be an interesting "chess playing" factor in America's dealings with China. Secretary of State John Kerry shakes hands with Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang at the conclusion of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue/Consultation on People-to-People Exchange at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, DC., on June 24, 2015. (Image: © U.S. State Department) Some U.S. lawmakers have said they don't want the Russians to have a clear, open field with the Chinese. Better to have the U.S. engaged in working space deals with China, they say — but how best to evolve and work with China within the Wolf amendment? As for future U.S.-China space relations, the first "U.S.-China Civil Space Cooperation Dialogue" is slated to take place in China before the end of October. Last June, the United States and China decided to establish regular bilateral, government-to-government consultations on civil space cooperation. That agreement came out of the seventh round of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, held June 22-24 in Washington, D.C, with Secretary of State John Kerry taking active part in the discussions. The two sides held in-depth talks on major bilateral, regional and global issues. More than 70 important outcomes resulted from the dialogue, including a number of space items. Aside from putting in place a "Civil Space Cooperation Dialogue," the two sides also decided to have exchanges on other space matters, including satellite-collision avoidance, weather monitoring and climate research. The agreement signed by Kerry reflects State Department activities with China, which are not prohibited by law. Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is former director of research for the National Commission on Space and is co-author of Buzz Aldrin's 2013 book "Mission to Mars – My Vision for Space Exploration" published by National Geographic with a new updated paperback version released in May 2015. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com. |
About Make: liked it enough that... "without giving away too much, sometimes when we like a tool enough, we try to create some additional content around it to help highlight it more. We are working on a series of holidays projects around your laser right now and would love to keep it around for a bit to be able to work on these." -Matt Stultz, Make: Magazine Please note that you most definitely CAN engrave and cut in the same file with no interruption, please see our online instruction manual for more details. Page 18 http://voccell.com/resources/Instruction%20Manual/Manualv2_07.pdf *Previous Customers* Thank you for believing us. We are using this campaign to build larger quantities, to bring the costs down and to set up a full time assembly line. We want to pass those savings on to our previous DLS customers as well. If this campaign is successful and you purchased a DLS for full price between May 15th and the launch of this campaign we will send you refund for the difference. That's right, we will retroactively refund you. Thank you for supporting us! The DLS - 50w / 70w Desktop Laser System The DLS is already shipping to real customers. This is not vaporware or a beta product. We need your help to begin mass production by setting up a dedicated assembly line. The DLS is the ultimate value in desktop style lasers. Its rugged, all metal, fireproof exterior and quality components are designed for years of trouble free use while producing industry leading quality output. We have been working really hard on this the past couple of years to bring this to fruition. Each system has been tested by real people in the real world under full production loads and we are proud to say our work has paid off! The final assembly, calibration, quality control and support are all done in the USA. The DLS can cut simple or complex projects in organic materials like wood, leather and shell as well as plastics like acrylic and Delrin. The edges of materials like acrylic come out of the laser fully polished. Stack Laser Cut Plywood for 3D Projects. The Ebony Veneer Was Cut by Laser too for a Perfect Fit! The DLS can engrave virtually everything including woods, plastics, glass, stone and marking on all metals with coatings like anodized aluminum or directly on steels. Rasters, vectors and even photos can be engraved to 2032 DPI! Engrave Wood, Glass, Metal, Stone and More! Software You Already Know The DLS will import rasters, vectors and photos from the software you already use. From there its simply a matter of scale, rotation and specifying cutting power and speed before starting a cutting or engraving job. Compatible With Software You Already Use Quick Technical Specifications Please see http://www.voccell.com/wp/techspecs for more detailed specifications. Exterior Dimensions - 45" x 30" x 17" | 1125 x 762 x 431.8 mm Weight - 150lbs | 68.18 KG Work Envelope - 24" x 16" | 609.6mm x 406.4mm Laser - 50w (70w Optional) Water Cooled CO2 Laser Optics - Made In the USA Precision - .0004" | .0125mm Minimum Feature Size - .002" | .05mm Maximum Engraving Speed - 400mm/s + Maximum Cutting Thickness (1-Pass Polished Edge) - .313" | 8mm Maximum Cutting Thickness (1-Pass Reduced Edge Quality) - .50" | 12.7mm Maximum Material Thickness - 4.5" Mechatronics - High Speed Stepper Motors Duty Cycle - 100% Frame - All Metal Construction Phase Change Chiller - INCLUDED Air Compressor - INCLUDED Exhaust Fan and Ducting - INCLUDED Final Assembly, Calibration, QC and Support in the USA Special Features Free Replacement Parts: An extra focus lens and mirror are included with every purchase. Virtual Home Position: A simple checkbox tells the laser to start cutting and engraving wherever it is positioned allowing users to quickly align single item jobs without jigs or fixturing. Visible Laser Positioning: A visible, red laser dot is projected along the same optical path of the CO2 laser so you know exactly where your cut or engraving starts. Front Panel Access: The front lower panel of the laser can be lowered to allow materials of unlimited length to be engraved. Side Panel Access: The side panel of the laser can be lowered to allow materials of unlimited length to be engraved. Pass-through Rear Panel Access: The rear panel can be unbolted to allow full pass through of materials. Auto-Trace: The DLS will automatically trace hand drawn images into vector curves for cutting or engraving. Warranty and Safety 12 Month Bumper to Bumper Warranty The DLS is a Class 2 Laser During Normal Operation Safety Interlock on Primary Door Emergency Stop Switch Welded Steel Housing Negative Pressure Exhaust System Keeps Optics Clean and along with the Air Compressor Prevents Flare Ups Isolated Power Supply and Laser Tube Laser Comparison Chart Please see our chart at http://www.voccell.com/wp/comparisons for a comparison between the DLS and other popular lasers. Shipping via Freight The DLS is heavy. It comes fully assembled in a wooden crate with the accessories (chiller, exhaust etc.) in separate cardboard boxes. The total weight of the delivery is 350 pounds which REQUIRES freight shipment, this cannot be shipped via regular UPS or Fedex due to the size and weight. We will arrange all freight deliveries for you, don't worry! |
TL;DR - Sign up here: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/7404548203 Do it now, because ticket sales end on the 27th! LVL1 is proud to host a Raspberry Pi Bootcamp on July 31st, at 6:30pm. This workshop will go through the basics of hooking up a Raspberry Pi and getting it up and running, using the wonderful Adafruit Raspberry Pi Starter Pack. Pick your ticket, with or without Pi, and come to LVL1 on July 31st. You need only bring your laptop! We'll go through the basics of hooking up the Raspberry Pi, loading an image onto the SD card, booting the Pi for the first time, and getting it blinking. If you're curious about this exciting physical computing platform, this is a great excuse to pick it up! What timing, also! LVL1 is on the proposed route of the Raspberry Pi Foundation's American Pi Roadshow. Tentatively, they'll be stopping by on August 9th! This will be a great kick in the pants for your latest embedded project, which you can then show off to all the Pi fanatics in the Louisville area! Seating is limited to 15, and ticket sales will end on the 27th so we have enough time to buy the kits. Tell all your fiends, and get ready for a slice of Pi! The evenbrite link is here: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/7404548203 |
Horror is not my particular genre of choice. I enjoy my sleep, and I dislike anything that might give me nightmares and keep me awake. Moreover, my style of GMing is to empower the players to tell their characters’ stories and allow the possibility of success in everything that they try. But just like every other type of story, there is a time and place to make things scary. Characters can have powerful moments when they are helpless. The world can seem more real when it is twisted. And you really do find out who you are and what you are willing to sacrifice when death stalks the character that you have put 3 years of love and development into. So for those of you that want to have some scary moments in your campaign, or a scary campaign as a whole, here are our 3 tips to make your roleplaying game scary. Start With Normalcy If you want to build up something as terrifying, don’t start by having a monster kick down the door. Instead, paint the world as normal and as mundane as your setting allows. Then throw just a little hint that something is off. Not a big thing. Just a tiny something that a rational person can explain away. A goblin in a D&D campaign is not really scary to most adventurers, especially by the time they encounter their second one. There are many monsters that are much stranger, stronger, and more terrifying in the world. But if you or I ran into a goblin, we would probably freak out. Even if we ran into it with our car. Why? Because goblins do not belong in our world, and everything else about our day made sense. Encountering a goblin does not. If you really want to push this, make your monster look human until it gets scary. If you are unfamiliar with the Uncanny Valley hypothesis, it is basically the theory that something that is mostly human but a little off elicits our fear of death. This is why we often act with so much fear and revulsion towards zombies, possessed humans, and aliens that look like people until weird stuff starts popping out of them. Make The Monster Impossible to Kill It is hard to be afraid of something that you can fight and defeat. If you take a whack at something, or burn a 5th level spell, and the creature is unfazed…well, that would be a good time to run. And why are you running? Because you don’t’ want to die. And that thing will probably kill you if it catches up to you. This is one of the big points that a lot of horror game attempts fail on. Cthulu is not all that scary if you find a tank that can kill him in a couple of shots. The big bad monster should not just be very hard to kill. It should be impossible. Getting away from it should be what is very hard to do. Some players (and GMs) may struggle with what to do if you cannot kill a monster. After all, constantly rolling Athletics (run) and Stealth (hide) checks will make for a boring adventure, and clearly the same PCs are going to succeed at those checks every time. So how do you keep the game interesting? The balance you want to play with here is the circumstances of escaping with the desire to learn. Encourage players to try different things to see what they can learn from the monster. Don’t punish them for taking the first swing if it doesn’t work because they need to learn from that. Then let them try other weapons like fire or electricity. Let them see if they can hide behind holy symbols or salted doorways. Push them to figure out if the creature is attracted to blood or sin or something else. While they are figuring out if the monster is intelligent or just instinctual, they also need to learn to flee from it. Spice up the fleeing checks with environment and obstacles. Jump over holes in the floor, escape the government agents trying to cover everything up, or pick that lock and then try to lock the door behind you. When combat won’t work, clever thinking needs to be dedicated towards escaping. Otherwise the game will end. Let Evil Become Infectious Speaking of zombies, one of the most horrifying things about them is their bite. It doesn’t do much damage, really. But everyone knows that the moment you are bit your life is over. Why? Because you are infected, and that means you are about to become one of the things you fear. The same is true for vampires, werewolves, and several other classic and less classic monsters. The idea of their evil turning you into something evil yourself is a primal fear. Characters will often want to be extra cautious around a monster that could turn them, and extra paranoid about fellow party members that receive a bite from such a creature. The infection does not have to transform either. It could just be a slow death sentence. A poison that will rot you away, or a chemical that will eventually make your blood explode. It could even be a slow subtle creeping taint that eats at your soul the more time you spend in the cursed location. Maybe it just starts stacking penalties on your checks, making you feel like you are getting more and more helpless as time goes on. If you want the party to be paranoid of each other, go for a transformative infection. If you want a long campaign of corruption, go for the slow death sentence. Either way, knowing that even if the run from the creature they are not safe will keep that fear real when the bad thing is not around. Closing Thoughts Even if you don’t want a long horror campaign, these ideas can still be used to add a little drama into your adventures. Making the party’s first encounter with a monster/alien seem terrifying is a good way to start a campaign and keep it real. Introducing a high-level monster that your party has to run from now can inspire them to level up and return for revenge. And making something evil infectious can drive a quest to find a cure. I am sure that actual fans of horror have even better ideas about how to make your game scary and fun. So please share those ideas with us. I am always eager to learn. Rate this: Share this: Twitter Facebook Google Like this: Like Loading... Related |
GETTY The refugees (not pictured) allegedly brawled after one of the groups was spotted drinking alcohol Five people were taken to hospital after the fight which was ignited over frictions between different factions of Islam. The brawl broke out after Pakistani men at the Leimen asylum centre in Germany accused a group of Afghan refugees of being “bad Muslims” for drinking inside the camp, according to local media. GETTY FILE PIC Police were called to the camp (not pictured) after 200 asylum seekers allegedly began brawling A staggering 32 police cars were sent to the scene after the two originally sent had to call for backup to break-up the 200 migrants, according to Focus. Officers said ten Afghan refugees were taken to a police station to sober up, but no arrests were made. It is not the first time asylum seekers have fought each other inside refugee camps. GETTY FILE PIC A staggering 32 police cars were sent to the camp to control the situation GETTY German official Rainer Wendt has previously warned against segregating refugees by religion In October a German official claimed refugees were taking part in "organised mass brawls" inside the country’s centres. Rainer Wendt said migrant camps were experiencing "proper power struggles between different groups who have different ethnic and religious backgrounds". Mr Wendt, the leader of Germany's police union, added that information about the extent of the crisis is being hidden by authorities to avoid scaring the public. We must not forget: in the home countries, most victims of Islamists are not Christians, but Muslims Rainer Wendt However he warned that segregating refugees by religion is not the answer to the problem. He said: “We must not forget: in the home countries, most victims of Islamists are not Christians, but Muslims. "A religious separation is therefore not effective." |
SEOUL--As Samsung Electronics Co.'s mobile business stumbled over the past year, the South Korean technology giant found a measure of salvation in its surging semiconductor unit. But no more. On Thursday, Samsung reported a 40% drop in net profit for the last three months of 2015 to 3.2 trillion Korean won ($2.65 billion), as its chip business recorded its slowest quarter of profit growth in more than three years. Samsung's mobile business didn't fare much better, depriving the company of its two key profit drivers as a broader global economic downturn threatens to exacerbate a natural slowdown in the maturing smartphone market. "Samsung's main business units are all facing a downturn," says C.W. Chung, an analyst for Nomura in Seoul. Company executives suggested that there would likely be more pain to come this year, helping send shares in the company down 2.6% on Thursday, wiping out about $3.5 billion in its market capitalization. Samsung mobile executive Lee Kyeong-tae warned that "competition among smartphone players will intensify even further as a consequence of market growth slowdown." The company's investor relations chief, Robert Yi told analysts that "it will be a challenge to maintain last year's earnings levels" in the first half of the year, citing macroeconomic headwinds and forecasts of slack demand for information-technology products. While Mr. Yi said he hoped for a modest improvement in the second half of the year, other executives tried to emphasize Samsung's longer-term prospects, pledging a renewed push to develop an ecosystem of mobile software and services to attract and keep more smartphone users. They also said they would focus on winning consumers of low- and midrange smartphones in developing markets, many of whom are buying smartphones for the first time. "Executives are touting a lot of new business pushes in different areas, but they have yet to translate into solid results," said Mr. Chung of Nomura, who noted that most analysts now expect Samsung's operating profit to fall this year from the $21.9 billion that it earned in 2015. "If the company manages to sustain last year's profit levels this year, that'll be impressive," he said. Samsung isn't the only technology company to send a warning signal on growth. Samsung's U.S. semiconductor peers Intel Corp. and Qualcomm Inc. have reported weaker earnings as growth in demand for smartphones and other IT products slows, while Apple Inc. on Tuesday forecast its first revenue decline since 2003 as iPhone sales slowed. But Samsung is particularly vulnerable. It is the world's biggest producer of smartphones and memory chips used in everything from mobile phones to personal computers. Research firm Gartner estimates global chip sales fell 1.9% last year, the first decline since 2012. Global smartphone shipments grew at just 6% in the fourth quarter, according to data tracker Strategy Analytics. Samsung has long touted its diversified approach to the technology business, with cyclical downswings in chips offset by gains in mobile devices, and stable if unspectacular revenue from the company's television and home appliance businesses. Indeed, those products were a rare bright spot for Samsung, though TVs and appliances contribute less than 5% of Samsung's overall operating profit. In the longer term, Samsung executives laid out a road map to competitiveness in the mobile business, creating a collection of software and services unique to Samsung smartphones that can help the company differentiate itself from a growing herd of Android smartphone manufacturers. Late last year, Samsung stripped its longtime mobile chief J.K. Shin of his day-to-day duties, and promoted the mobile research and development chief D.J. Koh. Instead of replacing Mr. Koh with one mobile R&D chief, Samsung appointed two executives: one to oversee mobile hardware R&D, and the other mobile software R&D. The reason, explained Mr. Lee, the Samsung mobile executive, is to "accelerate innovation on software and services, while developing and identifying new business opportunities." Mr. Lee cited Samsung Pay, the company's mobile payment service, as a sign of success, adding that the service would be rolled in China and parts of Europe this year. But Samsung's software and services ambitions will take several quarters or more to hit the bottom line, if they succeed. Meanwhile, Samsung will remain reliant on chips and phones to drive growth--and the headwinds there are much stronger than a year earlier. In the fourth quarter, Samsung's operating profit from chip sales inched up just 3.7% despite robust revenue, reflecting a sharp fall in profit margin to 21%--the lowest level since the second quarter of 2014. In the mobile-phone business, Samsung continues to suffer from stiff competition from low-cost Chinese brands that have squeezed Samsung's mobile margins and eroded its market share. While operating profit from Samsung's mobile business rose 14% from the disastrous fourth quarter a year earlier, mobile revenue slipped. Mobile profit margin edged up to 8.9% from 7.5% a year earlier. To lift its flagging share price, Samsung has vowed to return 30% to 50% of its annual free cash flow to investors through buybacks and higher dividend payouts. The company said it had already bought up and canceled 4.25 trillion won of shares in the first phase of the buyback program. On Thursday's earnings call, Mr. Yi said that while Samsung would nudge its dividend higher, it hadn't yet determined how it would meet its shareholder return target this year, saying that, "given all the uncertainty in the market, it's difficult to have visibility on any capital expenditure plans as of yet." Even so, the company's cash levels piled up to 71.54 trillion Korean won, the highest level in the company's history. Write to Jonathan Cheng at jonathan.cheng@wsj.com and Min-Jeong Lee at min-jeong.lee@wsj.com |
Advertisement Photo: KnCMiner Engine of Destruction? KnCMiner’s new mining rigs are so powerful that they helped double the computing power of the Bitcoin network in October 2013. There are many benchmarks you can use to measure the growth of Bitcoin. All of them—the price listed by online exchanges, the number of new merchants accepting the cryptocurrency for goods and services, the transaction volume across the Bitcoin network—suggest that Bitcoin is steadily gaining in popularity. But the most impressive metric by far is the astronomical increase in the processing power of the network of computers involved in running the transactions and creating new bitcoins. This month, it exploded, doubling in just a few weeks the amount of power it had previously taken more than four years to accumulate. The change has occurred as enriched bitcoin miners have reinvested their profits into new, sophisticated hardware, a trend that’s likely to continue until companies manufacturing this equipment bump up against the state of the art in computer-chip technology. In the meantime, smaller operations, the little guys who once had a decent chance of earning some bitcoins on their laptop PCs, are being edged out by the competition, leaving the stability and security of Bitcoin in the hands of fewer people and threatening the reputation of a currency that was designed to distribute power among the masses. For those who want to opt out of this arms race, or who can’t keep pace with the upgrades in Bitcoin mining, an alternative already exists: another a cryptocurrency called Litecoin, which was specifically designed to fix the problems Bitcoin is now facing. But to understand why Litecoin might be a solution, you have to understand why Bitcoin is entering strange territory. The speed of the Bitcoin network is measured in hashes, which are the fundamental calculations processed by miners running the Bitcoin software. The faster they are able to churn them out, the more likely they are to create a new chunk of bitcoins. From 2009, the year Bitcoin was created, until early this year, the cumulative hash rate of all the computers hooked into the Bitcoin network worldwide grew only modestly, never rising above 50 000 gigahashes per second. But when change arrived, it came suddenly. By October, the rate was 1.9 petahashes per second (nearly 2 quadrillion). And in less than a month, that rate has doubled again. The increase came as mining rigs based on application-specific integrated circuits, or ASICs, hit the market. The ASICs in these computers are specifically hardwired to compute the Bitcoin SHA-256 hash. Though it came late to the game, Avalon was the first company to get an ASIC miner to the public, shipping 300 units by the end of February. The rigs each added about 60 gigahashes per second to the Bitcoin network, a boost that was immediately noticeable. But that was only the beginning. Butterfly Labs finally got its smaller 5-gigahash-per-second rig out to disgruntled customers who had been waiting over a year for shipment, and a Swedish company called KnCMiner sent out a considerably more powerful, 550-gigahash-per-second rig in October. Charts: BitInfoCharts Bitcoin computing skyrockets: The hashrate is a measure of the computing power of the peer-to-peer network of computers that handles Bitcoin transactions and creates new bitcoins. Computers with purpose-built chips shot the hashrate past 1 quadrillion hashes per second earlier this year. The Bitcoin network compensates by increasing the average number of hashes a miner must compute to in order to make bitcoins. But this has the effect of driving away the general purpose computers on the network. It should be noted that the rigs rarely operate at exactly the speeds these companies claim, with some running faster than promised and some running slower. But the remarkable effect on the speed of the overall network is evidence enough that they are getting the job done. And rig manufacturers have yet to reach the state of the art in chip technology. Typically, with each new generation of chip-manufacturing technology, the number of transistors that can be squeezed onto a given area of silicon doubles. Each generation is named for a measurement—such as “65 nanometer”—that once referred to the smallest feature on the chip, but that number hasn’t really meant anything concrete for years. Intel now leads the field, having demonstrated a chip made with a 14-nm process, but the foundries that build low-volume ASICs are usually not at the cutting edge. The first mining rigs that Avalon sent out earlier this year were made with a 110-nm process, far behind the industry standard. The best available is the KnCMiner, which uses a 28-nm ASIC called the Jupiter. Progress has been fast and furious up until this point, but a slight tapering off past the 28-nm mark can be expected. Big players such as GlobalFoundries, Intel, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. “are the ones doing the research into lower-nanometer processes, which is very expensive research,” says David Perry, a bitcoin miner in Las Vegas. “As such, they enjoy a period of exclusivity before they release those processes to the rest of us,” he adds. Perry reviews new rig technology on his blog, Coding in My Sleep. The profitability of a single mining computer is measured by the relative power it contributes to the entire network. As these new rigs roll out, and the speed of the Bitcoin network increases, the protocol governing how much computing you need to earn a bitcoin responds by increasing the difficulty of the algorithm, meaning that it takes more hashes on average to create new coins. In the four years since Bitcoin was created, miners have repeatedly upgraded to devices that are more energy efficient and tuned to the task of calculating Bitcoin hashes, graduating from CPUs to GPUs to FPGAs, and now finally to ASIC mining rigs. Because each improvement has brought with it an increase in difficulty, first-generation machines that once brought in a profit now fail to mine enough bitcoins to pay for the electricity running them. Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious character who invented Bitcoin, most likely mined the first coins on a personal computer. Today, it would be absurd to do so. Perry now owns multiple ASIC miners, and when he put the first one online this April, he retired an entire rack of obsolete rigs. This trend is already pushing out some of the early Bitcoiners who can’t afford to upgrade. But what does the future look like? Perry is optimistic that bitcoin mining won’t be restricted to the richest: As rig manufacturing becomes a more professional enterprise, companies will find a way to bring a more diverse selection of products to market, bearing a range of price tags, he says. “Imagine you made a low-power chip, something that costs a few cents to produce and sucks down no more power than the Wi-Fi on your phone. You could put that in everything. Put that in phones, TVs, laptops, tablets, etc. ‘The Internet of Things,’ as the media are so fond of calling it,” says Perry. In that scenario, everyone is mining for bitcoins, and although they might be collecting mere pocket change, they are still helping to maintain the distributed nature of the network. But there is another way out of this arms race, or at the very least a way to slow down the impact that ASICs are having. Right now, the alternative is playing out as a separate hybrid cryptocurrency called Litecoin. In 2011, after identifying a couple of potential weaknesses in the Bitcoin protocol design—including slow transaction times—a developer named Charles Lee altered it slightly and started a new similar currency called Litecoin. “The design idea was to create a silver to Bitcoin’s gold,” says Lee, who recently signed on to develop Coinbase’s online Bitcoin wallet while continuing to work on Litecoin. The most controversial modification Lee made to Bitcoin was replacing the hashing function with a more memory-intensive cryptographic algorithm called Scrypt. Charts: BitInfoCharts Litecoin lifts off: The hashrate for Litecoin, an alternative currency, has increased as obsolete bitcoin-mining computers are repurposed for Litecoin. But older computers can compete on this network, because the repurposed miners don't dramatically affect the hashrate and hash difficulty. Scrypt hashes are similar to the SHA-256 hashes that guarantee the irreversibility of Bitcoin transactions transmitted across the network. But finding a hash in Scrypt “requires a certain amount of memory, and requiring memory makes it hard for any chip to parallelize a lot of work,” says Lee. “In SHA-256, you can do thousands of hashes in parallel if you have a multiprocessor machine. But because Scrypt requires memory, and you only have a fixed amount of memory on your computer, you can’t do a lot of Scrypt hashes at the same time,” he explains. As a consequence, if litecoin miners were to switch over to ASIC-enabled rigs, they would not see the same increase in profits that bitcoin miners have. Litecoin has therefore been called an ASIC-resistant cryptocurrency, because it reduces the economic incentive to upgrade. “If you have a bitcoin ASIC machine, you can mine 50 times more bitcoins that way. It pretty much pushed all the GPUs out of the market because it raised the difficulty by 50 times right away, and GPU mining became unprofitable,” says Lee. “The difference between that and Scrypt is the ASIC Scrypt mining won’t be 50 times more efficient than GPU Scrypt miners. It will be faster. It will be a little more efficient, but not drastically more efficient like it is for Bitcoin.” So far, investment in litecoins, which is now trading around US $2, has not been profitable enough to motivate any companies to develop an ASIC Scrypt miner. That could change, however, if the price of the currency goes up. “It will cost millions of dollars in initial research and design and manufacturing cost. So if selling Scrypt ASICs will not recoup those investments, then it’s not worth it for someone to invest those dollars,” says Lee. “It will happen when litecoin value rises and there’s a bigger market. But right now, litecoins are too cheap for it to be worthwhile, at least not for another year.” Until Litecoin gets sucked into an arms race of its own, the cryptocurrency may provide a good second life for all the older machines that are being taken off the Bitcoin network. Graphs of the mining difficulty on Litecoin over time show a huge jump in the processing power of the whole network occurring at the same time that bitcoin miners were unpacking their first ASIC rigs. This suggests that at least some of the bitcoin miners who upgraded may have put their old computers to work mining litecoins. And for everyone who wasn’t able to upgrade, Litecoin is becoming the next best option. “After ASICs came out, the Bitcoin difficulty shot up so high that it became less profitable to mine bitcoins when compared to litecoins. So they all switched over,” says Lee. “For example, right now you can make more than six times as much money mining litecoins as bitcoins with GPUs. So pretty much every single GPU [mining rig] is mining litecoins now.” But allegiances run deep in the world of cryptocurrency, and many have an attitude of “Bitcoin or bust.” When asked if he ever considered putting his old machines to work on the Litecoin network, Perry simply says, “Nah, I sold them a while back.” One thing keeping Bitcoiners from taking Litecoin seriously is that none of the major online currency exchanges support it. This may soon change. Lee has spoken to the people running two of the largest exchanges—Mt. Gox and Bitstamp—and reports that they are seriously considering adding them to their list of traded currencies. About the Author Morgen E. Peck is a New York City–based reporter who has been covering Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for IEEE Spectrum since 2011. |
We are pleased to have another guest post from Marc Morjé Howard on the differences and similarities between the 2011 revolutions in the Middle East and the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe. See here, here, and here for some of our earlier posts on this. *** In his speech on Saturday in Warsaw, President Obama alluded to the similarity between recent developments in the Middle East and the revolutions that overthrew communism in Poland and Eastern Europe over two decades ago. But how do those two situations compare? This post (adapted from remarks made at a panel at American University on March 25 on “Uprisings in the Middle East: A Social Movement & Comparative Perspective”) lists five similarities and ten differences. It concludes by explaining why the latter outweigh the former. Similarities: 1) Neither set of movements was predicted—even by experts. Although for some this may raise questions about the value of “expertise,” in my view it puts into question the importance of prediction. Contingent events and human behavior in unknown situations are impossible to predict. The fact that most scholars failed to predict the particular decisions made by leaders like Gorbachev, Ceausescu, Ben-Ali, or Mubarak does not necessarily mean that they did not understand the regime or society. And it certainly does not mean we should stop studying countries, areas, and languages. Social science still has much to offer. 2) A key part of the anti-regime movements in both Eastern Europe and the Middle East resulted from elite defections, as political/military/security forces changed loyalties. The regimes were not monolithic, and the opposition gained strength as certain former leaders changed sides at pivotal points. 3) Although both sets of movements involved national events that were filtered through domestic contexts, they were also clear illustrations of the “international demonstration effect,” or “snowballing.” In Eastern Europe, the movements spread from Poland to Hungary to East Germany to Czechoslovakia to Romania and Bulgaria, and eventually to the Baltics, Ukraine, and even Russia itself. In the Middle East, they have spread from Tunisia to Egypt to Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, and even Syria. 4) The regional concentration in both cases has been remarkable, making it easy to follow by simply looking at a geographic map. Whereas earlier theories of democratization (preceding the events of 1989) focused on its domestic dynamics, clearly it has become a regional phenomenon, influenced by larger international factors as well. 5) The remarkable events in both regions provide a powerful challenge to easy and dismissive arguments about whether people in certain cultures yearn for freedom. There is clearly a powerful thirst for greater social justice and democracy—though it remains to be seen whether this becomes realized in new institutions that live up to these popular desires. Differences: 1) The larger geo-strategic environment is very different today. The movements of 1989 took place within the context of the Cold War, with two main super-powers and their mutually assured destruction. Today there are numerous complicating factors—some of which existed previously, but now have their own post-Cold War dynamic—including oil, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the rise of China, and many others. 2) It is important to remember that the East European states were not autonomous. Indeed, the Soviet Union was the guarantor of stability and continuity in the region. When Gorbachev made it clear that the Soviet Union would not intervene in Eastern Europe, the gates opened (quite literally in Hungary). Today’s Middle East contains a mix of small and large states with different levels of autonomy, but there is no equivalent to the Soviet Union lurking in the shadows. 3) The 1989 movements were not the first democratic protests in the region. Earlier movements had taken place in East Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Poland in 1980-81), but these were all crushed. Nonetheless, they still stood as important precedents, to both the regime and the citizenry, which became useful later. Although dissent has been brewing in the Middle East for the past decade, there are no comparable precedents to these earlier East European movements. 4) The East European movements generally fit the classic (from O’Donnell and Schmitter’s Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, published in 1986) model of elite agency, whereby divisions between hard-liners and soft-liners in the regime led to pacts with the opposition, resulting in compromises on both sides. In this model, the “resurrection” of civil society only came later. In the Middle East, in contrast, the “popular upsurge” came first, before the elite divisions became apparent. 5) Unlike today in the Middle East, when the “opposition” is largely faceless, in Eastern Europe there were well-recognized dissidents who had much popular legitimacy. Although they may have been small in number, these writers, pastors, and environmental leaders were quite influential. In contrast, many of the long-standing opposition leaders in the countries of the Middle East are ineffective, coopted, or disconnected from contentious politics, thus contributing to the large gap between elite opposition politics and popular demands for democratic change. 6) Except for the Catholic Church in Poland, religion was almost entirely absent in the East European movements. Although churches were sometimes a “safe zone” in communist countries, the movements themselves were not religious, and the societies are the least religious in the world. In contrast, in the Middle East, although the movements have not been particularly religious, the societies certainly are, and the role of religion in political life remains a big, open, unanswered question. 7) All movements depend on communication—this has not changed—but the speed of the new media has obviously changed tremendously. Much of the information in the East European movements spread via samizdat (precious photocopies of texts and information from the outside that were smuggled around secretly). Today the spread of information is almost instantaneous via Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. 8) After the movements of 1989 ran their course, the communist regimes actually fell (even if they reorganized and competed electorally in some cases). In the Middle East, this has not happened (yet?). The outcomes of the ongoing transitions in Egypt and Tunisia are unclear, and it remains to be seen whether they will yield a clean break from authoritarian politics. In the other countries, autocrats still remain in charge, even if they have been shaken by the protests. 9) Extending from point 5, when the communist regimes fell, known opposition leaders were ready to assume office. Poland’s Lech Walesa and Czechoslovakia’s Václav Havel were the most prominent, but most East European countries had new leaders ready to fill the gap. This remains an open question in the Middle East. 10) In terms of the eventual consolidation of democracy in Eastern Europe, NATO and the European Union have played crucial roles by encouraging democratic reforms and making them conditions of membership. There are no equivalent regional organizations in the Middle East that could help to push these regimes to further democratize, and they are certainly not going to be invited to join NATO or the EU. Concluding Points: The 2011 movements in the Middle East have been beautiful, inspiring, and worth supporting. They are certainly reminiscent of the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe in many respects. Yet a closer inspection shows that the important similarities are nonetheless outweighed by key differences. As a result, I am pessimistic about the long-term effects of these movements and their ability to bring about consolidated democracy. It is ironic, in my view, that so many observers have chosen the term “Arab Spring” to characterize these events. It does not take an especially astute historical memory to recall that the East European analogue to this concept was in fact the “Prague Spring” of 1968. In a sense, the term may actually be appropriate—even if unintentionally so—for the result in the Middle East may wind up looking more like the brutal crackdown and crushing of dissidents and opposition of 1968 than the successful democratizing revolutions of 1989. |
Add me to your watchlist for more artworks HiI did a portrait of the other Equestrian royalty so why not the Changeling Queen too?I have dual monitors and I realised that one of them is either over-saturated in colour, or the other one is very de-saturated and I always use the more saturated monitor for drawing, so tell me if the colours are too dull or too bright?When it comes to lighting I'm a very confused person OTL;;In fact I was a very confused person while drawing this... I'm not even sure if Chrysalis ever hangs in the forest hahaha! There wasn't much background info around her.I guess some critique would be appreciated.On a side note I've been really worn out by drawing continuously every day; I don't think I can finish 3 more pieces in less than a monthFacebook: [link] Twitter: [link] Tumblr: [link] |
165 SHARES Facebook Twitter Linkedin Reddit Posted earlier this summer, yet another Apple job listing seeks candidates with AR and VR proficiency. Apple says that their ‘Game Technologies Engineer’ role falls under the company’s Interactive Media Group, which “provides the media and graphics software foundation across all of Apple’s innovative products, such as iPhone, iPod touch, Apple TV, iTunes, and Mac OS X, as well as professional and consumer applications from Final Cut and Aperture to iLife and iWork.” Game Technologies Engineers create the tools and capabilities which allow developers to make great games on Apple platforms. A job listing from the company is looking for such an engineer who is “comfortable with AR and VR concepts,” along with familiarity with programming languages and graphics pipelines commonly employed by Apple. While the AR/VR mention is only a bullet point in the ‘Additional Requirements’ section of the job description, this job listing is just one of several spotted over the last few years that indicate the company’s continued behind-the-scenes work in the augmented and virtual reality fields. In 2014 the company posted an entirely unambiguous job listing for a ‘VR/AR Programer’ who would “develop software and tools that use VR and AR to push the state of the art to enable development of Apple’s next generation of products.” This new job listing, along with a trail of prior evidence, makes it clear that Apple is spending considerable R&D time on virtual and augmented reality technologies. |
Britain in the early Middle Ages was very different to the country it is now. Rather than England, Scotland and Wales, the island consisted of numerous kingdoms, the fate and fortune of which fluctuated, as some kings gained lordship over others, some smaller kingdoms were swallowed by their larger neighbours and others fell to foreign invaders – including Vikings, in the ninth and tenth centuries. Today, many of the inhabitants of Britain identify primarily as Scottish, English or Welsh. But this was not always the case. In Wales, for example, there is no single defining moment when one can say the people became “Welsh”. In the early middle ages, Wales was divided into different kingdoms – Gwynedd, Dyfed and Ceredigion, for example – whose relations with each other formed a central plank of native politics. In the ninth and tenth centuries the Merfynion, a dynasty named after its founder Merfyn Frych, gained power in many of these areas, their authority spreading over both north and south Wales. Even though we now label the medieval country as Wales, back then it didn’t exist as a politically united entity. This raises the question – did the inhabitants of Wales view themselves as “Welsh”? What’s in a name? The words “Wales” and “Welsh” come from the Anglo-Saxon use of the term “wealas” to describe (among other things) the people of Britain who spoke Brittonic – a Celtic language used throughout Britain which later developed into Welsh, Cornish, Breton and other languages. English writers viewed the inhabitants of Wales as different to themselves, but at the same time “wealas” wasn’t exclusively used to refer to the people of Wales. The same terminology was sometimes applied to the Cornish, for example, with “wealas” reflected in the last part of Cornwall, as “wall”. We see a similar situation when we look at Welsh language words. In the tenth century, “Kymry” was used for the first time in Armes Prydein Vawr (The Great Prophecy of Britain), a Welsh poem calling upon the Kymry to rise up against the English and evict them from Britain once and for all. In modern Welsh, Kymry has become Cymru and Cymry, the former referring to the territory of Wales, the latter to its inhabitants. In Armes Prydein Vawr, however, Kymry doesn’t just refer to the inhabitants of Wales, but to multiple Brittonic-speaking peoples. So when Armes Prydein Vawr refers to the Kymry, as well as the inhabitants of Wales, the poet is also calling upon the Cornish, the Bretons, and the inhabitants of the Brittonic-speaking kingdoms of northern England and southern Scotland, commonly referred to then as the “Old North”. Layers of identity To explain the connection between the Brittonic-speaking peoples at the time, early medieval writers turned to history. The Historia Brittonum, a history of the Britons composed in north Wales in 829–30, claims that the Britons were originally Trojans who travelled to Britain and became the first people to settle the island. The text also asserts that during the Roman period a group of Britons left the island and settled on the continent, becoming the Armorican Britons or Bretons of Brittany, northern France. The inhabitants of Wales, like those of Cornwall and the Old North, are depicted as the descendants of the original Britons who remained in Britain. But successive attacks by the Picts, Irish and – especially – the Saxons had encroached upon their territory. They no longer ruled the entirety of Britain, just small corners of it. The identity based on this narrative presents the inhabitants of Wales as Britons, closely connected to the inhabitants of Cornwall, the Old North, and Brittany. Ideas of identity were – and still are – complex and layered. The poet who wrote Armes Prydein Vawr may have viewed all the Brittonic-speaking peoples as Kymry, but the Cornishmen are also referred to as “Cornyw” and the inhabitants of Strathclyde as “Cludwys”. There was a distinction between the inhabitants of Cornwall and of Strathclyde, even though they were grouped as Kymry. There is a similar sentiment in the Life of King Alfred, a biography of Alfred the Great composed in 893. The writer, Asser, refers to Offa of Mercia building a dyke – an earthwork denoting the border – between his kingdom and Britannia. Here Britannia clearly refers to Wales and presents it as distinct from other Brittonic-speaking areas. Likewise, Cornwall is called “Cornubia” rather than as part of one unified Britannia. Nowhere is the complex nature of identity more evident than in early medieval Wales. Sources both from and outside what we would now view as Wales see the Welsh as Britons, who once ruled the entirety of Britain, and – according to Armes Prydein Vawr – would do so again in the future. But there are hints of an alternative identity being constructed. When Asser looks to Britannia, his gaze is turned to the west, across Offa’s Dyke. It is possible that the geographical unit of Wales, is beginning to play a role in ideas of identity. We can’t point to exactly when the inhabitants of Wales became Welsh, but the works of writers and historians of the time provide tantalising glimpses of shifting and developing identities in the early medieval period. |
Hardware Before we go any further, know this: Aside from the obvious differences -- the Edge has a wrap-around screen and a few software tricks that take advantage of it -- the Galaxy S6 and the S6 Edge are basically identical. Same screen size, same 16-megapixel cameras, same octa-core Exynos 7420 brains, and so on. They're two devices crafted with the same metal, glass and silicon, which makes the dramatic design differences between them all the more meaningful. Looking at it dead on, though, the S6 is pretty plain. Your eyes will immediately get sucked into the 5.1-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED screen, but a 5-megapixel selfie camera sits above it while the Home button lies below, flanked by discrete Back and Recent Apps keys. High on the S6's back is a squarish plateau that houses the 16-megapixel camera, and to the right lies a tiny black divot where the LED flash and heart rate sensor live. Unlike the crater that marked the Galaxy S5's back, the assembly here is almost flush with the S6's rear. It's a small touch, but it makes taking heart rate and blood oxygen readings in S Health quite a bit easier. Really, it's details like these that speak most loudly to Samsung's new design philosophy. Let's put aside for a moment the fact that Samsung traded its trademark plastic bodies for sturdy metal frames and Gorilla Glass 4 panels lining the S6's front and back. What's more important -- and consequently harder to express in words -- are the little touches that tie everything together. The S6's rounded sides are punctuated by a flat edge for your fingers to rest on. The gaps between the metal and Gorilla Glass are so fine as to be imperceptible. The sole speaker has been moved to the phone's bottom so you're not blasting tunes straight into your desk. I could go on, but the S6 just feels seamless in a way its predecessor never did. And no, your eyes don't deceive you: The Galaxy S6 looks (and feels) an awful lot like an iPhone. From those rounded sides to the chrome-rimmed, fingerprint-sensing Home button to placement of the volume buttons on the left edge and the power button on the right, there's an odd air of familiarity surrounding the thing. (A brief aside: One of Samsung's spokespeople picked up my iPhone 6 during our hands-on time in February and it seemed to take him a few moments to realize what he was actually holding.) Flame wars on the matter are already starting to brew, but I'm not too concerned; Samsung's end result is lovely, and that's all most people will care about. Alas, though, streamlining the S6's design meant taking an axe to some of the things that endeared the Galaxy line to persnickety nerds -- namely, the removable battery and microSD card slot. My T-Mobile review unit came with 32GB of internal storage ($0 down with monthly payments on T-Mo, or $199 with a contract elsewhere), but you'll soon be able to buy 64GB and 128GB models too. And the biggest heartbreak? The S6 breaks tradition by dying when you drop it in a pool. The news will be more tragic for some than others but not having to handle the S5 with kid gloves was a treat. Hopefully Samsung figures out a way to waterproof a design like this before next year rolls around. Now, about the Edge ($299 with a contract). It's equal parts gorgeous and gimmicky, but if money is no object, the former definitely outweighs the latter. Unlike the G Flex2, the Edge's curved screen falls away from you at the sides instead of angling toward you from the top and bottom. The design does nothing to make the screen more immersive, but that doesn't matter; the screen's novelty and beauty still mean it's hard to tear your eyes off it. The S6 Edge feels substantially thinner than its basic cousin because of how its sides taper to a super-slim edge. This trick is a familiar one -- Motorola has done it with every Moto X to date -- but it keeps getting recycled for a reason. The thing is, the Edge will probably never nestle comfortably into your hands as a result; if your fingers are like mine, they'll forever arch over its back, which can sometimes feel a little precarious. In fact, at times I wished the curve were on the opposite side just so the rest of my hand had something to hang onto. On the plus side, that extra space along the Edge's sides gives you room to swipe up, down, left and right without your thumb ever obscuring the action. Really, though, these navigational benefits feel like an afterthought, like happy little accidents that came about thanks to Samsung's screen-shape decision. Make no mistake: The Edge's main job is to look good. Display and sound If you wanted to skip this section outright, just know this before you go: The S6 and the S6 Edge have absolutely gorgeous screens. They're both Quad HD panels (2,560 x 1,440, if you haven't memorized it yet) akin to the one you'll find in the Note 4, but they only measure at 5.1 inches diagonally. Yep, you guessed it: That means we're looking at two of the most pixel-dense screens on the market today. As far as your eyes will be able to tell, individual pixels don't even exist. Whether or not modern smartphone screens actually need to be this insanely crisp is a question that's up for debate, but my stance is pretty simple: As long as battery life doesn't tank as a result, bring 'em on. As is usually the case with Samsung's AMOLEDs, colors are incredibly vivid, while blacks are deep and sumptuous. A quick bit of screen nerdery for you: AMOLED panels typically skew a little more toward the blue end of the spectrum than LCDs do, which means it's actually a pleasant surprise that whites appear more neutral here than they do on the new HTC One M9. Some of this is going to be subjective, of course. I'll admit I like my screens a little punchy, and the S6's color settings suited me just fine out of the box. If that's not your taste, you can pop into the settings and swap screen modes to something more appropriate: the "AMOLED cinema" setting pumps up color saturation across the board, while "AMOLED photo" dials it down a bit from the default "Adaptive" setting. Then you've got the "Basic" setting, which just sucks the life out of everything. It's arguably the most accurate mode of the four, but really, where's the fun in that? Viewing angles on the S6 are great too -- a lucky break for the poor soul whose in-flight entertainment system crapped out and has to watch your episodes of The Fall from the side. So far I've been treating both screens as if they were the same, but that's clearly not true. The Note Edge wanted to cram gobs of functionality into that spillover area. The G Flex and G Flex2 sought to draw you into media with a curved screen reminiscent of high-end TVs. The S6 Edge does none of those things. It just sort of... is. I'll break down more what the screen's edges actually can do down in the software section, but Samsung's overriding concern here was making a screen that looks awesome, and on that front, it succeeded. At its most severe, the Edge's screen curves away from you at about 35 degrees, as if the sides are retreating into your palms. Let's put our nitpicker hats on for a second -- that means that from some oblique angles, the stuff that flows into those subtle curves will appear much brighter than it does on the flat part of the screen. It's the mildest of annoyances (I don't remember ever being bothered by it), but it'll definitely stand out at first. So yes, the S6 and the S6 Edge look lovely. How do they sound? Both devices share the same single speaker nestled into the bottom-right corners of their frames, and it's dramatically louder than the clunker we got in last year's Galaxy S5. There's no way it'll ever hold a candle to the One M9 and its pair of BoomSound speakers, but the S6 duo's driver brings enough oomph to the table that you can stick the phone into your car's cupholder, crank up the volume and still hear plenty over the din of the road. Software Like every other phone maker worth its salt, Samsung has spent the past year or two slowly cranking down on the sheer amount of stuff it slops on top of stock Android. It really shows, too: The version of TouchWiz that ships on the S6 and the S6 Edge is about as restrained as I've seen on a Samsung phone yet. Turns out, chopping out extraneous menu options and visual cruft was high up on the company's list of priorities this year, so don't ever let anyone tell you that complaining ad nauseam can't get huge conglomerates to rethink their plans. Anyway, all of Samsung's greatest hits are still here, and they're paired with a flatter, cleaner, Material Design-y look that jibes nicely with Android 5.0.2. Seriously, it's terribly refreshing if you're coming from a Galaxy S5. Swiping to the left once again reveals your Flipboard Briefing, a BlinkFeed-like stream of news stories culled from news sources around the web. It might not pull choice updates from your Twitter or Instagram accounts like on an HTC phone, but it does look a hell of a lot handsomer. The app launcher itself is a little less attractive, at least at first. By default, Samsung has arranged all of its apps (including Microsoft pack-ins like OneNote and OneDrive) and everything else you install gets tacked on the end of the list in the order you downloaded it. Thankfully, there's an "A-Z" button in the corner to whip things into more manageable shape. Oh, and you can resize the app grid on your home screen to accommodate up to 20 shortcuts, not including widgets. |
Yahoo gave interested parties a deadline of 11 April to make preliminary bids for assets it has put up for sale, with Microsoft apparently looking to play a role in the process. According to The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo sent letters to possible buyers, asking them to submit proposals including what they are interested in, and how much they are prepared to pay. Other information requested concerns financing, likely conditions and approvals, and “key assumptions” they would be making – for example relating to taxation. Last week, Re/code reported that Microsoft had been meeting private equity firms in the frame for Yahoo deals, stating that it may be willing to provide “significant” financing. The motivation behind the move is to ensure that the US computing giant remains on good terms with potential buyers, which is perhaps unsurprising due to the two companies’ close – and sometimes complex – relationship. In February, Yahoo confirmed it is “exploring strategic alternatives” that could include the sale of formerly core businesses, as it looks to focus on growth areas such as mobile, video, native and social. But Re/code said that the process has been farcical, with the progress slow, and it is difficult for bidders to get access to the information they need. While it is seeking non-disclosure agreements with suitors, it is then not opening up on the numbers, earlier reports said. Activist investor Starboard Value (which owns 1.7 per cent of Yahoo) has even gone as far as saying it will nominate nine candidates for election to Yahoo’s board, stating that the incumbent body “clearly lacks the leadership, objectivity, and perspective needed to make decisions that are in the best interests of shareholders”. With regard to the sale, it continued: “There are good reasons for shareholders to be highly concerned about the current strategic review process. Despite what appears to be strong interest from large strategic and financial buyers, as referenced in the media, nearly two months have gone by since Yahoo officially publicly announced its intention to pursue strategic alternatives for the Core Business, and it seems little progress has been made.” Potential bidders for Yahoo assets include Verizon Communications, although earlier this month it bemoaned that “until we get under the hood and really see what’s there, there’s really nothing to talk about at this point”, Starboard Value noted. Other names in the frame include AT&T, media firms IAC and Time, and Comcast. |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's nominee to become the next U.S. defense secretary said on Wednesday that Russia needed to be reminded that a Cold War-era arms control agreement was a "two-way street" and that Washington could respond to any violations. Washington and Moscow have long questioned each other's commitment to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. It eliminated nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of 500-5,500 km (300-3,400 miles) near the end of the Cold War. Ashton Carter, a former Pentagon No. 2 who is expected to win swift Senate confirmation, said the United States has a range of actions it could take, including defensive and deterrent steps, if Russia violates the treaty. "I think you have to remind Russia that this was a two-way street," Carter said at his Senate confirmation hearing. "If you don't want to have that treaty, well then you're absolved from your restrictions in that treaty, and we are too." The United States has said Moscow's testing of a ground-launched cruise missile violated the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty. Russia argues that Washington's use of drones and other intermediate-range arms amounts to a violation. Relations between the two countries are at their lowest since the Cold War because of Russia's role in the crisis in Ukraine. Carter also said at the hearing he was leaning in favor of arming Ukraine to help it defend itself against Russia-backed separatists, in what would be a shift in U.S. policy. He later cautioned, however, that the focus must remain on pressuring Russia economically and politically. (Reporting by Phil Stewart and Lisa Lambert; editing by Gunna Dickson) |
Troy Mayor Patrick Madden (Paul Buckowski / Times Union) Troy Mayor Patrick Madden (Paul Buckowski / Times Union) Photo: PAUL BUCKOWSKI Buy photo Photo: PAUL BUCKOWSKI Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Troy City Schools will pay for police 1 / 3 Back to Gallery Troy The city school district will pay to have two city police officers at Troy middle and high schools for the 2017-18 school year, district officials said. The city administration will apply for a new federal grant to cover future costs. The district set aside $200,000 to cover the police costs for one year, but anticipates the expense will be lower since the officers won't be working as school resource officers the entire year. Superintendent John Carmello and Board of Education President Jason Schofield said the SROs are popular among district residents. "It's a great thing that the district is able to save the SROs," Schofield said. The school district is drawing on its budget surplus to pay for its two SROs. The district expects to exceed the 4 percent state cap on the fund balance it can keep in reserve. The one-time SRO payment would come from this fund. Mayor Patrick Madden didn't plan to send officers back to the city schools without new federal funding to avoid overtime costs and maintain patrol division staffing. While the city has been in contact with the Troy school district, Madden said he had no discussions with the Lansingburgh Central School District about funding its SRO. The federal funding agreement ends June 30. The city didn't eliminate the three SRO positions from the 130-member police force but returned the officers to patrol duties. Madden previously said the city would study police overtime as it related to the SROs. The city is trying to have maximum patrol officers available for each shift, Madden said. "The public wants to see a police presence out on the street," he said. The city anticipates the U.S. Department of Justice will announce an application period in May for funding SROs. Madden said the city would apply. Carmello said the school district has to work out the details of the financing for the officers with the city and the terms for having them in the schools. The superintendent said the one-year arrangement anticipates the city obtaining the federal funding. Madden said he wants to arrange a meeting among officials from the Troy and Lansingburgh school districts, his administration and the police department to discuss what should be expected in the future. Madden said he supports having SROs in both school systems. kcrowe@timesunion.com • 518-454-5084 • @KennethCrowe |
The ∞ symbol in several typefaces The infinity symbol ∞ (sometimes called the lemniscate) is a mathematical symbol representing the concept of infinity. History [ edit ] The shape of a sideways figure eight has a long pedigree; for instance, it appears in the cross of Saint Boniface, wrapped around the bars of a Latin cross.[1] However, John Wallis is credited with introducing the infinity symbol with its mathematical meaning in 1655, in his De sectionibus conicis.[1][2][3][4] Wallis did not explain his choice of this symbol, but it has been conjectured to be a variant form of a Roman numeral for 1,000 (originally CIƆ, also CƆ), which was sometimes used to mean "many", or of the Greek letter ω (omega), the last letter in the Greek alphabet.[5] Symbol used by Euler to denote infinity Leonhard Euler used an open variant of the symbol[6] in order to denote "absolutus infinitus". Euler freely performed various operations on infinity, such as taking its logarithm. This symbol is not used anymore, and is not encoded as a separate character in Unicode. Usage [ edit ] In mathematics, the infinity symbol is used more often to represent a potential infinity,[1] rather than to represent an actually infinite quantity such as the ordinal numbers and cardinal numbers (which use other notations). For instance, in the mathematical notation for summations and limits such as ∑ n = 0 ∞ 1 2 n = lim x → ∞ 2 x − 1 2 x − 1 = 2 , {\displaystyle \sum _{n=0}^{\infty }{\frac {1}{2^{n}}}=\lim _{x\to \infty }{\frac {2^{x}-1}{2^{x-1}}}=2,} the infinity sign is conventionally interpreted as meaning that the variable grows arbitrarily large (towards infinity) rather than actually taking an infinite value. The infinity symbol may also be used to represent a point at infinity, especially when there is only one such point under consideration. This usage includes, for instance, the infinite point of a projective line,[7] and the point added to a topological space T {\displaystyle T} to form its one-point compactification T ∞ {\displaystyle T_{\infty }} .[8] In areas other than mathematics, the infinity symbol may take on other related meanings; for instance, it has been used in bookbinding to indicate that a book is printed on acid-free paper and will therefore be long-lasting.[9] Modern symbolism [ edit ] The infinity symbol appears on several cards of the Rider–Waite tarot deck In modern mysticism, the infinity symbol has become identified with a variation of the ouroboros, an ancient image of a snake eating its own tail that has also come to symbolize the infinite, and the ouroboros is sometimes drawn in figure-eight form to reflect this identification, rather than in its more traditional circular form.[10] In the works of Vladimir Nabokov, including The Gift and Pale Fire, the figure-eight shape is used symbolically to refer to the Möbius strip and the infinite, for instance in these books' descriptions of the shapes of bicycle tire tracks and of the outlines of half-remembered people. The poem after which Pale Fire is entitled explicitly refers to "the miracle of the lemniscate".[11] Graphic design [ edit ] The well known shape and meaning of the infinity symbol have made it a common typographic element of graphic design. For instance, the Métis flag, used by the Canadian Métis people in the early 19th century, is based around this symbol.[12] In modern commerce, corporate logos featuring this symbol have been used by, among others, Room for PlayStation Portable, Microsoft Visual Studio, Fujitsu, Coursera, and CoorsTek. Encoding [ edit ] The symbol is encoded in Unicode at U+221E ∞ INFINITY and in LaTeX as \infty : ∞ {\displaystyle \infty } . The Unicode set of symbols also includes several variant forms of the infinity symbol, that are less frequently available in fonts: U+29DC ⧜ INCOMPLETE INFINITY (HTML ⧜ · ISOtech entity ⧜ ), U+29DD ⧝ TIE OVER INFINITY (HTML ⧝ ) and U+29DE ⧞ INFINITY NEGATED WITH VERTICAL BAR (HTML ⧞ ) in block Miscellaneous Mathematical Symbols-B.[13] The acid-free paper symbol mentioned above is encoded separately as U+267E ♾ PERMANENT PAPER SIGN (HTML ♾ ). See also [ edit ] |
A serious bug in Apple’s stock Mail application for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad permits attackers to fool users into providing their iCloud credentials. Such phishing attacks can be devastating as iCloud increasingly becomes home for our digital life in the Apple universe, including our photo libraries, notes, contacts and other personal data. The scam takes advantage of an exploit in the Mail application that makes it easy to deliver convincing-looking pop-ups resembling iCloud password prompts through a simple email message, The Register reported Wednesday. While such emails look like they’re coming from a real company, they’re spoofed and once an unsuspecting user opens them on their iPhone, iPod touch or iPad running iOS 8.3, the operating system will execute malicious HTML content embedded inside. The exploit stems from the fact that Apple’s Mail application ignores a key line of code in incoming email which tells your iOS device to execute any embedded HTML code. The malicious HTML code imitates an iOS form asking for your iCloud username and password. Naturally, it’s fake and should be dismissed immediately. Here is a short demonstration of a proof-of-concept attack on iOS 8.3’s Mail client. Security researcher Jan Souček first discovered the flaw in January of this year. “Back in January 2015 I stumbled upon a bug in iOS’s mail client, resulting in HTML tag in e-mail messages not being ignored,” he said. “This bug allows remote HTML content to be loaded, replacing the content of the original email message. JavaScript is disabled in this UIWebView, but it is still possible to build a functional password ‘collector’ using simple HTML and CSS.” It’s unclear why Apple has left this obvious vulnerability unpatched for nearly six months, but Januček was unimpressed. Dissatisfied that the company hasn’t acted swiftly to patch the exploit, Souček decided to publish the code at GitHub in order to shore up social engineering awareness. The problem is, in doing so he’s potentially given power users the means to deliver phishing attacks upon unsuspecting owners of iOS devices. People who don’t use the stock Mail app are not at risk of having their iCloud credentials hijacked with this attack method. The best piece of advice I could give to anyone is this: you should avoid typing in your iCloud or Apple ID username and password into any app or dialog box at all cost, unless you’re absolutely sure the prompt came from the operating system itself. In the case of this particular bug, ignore any such prompt that may surface as you’re using Apple Mail on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. Source: The Register |
FBI Ramping Up Full Blown Investigation of Zuckerberg’s Facebook; Larger Scheme Aimed At Electing Hillary https://t.co/HS9lnX4mjG pic.twitter.com/bsycoX329f — Thomas Paine (@Thomas1774Paine) September 28, 2017 FBI officials are pressing to broaden the scope of US Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Facebook investigation, saying the Russian ad sales linked thus far to the social media giant are merely a “small piece” of company’s exposure. While Mueller is looking at thousands of likely illegal Facebook ads sales to Russian entities before the 2016 presidential election, FBI sources believe Mark Zuckerberg’s executives — and perhaps even Zuckerberg himself — knew for almost two years that rogue Russian entities were purchasing ads yet did not stop them. And the company failed to report the illegal activity to federal authorities, federal law enforcement sources confirm.. Instead, Facebook turned its corporate cheek and kept cashing the foreign checks so to speak. FBI sources believe other foreign entities — in the Ukraine, China and elsewhere — may have been running similar ad schemes through Facebook, sources said. Those purchases were likely not reported either. Nor were they halted by Facebook executives. The majority of the ads at the center of this controversy appear to try and sway votes for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Reports thus far in mainstream-media-funded publications portray that such Russian ads were part of a scheme linked to help President Donald Trump win the election. The data, however, proves the opposite. The ads were largely pro Democrat. Governed by a host of federal laws, it is illegal for foreign individuals or entities to make any political contributions connected to American elections. FBI sources are pressing for a broader investigation into Facebook to pinpoint just how many ads were sold to foreign entities in Russia and countries beyond. So far, in response to a recent warrant from Mueller, Facebook has returned data on approximately 3,000 ads linked to Russian concerns. Federal law enforcement sources said the FBI needs to ascertain the social media giant’s exposure and not allow Zuckerberg to dictate or disseminate the information. “They have turned over Russian ad data but it has been like pulling teeth,” one source said. “The warrant did not cover say London-based companies or people purchasing the same ads. Could be Russians fronting from any place, including the United States. Facebook has only turned over a small piece.” Federal sources said they believe Zuckerberg’s confirmation of 3,000 Russian-linked ads is grossly under reported and said Facebook will likely be forced to turn over details of a “significant number” of additional Russian ad sales. Facebook’s CSO Alex Stamos wrote in a blog post that the majority of the ads of interest “appeared to focus on amplifying divisive social and political messages across the ideological spectrum … touching on topics from LGBT matters to race issues to immigration to gun rights.” But Stamos was only addressing the ads sought by Mueller’s investigators. Separate FBI agents believe the scope of the warrant was limited, likely based on the direction of Mueller’s probe. Federal law enforcement sources said a broader probe could reveal a much large problem for Zuckerberg. Sources said while Zuckerberg is putting on a public facade of turning over documents voluntarily to Congress and investigators, behind the scenes his legal team has been anything but accommodating. One FBI source this is another reason federal agents are looking to expand the investigation outside the realm of Mueller. “When you act like this on the other side, it almost always means there is much more to find,” a FBI insider said. “They are guarding more problems.” -30- |
The Minnesota Vikings are "strongly interested" in signing Broncos quarterback Mark Sanchez, according to Jason Cole of Bleacher Report. Vikings are now searching for a QB to replace Teddy Bridgewater, and one name has jumped to the top of their list pic.twitter.com/NHRUWVBChT — Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) August 31, 2016 The former New York Jets and Philadelphia Eagles quarterback is owed $4.5 million this season, and according to Cole, the Vikings are willing to pay his salary in its' entirety. Sanchez would be an immediate solution for the Vikings, who are without starting quarterback Teddy Bridgewater for the remainder of the season following his devastating knee injury. Sanchez is one of several quarterbacks could be interested in this season, with Mike Glennon, Mike Vick and Colin Kaepernick also potential targets. |
Rep. Lofgren Looks To Reddit To Help Crowdsource Anti-SOPA from the not-sure-that-will-work dept Rep. Zoe Lofgren, who has been one of the few leaders in Congress when it comes to pushing for real copyright reform and pushing back against the bad proposals of Hollywood, is apparently looking to use Reddit to crowdsource a new bill concerning internet freedom. Earlier this year, we noted that Lofgren had introduced two good bills -- one on ECPA reform (pushing for more privacy for your communications) and one called the Global Internet Freedom Act to create a task force designed to ensure internet freedom. It will be interesting to see how well this works.Of course, post-SOPA, some on Reddit sought to crowdsource a bill on internet freedom themselves, and the process went a bit off the rails. I don't know that crowdsourcing is the best way toa bill. I could see how it would be very handy in critiquing and improving an existing bill -- or maybe just generating ideas for a bill -- but if it's just starting from scratch, quality control could be an issue. Either way, this seems like an interesting experiment that will be worth watching. Filed Under: anti-sopa, copyright, crowdsourcing, internet freedom, zoe lofgren Companies: reddit |
Man dies in custody in Williamson County Jail Copyright by KXAN - All rights reserved Copyright by KXAN - All rights reserved Williamson County Jail Williamson County investigates jail death Williamson County Jail prev next WILLIAMSON COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) -- One man was pronounced dead after being found unconscious in a holding cell in the Williamson County Jail Saturday evening. At 5 p.m. on Saturday Francisco Vasquez, 54, was found unconscious in a holding cell. Corrections medical staff performed life saving measures and called for emergency services who transported Vasquez to Seton-Williamson County hospital. Vasquez was pronounced dead at the hospital at 6:06 p.m. Autopsy and toxicology results are currently pending, however preliminary investigations indicate the death to be an apparent suicide by asphyxiation. Texas Rangers will be investigating the death along with the Williamson County Sheriff's Office. Vasquez was originally brought in to the Williamson County Jail by Cedar Park Police for a misdemeanor DWI. KXAN will continue to update this story as more information is released. |
There's been a promising new breakthrough in the search for a cure from blindness. Researchers have demonstrated for the first time that an inkjet printer can be used to print adult eye cells. Medical scientists have been putting the principles behind your standard home-office inkjet printer to the test lately. They found that replacing the ink with solutions of biological cells (like immature cells or stem cells) meant that they could print out tissues to be used as grafts, which could be a significant advancement for regenerative medicine. Grafts can be grown in solution in the lab, of course, but that's relatively easy for simpler tissues, like skin. For something like the retina of the eye, it requires a very specific pattern of optic nerve cells and the glial cells that surround and support them, for the eye to function properly. This pattern can be produced with these inkjet printing techniques, though, and now this research has shown that it can be done with adult cells. Taking both types of cells from the retina of adult rats, they loaded them into a special piezoelectric inkjet printer with a nozzle less than a millimetre wide and printed the cells at a rate of about 100 per second into a vial, all while recording the process with high-speed video. Not only did the cells survive, despite any friction or other stresses on them that may have destroyed or deformed them during the printing process, they did just as well as batches of cells that were cultured without printing. The only difficulty encountered in the process was that the actual number of cells that made it through the printer was reduced, compared to the non-printed cultures. The number of optic nerve cells was down 33 per cent from the original solution and the number of glial cells was down around 57 per cent. The researchers examined the printer nozzle after printing, though, and found that a lot of cells were sticking to the interior surface, so this can account for the loss of cells, rather than it being from cell destruction. According to the study, this commonly happens with these printers, and they plan on testing different modifications to overcome the problem. [ More Geekquinox: Zebra stripes illusion explained by computer models ] "The loss of nerve cells in the retina is a feature of many blinding eye diseases. The retina is an exquisitely organised structure where the precise arrangement of cells in relation to one another is critical for effective visual function," Professor Keith Martin and Dr. Barbara Lorber, the co-authors of the study from the University of Cambridge, said in a statement. "Our study has shown, for the first time, that cells derived from the mature central nervous system, the eye, can be printed using a piezoelectric inkjet printer. Although our results are preliminary and much more work is still required, the aim is to develop this technology for use in retinal repair in the future." (Photo courtesy: Getty Images) Geek out with the latest in science and weather. Follow @ygeekquinox on Twitter! |
Incorporating insights from perennial philosophy, the constructive thread of postmodern thought, and developmental psychology (Piaget, Maslow, Kohlberg, Carol Gilligan, Ken Wilber , etc.) integral politics understands that human consciousness evolves. - Advertisement - From this perspective, the Occupy Wall Street movement is situated amid the conflict between modern and postmodern approaches to political economy. Wall Street epitomizes modernity's concern with optimizing the autonomy of individuals, freedom from the restraints of bureaucratic control, and a culture of wealth accumulation and global domination. Wall Street is a powerful symbol, and the Occupy Wall Street movement chooses the symbol as a locus of demonstration because of its capacity for dramatizing a radical rejection of some of modernity's core values. - Advertisement - Thus, the Occupy Wall Street movement epitomizes the postmodern consciousness with its solidarity for the oppressed and marginalized, its internalized guilt over the West's legacy of imperialism, and a rebellion against materialism and selfishness. That the movement begins with a ritualized expression of outrage rather than a well-articulated list of demands is understandable; long have postmodern politics been impotent in American political discourse, relegated to the periphery in a two-party system with an iron clad grip on power. Distinct in its vision of politics, the integral worldview understands that postmodernity follows modernity as part of a deep and complex spiral of development. The evolutionary view it shares with thinkers such as Fichte and Hegel and spiritual thinkers such as Tielhard de Chardin and Sri Aurobindo, though in the 21st century the most serious integral thinkers have shed the baggage of simple metaphysics in favor of a view that is arguably both "post-metaphysical" and "post-postmodern." Integral recognizes that postmodern political economics emerges from modern economics and is basically an elite, higher level of political consciousness. Postmodern politics is more evolved, more capable of embodying a spirit of justice and compassion, and more capable of taking appropriately worldcentric perspectives on important global problems. Both integral and postmodern political philosophies sense deeply that the days of ethnocentric social organization and independent nation-states is inadequate for coping with the complexities of today's world. - Advertisement - Including justice as more distributive fairness and inclusion within the discourse of Integral Theory and its practice is something the postmodern (green) level of analysis has already provided. However, postmodernism is mostly about promoting the diversity of social relations generally, and is absent of any explicitly higher level of unity that a class analysis and critique of money and power gives us. Postmodern and post-structuralist analyses critique relations of domination, to be sure, but mostly from a multicultural perspective, and they provide no vision for a higher synthesis. In fact, they are premised on resisting any restoration of synthesis, much less a 'higher' synthesis, within the historical dialectic, as that would, by postmodern reckoning, be "totalitarian.' In this way, Corbett suggests that postmodernity's focus on justice is incorporated into the integral worldview, which alone can provide a "vision for a higher synthesis" which to the postmodern mind is rejected as "totalitarian." The higher synthesis of which he speaks is made possible because of a sophisticated and nearly comprehensive map of human nature given by From the AQAL view, Occupy Wall Street can be described as arising out of values and behaviors in terms of particular coordinates: e.g., green altitude (a.k.a. postmodern) cultural values seen from a Lower-Left Hand quadrant angle. AQAL stands for All Quadrants and All Levels, meaning that the movement is optimally viewed from perspectives which include subjective and objective, individual and collective angles at all stages of the developmental spectrum. Writing on Integral World, Joe Corbett, Ph.D., sketches an integral approach to critical theory In this way, Corbett suggests that postmodernity's focus on justice is incorporated into the integral worldview, which alone can provide a "vision for a higher synthesis" which to the postmodern mind is rejected as "totalitarian." The higher synthesis of which he speaks is made possible because of a sophisticated and nearly comprehensive map of human nature given by AQAL , the most prominent integral map.From the AQAL view, Occupy Wall Street can be described as arising out of values and behaviors in terms of particular coordinates: e.g., green altitude (a.k.a. postmodern) cultural values seen from a Lower-Left Hand quadrant angle. AQAL stands for All Quadrants and All Levels, meaning that the movement is optimally viewed from perspectives which include subjective and objective, individual and collective angles at all stages of the developmental spectrum. The jargon and subtleties of integral philosophy are not so important as the big picture: integral tells us that Occupy Wall Street's view of reality is important but partial, and if that partiality is not checked by a more expansive vision of human nature it can easily become ineffectual or even dangerous. In solidarity with postmodernism, integral consciousness sees that in the long run, the ethnocentric politics of group selfishness are dead, that the future belongs to those who recognize that all lasting political progress is grounded in morality, and that everybody counts. The integral worldview thus recognizes that civic improvement ultimately depends on the further development of the ethic of fairness within human society and government--integral consciousness can see that the increasing morality of interpersonal relations is the foundation of all real political evolution. Since its rise as a political force in the sixties, postmodernism has been influential in the politics of the developed world (achieving considerably more success in Europe than in the U.S.), but there are still many important ways in which its agenda is currently trumped by modernism. Yet from an integral perspective, this is evolutionarily appropriate. Postmodernism may stand for the future of worldcentric political mores, but its policies are not yet mature enough to take charge of the developed world. Integral consciousness can thus make political progress by helping to moderate and restrain postmodernism's radicalism so that its important contributions can be better integrated into the politics of the developed world. Integral politics must therefore concentrate on the two areas where I believe postmodernism needs the most development: moderation of its often staunch anti-modern bias, and education regarding the "fragile ecology of markets." In other words, just as you would expect from any philosophy with a basically dialectical understanding of history, when the integral philosophy supersedes or overcomes postmodernism, it reemerges with a renewed appreciation for modernity, the previous wave in the spiral. Thus, an integral politics appreciates the contribution of Wall Street to increasing wealth, improving opportunities for education, and lifting the standard of living of people throughout the world. Integral politics knows you can't just burn down the banks. Integral is not anti-business. Integral thought--which has influenced politicians of the Democratic center such as Bill Clinton (a What is needed is not merely anger at Wall Street or demands for specific policy changes, but an expansive vision which tells us how remedying social injustices is connected to changing individual hearts and minds and the culture and social organization of a world economy. Steve McIntosh, one of the leading figures in articulating an integral politics situated within a call for global governance, writes In other words, just as you would expect from any philosophy with a basically dialectical understanding of history, when the integral philosophy supersedes or overcomes postmodernism, it reemerges with a renewed appreciation for modernity, the previous wave in the spiral. Thus, an integral politics appreciates the contribution of Wall Street to increasing wealth, improving opportunities for education, and lifting the standard of living of people throughout the world. Integral politics knows you can't just burn down the banks. Integral is not anti-business.Integral thought--which has influenced politicians of the Democratic center such as Bill Clinton (a fan of Ken Wilber's writings ) and Al Gore (another Wilber enthusiast )--is not a natural fit for extremism of the right or left. It tends to resonate more with Third Way politics, and some integralists laud Barack Obama's leadership style as pretty integral in spirit. What's more, integralists such as myself are loathe to join in Occupy Wall Street group activism which would require consensus for making all decisions (we see that as an ideological commitment which absolutizes the value of including diverse views to the point of sacrificing other important values such as efficiency and valuing of expertise). Still, I find myself in sound solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, even as I am concerned that the movement's participants may not have a large enough view of what their goals and effects. Why? America has always suffered from wealth disparities, but in recent years the enormous gaps between haves and have-nots has grown horrifying . That such differences have not been achieved on merit and that they also exacerbate racial divisions adds to the gruesomeness. Moreover, societal inequality foments tensions which are disruptive of social cohesion and could ultimately harm all sectors of society. A society in which the top one percent of the population dominates wealth and exercise exorbitant influence over the political system is called, to my way of thinking, a "dominator holarchy." That's a bad thing. No group has done more in such a short period of time to highlight this pressing social injustice than the Occupy Wall Street activists and others who have begun to emulate their activism throughout the world. They are not alone--even Warren Buffett has had a valuable role in arguing for increased taxes on millionaires and billionaires. If the movement matures in more integral directions, it could have a lasting and revolutionary impact on American politics. And leave the know-nothing Tea Party behind in the dust. Many on the left wing view the conflict with Wall Street through the prism of politics as war: "us" vs. "them." However, a more integral approach calls us to bear in mind that there is a greater unity behind the differences, and we are all called to a higher purpose which is justice for all. Integral morality advises non-violence but does not repudiate civil disobedience, even if it means choosing a higher law over the law of the land. That peaceful protesters seeking social justice are jailed while hedge fund managers receive multi-billion dollar bailouts and multi-million dollar bonuses outrages the conscience. Finally, integral morality does not arise from resentment, feelings of jealousy, or animosity of any kind. It asks us to look at our individual shadows and acknowledge when our own antagonism towards the ultra-rich borders on its own sort of greed and will to power. Integral politics is based on love. My blog's readers are familiar with the tradition of integral philosophy in general and integral politics in particular, but I don't assume any specialized background other than the basic principles of political theory. |
With Obama set to announce on Friday his plans to amend the electronic surveillance program at the National Security Agency, it is a good time to look more closely at what the NSA has been doing with some of the data it has been collecting on Americans for the last decade or so. But first some background. As the very first info Edward Snowden’s information about the NSA began to emerge in June 2013, Obama made the following statement: Nobody is listening to your telephone calls. That’s not what this program is about. As was indicated, what the intelligence community is doing is looking at phone numbers and durations of calls. They are not looking at people’s names, and they’re not looking at content. But by sifting through this so-called metadata, they may identify potential leads with respect to folks who might engage in terrorism. (Obama also said in that same remark “Now, with respect to the Internet and emails — this does not apply to U.S. citizens and it does not apply to people living in the United States,” a statement which we now know, from Snowden’s revelations, was a complete lie. But that’s another column.) Dianne Feinstein backed up the president that same day, telling nervous Americans “This is just metadata. There is no content involved.” (Feinstein also had the gall to say in June 2013, “To my knowledge, we have not had any citizen who has registered a complaint relative to the gathering of this information.” But that’s another column.) What is Metadata? Metadata in 2013 was not a term widely-known to the general public. A quick definition might be that metadata is information about data– when and where the data was created, perhaps who created it, how long it took to create, that sort of thing. The metadata for this article might be something like “Created in New York City at 11:33 on April 2 by user Peter Van Buren.” Using this, while a snoop would not with the metadata alone know what I wrote, s/he could indeed place me at a specific location engaged in a specific task at a specific time with a specific computer. Potentially valuable information, especially in the aggregate. If the metadata was for an interactive thing, like a phone call, then the snoop would also know to whom I was talking. Metadata can serve as a giant index to allow the snoop to know which “content” is worth looking at in detail. Matching a phone number to a business or person is painless within the U.S. and many other countries. It can done by most people over the internet (reverse directories) and has long been available using more sophisticated systems by law enforcement. But let’s focus on the metadata alone, as did the Stanford University Security Lab. Scientists there asked subjects to voluntarily collect and share the same metadata about their cell calls as the NSA collects from them involuntarily. The scientists did this via an app one could download, a kind of willful piece of malware like the NSA could install on phones where it does not already have access to the full network (as it does in the U.S. and most allied nations.) To Catch a Whistleblower So what did Stanford find among all that metadata? They began with some simple, common-sense assumptions, primarily that the more calls you made to a specific place (i.e., a political group or a friend) and the longer in duration those calls were, the more significant the connection. If that same source called you back, frequently or for long durations, the connection was more or less confirmed. Mistakes could be made, but there is always some collateral damage in these things. Let’s play along. Jennifer holds regular conference calls during business hours with the same set of people at numbers that resolve to an office in the Pentagon. She makes a significant set of short calls to an Anti-War organization during after-work hours, followed by another set of very long calls to a law office known to represent whistleblowers. She occasionally calls a journalist whose number resolves to New York City, often only speaking for a few seconds. Is Jennifer planning to blow the whistle on something and is setting up meets with a NY journalist? Let’s kick down her door tonight at 2 am and find out. Looking to gather data that might be used to identify vulnerabilities, blackmail or character-assassinate someone? The Stanford people wrote “The degree of sensitivity among contacts took us aback. Participants had calls with Alcoholics Anonymous, gun stores, NARAL Pro-Choice, labor unions, divorce lawyers, sexually transmitted disease clinics, a Canadian import pharmacy, strip clubs, and much more.” Knowing Everything Let’s go deeper. Stanford found: Participant A communicated with multiple local neurology groups, a specialty pharmacy, a rare condition management service, and a hotline for a pharmaceutical used solely to treat relapsing multiple sclerosis. Participant B spoke at length with cardiologists at a major medical center, talked briefly with a medical laboratory, received calls from a pharmacy, and placed short calls to a home reporting hotline for a medical device used to monitor cardiac arrhythmia. Participant C made a number of calls to a firearm store that specializes in the AR semiautomatic rifle platform. They also spoke at length with customer service for a firearm manufacturer that produces an AR line. In a span of three weeks, Participant D contacted a home improvement store, locksmiths, a hydroponics dealer, and a head shop. Participant E had a long, early morning call with her sister. Two days later, she placed a series of calls to the local Planned Parenthood location. She placed brief additional calls two weeks later, and made a final call a month after. What Do They Know? What could someone do with that kind of information about you? What if that someone also had, as we know the NSA does, access to your social media, email, snail mail, credit card data, travel information, air reservations, and bank records? Orwell was an amateur. Metadata is the key to stripping away the haystack so that the needle is just sitting there. The Stanford metadata research program appears to still be up and running; volunteer to help by downloading their app. The NSA program is most certainly robustly ongoing. —————————————————————- Peter Van Buren blew the whistle on State Department waste and mismanagement during Iraqi reconstruction in his first book, We Meant Well, and writes about current events at his blog. Van Buren’s next book, Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99Percent, is available now for preorder from Amazon. |
New Delhi: Nine Indian states and one Union territory are likely to have the e-way bill system under the goods and services tax (GST) in place by the new year in preparation for an all-India rollout by February despite concerns expressed by industry about potential harassment by tax officials. Industry executives are concerned that the e-way bill system, an electronic way of tracking the movement of goods, may give tax authorities in the states powers to harass businesses in case of small instances of non-compliance even though it was designed to eliminate state-wise documentation and ensure faster transit of goods by doing away with checkposts at state borders. The central and state tax authorities decided to move ahead with the measure, suspecting massive tax evasion under the new indirect tax regime that was implemented from 1 July. An e-way bill will have to be generated for all movement of goods—within or outside a state—amounting to more than Rs50,000 by prior online registration of the consignment. The supplier and the transporter can upload the details about the shipment and get a unique e-way bill number. Karnataka, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand have all started the e-way bill system. While Karnataka was the first to move to an e-way bill system in September, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand started last week. Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Nagaland, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Meghalaya and the Union territory of Puducherry are likely to launch such systems over the next few days. At present, Karnataka, which led the implementation, sees an average of 100,000 e-way bills generated every day and inspects only around two in 1,000 shipments. Rejections are less than 10% of the total inspections. “Most states will start the e-way bill system at least on a pilot basis from 15 January. An e-way bill will remove the necessity to have a transit pass. At present, one needs multiple transit passes if the goods are moving through many states. But under the e-way bill system, even if the goods are moving from, say, Delhi to Kerala, only one e-way bill will be generated," said Prakash Kumar, chief executive officer of GST Network, which manages the new indirect tax regime’s information technology systems. Earlier this month, the GST Council, the federal indirect tax body, decided to bring forward the implementation of the e-way bill system to 1 February for all inter-state movement of goods. For all movement of goods within a state, the deadline for e-way bills is 1 June. Bipin Sapra, tax partner at EY, said the implementation of the e-way bill systems may lead to duality of work for businesses. “The e-way bill implementation was moved ahead as the government suspects tax evasion has gone up under GST. However, it may lead to complications as it is not clear if suppliers will have to upload the invoice on the GST Network as well as on the second portal created by NIC (National Informatics Centre) for e-way bill," he said. |
Treasure trove of drama from the 'golden age of television' discovered in Library of Congress after more than 40 years A rediscovered haul of television dramas that has been lost for 40 years or more is set to change the way we think about many of Britain's biggest acting stars. The extraordinary cache of televised plays – described by experts as "an embarrassment of riches" – features performances from a cavalcade of postwar British stars. The list includes John Gielgud, Sean Connery, Gemma Jones, Dorothy Tutin, Robert Stephens, Susannah York, John Le Mesurier, Peggy Ashcroft, Patrick Troughton, David Hemmings, Leonard Rossiter, Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith and Jane Asher. The tapes have been unearthed in the Library of Congress in Washington DC. After months of negotiation, the library and the New York-based public service television station WNET have agreed to allow the British Film Institute in London to showcase the highlights in November, an occasion that is certain to generate intense nostalgia for what many critics maintain was the golden age of television. A hint of what is to come appears in the joint BFI and National Film Theatre guide for November, which refers to the forthcoming "Missing Believed Wiped" event and mentions the discovery of hundreds of hours of British TV drama. The tapes are understood to have been sent out to WNET for broadcast and later stored in the TV station's collection inside the Library of Congress, where they were recently catalogued with British assistance. They were originally broadcast by the BBC and the independent television companies Granada and Associated-Rediffusion between 1957 and 1970. News of their rediscovery was inadvertently leaked to the public in an events bulletin put out at the weekend. The programmes include works by Shakespeare, Chekhov and Ibsen, as well as new work written for weekly shows such as The Wednesday Play and Thursday Theatre. Among other gems found in the archives are a BBC production of Jean Anouilh's version of Sophocles' Antigone starring Dorothy Tutin and David McCallum, that made the front cover of the Radio Times in 1959 but has not been seen since. Notes inside the listings magazine confirm the production was Tutin's BBC television debut and describe her as the "leading young actress of the contemporary scene". A BBC production of Henrik Ibsen's Rosmersholm from 1965 stars Peggy Ashcroft with a supporting cast including John Laurie. Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens star opposite each other as Beatrice and Benedick in a 1967 production of Much Ado About Nothing recorded for the BBC, while Sean Connery appears with Dorothy Tutin in a rare BBC Sunday Night Theatre production of Anouilh's Colombe from 1960. The earliest rediscovered recording is a 1957 production of Ibsen's The Wild Duck, directed for ITV by Charles Crichton and starring Tutin opposite Emlyn Williams and Michael Gough. The library's hoard also includes finds of interest for social reasons. A production of Twelfth Night, starring John Wood as Malvolio, was made by Rediffusion for its schools programming in the afternoons. It was a 75-minute reduction of the play and was broadcast at the end of a nine-part series that examined the work's cultural and historical background. "Negotiations to secure the release of these dramas have been going on for some time and we have been holding on to the information until the time is right," said a spokesman for the BFI. "It is very exciting, but we don't have all the information yet." Jane Asher appears in a 1962 schools production of Romeo and Juliet, along with another 1967 Play of The Month staging of the same Shakespeare play, starring Kika Markham as Juliet, Hywel Bennett as Romeo and John Gielgud as the chorus. Among the bit players are Thora Hird and Michael Gambon, while Ronald Pickup plays Mercutio. The Library of Congress initially approached Kaleidoscope, the classic TV experts, who took the good news to the BBC and ITV this spring. "We brokered the deal for the BFI because so many different companies have copyright over the material," wrote Kaleidoscope's Chris Perry in a blog this weekend. The cast list for a production of The Young Elizabeth shows Hugh Paddick playing a courtier, while Hannah Gordon stars in a Wednesday Play from 1965. Robert Stephens, who died in 1995, appears several times, starring in a 1967 production of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale alongside Jeremy Kemp and Anna Calder-Marshall. A year earlier Stephens stars in a 1966 Theatre 625 production of Chekhov's The Seagull with Annette Crosbie and Pamela Brown. An early ITV Play of the Week from 1963 will also be of great interest to theatre historians. It stars Jill Bennett, the fourth wife of playwright John Osborne, in a production of Chekhov's The Three Sisters with the actress Hilda Barry. |
Portland State will join the growing number of smoke and tobacco-free campuses with its own expanded policy, which goes into effect on Sept. 15, 2015. The new policy prohibits the use of all smoking and tobacco products on campus property and the South Park Blocks between Southwest Market Street and Southwest Jackson Street, according to the official policy document. The full policy is available through the Student Health and Counseling website, including a map of affected areas and an FAQ section. “This is a good, strong policy and is very much in line with best practices,” said Alex Accetta, the director of Campus Recreation and a key player in the process. “When people have asthma, when people have kids, when people are allergic to smoke, our responsibility is to create a space that’s as safe as it can be.” PSU’s policy prohibits the use of all tobacco products, including but not limited to cigarettes, cigars, smokeless tobacco, chewing tobacco and electronic cigarettes. The prohibition of smokeless products such as chewing tobacco and of e-cigarettes or vaporizers makes it among the stricter of campus policies, in comparison to those that only address cigarette smoking. The policy is a culmination of an almost decade-long process that included two campus-wide surveys, implementation of PSU’s current smoking policy, the Clean Air Corridor and ongoing collaboration between stakeholders. “It is definitely a community policy that a lot of people had a hand in,” said Julie Weissbuch Allina, the director of health promotion at SHAC. SHAC and Campus Recreation have been among the primary players, according to Weissbuch Allina, with the Healthy Campus Initiative Committee, Human Resources, the University Policy Committee and others. General student, faculty and staff input were sought through a 2012 survey spearheaded by Gwyn Ashcom, a health educator at SHAC. Of the 4,005 respondents, two-thirds reported concern about environmental tobacco smoke and over 55 percent supported PSU becoming smoke free. SHAC will be primarily responsible for overseeing the policy going forward. No designated smoking areas are included in the policy. If people choose to smoke, they will need to go off campus to do so. The expectation is that smokers will largely comply with the policy and the emphasis will be on education, according to both Accetta and Weissbuch Allina. “For the most part, what we’ve observed is smokers have been really awesome to work with,” Accetta said. “We’re not asking people to stop smoking. We’re just asking people to take care of their fellow students and the PSU community by not doing it while they’re here. That’s all.” The Campus Public Safety Office will regulate ongoing smoking violations in particular areas. “We will enforce it like any other policy within the university,” said CPSO Lieutenant of Operations Craig Whitten. Students who violate the policy can be referred to Student Conduct and faculty and staff to Human Resources. “When I’m not in uniform and I see people smoking,” Whitten said, “I just walk up to them and pleasantly say, ‘Hey, are you aware this is a smoke-free corridor, and there’s no smoking here?’ and pretty much leave it at that.” This is not something to argue or be confrontational about, he added. Weissbuch Allina said an educational campaign regarding the policy will likely launch in January, assuming all the expected pieces go through. Posters, emails, social media, a dedicated website and a town hall meeting are just some of the ways SHAC may go about communicating the policy. As of Oct. 1, 975 campuses across the nation are fully tobacco free, according to the National Tobacco-Free Campus movement. Many Oregon universities have already enacted such policies, including the Oregon Health & Sciences University in 2007 and the University of Oregon in 2012. Portland Community College and Oregon State University are smoke free, though they have not prohibited all tobacco products. |
Munster’s night of celebration at the Guinness PRO12 Awards was tempered by the revelation that fly-half Tyler Bleyendaal is a serious doubt for the play-off semi-final against Ospreys in 12 days. On an evening in Dublin when Rassie Erasmus was voted Coach of the Season by his peers after guiding Munster to the top of the PRO12 league table and back into the semi-finals in his first year as director of rugby, six of his players were also named to the Guinness PRO12 Dream Team. Yet one of them, Bleyendaal, was not in attendance at the Guinness Storehouse last night, having been sent for scans on a bicep injured during the province’s 50-14 final-round hammering of outgoing champions Connacht. “He’s gone for scans and stuff today, that’s why he can’t be here, it’s serious enough that he’s had to go for scans,” Erasmus said of the New Zealand-born project player, named Munster’s player of the year at their own awards ceremony last Thursday. Asked if Bleyendaal was a doubt for the semi-final,” Erasmus replied: “Yes, yes, yes, yes.” Ulster’s exciting back three star Charles Piutau received the most coveted award of the nine on offer last night as he was voted the Guinness PRO12 Players’ Player of the Season, while Leinster fly-half Joey Carbery was named Young Player of the season after a vote of a 30-strong media panel from across Italy, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Both were on the Dream Team selected by the same panel, featuring 11 players from Irish provinces, although the Rhino Golden Boot was won by Ospreys’ Sam Davies, who finished the season with an 88% success rate from the kicking tee having made 44 of his 50 shots at goal. Scarlets winger Steff Evans was recognised as the Guinness PRO12’s top try-scorer as he finished the regular season on 11 tries to help his region to third in the table while team-mate and hooker Ken Owens was chosen as captain of the Dream Team. Ruan Pienaar’s score for Ulster against Glasgow in Round 15, starting and finishing a wonderful team move from inside his own half, won a Try of the Season vote while Connacht skipper John Muldoon was on hand to receive the Specsavers Fair Play Award on behalf of last season’s champions. Erasmus insisted his coach of the season award was not merely a personal accolade. “It’s an honour, but I think it’s a difficult thing to give to one person, because every squad has three or four coaches, and I think I do the least amount of coaching, with Felix (Jones), Jacques (Nienaber) and Jerry (Flannery). “And the conditioning coaches, everyone there contributes. So I’ll say it’s a coaching team award, that would be the best way to put it. It is an honour, I’ll take it. it’s always an honour to achieve something. “The PRO12 is an especially tough competition, it’s week 46 (of the season) now, because it’s intertwined with European Cup and you have to have a big squad. There are stages when you get really pushed around. “For me, it’s one of the toughest competitions I’ve coached in. There’s also the styles you coach against, there’s Pat (Lam) who just runs in, then there’s Gregor Townsend who plays on an artificial pitch and they play a certain style and you have to adapt every single week. For our coaching team, it’s a great honour.” Erasmus also had to deal with Munster’s response to the sudden, tragic death of head coach Anthony Foley last October, which saw Erasmus on the training field more than he had imagined would be the case having left his role as South African Rugby’s High Performance Manager. “That was my role this season even more, I came in as Director of Rugby, and obviously Axel passed away. So the coaching was more done by Felix, Jacques, and Jerry. I also coach but percentage wise, I think 70-80% was on trying to put the S&C and medical and technical sides, and then the three coaches. “When Axel passed away, my role got amplified, if that’s the right word, and that was a challenge. We haven’t won anything yet, but to have a bunch of players who are really adaptable, really willing to change and learn, helped a lot.” Specsavers Fair Play Award: Connacht Rugby; Top Try-Scorer: Steff Evans (Scarlets); Rhino Golden Boot: Sam Davies (Ospreys Rugby); Young Player of the Season: Joey Carbery (Leinster Rugby); Independent.ie Try of the Season: Ruan Pienaar (Ulster Rugby); Dream Team Captain: Ken Owens (Scarlets); Guinness PRO12 Coach of the Season: Rassie Erasmus (Munster Rugby); Guinness PRO12 Players’ Player of the Season: Charles Piutau (Ulster Rugby); Guinness PRO12 Chairman’s Award: Nigel Owens. PRO12 Dream Team 2016/17: 15 Tiernan O’Halloran (Connacht Rugby) 14 Tommy Seymour (Glasgow Warriors) 13 Jaco Taute (Munster Rugby) 12 Rory Scannell (Munster Rugby) 11 Charles Piutau (Ulster Rugby) 10 Tyler Bleyendaal (Munster Rugby) 9 Ruan Pienaar (Ulster Rugby) 8 Jack Conan (Leinster Rugby) 7 James Davies (Scarlets) 6 Dan Leavy (Leinster Rugby) 5 Billy Holland (Munster Rugby) 4 Ben Toolis (Edinburgh Rugby) 3 John Ryan (Munster Rugby) 2 Ken Owens, Capt (Scarlets) 1 Dave Kilcoyne (Munster Rugby). |
A new photo shows Paris terror suspect Salah Abdeslam staring glumly at the camera inside a Belgian high-security lockup — where he’s described as a model prisoner. “He’s a very good boy,” a prison source told the Het Nieuwsblad newspaper. “His behavior is an example to many of the other inmates. There hasn’t been a negative word about his actions — and his appetite is excellent.” A guard in the Bruges lockup checks on Abdeslam, 26, eight times an hour for fear he might harm himself, reported the Flemish paper, which published the image Tuesday. The French national, who was arrested March 18 in the Brussels district of Molenbeek, is expected to be transferred to France to stand trial for allegedly planning and helping to carry out the attacks in Paris that killed 130 people on Nov. 13. He has told investigators that he had planned to carry out a suicide bombing at the Stade de France stadium, but backed out and fled to Belgium, prosecutors have said.. His arrest is believed to have sparked the attacks in Brussels that killed 35 people on March 22. Mohammed Abrini, who helped drive Abdeslam to Paris, was arrested last week in Belgium. He has admitted to being “the man in the hat” seen walking with suicide bombers Najim Laachraou and Ibrahim El Bakraoui at the Brussels airport. Abrini, 31, has been charged with terrorist murders, prosecutors said. Abdeslam’s brother, Brahim, blew himself up in a coffee shop during the attacks in Paris. |
The woman's wild ride started on Martin Luther King Jr. Way and ended on Yesler Way when her car, a 2012 Toyota Camry, become too damaged to continue. Nov. 18, 2016 (KOMO Photo) SEATTLE -- A woman was brought in for mental evaluation after crashing into at least 17 vehicles while driving on northbound Interstate 5. The woman might have been having a psychotic episode, Trooper Rick Johnson, spokesman for the Washington State Patrol, said. The 22-year-old woman's wild ride started on Martin Luther King Jr. Way and ended on Yesler Way when her car, a 2012 Toyota Camry, became too damaged to continue. "I was just hit, very hard," said Marie Casey who was one of the last cars to be struck. She said at first she thought it was her, then she got out of her car and saw the trail of destruction. "That's when it was obvious, when we were all lining up," said Casey. The Seattle Fire Department took her to Virginia Mason for a psychiatric evaluation. No injuries were reported. Authorities do not suspect that alcohol or drugs were a factor and do not have any information on the driver. Johnson says that in his over 25 years working for Washington State Patrol, he's never seen anything quite like it. "I'm going to log this away as one I haven't seen before," Johnson said. "We're just trying to get this cleaned up." |
Maputo — The British government on Thursday announced that it is suspending financial aid to Mozambique, in the wake of the scandal over undisclosed loans. Earlier this month, it became clear that almost 1.4 billion dollars worth of loans, guaranteed by the Mozambican government, had not been disclosed, either to the Mozambican public or to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The loans date from 2013-2014 and were contracted by the previous government, headed by President Armando Guebuza. Judging from the statement given by Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosario at a Maputo press conference on Thursday, the Guebuza government did not inform its successor about these loans. A spokesperson for the British Department for International Development (DFID), cited in the British government statement, said "the existence of the loans, and the lack of transparency around them, is deeply disappointing", and warned of "serious implications for Mozambique's economy for the medium-term". "This appears to be a serious breach of trust, so we are working closely with other international partners to establish the truth and coordinate an appropriate response", the spokesperson added. "We support the IMF's call for full disclosure of loan transactions and debt to the people of Mozambique. Any undisclosed debt-related transactions, irrespective of their purpose, need to be reported transparently and publicly". "The UK follows strict rules and procedures when providing aid and our priority continues to be supporting the people of Mozambique to lift themselves out of poverty and build a more prosperous country", he said. The British aid has not been cancelled, but delayed until further notice. This will mainly affect British support for the Mozambican budget. For many years, Britain has been one of the main donors of direct budget support. The DFID statement added "there is no evidence to date that there has been any misuse of UK funds". The British suspension of aid follows a report from the World Bank that it too is suspending budget support |
The controversial call in the waning seconds of Saturday's showdown between Syracuse and Duke was so close, at least in real time, that one veteran person in officiating management said he could see it being called either a block or a charge. "Honest to God, I'm not sure," the official told ESPN.com. "I think if you talked to five people, you'd get three or four different interpretations." Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim was ejected for arguing the controversial call, ending his first game at Cameron Indoor Stadium. The ACC on Sunday there will be no further action taken against Boeheim after he ran onto the court. Conference spokesperson Amy Yakola said the officials handled the foul, technicals and ejection on the court Saturday night and there would be nothing further to add. "I just thought that was the worst call of the year, that's all," Boeheim said Saturday. "I just hate to see the game decided on that call." ESPN.com's Jeff Goodman spoke to three game officials and there was no consensus opinion on the play, backing up the officiating manager's assertion. The official, who asked not to be named, said he watched the play in slow motion, frame-by-frame four times, and he at least believes the correct call was made. The official said that Syracuse's C.J. Fair was not in an upward motion and that Duke's Rodney Hood had established position. "By the strict interpretation of the rule, it was a player control foul in my opinion," the official said. "The defender was in position with his feet facing his opponent before Fair raised his hand. I think if you watch it, at least frame-by-frame, it was a player-control foul." He added that the defender does have the right, after establishing legal guarding position, to slide to a side to cover an opponent, which Hood did. Officiating has been a hot-button issue since the start of the season. The NCAA instituted a new rules package that has been dissected and questioned all year and includes an adjustment to how the block/charge call is interpreted. Saturday night's call came right out of the amended interpretations, which reads: "A defensive player is not permitted to move into the path of an offensive player once he has started his upward motion with the ball to attempt a field goal or pass. If the defensive player is not in legal guarding position by this time, it is a blocking foul." The timing of this particular call, with the NCAA tournament right around the corner, will only add to the heightened scrutiny officials are facing. "It's really your garden variety block-charge call, and fortunately there haven't been too many controversies on those this year," the official said. "Except, naturally, in the final seconds of the most-watched game of the year. Murphy's law." Information from ESPN.com's Andy Katz and Jeff Goodman contributed to this report. |
Last night education journalist Lindsey Christ from NY 1 News reported that in two separate incidents on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, NYPD school safety officers interfered with her reporting on city schools and filming on city sidewalks. On Tuesday in Park Slope, a school safety officer reportedly confronted Christ as her news team was trying to interview a student across the street from a school and broke the lens guard off their camera, wrongly claiming that they could not film NYPD officers. On Wednesday in Murray Hill, school safety officers reportedly wrongly told the news team that they could not film on school property, and only backtracked after consulting the local precinct while many more officers arrived. The New York Civil Liberties Union issued the following statement in response, attributable to Executive Director Donna Lieberman: “The lawless behavior of NYPD school safety officers who tried to stop journalist Lindsey Christ from videotaping outside New York City public schools this week is unacceptable. If this is how NYPD school safety officers treat a journalist with a video camera, we worry how they deal with students. The Police Department must respect First Amendment rights – that includes the right to take pictures and talk to students on public sidewalks outside schools. This is an unfortunate example of the NYPD’s failure to train its school safety officers to respect the law. The mayor has promised to end abuses by school safety officers – it’s time to make good on that promise.” Read the NYCLU's Letter to Commissioner Bratton: http://www.nyclu.org/files/2014_10_09_NYCLU_letter_to_Commissioner_Bratt... |
More than half of Jewish Israelis support having separate Jewish and Palestinian buses in the West Bank, according to a new poll. It comes just three weeks after a segregated bus program was scrapped following domestic and international criticism. The findings were revealed in a monthly Peace Indexpollconducted by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University's Evens Program in Mediation and Conflict Resolution. READ MORE: Israeli Arab actor refusing to play in West Bank pressured by govt The survey interviewed 600 Jewish and Arab respondents. It focused on attitudes towards Jewish settlements in the West Bank, as well as new cabinet appointments and the diplomatic arena. It found that 52 percent of Jewish Israelis supported segregating Jewish and Palestinian passengers on West Bank buses, while 42 percent opposed the practice. However, the survey participants' apparent support for a segregated system comes just three weeks after that very program was scrapped after just one day, due to uproar at home and abroad. The short-lived program, launched on May 19, stated that Palestinian workers would have to return from Israel to the West Bank via the same checkpoint they left, and wouldn’t be allowed to ride Israeli buses. The leader of the left-wing Meretz party, Zehava Galon, compared the move to “apartheid” at the time, Haaretz reported. Support for segregated buses among Israeli Jews has existed for years, especially among settlers, who claim they are necessary for safety. But others, including Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, have criticized that claim, saying Jewish settlers simply don't want to travel with Arabs on the bus. A significantly higher number of Arabs (70 percent) expressed opposition to segregated buses. Israel's international standing When asked about Israel's worldwide standing, 69 percent of Jewish Israelis said they viewed it as “not good.” The survey said this awareness seemed to stem from the intensification of calls to boycott Israel and its institutions. In addition, 71 percent said “the countries of the world make demands for moral behavior on Israel that they do not make on other countries that are in situations of conflict.” READ MORE: ‘We will shoot you if you do anything’: Palestinians recall forced Israeli eviction But Israeli Arabs expressed contrasting views. Fifty-eight percent felt Israel's foreign relations are “very good” or “moderately good.” This, according to the survey's authors, may stem from the Palestinian perception that the countries of the world accept Tel Aviv's policy, because they don’t act against it. The Israeli Arabs surveyed were divided on whether Israel faces a double standard in its “moral behavior.” Half of all Arab respondents refused to answer the question, or didn't know how to answer. Jewish settlements When asked whether they would purchase a house in a Jewish settlement if they could get it at a low price, the majority of both Jews (55.6 percent) and Arabs (66.8 percent) said they would not. However, most Jews (79 percent) said they would buy goods produced in the settlements, even if a boycott against settlement products were to be organized. The majority (59 percent) of Arabs said they wouldn’t buy such products if a boycott was organized. Peace process The Peace Index survey also asked whether the respondents supported the ongoing pursuit of peace talks. Although the majority of Jews (62.5 percent) and Arabs (71 percent) said they backed talks, neither side had much optimism that an agreement would be reached anytime soon. Only 26 percent of Jews and 40 percent of Arabs expressed confidence in reaching a deal in the near future. The poll, conducted by telephone, June 1-4, had a margin of error of ±4.1 percent. The Peace Index Project was launched in 1994 as a joint project of Tel Aviv University and the Israeli Democracy Institute. Questions change month to month, based on current events in Israel. |
In a victory for James Bond completists, a federal judge has refused to dismiss a proposed class action suit alleging that MGM and 20th Century Fox deceptively marketed a James Bond box set. Mary L. Johnson, of Pierce County, Wash., purchased one of the box sets from Amazon in February of 2016 for $106.44, only to discover that “Casino Royale” (1967) and “Never Say Never Again” (1983) were not included. She filed a lawsuit in April, accusing MGM and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment of violating Washington’s Consumer Protection Act and breach of express warranties. Judge Ricardo S. Martinez issued a ruling on Thursday dismissing parts of the complaint, but allowing the substance of the allegations to move forward. Martinez’s ruling hinges on the claim that the box set included “all” of the James Bond films. The defendants claim that the word is open to some interpretation, and qualifies as advertising “puffery” which is not subject to litigation. Johnson’s legal team — from the firms Eisenhower Carlson PLLC, of Tacoma, Wash., and Statman Harris & Eyrich LLC, of Cincinnati, Ohio — countered that there is nothing vague or subjective about the word “all.” “No reasonable person, unless a James Bond expert, would understand that ‘all’ does not mean all, and ‘every’ means only certain films,” the lawyers wrote. In his opinion, Martinez declined to dismiss the claim at this stage, and said a jury would have to decide whether the term was misleading. “A jury must determine whether a reasonable person would expect ‘Casino Royale’ and ‘Never Say Never Again’ to be included in a complete set of James Bond films,” Martinez wrote. “From the Defendants’ perspective, this claim will have to ‘Die Another Day.'” The judge granted a motion to dismiss parent companies MGM Holdings and 21st Century Fox from the suit, and dismissed a claim of breach of implied warranty of merchantability. |
E-mail baseball SID John Sullivan here Box Score html Box Score pdf BOCA RATON, Fla. - Senior John Clay Reeves blasted a big three-run homer to key a five-run fifth inning, and the pitching staff posted another steady outing to help the Rice baseball team claim a 5-2 road victory at FAU Sunday afternoon in Boca Raton, Fla. With the win Rice not only completed a sweep of the three-game weekend road series, the team gained a full-game lead over second place in the C-USA standings. Rice improved to 33-16 overall and 20-7 in C-USA action with it fourth three-game sweep of the conference season. FAU, which entered the weekend as the No. 12 ranked team in the country, is now 36-14 on the season and 17-10 in the league. For the first time this series FAU was the first team on the scoreboard. Brendon Sanger led off the bottom of the fourth with a single, and a pair of walks loaded the bases. Sanger scored on a one-out ground out, but that was the only harm done in the frame off veteran left-handed starter Blake Fox. Rice came right back with five big runs in the top of the fifth. Grayson Lewis reached on a hard-hit infield single at third base. He moved to second on a sacrifice bunt, and to third on Hunter Kopycinski's come-back shot to the mound. Lewis scored on a shallow, bloop-single to left to tie the game 1-1, but the Blue & Gray wasn't finished. Ford Stainback followed with a short single to center that loaded the bases. Kopycinski scored on a sacrifice fly to right by Kirby Taylor that made it 2-1. In battling for a long at bat, John Clay Reeves then worked the count to 3-2 before blasting a towering three-run homer to left-center field. Reeves' team-leading eighth home run of the season extended the lead to 5-1. FAU took advantage of a Rice fielding miscue to get a run back in the bottom of the inning. Ryan Miller drew a leadoff walk and Billy Endris' one-out single put runners on first and second. Miller scored all the way from second base on an infield error to make it 5-2, and the team would have been out of the inning with a ground out from the very next batter. Only one of the two runs Fox surrendered on the day were earned. The junior from Houston pitched a tough 6.1 innings with temperatures in the high 80s and a hitter-friendly sun-drenched field. He allowed six hits and three walks to go along with three strikeouts. Fox was relieved by Matt Ditman, who worked out of a base-loaded situation in the bottom of the seventh with a strikeout. He pitched the final two hitless frames to record his team-leading ninth save of the season. The save was the 18th of Ditman's career to move him into a tie for second place on the school's all-time list with MLB draft pick Zech Lemond. Rice pitching came up big all weekend against the best hitting and run-scoring team in the conference. In 27.0 combined innings the Rice staff allowed just three total runs on 19 singles, where only two of the runs were earned. In an efficient and winning weekend the Blue & Gray used only five pitchers. On the day's offensive side Reeves finished going 2-for-3 with a homer, three RBI and a run scored. Stainback had a pair of hits to push his hitting streak to 13-straight games as well as notch his 16th multi-hit game of the season. Rice has completed the three-game C-USA weekend series, but the team is not scheduled to playback home just yet. The Blue & Gray next meet crosstown rival Houston at Constellation Field in Sugar Land, Texas, on Tuesday (May 12). Start time is set for 6:30 pm. |
Image caption Mr Wallenberg was last seen alive in 1945 Australia has made a Swedish diplomat who helped save tens of thousands of Jews from the Holocaust its first honorary citizen. Raoul Wallenberg was a diplomat in Nazi-occupied Hungary, and provided Jews with protective passports and shelter in diplomatic buildings. Many of the people whose lives he saved later went on to live in Australia. The fate of Mr Wallenberg, who was detained by Soviet troops in January 1945, is unclear. Mr Wallenberg has already been given honorary citizenship in the US, Israel, Hungary and Canada. Speaking at the honorary citizenship ceremony, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the move was "an expression of our deep gratitude for all that our nation gained when so many saved by Wallenberg came to these shores". "As the last witnesses to the horrors of World War II leave us, it is vital, it is imperative, to keep alive the memory and example of individuals like Raoul Wallenberg," she said, describing Mr Wallenberg as a man of "moral courage and heroic example". Frank Vajda, a Australian professor, said Mr Wallenberg saved his life when he was a young boy in Hungary. He told Australian broadcaster ABC that Mr Wallenberg actively negotiated to save Hungarian Jews from execution and deportation. "He stopped deportation trains before they passed... and handed his passes onto people and said to the Germans, I'm a diplomat, I'm a Swede, these people are Swedish citizens, they are in my protection and you must let them go," he said. "I owe everything I've done in my life to Australia and I owe my life to Raoul Wallenberg," he said. Mr Wallenberg is thought to have disappeared in Soviet custody after the war. A Russian inquiry said he was executed in 1947, after the German retreat, but the circumstances of his death remain unclear. In 2012, Sweden said it would hold a new inquiry into his death, after a probe by a Russo-Swedish working group in 1991 failed to draw any definite conclusions. |
Canada's tax agency has launched a project to hit Canada's wealthiest citizens where they live — literally. The Canada Revenue Agency's Postal Code Project is targeting the wealthiest neighbourhoods in all regions of the country, those with gold-plated postal codes, where auditors will pore through the tax filings of every well-heeled resident, address by address. They're looking for undeclared wealth, signs that a taxpayer is actually richer than their income tax filings suggest. "Comparing someone's lifestyle — cars, boats, houses — to their reported income helps us identify people who are non-compliant," said CRA spokesperson Zoltan Csepregi. Details of the initiative, launched in the summer, were obtained by CBC News under the Access to Information Act. The Paradise Papers, the latest leak of tax-haven financial records, contain the names of about 3,000 Canadian individuals and companies. (CBC) "The Postal Code Project is an innovative way for the CRA to use an indicator of wealth, high-priced real estate in this case, in a more systematic way as a starting point to initiate taxpayer reviews," says a briefing document. 'Residence focused approach' The "residence focused approach to audit," says the memo, is to support the government's priority "that those who are wealthy pay the tax they owe." The Liberal government has been stung by tax-haven disclosures in recent years, including the so-called Panama Papers and most recently the Paradise Papers, leaked caches of financial documents from foreign low- and no-tax countries that cater to thousands of Canadians. Many of the tax-haven schemes are perfectly legal, but have raised awkward questions about why Canadian tax laws allow such loopholes for the rich. It's a good step. It's a small step. - Diana Gibson of Canadians for Tax Fairness, on a new CRA initiative targeting Canada's wealthy The released sections of the internal CRA memo, redacted in key parts, do not refer directly to the leaks but do note the project will have a public-relations value: "The Postal Code Project also has the potential to demonstrate to the public that the CRA is actively working towards its fairness objective, which speaks to our integrity as an organization." The document does not identify the rich neighbourhoods targeted. Csepregi declined to disclose the addresses. "In order to encourage voluntary compliance, the CRA will only disclose that it has selected five neighbourhoods, one in each region (Pacific, Prairies, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic)," he said. "Based on these findings, other neighbourhoods may be considered for review." Csepregi said the wealthiest neighbourhoods are identified for close scrutiny by using the CRA's own databases, third-party data, as well as publicly available information, such as Statistics Canada census data. Investigators have a variety of tools at their disposal, including public-records checks and even inspecting properties in person. Since the summer, the agency has put 1,150 wealthy households under review in those tony locations, and has directly contacted 33 rich taxpayers. The relatively small number of households may reflect the very large properties and low population counts in some of Canada's ultra-affluent enclaves, such as Toronto's Bridle Path neighbourhood. CRA initiative welcomed Not every moneyed resident will be formally audited. Letters, notices and direct meetings with taxpayers will help determine how far the CRA goes, and biannual reports will compile the results. Canada's privacy commissioner has signed off on the project, the memo says. Csepregi confirmed that the project is linked to the agency's efforts to catch offshore tax cheats, saying the initiative is intended to "reassure Canadians that the CRA devotes more attention to taxpayers who have proportionally high net worth, to confirm their compliance." He added there is no end date for the project. Diana Gibson of Canadians for Tax Fairness welcomes the federal revenue agency's Postal Code Project but calls it 'a small step.' (Canadians for Tax Fairness) A group that has long criticized the Canada Revenue Agency for letting rich tax cheats off the hook welcomed news of the project, though said it deals with only a small part of the problem. "It's a good step. It's a small step," said Diana Gibson of the Ottawa-based Canadians for Tax Fairness, arguing that Canada's big corporations are responsible for about two-thirds of the country's tax avoidance problems. "We applaud it, even if it's small," she said. "It's nowhere near adequate." Follow @DeanBeeby on Twitter |
Apple took more than one million preorders for the iPhone 4S during the first 24 hours the device was available online, the company announced on Monday. This tops the company's previous single-day preorder record of 600,000, a title held by the current iPhone 4. The iPhone 4S itself is still not in consumer hands, though—preorders will go out to customers on Friday, October 14, the same day the iPhone 4S will be available in retail stores. It hasn't even been a week since Apple announced the existence of the iPhone 4S after months of speculation over whether the company would release a radically redesigned "iPhone 5" or not. As such, the intro of the iPhone 4S—which looks the same as an iPhone 4 but has a faster processor, better camera, and the "intelligent assistant" Siri—was a disappointment for some who were expecting some new eye candy along with updated specs. That disappointment seemed to translate into pessimistic expectations for the iPhone 4S, but as is often the case, the real world's reaction seems to have diverged from that of the geek world. As noted by Macworld, Apple, AT&T, and Verizon all exhausted their supplies of preorder iPhone 4Ss near the end of Friday, with AT&T boasting that it sold 200,000 devices within the first 12 hours of availability. (Sprint also reported that it sold out of the 16GB version of the iPhone 4S.) If you're interested in obtaining an iPhone 4S on launch day, it now looks like your best bet is to do the old waiting in line schtick at an Apple retail store. Just keep your fingers crossed for nice weather (there sure won't be any in Chicago that day) and a minimal instance of homeless people asking you for cigarettes while you wait. |
Ah, the life of a WordPress developer. Long hours sitting in a chair, staring a screen, an occasional glance outside to relieve your eye strain and your back, your poor aching back. Haven’t you heard sitting is the new smoking? I get it though, you’re busy. Your inbox is beeping, clients are emailing to ask for a progress update and you’ve got three deadlines approaching midweek. What’s a person to do? You might think (like I did for a long time) that grinding it out was the path to improved productivity. Seriously, when your workload is piling up, is there any better way to get things done than buckling down and burning the midnight oil? There might just be. If you’re a WordPress developer who spends the majority of your day with your tush glued to a chair, listen up – this post is for you. The Problem With Productivity Science Is it just me, or are there a lot of productivity studies being referenced around the web these days? If you were to spend a few hours reading through all the studies in circulation, it wouldn’t take long before you became convinced that we live and work in a nation of unproductive nitwits. Whittling away our days, surfing the net, updating our Facebook news feeds and checking on our Farmville crops. (Do people actually play that still?) It’s well documented that we should take what we read in most scientific studies with a grain of salt. Is it possible that improving productivity has become a business? I’m not going to stand here and tell you that the science isn’t relevant. I’m not qualified to debate that topic. Honestly, I believe most of the productivity studies that I’ve come across provide valuable information and great insights, even for the layperson. I’m also not going to tell you that productivity isn’t important; of course it is. You’ve got work to do and it needs to get done. Your clients are counting on you, and the livelihood of their business depends upon you getting their website up and running. But you also have a life to live. As much as you love building websites, you’ve got outside interests – hobbies, kids, a home to maintain and hopefully you fit in some exercise. Nobody is questioning whether you need to be productive. So if you’re going to put the science aside, quit reading research reports and get back to work, what should you focus on if you’re bound and determined to get more done in a day? When you’re looking to improve your productivity, the first thing you should realize is that there is no perfect answer. What works for me, might not work for you. In the next few paragraphs, I’m going to present some specific ideas you could experiment with. I suggest you do just that – experiment with these ideas and see how they work for you. If they don’t work, make a change and reassess or try something different. Seek First to Find Balance Being more productive doesn’t mean finding more hours in the day to code – it means getting more coding done in the same or even fewer hours. When projects start to pile up or when clients start reminding us of pending deadlines, it’s easy to compensate by increasing your screen time. But that’s typically not the best solution and can even cause you to become less productive. Personal experience has shown me that spending too much time on one area of your life is a quick way to throw things out of balance. Not eating properly, not exercising and not spending time with friends or family is not a path to greater productivity. It might be for a short period of time, but then it’ll catch up to you, and I guarantee the first thing to suffer will be that which you are trying to improve. One of the best things you can do for yourself is to map out the parts of your life that you value the most. Then, decide how much time you want to reasonably spend on each one. Consider mapping out the following areas of your life: Work Health and fitness Friends Family Time with kids Your hobbies Sleep There are only 24 hours in a given day, so if you’re going to increase your time spent working on client projects, you’ll have to take that time away from something else. Choose wisely. Consider Your Work Environment Your work environment has a tremendous effect on productivity. Look around you. Is your desk clean and organized? Does your computer desktop look like a digital hurricane swept over it? Are your files easy to find? I’m a huge proponent of an almost empty desktop, both physical and digital. Keeping yourself surrounded by a blank slate keeps your mind creative, less distracted and stress-free. I mentioned in the opening paragraph that sitting is the new smoking. Have you ever considered how a stand-up desk might impact both your productivity and your health? Structure Your Day in Intervals “Intervals?” you ask. “I thought those were something reserved for athletes?” You’re half right. Intervals are an increasingly popular way of training for both long and short distance athletes. What researchers found (pass the salt, please) and presented in a research article snappily titled “Effects of high intensity training and continuous endurance training on aerobic capacity and body composition in recreationally active runners” was that athletes who performed intervals saw a 10% greater improvement in heart stroke volume over the athletes who performed long slow distance training. So what on earth does this have to do with WordPress development? Great question, and here is my point. We are taught that the way to be more productive is by sitting in your chair, buckling down and getting your work done. Long, slow, distance – work 7-10 hours with a short break or two, then call it a day. If you’re lucky, you’ll have some time (or energy) for exercise, a chance to play with your kids or enjoy a conversation with your significant other. What if you tried something different? What if you incorporated the principles of interval training into your WordPress development business? Your daily structure might look more like this: 6:15 Rise and make coffee 6:30 Client project work – work hard with no distractions 8:15 Breakfast 8:30 Off to the gym or exercise 10:00 Client project work – work hard with no distractions 11:30 Respond to emails and client inquiries 12:00 Lunch 12:30 Marketing and social media 1:30 Easy client work 2:30 Brisk 15 minute walk 2:45 Work on personal projects 4:00 Family / Social Time / Dinner 7:00 Plan for tomorrow, check emails 7:45 Read and relax 9:00 Bed At first glance, it seems like a very segmented day and it is – by design. It will require some personalization and flexibility, but I think you’ll find that shorter, more focused bursts of energy result in higher productivity. Prioritize and Focus Part of improving your overall productivity means learning to prioritize more effectively. If the Pareto principle holds true, 20% of what you do during the day is responsible for 80% of your income. Make sure you’re prioritizing the 20% and scheduling those activities early in the day. If hitting a client’s milestone this morning means you can send out the next invoice, that should be a priority. Sitting in front of a screen all day means you are also faced with distractions at every turn. There are times of the day when getting sidetracked by a distraction is going to happen. But there are other times when you need to make distractions unacceptable. Your first and second 90-minute work interval are two of the times where you should be 100% focused. Plan Ahead Have you ever tried starting your day without a plan? I imagine we all have. Unplanned work days are almost never productive. As you roll your chair up to your desk you review your list of 25 unprioritized tasks, your mind shifts into overwhelm mode – you have no idea where to start. May as well open up Facebook right? Next thing you know an hour has gone by and you still haven’t started your current project. The last interval of each day should involve planning and prioritizing for tomorrow. How you go about accomplishing that is up to you. You might prefer a handwritten list or maybe a tool like Trello or AnyDo is your modus operandi. Get Started Now The final item on our list of ways to create a productive working environment is the easiest of all – in theory. Getting started almost feels too obvious. That is, until you add up the number of days in the last month that you looked at the clock mid morning only to realize that you had yet to do anything productive. One of the biggest barriers to productivity is our failure to jump feet first into the task at hand. If you’re managing multiple client projects, it’s often easier to find small, menial tasks or ways to waste time than it is to actually get started on something important. Planning can solve this problem. If you look at the days where this pattern occurs, I’d be willing to bet that more often than not, you didn’t have a prioritized list of things to do. As a result, you magically find a way to fill your time with things you shouldn’t be doing. This links back to planning ahead, and making sure you have a prioritized list made up the night before. Be Willing to Experiment We’ve covered a few important concepts in this article. Not all of them will necessarily work for you, but most of them can make a real difference. Plus, they’re all practical ideas that can be implemented with relative ease. These are the basic steps: Create an organized and clean work environment. Map out the different areas of your life. Prioritize and focus on the areas and tasks that are most important. Structure your day with intervals. Plan ahead. Get started. Finally, be creative. Experiment with structuring your day differently. Discover what works well for you and what doesn’t. I think you’ll be surprised at how your productivity improves over time. If you’re hungry for more productivity ideas, check out this post. Have you experimented with improving your productivity? With improved productivity, did you reward yourself with free time or focus on getting more work done? Let us know in the comments! Image Credit: Bloomua / ShutterStock |
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