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Here at Legal Insurrection, we devoted a lot of (virtual) ink to the Rolling Stone campus rape story debacle. Sabrina Erdely’s now-retracted article on “Jackie’s” traumatic gang rape—and its relation to the campus sexual assault problem Erdely so desperately wanted to prove exists—serves as a textbook example of how not to conduct an investigation, and may end up costing Rolling Stone more than its reputation (or at least, whatever is left of it.)
Back in May, University of Virginia associate dean of students Nicole Eramo filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Rolling Stone, its parent company Wenner Media, and journalist Sabrina Rubin Erdely for their portrayal of Eramo in Erdely’s story. Eramo argues that Erdely and Rolling Stone knew Jackie was unreliable, had serious doubts about the story, and yet ran with it anyway because they were desperate to fulfill their own narrative and sell magazines.
As I said in May, the benefits of attempting to salvage Eramo’s reputation via the courts must outweigh the risk that opposing counsel and the MSM could find something that causes further damage; her attorneys likely would not have filed the suit had they not performed that analysis. Still, Rolling Stone has decided to answer the complaint by claiming that UVA actually contributed to the faulty report.
Via WaPo:
In a detailed rebuttal, the magazine’s lawyers acknowledge that the Columbia report, commissioned by Rolling Stone, found that the original U-Va. story was deeply flawed. The magazine’s editors and Erdely apologized for their mistakes. But lawyers for Rolling Stone deny that the magazine libeled Eramo, noting that the account also highlighted that she is seen as an asset to the community of rape survivors on campus. Rolling Stone’s lawyers alleged that Eramo’s assertions in the lawsuit “are not capable of being proven true or false” and therefore not subject for legal action. The magazine’s lawyers also state that the editors and Erdely did not publish the story “with actual malice” against Eramo, meaning that they did not know then that the information was false. In addition, the Rolling Stone lawyers say that the original article was not published “with recklessness, negligence or any other applicable degree of fault” and that the story was vetted by fact-checkers before it appeared online and in print. The lawyers wrote in their response that “at the time of publication, they had no doubts as to the truth of the article.”
They were so sure, they went out of their way to convince themselves by altering photographs of Eramo to look like rebooted Nazi propaganda:
Of course, that isn’t Rolling Stone’s real problem—it just looks really, really bad. The problem is that they admitted they screwed up, and are now trying to hide behind their lawyers.
You can read their full answer here:
RS LettertoEramo
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Description of ligation strategy
Abiotic ligation experiments are carried out in aqueous solutions containing DNA oligomers and the water-soluble ligating agent 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl) carbodiimide (EDC; Fig. 1b and ref. 9). EDC activates the phosphate terminals, so that they can react with hydroxyl terminals to generate a native covalent phosphodiester bond, with isourea as a by-product as sketched in Fig. 1c (details in Supplementary Note 1 and Supplementary Fig. 1). We investigate ligation in solutions of EDC and the self-complementary Dickerson dodecamer 3′ phosphate (5′- CGCGAATTCGCGp -3′, D1p), shown in extensive previous study to organize into isotropic (ISO), nematic (NEM) or columnar (COL) LC phases1, depending on concentration and temperature T. EDC-activated phosphate terminals can also react with water, in this case producing isourea and a phosphate terminal ready to react again with another EDC molecule (Supplementary Note 2).
We observe that the solubility of EDC in the LC phases is limited to molar ratios R=[EDC]/[D1p]<3, a condition that does not allow an EDC supply large enough to generate significant polymerization. This limitation is effectively bypassed by exploiting the self-selection properties of phase separation. We thus dilute DNA by a solution of polyethylene glycol (PEG), a chemically inert water-soluble polymer often used as a depletant to control osmotic pressure Π (refs 10, 11). Previous experiments5 indicated that as the PEG concentration (c PEG ) is providing a large enough Π, the solution phase separates into DNA-rich COL LC domains surrounded by a PEG-rich isotropic fluid (Fig. 1f). Therefore, DNA solutions with a concentration c DNA much smaller than c DNALC , which is necessary to induce LC ordering in a pure water–D1p solution, are homogeneously mixed with PEG at low c PEG (Fig. 1e), but for sufficiently large c PEG , D1p LC COL domains will appear, surrounded by an isotropic phase that contains EDC at values of R that can be orders of magnitude larger than above, typically in the range 10<R<50. The properties of the LC condensate depend only on Π, which in this case is mainly provided by PEG and to a lesser extent by EDC and isourea, but could, in principle, be provided by single-stranded DNA or by ill-terminating duplexes4,5. In these conditions, and by virtue of the intrinsic self-selection properties of phase separation12, LC domains, constituting only a small fraction of the entire sample volume, act as microreactors having a state established by T and Π, effective access to reactants, and a large waste sink.
Samples are prepared by dissolving a small amount of lyophilized D1p in fresh prepared EDC mixture with PEG at various c PEG =100–400 g l−1 to obtain a homogeneous solution with c DNA ~0.05 c DNALC and R=50. Experiments are carried out in parallel in small plastic tubes and in flat cells to enable visual confirmation of LC domains formation through light microscopy. Tests revealed that the ligation reaction was completed in ~24 h, so we set this as the incubation time for all the experiments reported here, terminating the reaction at the end by 20-fold dilution with 50 mM ethanolamine (details in Methods section).
Enhanced ligation in LC domains segregated from PEG
Typical 15% polyacrylamide gel scans of DNA extracted from such solutions are shown in Fig. 1g, where the signal is given by the fluorescent emission provided by ethidium bromide staining (details in Supplementary Methods). Ligation in the low c PEG homogeneous mixtures is limited even at this relatively high c EDC , but the appearance of condensed droplets with LC ordering produces a qualitatively new behaviour, manifested by the growth of a large peak in oligomer population having a mean degree of polymerization, ‹n›>10. To better visualize the length distribution, the same samples are also run in 3.5% agarose gels where the bands associated with longer oligomers are more easily distinguished (Fig. 1h). Profiles of the fluorescent emissions of the gel runs are presented in Fig. 2 and analysed by exploiting the approximate proportionality between electrophoretic mobility and logarithm of chain length13 (details in Supplementary Methods and Supplementary Figs 2–4). Despite the intrinsic uncertainty in the quantitative information carried by the fluorescence profiles of the gels, the product length distribution P(n) extracted from the profiles is well described by a simple Flory model14 (Supplementary Note 3, Supplementary Methods and Supplementary Figs 5–7). This enables quantification of the increment in polymerization yield (Flory parameter, p) owing to the phase separation and LC condensation: from p~0.13 (c PEG =200 g l−1, mixed D1p/PEG ISO phase) to p~0.84 (c PEG =400 g l−1, D1p LC COL domains), as shown in Fig. 2a for the polyacrylamide gel runs. Moreover, integration of the agarose gel profile in Fig. 2b indicates that in the COL domains 20% (10%) of the DNA mass is part of chains with n>30 (n>50) and that ‹n›~19, corresponding to oligomers of N b =12n=208 base pairs.
Figure 2: Fluorescence intensity profiles of the gel electrophoresis runs. Measurements are performed on DNA/PEG/EDC mixtures, and gels are stained by ethidium bromide. Plots are shown as a function of n, the position along the gel converted in degree of polymerization (Supplementary Methods). i F (n) (continuous lines) is the fluorescence intensity. C F (n) (open dots) is the cumulative weight fraction distribution, obtained integrating i F (n) (Supplementary Methods). Dotted lines in a–c and the dashed line in b have been obtained by fitting the data with the Flory model for simple polymerization from which the polymerization yield p has been determined (see Supplementary Figs 6 and 7). Dotted lines: C(n), Supplementary Equation (3). Dashed line: P(n), Supplementary Equation (2). (a) D1p/PEG/EDC mixtures measured in a 15% polyacrylamide gel for increasing PEG concentration: c PEG =200 g l−1, red lines (upper panel), uniform isotropic DNA/PEG/EDC mixture, ‹n›<2, p≈0.13; c PEG =400 g l−1, blue lines (lower panel), DNA COL domains in a PEG ISO background, ‹n›≈11, p≈0.84. The c PEG =300 g l−1 profile (not shown) can be obtained by a superposition of the c PEG =200 g l−1 and c PEG =400 g l−1 profiles, consistent with the appearance of a few small DNA COL domains. (b) D1p/PEG/EDC mixtures for c PEG =400 g l−1 measured in 3.5% agarose gels for 60 min running time. At this long running time, enabling better detection of longer products, the first detectable peak corresponds to n=5. Analysis indicates ‹n›≈19 and p≈0.90. (c) D1p/PEG/EDC mixtures measured at T=65 °C. Upper panel: c PEG =300 g l−1, D1p-rich ISO phase coexisting with a PEG-rich ISO phase, ‹n›≈3.5, p≈0.49. Lower panel: c PEG =400 g l−1, D1p-rich COL domains coexisting with a PEG-rich ISO phase, ‹n›≈10, p≈0.81. (d) D2pTT/PEG/EDC mixtures at various c PEG , yielding uniform mixtures (c PEG =200) or condensation of COL domains (c PEG ≥300 g l−1; ‹n›<3. Full size image
These results show that the chemical ligation of DNA oligomers into linear chains is greatly enhanced by COL ordering. Mechanisms contributing to this enhancement include the organization of the duplexes into the base pair stacks characteristic of the already ligated bases; the promotion of the ligation reaction by maintenance of continuous stable proximity (high local concentration) of the reacting terminals, according to the law of mass action; the provision by the LC phase of a fluid environment for transport and reaction, and the coexistence of phases that provides an ISO environment surrounding the LC domains in which EDC can freely diffuse. In this way, the limitations of the finite solubility of EDC in the COL phase are overcome by a continuous supply from the ISO phase. Gel data from ligation in the COL phase (Fig. 1d) show a very strong depletion of the monomer band, indicating that such EDC supply mechanism combined with the reaction time (~1 day; Supplementary Note 4 and Supplementary Fig. 8) ensure that the largest part of the duplexes within the COL domains takes part in the reaction.
Comparison of ligation in ISO and LC phases
To discriminate the individual relevance of DNA LC ordering versus the local increase in c DNA provided by phase separation, we exploit the new observation that PEG can phase separate droplets of concentrated duplexed DNA oligomers in either the ISO or the LC COL phase, depending on T, c PEG and oligomer structure. This provides us the opportunity to compare ligation efficiencies between conditions where the only significant difference is the LC ordering, which is pursued in two distinct experiments.
In a first experiment, we compare ligation of D1p in ISO and COL at the same T and different Π. Indeed, we find that at T~65 °C, a T at which the COL phase melts but D1p duplexes are still stable, condensation of D1p into the ISO phase is possible (details in Methods section and Supplementary Figs 9 and 10). This behaviour contrasts the one observed at T=20 °C, where, upon increasing c PEG , D1p condenses directly into the COL phase. Specifically, by maintaining a constant T=65 °C, we select and study in parallel the ligation of D1p at c PEG =300 g l−1, at which the DNA phase separates from PEG into ISO droplets (Fig. 3b), and at c PEG =400 g l−1, where COL domains are found (Fig. 3c). Optical observation and simulated phase diagram versus Π (ref. 6) indicate that c DNA is very similar in these two condensed phases, being no >10% larger in the COL. The data of the resulting gel runs are shown in Fig. 3e, with the intensity profile plotted in Fig. 2c. The difference in the product length distribution directly attributable to the LC ordering is quite marked, analysis of the curves yielding ‹n›≈3.5 in the ISO phase and ‹n›≈10 in the COL phase (details in Supplementary Note 5, 6 and Supplementary Figs 11–13).
Figure 3: Ligation in condensed LC and isotropic DNA droplets. (a) Sketch, bright-field and fluorescent emission microscope picture of condensed D2TTp ISO droplets in a D2TTp/PEG mixture at T=20 °C. Duplexes are selectively marked by EvaGreen dye. (b) Sketch and polarized microscope images (crossed and parallel polarizers) of ISO D1p droplets in a D1p/PEG/EDC mixture at T=65 °C and c PEG =300 g l−1, respectively. (c) Sketch and polarized microscope images (crossed and parallel polarizers) of COL D1p droplets in a D1p/PEG/EDC mixture at T=65 °C and c PEG =400 g l−1, respectively (identical structures are found at 20 °C). (d) Polyacrylamide gel (15%) comparing the ligation products in D1p and D2TTp in identical conditions. The formation of concentrated DNA domains produces in the case of D2TTp (lanes on the left-hand side of the gel) a minor increment in the product length, contrasting with the marked discontinuity in the case of D1p. (e) Polyacrylamide gel (15%) comparing the ligation products obtained in D1p/PEG/EDC at T=65 °C, where, depending on c PEG , the system is either uniformly mixed or it partitions into two coexisting ISO phases (c PEG =300 g l−1, sketch b), or else it phase separates into coexisting COL and ISO phases (c PEG =400 g l−1, sketch c). Numbers along the lanes indicate the oligomer lengths expressed in number of bases (N b ) and the polymerization number (n). In both gels, the ladder contains DNA oligomers 12, 24, 36 and 48 bases long, synthesized by repetition of D1p sequence. The straight lines are a guide for the eyes, helping the identification of bands corresponding to selected N b . Full gel images are shown in Supplementary Fig. 16. Full size image
In a second experiment, we compare ligation at T=20 °C and equal Π in the PEG-induced condensed phases of two different DNA sequences: D1p and 5′- GCCGTATACGGC TTp -3′ (D2TTp). D2TTp is a self-complementary dodecamer sequence (underlined section) with two additional T bases on the 3′ end. Hence, D2TTp forms duplexes terminating in non-pairing TT overhangs that suppress end-to-end duplex adhesion and thus LC ordering. We thus explore PEG/D2TT/EDC mixtures (R=50, variable c PEG ) according to the protocol described above and characterize the products by gel electrophoresis. We find phase separation of ISO droplets (Fig. 3a) for c PEG >300 g l−1. The condensation of DNA-rich ISO droplets of D2TTp brings about a much smaller effect in the ligation efficiency than the condensation of the D1p LC droplets, as visible in the gel runs (Fig. 3d) and in their intensity profiles (Fig. 2d). The appearance of bands in the gel not corresponding to multiple of D2TTp, probably indicating the formation of circular products, makes impossible the semi-quantitative analysis with the Flory model used above. However, the intensity profiles can be directly integrated to extract ‹n›, which yields ‹n›<3 even at the largest c PEG .
These results clearly support the notion that phase separation and LC ordering are both essential factors in the self-assembly-induced enhancement of the abiotic EDC-based ligation used here. LC ordering provides continuous close contact between the reacting terminals, without which no significant elongation is observed. However, phase separation is crucial as well; it selectively confines the DNA LC into domains whose internal fluid structure bounded by an aqueous/aqueous interface that enables easy transport of material, proving to be a convenient and effective arrangement to carry out the ligation reaction.
Selectivity of LCs microreactors
It is clear from these and earlier experiments that in a mixture of oligomers, the selectivity afforded by the cascaded phase separation of sequences provides an effective self-sorting mechanism by rejecting, for example, the entry of single strands into the LC domains1,5, or else admitting duplexes with sufficiently adhesive tails, such as in solutions of complementary duplexes with overhangs3 or of random sequence DNA oligomers4. In systems such as oligomeric DNA, where the modes of self-assembly are strongly interdependent, sequence dependent and hierarchical (for example, end-to-end adhesion of oligomers is more or less irrelevant if they are not duplexed), phase separation also becomes a type of staged or cascaded selection mechanism, manifested in a cascade of thermodynamic instabilities. This is illustrated in Fig. 4 (for a more detailed discussion, see Supplementary Note 7 and Supplementary Table 1), displaying the phase coexistence observed in a three-component mixed solution of D1p, D2TTp and PEG. At low PEG concentration, these solutions are single phase, consisting of random coil PEG and duplexed DNA oligomers. For c PEG >300 g l−1, the DNA duplexes phase separate from PEG, a result of their compact rigid structure, originating in their hybridized portions. As the concentration of duplexed DNA locally increases because of this PEG versus DNA phase separation, a second-phase separation takes place between the isotropic (ISO) and columnar (COL) LC phases, the COL phase principally comprises blunt-end D1p and the ISO phase is mainly composed of D2TTp, which cannot form LCs. Thus, this second-phase separation is carried in a context that is created by the first. These staged partitioning acts as a hierarchical selection mechanism, condensing together the blunt-ended D1p duplexes that enable LC ordering, which are precisely those in which contacting terminals promote enhanced ligation.
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Spokane Mayor David Condon said Friday he would veto a campaign finance law passed by the City Council earlier this month that would impose new reporting requirements and halve the maximum amount a candidate can receive from any single donor.
The mayor said he supports certain efforts to curb the role of “dark money” in politics. But he said the issue is better managed at the state level and predicted the proposed ordinance would not stand up to constitutional challenges.
“The issue of transparency, I think, is universal,” Condon said in a phone call. “Everybody is in agreement there. But prohibiting one group versus another (from making campaign contributions) is where you start getting into some legal issues.”
He was referring to a lack of parity in the way the ordinance would treat unions and private companies that contribute to political campaigns. City Councilman Mike Fagan offered the same reasoning when he cast the lone vote against the ordinance on Dec. 18. The ordinance also faced opposition from the Spokane County Republican Party and the Spokane Homebuilders Association.
Council President Ben Stuckart, who spearheaded the proposal, said he was “flabbergasted” to learn of the veto Friday from a news release from the mayor’s office. Stuckart said the council had been considering the proposal for three months and “not once” did Condon raise concerns about it.
“He’s literally said nothing to me,” Stuckart said. “I think that’s horrible governance.”
Stuckart has argued the ordinance would restore a degree of fairness to an election system that has drowned out the will of average citizens in the wake of the landmark 2010 Citizens United ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which equates campaign spending by corporations with free speech.
Using a phrase from case law, Condon stressed that government restrictions on speech must be “viewpoint-neutral” and said the city ordinance wouldn’t meet that standard.
Condon also characterized the proposal as the City Council’s latest attempt to legislate a matter beyond its purview. He offered support for a bill by state Sen. Andy Billig that would have a similar effect as the city ordinance. Condon said Washington’s Public Disclosure Commission is better equipped than the city to enforce campaign finance abuses.
“The PDC has done the investigations, there’s been fines,” Condon said. “You know, the system seemingly is working on compliance.”
The City Council could override the veto with five votes, and Stuckart said he would talk with his colleagues about that possibility. Councilwoman Kate Burke, Billig’s former legislative aide, was sworn in days after the ordinance passed, replacing Councilwoman Amber Waldref.
Condon has signed only a handful of vetoes in his five years as mayor. In the span of six months beginning in November 2015, he vetoed three ordinances that passed the City Council by wide margins – on transit, manufactured home parks and the city’s paid sick leave policy – only to have those vetoes overridden by similar vote totals.
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Imagine this opening dialogue employed on an episode of The Tonight Show:
Ed Mcmahon: From Hollywood, The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson! This is Ed Mcmahon along with Doc Severinsen and the NBC Orchestra inviting you to join Johnny and his guests: Faye Dunaway and Tom Seaver. And now, ladies and gentlemen, heeeeeeeeeeere’s Johnny!
[Camera pans to curtains, nobody emerges. The studio sits silently for 15 seconds. Credits suddenly begin to roll uninterrupted and in their entirety. A pin drop can be heard as the camera suddenly pans to Ed McMahon looking around despondently, stone silent and scratching his rear.]
To follow this great episode up, Johnny Carson’s guest the following night will be a giant, mutated sea monkey. The NBC Orchestra also gets traded to a Japanese baseball team in exchange for a dog that walks over a keyboard.
These are the types of regular events that occurred on the (extremely) late night “talk show”, Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, for which the late Clay Martin Croker helped develop, wrote for, voiced two main characters and worked as the principal animator. Croker unexpectedly passed away this weekend.
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The most logical comparison, early era Letterman was among the first to break ground on genre’d, on-air irreverence. But with far less at stake, this 15 minute episodic series was able to bring out the jackhammer.
Space Ghost: Coast to Coast was an unlikely, animated fusion of resurrected Hanna-Barbera animations placed naturally alongside (what seemingly were contractually obligated) media appearances by 90’s era celebrities. Space Ghost himself was the host and MC of these chopped up, real celebrity interviews, praying mantis Zorak served as the show’s uncooperative band leader and Moltar downstairs in the volcanic control room, the director. Every episode was an all-you-can-eat helping of cringeworthy, snarky, irreverent silliness.
If these ingredients sound familiar — say, through a Michael Scott dialogue inadvisedly given to his direct superior, or Neil Patrick Harris literally winking to the audience — those easy laughs are now only easy largely because of the panache of that same man: C. Martin Croker.
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Croker helped put a face to this generation’s most employed form of satire: an over the top, fingers pointing, deadpan merry-go-round. And he was able to do it without even poisoning the well of his source material: an old era of animation that crucially he held closer to his heart over anything else in his life.
And so, on and off from 1994 to 2008, midnight on Cartoon Network broke the rules and had an absolute blast doing it, as the joke was at the expense of the way things “should” be done. This extended from Space Ghost and onto his other projects he was heavily involved with, including the hit Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Croker’s passing over the weekend ought to be billed as the unfortunate loss of not just of a legend for a single TV network, but as the passing of a man who uncannily predicted the tone of current pop culture, “random” millennial musings, and the meme-filled internet at large.
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A lifelong animation junkie, Croker got his first major animation job at the network TNT in the early 90's, working as an animator of commercial bumpers for the newly minted Cartoon Network. Fate was quick to knock when the Ted Turner helmed programming board green-lit an idea by Croker cohort Mike Lazzo; The idea was to make pragmatic use of Turner’s massive vault of Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters, the middle-most important of which must have been the generic space justice warrior Space Ghost, a cape wielding beefcake of a man whose job was to advance pure good while dispatching of pure evil. Um sure, why not? Any bystander would have easily been able to come up with a dozen answers to that question.
The show’s wake has been a total slow burn during the subsequent 22 years since Space Ghost: Coast to Coast’s basic-cable premier. The change is so gradual in its take-over that most could never identify it. But rest assured that if you like comedy, Space Ghost — against all odds — is a major culprit for why you like the things you like.
In his 2015 article titled “The Phantom Fame: ‘Space Ghost Coast to Coast,’ Secretly TV’s Most Influential Show”, Sean Collins elegantly outlines the explicit, direct lineage one can draw from Space Ghost: Coast to Coast to its popular spinoff show Cartoon Planet, into the expanse of the 18–34 demographic-titan Adult Swim, towards prime-time acceptance of animation as the rule (Family Guy, Futurama, Bob’s Burgers, Archer, Adventure Time) versus the exception (The Simpsons), to the fertilizing of Emmy-winning (!) live action shows featuring and inspiring actors who now routinely make a name for themselves by being out-and-out weird, if not totally bizarre. Do not let your dreams be dreams, indeed.
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All this directly stemming from a wacky, if gentle cartoon show where Lassie is interviewed in earnest and characters amusingly fight against audio feedback issues purposefully overlaid atop the audio.
The show’s ability to influence, however, largely comes back to Croker in subtly important ways. Of course, its writers, producer and the pitch-perfect chemistry among George Lowe (Space Ghost), Andy Merrill (Brak) and others should not be underscored, but a cynical-minded talk show aimed explicitly at poking fun of media relations may have become prohibitively sour, save for the grace shown at the hands of Croker. Watch the series from beginning to end and you will see that things never got nasty, and the show never, ever lost its humanity (only its mind.) His love of the craft forced this through.
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Hanna-Barbera’s empire — the animation which Ted Turner largely owned and Croker inherited — housed a notable sidetrack stable of IP’s that went beyond Scooby-Doo and The Flinstones and more into “serious” takes. These cartoons were based largely on the archetypes of superheroes from the 1940’s.
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The Herculoids, Birdman, Space Ghost and several others were the Dick-Tracy and Superman-esque expressions of comic Hall of Fame illustrator Alex Toth. With his mastery of line art, Toth was able to marry technical engineering-level illustrations to that of imaginative, Renaissance-esque figure drawings. The result was a beautiful, even profound level of work not typically found inside an average comic book or cartoon. Toth detested what he called “nihilism” in comic story telling, he resisted sloppy art and he was one of the first catalysts for comics as a dead-serious art form.
If that description flies in the face of what it means to be a Hanna-Barbera cartoon (a genre in and of itself which is sometimes noted for its recycled and low-key animations), nobody knew it more than Toth himself. As was the nature of the business, especially Hanna-Barbera’s, his works needed to become replicable if they were to become cartoon length animations. With this came the famous five frame animations, the dusty backgrounds and the hokey voice overs.
Croker, however, was among those who expertly understood this nature of the business and without pause saw the true value in what he had at his disposal. Taken from one of his two, undeservedly low traffic blogs where Croker shares his mesmerizing knowledge of things like Disney, MGM, Godzilla and much more:
“…a lot of the scenes that I picked for repurposing on that show were from original 1966 scenes…The first thing I asked for when I started work on SGC2C was as many model sheets as possible. Of course, back then Cartoon Network didn’t know exactly what they had yet, or where to find it, so I was pretty much on my own on that one.”
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The foresight to deeply appreciate Toth is not unheard of; Toth is in the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame for a reason, after all. But having the restraint to satirize versus mock and having the feel for which comedic timings to apply made Croker that much rarer of a combo. YouTube has proven anyone can make silly with old cartoons. Few would think to mostly totally forgo Space Ghost’s main sidekicks (Jan, Jace and pet monkey Blip, respectively) and instead pair Space Ghost to evil villains Zorak and Moltar.
In one example on his blog regarding how Coast to Coast came to be, Croker explains how Toth’s illustrations for the hijacking villain “Tansut” was “a natural fit” for “a Don Kennedy’s (60-something) voice”.
Natural for Croker, perhaps.
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Of course, Croker also famously supplied the voices for Zorak and Moltar, quickly evolving his initially slow-paced, evil mantis into the equivalent of Space Ghost’s cynical, bad roommate. Moltar, too, would quickly find his footing as a laid back, late night security guard-type (who just so happened to really be into Erik Estrada.) As 2/3 of the main cast, Croker crucially was able to prop Space Ghost up as the dimwitted, well-meaning talk show host he is, and us such, went on to pace 14 years of interview tomfoolery. It was so successful that celebrity guests began transforming from unsuspecting victims in their interviews into cartoon versions of themselves that were playing along.
With some distance between the show’s end and now, it is easier to see Croker as the driving force behind that magic balance. He laid out the foundation, he picked what we saw on screen, he spoke the words and he worked with the writers. His lighthearted touch that was both reverent and respectable to its lore and audience, but that also maintained a ridiculous cutting edge, was that special angle TV shows didn’t even realize they were missing.
The proof is in, well, everything Croker helped influenced: the modern comedy.
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I met Croker only one time, as a (probably crazed) fan at a convention in Los Angeles, back in 2013. I purchased a commissioned sketch of Zorak for $40. What I didn’t tell him was that I would have gladly paid twice that because of the impact he inadvertently had on my life.
The mid to late 90’s was in many ways the wild west of the Internet. Those who settled in early were the Sooners of the web, and like any early adopters of technology, a little bit weird. Useful search engines, maps, recipes and more were harder to come by in 1995. Space Ghost, Tori Amos and Star Trek fan sites, on the other hand, were flourishing.
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In many ways because of this early internet access, my teenage years were spent away from the in-crowd and instead gravitationally towards the strange. My first CD I properly purchased was the children’s album “Space Ghost’s Musical Bar-B-Que” (which Croker largely produced.) I met my earliest and most formative friends in Space Ghost related chat rooms in the mid 90’s, then spent subsequent years traveling to meet them. I spent much of college wearing a trucker hat that reads “Space Ghost Sucks” — yes, officially licensed merch. I once asked Andy Dick to autograph Space Ghost: Coast to Coast season 3 in homage to an episode he appeared in, his inability to recall his involvement with I found telling of his true priorities.
Using context clues, I gather by Croker’s oeuvre and his self-interests that he may have been similarly alienated by conventional things and “typical” people. I can’t speak for a man I did not know. It may just be my projection of him and his work.
But he hopefully lived long enough to know that his reach was disproportionately large. And that many projects these days are now not only weirder, but they’re not ashamed.
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Now even more so than when I was younger, many who have my similar inclinations are able to find themselves in something too, no matter their niche. Weird is cool. Coincidentally, but not accidentally, the most important people in my own adult life: writers, photographers, programmers, colleagues and even my parents all unintentionally share one thing in common: “Space Ghost? I love that show!”
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Originally published on Medium.
Alan is a pop culture writer, editor and complete and total doofus. You can tell him that on his twitter: twitter.com/pandaman27
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You can’t get from LA to Las Vegas on a single charge, even on a primo electric motorcycle. So how do you squeeze more distance out of current battery technology? The Hanebrink X-5adds pedals and loses some weight.
Hanebrink has released four models of bicycles, including the X-5, the most sophisticated in the lineup. The 120-pound bike has a dual suspension monocoque chassis build out of aircraft-grade aluminum tubing. The suspension has 177 mm of travel to keep the ride smooth, while Avid hydraulic front brakes and rear Brembo four-piston brakes bring it to a stop. Hanebrink says, “Optional adjustable offset triple clamp forks allow the rider to adjust for corner entry reaction from very quick to very stable, or anywhere in between."
Mounted inside a water-tight box lies four lithium-ion liquid-cooled batteries that Hanebrink claims will get you 200 miles of travel on a single charge. The 14-speed transmission (yes, 14) lets you hit a top speed of around 80 mph.
When the juice runs out, use a coin to turn the fasteners and pop out the pedals from behind the fairings to go on human power. Regarding the X5's street legality, Hanebrink says, "the benefit of a legal electric bicycle is, of course, that it does not require registration, drivers license, or special motorcycle permit, etc. and can be operated where motorcycles are not permitted."
The X-5 carries an exceptionally high sticker of $16,940, and if you order now and you can expect delivery by the end of March 2013. But we'd suggest checking with your local DMV before making a deposit.
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If you have an HTC Vive Tracker, you may have already hooked it up and started tracking objects in Unity3D. That part isn’t too hard, and it’s a lot of fun. But you can also flip that Vive Tracker over and start using the POGO pins on the back. The pins are pretty easy to use and give you access to the same buttons you’d have on a normal Vive wand and even include an output for haptic feedback.
HTC Vive Tracker Documentation
To get detailed info, HTC has a guide here: https://dl.vive.com/Tracker/Guideline/HTC_Vive_Tracker_Developer_Guidelines_v1.3.pdf
Video Version
Setting up the HTC Vive Tracker in Unity3D
I’ve gone over it already and just wanted to share the steps involved to get going.
First, you need your tracker in-game. To keep it simple, we’ll use the CameraRig prefab.
Drop a [CameraRig] into an empty scene (and delete the existing maincamera).
Under the CameraRig, add an empty gameobject and name it “Tracker“.
Add the SteamVR_TrackedObject component to the “Tracker” you’ve just created.
Select the [CameraRig].
Drag the “Tracker” to the Objects array on the SteamVR_ControllerManager.
Turn on both controllers and press play.
Move the tracker around, if you see it move in-game, you’re good to move on to the next part.
Reading Vive Tracker POGO Pins
To show how to read the inputs, I’ve created this example script. Put it in your project, then add it to the “Tracker” object.
<script src=”https://gist.github.com/unity3dcollege/6b097fb4163abf6e6d36b33ff0d48776.js”></script>
Start playing again and make sure the Tracker is still moving (remember both controllers need to be on too).
Now let’s take a look at the image from the official documentation.
If you’re not familiar with electronics, don’t worry, this one’s pretty simple.
All you need to do is make a connection from GND (Pin 2) to whichever pin you want to trigger.
You can do this with a single wire, or ideally hook it up to a switch that’s attached to your physical device.
To test this, simply touch pin 2 & pin 4 with the same wire, and you’ll see the “Trigger” field set to true.
Pins
2 – Ground
3 – Grip
4 – Trigger
5 – Trackpad
6 – Menu Button
Hooking up Hardware
If you’re not sure what to use, try digging out an old electric nerf gun like this: http://amzn.to/2uDRI9b (or find a broken used one on craigslist for free/cheap)
Rip it apart and hook up the wires coming from the trigger to the tracker’s pogo pins.
There are a few different adapters out there you can order/print, like this: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2127180 – It’d probably be a good idea to have some sort of adapter in there to make pin access easier…
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One Palestinians youth was killed and another wounded early Friday after settlers reportedly opened fire at a village north of the West Bank city of Hebron, only a day after a Palestinian youth was shot and killed by an unidentified Israeli citizen near Nablus.
Palestinian stone throwers in East Jerusalem Emil Salman
According to preliminary Palestinian reports, the incident occurred after dozens of settlers from the settlement of Bat Ayin descended on the village of Khirbet Safa in the early morning hours and confronted some of the locals.
The confrontations reportedly resulted in the setters opening fire at the crowd, leaving one Palestinian lightly wounded and another in critical condition. The two were evacuated to a hospital in Beit Jala near Bethlehem, where one of them, a 17-year-old succumbed to his wounds.
The settlers, however, claimed that a group traveling nearby was fired upon, adding that others came to their rescue. Preliminary reports said it took police and Israel Defense Forces units over half an hour to arrive at the area.
Commenting on the fatal incident, Kiryat Arba's council chief Malachi Levinger reiterated claims that the settlers were attacked while hiking in the area, and emphasized what he called as the "right of Jews to travel their country."
"We call upon the IDF and the police to aid the defense of this right and to seek the guilty parties within the rioters not within the travelers who acted in self defense," Levinger added.
On Thursday, police confirmed Palestinians reports claiming that a Palestinian who was shot to death near Nablus earlier in the day was shot by an unidentified Israeli citizen.
Palestinian eyewitnesses said that 18-year-old Fadi Kaddous was shot to death by a settler after clashes broke out between the shooter and a group of rock-throwing Palestinians.
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A nearby security camera apparently captured grainy images of the shooting and confirmed that the shooter had Israeli features.
The camera footage showed the group of Palestinians attacking a man with rocks. The man responded by firing a gun in the air, which failed to deter his attackers. The man fired again, this time in the direction of the Palestinians. The video supposedly shows the bullet entering and exiting the shoulder-chest region of one of the attackers; it is being further studied by ballistics experts.
Police also investigated the group of three Palestinian villagers who reported the incident. The group had at first said that armed settlers attacked them but further on in the investigation changed their testimony. The police are currently searching for the unidentified shooter.
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Literature
The Wall
The wall rose up in front of her, the white paint gleaming beneath the fluorescent lights to show the texture of the bricks. Her eyes picked out patterns and shapes in the shadows and highlights of each hole and groove; first a bear, then a seashell, a row of smiling faces, a crocodile. Coming in and out of focus, the shapes gradually grew less and less distinct as they faded back into the blur of general whiteness. The wall had refused to give her an answer. With a sigh she leaned her forehead against its cool surface, feeling it draw the heat through her skin and away from that space behind her retina. She breathed with long and shallow breaths as her thoughts turned away from her question. There was comfort in the coolness of the cement. If the wall could not give her the answer, it could at least give her a few moments of peace, a break from the warm haze of tangled thoughts.
A door clicked somewhere to her right. A warm gust of air followed as the slapping of flip flops
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An interview with Simon de la Rouviere
Bounty0x recently interviewed Simon de la Rouviere regarding curation markets, blockchain, and the future of the crypto currency industry.
Angelo Blocked Unblock Follow Following Oct 23, 2017
In today’s spotlight article we sit down with Simon de la Rouviere. He is best known for his work on the development of “Curation Markets” and Ujo Music where he serves as lead Smart Contract developer. A curation market refers to the concept of using tokens to curate information & exploring ways to mint/spawn these tokenized, curatorial markets (eg continuous token models). Examples of curation markets are available here. Most notably District0x’s Meme Factory district will be structured as a curation market.
Curation Markets are a broad concept that will ultimately allow more groups to coordinate globally around shared goals.
On a related noted, Simon recently proposed a smart contract for developing “a bot that creates, owns and sells the digital art it creates without relying on humans.”
Bounty0x believes in pushing forward the vision of the decentralized economy. Bounty0x will be one of the first districts built on the district0x network, thus bounty0x will be a decentralized autonomous organization, such that DNT token holders will participate in bounty0x governance in conjunction with a corresponding Aragon entity.
Bounty campaigns and curation markets are both effective tools for organizing and incentivizing the decentralized workforce. In that regard, bounyt0x will be seeking Simon’s Curation Market expertise in order to discover ways to utilize tokenized curation markets within the bounty0x network of bounties.
One step bounty0x is making to bring the decentralized economy closer to fruition is by enabling a feature on the bounty0x network which will enable any bounty hunters to receive payment from startups in any type of token. We will be releasing more information on this project soon. Stay tuned for more information.
Simon please tell us a little bit about your background? How did you get involved in the crypto space?
I initially found Bitcoin in 2011 stumbling through the internet. Thought it was quite interesting. Studying programming at that time, I needed to know how it worked. So, I went down a rabbit hole, and kind of never stopped.
In 2014, I went full-time in the space after finishing a Master of Arts in Socio-Informatics (studying information overload), then worked on Bitcoin/Litecoin codebases and meta layers such as Counterparty. I was quite excited to see Ethereum come along, because as a developer it was really hard to make Bitcoin codebases do the things you wanted it to. I was interested in experimenting with tokenization and Ethereum was the perfect place to do that. It’s a protocol primarily for developers and you feel a lot more welcome in this community.
Tell us something most people don’t know about you?
As a future birthday gift to myself, in October 2015, I decided to lock up 5 ETH (~$5) in a smart contract till the year 2065. 48 years to go! ;)
What excites you most about the crypto space right now?
That it is growing! We’ve always been kinda crazy, and one wondered whether the world will really take notice. But this year, 2017, it really feels like we weren’t that crazy and that everyone is coming along for the ride.
Getting thousands of new perspectives is very interesting and exciting. New people, new industries, new ideas coming from all directions. Just keeps getting more exciting.
Can you tell those of us who aren’t already familiar what projects are you working on in the crypto space?
These days I work primarily on 2 projects: Ujo Music, making independent artists more money through the improvement of the licensing system. I’m a musician myself, so this project is very dear to me. I think the crypto space has a lot of potential to improve the lives of all creators. There’s many ways to tackle these problems, and improving the way music is licensed is one of those ways.
Then secondly, a long rabbit hole of thinking of new ways to tokenize networks of value led to designing Curation Markets: a protocol that uses tokenized signals to reduce information asymmetry.
Tell us a little bit about Curation Markets, What are they and how did you come up with the idea?
By incentivizing agents to curate information through tokenized signals, Curation Markets, very broadly, aims to reduce all kinds of information asymmetry. In doing this, it can produce quite broad outcomes: things like increasing coordination and decision making around open source projects, to tokenizing memes themselves (Dogecoin on steroids essentially).
It works primarily in 2 steps: allowing interested parties to mint a communal token continuously through a smart contract (say: #football), and then using that token to stake to information that the parties feel are relevant. If the token is minted with ETH, it is then kept in a communal pool. The staking of tokens, signal through a knowable cost is what is important/relevant. If it is, more participants might want to join, increasing the amount of tokens in supply and the size of the pool. Token holders can at any point leave by burning their tokens into the pool. Thus Curation Markets form and dissolve as they are needed.
As long as the tokenized signals help reduce information asymmetry, participants will want to join as the protocol rewards them for doing that work. Some Curation Markets will be bigger or smaller, depending on the need for better information dissemination.
What are some interesting use cases for Curation Markets?
Monetizing all open source projects. Meme Markets (see: District0x’s upcoming Meme Factory). Attention Markets (get paid for your attention). Tokenized Sub-Reddits (every sub-reddit having a token). Creating autonomous artists. Incentivizing funding of public goods (rewarding curators who best direct cashflow to communal goals).
It’s very broad. In a way, it’s rethinking the modern corporation: a corporation is used for many, many things.
Where do you see the crypto space heading in the next few years?
I still think we haven’t seen anything yet, tbh. The reduction to barriers to coordinate has been so vastly reduced that I’m fairly certain, we don’t nearly understand what’s going to come. We are in the phase of blockchain technology where we are publishing a newspaper as is daily on the web and people are reading through 56kb modems. Marginal improvements over existing systems. But we haven’t the reached the stage of blockchains where we are real-time consuming news through feeds (to use an extended metaphor). A lot of innovation still is going to come.
For example, I think all ICOs currently are thinking way too much like the legacy world. It’s a round peg in a square hole. Token generation can be done continuously as it is needed to use the protocol/network/dapp. I think almost all tokens will eventually move to continuous models as it more appropriately rewards everyone involved.
Simon thanks for your time! The bounty0x team is looking forward to working with you in the future!
Learn More
To learn more about Simon de la Rouviere:
Medium: Simon de la Rouviere
Ujo Music
Twitter
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Global banana companies supplying the UK are using tax havens to avoid paying tax on their profits here and in developing countries, the Guardian has found.
The investigation reveals that large corporations are creating elaborate structures to move profits through subsidiaries to offshore centres such as the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands, to avoid handing money over to tax collectors in the countries where their goods are produced, and in those where they are consumed. Governments at both ends of the chain are increasingly being deprived of the ability to raise tax for development or services.
Dole, Chiquita, and Fresh Del Monte, the three companies that supply several UK supermarkets and between them control more than two thirds of the worldwide banana trade, generated over $50bn (£24bn) of sales and $1.4bn of global profits in the last five years. Yet they paid just $200m, or just over 14% of profits, in taxes between them over that period, our analysis of their financial accounts reveals.
In some years the banana companies have paid an effective tax rate as low as 8%, even though the standard rate in the US where they have their headquarters and file their full accounts is 35%.
The banana companies are not alone. Nearly a third of the UK's 700 largest businesses paid no corporation tax in the year 2005-06. A further third paid less than £10m each, according to figures from the National Audit Office.
The use of offshore havens by rich individuals to avoid paying tax was high on the political agenda this autumn, with Gordon Brown matching the Conservatives' pledge to tax "non doms". But increasingly, the far bigger challenge for government is how to keep up with the strategies being developed by large corporations to cut their tax bills.
About 60% of world trade now consists of internal transfers within transnational companies, according to the OECD. By weighting their costs towards countries such as the UK or the US that have higher rates of tax, corporations can make little taxable profit in those countries. Instead their profits are weighted towards subsidiaries they have set up in jurisdictions that charge little or no tax.
Del Monte Fresh Produce UK, Chiquita UK and Dole's UK business, JP Fresh, report combined sales in the UK of over £400m in their most recently filed annual accounts. Yet between them they paid only £128,000 in UK tax.
Fresh Del Monte, currently the supplier of the vast majority of Asda's bananas and some of Morrisons', is registered in the Cayman Islands and has more than 30 Cayman subsidiaries. The Caymans have a zero rate of corporation tax. It also has subsidiaries in other tax havens including Gibraltar, Bermuda, the Dutch Antilles and the British Virgin Islands. Over the last five years its actual tax paid has been as much as $69m a year less than tax calculated at the standard US corporation rate.
Dole, which supplies bananas to Tesco in the UK, paid actual tax that was $20m a year less than tax at the standard US rate. Its accounts only list its largest subsidiaries, but these include companies in Bermuda, Liberia and Puerto Rico.
Chiquita, which also supplies Tesco, lists 11 subsidiaries in Bermuda at the end of 2006. Our analysis of its accounts over five years shows that its actual tax paid is as much as $44m less a year than US standard rates.
In a double blow to the developing countries where the bananas are produced, the fall in tax as a percentage of profit paid by the large corporations has coincided with ruthless driving down of costs. Wages have been reduced on plantations even as working hours have been increased.
Fair trade campaign group Banana Link says Fresh Del Monte sacked all 4,300 of its workers on its Monte Libano plantations in Costa Rica in 1999 and re-employed people on reduced wages and benefits, a model it later rolled out across all its plantations. Chiquita's plantation labour costs meanwhile, which were 5% of its total costs in 2004, had been cut to just 2% in 2006.
Richard Murphy, a tax expert who advised the NAO on its report on the performance of the UK Revenue and Customs, said that large companies are effectively now able to set their own tax rates. "Corporation tax is falling worldwide as a percentage of profits. Corporations seem to be deciding what they should pay, not as a percentage like the rest of us, but as a sum above which they don't want to go."
John Christensen, a former economic adviser to the Jersey government and director of the campaign group Tax Justice Network, said the Guardian investigation confirmed that the flight of capital was continuing, having reached unprecedented levels in the 1990s. "The trend in the last 30 years has been to shift the burden of tax away from companies on to the consumer and labour. Capital is increasingly going untaxed." Dole declined to comment on the Guardian's detailed allegations, saying that they involved confidential and proprietary information. Chiquita said it complied with all tax laws in the jurisdictions where it does business. Chiquita added that "a significant portion of our earnings occur outside the US where they are subject to taxation at the local tax rate". Both companies say they are working with the Latin American unions to address workers' rights.
Fresh Del Monte said it too operated in many countries and complied with all local tax law and international tax treaties. It added that it also complied with all local labour laws, was a strong proponent of freedom of association, and that the average wage of its agricultural employees in the countries where it operates exceeds the mandated minimum agricultural wage.
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Nasser al-Halabi* is a 26-year-old Syrian citizen who fled home, was deported from Saudi Arabia, found himself homeless in Turkey, and now works and lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Al Halabi’s precarious journey began in early 2012, after he refused to enlist in Syria’s mandatory military service. To avoid punishment, the University of Aleppo engineering student escaped to Lebanon, and wasn’t able to finish school. “The Syrian regime did not postpone my army service requirement because they want to draft as many soldiers as possible to kill innocent civilians in Syria,” he told me via Facebook Messenger.
I interviewed al-Halabi nearly a dozen times from September to November via online chat, though he only agreed to speak over the phone once, for fear he’d be overheard in the DRC’s capital of Kinshasa. “I can be deported easily,” said al-Halabi, who asked that I use a pseudonym to replace his first name, citing safety concerns.
After arriving in Lebanon, al-Halabi secured a visitor’s visa to Saudi Arabia. But in 2014, the Saudi government deported him back to Lebanon for working illegally on a visitor’s visa for two years. (The government didn’t send him to Syria because Assad’s regime might've executed him for leaving the country without completing the required military service, al-Halabi explained)
Al-Halabi had trouble finding a job in Lebanon, so he traveled to Turkey (in late 2014, Syria and Turkey still had a mutual visa-exemption agreement, which the latter revoked in December 2015). Confronted by bleak employment prospects, however, al-Halabi began living on the streets of Istanbul. “I was forced to leave Turkey because all doors closed in my face, and I was practically homeless,” he said.
Just when al-Halabi was losing hope, his Syrian friend in Istanbul offered him a job in the DRC. He immediately accepted. “[Back] then, I didn’t even know where the DRC was on the map,” he told me.
Soon after, al-Halabi got a three-month tourist visa to the DRC, and within days, he arrived in the Central African nation to work as an air-conditioning technician. Legally, al-Halabi isn’t allowed to work on a tourist visa and is at risk of deportation, but found an employer who was willing to overlook his situation.
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"All doors closed in my face, and I was practically homeless."
Growing up in Aleppo, al-Halabi’s uncle taught him how to install and fix air-conditioning units. He said it’s easy for Syrians to find such jobs in the DRC, given the country’s hot climate: “The locals here have very small to no knowledge about technology and especially about air-conditioning systems.”
Plagued by conflict, corruption and poverty, the DRC isn’t a safe place for fleeing Syrians to end up, and al-Halabi says he fears for his life daily. The country is still recovering from wars that broke out during the 1990s, and left 6 million people dead. Much like what Syrians witnessed during the 2011 revolution and ongoing civil war, the DRC continues to experience turmoil.
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“The DRC is known that it’s one of the world’s poorer countries and there are hundreds of thousands people in Kinshasa who live under the poverty line. It’s very difficult in socioeconomic terms for Syrians to get support here,” Andreas Kirchhof, spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kinshasa, told me. “It’s really astonishing that the Syrian conflict spread Syrians all over the world,”
Although Syrians are used to violent clashes in their home country, many are unfamiliar with racism, which al-Halabi says he’s experiencing for the first time in the DRC. Syrians tend to have a lighter complexion than locals, so they’re seen as foreigners among the local black population, he told me.
“Every day, I face the dangers of being kidnapped by locals because I am categorized as a ‘white man,’” al-Halabi said. “I live in a big prison, here. I don’t know the language or their culture. They all look at me as a stranger.”
For now, he’s living in a state of limbo, with nowhere safe to go.
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Lacking both financial and legal stability in the DRC, al-Halabi recently decided to return to Syria and live in Aleppo. Since September, al-Halabi has been working on getting a Turkish visa, so he can sneak into Syria through the Turkish border (it’s too risky for him to fly straight there). To get a visa, al-Halabi must prove to the government that he has money in the bank and a place to stay in Turkey. And Despite the dangers he faces in Syria, living in Turkey isn’t an option.
“All countries closed their doors in the faces of Syrians. I’d rather go back and live under Assad’s bombs,” said al-Halabi, who lost family members in a bombardment on Aleppo in September.
“I live in a big prison, here. I don’t know the language or their culture. They all look at me as a stranger.”
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When al-Halabi contacted UN officials in Kinshasa for help on his current status in the DRC, they told him to apply for refugee status. “The person I talked to at the UN was shocked that there are Syrians in the Congo,” he said.
The UNHCR’s Kirchhof told me that Congolese authorities have granted seven Syrians refugee status in Lubumbashi, the country’s second largest city, since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011. Refugee status in the DRC doesn’t automatically grant Syrians a path to citizenship, which means they can’t get a Congolese passport for travel to neighboring countries. Al-Halabi said his Syrian friend, who fled the regime of former president Hafez al-Assad (current Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s father) in the 1980s, has been married to a DRC native for 13 years but still hasn’t been able to get citizenship.
“A person can acquire a refugee status, but [that] doesn’t give the person the right to citizenship after a certain period. That is up to the authorities to decide,” Kirchhof said. “To my knowledge, there have been no Syrians recognized as refugees in Kinshasa so far.”
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For his part, al-Halabi says he doesn’t want to seek asylum in the DRC because he won’t likely be accepted for resettlement in a Western country, which prioritizes locals over Syrians. Host countries decide who they want to accept as refugees, according to Kirchhof.
Escaping to Europe illegally would also be too risky for al-Halabi. “I have many friends that snuck out of the DRC and made it to Europe through water. I don’t know how to swim and I don’t want to risk dying to get to Europe,” he said.
Jean Philippe Chauzy, chief of mission for the International Organization (IOM) in Kinshasa, told me that the IOM doesn’t have any data on Syrians in the DRC. The DRC mission in the UN did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
*First name changed to protect identity
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Alaa Basatneh is a human-rights activist and a writer at Fusion focusing on the Arab world. She is the protagonist of the 2013 documentary "#ChicagoGirl."
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A Kickstarter project aiming to turn unofficial Doctor Who audio spin-off The Minister of Chance into a movie starring Paul McGann and Sylvester McCoy launched on Thursday, immediately drawing pledges of over £15,000.
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Seventh and Eighth Doctors McCoy and McGann are set to reprise their roles from the cult sci-fi podcast if the first instalment of the proposed four-part movie reaches its target budget of £100,000 on the crowd-funding website.
Despite it’s humble origins as a fan-funded venture, the original audio drama boasts a star-studded cast with the two former Doctors joined by big-name British actors including Philip Glenister, Tamsin Greig and Jenny Agutter, as well as former EastEnders and Sherlock star Lauren Crace, and Paul Darrow, best known for another classic sci-fi series, Blake’s 7.
The Minister of Chance was created by Dan Freeman and based on characters from 2001 Doctor Who BBC audio drama serial Death Comes to Time, which he produced and directed.
The eponymous Minister was played by Stephen Fry in the original series, with Julian Wadham taking over for Freeman’s spin-off.
McGann plays the slithery Ambassador Durian of the magic-worshipping people of Sezuan, while McCoy is their hapless leader The Witch Prime.
In a land where science is outlawed, Crace is feral barmaid Kitty, whose life changes one night when she follows a cloaked stranger through a doorway to another world…
Rewards for pledging money to the movie project range from a mention in the film’s credits for a £10 donation to one of the main characters’ original costumes for those willing to shell out £2,500 or more.
The production will go ahead if the target of £100,000 is reached by 8pm on Friday 31st October.
Watch a teaser trailer for The Minister of Chance…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN5McoDJPUU
Listen to the opening episode of The Minister of Chance audio drama below…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7KwmrKQXlQ
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Visit The Minister of Chance movie Kickstarter page
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Filament Theatre Ensemble Set to Bring 'Cyrano' to Life View Full Caption
PORTAGE PARK — The Filament Theatre Ensemble will bring one of literature's great love triangles to life as part of its spring season with a family-friendly production of "Cyrano."
Starting Friday and running through May 18, the play — recommended for those 8 and older — is an adaptation by Jo Roet of the famous work of Edmond Rostand directed by Filament Artistic Director Julie Ritchey.
The performance is designed to capture the emotions of loss and love at the heart of the beloved story while moving fast to keep the audience enthralled, said Ritchey, who has wanted to stage a performance of Roet's adaptaion since she was in college.
The play, which features three actors — two of whom play multiple roles — tells the story of swashbuckling poet-soldier Cyrano de Bergerac whose path to true love is blocked by his gargantuan nose. Christian, who can not seem to speak to the beautiful Roxane, uses Cyrano's words to woo her, leaving both men unsure of Roxane's true feelings.
Set in a Paris of windswept balconies and bloody battlefields, Filament's production of "Cyrano" promises "a lightning-paced romance of duels, poetry, panache [and} sacrifice," according to the company.
Starting Filament Acting Company members Andrew Marchetti as Cyrano along with Lindsey Dorcus and Nate Drackett, the play is based on an adaptation of the original story by Edmond Rostand first produced in 1996 in Belgium, and translated into English by Audrey van Tuyckom.
In keeping with Filament's folk art tradition, set from "Cyrano" will be used for the group's next production, Ritchey said.
"Cyrano" will be the second mainstage production at Filament's Six Corners home, 4041 N. Milwaukee Ave. The 6-year-old, formerly itinerant ensemble moved to Portage Park last year, and has been working to transform the former furniture warehouse into a performance space.
The group is about $3,300 away from its goal of raising $25,000 to complete the work on its performance space, according to its website.
Ensemble member Peter Oyloe said the group was thrilled the fundraising campaign has been so successful.
"Things are moving along at a good space," Oyloe said.
Theater lovers who attended Filament's first mainstage production — "The Snow Queen" — will see the progress that has been made in just a few months, Oyloe said.
"We still have a long way to go," Oyloe said. "But we've been able to get a lot of work done."
The ensemble learned during the performances of the Snow Queen that their new home strikes a "fun balance" between allowing the actors enough room to play their scene while allowing the audience to feel like a "fly on the wall" because of the intimacy of the small theater, Ritchey said.
Once complete, the ensemble will be able to transform the performance space from a black box theater to a cabaret to a theater resembling an ancient Greek or Roman stage from one production to the next.
The group hopes the theater will become a community hub in the Six Corners Shopping District, a desire shared by Ald. John Arena (45th), who has been working to turn the area around Milwaukee Avenue, Cicero Avenue and Irving Park Boulevard, which has struggled for decades, into an arts and entertainment district.
Performances of the hour-long show will take place at 8 p.m. Fridays, 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays.
Tickets are $15 to $20 and are available at the group's website, filamenttheatre.org. A $5 discount is available from the alderman's office by using the online promo code Arena.
For more information, call 773-270-1660.
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The Anaheim Ducks apologized Sunday for an "insensitive" video they released in conjunction with the NHL's 100th birthday that depicted a nude player walking past the office cubicles of female co-workers.
The video, which has been taken down from the team's social media feeds, featured center Ryan Kesler walking naked through the Anaheim office with a black rectangle over his lower body. He strolls past two women who are working at their desks, before entering the office of a male co-worker.
"Kes, what are you doing, bud? You got no clothes on," the male co-worker says.
"It's the NHL's 100th birthday. I'm celebrating in my birthday suit," Kesler replies.
The video landed with a thud on social media, with some questioning whether the comedy was appropriate given the number of high-profile sexual harassment and assault allegations made across several industries recently, many of them involving the workplace.
"Our tweet posted earlier today was meant to be a lighthearted video celebrating the NHL's 100th birthday," the Ducks wrote on their official Twitter feed. "We realize in retrospect the content of the video may have been insensitive and we have removed the video and apologize."
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Happy New Year!!!!
Nothing says New Years Eve like confetti, and these crisp melt-in-your-mouth raspberry cookies will be everyone’s party favorite!!!
INGREDIENTS:
3 egg whites
1/8t. salt
3 1/2 T. raspberry Jell-O
3/4 c. sugar
1T. vinegar
Confetti sprinkles
INSTRUCTIONS:
Preheat oven to 250 degrees
Beat egg whites with salt until foaming.
Add Jell-O and sugar as you beat mixture and beat until it stands in peaks.
Add vinegar and gently mix.
(if you want, you can add a few mini chocolate chips at this point! yum!)
Spoon or pipe into small circles on a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper.
Sprinkle with confetti sprinkles or jimmies.
Bake at 250 degrees for 25 minutes, turn oven off and allow to sit for an additional 20 minutes.
Remove from oven and allow cookies to cool completely.
My thoughts: These are great with chocolate chips in them if you like raspberry and chocolate together. I opted for confetti for a fun New Years treat! These are like cotton candy- light and fluffy sugar that melts in your mouth and is a tiny bit chewy at the end. A unique and fun “end-of -the-year” party cookie.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!
Want another confetti-themed dessert idea? Try Confetti Cups made with sugar cookies and Fruit Loops—make them in mini-muffin tins for bite-sized New Years fun!
Enjoy! r-
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As of right now, only one Xbox 360 game that came on multiple discs is Xbox One backwards compatible. Microsoft promises more multi-disc games will be playable in the near future.
The only multi-disc Xbox 360 game that is playable on Xbox One right now is Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director’s Cut. People have been asking if more multi-disc releases are coming.
GamerHeadquarters reached out to a Microsoft spokesperson and they said: “Yes, ‘Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director’s Cut’ was the first multi-disc Backward Compatible title added to the program. We know fans were asking for this feature and our engineers worked hard developing a solution to enable it so we could further expand the titles included in Xbox One Backward Compatibility.
We’re continuing to listen to our fans on Xbox Feedback and work with our publishing partners to grow out library of Xbox One Backward Compatibility titles and will work to include more multi-disc games.”
This is probably a reason why we haven’t seen other multi-disc games such as the likes of Mass Effect 2 and 3, Grand Theft Auto V and more. It takes extra work to port over multi-disc games to the Xbox One.
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JOLIET – A Homer Glen attorney who is defending himself on solicitation of murder charges was removed from a courtroom Friday after an expletive-laden outburst.
Robert W. Gold-Smith, 53, appeared before Judge Daniel Rozak on a pending motion to bar recordings of phone calls made from the jail from being used in his upcoming trial.
In November 2010, Gold-Smith‘s then-wife sought an order of protection after he grabbed her by the hair and punched her in the face as they walked out of a courtroom, police said. He has been locked up since March 2011 for allegedly violating that order of protection and approaching jail inmates to have her killed in exchange for money.
Though it appeared Gold-Smith was being kept in general population at the Will County jail earlier in the week when he appeared in court, the yellow jumpsuit he wore Friday indicated he was moved to the "Discipline" unit.
Gold-Smith began discussing a recent search of his cell and made reference to files being taken, which he said "undermine" his case. As he has during previous court sessions, Rozak reminded Gold-Smith that acting as his own attorney did not warrant the judge ordering changes in any procedures at the jail.
"I have nothing to do with [their rules]," Rozak said.
"You're full of [expletive]," Gold-Smith said.
"Goodbye, Mr. Gold-Smith," Rozak said calmly and indicated for a sheriff's deputy to remove the defendant.
Gold-Smith repeated his assessment of the judge and then addressed the same line twice to the deputy as he was taken from the courtroom.
Gold-Smith is expected to return to court Dec. 22 to check on subpoenas that have been issued for his trial scheduled for January.
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Almost two months after officially ending its "Get Windows 10" campaign, Microsoft is enabling removal of the associated app possible via an update.
Credit: Microsoft
A couple of readers pointed me to Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) article 3184143, which is an update that removes the "Get Windows 10" app "and other software related to the Windows 10 free upgrade offer." This update is available as of today, September 20, via Windows Update.
Microsoft announced the end of that free upgrade offer as of July 29, 2016. But the company has not completely halted the ability for Windows 7 and 8.1 users with working product keys to update to Windows 10 for free by using those keys.
Thurrott.com's Paul Thurrott tweeted recently that he was still able to use an existing key to get Windows 10 for free, and he just verified again today, that it's still possible as of September 20.
I haven't seen Windows 7/8.1 users complaining about seeing the "Get Windows 10" prompt or app since Microsoft ceased the free-update offer. Microsoft officials said earlier this year that it might take some time for the prompt to stop appearing, but anecdotally, it seems like it did stop nagging users to upgrade right around July 29.
Microsoft officials initially didn't say that it might take some time for the free update to be available to those with Genuine Windows 7 and 8.1 product keys. But after it came to light that the free update was still available, though not advertised as available, it seemed there might be some sort of grace period during which Microsoft quietly would allow users to upgrade for free to Windows 10. .
I asked again today when Microsoft anticipates Windows 10 no longer being available for free to existing Windows 7 and 8.1 users. No word back so far.
Update: Here's the response from a Microsoft spokesperson regarding the new app-removal update (and the non-response regarding the end of availability of the free upgrade):
"The Get Windows 10 (GWX) application was designed to make the Windows 10 upgrade process easy for existing Windows 7 and 8.1 customers for the one year free upgrade offer which ended July 29th. Beginning on September 20th, the Get Windows 10 app and all other updates related to the Windows 10 free upgrade offer will be removed from Windows 7 and 8.1 customer's devices.
"Beyond the statement above, the company has nothing more to share."
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10 /10
Felix Manalo is a controversial film.
He did not face a battalion of armies in the movie. He was a worm who moved mountains. As Teddy Locsin tweeted, "the beauty of Felix Manalo movie is that the action is limited to theological points being made and won, not violence...a compelling narrative of people who took religion seriously..."
It showed how Manalo transferred from one religion to another. From Roman Catholic, to Methodist Episcopal Church, to Christian Mission and to the Seventh- day Adventist Church, with some engagements with atheist and agnostic friends.
He fought the biggest established religions in the world brought by the colonizers of the Philippines.
At a time when Filipinos had belief, he believed that we Filipinos were ready to accept the truth and ready for change.
Why did he turn his back to the other churches? His reply was short and crisp. Theirs was a false religion.
Erehe! He was called such by actor Jaime Fabregas in that awkward scene when Felix Manalo refused sacrament from the priest for his dying mother.
The social media critics of INC will definitely love or hate the heated exchanges of Dennis Trillo in the scene with Philip Salvador and Ryan Eigenmann who portrayed the role of other sect leaders in a bible exposition. That scene was, to me, one of the most elegant discourses of faith in the movie.
2. Dennis Trillo's performance is for the Oscars!
We know Trillo as a good and versatile actor. But in this movie, which essays various periods of the INC and Philippine history, Dennis Trillo transformed himself from a refined young character to an eloquent and mature charismatic leader. Even in the rhythm of his delivery of lines, he sounded very close to Ka Felix Manalo whose real audio voice is played when you visit the INC Museum at the Central Temple.
I had to re-tweet Locsin again. He posted: "Si Dennis Trillo is an Oscar level star. What acting, soft, subtle, eloquent with difficult lines."
Dennis Trillo has the most close-ups and most of the time, his acting is only visible with the movement of his eyes, lips, forehead and jaw. While breathing, he was already acting Felix Manalo.
For sure, Dennis Trillo will reap awards for this sterling portrayal of Ka Felix Manalo.
Bela Padilla as Ka Ata, on the other hand, is a casting perfection!
3. Felix Manalo has the makings of being one of the greatest Filipino films of all time.
If you are a non-INC member or an Iglesia basher who calls INC a 'cult' in social media, attempt to imagine that the film is just about a common Filipino, and his name is Felix Manalo.
The film is not only about him. This picture is about the strength, deep conviction, audaciousness and the indomitable spirit of the Filipino people to conquer hopelessness and ignorance.
It is also the Filipino's journey in standing up against the abuses of the rich and powerful colonizers. The fight for freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
After long and careful study of the Bible, Felix Manalo saw the inaccuracies and misinterpretations of the doctrines of the religions that he belonged to. He then taught the truth based solely on what he read in the Bible. Then he preached the doctrines of the Church of Christ, the name of the only church that Christ has built during the early times.
Like Heneral Luna, Felix Manalo can also be called a "lunatic" as he stood up against priests and scholars 101 years ago.
In the film, Felix Manalo said that he is not the founder of this church. He is just establishing a congregation of the Church that Jesus Christ has already founded. That congregation which he preached in small places has grown to be the most influential indigenous religion of the Philippines. INC is now a fully established global church with presence in 100 countries composed of 110 nationalities.
As long as there is a locale, church of place of worship abroad, any brethren find peace in their hearts. INC's rise from a local congregation to international prominence is the Filipino's gift to the world.
To essay this remarkable story comes a stellar cast composed of 120 of the brightest names in show business, 8,000 extras and a topnotch production team led by the multi-awarded film-maker Joel Lamangan.
Like Heneral Luna, Felix Manalo is comparable with Hollywood style of film-making. Real, cerebral, sincere and grandiose. Not a single detail was left to chance, from the costumes, props, sets and location to prosthetics and visual effects. Its production design is picturesque, giving us a rustic view of the Philippines of the past.
Its sparkling cinematography provides a different texture and color that portrays the periods of history wonderfully more dramatic in evoking the moods and feelings of those times.
And the music is majestic!
The story-telling of Bienvenido Santiago was straightforward. The message of truth is brilliantly essayed in beautiful words.
Felix Manalo has all the elements of an award-winning film and the makings of being one of the greatest Filipino films of all time.
Thus, INC bashing will be elevated to a higher level of discourse. It can transform into serious intellectual exchanges of respect and deeper conversations of faith and hope.
As a proud INC Member, I was one of the 43,624 who was accounted for by the Guinness World Records during the premiere at the Philippine Arena, earning two world records for the largest attendance.
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Equality is the state of being equal in status, rights, and opportunities, and social equality requires the absence of legally enforced social boundaries as well as the absence of discrimination motivated by an inalienable part of a person’s identity. For example, gender, race, disability, or sexual orientation must not result in unequal treatment under the law and should not reduce opportunities. The 14th Amendment of United States Constitution and Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantee that “All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law.” This foundation of equality is generally subscribed to by all decent human beings, but despite it being a hallmark of the nation’s founding document and an “immortal declaration,” there are un-American citizens who are not only opposed to the idea of equality, they are actively seeking means to destroy the concept and claim the U.S. Constitution gives them legal cover to abridge equal rights of other Americans.
Most Americans celebrated the recent court rulings striking down biblical anti-gay laws that adversely affect their family members and friends, but for every person rejoicing that their loved ones will finally enjoy the Constitution’s guarantee of equality, there are just as many decrying the rulings as a violation of their presumed dog-given religious right to discriminate. In fact, the recent ruling declaring Texas’ ban on marriage equality unconstitutional elicited intense outrage from evangelical extremists who threatened an “epic battle” and condemned the nation’s judiciary as “domestic enemies.” The judges who have ruled according to the Constitution’s guarantee of equal rights were also condemned to burn in proverbial Hell for “replacing Democracy with dictatorship, abrogating the U.S. Constitution, flaunting the laws of God and nature, and assuming jurisdiction they don’t have.” Interestingly, it is the U.S. Constitution that gives the judiciary jurisdiction to strike down laws mandating discrimination against Americans.
Obviously, the pronouncements were delivered by religious right extremists who claim that since “there is NO mention of sexual orientation in the Constitution, and any judge who imagines one is a domestic enemy of the Constitution, and should be impeached and removed from office. We must demand Congress hold the line, and protect the traditional definition of marriage FEDERALLY.” There is also no mention of Constitutional protections to discriminate against any group in America, but the religious right translates the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom to worship into their license to discriminate and fortunately the judicial system does not acknowledge or adhere to that interpretation.
The regular demented cast of characters opposed to equality weighed in on the Texas ruling and accused the Obama Administration of “tear[ing] away at the foundation of the rule of law” and warned it will lead to “anarchy” and a “breakdown of society altogether.” Another character who does not merit name mention said the ruling was “the most egregious form of judicial activism of our generation” and since “the federal judiciary is out of control,” pledged there would be an “epic battle” to defeat equality in Texas. The Christian extremists have a staunch ally in teabagger hero and evangelical fanatic Ted Cruz who recently displayed his rank ignorance of the Constitution’s guarantee of equality and introduced legislation, the “State Marriage Defense Act” to overrule the Supreme Court’s decision striking down parts of the federal government’s ban on marriage equality.
Cruz accused equal right advocacy groups of using “brute power” to assault and “subvert our democratic system” by forcing states to take down the unconstitutional “marriage laws that have been in place for centuries, and that’s inconsistent with the Constitution.” It is prescient that southern religious right advocates argued that their biblical right to keep human beings as slaves had been in place for centuries, and it led to the deaths of over a three-quarters-of-a-million Americans when their “threat of an epic battle” came to fruition in the Civil War. Cruz went on to warn there is “an awakening” of “millions” of Americans who were lining up behind his campaign against marriage equality that lends credence to religious right’s threats an “epic battle” to preserve inequality while claiming it is protected by the Constitution.
Cruz joined other fanatical evangelicals and laid the blame for supporting the Constitution’s guarantee of equality on the religious rights’ favorite target President Obama. He said that “under President Obama, the federal government has tried to undermine the constitutional authority of each state” to define unconstitutional religious laws discriminating against gays “consistent with the values of its citizens. The Obama Administration should not be trying to force gay marriage on all 50 states. This bill will safeguard the ability of states to preserve traditional marriage for its residents.” Cruz and his evangelical cohort fully understand President Obama is not forcing gay marriage on any state, but it is the kind of rhetoric that incites the faithful and sounds better than saying the President supports the Constitution’s guarantee of equality for all Americans.
Maybe Cruz and his religious hate camp fail to hear themselves advocate for discrimination borne of the bible while claiming their gay hate and discrimination is protected under the Constitution. Over the past week, there was a call to House Republicans to impeach Attorney General Eric Holder for “advancing the rights of homosexuals, the practice of homosexuality, sodomy, and consensual sodomy” that Pat Robertson said were “elevated above the rights of religious believers.” Another religious right extremist said that gays finally enjoying constitutionally guaranteed equal rights “are costing us our freedoms,” and like all evangelical extremists cannot enumerate even one freedom anti-equality advocates have lost but loudly asserted the “homosexual lobby” is “corroding our freedom.” Whether or not extremist Christians are willing to say, out loud, what freedom they lost, it is their so-called religious freedom to impose biblical inequality on other Americans they persistently claim is their Constitutional religious right and they are threatening an “epic battle” to preserve that right.
The language coming from the religious right, primarily in southern Republican-controlled states, is beginning to sound like Confederate rhetoric that led to the Civil War; particularly their choice of President Obama as the target of their ire. There has always been an element in America that claims some group warrants unequal treatment, and if it wasn’t African Americans it has been women with major support coming from the religious right; now the focus is on gays. The troubling aspect is the evangelical extremists have accumulated a phalanx of Republican leaders who are either true believers or pandering to extremists for electoral support; whatever their motivation, they are guilty of inciting a dangerous demographic to action. History has shown time and time again that there is no greater threat than religiously motivated people claiming their campaign is righteous, and subsequently there will be violence when they perceive their god is behind them. If any American does not believe it they should consult their history books under Inquisition, the American Civil War, Armenian genocide, Nazi Holocaust, and the terror attacks on 9/11 because although they occurred in different eras and geographical locations, the perpetrators claimed god was with them.
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Submitted on Tue, 09/21/2010 - 1:31am
Greetings from the International Solidarity Commission (ISC) of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and welcome to the second of our irregularly published international news letters.
The purpose of this newsletter is to keep our allies around the world informed of our activities, solidarity campaigns, and relevant international labor struggles. It is our hope that this newsletter will contribute to building worker-to-worker solidarity through strengthened communications and exchanges of information. If you would like to contribute story ideas or news for the bulletin, or wish to contact the ISC, you can email solidarity [at] iww.org.
Saludos de la Comisión de Solidaridad Internacional (ISC) de los Trabajadores Industriales del Mundo (IWW) y dar la bienvenida a la primera de la carta publicada irregularmente noticias internacionales.
El propósito de este boletín es mantener a nuestros aliados alrededor del mundo informados de nuestras actividades, campañas de solidaridad, y luchas obreras relevantes. Esperamos que este boletín contribuya a construir solidaridad entre trabajadores reforzando las comunicaciones e intercambios de información. Para contribuir con ideas o noticias al boletín, o para contactar a la ISC por favor escribir a solidarity [a] iww.org.
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Every NHL draft pumps out a crop of fresh-faced teens intent on speeding up the game. But in 2011, the old guard did more than just hang on. These elder statesmen -- all over 40, with a combined 75 seasons of NHL experience -- powered their teams to success. No league for old men? These guys prove otherwise.
Rainer Hosch for ESPN The Magazine
Dwayne Roloson, Lightning goalie
Age: 42
NHL seasons: 14
2011 Highlight: Led Tampa Bay to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals
"My body still feels really good. If it didn't, I probably wouldn't still be playing. One day I was talking to our head coach, Guy Boucher, and he said, 'You know I'm a lot younger than you, right?' I didn't, but it doesn't change anything. He's the coach; you still have to listen to him. In Edmonton, I got to play with Sam Gagner; I actually played with his dad in Calgary. I'm thinking, Oh my god, I'm playing with the son of a guy I was teammates with. But at the same time, that's the kind of thing you cherish when you look back later in life."
Rainer Hosch for ESPN The Magazine
Nicklas Lidstrom, Red Wings defenseman
Age: 41
NHL seasons: 20
2011 Highlight: Won his seventh Norris Trophy
"The NHL is a lot faster now. All the guys are faster. Whether it's the top line or the fourth line, the NHL has faster skaters. You were once taught to hook or to put a stick in someone's waist, but with the new rules, you can't do that anymore. That's where the skating part comes in even more. You have to be mobile. You have to anticipate plays. You have to be ready to do quick turns or quick stops. You have to skate a lot more than you used to. When you're waking up, it's not like when you were 25. It's the wear and tear of your whole body. Whether it's the groin or the back or the shoulders -- they're aching in the morning."
Rainer Hosch for ESPN The Magazine
Mark Recchi, Bruins forward (retired)
Age: 43
NHL seasons: 22
2011 Highlight: Won his third Stanley Cup and became the oldest player to score in the Finals
"I'm a bad example for anybody. I didn't do anything to get ready before games. I went and took a s-- and had a coffee. But I wasn't hurt much. Physically, I felt great all year. The biggest thing when I got older was that, offensively, I wasn't as productive as before. Once you learn that you can do lots of different things, you just adapt your game. It just helps you mentally. It helped me stay in the league for four or five more years. I was willing to accept that I'm not what I was, but I can still help the team. You evolve, no question."
Rainer Hosch for ESPN The Magazine
Teemu Selanne, Ducks forward
Age: 41
NHL seasons: 19
2011 Highlight: Anaheim's second-leading scorer
"The traveling doesn't get any easier when you get older, but you get smarter. You don't spend extra energy on the wrong things. The age and experience help. These young boys, they party here and there, and I say, 'Guys, enjoy it, because there will be a day when you can't do that anymore.' I absolutely did not expect to play so long. I thought for sure that 30 was the latest I would play. But I've kept playing for a simple reason: passion. I really enjoy the game. I always say to myself, This is my last year. But who knows."
Follow The Mag on Twitter, @ESPNmag, and like us on Facebook.
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Mission Releases Post your ready missions and updates here
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Flight Simulators Everything related to Digital Combat Simulator (DCS), Falcon 4.0 and other flight sims
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Where to buy: iZods UK [Here]
Price: £14.50
Bottle size: 50ml
Price/ml: £0.29 (2dp)
Shading: Yes!
Sheening: No
Recommend?: This has become my favourite ink and absolutely yes. Get it. Update 28th June ’17 – This ink is still my favourite and I stand by how amazing it is.
Play along with me. Buy a bottle of ink for every dreadful sea related pun I make. The first bottle is a given because after reading, I can assure you’ll want to buy this ink:
Apparently this year, the famous Blue Monday (which typically occurs on the third Monday in the month of January) was the worst of the years since the formula was devised in 2005 and it was indeed something I felt. But it wasn’t bad – it was enjoyable. Why? Because I was using a blue ink – an AMAZING blue ink. So it was (good) Blue Monday for me this year. I’m going to tell you why this ink is absolutely phenomenal and I hope you’ll sea why (I’m so glad I got that out of my system).
For the United Inkdom meta review, I was sent the ‘sea’ Robert Oster signature inks. I have been fortunate enough to try out Deep Sea before, just as my teal ink fascination (perhaps that’s an understatement? Obsession?) was beginning to flourish. Along with the hype around Fire and Ice in the bloggersphere, it’s pretty safe to say that I went in with high expectations, especially as this ink is also a blue. From using Fire and Ice myself, I’d say that this ink is more saturated and a touch darker. Personally, I think Blue Sea blows Fire and Ice out of the water (ha).
Fire is hot, sure. But this ink is hotter.
I’m a blue guy. I think the number of blues I have in my collection outnumber other inks, though I’m not certain on this. However, I think what makes me think it’s a better shade than Fire & Ice is because I’m not one for sheen. Sure, it’s fun and interesting and cool, but it isn’t a necessity for me. Another colour, Majestic Blue, has very intense red sheen as well. So if you wanted a sheening blue, perhaps try those two. In terms of shading, I wouldn’t characterise it as Noodler’s Apache Sunset, Mont Blanc Irish Green or Diamine Autumn Oak (to name a few..) but it isn’t Diamine Orange which is incredibly flat and two dimensional. I adore conservative shading inks, so this is definitely one of the reasons I enjoy this ink.
In terms of shade, I would say that Blue Sea is definitely on the lighter side, but I wouldn’t call it a turquoise. For point of reference, it’s darker than Diamine Sapphire Blue. While I’ve been called out once before (namely as a result of my pedantic stance on the nomenclature of the Private Reserve inks I was reviewing a while back) so I hope I don’t rock the boat here, but I may as well mention that in comparison to other ‘sea’ inks, like Diamine Sargasso Sea, it is much much lighter, but more of a true blue in comparison to that of the greenish-blue, Caribbean Sea by Caran d’Ache. That’s my naming convention plug done for the review. Smooth sailing from here on out (I’m not even sorry). I would say it’s a more saturated, less.. Uh.. Paint like ink than Britannia’s Blue Waves. I never really realised how many sea-themed inks there are.
This is an ink that will beat any sinking feeling that you’ll experience on days like Blue Monday, so sail on over to iZods and pick up a bottle or two.. Or, uh, how many dreadful puns was that?
Pros:
The most beautiful ink ever
Performs well
Nicely saturated
Isn’t an excessive shader but you can definitely notice it
Cons:
Don’t be silly
Disclaimer: I was sent this ink in exchange for an honest review. All views and opinions expressed are my own.
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LAKELAND, Fla. - And you thought dinosaurs were extinct.
Video of a massive alligator spotted in Lakeland was posted to Facebook on Sunday, raising the eyebrows of many.
Kim Joiner told News 6 that she captured the video at the Polk Nature Discovery Center.
"It looks like a dinosaur," News 6 anchor Justin Warmoth said.
"Is that real?" News 6 anchor Kirstin O'Connor asked upon first viewing the video.
"Yes, it's real," Joiner told News 6 social media producer Shannon McLellan.
Joiner estimated the gator to be at least 12 feet long. When asked about the beast's weight, Joiner said, "Huge!"
"It seems too big to be real. That's crazy," O'Connor said.
"Nature at its best," Joiner posted on Facebook.
Perhaps it should have said, "Nature is a beast."
Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
Last year, a gigantic gator roaming a Lakeland golf course created headlines after a 10-year-old boy snapped photos of the creature.
Copyright 2017 by WKMG ClickOrlando - All rights reserved.
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When the Detroit Lions lost Taylor Decker to labrum surgery back in the offseason, it was a devastating blow to what looked like a much-improved offensive line. The Lions were forced to scramble to find a replacement and ended up plucking Greg Robinson from the Los Angeles Rams’ roster in exchange for a future sixth-round pick.
Decker was placed on the regular season Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) list to begin the year, meaning he won’t be eligible to return until Week 7—the Lions’ bye week. Since then, we haven’t heard anything about his progress or recovery from shoulder surgery which took place in June. The recovery time for such an injury usually takes anywhere between four and six months, leaving Lions fans wondering if Decker will return to the roster at all this year.
On Thursday, head coach Jim Caldwell may have finally offered some optimism for Decker’s 2017 potential. Caldwell was asked if Decker was “making good progress towards a mid-season return” to which he responded, “Yes.” He further elaborated, saying, “He’s making progress. Obviously, it’s still up to doctors and evaluations and all that kind of stuff.”
Though Caldwell was purposely vague in his response, it’s really the first sign that the Lions expect to see Decker return sometime this year. Back in late July, Caldwell said Decker was “making progress” and claimed “he’s on track,” but never really provided a timetable. Now that we know he’s lined up for a mid-season return, there’s a little more clarity.
Robinson, Decker’s replacement, has had his ups and downs through three weeks of the season. It’s clear at this point, however, that he’s nothing more than a temporary bandage on a big problem. “Greg has done a lot of nice things, Greg has not been perfect,” offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter admitted on Thursday. “He’s getting better and better.”
While Robinson continues to get better, it appears Decker continues to get more healthy. That should be welcome news to Matthew Stafford and all Lions fans.
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The houses in Charminar and Moghalpura from where the IS suspects were arrested.
Bengaluru/Hyderabad: The IT capital was placed on high alert after the National Investigation Agency (NIA) with the help of local police busted an alleged ISIS module in Hyderabad on Wednesday morning and arrested eleven people from the old city and allegedly seized weapons, ammunition, urea, acid, chemicals, electronic gadgets and other incriminating material besides Rs 15 lakh in cash from 10 locations.
The central agency has reportedly arrested four key men - Mohammed Iliyas (24), his brother Mohammed Ibrahim Yazdani (30), Habeeb Mohammed (32) and Mohammed Irfan (27). Ibrahim is an engineer, Iliyas is a graduate and Habeeb is a computer graduate.
Though Intelligence and NIA officers remained tight-lipped about the operation, sources said the Daesh module may have their network in Karnataka as well, from where the NIA has made maximum Daesh related arrests so far.
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Introduction
Like any good web developer, I have a tendency to poke around at people’s web sites to see if I can figure out how they’re implemented. After poking at enough sites, I started noticing that people were putting some weird and interesting stuff in their HTTP headers. So, a couple of weeks ago, I decided to actually go out and see what I could find by scrounging around in HTTP headers in the wild. A header safari, if you will. These are the results of my hunt.
Headers?
HTTP is the protocol used to transmit data on what we know as “the web”. At the beginning of every server response on the web, there’s a bit of text like:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Type: text/html Connection: close
The top line specifies the protocol version of HTTP and a response code (200 in this case) used to indicate the outcome of a request. Following that are a bunch of lines that should consist of a field name (like “Connection”), followed by a colon, and then followed by a value (like “close” or “keep-alive”). These lines of text are the HTTP response headers. Immediately after the headers is a blank line, followed by the content of the message, such as the text of a web page or the data of an image file.
Technical Mumbo Jumbo
Want to examine the headers of a site for yourself? Try curl:
curl -i http://www.nextthing.org/
In the output of the above the first few lines are the headers, then there are a couple of line breaks, and then the body. If you just want to see the headers, and not the body, use the -I option instead of -i. Be forewarned, however, that some servers return different headers in this case, as curl will be requesting the data using a HEAD request rather than a GET request.
What I did to gather all of these headers was very similar. First, I downloaded an RDF dump of the Open Directory Project’s directory, and pulled out every URL from that file. Then, I stuck all of the domain names of these URL’s in a big database. A simple multithreaded Python script was used to download all of the index pages of these URL’s using PycURL and stick the headers and page contents in a database. When that was done, I had a database with 2,686,155 page responses and 23,699,737 response headers. The actual downloading of all of this took about a week.
This is, of course, not anywhere near a comprehensive survey of the web. Netcraft received responses from 70,392,567 sites in its August 2005 web survey, so I hit around 3.8% of them. Not bad, but I’m sure there’s a lot of interesting stuff I’m missing.
Obligatory Mention of Long Tail
First of all, yes, HTTP headers form something like a long tail:
In particular, hapax legomena (one-offs) make up over half of the headers found. I expected this. Unfortunately for me, however, a lot of the really interesting stuff is over on that long flat section of the long tail. Which means I spent a lot of time poring over one-offs looking for interesting stuff. Weee.
It’s a good thing I’m easily amused.
Off with Her Headers
I found 891 instances of:
X-Pad-For-Netscrape-Bug: 0123456789
Which brought back memories of the days when Netscape was reviled by developers the world ’round, and had not yet achieved its ultimate (albeit posthumous) glory with Firefox. It’s nice to know comments by frustrated engineers have such a long half-life on the Internet. There are a few variants on this header:
X-Pad: avoid browser bug XX-Pad: Padding aheader: WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO KNOW! X-BrowserAlignment: problem
Similarly, people are still blocking Microsoft’s Dumb Tags:
X-MS-Smart-Tags: We have nothing to do with them. X-Meta-MSSmartTagsPreventParsing: TRUE
Speaking of Microsoft, apparently the IIS team felt the need to advertise the domain of the site the user was accessing in every page request:
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0 jvc.org: jvc.org
How completely and utterly unnecessary…
They’re not the only ones, though. WebObjects powered sites spit out:
HTTP/1.1 200 Apple
Go team!
This cute header is courtesy of Caudium, a webserver written partially in Pike:
X-Got-Fish: Yes
The webmaster of www.kfki.hu should be commended for being on the bleeding edge, both using Caudium and including lots of Dublin Core metadata in the headers. Although, 32 headers seems a bit much, which is why I’m not going to show them all:
DC.Subject: physics DC.Type: organizational homepage SCHEMA.DCTERMS: http://purl.org/dc/terms/ X-Got-Fish: Yes
Contrary to popular belief, there are people out there using Smalltalk on the web. Two of them. One Smalltalk software company running a web server written in Smalltalk, and another:
Server: Swazoo 0.9 (Columbus) X-WIKI-ENGINE: SmallWiki 1.0 CACHE-CONTROL: no-cache X-WIKI-COPYRIGHT: Software Composition Group, University of Berne, 2003
running a Smalltalk user’s group web site with a wiki written on Smalltalk on a web server written in, you guessed it: Smalltalk. Cool.
And, of course, it wouldn’t be the Internet without an appearance by a BOFH:
X-BOFH: http://www.xxxxx.de/bofh/xxxxxx.html
The actual URL it points to has been obscured to protect the guilty, and a local mirror provided in its stead.
Missed Cneonctions
This header:
Cneonction: close
and its variant:
nnCoection: close
were two of the headers which first spurred my interest in HTTP headers.
imdb.com, amazon.com, gamespy.com, and google.com have all at various times used these or similar misspellings of connection, and I’m not by any means the first to have noticed. My first thought was that this was just a typo. After more consideration, however, I now believe this is something done by a hackish hardware load balancer trying to “remove” the connection close header when proxying for an internal server. That way, the connection can be held open and images can be transmitted through the same TCP connection, while the backend web server doesn’t need to be modified at all. It just closes the connection and moves on to the next request. Ex-coworker and Mudd alumus jra has a similar analysis.
Another data point which would back this up is the Oracle9iAS Web Cache rewriting:
Connection: close
as
yyyyyyyyyy: close Connection: Keep-Alive
Headers with “X-Cnection: close” appear to be the result of a similar trick.
One ISP/web host is kind enough to include their web address and phone number in every request to any of their hosted servers:
Phone: (888) 817-8323 Web: www.wgn.net
This is just super-awesome. I once spent a good hour trying to find a technical contact for a certain monstrous job site to tell them their servers had been compromised and were displaying the following message to visitors:
You are being sniffed by Carnivore.
Your nation is secure. …………..OCR IS WATCHING YOU………….. Content-type: text/html
The message, funnily enough, was being relayed by modifying the HTTP headers.
C is for Cookie
Cookies 2 were defined in RFC 2965, way back in October of 2000. As far as I know, Opera is the only browser in widespread use to support them. It’s sad, really, as the original cookie spec that Netscape came up with is kind of lame. Specifically, Netscape’s spec defines the expiration as a date, which is vulnerable to clock skew on the user’s system making the cookie expire early. The Cookies-2 spec, on the other hand, uses a max-age attribute, specifying the lifetime of the cookie in seconds:
Set-Cookie2: Meyer_Sound_777=68.126.233.177.1122451925660461; path=/; max-age=1209600; domain=.meyersound.com; version=1
There are also Comment and CommentURL fields which explain what the cookie is for, but I have yet to find a header which uses them. *sigh* On the other hand, I did find 518 Set-Cookie2 headers, which, while miniscule compared to the 764,976 SetCookie headers I received, is more than I expected. It looks like software written by Sun is responsible for most of these.
A bunch of servers spit out:
shmget() failed: No space left on device
Doh! Time to cycle some log files.
Pingback discovery headers like this show up a lot (2370 times):
X-Pingback: http://www.nextthing.org/wordpress/xmlrpc.php
I don’t even know what to say to this, found at ebrain.ecnext.com:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2005 18:39:54 GMT Server: Apache Transfer-Encoding: chunked Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1
At least they’re not alone, as www.charlottesweb.hungerford.org will keep them company:
Turn off Pictures Popup Toolbar in IE 6.0:
And www.station.lu:
XHTML: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC"-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
The list goes on…
The Coral Content Distribution Network has been getting some buzz lately, so I was interested to see some
X-Coral-Control: redirect-home
headers show up. This header is used to tell Coral that if Coral can’t handle the load of requests for cached copies of your page, it should redirect these requests back to your site.
Why anyone would think to themselves, “Gee, if a massively scalable caching service running on hundreds of geographically distributed computers can’t handle the load of people wanting to look at my site, I’ll just have them bounce people back at me”, I don’t know. Masochism perhaps?
Speaking of P2P technologies, I was interested to run across a KaZaA server:
HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found X-Kazaa-Username: anonymous_user X-Kazaa-Network: KaZaA X-Kazaa-IP: xx.xx.xx.xx:1348 X-Kazaa-SupernodeIP: xx.xx.xx.x:3699
It looked like it was running on someone’s DVR. Anyone have any pointers as to what software does that?
Along the same lines, haha:
X-Kaza-Username: hrosen X-Kaza-Network: RIAA X-Kaza-IP: 146.82.174.12:80 X-Kaza-SupernodeIP: 68.163.90.12:80 X-Disclaimer: All Your Base Are Belong To Us X-Pizza-Phone: 961.1.351904
They’re not even the only ones using “X-Disclaimer”, a bunch of other sites do too:
X-Disclaimer: The local sysadmins have *nothing* to do with the content of this server.
It looks like Tux Games is trying to extend the venerable RFC 1097 to the web:
X-Subliminal: You want to buy as many games as you can afford
Personally, I would’ve gone for: “X-Superliminal: Hey you, buy some games!”.
I’m sure these kind folks would be first adopters:
X-Cotton: The Fabric of Our Lives
This person wants to make their opinion known, so here it is:
Veto: Usage of server response for statistics and advertising is disagreed!
To which I say: Take off every ‘zig’!! You know what you doing.
Robot Rock
I’d never really paid much attention to the Robots header:
ROBOTS: index,follow,cache
as it’s mostly used to disable indexing of a page and is intended to be used in a meta tag in the HTML itself, not in the HTTP headers.
However, it seems Google has added a new NOARCHIVE attribute, so let’s see who’s using it in their headers rather than in the meta tags like Google specifies.
It looks like the Singapore-based “Ministry of Pets” doesn’t want to be cached, as does the Civil Engineering department at São Paulo Polytechnic University, the realtime-3d software company MultiGen Paradigm, Swiss handicraft company Schweizer Heimatwerk, a Swiss kitesailing site, the Ragin’ Cajun Cafe in Hermosa Beach, CA, the London-based BouncingFish web consultancy, and the French financial paper La Tribune. That’s it.
BouncingFish even goes so far as to use an additional GOOGLEBOT header:
GOOGLEBOT: NOCACHE
How many of these sites are not being cached by Google? Zero. Which just goes to show that one shouldn’t just expect mix-and-matching of specs to work.
Along the same vein, I don’t think the first two headers below will work as expected:
X-Meta-ROBOTS: ALL X-Meta-Revisit-After: 1 days Robots: INDEX, FOLLOW
Except, possibly, in spiders using Perl’s HTML::HeadParser module. And, of course, we’ve already seen that the third header probably won’t work, either.
While I’m on the subject of Google… all Blogspot sites spit out:
test: %{HOSTNAME}e
So Blogger folks, whatcha doin’?
It’s Funny, Laugh
The fine folks at www.basement.com.au want to make it clear that:
Mickey-Mouse: Does_Not_Live_Here
Some people have a lot of fun with headers, as seen here:
Limerick: There was a young fellow named Fisher Limerick: Who was fishing for fish in a fissure, Limerick: When a cod, with a grin, Limerick: Pulled the fisherman in Limerick: Now they're fishing the fissure for Fisher.
This is the only ascii art I found:
<!-- Content-type: text/html ************************************************************************* * Welcome to schMOOze University * * * * ==> To connect to an existing player type: CONNECT NAME PASSWORD * * ==> To connect as a guest type: CONNECT GUEST * * * ************************************************************************* * all text is copyrighted by the various authors * * TIME FLIES LIKE AN ARROW FRUIT FLIES LIKE A BANANA * * *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * (__) * * * * (OO) * * * * ____________ / * * * * /| / * * * * / | |------ | | * * * * * | |^^ | | * * * * ^ ^ ^ ^ * * ************ ************ Nobody is connected. --> <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Welcome to schMOOze!</TITLE> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"></HEAD> <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL=http://schmooze.hunter.cuny.edu/"> </BODY></HTML>
and it had me puzzled, until I realized it’s a telnet server, and the above is a really clever hack to redirect browsers towards HTML-land.
This made me laugh:
X-Powered-By: Intravenous Caffeine Drips X-kluged-by: Nick, Mic, Ash, Andy X-munged-by: The powers that be X-Sanity-Provided-By: Ashleigh
Apparently the site has an alter-ego, as well.
www.wrestlingdb.com has some interesting headers. A few requests gets:
X-Stone-Cold-Steve-Austin: And that's the bottom line, cause Stone Cold says so. X-Mick-Foley: Have a nice day! X-Ric-Flair: To be the man, WHOOO!, you've got to beat the man. X-Rock: If you smell what The Rock is cooking. X-Booker-T: Can you dig it, SUCKAAAA? X-Kurt-Angle: It's true, it's DAMN true. X-Hurricane: Stand Back! There's a Hurricane Coming Through! X-Kane: FREAKS RULE!
which is about as entertaining as watching a real wrestling match.
Totally Ellet
Just so everyone knows, Frostburg students are so totally leet, they don’t even need to spell it correctly:
Owned And Operted By FSU Computer Club: 31137
Speaking of which, apparently some guy named morris would like his visitors to know that he 0wnzor$ them:
X-You-Are-Owned-By: morris
Not sure where that box you rooted and are browsing the web from is located? Never fear, mobileparty.net will tell you:
X-Detected-Country: US
And, for those who were wondering, the Texarkana Police are the world’s finest, at least in the HTTP headers department:
TEXPOLICE: LAW_ENFORCEMENTS_FINEST
These nederlanders are representin’ for the westside:
X-Side: : WESTSIDE-FOR-LIFE
Western Europe, that is. Jaaa.
Speaking of furriners, anyone care to translate:
X-Sarrazin-Says: Ciccio, lascia perdere, e' un blowfish a 448 bit.
Similarly:
X-beliebig: Dieser Header dient der allgemeinen Verwirrung =:) X-Gleitschirmfliegen: macht Spaaaasss!
Going back to my discussion on standards, localizing headers that are used to actually do stuff is a bad idea:
Ultima Modificação: Thu, 28 Jul 2005 15:12:07 GMT
ObRef
The Democrats called, they want you to know they found their sense of humor:
X-Dubya: You teach a child to read and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.
Make sure to hit it a few times for optimum goodness:
X-Dubya: We're in for a long struggle, and I think Texans understand that. And so do Americans. X-Dubya: Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease. X-Dubya: We're making the right decisions to bring the solution to an end. X-Dubya: Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.
In the politics vein:
X-Powered-By: MonkeyMag 0.02.01, (c) Niel Bornstein and Kendall Clark X-Shout-Out: No Power Without Accountability X-Mos-Defology: Speech is my hammer//Bang the world into shape//Now let it fall X-American-Leftist-Salute: Doing Woody's Work! X-Billy-Braggage: Sun, Sea, Socialism!
Yes! Someone just made my day. I love Al Bundy quotes:
X-Bundy: Here we have 3 of the seven dwarfs, puffy, crabby and horny. X-Bundy: You know I never danced unless it was gonna get some sex for me. X-Bundy: I blame it on TV myself. X-Bundy: To know me is to love me.
I was disappointed in the lack of mention of mules, donkeys, or garden gnomes, but at least llamas, mice, and loons are well represented:
X-Llamas-Version: 2.0
From: www.teevee.org
X-Favourite-Animal: Mouse
From: www.kingssing.de
X-Loons-Version: 1.5.1
From: www.eod.com
Speaking of strange characters, apparently the Wicked Witch of the West and Spongebob Squarepants cohabitate at www.harbor-club.com:
X-Wicked-Witch: West X-Spongebob: Squarepants!
Who knew?!
As if we needed further proof that the soft underbelly of the Internet is full of cults, slowly corrupting the moral fabric of society, I present:
X-SAVIOUR: BOB_DOBBS
From the looks of things, Living Slack Master Bob Dobbs is giving Jesus a run for his money among Oregonian carpenters and their web designers. They join such luminaries as R. Crumb, Devo, and Bruce Cambell.
And if you thought that was an obscure meme, try this on for size:
X-Lerfjhax: Extra yummy
When I first saw an X-Han header, I thought for sure the contents would be “Shot first!”, but instead I found something more obscure:
X-Han: 'I look forward to a tournament of truly epic proportions.'
While we’re on pop culture allusions:
X-Powered-By: Twine X-Towelie: You wanna get high?
And it would be difficult to be more obscure than this:
X-Sven: look out for the fruits of life
Finally, old school Mac-diehards should appreciate:
X-Blam: Frog blast the vent core!
Connection: close
Back when I was interviewing for an internship at Tellme Networks, they had a comment buried on their homepage that said:
<!-- (c) Copyright 2000 Tellme Networks. --> <!-- If you're looking at our HTML source, you're exactly the person who should send us your resume. We recently redesigned our site; Tell us all about how you would make it better and better yet, if you have an illustrious career of web-hacking, drop us an email at jobs@tellme.com. -->
I thought this was just way awesome. However, if I was disappointed when they removed that comment, I’m even more disappointed to report that I have yet to find a single HTTP header offering me a cool job. What’s wrong with you people?! I’m supposed to be able to find anything on the Internet!
I was, at least, thanked for my efforts, and I found the answer to life, the universe, and everything!
X-Thank-You: for bothering to look at my HTTP headers X-Answer: 42
You’re welcome! And thank you all, for making the Internet so interesting!
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If all the world's a stage, then Mount Everest is La Scala, Covent Gardens, and the Metropolitan rolled into one. While plenty of mountain drama has played out on peaks around the world, the events that unfold on the world's loftiest pinnacle never fail to capture the imagination and hold us transfixed. No surprise, really, since Everest has come to symbolize something more than mere mountain-climbing. (Cue: Beethoven's 5th.)
Giving Everest the Bird Read Nick Heil's recent analysis of the effect of high-altitude helicopters on Mount Everest.
The mountain a testament to human grit and tenacity, courage and determination—a crucible capable of exposing what is best in us, the kind of deep character we might not even know we possess.
Alternately, it is a grand proscenium that reveals all that is worst in us—the vanity and hubris; the decades of shameless, selfish trophy bagging. Everest, as it's often pointed out, is a mirror on modern humanity, a once-sacred place desecrated by dimwits with enough dough to get short-hauled to the summit.
Both? Neither? Perhaps it's just a "big, dumb hunk of rock," as one Everest veteran put it, on to which we project our folly and foibles. That may say as much about the observers as the observed, but whatever the case and whatever your take, Everest has certainly been host to some notable events, both good and bad. What follows is our round-up of the top 10 triumphs (in subjective order), milestones that span two centuries of exploration, and six decades of successful summits. There were certainly plenty of incidents to choose from, and our list is far from exhaustive. But no apologies: Here's our 10. Do they jibe with yours?
10. The Mountain Is Discovered
During the 1850s, as the Trigonometric Survey of India, arguably the greatest feat of scientific inquiry in human history, pushed north into the Himalayas, field reports of an incredible peak residing deep in the range began trickling back to civilization. Variously called Peak B, Sharp Peak H, Peak Gamma, and Peak XV, a brilliant Indian mathematician named Radhanath Sickdhar, boasting computation skills that would make today's quantum physicists envious, determined that the mysterious mountain poked skyward to 29,002 feet (now adjusted to 29,035 feet), the highest point yet recorded on earth.
Not officially announced until 1856, the mountain was subsequently named after George Everest, who pronounced his name "Eev-rist," the legendary, bellicose, retired surveyor general who would never see, or even set foot near, the peak that bears his name. Dreams of standing atop it have dogged many lowlanders ever since, while just a few thousand folks over 59 years of climbing get to brag that they've actually done so.
9. The Mountain Gets Skied
Though the must-watch classic, The Man Who Skied Down Everest, might have you think that this honor goes to the Japanese alpine racer and mountain poet Yuichiro Miura, he only managed to ski part of Everest, starting at 27,000 feet, during a daredevil, parachute-equipped attempt in 1970. The full achievement wouldn't be conferred for another 30 years, when, on October 7, 2000, 38-year-old Slovenian Davorin "Davo" Karnicar clicked into skis at the summit, then schussed and side-slipped for five hours and 12,000 vertical feet back to the south-side Base Camp. He even skied through the Khumbu Icefall.
The feat was repeated in 2006, when 36-year-old American Kit Deslauriers skied from the top. Though conditions on the descent forced Deslauriers, her husband Rob, and photographer Jimmy Chin to downclimb to the South Col, they pressed on and skied the 50-degree blue-ice Lhotse Face the next day. The descent made her the first person to ski all of the Seven Summits.
8. Sherpa Breaks Summit Record
Apa is often referred to as Nepal's Michael Jordan. Not only is he a superstar mountain athlete recognized all over his home country, he continues to break his own records. Last year, in May, the 51-year-old reached Everest's summit for a record 21st time. Apa has climbed the mountain every year except 1996 and 2001, summiting twice in '92. It's been a bright career, and he's become a deserving icon for the Sherpa people, without whom so many of the achievements on Everest never would have been possible.
In 2009, the native climber started leveraging his celebrity by way of the Apa Sherpa Foundation, a nonprofit helping to build schools and create jobs in Nepal. He's also championed causes like climate change, hauling trash off of the mountain on his own back. Apa now resides in Utah, with his family, where he works at a precision machining company. Still, he's back in the Khumbu every spring. "Everest is like the family business," he said in an interview in 2008.
7. Goran Kropp’s It
In May 1996, as one of the worst disasters in Everest history was unfolding high on the mountain, a Swedish mountaineer named Goran Kropp was resting in Base Camp. The previous October, Kropp had departed his home town of Jonkoping, headed for Everest. On a bicycle. Carrying all 240 pounds of his gear. He rode 8,000 miles, arriving at the foot of the mountain in April. On May 3, Kropp climbed solo through thigh-deep snow to within 300 feet of the summit. He returned to Base, recovered, and made it to the summit on May 23 (bringing medicine up to the injured climbers along the way). Then he rode back home to Sweden. The Herculean feat changed the way many people thought about human endurance. After Kropp died tragically, from a fall at an innocuous rock crag in Washington state, a friend started urging fans of the late Swede to start using Kropp as a verb. The hope was to henceforth signify a particularly impressive accomplishment by invoking the name of the inspiring adventurer who was snatched away in his prime.
6. Emergency Clinic Established
While many notable Everest accomplishments happen at the top, this one belongs to Base Camp. In 2003, Luanne Freer, a volunteer physician from Bozeman, Montana, created an independent all-purpose emergency clinic during Everest's increasingly popular spring climbing season. Everest ER provides care for anyone who needs it, particularly the Sherpas—the mountain's indigenous workforce—who often have little, if any, access to medical help. Freer and her volunteer staff, who depend almost entirely on climber donations to support the operation, have arguably saved dozens of lives. The clinic continues to limp along financially from year to year, but despite much initial skepticism from the climbing community, it has become a Base Camp institution—a hive of communication, friendship, medical assistance, or just a much needed mug of hot tea.
5. The West Ridge Is Climbed
In 1963, while a large, heavily funded south-side expedition focused its energy on putting the first American on the summit, a small team split off to attempt the daunting first ascent of Everest's West Ridge. Much of it a steep and discouragingly serrated knife edge, the ridge had yet to be tried and was widely thought to be unclimbable. After several near-lethal incidents, including hurricane-force winds and climbing on fragile shale that fell away like ceramic roof tiles, a pair of Americans, Willie Unsoeld and Tom Hornbein, scrambled alpine style up and over the summit, following a faint set of boot tracks down the Southeast Ridge. The West Ridge would go on to become one of the most fearsome lines on the mountain, with a death rate exceeding 100 percent (more people have died trying than have actually summited via this route). This year, at least three teams are planning a serious West Ridge anniversary climb. Should they all make it, it will be an unprecedented trifecta.
4. Eric Weihenmayer Summits
In May 2002, Weihenmayer, a strapping mountaineer, runner, cyclist and acrobatic skydiver from Denver, Colorado, reached the top of Everest. Weihenmayer likely would have joined a long list of uncelebrated summiters were it not for the fact that he is completely blind. Rather than fading into obscurity, his feat was trumpeted around the world, garnering him a cover photo on Time magazine, and landing him spots on the Today Show and NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw. The climber has gone on to become one of the country's most sought-after motivational speakers. He hasn't exactly retired from adventure, either. In 2010, he finished the Leadville 100 mountain bike race. Last year, Weheinmayer returned to the Himalayas with a team of wounded veterans, helping lead them to the top of Lobuche, a 20,075-foot peak a few miles from Everest.
3. David Sowles Award Winners
Much hay gets made of the selfishness and vainglory now synonymous with Everest's contemporary climbing scene. But every season a handful of quiet heroes perform selfless, and often lifesaving deeds. Many of these acts go entirely unrecognized, but sometimes the effort is so impressive that those involved earn the American Alpine Club's David A. Sowles Award, presented for "unselfish devotion, at personal risk or sacrifice of a major objective, in going to the assistance of fellow climbers imperiled in the mountains."
Enter Tap Richards, Jason Tanguay, Dave Hahn, Andy Politz, Lobsang Temba Sherpa and Phurba Tashi Sherpa in 2001, and their astonishing rescue of a client and guide who were debilitated and forced to spend the night at 28,500 feet. It was one of the highest, and dodgiest, rescues ever performed. Afterward, Eric Simonson, owner of International Mountain Guides, wrote that it "epitomized everything that is best and worst about mountaineering." Other superstars who've received the Sowles Award over the years include Pete Athans, Ed Viesturs, Anatoli Boukreev and Todd Burleson.
2. Hillary and Tenzing Summit
Even the most casual armchair mountaineer will recognize the names of Edmund Hillary, the beekeeper from New Zealand, and Tenzing Norgay, the Sherpa, who become the first humans to set foot on Everest's summit, around noon on May 29, 1953. Hillary and expedition leader John Hunt were knighted before they even left the mountain. Norgay was given the George Medal, England's second-highest decoration for civilian bravery. But history is capricious, and luck a career-maker. Two days earlier, Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans, a pair of British climbers who were part of Hillary's team, made it to within 300 feet of the summit—millimeters by Everest standards—staring at their objective from a perch on the ridge but too low on oxygen to make it. Many, including Hillary himself, acknowledged that, had the two men not broken trail and stashed spare cylinders of O2 along the way, the summit might have eluded them all. In the end, one pair became internationally and instantaneously famous; the other faded to a footnote.
1. Messner Summits Solo
"I am nothing more than a single, narrow gasping lung, floating over the mists and summits," the storied Italian alpinist wrote of his seminal solo ascent of Everest without supplemental oxygen in the summer of 1980. Messner had already completed a gas-free ascent, with Peter Haebeler, two years earlier, but this climb symbolized everything that "pure" mountaineering strove for in the modern era: A fully self-supported, alpine-style ascent to the highest point on earth. Few believed it could be done, and it completely altered what high-altitude physiologists understood about human limitations. While commercial climbing and expedition-style tactics remain status quo on Everest and other big peaks, Messner established the gold standard. From that point forward, no reasonable discussion of why mountaineering matters could take place without it.
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“You have to give it everything you’ve got in order to see results.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s success was largely due to his devotion to his craft. He believed in giving everything that you have all of the time. The level of devotion that Schwarzenegger had in bodybuilding (and Hollywood) was not seen before that time, and quite possibly, has not been seen since.
If you know no one else in bodybuilding, you know Arnold Schwarzenegger. If there was ever a man that truly left his mark on the world of bodybuilding, it was Arnold Schwarzenegger. His muscular physique was simply amazing when he competed. If you follow his training rules today, a lot of them still hold true.
Arnold once said, “You’ll find, as I did, that building muscle builds you up in every part of your life.” This statement pretty much sums up his overall attitude toward his time spent in the gym. You have to give it everything you’ve got in order to see results. “Bodybuilders who have to force themselves to go to the gym and work out will never achieve the kind of success possible for those who can’t wait to hit the gym and start pumping iron,” Arnold stated in The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding.
“Bodybuilding is much like any other sport. To be successful, you must dedicate yourself 100% to your training, diet and mental approach.”
Schwarzenegger’s Diet
Schwarzenegger’s philosophy was that bodybuilding is not a single-event endeavor. If you really want to see success, you must focus on all three components including your training program, your nutritional intake and your mental approach. His workout routine was built on his belief that it is essential to get the right nutritional elements into your body. He stated that in order to build muscle, you must fill your body full of quality nutrients. You should never slack off and turn to junk food to fill the calorie void. If you want to build lean, solid muscle, quality nutrition is key.
On the fat loss side of things, one of the biggest strategies in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s workout routine was calorie cycling. This involved having some higher calorie days interspersed with some lower calorie days in order to prevent his metabolism from slowing down. This still works to this day as a way of keeping the body on its toes.
He advised that on any calorie-reduced diet, if you went long enough you would see your metabolism slowing down, making further fat loss incredibly difficult. Set your average caloric intake target for the week and then stagger your calories with both high and low caloric days.
Schwarzenegger’s Training
“The last three or four reps is what makes the muscles grow. This area of pain divides the champion from someone else who is not a champion.”
For Arnold, pushing your body to the limit was the quickest route to muscular success. He felt that both research and experience demonstrated that the most training gains came when a weight was lifted that was between 70% and 75% of the one-rep max. His recommended range of reps per set was 8-12 for upper body movement and 12-16 for lower body movements.
Additionally, training to the limit, according to Arnold Schwarzenegger, is a must. It’s only at failure when every single muscle tissue is contracting in full force and when the true results take place. This is echoed by so many bodybuilders to this day.
Schwarzenegger’s Recovery Process
“Training gives us an outlet for suppressed energies created by stress and, thus, tone the spirit just as exercise conditions the body.”
For Arnold Schwarzenegger, training wasn’t just a means to create a muscular body, but rather a way to grow and develop into the best person he could be. As much as he loved his time in the gym, he also knew that rest periods were vital to success. He was well known for his legendary toughness, but also realized that there was a fine line between enough and too much. If you crossed that line, overtraining would set in.
He recommended 48 hours of rest after working larger muscle groups and slightly less for the smaller ones. He also felt that as your training level progressed, you’d be able to handle more work with less recovery time and could tolerate more frequent workouts.
Finally, he believed the best way to treat injuries was to prevent them. His prevention methods included always performing a thorough warm-up before workouts and stretching once he was finished.
Schwarzenegger’s Workout Routine
With the workout routine below, Arnold recommended a rest period of 1 minute with the maximum rest period being 3 minutes. After 3 minutes, the body is pretty much recovered. There is no real advantage of going longer than that.
Monday/Wednesday/Friday
Chest
Barbell bench press: 4 sets of 10, 8, 6, and 4 reps
Barbell incline bench press: 4 sets of 10, 8, 6, and 4 reps
Dumbbell flys: 3 sets of 10, 8, and 6 reps
Parallel bar dips: 3 sets of 15, 10 and 8 reps
Pullovers: 3 sets of 15 reps each
Back
Chin-ups: 4 sets of 10 reps minimum each side
Close-grip chins: 4 sets of 10 reps
T-bar rows: 4 sets of 15, 12, 8, and 6 reps
Bent-over barbell rows: 4 sets of 8-12 reps
Thighs
Squat: 5 sets of 10, 8, 6, and 4 reps with a 20 rep warm-up set
Front squats: 4 sets of 10, 8, 8, and 6 reps
Hack squats: 3 sets of 10 reps each
Leg curls: 4 sets of 20, 10, 8, and 6 reps
Standing leg curls: 4 sets of 10 reps each
Straight-leg dead lifts: 3 sets of 10 reps each
Calves
Donkey calf raises: 4 sets of 10 reps each
Standing calf raises: 4 sets of 15, 10, 8, and 8 reps
Abdominals
Crunches: 3 sets of 25 reps
Bent-over twists: 100 reps each side
Machine crunches: 3 sets of 25 reps
Crunches: 50 reps
Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday
Shoulders
Behind-the-neck-barbell press: 5 sets of 10, 8, 8, and 6 reps with a 15-set warm-up
Lateral raises: 4 sets of 8 reps each
Bent-over dumbbell laterals: 4 sets of 8 reps each
Dumbbell shrugs: 3 sets of 10 reps each
Upper Arms
Standing barbell curls: 5 sets of 15, 10, 8, 6, and 4 reps
Incline dumbbell curls: 4 sets of 8 reps each
Concentration curls: 3 sets of 8 reps each
One-arm triceps extensions: 3 sets of 10 reps each
Forearms
Barbell wrist curls: 4 sets of 10 reps each
Reverse wrist curls: 3 sets of 10 reps each
Calves
Seated calf raises: 4 sets of 10 reps each
Abdominals
Reverse crunches: 4 sets of 25 reps
Seated twists: 100 reps each side
Vertical bench crunches: 4 sets of 25 reps
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26 stations will be constructed on the route, and more than 200,000 people will travel by the train daily
LAHORE: Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif announced on Sunday that a 27-kilometre-long Lahore Orange Line Metro Train project would be completed soon.
He was talking to a representative delegation of China Railways and Norinco International China that met him to discuss the Lahore Orange Line Metro Train project.
Talking to the delegation, the chief minister said the agreement between Pakistan and China over the Lahore Orange Line Metro Train project augurs well, and the project would be a masterpiece of Pak-China friendship.
Read: Good news on track: Lahore to get Pakistan’s first metro train
The project will result in speedy, comfortable and economical transport facilities to citizens and will revolutionise the transport system of the city.
Shahbaz said the metro train project was a unique project, adding that 26 stations would be constructed on its route, and more than 200,000 people would make of use of it daily.
Read: Karachi metro bus: Bahria Town offers Rs42b loan to Sindh govt
An agreement in this regard was signed between the Chinese company and the Punjab government in May 2014.
Read full story
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Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort talks to reporters on the floor of the Republican National Convention at Quicken Loans Arena, Sunday, July 17, 2016, in Cleveland. AP Photo/Matt Rourke US investigators obtained a warrant to wiretap former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort before and after the election, CNN reported Monday night.
The revelation marks a potentially significant development in the ongoing probe into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives.
Some of the information gleaned from the surveillance prompted concerns that Manafort had encouraged Russians to "help with the campaign," CNN reported, citing three unnamed sources.
Investigators last year obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to conduct surveillance on Manafort, which continued through early 2017.
Former FBI agent Asha Rangappa, who served in the bureau's counterintelligence division, explained earlier this year the FBI can request and be granted a warrant to monitor a US person from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court "if they can show probable cause that the target is an 'agent of a foreign power' who is 'knowingly engag[ing]…in clandestine intelligence activities.'"
"In other words," Rangappa added, "the government has to show that the target might be spying for a foreign government or organization."
Manafort was previously surveilled under a separate FISA authorization that began in 2014, due to scrutiny over his lobbying work on behalf of the pro-Russia Party of Regions in Ukraine and his business dealings with Russian entities. That surveillance ended due to a lack of evidence, according to CNN, but was later restarted under the new warrant that extended into 2017.
Information obtained from the newly discovered FISA warrant was shared with Mueller's team, CNN said.
The government eavesdropping apparently included a period earlier this year when Manafort was "known to talk" to President Donald Trump. The president sparked weeks of speculation in March when he accused former President Barack Obama of having his "wires tapped" in Trump Tower. Trump's own Justice Department, however, has said there is no evidence to support Trump's claim.
Manafort was forced to register as a foreign agent in April.
The focus on Manafort has only increased since special counsel Robert Mueller took over the investigation in May, shortly after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. Since then, the FBI has also conducted a raid on one of Manafort's homes in July, in search of tax documents and foreign banking records. Mueller threatened to indict Manafort following the raid, according to The Times.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman was recently recruited to help investigate Manafort for possible financial crimes and money laundering. The IRS's criminal-investigations unit has been brought onto the investigation to examine similar issues.
Manafort's international work has long raised eyebrows among Democrats in Washington. In 2004, he became a top adviser to Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, a pro-Russian strongman whom Manafort is widely credited with helping win the presidency in 2010.
Yanukovych was ousted in 2014 after widespread demonstrations against his decision to back out of a deal with the EU that would have distanced Ukraine from Russia and fostered closer ties with the West. On February 20, 2014, Ukrainian riot police opened fire on thousands of demonstrators who had gathered in central Kiev. Fifty-three protesters were killed that day, and dozens more over the next few days.
Ukrainian prosecutors have said Yanukovych ordered the security forces' attack on protesters, and at least one human-rights lawyer representing the victims is investigating what role, if any, Manafort played in encouraging Yanukovych's crackdown. Yanukovych fled to Russia amid the protests and is now living under the protection of the Kremlin.
Manafort served as Trump's campaign chairman until August 2016, when he resigned over reports that the Party of Regions had earmarked him $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments for his work between 2007 to 2012. Manafort has denied ever collecting those payments.
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Now is a very good time to buy a V8.
Petrol prices may not be what they used to be and environmentalists will frown at you, but when it comes to choice right here, right now is a great time to celebrate the good old bent eight.
After more than 50 years of waiting, Ford has finally delivered the Mustang down under. And it couldn't have come a moment too soon, with the demise of the locally-made Ford Falcon on the horizon and the Holden Commodore SS-V to follow next year.
This is like a fantasy sports clash come to life - think Pete Sampras vs Roger Federer, Michael Jordan vs LeBron James or Ayrton Senna vs Lewis Hamilton.
American icon vs Australian classic - the all-new Ford Mustang GT going up against the Holden Commodore SS-V Redline.
This is the ultimate Ford vs Holden head-to-head. But we couldn't leave it as just a simple two-car fight. Not when Chrysler is offering an equally potent 300 SRT with a mean Hemi under the bonnet.
Not to preempt the result, but there are no losers in this contest. All three of these V8s are fantastic cars that any muscle car lover would be proud to own. But which one stands ahead of the pack?
Ford Mustang GT
To see a Ford Mustang sitting above a sun-kissed Aussie beach is something surreal. For more than five decades the 'Stang has come to define American performance cars. It is famous around the world, despite never really leaving American shores.
But now it is here, on Australian terra firma and tearing up Australian roads.
Never have I driven a car that turns so many heads. I lost count of the amount of people I saw mouth the words "it's a Mustang" and from an incredibly diverse cross-section of society - young, old, male, female, etc.
Ford Mustang GT v Holden Commodore SS-V Redline v Chrysler SRT Core Photo: Mark Bean
But looks and heritage are one thing - backing it up is something else entirely.
On paper the Mustang GT makes a good start. There's a 5.0-litre V8 under the bonnet that produces 306kW of power and 530Nm of torque.
Related Content Ford Mustang GT v Holden Commodore SS-V v Chrysler 300 SRT video review
Our test car was mated to a six-speed automatic transmission, but a six-speed manual comes as standard, and a limited-slip differential.
It rides on black 19-inch alloy wheels wrapped in Pirelli P Zero rubber that is staggered, measuring 19x9- up front and 19x9.5-inches at the rear.
Ford has kept the specification simple, with the GT only available with minimal options (racing stripes, black roof, Lustre Nickel finished rims). It is priced from $60,115 plus on-road costs for the automatic version.
Standard gear includes ambient lighting, reversing camera, dual-zone climate control, leather trim, heated and ventilated leather seats, nine-speaker sound system, SYNC2 with eight-inch infotainment touchscreen and Track Apps including an acceleration timer - but no Line Locker function, aka 'Burnout Mode'.
Safety-wise there are plenty of airbags - front, side, curtain and driver's knee but there are no active safety features like autonomous emergency braking.
But all those details become secondary when you slide behind the wheel of the Mustang. All the classic styling cues are there - the thick, three-spoke wheel, twin dials with 'Ground Speed' and 'Revolutions Per Minute', retro switches and so on - but there are modern touches too, like the SYNC infotainment screen.
The majority of the materials are nice but there are some noticeable sections of cheap-looking, hard plastics that take the ambience down a notch.
The sports seats are supportive and comfortable but the rear seats are too small for adults and a three step process to move them out of the way makes getting in the back a pain. Put simply, don't buy the Mustang if you plan on taking more than one passenger on a regular basis.
But the Mustang isn't a family car and as soon as you press the starter button and the V8 rumbles into life you forget about the back seats.
However, that initial feeling of excitement about the V8 is dampened by its low rev performance - or rather the lack thereof. The 5.0-litre is missing a real punch below 4000rpm which is disappointing. Rev it to 4000rpm and beyond and the story changes, as it roars and offers up excellent top end performance.
Ford doesn't offer an official 0-100km/h time for the Mustang but during our testing our car did the 0-100km/h sprint in 5.6 seconds, the slowest of this trio.
But unlike America's obsession with straightline performance Australian customers demand a muscle car that turns corners with equal talent.
In that regard the Mustang does a good job. The steering has three modes - Normal, Sport and Comfort - and there are four driving modes - Normal, Sport, Sport+ and Track - so you can tailor the car to suit the conditions.
Despite playing with the settings the Mustang never truly feels settled on Australian roads. It isn't far off but it lacks the composure of the Commodore. The Pirelli tyres grip well though and the steering is responsive so you can push pretty hard in the corners and it hangs on.
If you want to have a spirited drive it is best to flick the gearbox into Sport mode and shift with the steering wheel-mounted paddles, as the automated Sport mode prefers to move to the taller gear too soon.
Despite those criticisms overall there is a lot to like about the Mustang. The V8 is great in its sweet spot, it handles well and it has on-road presence few cars can match.
Ford Mustang GT price and specifications
Price: $60,115 plus on-road costs
Engine: 5.0-litre V8 petrol
Power: 306kW at 6500rpm
Torque: 530Nm at 4250rpm
Transmission: Six-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive
Fuel use: 12.6L/100km
Holden Commodore SS-V Redline
With time running out and family buyers making the switch to SUVs, Holden has unshackled the Commodore in its final iteration to be the best it has ever been.
The biggest change is under the bonnet where the old 260kW/571Nm 6.0-litre V8 has been dumped and replaced by the 6.2-litre 'LS3' previously only found in the HSV range; lifting performance to 304kW and 570Nm.
But that's only part of the story because Holden also worked on making it sound better. A bi-modal exhaust is now standard along with a sound tube from the engine bay and a special hole with the exhaust itself to help pump the V8 soundtrack directly into the cabin, rather than trying to isolate it.
Holden has also been generous with the value; even fitted with the optional six-speed automatic gearbox the SS-V Redline undercuts both the Mustang and 300 with a starting price of $56,690.
For that, you get leather seats, keyless ignition, navigation with live traffic, nine-speaker Bose sound system, MyLink, reversing camera, front and rear parking sensors, colour head up display, sunroof and launch control.
The Commodore also wins points for safety with standard forward collision warning and lane departure warning plus six airbags to protect all occupants.
The interior remains spacious and sporty with some high quality materials, and leather and Alcantara trim, to lift the ambience. However, some of the stitching isn't arrow-straight, and that spoils the premium feel slightly.
Holden also tweaked the suspension tune for the SS-V Redline to help it ride and turn better as well as adding staggered Bridgestone Potenza tyres on black 19-inch alloys. The result is arguably the best Australian car ever made.
The LS3 pulls hard across the rev range and makes a fantastic noise in the process. Paired with an intuitive six-speed automatic the SS-V Redline has excellent performance; it recorded a 5.3 seconds 0-100km/h time, despite carrying an extra pair of doors compared to the Mustang.
The changes to the suspension are only subtle - a longer but thinner rear anti-roll bar - but they all help the SS-V ride more comfortably and maintain its responsiveness in the bends.
Coupled with nicely weighted steering and strong Brembo brakes the well balanced chassis is easy to play with both on the road and the track. The SS-V Redline has really elevated the Commodore and made it one of the best sports sedans on the market.
Holden Commodore SS-V Redline price and specifications
Price: $56,690 plus on-road costs
Engine: 6.2-litre V8 petrol
Power: 304kW at 6000rpm
Torque: 570Nm at 4400rpm
Transmission: Six-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive
Fuel use: 12.9L/100km
Chrysler 300 SRT Core
Speaking of great sports sedans, the latest 300 SRT Core is our final car of this trio - and a worthy contender in this America against Australia struggle.
Although the Core is the cheaper model in the SRT line-up and thus misses out on some equipment, it does get the most important element - the 6.4-litre V8.
Pumping out 350kW and 637Nm the 'Hemi' is the undisputed king of grunt in this contest. Paired with an eight-speed automatic and with cylinder-deactivation it is a thoroughly modern muscle car drivetrain.
At $59,000 the Core gets a decent amount of standard gear including 20-inch alloys with Goodyear Eagle rubber, Brembo brakes, limited slip differential, leather steering wheel and the SRT Performance apps.
It does miss out on some luxuries that the more expensive 300 SRT gets, like adaptive suspension, leather seats and a 19-speaker Harman/Kardon sound system.
But the stereo is almost superfluous when the engine sounds as good as it does in the SRT. The big V8 is surprising docile around town, happy to just tick over, but as soon as you squeeze the accelerator the big beast growls into life.
In our testing the 300 SRT was comfortably the quickest 0-100km/h, managing it in just 4.9 seconds. An impressive time when you consider just how big the 300 is in every dimension.
Unfortunately, there was a slight shudder from the powertrain in our test vehicle that raises some question marks, but it was only minor and didn't detract from the awesome performance.
The eight-speed auto is a pretty slick unit most of the time but if you want to extract the best performance it is better to use the paddle shifters. The rotary dial shifter feels a little cheap too.
Where the SRT falls slightly behind the Ford and Holden is in the bends, in large part due to its sheer size.
It rides well, despite its 20-inch rims, and hangs on in the corners but it doesn't change direction with the same poise and precision as its smaller rivals.
You can feel the weight as you try to slow it down, even though the Brembos bite hard, and the steering can be a fraction slow to react.
It just doesn't feel as home in the corners as its rivals but as soon as the road straightens it has the legs on them.
Chrysler 300 SRT Core price and specifications
Price: $59,000 plus on-road costs
Engine: 6.4-litre V8 petrol
Power: 350kW at 6150rpm
Torque: 637Nm at 4250rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive
Fuel use: 13.0L/100km
Verdict
As we said at the beginning, there are no losers here. In fact, the perfect muscle car is probably a combination of all three; the Chrysler's engine, the Mustang's looks and the Commodore's ride and handling. But we're here to pick a winner, so we have focused on performance and driving enjoyment above the other factors.
With that in mind the Chrysler takes third place. The engine is awesome but it is just a step behind its rivals when the going gets twisty.
Which leaves the Ford and Holden and splitting these two is hard.
The Mustang is unquestionably a fun car with a feel-good factor few can match. But ultimately it lacks the performance and precision of the Commodore.
In the SS-V Redline Holden has taken the locally-made sedan to its zenith, a performance car that is, dollar-for-dollar, one of the best sports sedans in the world.
When you factor in the Mustang's lengthy waiting list and the impending end of the Aussie-made Commodore, picking the Holden seems like the obvious choice for anyone who loves a great V8.
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HBO announced on Thursday that it will move the production of “Veep,” its political comedy starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, out of Maryland to Southern California.
“After four years and a long deliberation we have decided to move the production of Veep to Los Angeles,” said Cecile Cross-Plummer, an HBO spokesman, in a statement. “Maryland has been home to many vital HBO projects, from The Corner to The Wire to Game Change, and the support has always been extraordinary. The producers and HBO would like to thank Maryland for making the last four seasons of Veep such a success. We look forward to returning with another production in the future.”
The decision by the cable network was a coup for California, which has been trying to woo television productions back to Hollywood through tax incentives.
This month, the California Film Commission said “Veep” was one of four television series that was granted $27.6 million in tax credits through an expanded tax program from the state.
[Comment from ‘Veep’ star prompts Twitter campaign from Columbia residents]
California, which tripled its tax incentive for television and film production last year to $330 million, has been aggressively trying to get “Veep” and other television shows to set up production studios in Southern California. Meanwhile, Maryland was considering getting rid of its tax-credit program and Gov. Larry Hogan (R), who has made creating and retaining jobs a top priority, had raised questions about its benefits before he took office.
The production company for “Veep,” which has filmed in Columbia, Baltimore and Sykesville, has received $13.9 million in tax credits from Maryland over the past three seasons. The production company has hired 3,069 Maryland residents and used 2,882 businesses, according to state officials.
It wrapped up its fourth season in Maryland in December.
Earlier this year, the Maryland General Assembly approved a bill that will extend the state’s tax-credit program beyond its scheduled termination on June 30, 2016.
The bill requires Hogan to appropriate money to the reserve fund for the tax credit, but it does not specify how much would be set aside. The bill will go into effect next month without a signature from the governor.
Doug Mayer, a spokesman for Hogan, said job creation remains the governor’s primary goal.
“Maryland has had a long and beneficial relationship with HBO for over two decades, and we look forward to continuing our partnership on future productions,” he said.
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[Ed. note: NSFW: language]
The NHL was never more popular in Europe than in the fall of 2011. The NHL launched their official European language site and GameCenter Live was made available for international viewers, but the bigger news was the havoc regarding NHL TV rights in Europe– from UK to Russia.
It was the perfect time for the Swedish betting company Oddset to launch their “Let Europe Watch” campaign, whose mission is to make NHL weekend games watchable for European countries. The spokesman for the movement? NHL legend Peter Forsberg.
It’s hard to watch NHL hockey over here [Ed note: Fedor lives in Moscow]. Consider that most NFL games start in the afternoon, the NBA has at least 4-6 games during “watchable” times during the weekend, and baseball has those early games even on weekdays. But the NHL? They’ve got maybe 3 or 4 afternoon games each week. And the NHL may have more Europeans than any other American professional league – only 76.6% of the NHL players in 10-11 season were born in Canada or the US.
7PM EST is 12PM in the UK, 1AM in central Europe, and 3-4AM here in Russia. Those are the three biggest European hockey markets. But 1PM would be 6, 7, and 9-10 respectively.
Why would this work for the NHL? Having a large, solvent fanbase in an entirely different market would give the NHL a little extra economical security– a safety cushion in these economically-challenging times.
I’m grateful to Sweden for starting the campaign. Somebody should’ve done this already, and Sweden was a perfect fit. They have the third most NHL players (6.4%). So now 22,609 signed letters are on their way to the NHL’s headquarters in New York. Hopefully the message will be received, and changes will be made soon.
You can like the “Let Europe Watch” campaign on Facebook. Sharing is caring. Thank you.
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Evacuation alerts and orders from Emergency Info BC
Road closures and conditions from DriveBC
Wildfires of note from B.C. Wildfire Service
Air quality advisories from Environment Canada
An estimated 36,600 people have been evacuated from their homes in B.C. as of Sunday afternoon, said Minister of Transportation Todd Stone, as wildfires continued to ravage the Interior.
Thousands of Williams Lake, B.C., residents and others were lined up Saturday night and Sunday morning in Kamloops seeking aid after fleeing wildfires. (Tina Lovgreen/CBC)
"The uncertainty that these folks feel ... all British Columbians are with you — and, in fact, all Canadians are with you as we go through this very difficult time," Stone said.
"The resilience of British Columbia is very much showcased by the calm and collected courage of those evacuating and those responding to the fires."
The number of evacuees was boosted by exhausted Williams Lake residents who arrived Sunday in Kamloops after an evacuation order forced them to navigate traffic-choked highways for hours.
There are now 11 emergency reception centres across B.C. including in Surrey, Chilliwack and Merritt.
Hundreds of evacuees from B.C.'s wildfires line up at an emergency centre in Kamloops. 0:45
"We still have bills and mortgages to pay."
The farthest of those evacuation centres is in Surrey, where over 700 people have registered at the Cloverdale Arena relief centre.
"We're starting to worry about ... our financial situation. We still have bills and mortgages to pay," said Alicia Rogel, who was evacuated from her home in 150 Mile House over a week ago.
While many have registered in Surrey, the 100 beds set up for evacuees haven't yet been used.
"No one has taken us up ... even for rest and respite," said Surrey Mayor Linda Hepner, who added that the space would continue to support evacuees with food and supplies for as long as needed.
No evacuees have used the beds yet at the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Cloverdale?src=hash">#Cloverdale</a> Arena <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BCwildfire?src=hash">#BCwildfire</a> <a href="https://t.co/F1QkA08LQA">pic.twitter.com/F1QkA08LQA</a> —@jonvhernandez
Largest group of evacuees from Williams Lake
About 24,000 people in Williams Lake and its surrounding areas were affected by Saturday evening's evacuation order, but officials say about 60 per cent of residents left on their own accord before the order was given.
A dog sits in a cage in an area in Kamloops set aside for the animals of people who had to flee wildfires in B.C.'s Interior. (Lien Yeung/CBC)
Ruth Downes, carrying a single suitcase as she lined up for assistance at the Thompson-Nicola Regional District's evacuation centre in Kamloops Sunday morning, says she rode on a school bus all night after mustering with her neighbours.
"The roads were packed, but everyone has been very helpful," she said. "Everyone in the city was leaving. We moved very slowly but carefully."
School buses from Williams Lake and the surrounding area arrived Saturday night and early Sunday morning in Kamloops. (Tina Lovgreen/CBC)
Downes said she couldn't see any flames and didn't believe the city was in jeopardy from the White Lake wildfire, which has been burning to the city's west for days, but she said the smoke in the air was unbearable.
"As we left, the smoke was billowing in behind us — yikes! It was a little intimidating," she said.
Officials say the fire has now crossed the Fraser River and is seven to 10 kilometres north of the city. There are 120 municipal firefighters on guard should the wildfire breach city limits.
No structures damaged or lost in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WilliamsLake?src=hash">#WilliamsLake</a> thanks to 24 hr protection from local & BC firefighters <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BCwildfire?src=hash">#BCwildfire</a> <a href="https://t.co/YG73atzlV2">pic.twitter.com/YG73atzlV2</a> —@CityWL
"The winds have changed and they are blowing in the opposite direction, so hopefully they will blow the fire back upon itself," said Williams Lake Mayor Walt Cobb late Sunday night.
Evacuation slow but safe
Cariboo regional district chair Al Richmond says the journey from Williams Lake to Kamloops, which normally takes about two hours, could have taken nine for some people as between 7,000 and 8,000 left town Saturday night.
Tough days ahead for thousands of evacuees from <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WilliamsLakeBC?src=hash">#WilliamsLakeBC</a>,first step is registering with emergency services <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/bcwildfire?src=hash">#bcwildfire</a> <a href="https://t.co/GjgISzHdck">pic.twitter.com/GjgISzHdck</a> —@tinalovgreen
"The convoy was moving slowly, but the key is they were moving safely," Richmond said. "There's no immediate danger, as far as we know, to the City of Williams Lake. Our main concern was getting people out safely last night before other access to the south got cut off."
He says officials and police are looking for people still in town, and the RCMP can compel people to leave or even arrest them.
Cobb says he estimates there are some stragglers, but that they will leave.
An estimated 36,000 to 37,000 people evacuated from their homes in B.C. as of Sunday afternoon, as wildfires continue to ravage the Interior 2:09
He said there are still up to 2,000 people in Williams Lake — mostly RCMP, firefighters and some business owners who stayed behind to help emergency workers.
"And actually we've had some of the restaurants that took the bull by the horns and decided not to evacuate because they felt they had to be here as long as they had food to provide services for the people that are here, the RCMP and the firefighters," said Cobb.
"So I really appreciate their dedication."
Big Lake, northeast of Williams Lake, is also under the evacuation order issued Saturday. (Nichola G./Instagram)
Richmond says anyone in need of emergency information can check out the CRD's emergency information Facebook page or call 1-800-585-9559.
Stone says 5,100 B.C. households have registered for support through the Red Cross, and 83 per cent of them have received their $600 in benefits as of Sunday.
Helicopter crashed Saturday
Minister of Forests John Rustad said there are about 2,900 firefighters and 203 aircraft attacking the fires burning up B.C.'s forests.
Rustad said one helicopter crashed while fighting a fire in the Chilcotin region Saturday. He said the pilot, the sole occupant of the helicopter, was injured but in stable condition.
Officials say it was an EC-130 helicopter (example pictured) which crashed Saturday. They say the aircraft was operated by contractor J.B. Air. Transport Canada is not investigating. (Sudpoth Sirirattanasakul/Shutterstock)
He said B.C. has spent over $80 million on forest fires this season, "but certainly we'll spend whatever it takes."
Chief fire information officer Kevin Skrepnek said 162 fires are currently active in B.C., and 16 new ones started Saturday.
Skrepnek said an estimated 131,000 hectares of B.C. forest have been burned so far in 2017 — about one-quarter of the area of Prince Edward Island.
Most evacuees since 2003
Stone says the early start to the 2017 fire season means there will be risk for some time to come and vigilance will be required.
Wildfire evacuees from Williams Lake wait in line for aid in Kamloops with their belongings. (Tina Lovgreen/CBC)
"You may not have the benefit of advance notice," he said.
"Certainly if you have loved ones or friends and you can go somewhere, I would highly recommend the Lower Mainland at this point and just get out of the Interior if you can," he said on Sunday.
Across B.C., there are 49 evacuation orders and 23 evacuation alerts. Turner said the last time there were so many evacuees in B.C. was the 2003 fire season, when about 50,000 were forced from their homes.
"But [2017] is in many ways a more complicated response because of the geographic scope ... and we're at the beginning of the fire season," he said.
Smoke from <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BCWildfire?src=hash">#BCWildfire</a> very thick along South Thompson river east of Kamloops after fires flared up over weekend. <a href="https://t.co/EBi7N111UE">pic.twitter.com/EBi7N111UE</a> —@vancbcmcarthur
Gusty winds for <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BC?src=hash">#BC</a> due to t-storms this aftn. Golden Arpt reported a gust to 75km/h and Quesnel Arpt reported a gust to 55km/h so far. —@ECCCWeatherBC
With files from Tina Lovgreen, Jon Hernandez and CBC Radio One's North By Northwest
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Perspectives from those who work and live in the criminal justice system.
This article was published in collaboration with Vice.
I was supposed to be executed one minute after midnight on February 10, 2004.
In the lead up to that day, I was moved to a new cell where prison guards could check in on me every hour to “make sure I was all right.” The prison also started sending a psychiatrist — it was clear that they wanted to make sure I was not going to commit suicide.
Life Inside Perspectives from those who work and live in the criminal justice system. Related Stories
This went on for a few days, and then things slowly started to get more intense. I was awakened in the middle of the night, handcuffed, taken out of the cell, and placed against a wall. One of the guards started taking photos of me and said that these were the last images the world would see of me.
One day I was taken to the Lieutenant’s office, where she and a prison doctor were waiting. The Lieutenant told me to pull the sleeve of one of my arms up so that they could see my veins. I initially resisted, so the Lieutenant left and returned with a tourniquet in her hand. She tied it around my arm, and all my veins came to the surface. Then she and the doctor went about their task of documenting the good veins in my right arm. She did the same to my left.
About a week after that, I was taken to see another doctor for a check-up. The doctor took my blood pressure.
It was high.
Throughout my whole ordeal, I kept being asked what I wanted my last meal to be. Someone asked me if I wanted a Tombstone pizza.
My friends would come and spend time with me, as would attorneys. They had replaced my appeals lawyer, who damn near got me executed by not using the information we had to argue there’d been evidence-tampering. My lawyers kept coming to see me and updating me on what the were doing to save my life, but I honestly did not believe they could stop the state from putting me to death.
I stopped watching my TV or listening to my radio. Instead, I read my favorite book, possibly for the last time: A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn.
Because I cut myself off from the media, I didn’t initially know about new witnesses who came forward on my behalf with claims potentially proving the state had withheld important evidence. I didn’t learn about the people who saw three white men — one with blood on his clothes — on the night of the murders, in a bar not far from the crime scene.
Then came February 9, my last day.
I had quite a few visitors, including Jesse Jackson, family, friends.
Around 11 a.m., Jeannie R. Sternberg, then an attorney from the Habeas Corpus Resource Center in San Francisco, came into the visiting room holding the stay of execution. She took the time to explain the whys and hows, and told me the state could appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Next To Die A detailed, up-to-date schedule of upcoming executions in the United States
At 6 p.m., we were told visiting was over, and it was. I was taken to the rear of the visiting room and placed inside a cage and told to take off all my clothes. I was strip-searched, given another set of clothes and shoes, and placed in waist chains. Guards formed two lines — I was in the middle — and we marched out of the visiting room search area to the door of the execution waiting room.
That’s when I realized I’d been passing by this door twice a day for about a week and hadn’t even known it was the entrance to the death chamber.
When the door opened, we all went inside and I was told to place my back against the wall. The guards left the room single file. It was now a little past 6:30 p.m., and I looked at that large wall clock, knowing that with each passing minute, my life was ticking away. A number of executioners entered the room, one of whom walked right up to me, stood about six inches from my face, and asked me if I was going to cause trouble when they took off the handcuffs. I quietly told him, no, no trouble from me.
I was told to slowly take my clothes off and stand in the middle of the room. It was so cold I started to shiver.
He then started to examine my body, turning on his flashlight to look inside my mouth. He searched my hair, told me to lift my penis and scrotum, and searched them. I was told to lift my feet one at a time off the floor and wiggle my toes — first the right foot, then the left. I was told to spread my butt cheeks and bend over, which I did, and he shined his flashlight up my rectum.
Finally, after what seemed like eternity, the strip-search was over. I was given new clothes. I once again looked at that clock, and it was a few minutes after 7 p.m.
I was placed inside a cage to wait until my execution.
My lawyer, Jeannie Sternberg, called me on the prison phone and told me that the state did, in fact, appeal the stay, and as soon as she heard from the Supreme Court, she would call me and let me know.
While I waited, my pastor was allowed to come and be in the cage next to mine.
Around 8:17 p.m., out of nowhere, the telephone rang. The guard in charge of the phone handed it to me, and on the other end was Jeannie, telling me that the Supreme Court unanimously decided to refuse to lift the stay.
I gave the phone back to the guard and told the executioners that they were not going to do their jobs that night.
Kevin Cooper is a 58-year-old inmate at San Quentin State Prison in San Quentin, California. He was convicted of a quadruple-murder in Chino Hills, Calif. in 1983, and has claimed innocence and petitioned for clemency ever since. According to his lawyer, Norman Hile at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, all of Cooper’s appeals have been denied, and his only remaining avenue is to file a petition for clemency with Governor Jerry Brown.
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Editor’s note: This commentary is by Steve May, LICSW, who is a practicing social worker with a practice specializing in addiction medicine. He previously worked in a variety of substance abuse clinical settings across Vermont. In addition, he is a member of the Selectboard in Richmond.
For years I have worked with people, in my case mostly men, who have come into therapy for a drug or alcohol issue, which at its core started as a physical injury. Many of my guys do physically challenging work, they are on and off ladders all day, they climb across trusses on their hand and knees or they milk dozens of cows at a time. And after years of this physically demanding work, they reach middle age and they have completely ravaged their bodies. They can’t bend over and pick up their 15-pound child. That the children stand in front of a hulking man begging for the attention they well deserve matters little as this child might as well be on the surface of Pluto. No matter how much these men might hope, there is no willing oneself through the underlying pain which punctuates the ordinary and everyday reality of their pain.
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Over the years, the nature of my practice has changed. Fifteen years ago, I started my career working at Act I, the social detox program in Burlington overnights while I was in grad school. Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights were the domain of the weekend warrior, kids from the university rushing Kappa or Theta who had overdone it sprinkled in with the committed many who had graduated in their consumption to a more regular diet of substances. As time has moved on though, the mix of who is coming in and how they present has changed radically. My caseload these days is made up largely of middle-aged men who tweaked their backs doing yard work, shoveling snow, playing pickup basketball at the park or on the job. These intrepid few all share one thing in common: a bottle of prescription painkillers.
Earlier in my career, I had the pleasure of working in the bleeding disorders community, first as the director of Advocacy for the Regional Chapter organization of the New England Hemophilia Association, and then ultimately promoted to the national director of state affairs for the Hemophilia Federation of America. My work involved advocating for men (hemophilia due to its biology afflicts only men, with few exceptions) who received tainted blood products in the 1980s and 1990s. These men, through no fault of their own, contracted not only HIV, but in most cases, also hepatitis. Not to mention the scores of families suddenly confronting compound trauma. These families knew pain on a daily basis — confronting the reality of living with, in most cases, three chronic medical conditions.
I can’t help but think of these two counterpoints in my professional life when I watch the cannabis floor fight play out again this year. I wish I could share how my patients who had gotten their wisdom teeth out were more likely to abuse prescription drugs because of a painkiller which was written by a well-meaning dentist or orthodontist but tempted through relief and retreat an unsuspecting teenager, and contrast that with my community members who using a combination of medical marijuana, acupuncture and therapeutic massage were able to extend their lives long enough to see their multiple infections become chronic conditions, not terminal diseases which had claimed so many others.
There are those in our Statehouse who believe that cannabis represents a menace, so dangerous that it must be stopped. After 15 years and hundreds of clients, I believe that thinking couldn’t be more misguided. The gateway to addiction runs through pain and specifically, bad pain management.
Legal cannabis is a reality for Vermonters. They will either buy it here and Vermont will benefit or leave the state with their wallets and buy it legally someplace else to our detriment.
There are no surprises anymore. After one’s initial use, no one picks up a blunt or joint out of curiosity. Nobody uses to use, their substance misuse is the result of other factors. Simply stated, they are chasing the dragon … seeking that same measure of relief they got from their first use. The truth is salvation doesn’t exist at the bottom of a brown bottle, whether that be a pill bottle or a booze bottle. While substance use provides a salve for a while, that’s all it is.
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By the same measure, one’s drug of choice need not be illegal to create havoc in good people’s lives. Plenty of good people will go home tonight and gamble, or abuse food, or are hoarding across our state right now. Legal cannabis is not going to incentivize bad behavior. Hurt will. We as human beings are compulsive by our very nature, and compulsivity is behavioral. This has been true since the time that man walked out of the primordial ooze hundreds of thousands of years ago. It is wired into the very tapestry of our core. Our misuse of substances is the manifestation of pain. These people didn’t need legal cannabis to amplify their compulsive and anti-social behaviors. Their behaviors — their choices will exert a cost to all of us as taxpayers in one way or another eventually. Cannabis is available in every middle school in this state — if you want it, you can get it; it’s really that simple. Your 13-year-old really doesn’t have to work very hard to get their hands on it. The better question is what’s in your pot?
People tamper with narcotics for a variety of reasons; usually it deals with wanting to create a more addictive product. After all, this is a market just like any other, and return customers are essential to sales, sales, sales … With a black market you have no idea about the origins of the product. While you may have bought from a friend, and they got product from a guy, very quickly you are staring down the shaft of a dark tunnel uncertain of the origin of the product you are ingesting. By comparison, the bottle of hand sanitizer in my office is required to list its ingredients by the government and its poison.
By the middle of next year, the Trudeau government has pledged complete legalization of marijuana in Canada, joining Massachusetts and Maine. Presumably other New England states are going to also legalize it. Legal cannabis is a reality for Vermonters. They will either buy it here and Vermont will benefit or leave the state with their wallets and buy it legally someplace else to our detriment. Meanwhile, our real issue with gateway drugs and prescription abuse continues. While efforts in past years to curb the prescribing patterns of some prescribers were a good first step, a deeper commitment is required.
Pain is a medical condition. When someone discusses pain our public discourse it usually involves asking where it is; and whether it’s sharp or dull. That’s it — this is the equivalent of treating all cancer like it’s a single affliction. That’s what we did 70 years ago. It was a poor response to a medical crisis in 1950, and its equally insufficient today. A public commitment to treating pain as the medical crisis it is in light of our opiate epidemic is critical. We as a society cannot write our way out of this crisis, one script at a time.
In my experience, a combination of allied health approaches including: therapeutic touch, cannabis and oriental medicine (acupuncture) provided a pathway forward for a great many. One thing is for certain, the attempt to conflate access to cannabis with addiction serves no good purpose. I wish our Legislature had spent one-tenth of the time addressing the very real pain issues which drive substance misuse in our state, as opposed to the false choice offered up to members this session.
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The Lotus F1 Team could face the possibility of being unable to leave Spa-Francorchamps after this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix after it was understood that former reserve Charles Pic is taking legal action against the team.
Pic was signed as reserve driver for the 2014 season to regular drivers Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado, but feels the team did not provide the Frenchman with a certain number of days in the seat of the E22 that he was promised.
It is believed Pic’s disagreement with Lotus is now in the hands of an arbitration court, with a Belgian court order effectively preventing the team’s cars and equipment from leaving Spa-Francorchamps at the end of the weekend.
Lawyers from both sides are looking into the matter and are locked in discussions to clear the problem, with Lotus co-owner Gerard Lopez confident the issue can be resolved quickly, perhaps even before the start of the race on Sunday.
“We are having our legal department look at it. This will be solved, and solved in a manner that is adequate,” said Lopez to Autosport.
“We know there is a difference in the number of the days [Pic should have driven], but I know we’ll find an amicable solution, and the show goes on.
“I think the cars will leave as planned. I don’t envisage there being an issue. I know there will be a resolution.”
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Aboriginal satirical film Never Stop Riding inspired by stockmen and spaghetti westerns
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What happens when you put together a love of spaghetti western films and Aboriginal elders who grew up as stockmen?
You get one of the more quirky offerings from this year's Tarnanthi Festival in Adelaide — a short satirical film about life as an outback cowboy.
The film, called Never Stop Riding, was inspired by the elders' love of spaghetti westerns.
It came about when they told stories to the young men from their APY Lands community about their former lives as stockmen.
Before turning to art, they worked on cattle stations, breaking in horses and mustering cattle.
Aboriginal elder Peter Mungkari looks back on that time with fond memories.
"We were working flat out, riding and rounding and all that, you know," he said.
"Riding the horse and breaking in the horse."
The film provides a glimpse of some of the personalities of those who live in South Australia's remote APY Lands.
It's got all the elements of a classic, from 'wanted' signs and a hostile standoff to a shootout.
Mr Mungkari said the community had a lot of fun putting it together.
"Everybody was laughing and all that, you know, it was really good," he said.
"We're feeling like a cowboy, acting, you know.
"We did it like that when we were boys."
The group has travelled by road to Adelaide to see their work exhibited in this year's Tarnanthi Festival, showcasing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art.
It is the first time the film been shown outside of Indulkana.
And being artists, they have other works in this year's Tarnanthi Festival as well, including paintings.
The group now has plans for a sequel.
Topics: arts-and-entertainment, short-film, film-movies, carnivals-and-festivals, art-house, events, aboriginal, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, indigenous-culture, marla-5724, sa, adelaide-5000
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Charapedia fired up the emotions with their latest 10,000 user poll, asking fans to name the ladies of anime who are scariest when angered. 64 beauties who are truly frightening when they flip their lids were suggested by a pool of voters that was 49.3% male and 50.7% female, 72.8% in their teens and twenties.
Aggregate response
20. Black Lagoon's Roberta - 130 votes
19. A Certain Magical Index/Scientific Railgun's Misaka Mikoto - 157 votes
18. Fate/'s Sakura Matou - 159 votes
17. Gintama's Kagura - 163 cotes
16. Higurashi's Rena Ryugu - 175 votes
15. Black Lagoon's Balalaika - 183 votes
14. One Piece's Nami - 184 votes
13. Haruhi Suzumiya - 194 votes
12. The Irregular at Magic High School's Miyuki Shiba - 209 votes
11. Monogatari's Hitagi Senjōgahara - 251 votes
10. Fairy Tail's Erza Scarlet - 254 votes
9. School Day's Kotonoha Katsura - 258 votes
8. Sword Art Online's Sinon/Shino Asada -265
7. Detective Conan's Ran Mori - 269 votes
6. Oreimo's Ayase Aragaki - 279 votes
5. Naruto's Sakura Haruno - 283 votes
4. Kuroko's Basketball's Riko Aida - 303 votes
3. Sword Art Online's Asuna Yuuki - 316 votes
2. Gintama's Tae Shimura - 461 votes
1. Attack on Titan's Mikasa Ackerman - 497 votes
Male voters
10. Higurashi's Rena - 145 votes
9. Raildex's Misaka - 148 votes
8. Monogatari's Hitagi Senjōgahara - 155 votes
7. Naruto's Sakura - 158 votes
6. Irregular at Magic High School's Miyuki - 162 vote
5. Haruhi - 184 votes
4. SAO's Sinon - 195 votes
3. Attack on Titan's Mikasa - 196 votes
2. Oreimo's Aragaki Ayase - 269 votes
1. SAO's Asuna - 271 votes
Female voters
10. Prison School's Hana Midorikawa - 111 votes
9. Naruto's Sakura - 126 votes
8. Detective Conan's Ran Mori - 128 votes
7. One Piece's Nami - 142 votes
6. Gintama's Kagura - 150 votes
5. Fairy Tail's Ezra - 153 votes
4. School Day's Kotonoha Katsura - 164 votes
3. Kurobas' Riko Aida - 262 votes
2. Attack on Titan's Mikasa - 301 votes
1. Gintama's Tae - 351 votes
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Scott Green is editor and reporter for anime and manga at geek entertainment site Ain't It Cool News. Follow him on Twitter at @aicnanime.
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Doctors have been warning that Chikungunya fever, a tropical disease that causes severe joint pain, would soon reach the continental United States. Now it has done so, federal and state officials said Thursday.
The first domestically acquired cases were found in two Florida residents, one from the Miami area and one from Palm Beach, according to the state’s Health Department. Neither had traveled to countries where the mosquito-borne disease is endemic. One case has been confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; the second has not.
While seldom fatal, the Chikungunya virus (pronounced CHIK-en-goon-ya) causes high fever and sometimes a rash in addition to joint pain. Its name, from the Makonde language of East Africa, refers to people walking “bent up” with pain. In about 20 percent of patients, the pain can last a year or more.
The disease has been widespread in the tropics for centuries, but until 50 years ago it was confused with dengue fever, which kills far more people.
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As a remote worker, I know the pain of finding the perfect spot in a busy cafe (outlet at my disposal, right next to the router, comfiest chairs) and then realizing I have to go to the bathroom. This post is designed to help remote workers everywhere optimize their task list, schedule, and even drink orders to get the most when working from a coffee shop.
Selecting your coffee shop
Your coffee shop story doesn’t start when you step into the cafe. It starts when you select it.
One thing I look at when I decide where to work is the cafe location. If it’s in the center of Main St., it’s more likely to be busy, which means more people and noise, fewer chairs and available outlets, and longer lines for the bathroom. It also means they can afford to charge more for their drinks and snacks, which can add up over time. I like my cafes a little out of the way (see: hidden) but still close enough to other establishments that I can step out for a walk if I need to stretch. In an ideal world, the coffee shop would be within walking distance of my apartment, too.
You should also look at the logistics of how the coffee shop works. Are there outlets? Are there enough that you could reliably get one before your laptop runs out of battery, even if it’s busy? Tip: I try to keep my laptop fully charged when I go to a cafe, just in case I have to work while waiting for an outlet to open up.
Do their bathrooms have stalls, or single person restrooms? I prefer single person facilities because it’s safer to put down your items in them, but if it’s a fairly busy day the lines may get long.
Ask about the WiFi situation. Do they charge to use the Internet, does each user have a WiFi time limit, or do you have to make a minimum purchase before connecting? Even if you have your own Internet connection like tethering mobile data, it’s good to have WiFi around to fall back on if your Internet is slow or doesn’t work.
The ideal coffee shop is: close to home, not too busy, has affordable coffee (or tea, or whatever you enjoy while working), has outlets, and offers fast (& free) WiFi.
What to order
Keep in mind you’re taking up electricity (if you’re plugged in), bandwidth, and a seat where another paying customer might sit. Be considerate of your coffee shop and baristas by ordering at least one item every hour you’re there, and leaving a nice tip.
I try to limit myself to one cup of coffee a day and at least one healthier menu item. So if I’m at a coffee shop for 4 hours, I might start out with a latte, then go to a salad, then a cup of tea and honey, and then a baked good.
Be sure to keep yourself hydrated in between your orders. If you can drink 3 cups of coffee in one sitting, be sure to sip on water as well, or order tea or juice in between them. Beware of all that liquid, though, because they quickly lead to bathroom breaks…
Going to the bathroom
Some remote workers like to work in pairs, which solves the bathroom issue completely. One person can use the restroom while the other watches the laptops and other valuable items. However, if you didn’t bring a friend to the coffee shop, going to the bathroom is at best an inconvenience and at worst a security risk.
If you’re alone, when you go to the bathroom you should bring your wallet, phone, and anything else that’s valuable and can easily be carried away. If the coffee shop is fairly empty, you might consider leaving your laptop while you run to the restroom. If it’s a busy day, some remote workers ask their neighbors to keep an eye on their items (I don’t really recommend this) so they don’t lose their spot.
I highly recommend getting a laptop lock so you can take your bag to the bathroom and have your spot and laptop waiting for you when you return.
I usually use the restroom when I arrive, and then when I’m done with work, pack everything up, use the restroom again, and head out.
Type of work
What kind of work can you do in a coffee shop? If you need a huge table, a whiteboard, or to make/take a lot of calls, coffee shops probably aren’t for you. Try a coworking space instead.
However, if you can do most of your work from a laptop without taking up your neighbors’ tables, a coffee shop is a nice haven to work from. I know programmers and writers who love coffee shops, and designers who enjoy working from home because of the volume of equipment they use (second monitor, tablet to draw on, etc.).
Working in a coffee shop is great for tasks that aren’t loud, don’t take up much space, and don’t require a lot of extra equipment. If you aren’t sure about whether your work is great for coffee shops, try it out with one or two quiet coffee shops around your area to test it out.
Avoiding distractions
The smell of coffee and baked goods is a great distraction, but coffee shops also come with other inconveniences. Someone might be taking a call next to you, a couple may be arguing a few tables over, and there might be a cute dog sitting close enough for you to play with.
Your first defense against distractions is selecting a good spot. You should have access to an outlet, but your spot should be somewhere more secluded. If you can choose a corner spot, all the better. You may even benefit from a spot looking out the window, so if your eyes wander there’s a sheet of glass preventing you from eavesdropping on the people you watch or going and saying hello to someone you think you recognize.
You can stay productive by tracking your time. I use Hubstaff, and when I start my timer I tend to hone in on my task since I know I’m recording billable time.
Use headphones and ambient noise to block out the sounds of a coffee shop, especially if there are people nearby talking more loudly than the background noise. I recommend Noisli to customize your ambient noise, or, ironically, Coffitivity to simulate the sounds of a coffee shop (ha-ha!).
What are your tips for working in a coffee shop?
I hope these practical tips help you in your remote work journey. If I’ve missed any, please add them in the comments below!
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Wartime New York City was a very hospitable place for the thousands of enlisted men (and women) going off to fight in World War II or returning home on furlough.
Take Grand Central Terminal, for example. During the war, the East Balcony was turned into a “Service Men’s Lounge” by the New York Central and New Haven Railroads.
According to the back of this postcard, the lounge was “equipped with ping pong and pool tables, library, piano, easy chairs, lunch counter, etc.”
The lounge was “a meeting room for men of all nations,” wrote John Belle in Grand Central: Gateway to a Million Lives. “On any given day, it was not unusual to see a kilted Highlander at the coffee bar learning from an American soldier how to dunk a doughnut.”
In 1943, Life ran this warning about the lounge to travelers: “Busiest on weekends when thousands travel on furlough. To give them more room on weekend trains, plan trips you must make for mid-week.”
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Tags: Grand Central Terminal, New York in the 1940s, New York in World War II, Service Men's Lounge Grand Central, soldiers sailors New York City, Vintage postcards New York City, wartime New York
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I’m in the planning stages of a side project for Hackaday right now. It’s nothing too impressive, but this is a project that will involve a lot of electromechanical parts. This project is going to need a lot of panel mount 1/8″ jacks and sockets, vertical mount DIN 5 connectors, pots, switches, and other carefully crafted bits of metal. Mouser and Digikey are great for nearly every other type of electrical component, but when it comes to these sorts of electromechanical components, your best move is usually to look at AliExpress or DealExtreme, finding something close to what you need, and buying a few hundred. Is this the best move for a manufacturable product? No, but we’re only building a few hundred of these things.
I have been browsing my usual Internet haunts in the search for the right bits of stamped brass and injection molded plastic for this project, and have come to a remarkable conclusion. Engineers, apparently, have no idea how to dimension drawings. Drafting has been a core competency for engineers from the dawn of time until AutoCAD was invented, and now we’re finally reaping the reward: It’s now rare to find a usable dimensioned drawing on the Internet.
This post is going to be half rant, half explanation of what is wrong with a few of the dimensioned drawings I’ve found recently. Consider this an example of what not to do. There is no reason for the state of engineering drawing to be this bad.
Example One: It Gets Worse The More You Look At It
This first example comes from Bitches Love My Switches, an unfortunately-named storefront, but one that does have a lot of neat switches and jacks with a warehouse on the East Coast with quick shipping. If you want some jellybean parts for guitar pedals and associated audiophilia, it’s a nice place to know. This store doesn’t manufacture their own switches, and with that comes the problem of datasheets and dimension drawings. These drawings were made by a random engineer somewhere, and this person has no training in dimensioned drawings.
Let’s work through a design problem using the dimension drawing shown above. This is a PCB-mounted, switch, that is meant to have a nut holding it down to a panel. Think of it as a PCB standoff, only it’s a switch. This switch can be used as a mechanical, structural part of an enclosure.
To design anything using this switch, you need to know the height of every part of this switch, from where it attaches to the PCB, to where the nut will screw on. You need to know the height of the switch body. This dimension is completely absent in this drawing, making the drawing absolutely useless. The dimension you need to design anything using this switch is absent. But this drawing gets worse.
What if you wanted to know the height of the ‘toggle’ that physically moves in this switch. It’s labeled in the drawing as 9.5 mm, but this dimension is useless at best, and wrong with even the most liberal interpretation. Why? Because the toggle pivots. The tip of this toggle moves in an arc, and the tip will be ‘longer’ in the middle of its swing than it is in either of its latched positions. A real dimensioned drawing would include the 9.5 mm dimension and the angle of the toggle in the latched position so you can figure out the actual maximum height of the switch.
Want to hate this drawing even more? Sure thing. What sized nut goes on the threaded portion? Exactly. This isn’t a swing at the store selling these switches, but it is indicative of some terrible practices across the entire electronics industry. Somehow or another, everyone forgot how to create useful dimensioned drawings.
Example Two: All Loudspeaker Manufacturers Meet at Bohemian Grove
The project I’m working on will also need a speaker. The general specs are a 3-4 inch diameter speaker that can handle five Watts. I’m not looking for quality here, but I am looking for something I can design an enclosure for before I order it.
A speaker is a remarkably simple device. There’s a coil and a magnet, two terminals, a paper cone, and a metal flange with four holes around the perimeter of this flange, offset ninety degrees from each other. Nearly every generic loudspeaker will follow this prototype, and if you’re building an enclosure for a speaker, there are really only three things you need to know: the diameter of the hole you need to cut out, the depth of the speaker, and how far apart the screw holes on the flange are. I only need three dimensions here. I’m a simple man. I’m also extremely disappointed.
Celestion is a very highly regarded manufacturer of loudspeakers. They’ve been around for ninety years, they created the first metal-dome tweeter, and produce what is said to be the standard in guitar amp speakers. If you’re in the loudspeaker industry, Celestion is where you want to be. Surely they can come up with datasheets and tech specs that would be useful, right? Think again. Their AN2075 loudspeaker lists the overall depth of the speaker, the cut-out diameter, and the overall size of the of the speaker. How far apart are the mounting holes? Screw you, that’s how far apart they are. This isn’t even ‘drafting’ or ‘engineering drawing’. This is just incomplete information.
Celestion is not alone. Take a look at AliExpress. If you’re looking for small, cheap speakers that can handle ten or fifteen Watts, you have thousands of choices. Virtually none of them will have the relevant information on their product pages. Yes, you’ll usually get the dimensions of the flange, and you might get how deep the speaker actually is. You will rarely find where to put the screw holes on your project enclosure.
I’m not one to believe conspiracies. People are just too self-interested to be part of a cabal of evil bent on distorting the truth or ruling people. It’s the media theory of Chomsky versus Žižek; self-interest rules all. People are too stupid to organize. This may be the best evidence yet that conspiracies exist. There must be a conspiracy between loudspeaker manufactures. None of them have dimensions of where the holes should go.
Example Three: Jacks
This project will also make use of DIN 5 connectors (but not as MIDI jacks), and these must be panel mount connectors. Nearly every DIN 5 connector you’ll see on Mouser or Digikey is a right angle connector. That is to say, you solder the connector to the board, and the DIN 5 connector comes out at a right angle to the PCB. This isn’t what I want — I want a connector sticking straight up out of a board. Yes, these connectors exist, but again we’re left with incomplete dimensioned drawings, like the one I found on AliExpress below:
First, take a look at the photograph of the part. It’s what you would expect for a DIN 5 connector. There are five pins, and an additional grounding pin for the shield of the connector, just like every other DIN 5 connector on the planet. Take a look at the drawing. It’s actually not bad, and even gives me a preferred PCB footprint for five of the pins. But what about that grounding pin? It is absent on the dimensioned drawing. If you buy a thousand of these and run them through an assembly line, you’ll quickly find you have to snip off all the grounding pins before populating them into boards. The data is just missing, and you’re a fool if you engineer something directly from the drawings. You should be able to engineer something from the drawings, and this panel mount DIN 5 connector is a terrible product.
Any University That Has Dropped Their Drafting Class Is Doing A Disservice To Their Students
Since time immemorial until the late 90s and early 2000s, engineering drawing and drafting was a required course for all engineers. This is the class with T-squares and triangles and a hidden emphasis on developing fine motor control through lettering. Only a week or two of this class was devoted to dimensioned drawings, but this week is vital to all engineers. Your drawings are useless unless someone else can use them, and you can’t do that without properly dimensioned drawings.
I don’t know why I keep running into truly terrible dimensioned drawings. This is a required skill for all engineers, regardless if they’re educated in China, England, or the US. Yet it’s nonexistent everywhere except for the McMaster Carr catalog.
If you’d like to learn about how to make dimensioned drawings, I’d suggest picking up [French]’s Engineering Drawing. Yes, the book is 100 years old, but what it teaches hasn’t changed in 200 years. This is how the draftsmen for the Apollo Lunar Module learned how to draw. Yes, lettering is hard if you don’t have the right pencils and have underdeveloped fine motor control, but we’re using computers now anyway. Read this book, learn how to properly dimension drawings, and stop annoying engineers who are trying to build stuff.
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Our industry sources claim that Microsoft is seriously talking to AMD about buying the chipmaker. The pair have been in talks for a while, but we are unsure if the deal is happening or when something will be announced.
It is no secret that AMD's CPU roadmap is hardly competitive. From late 2015 and through most of 2016 the business has been rubbish. The hope of Zen cores being successful is AMD's only option for survival. Microsoft has a lot of cash in the bank and has a place for AMD under its wing.
In case that Microsoft does acquire AMD, as we suggested a few months back, it will control the development of the next generation console chip for its future Xbox and it would be able to create decent GPUs to promote its DirectX 12 and beyond. Of course Microsoft would have to compete with Nvidia. Linux fans of AMD GPUs would not be too happy about it, although Redmond has been getting more open source friendly lately.
When it comes to CPUs, the future Zen derivative could end up in the future Surface, you know the tablet that iPad Pro copied the form factor, the cover keyboard and the pen. AMD has a server division as well as computational division, everything that Microsoft uses.
The fact that Raja Koduri, a man behind cool things at ART X and ATI Radeon R300 now runs Radeon Technology Group could mean that the company might be acquired in pieces too. We always suggested that one of the solutions is that AMD sells off GPU business to a company that would licence it back to AMD for its APU products.
Our well informed industry sources suggest that Intel is interested in the acquisition of AMD. Before you blast us with your comments, the world changed a few years back and Intel is not a monopoly anymore. Apple has quite big of a stake with iPads and companies like Samsung have their own SoCs that are used for their tablets and phones. Qualcomm and MediaTek got stronger as well. In this changed world Intel would have a chance to acquire AMD if it really wanted.
Desktop, Server, Notebooks will survive but some of these market segments are simply becoming less relevant than five years ago. Yes, the world has changed.
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In this blog post I want to introduce the Keechma Toolbox Library - a set of tools I've been using while developing Keechma apps. While Keechma the framework is pretty agnostic when it comes to implementation, the Toolbox lib is heavily opinionated and contains code that I'm using every day.
There is a possiblity that some of the stuff will end up in the separate packages, but right now it's all together because it's easier to develop and manage.
Today I'll talk about one of the sub-libraries - controller pipelines.
The Problem
When I was developing Keechma, I was very careful to leave the controllers open ended. Controllers are the connection point between your domain code and the UI so I didn't want to build too much structure or restrictions in them, I wanted you to be able to implement any features you want.
When you implement the handler function, you get access to the app-db atom, and two channels - in-chan , which is used to receive the messages, and out-chan , which is used for communication with other controllers. This flexibility is great, but the resulting code is not something I would call pretty:
(defn update! [app-db-atom updater] (reset! app-db-atom (updater @app-db-atom))) (defn load-restaurant [app-db-atom slug] ;; Before making the request for the restaurant save the empty item with ;; the meta defined - {:is-loading? true} (update! app-db-atom #(edb/insert-named-item % :restaurants :current {} {:is-loading? true})) (go ;; Load the restaurant and save it in the entity-db (let [req (<! (http/get (str "/restaurants/" slug))) meta {:is-loading? false} [success data] (unpack-req req)] (update! app-db-atom #(edb/insert-named-item % :restaurants :current data meta)))))
example command handler from the "Place My Order" app
There is a lot of stuff happening in this function:
We mark the current restaurant as loading (by storing {:is-loading? true} as it's metadata) We make an AJAX request to load the restaurant data We extract the data from the response ( unpack-req function) We finally store the data in the app-db
* There is one thing missing in this function - error handling.
This function is pretty short, but it suffers from a serious problem: it complects three different types of functions into one opaque blob:
Side-effect functions - functions that mutate the app-db Pure functions - like unpack-req Async functions that communicate with the API
I would also add that the code is not exactly clear in it's intent. A lot of things happen at once, some of which implicitly. That makes it hard to understand.
Let's rewrite this code to use pipelines (and pretend that the http/get function is returning a promise instead of a channel):
(pipeline! [value app-db] (pp/commit! (edb/insert-named-item app-db :restaurants :current {} {:is-loading? true})) (http/get (str "/restaurants/" value)) (unpack-req value) (pp/commit! (edb/insert-named-item app-db :restaurants :current (last value) {:is-loading? false})) (rescue! [error] (pp/commit! (edb-insert-named-item app-db :restaurants :current {} {:error error}))
While this code complects all of the steps, it looks much nicer:
You can easily follow the flow between steps You don't have to care about the async functions, it's handled for you automatically Side-effect functions are clearly marked ( pp/commit! ) Error handling is easy to implement Each of the functions in the pipeline is doing only one thing, which makes the intent clear
Now that you've seen the final result, let me explain how pipelines work.
Pipelines
I implemented pipelines out of frustration. I was writing the same boilerplate code over and over again. Most of the controller actions have the same form:
Mark some item or collection as loading Make a request to the API to load the data Extract the data from the response Put the data into the app-db Handle any errors that might have happened
So, just to load an item from the server we have to update the app-db two times, handle an async operation and handle any potential errors. Over and over again. This kind of code is hard to extract and generalize so I had a bunch of similar functions littered in the code base.
Pipelines allow me to write this code in a clear, declarative fashion and they are very easy to use when you understand how they work.
The implementation
Pipelines are built from a list of functions Each function can be either a side-effect or a processor function value is bound to the command arguments or the return value of the previous processor function app-db value is always bound to the current state of the app-db atom Side-effects can't affect the value - their return value is ignored If a processing function returns a promise, pipeline will wait until that promise is resolved or rejected before proceeding to the next function If a processing function returns nil the value argument will be bound to the previously returned value Any exception or promise rejection will cause the pipeline to jump to the rescue! block
I'm sure you're interested in how all of this works. Let's take a look at the pipeline code again:
(pipeline! [value app-db] (pp/commit! (edb/insert-named-item app-db :restaurants :current {} {:is-loading? true})) (http/get (str "/restaurants/" value)) (unpack-req value) (pp/commit! (edb/insert-named-item app-db :restaurants :current (last value) {:is-loading? false})) (rescue! [error] (pp/commit! (edb-insert-named-item app-db :restaurants :current {} {:error error}))
pipeline! is a macro and it transforms it's body block to something that looks like this:
{:begin [(fn [value app-db]) (pp/commit! (edb/insert-named-item app-db :restaurants :current {} {:is-loading? true})) (fn [value app-db]) (http/get (str "/restaurants/" value))) (fn [value app-db]) (unpack-req value)) (fn [value app-db] (pp/commit! (edb/insert-named-item app-db :restaurants :current (last value) {:is-loading? false})))] :rescue [(fn [value app-db error] (pp/commit! (edb-insert-named-item app-db :restaurants :current {} {:error error})))}
This code will be passed to the pipeline runner which knows how to handle this structure (if you're interested in how it works - check out the code).
Pipelines use the great Promesa library to handle promises, and each pipeline returns a promise.
Branching
If you have a pipeline that needs to implement some kind of branching (maybe you want to load the item only if it's not loaded yet) you can nest the pipelines:
;; on the pipeline start `value` will hold whatever was passed to the command as the argument (pipeline! [value app-db] (when (nil? (edb/get-named-item app-db :restaurants :current)) (pipeline! [value app-db] (pp/commit! (edb/insert-named-item app-db :restaurants :current {} {:is-loading? true})) (http/get (str "/restaurants/" value)) (unpack-req value) (pp/commit! (edb/insert-named-item app-db :restaurants :current (last value) {:is-loading? false}))) (rescue! [error] (pp/commit! (edb-insert-named-item app-db :restaurants :current {} {:error error})))
Pipelines allow you to implement features that require a series of steps to run in succession without forcing you to play the event ping pong.
Pipeline Controller
To actually run the pipelines, you must use the pipeline controller which is also a part of the Keechma Toolbox library, so the full example would look like this:
(ns pipelines.example (:require [keechma.toolbox.pipeline.core :as pp :refer-macros [pipeline!] [keechma.toolbox.pipeline.controller :as controller])) (def controller (controller/constructor (fn [_] true) ;; this is controller's `params` function {:load-restaurant ;; pipeline key is the command it responds to (pipeline! [value app-db] (when (nil? (edb/get-named-item app-db :restaurants :current)) (pipeline! [value app-db] (pp/commit! (edb/insert-named-item app-db :restaurants :current {} {:is-loading? true})) (http/get (str "/restaurants/" value)) (unpack-req value) (pp/commit! (edb/insert-named-item app-db :restaurants :current (last value) {:is-loading? false}))) (rescue! [error] (pp/commit! (edb-insert-named-item app-db :restaurants :current {} {:error error})))}))
Examples
Async Notifications
While I was doing research for pipelines, I wanted to see what other approaches exist. In that research I've encountered this thread on Stack Overflow which explains how to implement a notification system with Redux.
The idea is to have the notification appear and then automatically disappear after five seconds.
This is one of my favorite pipeline examples, because it's super simple but it still demonstrates the elegance of pipelines:
(ns pipelines.example (:require [keechma.toolbox.pipeline.core :as pp :refer-macros [pipeline!] [keechma.toolbox.pipeline.controller :as controller] [promesa.core :as p)) (defn delay-pipeline [msec] (p/promise (fn [resolve _] (js/setTimeout resolve msec)))) (def controller (controller/constructor (fn [_] true) ;; this is controller's `params` function {:show-notice ;; pipeline key is the command it responds to (pipeline! [value app-db] (pp/commit! (assoc app-db :notice value)) ;; store the notice in the app-db (delay-pipeline 5000) wait 5 seconds (pp/commit! (dissoc app-db :notice)))}))
That's it - clear, simple and obvious.
Live search
As I've mentioned before, pipelines return a promise. This allows them to be cancelled at any time (Promesa is using the Bluebird library which implements promise cancellation). In the next example, we'll take advantage of this property.
The task is to implement a live search - on each keypress call the command that will perform the search, wait 300 milliseconds and kick off the search request, if the command wasn't called again in the meantime. You've probably used a feature like this many times.
The problem with this feature is that you have to make sure that you don't have race conditions. If the search request started, and then the user enters another letter, you want to cancel that request and kick off a new one. Otherwise the first request could finish after the second one in which case you would show the wrong results to the user.
Pipelines have the exclusive function to help with cases like this. You wrap the pipeline with it, and then it will ensure that only one pipeline is running at the time, and if it's called again while the pipeline is running, it will cancel the current pipeline which will also cancel the AJAX request. Keechma toolbox comes with a thin wrapper around the cljs-ajax library which wraps the AJAX request functions with promises and implements request cancellation.
The final code looks like this
(ns pipelines.example (:require [keechma.toolbox.pipeline.core :as pp :refer-macros [pipeline!] [keechma.toolbox.pipeline.controller :as controller] [keechma.toolbox.ajax :refer [GET] [promesa.core :as p])) (defn delay-pipeline [msec] (p/promise (fn [resolve _] (js/setTimeout resolve msec)))) (defn movie-search [value] (GET (str "api/url?search=" value))) (def search-controller (pp-controller/constructor (fn [] true) {:search (pp/exclusive (pipeline! [value app-db] (when-not (empty? value) (pipeline! [value app-db] (delay-pipeline 300) (movie-search value) (println "SEARCH RESULTS:" value)))))}))
This is the workflow:
Make sure that the value is not empty Wait 300 milliseconds Make the request Print the results
There you have it, a live search implementation in ~20 lines of code.
Conclusion
Pipelines are one of my favorite parts of the Keechma toolbox library. I've been using them for months and I think that 90% - 95% of my controller code is in pipelines. They make my code clearer and easier to understand, and I hope you'll find them as useful as I do. Please let me know if you have any feedback.
We're working hard on the v1 release, and if you want to keep track of Keechma news and releases, subscribe to our newsletter:
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People often talk of “character arcs.” Arcs a fancy byword for “character change.” Think of your hero as a work in progress. Protagonist 1.0 might be cool and handsome, but isn’t in touch with his feminine side/greedy/can’t skateboard. Odds are that a series of amusing setpieces will turn him into Protagonist v2.0 who’s very in touch with his feminine side/not greedy/a good skater.
Let me illustrate with a bad pitch: A badass comes to a strange town. He kicks a bunch of ass. Then he kicks more ass. Then he fights the villain in a big showdown in a burning building. Then he leaves town with the girl.
Not much of a tale. If I were reading and covering this, I’d write something like, “The protagonist lacks a dramatic arc. He defeats the bad guys with skills and tools he had at the beginning.”
Stories are about change, about giving characters Freudian backstories and excuses, and then reconciling them in the course of the drama. This shouldn’t be too obvious, but still, you want an audience member of average intelligence to take in your tale and see where you’re coming from.
So let’s give our badass an arc. This is basically screenwriting at its most mediocre, but it’s illustrative of my basic point.
UNTITLED BADASS STORY, REV 01: A Badass comes to town. He kicks ass, but he’s no match for the main Badass who kicks even more ass. Badass is terrified of fire. He meets love interest *, and lets down his guard, revealing that a fire once beat up his mom. Trauma. But when his strength fails, the girl is there to help him, and he makes peace with ghosts. He kicks the bad guys ass in a burning building thanks to the confidence he’s gotten from his adventures in the story.
* Note that the love interest is a trophy, a metaphor for the quality the hero must attain to resolve the story. This is a very difficult trap to avoid.
The story is better than nothing because the hero changes/evolves/grows in the course of the story. For gods sake, don’t write an arc that trite and cheesy, but try coming up with an arc that fits in the paradigm that’s better than what I pitched.
That’s all I have to say about arcs for the moment.
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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) —
There are several questions around the Israeli helicopter gunship strike on Mazari` al-Amal in Syria’s Quneitra Province, which killed Hizbullah personnel and an Iranian general. First, what were the latter doing there? Second, why did Israel strike them?
The Israeli cover story, that Hizbullah was planning attacks inside Syria from Quneitra, does not make any sense to me. Hizbullah does not control the Syrian territory abutting Israel. Rather, the Golan and much of Quneitra province have fallen to the al-Qaeda affiliate, the Support Front (Jabhat al-Nusra) and a patchwork of other rebels, including some moderates. The Syrian army and its Lebanese and Iranian allies have been pushed northeast toward Damascus, and their counter-offensive this winter failed miserably. Hizbullah does control territory on the Lebanon-Israel border. So if the strike was out of fear of Hizbullah machinations against Israel, why hit them relatively deep in Syrian territory where they couldn’t do anything to Israel, rather than on the Lebanese border where they could?
Two explanations for the Israeli strike on Mazari` al-Amal occur to me:
1. It was merely opportunistic. The Israeli government has a vendetta with the Mughniya family, which Israeli forces pushed out of their farms in what is now northern Israel in 1948 (there were 7 Shiite villages that were erased in northern Israel). Imad Mughniya was assassinated in 2008 in Damascus, likely by Israeli intelligence, after a career as a sanguinary guerrilla who fought the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon 1982-2000. His son Jihad had recently emerged as a capable Hizbullah commander and was among those killed on Sunday. Hizbullah is notoriously penetrated by moles for Israel, and if one of them specified Mughniya’s location and that of an Iranian general, the Israelis may have felt that the opportunity was too good to pass up.
2. The Israelis are deliberately trying to throw the war to al-Qaeda by weakening Syrian defenses southwest of Damascus and helping the radical Support Front take territory nearer Damascus. Why they would want to do this is not clear (you’d think they’d be upset to have al-Qaeda as their direct neighbor in Golan, as they do now. They are always complaining about having Hamas-controlled Gaza as a neighbor but they aren’t fazed by having al-Qaeda as one?)
So personally I think the explanation that they just had an opportunity to take out people they saw as dangerous to them or to their goals in the long term is the more likely one. But they have at least to be all right with the likely outcome that al-Qaeda has been strengthened on their borders.
The Christian-owned Lebanese newspaper an-Nahar asks the essential question, of what in the world Hizbullah commanders and a general of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards were up to in Quneitra Province (southwest of Damascus) near the Syrian part of the Golan Heights (part of Golan has been occupied by Israel since 1967).
The answer is that they were trying to roll back advances by al-Qaeda/Support Front and its radical and moderate de facto allies, southwest of the capital and near the border with Israel. As a result, an-Nahar reports, the rebel forces said they welcomed any strike on Hizbullah, from no matter where it originated (i.e. even if it was from their common enemy, Israel). A leader of the moderate Brigades of the Sword of Syria said the foreign Lebanese Hizbullah had come into Syria to help the al-Assad regime massacre the Syrian people.
A Syria Press bureau reporter and the Syrian activist Maher al-Hamdan told An-Nahar that Mazari` al-Amal, where the Lebanese and Iranians were located, is between the districts of al-Mashati and Hadar to the north, Tel al-Ahmar and `Ain al-Nuriya to the south, rebel-held Taranja to the west, and Nab` al-Fawwar and `Ain al-Nuriya to the east. It is a fertile agricultural region, inhabited by only about 100 persons. (Quneitra is a province southwest of the capital of Damascus, the southern 80% of which has fallen to al-Qaeda and the northeastern 20% of which is still in regime hands).
The area has a Syrian government military barricade belonging to the 220th unit of military security. Al-Hamdan said that the weapons there are machine guns and heavy artillery, and the Israeli strike targeted these Syrian forces, which are the first line of defense for the Bashar al-Assad regime.
The Israeli raid, then, was not limited to hitting Hizbullah, since this area is considered a target rich environment for Israel. Al-Hamdan remarked that the area had military equipment of Russian provenance to spot drones, as well as Russian advisers, a Hizbullah military unit, and Iranian Revolutionary Guards tasked with protecting the Russian advisers.
In the past 6 months, the regime had lost 80% of Quneitra province as well as the entirety of the Syrian-held portion of the Golan Heights, to al-Qaeda/Support Front and its allies. And then last October rebels took al-Hara and its strategic hilltop, Tel al-Hara. At the same time, the rebels captured modern Russian military equipment there. The al-Assad government then sent troops into the region in a counter-offensive.
The Damascus regime rushed to build military posts in Tel al-Sha`ar and Tellat Ahmar, as well as forward operating bases in Mazari` al-Amal and nearby places. Some 24 Syrian garrisons were reinforced in this way after the fall of Tel al-Hara, and the regime made an attempt to recover its lost territory in the area, supported by Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hizbullah.
The counter-offensive failed, so the regime adopted a defensive posture in the area to protect the 20% of Quneitra province that had not fallen. Hizbullah commander Jihad Mughniya was in charge of this defensive effort.
An-Nahar’s sources allege that in addition to the 5 Hizbullah personnel and the one Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander killed, One Russian expert was lightly wounded, and 13 Hizbullah and IRGC personnel were wounded.
There had been no battles in Quneitra for about 20 days between the regime and al-Qaeda and other rebel forces, after the al-Assad loyalists had failed to take the town of al-Baath. The al-Assad forces had occasionally shelled al-Qaeda positions.
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Related video:
Reuters: “Thousands attend funeral for Hezbollah figure killed in air strike”
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Cue the fanfare. Apple released OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion at long last, after more than a year in development. First announced in February, third-party application developers have spent months preparing for the release.
Despite the release dubbed as a minor upgrade to the older 10.7 "Lion," Apple has included a number of new features to revitalize Mac sales ahead of Microsoft's Windows 8 launch later this year.
With greater iCloud integration, Messages, and social sharing, along with a brand new Notification Center, Apple continues the "iOS-ification" of its desktop operating system to bring it closer in line with its mobile cousins.
Mountain Lion is now available in the Mac App Store for $19.99 in the U.S., £13.99 in the U.K., €15.99 in Europe and AU$20.99 in Australia. Most modern Macs, MacBooks, and Mac minis will be able to download the operating system, and those who bought new Apple hardware in the past month will receive a free upgrade.
Here's a roundup of what you need to know, from ZDNet and sister-site CNET:
Larry Dignan: It's not immediately clear what Apple's Mac OS speedy cadence and feature unification with iOS will mean for business users.
Also see: ZDNet: Apple's Q3 disappoints; iPhone shipments light | Apple's Q3 earnings: The numbers to know | Apple's enterprise mojo: Education shines | Apple should worry about Mac sales, not the iPhone or iPad | CNET: A miss: Apple sells 26 million iPhones in third quarter | Apple sells record 17 million iPads in latest quarter
Rachel King: As a MacBook Pro owner who upgraded to "Lion" last July, I'm not interested in Mountain Lion. Here's why.
ZDNet: A look-through at what you can expect to see in Apple's next-generation operating system, featuring 35 slides of screenshots, features, and changes to the Mac-based software.
CNET: Apple has embarked on an ambitious plan to release a major OS X upgrade every year. What's it mean, and why? And what's missing from Mountain Lion, the upcoming update to the Mac OS?
CNET: At WWDC this year, Apple announced updates to its operating systems, iOS6 and Mountain Lion, as well as its new lineup of hardware.
CNET: In addition to bringing many iOS features to the Mac, the latest version of OS X -- Mountain Lion -- further unifies the user experience while adding new security protection.
CBS News: Rejoice Macheads! Apple's new operating system Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion is almost here.
CNET: Apple's next OS is due out in July, but when it comes time to upgrade will you be prepared?
Zack Whittaker: Apple has ditched the traditional 'Software Update' utility in favour of bringing fixes, changes, and updates to the Mac App Store instead.
CNET: Apple's enhanced software updating routine has its benefits and drawbacks.
Dancho Danchev: The latest update to the Mountain Lion Developer Preview, includes the OS X Security Update Test 1.0 feature which silently downloads and installs the latest security updates.
Emil Protalinski: Apple is once again choosing to integrate Twitter into one of its operating systems. Facebook does not get a mention in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. Does this mean it won't make it into iOS either?
CNET: OS X users of Lion and Snow Leopard can update to Mountain Lion for $19.99 when the new OS ships in July.
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes: Ecosystem is only part of the equation.
Jason D. O'Grady: Mountain Lion (developer preview 1) is actually a pretty compelling release, but it's still a developer preview -- meaning it has some nasty bugs -- as I learned this weekend.
CNET: Apple had a plan for what it wanted to show off in Mountain Lion when it came out last week, but what about smaller changes and tweaks to the operating system?
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes: Gatekeeper is really little more than a tool that restricts what the user can run, rather than a security tool that sorts the wheat from the toxic chaff.
Jason D. O'Grady: Anything's possible, of course, but there's cause for concern for anyone waiting for a version of iBooks for OS X.
Zack Whittaker: A startling reminder that the world is not on the desk anymore, or on our laps. It's in the palm of our hands, or resting in our pockets ready to be beckoned at our every whim.
CNET: Don't have the patience to watch nearly two hours of Apple's keynote from WWDC 2012? CNET's got you covered with the highlights.
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Turkey Prime Minister Hamas : Breaking News – Turkey Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan says that Hamas is not a terror organization.
Breaking News – Turkey Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan says that Hamas is not a terror organization.
Turkey Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said in a speech to thousands of people in the Turkish city of Konya during a rally that he “does not see Hamas as a terror organization”.
How Israel, the United States and other European countries will react to this speech is unknown but it is sure to further deteriorate relations between Israel and Turkey.
Tensions had been in almost breaking point after an Aid Flotilla lead by the Turkish ship Blue Marmara was raided by Commandos belonging to the Israeli Defense Forces in which nine demonstrators were killed.
The Turkish Prime Minister who cut short his trip in Latin America to return to Turkey to deal with the issue condemned Israel’s actions and described it as a “bloody massacre”.
Israel, Japan, Canada, the United States and the governments of the European Union, identify Hamas as a terrorist organization.
The speech by the Turkish Prime Minister comes a day after eight of the dead from the Flotilla raid, all of Turkish origin were buried.
The coffins which were covered with Palestinian and Turkish flags were carried above shoulders with thousands of protesters chanting anti Israeli slogans in the victims cities of residents in Turkey.
Update – The Prime Minister also criticized the newspaper and news website columnists which compared the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), which is listed as a terror organization in many countries around the world, with Hamas.
To be updated…
Write your comments and thoughts bellow.
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This crook threw top cops a curveball.
An NYPD baseball team, made up of some of the country’s best investigators, was thwarted by a lowly street thief — who swiped their jerseys and forced them to cancel a championship game at a tournament in Dallas on Friday.
“Being a victim sucks. We’re not too often on this side of things — making the police report, not taking it,” said New York’s Finest Baseball Club manager José Vasquez.
His team was set to face off against the Dallas Fire Department’s team, The Dallas Fire Heat, in the final match of the Dallas Fire Department Classic charity tournament, Vasquez said.
But a ballsy burglar broke into the team’s silver Nissan minivan, which was parked at a Marriott Suites hotel in Dallas, law- enforcement sources said.
The morning of the big game, at 8:45 a.m., players discovered the crook had made off with $15,000 worth of sports gear including gloves, bats, and seven of their blue and yellow uniforms, Vasquez said.
Instead of hitting the field, the sluggers spent the morning filling out police reports, fouling up their chance of taking home a trophy, Vasquez said.
“The guys are really upset, they’re devastated. They were even willing to play this afternoon in shorts; that’s how much they love baseball . . . Some of the guys would rather their luggage be stolen than uniforms,” said Vasquez, a retired NYPD officer.
The 18-member team, which is self-funded, is set to fly home on Saturday and can’t reschedule the game, he said.
No winner will be named in this year’s tournament, which featured two cop teams and three firefighter teams, sources said.
The New York ballplayers each forked over roughly $1,000 to participate in the round-robin tourney, where they earned a 3-1 record.
It was a tease to come that close to winning, said Vasquez, explaining the team won two tournaments last year.
“We were ready to take the south . . . We were going to take home that trophy,” he said.
Scott Mills, who plays for the Dallas Fire Heat, feels his pain.
“He was upset. He got a lot of young guys who play and they got ripped off . . . They were mad, and I don’t blame them,” said Mills.
Van windows were not smashed and it looked like a “professional job,” Vasquez said.
Dallas cops dusted the van for fingerprints, law-enforcement sources said. There were no surveillance cameras at the scene.
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Trump critic and Republican Sen. Jeff Flake suggested Sunday that the president’s words and actions have left him open to a primary challenge if he seeks reelection.
“If he continues on the path that he's on, that is going to leave a huge swath of voters looking for someone else,” Flake, who is not seeking reelection in 2018, told ABC News’ “This Week.” He's probably inviting a Republican challenge.”
Flake also said Trump’s continued path could result in a “diminished base” and “a huge swath of voters in the middle that may be looking for something else” -- including a “far left” president like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent, or Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
The first-term senator has been perhaps the most outspoken congressional Republican against Trump.
Flake has made clear that he didn’t vote for Trump in 2016. And, he has openly criticized the president on several matters over roughly the past 18 months, including Trump's travel ban affecting mostly Muslim countries -- and more recently the president’s support for Republican Roy Moore, who recently lost the special Senate election in Alabama amid accusations of sexual misconduct decades ago.
Flake, whose opposition to Trump in conservative-leaning Arizona hurt any reelection chances, also said Sunday that Trump “certainly” will face a challenge from an independent candidate, which has happened to every president in recent history.
However, Flake said that he doesn’t plan on seeking the GOP presidential nomination in 2020.
“I don't rule anything out, but it's not in my plans,” he told ABC News.
Flake also suggested he wouldn’t leave the GOP and that Moore’s defeat could turn around the party and help it move away from its "ultra-nationalist" element.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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The Martins live in a quiet Brooklyn neighbourhood
New York's police chief has delivered a cheesecake to an elderly couple in Brooklyn, to apologise for dozens of mistaken police visits to their home.
A computer glitch had led officers to Walter and Rose Martin's home 50 times in the past eight years, police said.
The latest intrusion came on Tuesday, with officers pounding on the front and back doors, shouting "Police, open up!"
Thursday's visit - cheesecake in hand - went well. The Martins, aged 82 and 83, shared pictures of their grandchildren.
New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly visited the couple's modest home on Friday to "apologise and explain" for the mix-up, NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne told the Associated Press.
The problem started in 2002, when the Martin's home address was used as "test data" for a new computer crime-tracking system.
The couple complained about the harrowing visits in 2007, but the data remained in the system despite efforts to "purge the records", Deputy Commissioner Browne said.
He added that the Martin's address had now been flagged with alerts "barring officers" from questioning the octogenarians.
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Turkish Ambassador Namik Tan in Denver in June. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Before fiscal cliff, before sequester, before debt ceiling, before the craziness on the Hill — the United States proudly sent billions of dollars a year abroad to help developing countries.
And, despite all the trauma, we still do.
But now it appears a bit of that money is trickling back. For example, Turkey’s Agency for Cooperation and Collaboration (TIKA) — that country’s Agency for International Development — is giving a $200,000 grant to the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, southeast of Portland.
The grant is to help build a water tank as part of an elementary school construction project and help folks out there “meet their water needs for the next 10 years,” according to an invite we got to a reception Tuesday evening at the residence of our NATO ally Turkey’s ambassador, Namik Tan.
The reception is to celebrate the grant, the first ever to “an entity within the United States,” the invitation says. It also “highlights the dire development needs of America’s tribal lands.”
Not that other countries — the United Arab Emirates this year after the devastating Joplin, Mo. tornadoes, for one — haven’t extended help to Americans after a natural disaster. (And there’s that free oil/propaganda stunt that Venezuela’s lefty government has been doing for low-income folks here in winter.)
And it should be noted that Turkey and Native Americans have long felt a kinship based on feelings of a shared ancestry long, long ago.
But still. . .
Guess it’s time to find some worthy program out there to highlight the dire development needs of the Kurds?
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Leicester have set their sights on the rest of Iceland after Swansea rejected their £40m offer for Gylfi Sigurðsson.
According to reports, Craig Shakespeare’s Foxes will have to stump up £30m to sign the other 330,822 Icelanders and all of their nation’s natural resources.
Speaking exclusively to Football Burp, Shakespeare hailed the outstanding value of the deal.
He said: “£30m might seem like a lot of money but it’s pretty par for the course in the current market.
“And it’s outstanding value when you consider we’ll be getting 330,822 players, albeit the vast majority of those are not professional footballers.
“Nevertheless, it will be good to pad out the squad a bit, what with Riyad Mahrez probably going to Arsenal or something.”
Sigur Rós were unavailable for comment.
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Dressed in leather jackets and pants with studded belts, and sporting tatoos and menacing looks, some members of motorcycle gangs such as Hells Angels, Bandidos or Outlaws seem to enjoy their ferocious image. But now the German state of North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW) is ramping up the pressure on biker gangs.
On Thursday, the northwestern state's Interior Minister Ralf Jäger banned the "MC Bandidos Aachen" gang and five of its sub-groups. More than 600 police officers raided apartments and offices of the club and seized weapons, cash, computers and even a gadget for tapping police wireless.
The biker gangs have long been considered violent, and believed to have links to organized crime. Jäger said the police operation was carried out following tip-offs that the Bandidos "wanted to expand their criminal dominance" in the area in and around the city of Aachen.
Authorities say there is plenty of evidence to show the gangs are gaining strength. "Since mid-2005, the number of biker groups has almost doubled," said Thomas Jungbluth, head of the organized crime unit with NRW's criminal police agency.
The Bandidos alone registered 12 chapters in 2005, Jungbluth said, adding that today that number has grown to 25 chapters with 900 members.
Operating as big firms
Dirk Wilking, motorcycle gang expert at the Brandenburg Institute for Community Consultancy, said the groups operated as "large enterprises" across Germany and Europe. "They especially pursue economic interests and are largely active in the area of organized crime."
There's been an upsurge in rival biker gang violence in Germany in recent years
The gangs are usually linked to gambling, prostitution, arms dealing, extortion, money laundering and drug trafficking. The big international biker gangs are primarily involved in the drugs trade, including anabolic steroids. The latter, Wilking said, is a relatively new development. "These substances are supplied to fitness clubs, partly by biker gangs," he said.
The gangs constantly try to operate outside the borders of the European Union's Schengen zone, in countries on the edge of Europe where they can set up laboratories to prepare synthetic drugs. "Then they're out of reach of the EU and Europol," Wilking said.
Powerful symbols
The bikers' trademark include riding prestigious motorcycles such as Harley Davidson and sporting leather jackets with their clubs' insignia sown on the back. The Bandidos' patch bears a tubby Mexican wearing a large sombrero and carrying a machete in one hand and a pistol in the other. The Hells Angels' insignia is the "death's head" logo with wings.
Insignia is a crucial part of the biker gang culture
The insignia alone is full of powerful symbolism, Wilking said. "It plays a crucial role, because these groups offer a masculine image that hardly conforms to what's acceptable in society anymore: a proper macho, a real man. The law doesn't apply to me. I'm a biker."
That's the reason it's mostly working-class men who attracted to these gangs, Wilking said, even though at times even the occasional lawyer could be found in their ranks. "That's what makes these groups so attractive."
Blocking investigations
But prosecuting criminal bikers is far from easy. "Bikers usually maintain a wall of silence towards any investigations," Jungbluth said. "Even if a member is seriously injured, he will not give any tips that could lead to the perpetrator being caught."
Rather, bikers often make completely implausible statements to block the investigation or make it more difficult. There are hardly any bikers who leave the scene and if they do, they "have to reckon with harsh reprisals," Jungbluth added.
Founded in 1966 in San Antonio, Texas, the Bandidos have their roots in the US army. Their founder was a former Vietnam Marine veteran, Donald Eugene Chambers. His club was a refuge for soldiers who returned back to the US disappointed by the Vietnam war and sought a new home.
The motorcycle embodies the symbol of freedom linked with a strong sense of belonging to the group. The Hells Angels were formed in 1948 in California. After merging with further clubs, the gang expanded to Europe in the 1960s.
Bans are just a temporary solution
Biker expert Dirk Wilking says banning the groups, as was done in North-Rhine Westphalia, is a good approach. The gangs define themselves through their uniformity and their menacing appearance, so it's easy for them to spread an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. "That can only be broken with bans," Wilking said.
But the problem is that it's usually only local groups that are banned - as in the case of North-Rhine Westphalia.
"So you put a permanent ban one chapter of the gang, and then on another, but you don't get to the network of organized crime itself,” Wilking said. The local groups are only the local expression of an international phenomenon.
Author: Arne Lichtenberg / sp
Editor: Michael Lawton
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In this article we will demonstrate how to build a WebSockets driven application using Rails 5’s ActionCable. By using RethinkDB's active changefeeds feature we can eliminate the need for a separate event broadcasting service like Redis, resulting in elegant and succinct code.
The application that we will be building is a collaborative spreadsheet application much like Google Sheets. It will broadcast to each user the selected cells in different colors, the data in the cells and will guard against multiple users editing the same cell.
First we'll give a short introduction into how ActionCable and RethinkDB work, then we will move to the implementation of a small but powerful application. You can check out the source code of the end result by going here.
Setting up a basic ActionCable channel
ActionCable is a new Rails 5 feature that allows developers to add WebSocket services into their applications in a simple way. GoRails has an excellent full tutorial on ActionCable located here. For this article, just the bare essentials are needed.
Create new base project by running rails new <your_project_name>
Add a route to the ActionCable server in your config/routes.rb :
Rails.application.routes.draw do mount ActionCable.server => '/cable' end
Generate an ActionCable channel:
rails g channel active_users
Then, to show a page where we can make the WebSocket connection we generate a simple controller:
rails g controller spreadsheet index
Finally we set the spreadsheet index as the root route by adding the following line to the end of the draw block in config/routes.rb :
root 'spreadsheet#index'
This sequence of steps has provided us with a fully functioning WebSockets server. We can test it by running passenger start or rails s , then pointing a browser to http://localhost:3000 , opening the inspector and inspecting the /cable WebSocket connection. You should see the initial subscription to the active_users channel pass by as well as a steady stream of heartbeat frames.
Introducing RethinkDB to the application
RethinkDB is a document oriented data store much like MongoDB, but with some key advantages. It has a query language that maps very nicely to dynamic languages like Ruby, Node.JS and Python, it also has automatic sharding and replication features which makes it a relatively safe choice for applications that might scale to large numbers of users. However, the differentiating feature we are interested in for this application is changefeeds.
Changefeed queries start out like any regular query, but instead of the query going over the collection once and then returning its results the query remains alive. While the query is alive it returns any new results as they are entered into the database.
We will show how we can use changefeeds to power a reactive architecture for our web application in the next sections.
As a prerequisite, first install RethinkDB by following one of the installation guides for your operating system. Then open a new terminal and run rethinkdb to start the database system. You can visit http://localhost:8080 to browse around its administration interface.
Adding RethinkDB models to the application
The easiest way of adding RethinkDB models to your Ruby on Rails application is by using the NoBrainer gem. It will take care of connections, and wrap your documents in objects with relations and attributes just like ActiveRecord does.
To use it simply add it to your Gemfile :
gem 'nobrainer' gem 'nobrainer_streams'
Then run bundle and rails g nobrainer:install to have your application use NoBrainer instead of ActiveRecord.
NoBrainer creates databases and tables for you automatically, so we can skip the migration writing step and move on directly to the creation of a model. Simply add the following code to app/models/user.rb :
class User include NoBrainer::Document field :selected_cell end
Now we can use it in our channel by populating the lifecycle hooks and adding an action. Edit the app/channels/active_users.rb file to look like so:
class ActiveUsersChannel < ApplicationCable::Channel include NoBrainer::Streams def subscribed @user = User.create stream_from User.all, include_initial: true end def unsubscribed @user.destroy end end
The subscribed lifecycle callback now creates a new user every time a new channel is established. The stream_from invocation runs a RethinkDB query that is streamed directly to the WebSocket client. It streams all existing users, and then continues to stream users whenever they are created or destroyed.
The unsubscribed callback simply destroys the user associated with the channel. Note that this is not a very robust way of managing sessions, as the session might end without the unsubscribed hook being called in some scenarios. This results in leaking abandoned sessions in the database, but it will do for this basic demonstration.
Rendering the data on the client side
For showing the results of the query we will build a simple view by adding the following HTML to app/views/spreadsheet/index.html.erb :
<section id="active_users"> <h2>Active users</h2> <ul id="active_users_list"> </ul> </section>
To populate this view we first edit the receive method of the client side channel implementation in app/assets/javascripts/channels/active_users.coffee to update the client side model whenever new data arrives:
App.active_users = App.cable.subscriptions.create "ActiveUsersChannel", received: (data) -> if data.old_val && !data.new_val App.spreadsheet.remove_user(data.old_val) else if data.new_val App.spreadsheet.new_user(data.new_val)
Then we update the view with some simple jQuery commands in app/assets/javascripts/spreadsheet.coffee :
App.spreadsheet = active_users: {} new_user: (user) -> @active_users[user.id] = user @render_active_users() remove_user: (user) -> delete @active_users[user.id] @render_active_users() render_active_users: () -> $('#active_users_list').html( ("<li>#{user.id}</li>" for id,user of @active_users).join("") )
At this point you can open a few sessions by navigating to localhost:3000 in multiple browser tabs and see how the user list immediately updates.
Now that we have gone through the basics of setting up a basic ActionCable channel from the backend to the frontend, we will move on to make the application a little more complex and implement a multi-user spreadsheet.
Implementing a multi-user spreadsheet
From this point on we're going to show only the essence of the changes needed to make each feature work as the slightly more complex features tend to require additional logic that distracts from the core idea. If you would like to follow along and implement every step, have a look at this github repo that has every step as a single git commit.
To set the scene for our spreadsheet we add a quick and dirty spreadsheet view using jQuery and HandsOnTable. A more forward looking developer might refactor this to use React or Polymer.
We add the spreadsheet element to our HTML in app/views/spreadsheet/index.html.erb :
<% content_for(:head) do %> <%= javascript_include_tag "https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/handsontable/0.26.1/handsontable.full.js" %> <%= stylesheet_link_tag "https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/handsontable/0.26.1/handsontable.full.css" %> <% end %> <!-- ... --> <section id="spreadsheet"> </section>
Then we add a setup function to app/assets/javascripts/spreadsheet.coffee :
App.spreadsheet = # ... setup: () -> container = document.getElementById('spreadsheet') @hot = new Handsontable(container, minSpareCols: 1 minSpareRows: 1 rowHeaders: true colHeaders: true contextMenu: true ) $ -> App.spreadsheet.setup()
Streaming field selections as colorful cells
A cool feature of the multi-user spreadsheet is that you can see what cells other users have selected. To implement this feature we add an action that stores a user's cell selection to our channel in app/channels/active_users.rb :
class ActiveUsersChannel < ApplicationCable::Channel # ... def select_cells(message) @user.update! selected_cells: message['selected_cells'] end end
Then on the Javascript side we add a function that invokes that action over the WebSocket connection in app/assets/javascripts/channels/active_users.coffee :
App.active_users = App.cable.subscriptions.create "ActiveUsersChannel", # ... select_cells: (cells) -> @perform('select_cells', selected_cells: cells)
That function in turns gets invoked every time a selection is made, or a selection is discarded, on the spreadsheet. Since we are already subscribed to the users these changes will immediately be streamed back to the channel, so we also add a render_selected_cells function that adds the user-<num> CSS class to selected cells. Both in app/assets/javascripts/spreadsheet.coffee :
App.spreadsheet = setup: () -> # ... @hot = new Handsontable(container, afterSelection: () => @select_cells(arguments) afterDeselect: () => @deselect_cells() # ... select_cells: (cells) -> App.active_users.select_cells(r: cells[0], c: cells[1], r2: cells[2], c2: cells[3]) deselect_cells: () -> App.active_users.select_cells(null) render_selected_cells: () -> for cells in @selected_cells cell = @hot.getCell(cells.r, cells.c) if cell.classList.contains("current") cell.classList = "current" else cell.classList = "" @selected_cells = [] for id, user of @active_users if id != @current_user.id && (cells = user.selected_cells) @selected_cells.push(cells) cell = @hot.getCell(cells.r, cells.c) cell.classList.add('user-' + user.num)
Now visualizing the selected styles is simply a matter of defining the color scale in
/app/assets/stylesheets/spreadsheet.scss :
@mixin colored-border($color) { box-shadow:inset 0px 0px 0px 2px $color; } .user-1 { @include colored-border(#33a02c);} .user-2 { @include colored-border(#e31a1c);} .user-3 { @include colored-border(#ff7f00);} .user-4 { @include colored-border(#6a3d9a);} .user-5 { @include colored-border(#b15928);} .user-6 { @include colored-border(#a6cee3);} .user-7 { @include colored-border(#b2df8a);} .user-8 { @include colored-border(#fb9a99);} .user-9 { @include colored-border(#fdbf6f);} .user-10 { @include colored-border(#cab2d6);} .user-11 { @include colored-border(#ffff99);} .user-12 { @include colored-border(#1f78b4);}
Go ahead and open up a few tabs just to have fun looking at the colored cells moving around.
Transmitting the field values
This part will be really simple, yet it is the core of the application. First we introduce a model for the spreadsheet cells in app/models/spreadsheet_cell.rb :
class SpreadsheetCell include NoBrainer::Document field :location field :value end
Then we generate a channel (using rails g channel spread_sheet_cells ) and populate it with a stream for the cell values and an action for updating a cell in app/channels/spread_sheet_cells_channel.rb :
class SpreadSheetCellsChannel < ApplicationCable::Channel include NoBrainer::Streams def subscribed stream_from SpreadsheetCell.all, include_initial: true end def set_cell_value(message) location = message['location'] SpreadsheetCell.upsert! location: location, value: message['value'] end end
Then we open the client side at app/assets/javascripts/channels/spread_sheet_cells.coffee and implement the communication endpoints:
App.spread_sheet_cells = App.cable.subscriptions.create "SpreadSheetCellsChannel", received: (data) -> App.spreadsheet.update_cell(data.new_val) set_cell_value: (location, value) -> @perform('set_cell_value', location: location, value: value)
Now the only thing left to do is to implement the client side controller at app/assets/javascripts/spreadsheet.coffee . We add an afterChanged event to store the new value, and an update_cell action that sets incoming data:
App.spreadsheet = # ... setup: () -> # ... @hot = new Handsontable(container, afterChange: (changes, source) => if source != 'remote' && changes for change in changes App.spread_sheet_cells.set_cell_value( { r: change[0], c: change[1] }, change[3] ) # ... ) update_cell: (update) -> location = update.location value = update.value @hot.setDataAtCell(location.r, location.c, value, 'remote')
Just a couple of lines and we end up with an application that is already quite impressive. Open it up in a few browser windows and add some data. The real time streaming aspect of WebSockets makes the app a really satisfying experience.
To give this application just a little bit of extra robustness we will add a slightly more advanced feature: edit locks.
Implementing locks to prevent concurrent edits
When a user starts typing in a cell it would be unfortunate if another user started editing that cell at the same time and one of their modifications was lost. The most straightforward solution to this problem is to lock the cell to whoever selects the cell for editing first.
We will implement edit protection locks as the last feature of this spreadsheet application. Starting at the backend again, first we add two methods to the User class in app/models/user.rb :
class User include NoBrainer::Document field :selected_cells before_destroy :unlock_cell def lock_cell(location) NoBrainer.run do |r| SpreadsheetCell.rql_table .get(location) .replace do |row| r.branch( row.eq(nil), { location: location, lock: id }, row.merge( r.branch(row['lock'].eq(nil), {lock: id},{}) )) end end end def unlock_cell SpreadsheetCell.where(lock: id).update_all lock: nil end end
Whenever a user opens a cell for editing, before the cell allows the user to edit it will ask the server for a lock. The complex looking RethinkDB query in the lock_cell method, in one operation: looks up the cell, checks if it is locked, and if it is not locked sets the lock to the id of the user. Since we are setting the lock in the SpreadsheetCell document that all users are subscribed to, all users will receive any updates in lock statuses of cells.
The unlock_cell command looks through the entire document to find locks and releases them. We also introduced a before_destroy callback so that when the user closes their connection any locks they held are released.
On the client side we injected a monkey patch to HandsOnTable to allow us to intercept the beginEditing and finishEditing functions by setting acquireEditLock and releaseEditLock properties. They look like this:
App.spreadsheet = # ... setup: () -> @selected_cells = [] @cell_lock_callback = {} container = document.getElementById('spreadsheet') @hot = new Handsontable(container, ..) @hot.acquireEditLock = (editor, callback) => location = {r: editor.row, c: editor.col} @cell_lock_callback[location] = callback App.active_users.lock_cell(location) @hot.releaseEditLock = (editor, callback) => location = {r: editor.row, c: editor.col} App.active_users.unlock_cell(location) callback() update_cell: (update) -> location = r: update.location[0], c: update.location[1] value = update.value @hot.setDataAtCell(location.r, location.c, value, 'remote') if update.lock == @current_user.id @cell_lock_callback[location]?() delete @cell_lock_callback[location] # ...
In acquireEditLock we store the callback that enables the user to edit the cell they selected and we send the request for the lock to the active_users channel.
In releaseEditLock we simply send the unlock_cell command to the active_users channel.
Finally when in update_cell a lock is detected for the current user, we look up if there is an associated callback and invoke it.
Bleeding edge technology
Rails 5 is a fresh release and ActionCable is the new kid on the block. A consequence of working with new technologies like this is that the ecosystem is not fully adjusted to them yet. For the purposes of this blog we implemented monkey patches to both the RethinkDB Ruby driver and the NoBrainer ORM to ensure a seamless integration. They are injected through a gem but there are PR's outstanding for both the driver and the ORM. With time these or other PR's will get merged and we can enjoy these new technologies without friction.
Conclusion
After a short introduction to both the Rails 5 WebSocket component: ActionCable, and the RethinkDB database system, this article took us through the implementation of a concurrent & collaborative spreadsheet. The spreadsheet shows selected cells, guards against simultaneous edits of single cells, and immediately persists all data.
ActionCable makes setting up data channels and making remote procedure calls easy work. RethinkDB can be made to integrate with ActionCable channels and allows us to implement communication between clients that is persisted and broadcasted without the need of an additional message broker.
We hope this article has inspired you to build exciting new applications or features driven by WebSockets.
If you liked this article please stay tuned by subscribing to our mailing list, and be sure to give it an upvote on HN or Reddit. We recently published a blog post on ActionCable located here that will soon be followed up with a part 2.
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Following 2012's Hurricane Sandy, Verizon has put together a new set of flood barrier and network transformation methods that are designed to achieve two goals: keep its wireline network operational and hasten its ongoing copper-to-fiber migration.
During Sandy, which flooded several of its service and COs, the service provider reported $1 billion in damage due to water and related storm damage.
While Verizon always prepares for storms, Kevin Service, SVP of network operations at Verizon, told FierceTelecom that the company did not expect the water to rise so quickly to flood various key switching centers in New York and New Jersey.
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RELATED: Verizon blames Hurricane Sandy, other issues for not completing NYC FiOS build out on time
“It was remarkable how fast the water came up and flooded some of these offices,” Service said. “Even though we have generators and backup power to support our network, there’s not a lot you can do when everything is under water.”
Preventative measures
Verizon 140 West Street flood
Over the five years since Hurricane Sandy, the service provider is taking what it says are preventative measures in anticipation of future weather events where flooding could occur.
“When you look back at everything that happened and what you can do to prevent it in the future, the first thing you must focus on is how do you protect your assets and prevent the damage caused by water,” Service said. “The poles that blow down are easy to put back up, but when the water gets into your switch equipment and your copper cables, it’s very difficult if not impossible to fix.”
Specifically, Verizon has continued to harden its network environment by taking various steps: moving generators to higher floors and encasing fuel pumps in submarine enclosures.
Additionally, Verizon built a portable nine-foot flood wall around its 140 West Street office in New York City if there’s another storm that could cause water damage.
“This prevents the water from coming into places where we have equipment,” Service said.
Fiber resiliency
Being a 100-plus year old ILEC, one of the big learnings for Verizon during this storm was the damage to its copper network. Once copper wiring gets wet, it is very hard to replace.
In New York City, the service provider’s COs at Broad Street and Bell Harbor in Queens were destroyed. However, the damage at these facilities gave the company an opportunity to transition them all to fiber.
Verizon NYC fiber installation
“We’ve spent the better half of the last several years making sure that we got all the copper that comes out of those offices out of the network and completed converted to fiber,” Service said. “There’s no more copper infrastructure left coming out of those central offices.”
What Verizon has found as it has converted more of its COs to fiber is that it has less trouble reports from its customers than it had on its current copper-based networks.
“Our outside plant report rate is about a tenth of what it is on the copper network,” Service said. “When we have storms that roll through other parts of the country and there’s a lot of flooding and water damage, we just don’t see that on our fiber network.”
Service added that the only issues that tend to affect the fiber network are physical cuts, like a tree cutting a cable due to wind.
“The type of water damage we saw we incurred with Sandy won’t affect us the same way in these offices where we are 100% fiber,” Service said. “We have spent a lot of time putting fiber into our network.”
Targeted copper retirement
Given the cost and time it takes retire copper, Verizon is taking a targeted approach by prioritizing its largest markets like New York City first.
In New York City, the service provider has 66 wire centers in the five boroughs. So far, the service provider has converted four that were severely damaged by Sandy but Verizon plans to enable all of them with fiber over time.
“Four of the COs where we have taken a lot of damage from Sandy are further ahead than others in terms of the transformation effort, but all 66 are on our plan to fiberize,” Service said. “This means to take all of the copper out of the network and put fiber everywhere.”
Following Hurricane Sandy, Verizon installed 5,000 miles of fiber and then another 2,000 miles of fiber.
Service said every year “we are putting more and more fiber into that network which will significantly reduce storm damage going forward.”
Outside of New York City, the service provider has continued to retire copper facilities in other parts of its Northeast wireline footprint.
In September, the service provider filed requests with the FCC in towns and cities in the legacy ILEC markets of Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland and Delaware.
During the process of retiring copper, Verizon lays out a plan what facilities it wants to shut down and then talks to each customer, which is usually a mix of consumers, businesses and other carriers.
“We have consumer customers, we have businesses customers, enterprise customers, and wholesale carrier customers on copper,” Service said. “We have to do a like for like product match to make sure that the product that the customer is purchasing can be provided on fiber.”
Service said that while converting business customers to fiber is a bit more challenging, Verizon has the overall retirement process down to a science. This process includes understanding the product set used, scheduling a time for conversion, installing new facilities in the building, and getting a like for like service.
“Going through the process of every customer served by an office is laborious,” Service said. “As we work through all of that we do it across multiple offices. When we get to point of having 99.9% of the services converted, we’ll start the work of retiring the switch and taking the copper switches out of the network.”
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Microsoft announced a new partnership today that makes it a lot easier to transfer your OneNote writings over to WordPress.
The company has created a WordPress plugin that inserts a OneNote button into your editor. When clicked, you’ll be able to search for the specific onenote page you’d like to publish.
As OneNote documents are synced to the cloud, you can start jotting your blog posts on any of OneNote’s supported platforms(iOS, OS X, Android, Windows and Windows Phone) to then input into WordPress. The plug-in could come in handy if you tend to use OneNote to draft your writing.
To set up the link, check out the OneNote plugin page here.
WordPress aside, Microsoft also announced partnerships with smart pen maker Equil and cloud storage aggregator CloudHQ.
➤ OneNote welcomes three new partners—cloudHQ, Equil and WordPress [OneNote]
Read next: Abused Emojis keyboard for iPhone helps kids talk about battering, bullying and dark feelings
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The majority of teachers are treating Leave voters with disdain and contempt, referring to them as “pond life” and “thick”, a politics teacher from north London has revealed.
Thursday’s shock EU referendum result delivered perhaps the largest peaceful uprising of the masses against the establishment, yet Britain’s mostly left-leaning teachers are not celebrating. Instead, they are siding with the establishment to dismiss the democratic result as having come about thanks to “uneducated” working class voters ignoring the better judgement of the so-called experts, a Leave-voting teacher has reported.
The idea that the popular vote to leave the EU may foment racist feeling is popular among Remain supporters, and teachers are no exception. The TES published an article just two days before polling day, written by a former union leader, warning that: “The Leave campaign has given permission for intolerance and racism in society.”
The author used words such as “xenophobic”, “nasty” and “racist” to describe the Leave campaign, adding: “It feels as though the Leave campaign and the media support for it have given permission for intolerance and racism in a way that makes the job of schools in upholding those values that much harder.”
But politics teacher Kevin Rooney, head of social science at Queens’ School in Bushey, North West London, has said that, in his experience, Leave supporters are more likely to be the victims of intolerance than its perpetrators.
Mr. Rooney defied the trend within education and voted to Leave – but he says his elation at seeing the result on Friday morning quickly turned to dismay that afternoon as, at an education conference attended by hundreds of teachers, he witnessed his fellow teachers write off the democratic will of the people.
Far from Brexit precipitating an outpouring of hate and racism, he says “the intolerance and anger I encountered was directed at people who voted Leave”.
Throughout the conference the contempt his fellow teachers showed for working class people in particular was laid bare:
“A teacher in the first debate I attended described the voters of Sunderland as “pond life” and proceeded to label working-class people in the north of England as “thick”. Many speakers at the event regularly departed from the topic at hand to publicly ridicule Leave voters as, among other things, ‘narcissistic, ignorant, selfish and racist’.”
Calling for unity, he asks: “surely teachers can do better than meeting intolerance with more intolerance? And showing such disdain for democracy is hardly sending a great message to our students. For years we have been urging pupils to take citizenship classes, to value democracy and to use their vote in elections. Yet the reaction of many teachers to this expression of democracy is to rage against the result and suggest that such fundamental questions should not be ceded to the great unwashed.”
His colleagues’ views are troubling in themselves, Mr. Rooney says, but he points to a much deeper problem running through the rhetoric:
“What is striking was that so many people within education now feel they can speak with such open contempt and disdain about Leave voters without fear of being challenged. Why is it now acceptable to talk about sections of the British public in such terms?
“The disconnect between the people and the political class is well-documented, but I fear we are witnessing a similar disconnect between teachers and many of the working-class communities we are supposed to serve. In my view, that is something that should worry us.”
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Tical- Method Man- Team ’94
By Charlie Burnett
Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) is undoubtedly one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time. Unfortunately it was released in November of 1993, and is therefore ineligible for this competition.
Method Man may not have the best performance on the album (although you could certainly make a case), but he definitely leaves the strongest impression. I’m not sure if it’s the distinct voice, Dr. Seuss references, or that he’s the only member with his own song, but Meth just sticks out.
So when executive producer RZA started working on each member’s solo album, it makes sense that Method Man was up first. But basically everything else about Tical was totally unpredictable.
It’s not that the album was a disappointment; it received strong reviews all around. Its just SO DARK.
The production is much heavier than what people expected from Wu-Tang. It’s still distinctively RZA, what with the Kung Fu samples, soul hooks and clever loops. But heavy, distorted bass lines replace the bubbly piano samples that drive 36 chambers. If you listen to Tical with headphones, you might feel like you have a heart condition.
Method Man distinguishes himself from Enter the Wu-Tang by matching the heaviness of the beats. He’s not saying stuff like “I’m rubber you’re glue, whatever bounces off me and sticks to you” in a light hearted goofy way. We hear a much more menacing Meth, whose going so hard that he’s “gonna grow like a rash on your nasty ass in a whip with no breaks and hitting the gas.”
But, like the production, it’s still distinctively Meth. He’s still just as self-referential as always (as in “I stick ‘em for the CREAM”). He still feels like he’s just talking over the beat, making it up as he goes along, but in a polished kind of way. I love how he just puts the last word of a sentence in the next line. Plus, his sporadic emphasis on whatever syllable he damn well pleases. Only Meth pulls that off.
Bring the Pain is definitely the standout song on this album. The hook (is it real son, is it really real son?) is so freaking Meth. He drops some of the best lines in the album, like how you can bet your bottom dollar that he bombs shit.
Then, right in the middle of the gothic heaviness comes one of the greatest love songs of all time. Over a sample of Marvin Gaye’s “You’re All I Need to Get By” Method Man promises to “Walk these dogs so we can live/ In a fat ass crib with thousands of Kids.”
I also really enjoyed the song Meth vs. Chef. It’s apparently a battle recorded during the making of 36 Chambers for a place on one of the songs. It simulates a boxing match, including a round break in the middle of Raekwon’s “verbal assault,” where he does the rap equivalent of some shadow boxing and comes back strong in the next round.
The Great Adventures of Slick Rick- Slick Rick – Team ’88
By Paul Gagne
Before Snoop Dogg’s laid back style, and Biggie’s word play with himself, and Eminem’s so over the top they are funny lyrics, there was Rick the Ruler, and in 1988 he was the best at all of those styles. He was such a huge influence on Snoop, that Snoop actually covered one of his songs. Not remixed, but almost word for word covered, which as far as I know is the only true cover in Hip-Hop. The one and only Ricky D influenced all these artists with one hit single, and one classic album. After the success of “La Di Da Di” Rick left Doug E Fresh and signed with Def Jam who hooked him up with Public Enemies production team, The Bomb Squad. What resulted was a true Hip-Hop masterpiece.
“Here’s an Oldie but a Goodie” Rick says prophetically to open the up the album. Even compared to the rest of 1988 the album somehow sounds classic. Rather than the insane, chaotic sound of Public Enemy, The Bomb Squad keeps the production minimal and fun throughout the whole album. The simple, synthesized melody on “The Ruler’s Back”, and the persistent, yet patient beat in “Children’s Story” are perfect examples of how the productions stays out of the way and lets the flow do the work.
And man what a flow it was. To this day, I have never heard anyone who sounded so… well… slick. He mostly sounds like he is just sliding through the songs, making observations, telling jokes, until all of a sudden he is bouncing on the beat, really drawing attention to what he is saying for example: “they robbed another, and another, and a sister, and a brother.” “Mona Lisa” really stands out with Rick performing as both distinctive sides of the duo; Slick Rick and MC Ricky D. Biggie would famously use this strategy with Young Biggie and Notorious B.I.G on “Gimme the Loot”. Song after song, Rick’s storytelling grabs you and takes you on the smoothest ride in Hip-Hop.
The rest of Rick’s career was derailed by a shooting that landed him in prison for 5 years. By the time he was out, he was more a legend than an active artist. Fittingly “The Art of Storytelling” feels more like a tribute than a real album. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Rick also took misogyny to new heights in rap (although N.W.A and the Geto Boys would pass him almost immediately) and really emphasized the incredibly damaging “treacherous, money-grabbing, female” archetype that rap still needs to get rid of. At the end of the day I have never heard anyone be smoother, or sound cooler on the mic. No rap storyteller can grab me as fast, and keep me as invested. Just one listen to The Great Adventures of Slick Rick, and there is no question, this is one of the greatest rappers of all-time at the absolute peak of his powers. He was the Ruler, and even if his reign was brief, with this album he took the crown.
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Founded in 2011, Australia’s Inverloch are a technically young band, but their roots run deep. Guitarist Matthew Scarajew and drummer Paul Mazziotta were pivotal members of diSEMBOWELMENT, whose sole 1993 album Transcendence Into The Peripheral helped define the chiming, glacially paced death metal mutation eventually became funeral doom in the hands of acts like Evoken, Skepticism, and Esoteric. Inverloch practice this sepulchral discipline with mastery befitting their history on Distance | Collapsed, their first full-length effort under the new moniker. “The Empyrean Torment” largely consists of a particularly vivid example of this approach — the band’s weight swings like a pendulum from beat to ponderous beat, accentuating a series of despondent melodies that sound like they’re wailing out of some vast cave. But Inverloch can crush at speed, too, and prove it at the song’s rabid conclusion. Listen.
Distance | Collapsed will be available on 3/4 via Relapse Records.
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by r_gg
The Story
Team Captains at Bracket Drawing Event
RAVE vs Mighty Highlight Video by 넵툴론 (rlkass)
MVP.B vs WWWMA Highlight Video by 넵툴론 (rlkass)
Grand Final Highlight Video by 넵툴론 (rlkass)
Meta Snapshots
Neglected Heroes:
Notable Games
HCOT S2 Top 5 Moments by 넵툴론 (rlkass)
Conclusion and Beyond
Big thanks to 넵툴론 (rlkass) for the highlight videos and ban/pick stats. See his YouTube channel for more highlight videos of the tournament.
MVP Black managed to win the tournament without dropping a single game, which hasn’t happened in the Korean scene since Heroes Big League in early closed Beta.
Danawa Joker, along with other mid-tier teams, showed great improvements over the course of the tournament, but they still have a long way to go.
We saw a great boom of talented support players in the tournament. Danawa Joker’s Magi, RAVE’s CrozOver, Mighty’s Joju were all key players in their respective teams with strong, consistent performance throughout.
The Korean meta seems to have stagnated a bit, at least compared to other regions such as EU. They have been relatively slow to take advantage of heroes such as Falstad and Thrall, and Diablo has yet to be seen. Even MVP Black acknowledged that they didn’t realize how good Thrall was until having some trouble against him during the WCA Finals from the Chinese teams.
MVP Black has been quite nonchalant throughout the tournament, and called for domestic teams to “step it up” in their post-final interview. They were impressed by the strengths of the foreign teams in the WCA, and felt the Korean teams need to improve or they’ll fall behind. They cited their dedication and longer practice hours (12 hrs/day) as the main reason they stay ahead of other teams in Korea.
When asked to name a foreign team they think could be their biggest rival, merryday picked Fnatic and Sake chose Cloud 9.
HCOT has always been in a weird spot due to top Korean teams such as TNL and ASD not participating due to prior commitments in China. But, now that there are no longer Korean players committed to the Chinese scene, we should be seeing a much more competitive environment for future seasons.
While Danawa Joker managed to rise up to the horizon, it's uncertain whether they will manage to keep up their performance as their strongest player, RideRocket, retired and left the scene.
OGN’s Super League 2016 Season 1 is fast approaching, with calls for registration already going out and the online qualifiers happening soon. With many recent shakeups in the teams, it’s unclear how many high profile players will manage to form a team in time to participate, but hopefully we’ll get a good turnaround like Super League 2015.
Super League 2016 Season 1 Registration Begins!
The second season of the Heroes Community Open Tournament (HCOT) started at an awkward time: between the end of OGN’s Super League 2015 and Blizzcon. Anticipating trips to China for the GHL Season 2, Team DK and Snake didn’t even sign up. With MRR gone, MVP Black became the only team from the Top 4 of Super League to join the tournament. Despite the lineup of teams turning out lacklustre and somewhat disappointing, HCOT Season 2 managed to bring to light some of the hidden talents within the “tier 2” teams of Korea, previously buried beneath the shadows of giants.Bracket Results: Liquipedia Tournament VODs: Inven Channel Article Navigation: Story The bracket drawings of the Group Stage kicked off the tournament on quite an interesting note. Group A was filled with teams of similar levels, with newcomers Mighty, DomiNation, and rookie feeling no discomfort about going face-to-face against Team Rave, who showed good promise in the group stages of Super League. On the other hand, Group B became the “Group of Death” with GameAde TOP, Danawa Joker, and MVP Black showing up strong. The greatest victim of Group B looked to be Team “What’s Wrong With My Age” (WWWMA), which was the center of community spotlight as it was headed by aMeBa, the caster of Super League and the founder of Team No Limit. This was meant to be aMeBa’s last tournament as a pro-gamer, and it looked like he’d be going down with plenty of challenge to face.Mighty and RAVE came out ahead in Group A, with some fantastic Kharazim plays from Mighty’s Joju. It seemed like Team RAVE toned down their aggression a bit compared to how they played in Super League, and though they gained more stability in their play, one couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed by their shaky performance in the group stage. Although Team DomiNation couldn’t make it out of the group stage, Carbuncle’s Raynor was a delight to watch. His persistent and well-positioned stutter-stepping often turning the tides of battle and made him the cornerstone of DomiNation’s strong team fighting prowess.As many expected, MVP Black dominated Group B in flying fashion. While the MVP Black we saw in Super League focused more on team fighting and aggressive engagements, their greatest strength this time around was in their split pushing and objective control. In particular, MVP Black’s second game against WWWMA showcased a deep understanding of how to maximize the strengths of each hero and they perfectly countered WWWMA’s Illidan composition with Artanis and Azmodan, whose Black Pool bug still plagued him and severely limited his damage output. One of the most anticipated teams of the tournament, Team Danawa Joker lost powerlessly in their first match against MVP Black. However, they regained their confidence against WWWMA and took down GameAde TOP , avenging their loss in Super League.The playoffs began with a blast, showcasing one of the closest games ever between Danawa Joker and Mighty . While Danawa Joker came up ahead with a 4-1 victory, the entire series was filled with unbelievable back-to-back comeback fights where no one could predict the outcome of the match until the very end. On the other hand, MVP Black made their way to the grand final with ease. MVP Black showed some weakness in both opening games against RAVE and Danawa Joker , giving away easy kills to ETC-Tyrande gank squad. Despite early setbacks, they always managed to turn the tide around once the game went into mid-game. Sign and Lockdown were the catalysts in setting up great team fights with their superb mechanical performance, and the rest of the team followed by precise decision making that immediately turns the game to their favor.After their loss against MVP Black, RAVE came back strong with a solid 4-0 against Mighty , but it was Danawa Joker that managed to win the ticket to challenge MVP Black once again at the grand finals. RAVE’s NaCHoJin showed some great Chen plays against Mighty and Danawa Joker , but it was ultimately RideRocket’s Muradin and Tyrael plays for Danawa Joker that secured the victory for his team.The grand final between Danawa Joker and MVP Black took place on Christmas day in front of a completely packed crowd in SC2’s GSL studio. While many hoped for Danawa Joker to take at least one game in the Best-of-Seven, MVP Black was merciless in the finals, finishing the tournament without dropping a single game. Lockdown’s Thrall was the star of the Grand Final, dominating the early laning phase, then proceeding to split off Danawa’s key players through Sundering with pin-point accuracy late game.We’ve seen gank and stun-heavy meta dominate regions across the world post-scaling changes, and Korea was no different. Tyrande and Uther were the priority targets for first ban, with Kael’thas and Sonya being the next highest-priority heroes. While Muradin was the most popular Warrior followed by Johanna, most Warriors except for Arthas and Rexxar saw a good level of success, with Diablo being the only brute completely neglected (yes, even Artanis and Stitches got to play ).Kael’thas, Jaina, Zagara, and Raynor were the highest priority ranged assassins of this season. Falstad saw a good deal of use, but his winrate lingered at 33% and teams were still struggling to figure out how to maximize use of the global presence and Mighty Gust Heroic that other regions have mastered. Due to the uncomfortable Falstad play, Valla remained a popular choice among many teams.The melee assassins and bruisers that dominated Super League were quite absent in HCOT. Kerrigan and Illidan were picked four times and went out with little to no success (one win for Illidan, zero for Kerrigan). While not as dominant as before, Zeratul still popped up occasionally as a niche pick. Thrall hasn’t been as popular here as he has been in other regions, and outside of MVP Black, no team managed to have consistent success with the hero.The support choices beyond Tyrande and Uther has also seen a good level of diversity, with Li Li being the only neglected support. Just like other regions, Kharazim rose in popularity but Malfurion and Rehgar still remained a common choice. There were several attempts to make use of Morales, although her win-rate has remained quite low at 10%.Lunara, Cho’Gall, Gazlowe, Nazeebo, Nova, Butcher, Diablo, Li Li, MurkyKharazim saw lot of diverse playstyle throughout the course of HCOT, with the most radical one has been using damage Kharazim as a solo-support. While MVP Black’s merryday is considered one of the best Kharazim players in the world, it was Mighty’s Joju that lead the discovery of Kharazim in Korea. Joju was one of the first support players in Korea to break the region’s fixation on Seven-Sided Streak, and the first to show great proficiency in both ultimates at a high level. He busted out the solo-support Iron Fist Kharazim in their match against Danawa Joker , and we saw this style being adopted by other players such as RAVE’s CrozOver in later tournament matches (Danawa Joker’s Magi also went Iron Fist in a double support with Tyrande ).The primary benefit of Iron Fist Kharazim was providing additional damage to supplement a struggling back line. This allowed teams to focus on drafting high-priority warriors early on, while mitigating the penalty of ending up with weak ranged assassins. While this style of Kharazim still has a lot to prove, the initial impressions have been quite positive, often securing early kills for the team and becoming a threatening presence in team fights.Checkout the complete VODs here: Inven Channel
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The funny thing about loneliness is how very little it has to do with actually being alone.
The saddest, truest kind of loneliness seeps in when you least expect it. It arrives silently: while lying in the arms of your lover, measuring the frequency of their hand as it runs back and forth, up and down, caressing the dimple of your thigh. It’s noticing the way their touch occasionally slows, falters – the way they’ve grown so easily distracted by the static, violent movements of their video game, the one you bought them for their birthday.
It’s remembering the way your body once commanded their pulse to quicken, their heart to race. It’s how your touch once brought light to their eyes and tiny, dancing goose-bumps to the skin of their neck. Loneliness is is the pull-back to your lean-in, the hug to your kiss, the question to your certainty; it’s the time between replies, as you sit, staring at your phone — wishing death upon all those who dare message in their silence.
Loneliness isn’t measurable by numbers or bodies or answers to a questionnaire; loneliness is the perpetual state of seeking that which you so crave, that which you so need. Loneliness comes with settling for less than you deserve just as surely as it comes with reaching for that which you cannot attain. It’s incurable by company, it swells in the presence of friends; it grips you unforgivingly, from within.
Loneliness is the isolation that comes with nursing a feeling unreturned — an expectation unmet.
Aloneness is different. Aloneness is finding freedom in this very same isolation; it’s the strange state of bliss that comes with being truly, honestly, unapologetically content in your own company.
Being alone is buying a single ticket to a foreign film you know absolutely nothing about. It’s sitting in the back row, tearing open the wrapper to your favorite chocolate bar, immersing yourself so completely in the fictional love of fictional characters that you all but forget the to-and-fros of your own trivial existence. You forget about that person you met at the bar last week, the one you gave your number to but never heard back from. You forget about the photo that your ex just uploaded on Facebook; the one with their new love interest, laughing carelessly behind designer glasses. You forget because, in that moment, nothing matters more than the sweet crunch of your chocolate bar and the eventual union of Character A with Character B.
Aloneness is a Saturday night when your best friend is on a date and you forgot to make other plans. It’s walking to the wine shop while listening to that song you love and buying the second-cheapest bottle of wine — because even though you have no money, you deserve to be treated. It’s building a fort in your bedroom, one with high-speed WiFi, walls of pillows, and a moat of old DVD cases. It’s drinking your cheap wine in your cheap castle and understanding that nobody’s coming to save you. Because you don’t want them to. Because you don’t need to be saved.
Loneliness and aloneness stand as the two pillars to the one, emotional pendulum. There will be days when you’re so physically alone, so abandoned in your own company that you find yourselves smiling, laughing without reason. Then there will be the days spent by the ocean with the one you love, when you find yourselves suddenly, inconceivably, on the verge of tears.
We can’t allow ourselves to be defined by the people we surround ourselves with. We can’t allow ourselves to be defined by our relationship status or our weekend plans or the screaming silence of our mobile phone. If you’re single, please understand that a relationship isn’t the ticket to happiness. If you’re in a relationship, please know that being single isn’t a sentence to sorrow. We’re all just swinging on that same, rickety pendulum — forever in flux between being alone and being lonely. We’re all just trying to find our balance, wondering how or why or what we’re doing there — wherever there is.
Just know that, whichever you happen to be or feel at this exact moment, the power to maintain or change it will always be in your own hands — not in theirs, or in anyone else’s.
And sometimes the best cure to loneliness is, in fact, to be alone.
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Credits
1. Adapted from UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
2. Adapted from UN Environment Programme Water Statistics, 2008, FAO
3.
4. Adapted from US Energy Information Administration, International Energy
Outlook 2011 (EIA, 2011)
5. Adapted from data from the US Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
6. Adapted from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (UC San Diego) CO2
program, ŒClimate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis¹, Working Group 1
contribution to IPCC, Fourth Assessment Report, CUP 2007; C.M. MacFarling
Meure et al. ŒLaw Dome CO2 CH4 and N2O ice core records extended to 2000
years BP¹, Geophysical Research Letters 33, 14 (2006)
7. Adapted from J.E. Hansen et al. Goddard Institute for Space Studies,
2012: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/temp/hansen/graphics.html
8. Compiled from data from the US National Interagency Fire Center, 2010;
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report, 2005. Data for 2000-2010 are USA
only.
9. Adapted from Steffen et al. ŒThe Anthropocene: From Global Change to
Planetary Stewardship¹, AMBIO, October 2011 (Royal Swedish Academy of
Sciences)
10. Adapted from data from the NOAA Ocean Climate Laboratory and World Ocean
Databse; S. Levitus et al. World ocean heat content and thermosteric sea
level change (0-2000 m), 1955-2010¹, Geophysical Research Letters, 39, 10,
(2012)
11. Compiled from data from ICIMOD and UNEP-Grid Arendal, 2010; Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment Resport, 2005
12. Adapted from Steffen et al. The Anthropocene: From Global Change to
Planetary Stewardship¹, AMBIO, October 2011 (Royal Swedish Academy of
Sciences); FAO, The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2012 (FAO,
2012); B. Worm et al. Rebuilding global fisheries¹, Science, 325 (2009)
13. Adapted from S. Pimm and P. Raven, Biodiversity: Extinction by
numbers¹, Nature, 403 (2000); A. barnosky et al. Has the Earth¹s sixth mass
extinction already arrived?¹, Nature, 471 (2011)..
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About
Dominoker: Official Game Rules
Contents: Set of tournament-size crystalline dominos.
Set Up: Place all dominos face down on the table and mix them.
- For Double Nine Dominos: Style :BLOCK
- 1 player take 40 dominos divide in 4 groups(10each)
- 2, 3 or 4 players, takes 10 dominos.
- Everybody play Individual
Stand the pieces up with the dots facing you. Do not let the other players see your dominos. The remaining dominos become the dead pile.
Each dominos is divided into two parts or ends, each containing a set of dots. A double domino contains matching ends (9-9, 8-8, 7-7, etc). The player who has the highest double places it in the center of the table to begin the game, or if no one has a double, the player with the domino that has the most points, goes first. Play proceeds counter clock wise.
The second player then tries to match one of his dominoes to either end or side of the double. For example, if the first domino played is a double five, the second player may add any of dominoes containing five dots on one end. The next player may play to the remaining double five or he may try to match other blanks. Only one domino may be played at each turn. Dominoes are placed lengthwise rather than at right angles, except in the case of a double as shown.
Players match ends of the dominoes but may play to either end or to either side of a double, thereby giving two directions in which to place dominoes.
If a player cannot match the dots at any open end of a row, he passes his turn to play and then tries again on his next turn. A player must play a domino if he is able to do so.
Play continues until one has used all of his dominoes or until no one can play. If no player is able to place his last domino, the game is blocked. The player who has the lowest number of points in his hand wins the round.
Dominoker Score System
First most important rule: All remaining dominoes from the finished hand has to be included to grant the points to the winner
1.If the game is dominated or blocked the winner of the hand gains one single point. But if the difference between the winner of the hand and a second player is only one point. Player A, 24 points - Player B, 23 points, Player B is going to accumulate double points.,0r 2players are tied no matter in which position (player c 29 ,player d 29) The first player to reach 4 points wins the match in Dominoker Tournament, and advance to the next eliminating round. (Total points to win could be in agreement with all players involved, if no tournament is taking place).
This criteria is called: One point or Set Balance (2 points),
TRIFECTA (3 points) if three players are one point different in a row Example player A = 24 player B = 23 player D = 29 and player C = 25
Poker point if the four players has one point different in a row player: Example player B= 23, player A=24,player C=25,and player D=26
2.If the game is dominated or blocked the winner of the hand gains one single point, but if the remaining dominoes on the hand of all players involved are all connected forming a second row of dominoes game, the winner accumulates double points. This criteria is called: Straight – Connected (2 points)
2/4 – 4/4 – 4/5 – 5/5
Train Connected if the remaining row are connected with the main row for one of the extreme
3.If the game is dominated or blocked the winner of the hand gains one single point, but if the winner of the hand do it with a single or set of doubles, then other player(s) have a single or set of double dominoes as well. He accumulated double points. We call this criteria: Twins-Twins (2 points)
4.TRIPLETS if three players are holding only doubles(3 points) ,
5.Grand slam if four players are evolved in the hand holding only doubles(4 POINTS 944
6.If the game is dominated or blocked the winner of the hand gains one single point, but if the remaining dominoes all have the same number on one of the ends, the winner gains double points. This criteria is called: ,TRIO (three remaining equal side dominos (2 points)
Poker flush.-4 remaining equal side (2points)
All of the Kind: for more than 4 remaining dominoes (2points),
“Straight flush” “: more than 4 remaining dominos EQUAL SIDE, in a numerical row (3 POINTS)
7.If the hand becomes a draw there is no winner, then the player to the right of the previous winner starts the new hand. The winner takes a double point (without including any criteria, if any criteria are made, the points are doubled again).
DOMINOKER GAMES:
Forty-forty (play alone , like solitaire)
goal :disregard the whole set of 40 pieces and hit the jackpot or grant free new chance to win if any criteria are made it,: one point or draw ,twin -twin, straight connected ,or set balance
Objective: learn how to play in a perfect matter, balancing pairs exercise what do it: is balancing your brain and develop more capacity in all brain functional area,.
DOMINOKER WAR-X-OUT: Play 2, 3,4player play for individual interest
GOAL: using kind of finals grant x points (4, 5, 7, or 10) to eliminate opponents in tournaments match or win shorts championship in family competition
The combination of exercise your brain with the highest motivation and enjoy the share- time made your live more value
Increase your IQ level .and made persons more confidence in self esteem.
BRAIN FUNTION
ONE POINT DIFFERENCE
DominokerONE GRAND SLAM HAND VRS 3 ROBOTS-COMP
Outside
Inside
Leasing Space
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Google's intent to transition to "Alphabet"—a company-full-of-companies that better represents the current layout of Larry Page's conglomerate—was announced back in August 2015. After getting organized and actually going through with the transition, today marks the first quarter of Alphabet's existence and its first earnings report. It even has a brand new investor site to celebrate.
For Q4 2015, Alphabet beat analyst estimates of 8.10 per Class A share and 20.77 billion on revenue, with $8.67 per share and 21.33 billion in revenue. The news sent the price of Alphabet stock up over 6 percent in after-hours trading, sending Alphabet's market cap over $550 billion. Apple's market cap is sitting at $538 billion, which makes Alphabet the most valuable company in the world. Alphabet's position as highest company by market cap is a product of both Alphabet's rise and Apple's fall. The amount is a far cry from Apple's all-time high of ~774 billion in February 2015.
As the first-ever Alphabet earnings call, Google is breaking out the non-Google parts into a segment called "other bets." Other than Nest and Google Fiber, the "other bets" segment is basically made up of Alphabet's moonshots. The company says the "other bets" segment had $448 million in revenue for 2015 ($327 million this quarter), but overall Alphabet's non-Google companies lost $3.567 billion this year, with $1.942 billion of that coming just this quarter.
Alphabet noted that most of the "other bets" revenue is from Nest, Fiber, and Verily. Nest and Fiber both sell products, and thus have very obvious revenue streams. That Verily—Alphabet's Life Sciences division—is somehow taking in money is a surprise.
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LAHORE (Reuters) - Pakistani police rescued a nine-year-old girl from being married off to a 14-year-old boy to settle a family dispute on Friday and arrested four village elders who had ordered the “compensation wedding”.
The intervention in Pakistan’s largest province, Punjab, is rare in a country where it is often culturally acceptable to use marriage to build and strengthen alliances, settle disputes or pay off debts.
Police arrested all four members of the village council who had decreed that the girl be given in vani, or compensation marriage, to settle a dispute between two families in Rahim Yar Khan district of Punjab province.
“The girl’s brother’s wife died due to some health problems a few weeks ago, and (the wife’s) relatives suspected foul play and accused her family of murder,” deputy superintendent of police Mamoonur Rasheed told Reuters.
“On March 3, the village council decided to give the little girl in vani to settle the suspected murder.”
The council decided that the girl would be married to a 14-year-old cousin of her brother’s deceased wife, while the brother would pay 150,000 rupees ($1,430) to his dead wife’s family.
Three percent of girls in Pakistan are married before they turn 15 and 21 percent before the age of 18, according to UNICEF data.
The parents of child brides are often poor and use marriage as a way to provide for their daughter’s future, especially in areas where there are few economic opportunities for women.
In January, a powerful religious body that advises the government on the compatibility of laws with Islam blocked a bill to impose harsher penalties for marrying off girls as young as eight or nine.
Under existing laws, parents of child brides are punishable by only a month in prison and a fine of 1,000 rupees ($10).
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Beginning October 18th, World vs. World (WvW) will move into its “Season” structure stretching to December 5th for the first such competitive time period. Servers will battle against each other over those several weeks to determine who the ultimate “best” WvW server really is. But that’s not the only big change coming to WvW in the next few weeks... a brand new Overflow Map specifically for WvW is also coming to the game, and ArenaNet will be using this map to test a ton of ideas for the three-faction warfare. It won’t be anything like the existing WvW maps, either. Read on for more details about the forthcoming Edge of the Mists Overflow WvW Map.
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When players enter any area that’s overpopulated, they’re thrown into an “overflow” copy of that area so they can keep playing instead of waiting in queues forever. This applies to every part of the open world in Tyria, except WvW. That’ll all change when Edge of the Mists is added to the game in coming weeks. Serving as WvW’s own private overflow map, it’ll have all the trappings of WvW combat... but it won’t just be another copy of the same Eternal Battlegrounds and Borderlands maps. It won’t effect the overall WvW scores either, but players will still gain XP and progress towards rewards while in the Edge.
If it won’t be just another copy, what exactly will it be? The map will be a series of giant floating islands, hovering above the Eternal Battlegrounds. One side’s section will be a snowy fortress, another will be a temple in ruins in the jungle, and the third will be a desert landscape. As you can guess, this means they won’t all three be geometrically symmetrical either. You’ll wind along narrow choke points to get from one island to the next, each area will have its own unique goals and buildings. The goal is to really use the Edge to test out what a different kind of WvW experience might look like. They’ll be thinking of it as a sort of “Beta Map” for testing big changes to WvW. If the way things are done in the Edge are as well received as they hope, the changes to the experience there might very well make their way to the proper WvW experience.
But as a beta, the Edge map will only be available to accepted Guilds at first. ANet will take collaborative feedback, and adjust the map and mechanics as the sort of public beta progresses. There will be no NDA, so not only will guilds be able to show off the new map, but players will be able to sound off on what they like and don’t like across the many various channels. We asked if the team was at all worried if the map might wind up being more popular than the real WvW, and they’re prepared for that. They kind of hope that happens too, because it’ll mean all the things they’ve learned about in WvW have helped them design an even more compelling and engaging experience.
I asked Jon Peters if there were plans for more of this sort of open and collaborative development for other parts of the game as well. He stated that it’s absolutely needed for something as big and varied as Edge of the Mists, but whether or not it’ll stretch to other parts of the game is up in the air. He said that when you say collaboration, what ends up happening is often that everyone just asks for what they want, and that they think what they want is what everyone wants. That’s not really what it should be about, so they’ll be careful about what parts of the game have this sort of open development and what doesn’t. They want to see how it works in WvW, and they expect the response and feedback to be really well taken. But this WvW collaboration will really be what sets the course for the future.
In the end, Edge of the Mists is a tool to drop barrier between players and WvW, to get fans of that content playing the game instead of waiting in queues, and ultimately to bring the community in on the game’s direction. I, for one, cannot wait to see what the map holds, as it sounds like it’ll really be a nice change of pace. I would not be surprised if it was indeed more popular than the WvW map we’ve been using for a year, and that’s not such a bad thing.
Bill Murphy / Bill Murphy is the Managing Editor of MMORPG.com, RTSGuru.com, and lover of all things gaming. He’s fond of his Asura Engineer, but wishes he wasn’t so squishy. He's been playing and writing about MMOs and geekery since 2002, and you can harass him and his views on Twitter @thebillmurphy.
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Sen. Ted Cruz yukked up his porn-video “like” on Twitter, joking Tuesday that the publicity could’ve given him a boost on the campaign trail.
“Perhaps we should have done something like this during the Indiana primary,” Cruz quipped, referring to dropping out of the presidential race last year after losing the Hoosier State to Donald Trump, according to NBC News.
see also Ted Cruz likes X-rated porn video on Twitter Things got unexpectedly steamy for Sen. Ted Cruz on Monday,...
Cruz’s official Twitter account was caught “liking” the X-rated clip posted by @SexuallPosts on Monday. It showed a woman, vaguely resembling his wife, Heidi, watching two people have sex on a couch.
The Texas senator denied being behind the “like.”
“There are a number of people on the team that have access to the account and it appears that someone inadvertently hit the like button,” he explained. “It was a staffing issue and it was inadvertent. It was a mistake. It was not a deliberate action.”
When asked whether the person responsible would be canned, Cruz hinted at forgiveness.
“We’re dealing with it internally but it was a mistake. It was not malicious conduct,” he said.
Cruz’s spokeswoman said the “like” was deleted from his account and reported to Twitter.
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World number 1 Rafael Nadal almost fell victim to the string of upsets that have been prevalent at this year’s US Open. He however was able to mount a spectacular comeback, defeating unseeded Japanese qualifier Taro Daniel 4-6 6-3 6-2 6-2 in 2 hours 53 minutes.
Daniel is by no means a household name, having competed in only about a dozen matches on the ATP World Tour this year. Having a ranking of 121, his previous best outing at the US Open was the first round in 2014. The 24 year old has never played Nadal, so it could be safe to assume that the Spaniard was unfamiliar with his game.
Nadal defeated Dusan Lajovic 7-6(6) 6-2 6-2 in his first round match, whereas Daniel had to overcome American wildcard Tommy Paul 6-1 4-6 4-6 6-2 6-2 to reach the second round. The crowd had somewhat low expectations on Arthur Ashe stadium, as most assumed this would be a routine victory for the two-time champion (2010, 2013).
Daniel quickly laid any notions of an easy victory to rest, as he acquired two break points in Nadal’s opening service game. The Spaniard was able to hold, but was unable to break his Japanese opponent. Daniel employed a style of play similar to Nadal, content with just rallying from the baseline. Additionally, he displayed a quickness around the court that belied his slight frame. It was to everyone’s surprise that he broke the Spaniard on the third time of asking in the 9th game, before claiming the first set 6-4 in 53 minutes.
Daniel 1-0 Nadal The world number 121 takes the first set against the world number one!#USOpen pic.twitter.com/mEPSyISdU4 — Eurosport UK (@Eurosport_UK) September 1, 2017
The first set could have gone either way, but Daniel made the most of his break point opportunities. Nadal did have three break points in the first set, but he was unable to convert due to Daniel’s speed and poise at the net.
Daniel looked to continue the trend in the second set, displaying exceptional shot-making and earning another break point in the third game. He in fact did break the Spaniard to lead 2-1, but Nadal immediately broke back to level the score. He then converted another break point with a trademark forehand passing shot, before claiming the second set 6-3 in 51 minutes.
📢 VAMOS 📢 A trademark roar from Rafa Nadal and the Spaniard levels at 1-1 pic.twitter.com/UkwPfuaIh3 — Eurosport UK (@Eurosport_UK) September 1, 2017
Order was soon restored on Arthur Ashe stadium, as Nadal regained his form and outplayed his opponent. Daniel’s strategy of rallying with the Spaniard was short-lived, as Nadal played more aggressively and began to hit winners at will.
The Rafa Rocket!@RafaelNadal survives an early scare and blasts into R3 after defeating Daniel 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-2! 🚀🎾#USOpen pic.twitter.com/OwISZWcart — US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 1, 2017
Despite a valiant effort from his Japanese challenger, Nadal steamrolled through the last two sets, taking the match and ensuring his spot in the third round.
Nadal now faces Leonardo Mayer, who defeated Yuichi Sugita 6-7(3) 6-4 6-3 6-4 earlier today. The Spaniard has a 3-0 career lead over his Argentine counterpart and should have the advantage entering their encounter. However, this year’s tournament has been far from routine and it seems that everyone is gunning for the second week, especially with the field wide open.
Whom do you think has the biggest chance of causing another upset at this year’s US Open? Should the higher ranked players forego any thoughts of complacency and raise their intensity, regardless of whom they play? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Be sure to follow us on www.tennis-pulse.com for continued coverage of the 2017 US Open.
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COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, still clinging to office after admitting to an extramarital affair, wrote in an opinion piece released today that God will change him so he can emerge from the scandal a more humble and effective leader.
“While none of us has the chance to attend our own funeral, in many ways I feel like I was at my own in the past weeks, and surprisingly I am thankful for the perspective it has afforded,” Sanford wrote in the opinion piece distributed statewide for newspapers today.
Sanford, a two-term Republican, returned from a mysterious, nearly weeklong disappearance last month to reveal a romance with a longtime friend in Argentina. In a series of Associated Press interviews, he described the woman as his “soul mate” but said he would work to repair his relationship with his wife, Jenny, the mother of their four sons.
Some lawmakers have called for Sanford to resign, and one state senator plans hearings on whether state money was used to facilitate the trysts. A criminal probe found nothing illegal.
Sanford and his wife left the state earlier this week for an undisclosed location and are expected to return Sunday evening, spokesman Joel Sawyer said.
In the opinion, Sanford vows to work with lawmakers he’s long fought and cites scripture and his faith in God — just as he’s done in his few public appearances since admitting the affair.
“It’s in the spirit of making good from bad that I am committing to you and the larger family of South Carolinians to use this experience to both trust God in his larger work of changing me, and from my end, to work to becoming a better and more effective leader,” he wrote.
The promise comes as the term-limited governor approaches his final legislative session. Even before the scandal, he admitted the session would offer him little chance of success in pushing a small-government agenda that sought to give his office more authority. The possibility of a White House run in 2012 has all but disappeared.
He’s known for slamming fellow Republicans who control state government — once by carrying two piglets to the door of the House chamber to protest spending. More recently, a court order forced Sanford to seek federal stimulus money he refused to accept because of his libertarian principles, despite warnings from education officials of massive teacher layoffs.
Legislators said the governor’s previous pledges to work together always quickly disintegrated.
“We’ve heard it every year,” said House Labor Commerce and Industry Chairman Bill Sandifer. He said he told the governor, “You have gone out of your way to make enemies. You’ve done absolutely nothing to make friends, and now you want us all to be your friends? That’s a pretty tough pill to swallow.”
Sanford, who has long fought to give the governor’s office more control in the legislatively strong state, wrote that he would continue to push his agenda.
Senate Minority Leader John Land, also frequently at odds with Sanford, doubts the governor can change. “If he didn’t get his way, he’d take his balls and go home, so he left a lot of things on the table,” the Democrat said. “You don’t all of a sudden have a midlife crisis and suddenly get along with people.”
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The Center for Political and Development Studies in Gaza, Palestine held a launch for Life in Occupied Palestine, a special issue of Biography, an Interdisciplinary Quarterly of biographical scholarship published by the University of Hawaii Press, a forum which explores the theoretical, generic, historical, and cultural dimensions of life-writing integrating literature, history, art, and the social sciences as they relate to biography.
Highlighting the life of Palestinians under occupation, Cynthia Franklin, Morgan Cooper and Ibrahim G. Aoudé co-edited this newly released special issue, which has 17 authors contributing articles addressing aspects of life under occupation; the hardships and aspirations of Palestinians and their means to resist the Israeli occupation. The stories include writers from all parts of Palestine, which makes it a particularly an important issue.
Addressing Gaza’s audience via Skype, Franklin spoke of the significance of writing as a collective as well as an individual act, in addition to the importance of writing and narrating especially in the U.S, where pro-Palestine academics are being harassed:
In Life in Occupied Palestine, contributors’ writings testify to how narrating stories about Palestinian lives becomes a political and collective act as well as a deeply personal and individual one. Life narratives can challenge as well as support the Zionist project that normalizes its practices of denying and erasing the existence of Palestinians. In the United States, as is true elsewhere, attacks on academics and public intellectuals for their alleged anti-Jewish sentiments and uncivil behavior do not only limit their civil rights and free speech. Stories about these uncivil individuals also serve to silence or distort the challenges they pose to dominant US narratives that render Palestinians as non-existent, or as terrorists. The quelling of free speech in the United States, in other words, works in tandem with Israel’s human rights violations against Palestinians.
Franklin, a lecturer at the University of Hawai’i, clarifies that Palestinian narratives, including those from a new generation of Palestinians, are not in short supply, yet these stories are being suppressed by the mainstream channels:
Both the narratives that circulate, and also those that are silenced or censored—after all, Palestinian narratives are in no short supply, they just get suppressed in mainstream channels—are key to the dehumanization of Palestinians upon which the Israeli state depends.
Franklin stressed the necessity of being creative when it to comes to bringing up ideas in order to win the battle for Justice in Palestine, quoting Palestinian activist and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, Ali Abunimah, as saying “the battle for justice in Palestine is and has always been, first and foremost, a battle of ideas” (xiv). Franklin noted:
In this battle of ideas, there are material consequences to how individual lives and deaths are represented, or not represented. That is why in addition to building its military’s arsenal of weaponry, the state of Israel invests many millions of dollars into “Brand Israel” campaigns—hasbara that, often by way of cultural ambassadors, sustains the Zionist narrative.
The U.S academic added “that is also why Morgan Cooper, Ibrahim Aoude and I wanted to co-edit the special Biography issue, and why we were so happy to have the support of the journal, the University of Hawai‘i Press, and Project MUSE, in making the amazing work of its contributors available for free downloading.“
The battle for justice in Palestine, too, in its essence, is about allowing Palestinians to tell their stories, to be represented themselves, rather than being represented by others. As late Palestinian literary theorist Edward Said explained in his writings: “the one thing we have not tried in all seriousness is to rely on OURSELVES: until we do that with a full commitment to success there is no chance that we can advance towards self-determination and freedom from aggression.”
Franklin stressed that contributors to the special issue have demonstrated that, as their voices have been silenced, they have resisted this silencing and misrepresentation:
As contributors to “Life in Occupied Palestine” demonstrate ways their voices and existence are simultaneously silenced as well as demonized, they also resist this erasure and misrepresentation. This resistance happens through accounts such as Yousef Aljamal’s “Traveling as a Palestinian,” and Lina Alsharif’s “Locked Out,” that evidence how Israel’s systemic violence impacts Palestinians as a people and in the most intimate of ways. Resistance, as Refaat Alareer’s essay makes so beautifully clear, also takes the form of telling stories that give voice to the love, joy, friendship, humor, wonder, and triumphs that offer forms of survival; and also through narratives evidencing how Palestinians’ organized political struggle, like their personal narratives, dismantle rather than simply reverse binaries that limit who counts as human and as deserving of human rights.
Refaat Alareer, the editor of Gaza Writes Back, Short Stories from Young Writers in Gaza, Palestine talked about his contribution to the special issue titled “Gaza Writes Back: Narrating Palestine.” Alareer, a lecturer at the Islamic University of Gaza, explained how he assigned his students, soon after Israel’s Cast Lead Operation in 2008-9, to write short stories instead of writing research papers, as a means to release their tension and to give them a platform to tell their own stories, as a means of healing. “Research papers are important, but I thought of assigning them to do something new, to be creative,” he added. “I remember how my mom would tell us stories when we were young. She would tell the same stories in many different ways, by adding new elements and new characters, so that we don’t get bored,” he continued.
Storytelling is common in the Palestinian culture, where older people tell their children bed stories as well as stories of children who didn’t listen to their mother’s instructions and got in trouble, according to him. Following this path, Alareer revealed that he used to tell his little daughters stories “to get them distracted, as Israel was bombing Gaza.” He suggested that short stories make us more human, and bring us back to our humanity. They also take our narrative globally, adding that “the book is well-known now, every week I receive e-mails from people all over the world telling me they read the book. The book has been translated into Malay and will be translated into Italian.”
Lina Alsharif, a resident of Gaza and a mother currently based in Qatar, is a poetess and former student of Alareer. Since she was a university student at IUG in Gaza she has been blogging and writing. Alsharif joined the lecture via Skype as she has been unable to visit her family in Gaza for more than three years. In Locked Out, her contribution to Biography, Lina spoke of being away from family and how it felt.
When my friends ask me “Why are you staying behind? Why don’t you go home?,” my mind starts whirling, for how am I going to explain how I am being stripped of the very basic, the very ordinary, the very human right to be reunited with my family in Gaza-Palestine.
As Alsharif spoke of her concern of having her daughter to grow up away from her family her little daughter joined the conversation by producing some noise to the delight of the audience.
As a contributor to the special issue, I told the story behind Travelling as a Palestinian, my contribution to Biography:
I wanted to travel to NZ in 2013 to attend the National Conference on Palestine, but my visa application was rejected. I applied again after providing some more documents, and I finally got it… When I wanted to go back home, I applied for an Egyptian visa at the Egyptian Embassy in Wellington, but they never got back to me. I had to go back to Malaysia to get the visa, as it was easier for Palestinians to get an Egyptian visa from there. The day I got it, I the border was shut down, so I was sent back to Malaysia by the Egyptian authorities. I got stuck there for two weeks, and I finally managed to go back to Gaza, hoping that I would be able to get out again in a few weeks. I was wrong, I got stuck in Gaza for three months, and it took me fives attempts to cross the border to Egypt to join my graduate school. I faced the same problem when I traveled to the U.S, my visa was rejected first. I got it later. Even when I wanted to go back to Gaza, I faced numerous problems; this is the story of every single Palestinian. This is traveling as a Palestinian.
The launch is part of a series of events and talks organized by CPDS to further promote the Palestinian cause in the English-speaking world. A copy of Biography is available at CPDS’ Hashim Yeop Sani Library. The launch of the special issue also took place in the U.S, U.K, Malaysia and Palestine, at which various authors and editors spoke. The issue is available online for free here.
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When Apple’s MacBook Air made its debut in 2008, PC companies were caught flat footed and utterly unprepared for what was arguably a ground-breaking moment in thin computing designs. With the world in financial ruin at the time, it would take years for competitors to catch up.
Apple is headed into a significantly different world with the launch of the radical new 12-inch MacBook, however. If anything, Apple is the one playing catchup with PC makers this time.
Let’s dive into the specs.
Gordon Mah Ung The new Retina display in the MacBook is welcome but it’s easily surpassed in pixel density by such notebooks as this Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro.
The Display
For an Apple ultra-light notebook, one of the most noticeable changes is the high-resolution “Retina” panel. The 12-inch display features an odd-duck resolution of 2304x1440 with an aspect ratio of 16:10. That’s a big leap for Apple, especially coming from a MacBook Air lineup that still features 1440x900 panels at best and embarrassing netbook-like resolution panels of 1366x768 at worst.
Also in the good news column, the MacBook’s panel is an IPS versus the TN in the two current MBAs. I know some professional photographers who don’t even bother to use MacBook Airs for color critical work because of the low resolution and lack of color accuracy in their displays. Apple also said the panel it selected uses more efficient and smaller transistors, so it uses 30 percent less power at the same brightness levels as its existing products.
The unique resolution tells me Apple likely had it custom designed and built to specs. Most PC vendors like to stick to standard aspect ratios to leverage the scale in prices. Since Apple will probably sell a killzillion MacBooks over the years, it probably doesn’t have to worry about it quite as much.
It’s not yet known yet, but it sounds like Apple’s panel could be an IGZO panel. IGZO panels are more efficient at transmitting light than a typical IPS panel so you don’t have to drive the backlighting as hard for the same brightness.
Image quality, brightness, and the display’s performance, can’t be judged yet, but on pure specsmanship, the MacBook’s display is a me-too move.
Again, it’s not clear to me why Apple picked a resolution of 2304x1440 for the new MacBook Air 12—perhaps to balance power consumption?—but that works out to a PPI of 226 and a pixel count of 3.3 megapixels. In the PC world, that’s just average. The 13.3-inch Dell XPS13 has an option for a 3200x1800 panel with a PPI of 276 and a pixel count of 5.7 million. Similar-resolution panels are abundant in the PC world, too. The Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro also hits the same resolution as the Dell. Plenty of other notebooks and convertibles come close or supercede the resolution as well.
Like I said: On pure specsmanship, the 12-inch MacBook gets a big meh here. Apple fans, however, should cheer that they’re finally able to get a high-res display in a thin-and-light laptop.
Gordon Mah Ung The Yoga 3 Pro is 12.7mm thick vs. the 13mm of the new Apple 12-inch MacBook.
The form factor
Apple makes much hay about the size and weight of the new MacBook. It’s basically 11 inches wide by 7.74 inches deep, with a maximum height of 13mm. (This, by the way, is how you crash Mars space probes: mixing standard and metric measurements.) Not bad.
I measured the thickest part of the Dell XPS13 at 18mm and the current MacBook Air 11 at 16.8mm (Apple’s specs actually say 17mm at the thickest part). The XPS13 probably isn’t the best representative though. The Asus Zenbook UX305 is about the same thickness as the 12-inch MacBook at 13mm. The Acer Aspire S7 and Lenova Yoga 3 Pro are a smidge thinner at 12.7mm.
The new MacBook also sports an impressive 2 lb. weight. That shaves about half a pound off most PC laptops. The Dell XPS13 and Yoga 3 Pro are about 2.6 lbs, as is the Asus Zenbook UX305. That makes the new 12-inch MacBook Air pretty light—just not the lightest.
That title will likely belong to Lenovo when it ships its LaVie HZ550 later this May. Using an IGZO panel and a magnesium lithium chassis Lenovo has cut the laptop’s weight down to 1.72 lbs.. I hefted one at CES and thought it had been pumped full of helium. To be fair, though, the pre-production LaVie I tried didn’t have the greatest keyboard and it wasn’t super thin, at 16.9mm.
Gordon Mah Ung The Core M in the new 12-inch MacBook is no Atom, but it can’t hang with faster (and hotter) Core i5 and Core i7 like this XPS13.
Performance
The new MacBook packs a fanless design using Intel’s Broadwell-based Core M chips. There’s an option for the 1.1GHz Core M, which I’m assuming is the either the Core M 5Y51 or 5M 5Y70, or the 1.2GHz Core M 5Y71. I’ve gone ahead and lined up the three potential chips over at Intel’s ARK if you want to dive into the specs.
Core M chips are essentially low-power Broadwell chips that generate about a third of the heat of the Broadwell U processors used in many recent PCs. This lets vendors build truly fanless systems.
Losing the fan and living on a third of the thermals does significantly impact performance though. In Asus Zenbook UX305, I saw roughly a 25 percent performance hit over the XPS13 with a Core i5 5200U in it. The hit in graphics performance is far worse.
What’s important here though is the design of the new MacBook. I’ve seen three Core M laptops, and so far, the performance is all over the map. It seems that either you let the skin temperature of the laptop get toasty and maintain good performance or you keep it cool and take a performance hit.
Don’t take this too negatively, though. Core M is no Atom (although I have seen some numbers dip to the point where a desktop Atom can defeat it). For most of the tasks people use ultra portable laptops for, you won’t be able to tell it from a Core i5 or Core i7 CPU.
For a final judgement on cross-platform performance we’ll have to wait to get a new MacBook. The real sticky question: Is it even fair to pit a fanless notebook against one that’s actively cooled? My gut says the Dell XPS13 will easily be all over the 12-inch MacBook from a performance perspective. But it has a fan that makes its presence known.
Apple’s terraced lithium polymer cells let it stuff as much battery as possible into the new 12-inch MacBook.
Battery life and capacity
One of the 12-inch MacBook’s more unique touches is its batteries, which Apple claims to have built up in layers. Terracing the battery packs lets the company jam the maximum physical amount of battery capacity into the shell.
By the raw numbers, it seems to have worked. The 11-inch MacBook Air has a 38-watt-hour cell in it. The much thinner and lighter 12-inch MacBook has 39.7 watt hour cell. Combined with the Core M chip, Apple claims it’ll give you 9 hours of browsing and 10 hours of iTunes movies. (Who really uses iTunes to watch movies?). That’s the same browsing rating as the MacBook Air 11, and one hour more in movie playback. You may say meh, but remember: The new MacBook packs a significant increase in resolution.
The original MacBook Air essentially has a one-megapixel display at 1366x768. The new MacBook basically has triple its pixel count, yet slightly more battery life.
What about compared to PCs? Well, that’s not easy to do, and if you do, people will just choose to disagree. I can say that in run time, PC’s can hang—but everyone’s mileage will vary depending on what he or she does.
But you still want to know what PC’s are powered by so I’ll tell you: The Zenbook UX305 packs in a 45-watt-hour battery, while the XPS13 is running a 52-watt-hour job. HP’s new Spectre x360 runs a 56-watt-hour cell.
Up is down and white is black. Apple says one USB Type C is an improvement while most people complain about the lack of ports today.
Ports
Now onto the most controversial decision Apple made with the new MacBook: There’s but a single USB 3.1 Type-C reversible USB connector on the laptop, along with a combo analog audio port. There’s no HDMI, no ethernet, no SD card slot—nothing else whatsoever. Maybe this is my personal bias, but give Apple credit for taking what would be seen as a limitation on a PC and turning it into a strength:
“Only one USB port and HDMI port on this ultrabook?! You suck, vendor X.”
“Only one USB port that’s not common at all on this new 12-inch MacBook? Wahoo! Apple does it again!”
I’m not sure who is actually asking for a reduction in ports on laptops, but I prefer more ports rather than fewer—especially common ports. Not having at least one standard Type-A USB port on the laptop itself is a weakness. Sure, there’s a dongle adapter to make the Type-C connection play nice, but if you lose that adapter, you’re not going to copy a file from a USB drive to your laptop.
Ask any IT department that issues Macs about lost dongles.
Lenovo’s Yoga 3 Pro is thinner than the 12-inch MacBook at 12.7mm on paper (although I measured it just a tad thicker), but it has two Type-A USB ports, analog audio, a microHDMI connection, and an SD card reader on its side.
Apple says it designed a new butterfly switch to make the keys larger and more stable while also making them thinner.
Keyboard and trackpad
Here’s an area where Apple looks to have an early advantage over PC vendors. The company said it designed a “butterfly” switch for the MacBook’s keyboard instead of using the standard scissor keyboard switch that’s been used on laptops for the last two decades. Apple says the switch is more stable and thinner and allows for larger keycaps.
These are all good things, and I suspect it’s an area where PC vendors may have to work hard to catch up. But then, PCWorld’s resident keyboard expert Hayden Dingman reminds us there have been plenty of variations of scissor switches over the years. Razer, for example, has been playing with laptop switch designs and designed two different types of switches for its Razer Blade and Razer Blade Pro. No matter how good a laptop keyboard gets, it’ll never be a mechanical keyboard.
The trackpad may also be a competitive advantage for Apple, with its feedback system. Its pressure sensitivity isn't really new—Synaptic’s ForcePad is one example that's been available on PCs for years.
Still, this is one area where Apple usually brings its A-game, and PC vendors will likely have to find a way to respond if people report the MacBook’s keyboard knocks it out of the ballpark.
Gordon Mah Ung Apple will have no price edge compared to notebooks like this Asus Zenbook UX305 with its fanless Core M, 256GB SSD and 8GB of RAM for $700.
Price
The new MacBook is $1,300 with a 1.1GHz dual-core processor and a 256GB SSD, or $1,600 to go to 1.2GHz dual-core processor and a 512GB SSD. All models feature the same 12-inch high-resolution panel and 8GB of DDR3L/1600 RAM.
What does those prices get you in the PC world? Asus Zenbook UX305 with its Core M, 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD: $699. The Dell XPS13 with 3200x1800 touch screen, 8GB of RAM, 128GB SSD, and more capable Core i5 processor is $1,300. HP’s new Spectre X360 with a hulking, Core i7, 8GB of RAM, 256GB SSD, and 1920x1080 screen is $1,150.
Conclusion
Unlike in 2008, the 12-inch MacBook won’t be flying into unclaimed territories when it goes on sale in April. Instead, there will already be companies camped out with laptops that are cheaper and—on paper, at least—better.
That said, the new MacBook does seem to hit a lot of the high points that people want: A good keyboard, a good trackpad, a higher-resolution screen that doesn't ruin battery life, and feathery weight. It’ll be interesting to see how Apple’s newcomer stacks up when it hits the real-world streets.
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What is the New Tarot?
The New Tarot is a deck of 77 cards, designed to be a "sequel" to the traditional Tarot: all the cards and concepts are new, but it follows the classic Tarot structure. There are twenty-one new Major Arcana, numbered from XXII to XLII, and four new suits of Minor Arcana.
The Major Arcana of the Tarot proper are often understood as the way-stations of a "Fool's Journey" towards self-knowledge and self-mastery. The Major Arcana of the New Tarot are meant to encapsulate a second and more outward-focused leg of that journey, in which the newly enlightened Fool steps out into the world to explore and to make his dreams a reality. For this reason, their numbering begins where the classic Major Arcana leave off.
Just as the traditional Minor Arcana represent the fundamental tools that must be mastered in order to achieve self-knowledge, the Minor Arcana of the New Tarot represent the (somewhat more complex) tools that must be mastered in order to achieve worldly success. The four suits of the New Tarot are as follows:
The Suit of Keys -- represents forces of innovation, discovery, and problem-solving
-- represents forces of innovation, discovery, and problem-solving The Suit of Chains -- represents forces of social control, alliance, obligation, and manipulation
-- represents forces of social control, alliance, obligation, and manipulation The Suit of Masks -- represents forces of identity, role, and self-expression
-- represents forces of identity, role, and self-expression The Suit of Tomes -- represents forces of knowledge and imagination
How can I use this weird thing?
The New Tarot is meant to be read, just like an ordinary Tarot deck. It is calibrated for outward-focused queries concerned with tangible goals and interactions between people...those areas in which the Tarot proper, with its focus on inner vision, can be most frustratingly obscure and allegorical.
For those interested in a greater complexity of response, it can also be shuffled into a regular Tarot deck, resulting in a hybrid deck with Major Arcana 0-XLII and eight full suits.
Also, of course, the New Tarot makes for a worthy collector's piece. A New Tarot deck contains seventy-seven pieces of beautiful fantasy art, depicting concepts and symbols unlike those in any other deck.
Can you give me some examples of what you're talking about?
We can indeed. We've prepared several sample cards to show off our art style and to illustrate the kind of symbolism we're using. Pictures are below; explanations of the sample cards can be found in the FAQ.
Who is behind the New Tarot?
The deck designer is Warren Tusk; he's responsible for all the concepting and the symbolism. The art is the work of the inestimable Leslie Minnis. (More of her painting can be found on her blog.)
Where's the money going?
This is approximately the cost of making 77 high-quality fantasy paintings. Taking on a full-scale Tarot deck involves massive time and labor.
Anything else I should know?
Plenty. You should check out the FAQ. And if there's something you want to know that isn't there, you should contact Warren.
(Also, if you're selecting any prize at the $25 level or above, please add $10 for international shipping if appropriate.)
Thank you very much for your attention and your interest. If you'd like the New Tarot to become a reality, please consider making a donation.
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The suit also said that David E. Sambol, former president of Countrywide, and Eric P. Sieracki, its former chief financial officer, hid from investors the high-risk nature of the loans the company was making. Countrywide needed to maintain its position as the leading lender in a white-hot mortgage market, the S.E.C. said, and underwrote increasingly dangerous loans, all the while assuring investors that its loans were top quality.
Lawyers for the three men said they would defend themselves vigorously against the suit. “The lawsuit filed today by the S.E.C. does not reflect a balanced or fair consideration of the facts or the law,” said David Siegel, a lawyer at Irell & Manella who represents Mr. Mozilo. “Mr. Mozilo acted properly and lawfully at all times as the C.E.O. of Countrywide.”
A lawyer for Mr. Sambol said that the S.E.C.’s case was baseless and that it disregarded public statements Mr. Sambol made detailing the liberal lending practices at Countrywide.
Mr. Sieracki’s lawyer also said that the regulator’s case had no merit. “Mr. Sieracki did not violate any securities laws and committed no fraud on anyone,” said Nick Morgan, a lawyer at DLA Piper in Los Angeles. He added that his client did not sell shares in Countrywide and even purchased them during the period cited by the S.E.C.
Mr. Mozilo’s up-by-the-bootstraps background and entrepreneurial success earned him accolades and outsize pay during the mortgage industry’s heyday. But he became a lightning rod for criticism in 2007 when subprime loans started to go bad and foreclosures escalated.
Photo
The S.E.C. brought its case against the former Countrywide officials on its own; Justice Department officials did not file criminal charges simultaneously with the commission, as is often the case. But a securities law expert said this did not guarantee that Mr. Mozilo and his former colleagues were clear of being charged by criminal authorities.
“It could mean that the Justice Department does not yet have a case proving the highest standard, beyond a reasonable doubt,” said Lewis D. Lowenfels, at Tolins & Lowenfels in New York. “They may want to see what facts come out in the discovery in the S.E.C. case and there might be other people they are interested in. Moreover, the S.E.C. is under so much pressure from Congress, they may want to move quickly and not wait for anybody.”
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Among the e-mail messages written by Mr. Mozilo and cited by the S.E.C. was one from April 13, 2006. In it, Mr. Mozilo told Mr. Sambol and Mr. Sieracki that loans had been written by the company without regard for its processes and guidelines. He went on to describe as “poison” subprime second mortgages, a product from Countrywide that required no down payment from a borrower.
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In another e-mail message, Mr. Mozilo discussed a type of mortgage known as a Pay Option adjustable-rate loan. This was one of the so-called affordability products that let borrowers pay a fraction of what they owed in principal and interest each month.
“We have no way, with any reasonable certainty, to assess the real risk of holding these loans on our balance sheet,” Mr. Mozilo wrote. “The bottom line is that we are flying blind on how these loans will perform in a stressed environment of higher unemployment, reduced values and slowing home sales.”
Meanwhile, regulatory filings made by the company during that year outlined its risk management practices. Countrywide managed the risk of defaults on its mortgages by selling most of its loans to investors and by holding onto only those loans that were of high credit quality, the filing said.
Nevertheless, Countrywide’s loans did not perform well. As defaults mounted in 2007, the company spiraled into crisis; Bank of America bought it in a distress sale the following year.
The S.E.C. also contended that Mr. Mozilo sold shares in the company in late 2006 even though he knew that the types of loans Countrywide was making to high-risk borrowers would perform poorly. His gains from these sales totaled $140 million, the suit said.
Like many executives, Mr. Mozilo had set up planned stock-selling arrangements while he ran Countrywide, to protect himself against accusations of improper trading. Such plans, which do not have to be disclosed publicly, specify the number of shares to be sold regularly by an executive. He created his first plan in 2004.
But two years later, the pace of his selling under his plan increased. After starting a new plan in October 2006, Mr. Mozilo twice raised the number of shares that could be sold: once in December 2006, when Countrywide shares were $40.50, and again in February, when they hit a high of $45.03.
In 2007, when questioned about the sales, Mr. Mozilo said they were proper and did not reflect a change in his view of the company’s prospects.
In its suit, the S.E.C. is seeking financial penalties from Mr. Mozilo and Mr. Sambol and is asking that they be barred from becoming directors or officers of a public company. “These former Countrywide executives made a deliberate decision to mislead shareholders,” Mr. Khuzami said. “They made investors their last priority.”
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Many large U.S. retailers slashed their earnings forecasts on Thursday because of steep discounts they offered during the holidays to persuade reluctant consumers.
The discounts boosted overall industry sales but hurt profits at many chains, including L Brands Inc, Family Dollar Stores Inc and teen retailer Zumiez Inc. Even retailers that reported big sales gains, like Kay Jewelers parent Signet Jewelers Ltd, were not spared.
Fewer store visits and aggressive pricing at the start of the season by big retailers like Amazon.com Inc and Wal-Mart Stores Inc left many chains with little choice but to offer sweeter deals. Many also had too much holiday merchandise, which was ordered in late spring when retail executives were feeling upbeat.
“The discounts needed to be deeper, and they needed to be longer,” said Joel Bines, managing director of consulting firm AlixPartners.
The discounts did result in a stronger-than-expected 2.7 percent increase in December sales at the eight retailers tracked by the Thomson Reuters Same-Store Sales Index.
Still, L Brands cut its holiday-quarter profit forecast on disappointing December sales at its Victoria Secret and La Senza chains.
While L Brands’ sales at stores open at least year rose 2 percent last month, Wall Street had been expecting a gain of 3.7 percent, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. The company’s shares fell more than 4 percent.
Zumiez reported an unexpected drop in same-store sales.
Shares of Signet, which is not part of the same-store sales index, were down more than 6 percent even though it reported a 5 percent increase in U.S. same-store sales for the November-December holiday season.
Gap Inc, which is in the index, will report after markets close.
DEALS, AND MORE DEALS
Between November 3 and January 4, eight retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc, Target Corp and Macy’s Inc, increased the number of circulars published by 6 percent and sent 57 percent more promotional e-mails, according to data prepared for Reuters by MarketTrack.
Retailers also had to deal with shoppers who were less willing to go into stores: Data firm ShopperTrak this week said foot traffic had dropped 14.6 percent this holiday season.
Walgreen Co, whose comparable sales of general merchandise rose 2.5 percent in December, said fewer shoppers had come to its drugstores.
Small clothing chain Cato Corp also slashed its profit forecast after reporting poor December sales.
Still, some retailers offering staples at low prices fared well. Warehouse club chain Costco Wholesale Corp reported a 5 percent gain in U.S. same-store sales for December, while Wall Street was expecting only 1 percent.
Black Friday shoppers walk inside the Glendale Galleria in Glendale, California November 29, 2013. REUTERS/Jonathan Alcorn
American Eagle Outfitters Inc said comparable sales for November and December fell 7 percent and that it expected its quarterly profit to come in at the bottom of its earlier forecast range of 26 cents to 30 cents per share.
Family Dollar’s same-store sales fell 3 percent last month.
American Eagle and Family Dollar are not part of the same-store sales index.
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Alton Brown has never guested at Dragon Con.
The Marietta resident, guitarist, food show guru and aviation enthusiast hasn’t even been to Dragon Con as a fan since the 1990s (though he has guested at San Diego’s Comic-Con). But his puckish, visual humor (perfected as the creator of “Good Eats,” and the host of “Iron Chef” and “Cutthroat Kitchen”) are exactly perfect for the Dragon Con crowd.
That crowd is going to be excited.
Brown is bringing back his quirky “Good Eats,” which ran for 14 seasons on the Food Network and elsewhere before it ended in 2011. He plans to make the formal announcement during a Dragon Con panel Sunday, appearing with other members of his “Good Eats” cast.
How does Alton Brown plan to bring back “Good Eats”? Brown will make a formal announcement during a Dragon Con panel Sunday, appearing with other members of his “Good Eats” cast. CONTRIBUTED BY ALTON BROWN Photo: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In the meantime, he can’t resist dropping a few hints. He won’t say the name of the new show, but he’ll suggest it: “It’s not going to be called ‘Good Eats,’ though it might have the word ‘Eats’ in the title,” he says, cagily.
He also won’t say exactly how it will be distributed, though he makes the point that it will be through both conventional and digital means. “There’s a lot that I’m not telling,” he said. “I’m going to wait and tell it at Dragon Con.”
RELATED: 4 best spots to view the Dragon Con parade in all its glory
Brown, 55, spoke about his “rebooted” show, and about the grotesque scene that drew him into the Japanese version of “Iron Chef,” during a phone call from his Los Angeles studios.
“The Iron Chef”
“The first time I saw the ‘Iron Chef’ was in San Francisco. I’d heard of it, but I’d never seen it. It wasn’t airing on mainstream cable channels in San Francisco, but there was a Japanese cable network there. I’m going through the TV remote and I hit on this show right at the moment that they were nailing a live eel’s head to a cutting board. I’m like, ‘What the hell?’ I didn’t move for the next 40 minutes.” He would go on to host a wildly popular American version of the show.
Julia Child or the Galloping Gourmet?
“I preferred the Galloping Gourmet (Graham Kerr). The dude was having so much fun. I have never, for a single day on the job, had so much fun as he did.”
“Star Trek” or “Star Wars”?
“I’m ‘Star Trek,’ straight down the line. It has to do with personal history. I’ve lived in Georgia most of my life, but I was born in California, and my dad was an executive at NBC. I remember him bringing Gene Roddenberry home for dinner. … When I met William Shatner, my heart was beating fast. He’s a delightful guy.”
Will the Alton Brown Trio come to Dragon Con?
“We’re not going to be able to do that, because of the nature of the panel, the way they run those things. We were going to do a musical thing, a bit of a puppet show, but we can’t make that fit.”
Will the Alton Brown Trio be on the new “Good Eats”?
“I’m taking a page from David Lynch and his ‘Twin Peaks’ reboot, and I’m going to end every show with a song.”
Sort of like Gene Autry?
“Exactly!”
Comic books
“I am a comic fan up to the point of being a fan of comic art, specifically Japanese comic art. … I’m interested in heroes, and how cultures, such as ours, perpetuate mythologies. We still use, if not comic books, then their narratives and their storytelling devices, only now in really, really expensive movies.”
Distribution of the new “Good Eats”
“The reason we stopped making that show after 14 years is that most everyone in the media industry knew big change was coming, in the way we make and consume media. My next television show was probably not going to be on television: The next show was going to be on a mobile device.”
Gentlemen scientists
(As the host of the self-proclaimed “geekiest food show ever,” Brown has always injected a healthy dose of the experimental method into his cooking.)
“People told me, ‘You’ve got to leave science to the scientists.’ … I got criticized by more than a couple of people: ‘You’re not a real scientist.’ Oh yeah? Define that for me. What is a scientist? Because I’d kind of like to be one.”
Where he saw the eclipse
“I was flying an airplane. I was smart enough to have another pilot with me. We changed controls while the other person donned their viewing glasses. It was something to see, at 10,000 feet.”
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Dear Jr Creative…Earn Your Place. You’ll Be Better For It.
and pardon any self fellatio.
David Snyder Blocked Unblock Follow Following May 20, 2013
Dear Jr Creative,
I’m a firm believer in earning your keep, starting from the bottom, doing the less than desirable well, before moving up.
Prove yourself on what seemingly matters little, and people will notice. I promise.
At the very least, I promise I’ll notice. Because it’s the unorthodox grind of a route I took.
I was a rich kid from the suburbs. I was embarrassed by it. I hated it. It was a 90’s thing.
In High School, and in Gen-X “rebellion” against my white collar family, I worked for the Las Vegas Water District doing underground construction.
I dug ditches and changed water lines during the Vegas Summer for 8 dollars an hour. Not desirable work. And the guys I worked with could smell the rich kid on me. They busted my balls mercilessly for it.
I dug the shit out of those ditches. I loved it. I used my hands. I used heavy machinery and pneumatic tools—I drove a dump truck (which is awesome by the way).
All I wanted was the respect of these old guys changing water lines in the desert. Dudes that worked so fucking hard. For so fucking little. To feed their families; their addictions; their gambling debts.
Eventually, I’d earned a bit of respect.
I worked hard…”for a skinny rich kid.”
One day I mentioned to the crew lead: “Fuck it. I like this. Why not full time?”.
He pulled the truck over to the shoulder of a mountain road, heading North towards Mt. Charleston, looked deep into my face, “Every single one of us would give the world NOT to be here. Stop your blue collar charade. Go to school like you’re supposed to. Get out of this shit.”
So I did.
That was my last of three summers working for the water district.
I went to school for business. Marketing & Advertising to be exact. Which, aside from teaching me some business basics, really just help develop my aptness for bullshit.
Luckily for me, somewhere along the line, I learned a real skill and about this thing called the “Internet.” It was a place I could upload the photos I was taking (and developing in a darkroom, btw). I learned some Photoshop and HTML skills because of it. Eventually, I started freelancing: horrible graphic design and web work. Whatever I could get—fucking rave fliers, man. I just wanted to learn. The beer money was the gravy on top.
My first “real” job out of college was resizing graphics for an eCommerce company. I showed up for the interview on my skateboard, handed the HR lady my resume and said, “I’ll take anything. I know Photoshop. Here’s my book.” I didn’t even know what a “designer” was. But that’s why I was there. And by no means was I a designer; Photoshop monkey…maybe.
Ninety people had been laid off a month prior to me being brought on. I was the first hire after those layoffs and in the eyes of everybody…I was “that guy…”
I was at the bottom of the totem pole. Where I belonged.
The only thing I had going for me was a fear of “sucking.” And for the record, I sucked. (Certainly compared to the kids I see today).
“…good enough to resize graphics” was what I overheard the Creative Director say, just around the corner.
So I resized graphics. I resized the shit out of graphics, learning to code HTML along the way. I unlearned what I learned in business school. And learned…business. I developed site and page concepts for fun. Always showing my boss. Wanting critique. Always trying to get better. People noticed. He noticed. I gained more and more responsibility and more importantly, trust. Never begging for more money. Just wanting to do more work, better work.
To not suck.
Eventually, I took over as Creative Lead. I redesigned both KBToys.com and eToys.com. Enterprise level eCommerce stuff. Real businesses, making real money. I thought the designs were pretty damn good for the early 00’s. Some of the first .com’s to switch to 1024x768. We won some eCom industry awards. It moved product. I thought I was hot shit.
I was far from it.
Fast forward a decade and I’m blown away by the level of talent that’s out there. Kids today come out of school with so much fucking skill it’s crazy. But with all of that skill, in so many, there is equal-to-more parts hubris. An entitled attitude that seems to expect everything for nothing.
Somewhere, along the lines, we (everyone) got sensitive. We started giving trophies for last place. People forgot how to take criticism. We started (and continue) to want to spare people from the realities of what it really takes. Close counts. Thanks for trying. Better luck next time—even worse—Fail Harder.
<tangent>
I hate this phrase more than anything.
“Fail Harder” is a manifesto for the delusional, the lazy—the lotto dreamer.
Celebrating failure is a cop out. Be pissed that you fucked up—when you lose. And know why.
Fail “Smarter” maybe. But failing hard is for losers.
</tangent>
Industry-wise, we covet the idea. Not its realization, it’s viability.
“I want to be an AD. But I don’t write and I don’t design. I’m an idea guy”
“No, no, no, i’m a UX guy. I don’t do wires and I don’t do finished design. I just explore interaction concepts.”
“I want to be a CD. But I don’t like talking with clients.”
“My new Web 3.0 business concept doesn’t have a revenue model—it’s like Instagram but with animated gifs of kittens.”
Ideation in a clientless vacuum; devoid the realities of real life (inside an agency or any company for that matter). Feasibility. Budgets. Client bureaucracies. The fact is that big ideas take time to sell. They die. They have to be reborn. And that it’s your role to breathe the life back in. But only if you really give a shit.
The “idea” is the tip of a gigantic, shit stained iceberg of work. And if you aren’t ready for what it takes, or worse, you think “that it’s someone else’s job” to push your idea from ether to reality—reconsider your profession.
My advice is simple: don’t be the entitled kid. The kid who over indexes in ambition but lacks any real passion—any real drive other than a new title at a new agency.
Be the kid who wants to learn even when he doesn’t have to—the designer who wants to learn to write, to code, to understand business because it makes the design better.
Don’t be an industry douche. They call themselves ninjas or gurus…even evangelists. They’re the ones who will tell you, to your face, that they are smarter than the other guy. They’re the ones who have stopped reading by now.
Don’t be the kid who hops around. Don’t be the kid, who, when given the chance, will opt for the bare minimum. Who scoffs at perspective. The kid who will jeopardize the team to spare his fragile ego. The kid, who, when faced with a situation that gets difficult, says “I’m too good for this kind of work. I deserve better.”
Nobody deserves shit. Until you do. And even then, never admit it.
I’m now the old guy. I get it…
I’m not saying you need to go out and work construction. But it’s good to know where you don’t want to be. And understand why.
I know I don’t want to resize graphics anymore. Why? Well…because it sucks.
But I’ll still dig the shit out of a ditch.
- Dave
I should note, that my teen “rebellion” against my Father was laughably ironic. My dad was blue collar. A cowboy who changed tires on big rigs before finishing college and becoming who he is today.
Behind my teen angst, unbeknownst to me all that time, I was trying to be just like him.
What a silly little rich kid.
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Cramer fakes out his viewers on Stewart appearance David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Published: Friday March 13, 2009
Print This Email This Any viewers who might have decided to take in Jim Cramer's Mad Money on Friday in hopes of finding out how the CNBC host would react to the verbal thrashing he'd received from Comedy Central's Jon Stewart the night before were doomed to disappointment.
Cramer started promisingly enough. "Before we get started, I want to say something about what happened yesterday," he began soberly. "A lot of people are talking about what happened. ... Although I was clearly outside of my safety zone, I have the utmost respect for this person, for the work that they do, no matter how uncomfortable it was to be on. So I want you to take a look at this clip from yesterday of Cramer vs. Stewart!"
At that point, it was revealed that the come-on had been nothing but a tease, as the clip turned out to show Cramer helping Martha Stewart -- on whose program he had appeared earlier on Thursday -- prepare what appeared to be a banana cream pie.
"You're doing a very good job," Martha said encouragingly.
As the clip ended, Cramer sneered, "Now back to business as usual."
He never did mention Jon Stewart at all.
This video is from CNBC's Mad Money, broadcast Mar. 13, 2009.
Download video via RawReplay.com
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Toronto Anarchy Page
Other Parts of this Page
Anarchy Pictures
Anarchy History
Anarchy Articles
Anarchy Quotes
Anarchy Symbols
Anarchy Flyers
Anarchy Timeline
Toronoto Police Brutality (important for anyone living in Toronto)
Rich Vs. Poor, Class War
Links
There is probably more rubbish talked about anarchism than any other political idea. Actually, it has nothing to do with a belief in chaos, death and destruction. Anarchists do not normally carry bombs, nor do they ascribe any virtue to beating up old ladies. It is no accident that the sinister image of the mad anarchist is so accepted. The State, the press and all the assorted authoritarian types, use every means at their disposal to present anarchy as an unthinkable state of carnage and chaos. We can expect little else from power-mongers who would have no power to monger if we had our way. They have to believe that authority and obedience are essential in order to justify their own crimes to themselves. The TV, press and films all preach obedience, and when anarchy is mentioned at all, it is presented as mindless destruction.
The alleged necessity of authority is so firmly planted in the average mind that anarchy, which means simply no government' is almost unthinkable to most people. The same people, on the other hand, will admit that rules, regulations, taxes, officiousness and abuse of power (to name but a few) are irritating to say the least. These things are usually thought to be worth suffering in silence because the alternative_no power, no authority, everybody doing what they pleased would be horrible. It would be anarchy.
Yet there are a limitless range of possible societies without the State. Not all of them would be unpleasant to live in. Quite the contrary! Any kind of anarchist society would at least be spared the horrible distortions the State produces. The negative side of anarchism abolition of the State has to be balanced against what replaces it a society of freedom and free co-operation.
Various sorts of anarchists have differing ideas on exactly how society ought to be organised. They all agree that the State must be replaced by a society without classes and without force. It is because of this belief in freedom that we are reluctant to put forward a rigid blueprint.
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Strange and Interesting Facts about the Civil War
Did you know that in the Civil War, General Stonewall Jackson walked around with his right hand in the air to balance the blood in his body? Because he was right-handed, he thought that his right hand was getting more blood than his left, and so by raising his hand, he’d allow the excess blood to run into his left hand. He also never ate food that tasted good, because he assumed that anything that tasted good was completely unhealthy.
During the Civil War, glasses with colored lenses were used to treat disorders and illnesses. Yellow-trimmed glasses were used to treat syphilis, blue for insanity, and pink for depression. Thus we get the term, To see the world through rose-colored glasses.
Centuries before and decades after the Civil War, including the war itself, doorways were wide, not because of the width of women’s skirts, but so coffins could be passed through, with a pallbearer on either side.
Did you know that the average American in the 1860’s could not afford to paint his house, and a painted house was a sign of affluence? In order to keep up appearances, they used cedar clapboards.
Did you know that when a woman mourned for her husband in the 1860’s, she spent a minimum of two-and-a-half years in mourning? That meant little or no social activities: no parties, , no outings, no visitors, and a wardrobe that consisted of nothing but black. (Shame on Scarlet O’Hara) The husband, when mourning for his wife, however, spent three months in a black suit.
Surgeons never washed their hands after an operation, because all of the blood was assumed to be the same.
Did you know that during the Victorian era, the dead were either laid out in their parlors, or, as the Southerners preferred, in their bedrooms? There was no such thing as a funeral home; death was a part of life, and the dead remained in the house up until they were buried. The tradition of flowers around the coffin comes from the Victorians trying to hide the scent of the deceased.
Did you know that when a child died, parents would have a photograph taken of the child? They wanted to preserve the memory for as long as possible. A lot of photographs taken of sleeping children are actually of deceased sons or daughters.
After the Battle of Gettysburg, the discarded rifles were collected and sent to Washington to be inspected and reissued. Of the 37,574 rifles recovered, approximately 24,000 were still loaded; 6,000 had one round in the barrel; 12,000 had two rounds in the barrel; 6,000 had three to ten rounds in the barrel. One rifle, the most remarkable of all, had been stuffed to the top with twenty-three rounds in the barrel.
Did you know that President Lincoln had a mild form smallpox (varioloid) while he gave the Gettysburg Address. On the train back to Washington he quipped, “Now I have something that I can give everybody.”
Did you know that President Lincoln’s favorite tune was “Dixie”?
The Civil War was also known as The Brothers’ War, the War for the Union and the War of the Rebellion.
General Nathan Bedford Forrest, CSA, had twenty-nine horses shot from beneath him during the war years.
Lastly, this is my favorite. I laughed for a while about this. One of the most popular questions park rangers get when giving tours around Civil War battlefields is: “Did the soldiers have to fight around all of these monuments?” They could only smile and say yes: They knew exactly were to die.
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Media playback is not supported on this device Netherlands 0-1 England - friendly highlights
England extended their unbeaten run to 10 matches as substitute Jodie Taylor gave them a hard-fought friendly win over Euro 2017 hosts the Netherlands.
The Lionesses showed grit in a game of few chances in Tilburg, notably when Lucy Bronze blocked from Ellen Jansen.
Mark Sampson's side improved after the break, and Toni Duggan produced a low save from Loes Gurts.
And after a spell of Dutch pressure, Jordan Nobbs' long ball sent Taylor racing clear to lob the winner.
Relive England's gritty win in Tilburg
See the full Euro 2017 draw
Sampson gets his wish
Mark Sampson punched the air when Jodie Taylor scored the winner
Sampson joined his squad late for the fixture having returned from the birth of his first child.
The England boss had explained he wanted this fixture to test his side - who do not play again until a friendly with Italy in April - as they prepare for the European Championship in July.
His decision to introduce Taylor to offer more support to the often-isolated Duggan proved key, and he should be pleased with how his defenders restricted a side seeded ninth for next summer's tournament.
England have now conceded just one goal in eight matches, defensive form which has set up their best run since an 11-game unbeaten sequence between March 2012 and June 2013.
A Euro 2017 win? Hope, but questions
Germany last left a European Championship without the trophy in 1993, but England did beat them at the 2015 World Cup
England, seeded third, will be heavy favourites to progress from a Euro 2017 group also featuring Scotland, Spain and Portugal.
The fact Sampson made just two changes from October's friendly win over Spain suggests he is getting closer to knowing his best side but still there are some questions to be answered.
In deploying Karen Carney behind lone striker Duggan, England lacked cutting edge and it was only when Taylor came on as a second striker that they created their best two openings.
Chelsea striker Eniola Aluko's omission from the squad also prompts questions. The Women's Super League's top-scoring English player has not added to her 95 England caps since April.
England's players must also get used to a new schedule next year, in preparation for the domestic season switching to September-May.
But the national side's excellent form leaves them well placed to perhaps end Germany's run of six straight European titles.
'England find key answers'
Former England forward Sue Smith on the BBC Red Button: "I think England can be happy, given they have a lot of key players missing. I think they are in a good position going into the Euros.
"The Dutch made it hard for them, but England managed to solve the problems the Dutch created. They have ground out a win, which is sometimes what you need to do, especially in tournament football."
Player of the match - Jordan Nobbs
Jordan Nobbs was busy in England's midfield and produced a superb through-ball for the only goal of the game
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This column originally ran in November 2015 and is being republished in antici … pation of tonight’s remake on FOX.
Music, Movies & Moods is a regular free-form column in which Matt Melis explores the cracks between where art and daily life meet.
“I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey.”
The Criminologist’s opening proposal offers as fitting words as any to begin an account of our staff’s virgin voyage to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Except for maybe the question that invariably gets shouted back by the audience in late-night screenings worldwide: “How strange was it?” That simple talk-back moment so perfectly captures the dynamic of the Rocky experience. You may venture out to watch Richard O’Brien’s bizarre, rock-and-roll, babes-in-the-wood tale of Brad (“Asshole!”) and Janet (“Slut!”) becoming ensnared by an egomaniacal, cross-dressing alien mad scientist, but you soon find the real show goes on not on-screen but all around you.
“I’m really an old-fashioned girl,” O’Brien once said, explaining the rudimentary structure of Brad and Janet’s night out at Frank’s castle. “I like a beginning, middle, and an end.”
Our journey, however, can’t be so neatly trisected and labeled. Did Rocky Horror for Michael Roffman (our Frank), Heather Kaplan (our Janet), Sasha Geffen (our Rocky), Justin Gerber (our Transylvanian), and me (our Eddie) begin when I purchased our advance tickets or when Mike slid those fishnets up his legs for the first time? When we pledged allegiance to “The Lips” (with hand on heart or crotch) or when we took that first collective jump to the left with 800 others? I’m pretty certain the middle stretch came somewhere around the time I stood at a urinal, a hunchbacked handyman to my left and a linebacker in garters and a ruby-red, sequined corset to my right coaxing, “Pee it, don’t dream it.” To borrow a line from Tim Curry: “It’s so comforting to know that there are people in this world sicker than I am.”
As for the ending of our journey, well, that’s more difficult to determine. Now that we’ve tasted blood, will we, like countless others over the last 40 years, want more, more, more? The film’s executive producer, Lou Adler, has spoken of the strange phenomena of sitting outside LA’s Mann Festival theater – where the film first opened – and seeing the same few people return each night, even after the movie had been officially dubbed a critical and commercial disaster. Then followed the marketing invention of the midnight (or even two a.m.) movie; the audience-participation explosion out of Greenwich Village; the badge-like boasts from veterans of having seen the film in theaters hundreds and even thousands of times; and the idea of Rocky as a weekend safe haven for those who felt marginalized (sexually or otherwise) in their daily lives. All of it inexplicably adds up to the longest-running theatrical release in movie history. So, while the five of us may no longer be virgins, history suggests that we’re probably not spent just yet either.
Standing in line last Friday with hundreds of our fellow unconventional conventionists outside Chicago’s Music Box Theater felt surreal. Though tame in comparison to the footage of devotees camped outside theaters like New York’s Waverly in the late ‘70s, we still shivered with an antici… (“Say it!”) …pation that couldn’t be blamed on scant costumes and a crisp Chicago evening. While we waited to be frisked for prunes, hot dogs, and toast rather than weapons (okay, maybe squirt guns), we compared last-minute shopping scores that had completed our ensembles: a plastic saxophone, gold Rocky sneakers, a Transylvanian vest, and a pair of women’s size 14 black Frank N Heels. We hadn’t really discussed our plans, but everyone took it upon themselves to make our first time memorable. After all, you’re only a virgin once.
Our MC for the night (apart from that beautiful woman who owns that castle) was Midnight Madness, a rotating theater group that has hosted and performed at Rocky screenings since the late ‘80s. In addition to shadow-cast performances, groups like Midnight Madness are largely responsible for keeping the traditions of Rocky alive. They provide prop kits, nudge the audience participation along, lead the Rocky oath, judge the pre-show costume party (none of us won), and, most importantly, initiate virgins. On our night, as part of the induction, three virgins had to simulate orgasmic screams onstage. While none of them gave Meg Ryan (“I’ll have what she’s having”) a run for her deli meat, it’s the type of silly and naughty fun that cues Rocky goers to loosen up (not their corsets) and let everything but their stockings down.
“It was possibly the best piece of street theater I had ever seen,” O’Brien has said about the first time he saw how audiences were interacting with Rocky. “It encapsulated live action, filmed image, and audience participation. And three out of three ain’t bad.”
It’s that sensory overload, in part, that must keep Rocky from ever growing tiresome — even 40 years on. While the movie itself plays normally, performers cast silhouettes on the screen and saunter through the aisles as they act out the film and lip-synch the songs. On-screen cues signal a variety of lighthearted participatory acts: waving glow sticks and illuminated phones in unison (“there’s a light”), TP-ing the entire theater (“Great Scott!”), and flinging playing cards through the air (“Cards for sorrow, cards for pain”). And, of course, from the first seconds of the film, there’s shouting back at the movie (Janet: “The owner of that phone might be a beautiful woman.” Audience: “Don’t worry. He is!”), either off a script or riffing in a game of verbal one-upmanship that can range from corny to playfully vulgar. From the time those luscious lips appear until the closing reprise of “Science Fiction/Double Feature” fades out, never is something not occurring, and even if the performances and audience participation were identical each time (not the case, of course), never could you process it all in the same way twice. Like its namesake, Rocky is a creation that lives, breathes, and can’t be neatly controlled.
Curry once called Rocky less a film and “more of an event — a mad rite of passage.” That felt spot-on as kids both half our age and adults twice our age filled the theater – virgins and veterans, both of whom, if not for Rocky, would never find themselves in each other’s company except for maybe in a checkout line or on a subway platform. Oddly enough, while prepping for the event, Mike found out that his father and mother actually met while she played the role of Magenta in college. I found out my own mother – the source of, among other traits, my thoughtful, reserved nature – attended Rocky in the late ‘70s at the Kings Court Theater on the University of Pittsburgh campus. All those nights I watched a worn VHS copy of Rocky in my bedroom growing up, I naturally assumed nobody else in my family had ever done the Time Warp. Again, where did our journey really begin — that night or maybe decades ago at midnight screenings before we were even born?
If trying to pinpoint that “elusive ingredient, that spark that is the breath of life” that keeps Rocky going, you can’t do much better than returning to Frank’s mantra: “Don’t dream it. Be it.” It’s a mindset that’s inspired many nights of absolute pleasure, provided refuge to outcasts, and even saved lives. At the most basic level, a night at Rocky comes with a free pass to step into that dream for a couple of hours without fear of judgment – that’s no mean invitation. As Frank sang the line “a weakling weighing 98 pounds,” I reached back for a response I learned at The Rocky Horror Show (the stage version): “He used to weigh 99 pounds, but he jerked off.” It got a couple laughs and surprised my group, but shouting out into the crowd and drawing attention to myself – something I would never normally do – felt like such a release. And that’s what the night meant to me: It was one huge, sweaty, pelvic-thrusting catharsis set to some of the grooviest and most enduring rock songs ever put on screen. By the time we emerged from the theater – virgins no longer and still largely immune to the realities that threatened to puncture our dream – we shared one thought: When can we go again?
As I’m putting these last thoughts down, it’s nearly midnight on a Friday. It’s both disturbing (in the best possible sense) and comforting (in the most bizarre sense) to know that somewhere around the world people are shedding (or have already shed) their dull, daily attire — and all the tedium, cares, and judgment that often come bundled with it – in favor of fishnets, corsets, and pancaked makeup and whatever that symbolizes to them. While filming Rocky, Curry commented that even after you wipe off your face at the end of the day, “there’s always a little [makeup] left in the cracks.” As I type, I can see the last remnants of the ‘t’ in “hate” on a left knuckle clinging for dear life – like the lone letter left flickering on a neglected neon sign — and part of me really wants to remedy that.
As O’Brien famously sang through Patricia Quinn’s seductive red lips: “I wanna go, oh-oh, to the late-night double feature picture show.”
Hot patootie, indeed.
Midnight Madness cast photos and video by Elaine Truver.
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Home Daily News Law firm ripped up bloody carpet to hide…
Law Firms
Law firm ripped up bloody carpet to hide sex assault by partner, ex-associate alleges at bias trial
A Manhattan law firm ripped up carpet stained by blood when a partner “painfully and forcefully” had sex with an associate following a 2011 holiday party, the former associate’s lawyer alleged as her bias trial got under way on Monday.
The now-former associate, Alexandra Marchuk, is seeking $9 million in her bias suit against the law firm, Faruqi & Faruqi, the New York Post reports. A preview of the trial by the New York Law Journal (sub. req.) says Marchuk claims $2 million in damages and is seeking at least $10 million in punitive damages.
Marchuk, who is represented by Harry Lipman, claims partner Juan Monteverde told her she would not receive a bonus and would likely lose her job if she did not have sex with him, the New York Law Journal says. She claims she agreed to return to his office after the party where he pushed her to the floor and had forceful sex with her. Marchuk says the firm protected Monteverde because he was a rainmaker.
During opening statements, a lawyer for the firm, Scott Bursor, countered that Marchuk pursued Monteverde, and said she never complained the partner had sexually assaulted her until after she resigned, the New York Post says. Bursor told jurors that a gynecologist who evaluated Marchuk will testify that the associate told him sex was consensual.
Bursor also said Marchuk was embarrassed about the stain and she suggested throwing coffee over it to avoid office gossip.
The law firm filed a counterclaim for defamation but it was dropped, spurring Marchuk to add allegations of defamation and malicious prosecution to her suit, the New York Post says.
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Minangkabau people (Minangkabau: Urang Minang), also known as Minang, are an ethnic group indigenous to the Minangkabau Highlands of West Sumatra, Indonesia. The Minangkabau's West Sumatran homelands was the seat of the Pagaruyung Kingdom,[5] believed by early orientalists to have been the cradle of the Malay race,[6] and the location of the Padri War (1821 to 1837).
Minangkabau are ethnic majority in West Sumatra and Negeri Sembilan. Minangkabau are also recognised minority in other parts of Indonesia and Malaysia, Singapore and Netherlands
Etymology [ edit ]
A statue believed to be Adityawarman , founder of a Minangkabau kingdom.
The term Minangkabau (Minangkabau: Minang Jawi script: مينڠ) came from a popular legend that was derived from a territorial dispute between a people and a prince from a neighbouring region. To avoid a battle, the local people proposed a fight to the death between two water buffalo (kabau) to settle the dispute. The prince agreed and produced the largest, meanest, most aggressive buffalo. The villagers on other hand produced a hungry baby calf with its small horns ground to be as sharp as knives. Seeing the adult buffalo across the field, the calf ran forward, hoping for milk. The big buffalo saw no threat in the baby buffalo and paid no attention to it, looking around for a worthy opponent. But when the baby thrust his head under the big bull's belly, looking for an udder, the sharpened horns punctured and killed the bull giving the villagers their victory (manang, hence manang kabau: "victors of the buffalo" which eventually became Minangkabau). The legend however has its rebuttals as the word 'minang' refers to the consumption of areca nut (pinang), yet there hasn't been any popular explanation on the word 'minang' that relates the aforementioned action to the word for "water buffalo".
The first mention of the name Minangkabau as Minanga Tamwan, is in the late 7th century Kedukan Bukit inscription, describing Sri Jayanasa sacred journey from Minanga Tamwan accompanied with 20.000 soldiers heading to Matajap and conquering several areas in the southern of Sumatra.[7]
History [ edit ]
marawa of Minangkabau. Flag orof Minangkabau.
The Minangkabau language is a member of the Austronesian language family, and is closest to the Malay language, though when the two languages split from a common ancestor and the precise historical relationship between Malay and Minangkabau culture is not known. Until the 20th century the majority of the Sumatran population lived in the highlands. The highlands are well suited for human habitation, with plentiful fresh water, fertile soil, a cool climate, and valuable commodities. It is probable that wet rice cultivation evolved in the Minangkabau Highlands long before it appeared in other parts of Sumatra, and predates significant foreign contact.[8]
Adityawarman, a follower of Tantric Buddhism with ties to the Singhasari and Majapahit kingdoms of Java, is believed to have founded a kingdom in the Minangkabau highlands at Pagaruyung and ruled between 1347 and 1375.[9]:232 The establishment of a royal system seems to have involved conflict and violence, eventually leading to a division of villages into one of two systems of tradition, Bodi Caniago and Koto Piliang, the latter having overt allegiances to royalty.[10] By the 16th century, the time of the next report after the reign of Adityawarman, royal power had been split into three recognised reigning kings. They were the King of the World (Raja Alam), the King of Adat (Raja Adat), and the King of Religion (Raja Ibadat), and collectively they were known as the Kings of the Three Seats (Rajo Tigo Selo).[11] The Minangkabau kings were charismatic or magical figures, but did not have much authority over the conduct of village affairs.[10][12]
It was around the 16th century that Islam started to be adopted by the Minangkabau. The first contact between the Minangkabau and western nations occurred with the 1529 voyage of Jean Parmentier to Sumatra. The Dutch East India Company first acquired gold at Pariaman in 1651, but later moved south to Padang to avoid interference from the Acehnese occupiers. In 1663 the Dutch agreed to protect and liberate local villages from the Acehnese in return for a trading monopoly, and as a result setup trading posts at Painan and Padang. Until early in the 19th century the Dutch remained content with their coastal trade of gold and produce, and made no attempt to visit the Minangkabau highlands. As a result of conflict in Europe, the British occupied Padang from 1781 to 1784 during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, and again from 1795 to 1819 during the Napoleonic Wars.
Late in the 18th century the gold supply which provided the economic base for Minangkabau royalty began to be exhausted. Around the same time other parts of the Minangkabau economy had a period of unparalleled expansion as new opportunities for the export of agricultural commodities arose, particularly with coffee which was in very high demand. A civil war started in 1803 with the Padri fundamentalist Islamic group in conflict with the traditional syncretic groups, elite families and Pagaruyung royals. As a result of a treaty with a number of penghulu and representatives of the Minangkabau royal family, Dutch forces made their first attack on a Padri village in April 1821.[10] The first phase of the war ended in 1825 when the Dutch signed an agreement with the Padri leader Tuanku Imam Bonjol to halt hostilities, allowing them to redeploy their forces to fight the Java War. When fighting resumed in 1832, the reinforced Dutch troops were able to more effectively attack the Padri. The main centre of resistance was captured in 1837, Tuanku Imam Bonjol was captured and exiled soon after, and by the end of the next year the war was effectively over.
Minangkabau chiefs, picture taken between 1910 and 1930.
With the Minangkabau territories now under the control of the Dutch, transportation systems were improved and economic exploitation was intensified. New forms of education were introduced, allowing some Minangkabau to take advantage of a modern education system. The 20th century marked a rise and cultural and political nationalism, culminating in the demand for Indonesian independence. Later rebellions against the Dutch occupation occurred such as the 1908 Anti-Tax Rebellion and the 1927 Communist uprising. During World War II the Minangkabau territories were occupied by the Japanese, and when the Japanese surrendered in August 1945 Indonesia proclaimed independence. The Dutch attempts to regain control of the area were ultimately unsuccessful and in 1949 the Minangkabau territories became part of Indonesia as the province of Central Sumatra.
In February 1958, dissatisfaction with the centralist and communist-leaning policies of the Sukarno administration triggered a revolt which was centred in the Minangkabau region of Sumatra, with rebels proclaiming the Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia (PRRI) in Bukittinggi. The Indonesian military invaded West Sumatra in April 1958 and had recaptured major towns within the next month. A period of guerrilla warfare ensued, but most rebels had surrendered by August 1961. In the years following, West Sumatra was like an occupied territory with Javanese officials occupying most senior civilian, military and police positions.[13] The policies of centralisation continued under the Suharto regime. The national government legislated to apply the Javanese desa village system throughout Indonesia, and in 1983 the traditional Minangkabau nagari village units were split into smaller jorong units, thereby destroying the traditional village social and cultural institutions.[14] In the years following the downfall of the Suharto regime decentralisation policies were implemented, giving more autonomy to provinces, thereby allowing West Sumatra to reinstitute the nagari system.[15]
Historiography [ edit ]
The village of Pariangan, located on the slopes of Mount Marapi , is in folklore said to be the first Minangkabau village.
The traditional historiography or tambo of the Minangkabau tells of the development of the Minangkabau World (alam Minangkabau) and its adat. These stories are derived from an oral history which was transmitted between generations before the Minangkabau had a written language. The first Minangkabau are said to have arrived by ship and landed on Mount Marapi when it was no bigger than the size of an egg, which protruded from a surrounding body of water. After the waters receded the Minangkabau proliferated and dispersed to the slopes and valleys surrounding the volcano, a region called the darek. The darek is composed of three luhak – Tanah Datar, Agam and Limapuluh Koto. The tambo claims the ship was sailed by a descendant of Alexander the Great (Iskandar Zulkarnain).[16]
Minangkabau house and rice barns.
A division in Minangkabau adat into two systems is said to be the result of conflict between two half-brothers Datuak Katumangguangan and Datuak Parpatiah nan Sabatang, who were the leaders who formulated the foundations of Minangkabau adat. The former accepted Adityawarman, a prince from Majapahit, as a king while the latter considered him a minister, and a civil war ensued. The Bodi Caniago/Adat perpatih system formulated by Datuak Parpatiah nan Sabatang is based upon egalitarian principles with all panghulu (clan chiefs) being equal while the Koto Piliang /Adat Katumangguangan system is more autocratic with there being a hierarchy of panghulu. Each village (nagari) in the darek was an autonomous "republic", and governed independently of the Minangkabau kings using one of the two adat systems. After the darek was settled, new outside settlements were created and ruled using the Koto Piliang system by rajo who were representatives of the king.[16]
Culture [ edit ]
Minangkabau women clad in traditional Minang costumes.
Minangkabau have large corporate descent groups, but they traditionally reckon descent matrilineally.[17] A young boy, for instance, has his primary responsibility to his mother's and sisters' clans.[17] It is considered "customary" and ideal for married sisters to remain in their parental home, with their husbands having a sort of visiting status. Not everyone lives up to this ideal, however.[17] In the 1990s, anthropologist Evelyn Blackwood studied a relatively conservative village[citation needed] in Sumatra Barat where only about 22 percent of the households were "matrihouses", consisting of a mother and a married daughter or daughters.[17] Nonetheless, there is a shared ideal among Minangkabau in which sisters and unmarried lineage members try to live close to one another or even in the same house.[17]
Landholding is one of the crucial functions of the suku (female lineage unit). Because Minangkabau men, like Acehnese men, often migrate to seek experience, wealth, and commercial success, the women's kin group is responsible for maintaining the continuity of the family and the distribution and cultivation of the land.[17] These family groups, however, are typically led by a penghulu (headman), elected by groups of lineage leaders.[17] With the agrarian base of the Minangkabau economy in decline, the suku—as a landholding unit—has also been declining somewhat in importance, especially in urban areas.[17] Indeed, the position of penghulu is not always filled after the death of the incumbent, particularly if lineage members are not willing to bear the expense of the ceremony required to install a new penghulu.[17]
Minangkabau men in traditional Minangkabau clothes.
As early as the age of 7, boys traditionally leave their homes and live in a surau (a prayer house and community centre) to learn religious and cultural (adat) teachings. At the surau during night time (after the Isyak prayers), these youngsters are taught the traditional Minankabau art of self-defence, which is Silek, or Silat in Malay. When they are teenagers, they are encouraged to leave their hometown to learn from schools or from experiences out of their hometown so that when they are adults they can return home wise and 'useful' for the society and can contribute their thinking and experience to run the family or nagari (hometown) when they sit as the member of 'council of uncles'. This tradition has created Minang communities in many Indonesian cities and towns, which nevertheless are still tied closely to their homeland; a state in Malaysia named Negeri Sembilan is heavily influenced by Minang culture because Negeri Sembilan was originally Minangkabau's colony.[18]
The traditions of sharia—in which inheritance laws favour males— and indigenous female-oriented adat are often depicted as conflicting forces in Minangkabau society.[17] The male-oriented sharia appears to offer young men something of a balance against the dominance of law in local villages, which forces a young man to wait passively for a marriage proposal from some young woman's family.[17] By acquiring property and education through merantau experience, a young man can attempt to influence his own destiny in positive ways.[17]
Minangkabau knife fencing dancers (Tukang Mancak) on the west coast of Sumatra, 1897.
Increasingly, married couples go off on merantau; in such situations, the woman's role tends to change.[17] When married couples reside in urban areas or outside the Minangkabau region, women lose some of their social and economic rights in property. One apparent consequence is an increased likelihood of divorce.[17]
Minangkabau were prominent among the intellectual figures in the Indonesian independence movement.[17] Not only were they strongly Islamic (meaning: Their religious belief is different from the occupying Protestant Dutch), and like every other Sumatran: They are culturally and naturally proud people, they also have traditional belief of egalitarianism of "Standing as tall, sitting as low" (that no body stand or sit on an increased stage), they speak a language closely related to Indonesian, which was considerably freer of hierarchical connotations than Javanese.[17] Partly because of their tradition of merantau, Minangkabau developed a cosmopolitan bourgeoisie that readily adopted and promoted the ideas of an emerging nation-state.[17]
Due to their culture that stresses the importance of learning, Minang people are over-represented in the educated professions in Indonesia, with many ministers from Minang.[19]
Ceremonies and festivals [ edit ]
Women carrying platters of food to a ceremony.
Minangkabau ceremonies and festivals include:
Turun mandi – baby blessing ceremony
– baby blessing ceremony Sunat rasul – circumcision ceremony
– circumcision ceremony Baralek – wedding ceremony
– wedding ceremony Batagak pangulu – clan leader inauguration ceremony. Other clan leaders, all relatives in the same clan and all villagers in the region are invited. The ceremony lasts for seven days or more.
– clan leader inauguration ceremony. Other clan leaders, all relatives in the same clan and all villagers in the region are invited. The ceremony lasts for seven days or more. Turun ka sawah – community work ceremony
– community work ceremony Manyabik – harvesting ceremony
– harvesting ceremony Hari Rayo – Islamic festivals
– Islamic festivals Adoption ceremony
Adat ceremony
Funeral ceremony
Wild boar hunt ceremony
Maanta pabukoan – sending food to mother-in-law for Ramadhan
Tabuik – Muslim celebration in the coastal village of Pariaman
– Muslim celebration in the coastal village of Pariaman Tanah Ta Sirah , inaugurate a new clan leader (Datuk) when the old one died in the few hours (no need to proceed to the batagak pangulu, but the clan must invite all clan leader in the region).
, inaugurate a new clan leader (Datuk) when the old one died in the few hours (no need to proceed to the batagak pangulu, but the clan must invite all clan leader in the region). Mambangkik Batang Tarandam, inaugurate a new leader (Datuk) when the old one died in the pass 10 or 50 years and even more, attendance in the Batagak Pangulu ceremony is mandatory.
Performing arts [ edit ]
Traditional Minangkabau music includes saluang jo dendang which consists of singing to the accompaniment of a saluang bamboo flute, and talempong gong-chime music. Dances include the tari piring (plate dance), tari payung (umbrella dance) and tari indang (also known as endang or badindin). Demonstrations of the silat martial art are performed. Pidato adat are ceremonial orations performed at formal occasions.
Randai is a folk theatre tradition which incorporates music, singing, dance, drama and the silat martial art. Randai is usually performed for traditional ceremonies and festivals, and complex stories may span a number of nights.[20] It is performed as a theatre-in-the-round to achieve an equality and unity between audience members and the performers.[21] Randai performances are a synthesis of alternating martial arts dances, songs, and acted scenes. Stories are delivered by the acting and singing and are mostly based upon Minangkabau legends and folktales.[20] Randai originated early in the 20th century out of fusion of local martial arts, storytelling and other performance traditions.[22] Men originally played male and female characters in the story but, since the 1960s, women have participated.[20]
Crafts [ edit ]
Minangkabau songket, the pattern in the lower third representing bamboo sprouts.
Particular Minangkabau villages specialise in cottage industries producing handicrafts such as woven sugarcane and reed purses, gold and silver jewellery using filigree and granulation techniques, woven songket textiles, wood carving, embroidery, pottery, and metallurgy.
Cuisine [ edit ]
Minangkabau Cuisine.
The staple ingredients of the Minangkabau diet are rice, fish, coconut, green leafy vegetables and chili. Meat is mainly limited to special occasions, and beef and chicken are most commonly used. Pork is not halal and not consumed, while lamb, goat and game are rarely consumed for reasons of taste and availability. Spiciness is a characteristic of Minangkabau food: The most commonly used herbs and spices are chili, turmeric, ginger and galangal. Vegetables are consumed two or three times a day. Fruits are mainly seasonal, although fruits such as banana, papaya and citrus are continually available.[23]
Three meals a day are typical with lunch being the most important, except during the fasting month of Ramadan when lunch is not eaten. Meals commonly consist of steamed rice, a hot fried dish and a coconut milk dish, with a little variation from breakfast to dinner.[23] Meals are generally eaten from a plate using the fingers of the right hand.[citation needed] Snacks are more frequently eaten by people in urban areas than in villages. Western food has had little impact upon Minangkabau consumption and preference.[23]
Rendang is a dish which is considered to be a characteristic of Minangkabau culture; it is cooked 4–5 times a year.[23] Other characteristic dishes include Asam Padeh, Soto Padang, Sate Padang, Dendeng Balado (beef with chili sauce).
Food has a central role in the Minangkabau ceremonies which honour religious and life-cycle rites.
Minangkabau food is popular among Indonesians and restaurants are present throughout Indonesia. Nasi Padang restaurants, named after the capital of West Sumatra, are known for placing a variety of Minangkabau dishes on a customer's tablewith rice and billing only for what is taken.[24] Nasi Kapau is another restaurant variant which specialises in dishes using offal and tamarind to add a sourness to the spicy flavour.[25]
Architecture [ edit ]
rangkiang) in front. Rumah gadang in the Pandai Sikek village of West Sumatra, with two rice barns () in front.
Rumah gadang (Minangkabau: 'big house') or rumah bagonjong (Minangkabau: 'spired roof house') are the traditional homes of the Minangkabau. The architecture, construction, internal and external decoration, and the functions of the house reflect the culture and values of the Minangkabau. A rumah gadang serves as a residence, a hall for family meetings, and for ceremonial activities. The rumah gadang is owned by the women of the family who live there – ownership is passed from mother to daughter.[26]
The houses have dramatic curved roof structures with multi-tiered, upswept gables. They are also well distinguished by their rooflines which curve upward from the middle and end in points, in imitation of the upward-curving horns of the water buffalo that supposedly eked the people their name (i.e. "victors of the buffalo"). Shuttered windows are built into walls incised with profuse painted floral carvings. The term rumah gadang usually refers to the larger communal homes, however, smaller single residences share many of its architectural elements.
Oral traditions and literature [ edit ]
Minangkabau culture has a long history of oral traditions. One is the pidato adat (ceremonial orations) which are performed by clan chiefs (panghulu) at formal occasions such as weddings, funerals, adoption ceremonies, and panghulu inaugurations. These ceremonial orations consist of many forms including pantun, aphorisms (papatah-patitih), proverbs (pameo), religious advice (petuah), parables (tamsia), two-line aphorisms (gurindam), and similes (ibarat).
Minangkabau traditional folktales (kaba) consist of narratives that present the social and personal consequences of either ignoring or observing the ethical teachings and the norms embedded in the adat. The storyteller (tukang kaba) recites the story in poetic or lyrical prose while accompanying himself on a rabab.
A theme in Minangkabau folktales is the central role mothers and motherhood has in Minangkabau society, with the folktales Rancak di Labuah and Malin Kundang being two examples. Rancak di Labuah is about a mother who acts as teacher and adviser to her two growing children. Initially her son is vain and headstrong and only after her perseverance does he become a good son who listens to his mother.[27] Malin Kundang is about the dangers of treating your mother badly. A sailor from a poor family voyages to seek his fortune, becoming rich and marrying. After refusing to recognise his elderly mother on his return home, being ashamed of his humble origins, he is cursed and dies when a storm ensues and turn him along with his ship to stone. The said stone is in Air Manis beach and is known by locals as batu Malin Kundang.[27]
Other popular folktales also relate to the important role of the woman in Minangkabau society. In the Cindua Mato epic the woman is the source of wisdom, while in the Sabai nan Aluih she is more a doer than a thinker. Cindua Mato (Staring Eye) is about the traditions of Minangkabau royalty. The story involves a mythical Minangkabau queen, Bundo Kanduang, who embodies the behaviours prescribed by adat. Cindua Mato, a servant of the queen, uses magic to defeat hostile outside forces and save the kingdom.[28] Sabai nan Aluih (The genteel Sabai) is about a girl named Sabai who avenges the murder of her father by a powerful and evil ruler from a neighbouring village. After her father's death, her cowardly elder brother refuses to confront the murderer and so Sabai decides to take matters into her own hands. She seeks out the murderer and shoots him in revenge.[20]
Matrilineality [ edit ]
The Minangkabau are the largest matrilineal society in the world, with property, family name and land passing down from mother to daughter,[29] while religious and political affairs are the responsibility of men, although some women also play important roles in these areas. This custom is called Lareh Bodi Caniago and is known as adat perpatih in Malaysia. Today 4.2 million Minangs live in the homeland of West Sumatra.
As one of the world's most populous (as well as politically and economically influential) matrilineal ethnicities, Minangkabau gender dynamics have been extensively studied by anthropologists. The adat (Minangkabau: Adaik) traditions have allowed Minangkabau women to hold a relatively advantageous position in their society compared to most patriarchal societies, as most property and other economic assets pass through female lines.
Language [ edit ]
Location ethnic groups of Sumatra, the Minangkabau is shown in light and dark olive.
The Minangkabau language (Baso Minangkabau) is an Austronesian language belonging to the Malayic linguistic subgroup, which in turn belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian branch. The Negri Sembilan dialect of Malay used by people in the aforementioned state is closely related to it due to the fact many of the population are descendants of Minangkabau immigrants.
The language has a number of dialects and sub-dialects, but native Minangkabau speakers generally have no difficulty understanding the variety of dialects. The differences between dialects are mainly at the phonological level, though some lexical differences also exist. Minangkabau dialects are regional, consisting of one or more villages (nagari), and usually correspond to differences in customs and traditions. Each sub-village (jorong) has its own sub-dialect consisting of subtle differences which can be detected by native speakers.[30] The Padang dialect has become the lingua franca for people of different language regions.[31]
The Minangkabau society has a diglossia situation, whereby they use their native language for everyday conversations, while the Malay language is used for most formal occasions, in education, and in writing, even to relatives and friends.[30] The Minangkabau language was originally written using the Jawi script, an adapted Arabic alphabet. Romanization of the language dates from the 19th century, and a standardised official orthography of the language was published in 1976.[31]
Denominations ISO 639-3 Population (as of) Dialects Minangkabau min 6,500,000 (1981) Agam, Payakumbuh, Tanah Datar, Sijunjung, Batu Sangkar-Pariangan, Singkarak, Pariaman, Orang Mamak, Ulu, Kampar Ocu, Rokan, Pasaman, Rao, Kuantan, Kerinci-Minangkabau, Pesisir, Aneuk Jamee (Jamee), Painan, Penghulu, Mukomuko. [32] Source: Gordon (2005).
Despite widespread use of Malay in both Malaysia and Indonesia, they do have their own mother tongue; the Minangkabau language shares many similar words with Malay, yet it has a distinctive pronunciation and some grammatical differences rendering it unintelligible to Malay speakers.[citation needed]
Customs and religion [ edit ]
A Minangkabau mosque circa 1900.
Animism had been an important component of Minangkabau culture. Even after the penetration of Islam into Minangkabau society in the 16th century, animistic beliefs were not extinguished. In this belief system, people were said to have two souls, a real soul and a soul which can disappear called the semangat. Semangat represents the vitality of life and it is said to be possessed by all living creatures including animals and plants. An illness may be explained as the capture of the semangat by an evil spirit, and a shaman (pawang) may be consulted to conjure invisible forces and bring comfort to the family. Sacrificial offerings can be made to placate the spirits, and certain objects such as amulets are used as protection.[33]
Until the rise of the Padri movement late in the 18th century, Islamic practices such as prayers, fasting and attendance at mosques had been weakly observed in the Minangkabau highlands. The Padri were inspired by the Wahhabi movement in Mecca, and sought to eliminate societal problems such as tobacco and opium smoking, gambling and general anarchy by ensuring the tenets of the Koran were strictly observed. All Minangkabau customs allegedly in conflict with the Koran were to be abolished. Although the Padri were eventually defeated by the Dutch, during this period the relationship between adat and religion was reformulated. Previously adat (customs) were said to be based upon appropriateness and propriety, but this was changed so that adat was more strongly based upon Islamic precepts.[4][34]
The Minangkabau strongly profess Islam while at the same time also following their ethnic traditions, or adat. The Minangkabau adat was derived from animist and Hindu-Buddhist beliefs before the arrival of Islam, and remnants of animist beliefs still exist even among some practising Muslims. The present relationship between Islam and adat is described in the saying "traditions [adat] are founded upon the [Islamic] law, and the law founded upon the Qur'an" (adat basandi syara', syara' basandi Kitabullah).
With the Minangkabau highlands being the heartland of their culture, and with Islam likely entering the region from coast it is said that "custom descended, religion ascended" (adat manurun, syarak mandaki).[11]
Demographics [ edit ]
Minangkabau Population Breakdown [ edit ]
This table contains Minangkabau population breakdown in Indonesia
Overseas Minangkabau [ edit ]
Over half of the Minangkabau people can be considered overseas Minangkabaus. They make up the majority of the population of Negeri Sembilan (in Malaysia) and Pekanbaru (in Indonesia). They also form a significant minority in the populations of Jakarta, Bandung, Medan, Batam, Surabaya and Palembang in Indonesia as well as Kuala Lumpur, Malacca, Penang, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam in the rest of the Malay world.[35] Minangkabaus have also emigrated as skilled professionals and merchants to the Netherlands, United States, Saudi Arabia and Australia.[36] In the overseas (rantau), they have a reputation for being shrewd merchants.[37] The matrilineal culture and economic conditions in West Sumatra have made the Minangkabau people one of the most mobile ethnic group in Maritime Southeast Asia.
For most of the Minangkabau people, wandering is an ideal way to reach maturity and success; as a consequence, they exercised great influence in the politics of many kingdom and states in Maritime Southeast Asia. Overseas Minangkabau are also great influence developing Malaysian and Singaporean culture, mainly language, culinary, music, and martial art.[38]
Notable Minangkabau [ edit ]
The Minangkabau are famous for their dedication to knowledge, as well as the widespread diaspora of their men throughout southeast Asia, the result being that Minangs have been disproportionately successful in gaining positions of economic and political power throughout the region. The co-founder of the Republic of Indonesia, Mohammad Hatta, was a Minang, as were the first President of Singapore, Yusof bin Ishak, and the first Supreme Head of State or Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia, Tuanku Abdul Rahman.
The Minangkabau are known as a society that places top priority in high education and thus they are widespread across Indonesia and foreign countries in a variety of professions and expertise such as politicians, writers, scholars, teachers, journalists, and businesspeople. Based on a relatively small population, Minangkabau is one of the most successful.[39] According to Tempo magazine (2000 New Year special edition), six of the top ten most influential Indonesians of the 20th century were Minang.[40] Three out of the four Indonesian founding fathers are Minangkabau people.[41][42]
Many of Minangkabau people held prominent positions in the Indonesian and Malay nationalist movement.[43] In 1920–1960, the political leadership in Indonesian was replete with Minangkabau people, such as Mohammad Hatta a former Indonesian government prime minister and vice-president, Agus Salim a former Indonesian government minister, Tan Malaka international communist leader and founder of PARI and Murba, Sutan Sjahrir a former Indonesian government prime minister and founder of Socialist Party of Indonesia, Muhammad Natsir a former Indonesian government prime minister and founder of Masyumi, Assaat a former Indonesian president, and Abdul Halim a former Indonesian government prime minister. During the liberal democracy era, Minangkabau politician dominated Indonesian parliament and cabinets. They were diversely affiliated to all of the existing factions, such as Islamist, nationalist, socialist and communist.
Minangkabau writers and journalists have made significant contributions to modern Indonesian literature. These include authors Marah Roesli, Abdul Muis, Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana, Idrus, Hamka, and Ali Akbar Navis; poets Muhammad Yamin, Chairil Anwar, and Taufik Ismail; and journalists Djamaluddin Adinegoro, Rosihan Anwar, and Ani Idrus. Many prominent Indonesian novels were written by Minangkabau writers and later influenced the development of modern Indonesian language.[44]
Moreover, there are also significant number of Minangkabau people in the popular entertainment industry, such as movie directors Usmar Ismail and Nasri Cheppy; movie producer Djamaluddin Malik and Mira Lesmana, screenwriter Arizal and Asrul Sani; actor and actress Soekarno M. Noer, Christine Hakim, Camelia Malik, Eva Arnaz, Nirina Zubir, Titi Rajo Bintang, and Dude Herlino, as well as singers Fariz RM, Bunga Citra Lestari, Nazril Irham, Dorce Gamalama, Afgansyah Reza and Sherina Munaf
Nowadays, besides Chinese Indonesian, Minangkabau people have made significant contributions to Indonesia's economic activities. Minangkabau businessmen are also notable in hospitality sector, media industry, healthcare, publisher, automotive, and textile trading. Minangkabau businessmen also prominent in traditional Minangkabau cuisine restaurant chains in many cities of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia. Notable successes include Abdul Latief and Basrizal Koto.
Historically, Minangs had also settled outside West Sumatra, migrating as far as the south Philippines by the 14th century. Raja Bagindo was the leader of the forming polity in Sulu, Philippines, which later turned into the Sultanate of Sulu.[45] The Minangkabaus migrated to the Malay peninsula in the 14th century and began to take control of the local politics. In 1773 Raja Melewar was appointed the first head of state of Negeri Sembilan.
Minangkabaus have been filled many political positions in Malaysia and Singapore, namely the first President of Singapore, Yusof Ishak; the first Supreme Head of State (Yang di-Pertuan Agong) of the Federation of Malaya, Tuanku Abdul Rahman; and many of Malaysian government minister, such as Aishah Ghani, Amirsham Abdul Aziz, Aziz Ishak, Ghazali Shafie and Rais Yatim. They are also great contributing on Malaysian and Singaporean socio-cultural, such as Zubir Said, who composed Majulah Singapura (the national anthem of Singapore); Wandly Yazid, the Singaporean musician; the Malaysian film director, U-Wei Haji Saari; the language expert, Zainal Abidin Ahmad; as well as business and economic activities, such as Mohamed Taib bin Haji Abdul Samad, Mokhzani Mahathir, Kamarudin Meranun and Tunku Tan Sri Abdullah.
Notable people of Minangkabau descent outside of Malay world include member of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands, Rustam Effendi; Ahmad Khatib, the imam (head) of the Shafi'i school of law at Masjid al-Haram; and Khatib's grandson Fouad Abdulhameed Alkhateeb as Saudi Arabian ambassador.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
General [ edit ]
Dobbin, Christine (1983). Islamic Revivalism in a Changing Peasant Economy: Central Sumatra, 1784–1847 . Curzon Press. ISBN 0-7007-0155-9.
Frey, Katherine Stenger (1986). Journey to the land of the earth goddess . Gramedia Publishing.
Kahin, Audrey (1999). Rebellion to Integration: West Sumatra and the Indonesian Polity . Amsterdam University Press. ISBN 90-5356-395-4.
Sanday, Peggy Reeves (2004). Women at the Center: Life in a Modern Matriarchy . Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-8906-7.
Summerfield, Anne; Summerfield, John (1999). Walk in Splendor: Ceremonial Dress and the Minangkabau. UCLA. ISBN 0-930741-73-0.
Notes [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]
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I’m in the middle of compiling a bunch of links, free resources, and book recommendations for topics within the area of parenting to provide for our church members. So I figured I’d put them on the blog in a cleaner format to make it accessible to others as well. Since everyone’s time is precious, here is a list of links with a short summary and commentary to help you navigate through the material.
List of Books and Other Resources
Family Worship by Joel Beeke
by Joel Beeke Big Truths for Young Hearts by Bruce Ware
(Equips parents to guide their young children through all major doctrines in an understandable, chapter-a-day format.)
by Bruce Ware (Equips parents to guide their young children through all major doctrines in an understandable, chapter-a-day format.) Bite Size Theology by Peter Jeffrey
(Easy-to-read theology book for the ABCs of the faith. Also has a Bible reading plan for reading the New Testament and the Psalms in a year).
by Peter Jeffrey (Easy-to-read theology book for the ABCs of the faith. Also has a Bible reading plan for reading the New Testament and the Psalms in a year). Wise Up: Ten-Minute Family Devotions in Proverbs by Marty Machowski
by Marty Machowski Long Story Short: Ten-Minute Devotions to Draw Your Family to God by Marty Machowski
Devotionals on the story of salvation through the Old Testament good for preschool through high school.
by Marty Machowski Devotionals on the story of salvation through the Old Testament good for preschool through high school. Old Story New: Ten-Minute Devotions to Draw Your Family to God by Marty Machowski
The New Testament counterpart to Long Story Short.
The New Testament counterpart to Long Story Short. David Murray’s Bible Reading Plan for Kids David Murray has planned out personal devotions for kids to go through both Old and New Testament books. They’re also sold on Amazon in a cleaner form. He makes these PDF’s available on his website and they come with questions that you can print out for your children to work on their own.
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The World Some in Japan Are Gladly Working for 'Peanuts'
Money: Amid prolonged economic slump, community currency programs based on favors keep popping up across the nation.
Local is very much the watchword. Chiba's "peanuts" are named after the area's most prominent crop. The currency traded near Lake Biwa in central Japan is made of clay found near the shore. Other regions exchange disks cut from local trees or swatches of regional silks. Then there's Yamato's "love" currency, a name that has left some of the locals shaking their heads.
These trading systems--which allow neighbors to trade good deeds among themselves that in some cases can be redeemed for discounts in local shops--represent Japan's latest bid to revitalize its local economies, jump-start volunteerism and boost communication.
Over the last 18 months, more than 100 community currency programs have sprung up across Japan, ranging in scope from a few dozen people on Okamura to the 90,000 members in Yamato City outside Tokyo.
The favors were negotiated using an informal local currency known as dan-dans, regional dialect for "thanks again."
TOKYO — Recently, 80-year-old Michiko Bito provided advice and moral support to a neighbor on the tiny island of Okamura who was having family troubles. A few days later, when Bito needed help getting cat food from the mainland, she asked another neighbor to pitch in.
"I'm 44 years old, and I must admit I feel a bit awkward talking about giving my 'love' to a customer or taking their 'love,' " says Takashi Uchida, vice chairman of Yamato's Nijodori Shopping Assn. "Personally, I think the name's a bit funny."
Japan's love affair with community currencies dates to 1973, when a women's group in Osaka created a "Volunteer Labor Bank" designed to value unpaid housework, says Rui Izumi, a professor at Tsuru University.
Okamura's dan-dan program got started in 1995 as a way to improve communication between different generations on the isolated island in the Seto Inland Sea and keep young people from moving away.
"I realized even though many of our villagers were old, they had so much to give," says area resident Masako Kubota. "This allowed them to teach young people to wear kimono in exchange for perhaps being driven for checkups or shopping."
These were largely isolated efforts, however, until 1999, when a network television show and book on the subject catapulted the idea into the mainstream. Some predict that the number of community currency programs could triple in coming years.
Analysts cite several reasons for the concept's growing popularity now. The Asian currency crisis and prolonged economic downturn have fueled distrust in some quarters of traditional market mechanisms, they argue. "There's been a recognition that materialism hasn't necessarily brought happiness," says Terue Ohashi, a marketing professor with Reitaku University.
Higher unemployment and more early retirement here have also spurred more interest in and time for volunteerism. And a parade of national scandals is prompting more people to focus on local community activities, where they can exert greater control and influence.
"Society has become more faceless and meaningless," says Ikuma Saga, an analyst with the Japan Sogo Research Institute. "People are reaching for something that seems real."
The absolute number of traders remains small, and few expect community currencies to knock Japan's central bank out of business. But advocates say the grass-roots programs offer something the mighty yen can't: a way to break the ice between strangers in a culture famous for its formality and reserve.
Kazuhiko Murayama, an urban planning consultant who started Chiba's peanuts currency in early 2000, is an enthusiastic crusader for a kinder, gentler Japan. His original vision called for peanuts users to hug each other, but he eventually settled on a handshake and a cry of "amigo" by all parties involved at the end of each transaction.
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Sunday, September 21, 2014 at 1:49AM
In the last post I mentioned the so-called 10,000 hour rule, and a couple of weeks ago it was the Dunning-Kruger effect that made an appearance. Today's topic from the broader world of ideas is the peak-end rule, according to which an event is not emotionally evaluated in retrospect as the sum or average of its emotional moments, but rather by the feelings at the event's peak (whether positive or negative) and at its end. Applied to chess, a mediocre tournament might be remembered well if we win a beautiful game along the way and finish with a win. Conversely, a tournament that went well but finished with a painful and unnecessary loss might always be remembered afterwards with bitterness - even though the same results played in a different order might have led us to remember it fondly.
Why do I bring this up? If you followed the finale of the Grand Slam Masters, you can probably guess. Viswanathan Anand led from start to finish, was +3 after four rounds and looked to be in great shape heading into his match with Magnus Carlsen - especially as the latter's form has been relatively spotty of late. Anand drew in round five and clinched overall tournament victory, but in the last round lost to Levon Aronian. Anand still won the tournament and gained points, and his form this year gives him grounds for confidence against Carlsen. But this last round loss can't feel good, especially as his final official game before the world championship match. He lost to someone he used to struggle mightily against but against whom he had recently turned the tables, and lost some ground on the rating list too. Hopefully this doesn't harm his confidence too much going into the match, but we shall see!
In the other game, Francisco Vallejo Pons obtained his first win over the event, defeating Ruslan Ponomariov to catch up to him. Final scores: Anand 11, Aronian 10, Ponomariov & Vallejo 5. (This is on Bilbao's 3-1-0 scoring; in "real" scoring it's Anand & Aronian with 4/6, Ponomariov & Vallejo with 2.)
In the concurrent and co-located European Club Cup, the SOCAR team "from" Azerbaijan won the event with a perfect 7-0 team score. In the last round, their win occurred only thanks to that famous Azeri Veselin Topalov, who gradually defeated Peter Svidler in an opposite-colored bishop ending. Topalov himself (who is of course Bulgarian, not Azeri) had a great tournament and finished with an individual rating of 2799.5, which will be rounded up to 2800 at the end of the month. It's not his first time there, but it's impressive to see him reclaim that rating after a couple of years of indifferent results. Aside from the Candidates' tournament, Topalov has been playing very well lately. Maybe catching Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana is asking too much of him, but he is at #3 in the world now and showing glimpses of his former glory.
Speaking of Caruana, he finished strongly and concluded the event with another 7.5 points (which will be rounded up to +8) and will have an amazing, official rating of 2844 in a couple of weeks. Other big ratings winners are Anish Giri, who gained more than 10 points and hopped up to #7 in the world, and Hou Yifan, whose performance in the women's section has brought her up to 2673, just two points behind the newly retired Judit Polgar. Not too shabby! A good result in next month's women's world championship knockout tournament could very easily install her at #1 on the women's list, and a great result could have her tickling the 2700 barrier. As with Anand, we will see....
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Only Metro Manila, Cebu and Davao will be covered by the emergency powers sought by the Duterte administration to address the traffic crisis, according to the chair of the House transportation committee.
Catanduanes Rep. Cesar Sarmiento said his committee found after a series of hearings and consultations that the traffic crisis was actually confined to these three major urban centers and only on land.
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“There is no maritime or aviation crisis to speak of. The crisis is not in our ports and airports but on the roads supporting such ports and airports,” he said at the resumption of his committee’s hearing on Monday.
“We also found out that the traffic crisis is not all over the Philippines or in some unknown areas. The traffic crisis is in Metro Manila, Metro Cebu and perhaps Davao City,” Sarmiento said.
He castigated the Department of Transportation (DOTr) for submitting an “incomplete” report and failing to define the scope of the traffic crisis, and for its apparent confusion on which projects were covered by the measure.
“It is a time-honored principle, even acknowledged by our courts, that the findings of administrative agencies are accorded great respect by reason of your special knowledge and expertise. Sorry to say this but sadly, on this particular instance, we hope for a better performance,” he said.
Sarmiento noted that the committee needed to do its own research “given DOTr’s incomplete proposal.”
The panel chair added that DOTr seemed to “be confused on the specific powers it needs.”
“We helped you understand that you already have the power to effect change in the transportation sector. When we studied your proposals, most of the powers that you want are either included in your mandates or already addressed by existing laws,” Sarmiento said in remarks addressed to the DOTr.
Sarmiento also chided the DOTr for having no reorganization plan and no proposed negotiation procedure for the projects that should be exempted from public bidding.
The DOTr also was not prepared with a list of projects that it wished to be protected from temporary restraining orders or preliminary injunctions issued by the courts, except by the Supreme Court.
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Today at Build, Microsoft announced that Unity is joining the .NET Foundation. Quoting from the announcement:
“This marks an important milestone in opening the technical decision making processes of the core .NET projects and also demonstrates the commitment of these partners in helping to make sure .NET continues to be an open, innovate and exciting development platform.”
We are indeed looking forward to working together with Microsoft and the other foundation members to help shape the future direction of .NET and to make Unity’s .NET experience great. For Unity developers, this means making sure the latest .NET APIs, tools, and language features are available to you. It means representing your interests to maintain and further improve .NET as a great platform for developing games.
To this end we have been and will continue to work on:
– IL2CPP .NET Runtime
– Native Visual Studio Integration
– Support for C# 6
– Upgrade Mono Runtime and Class Libraries
– High Performance Garbage Collector
The IL2CPP .NET Runtime powers scripting for Unity on many platforms. It combines the efficiency and ease of use of .NET with the portability and performance of native C++. We are continually improving the performance of IL2CPP as we deploy it to more platforms.
Native Visual Studio integration has been available since Unity 5.2. It provides a rich, out of the box debugging experience for Unity within Visual Studio.
The other items mentioned will be rolled out one by one as they are ready. They are a top priority within Unity and work is already underway. When we get closer to releasing these features, we will update our public roadmap with them.
Once again, we are excited to become a member of the .NET Foundation and to see continued openness, innovation, and collaboration in the .NET ecosystem.
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On July 20, we announced that we were turning Digg back into a startup and rebuilding it from scratch in six weeks. After an intense month and a half, we managed to get the new Digg up and running on a fresh code base and infrastructure. We now have a solid foundation on which to build, and we expect to build fast. Yesterday, we previewed the new Digg applications for web, iPhone, and mobile web and today we’re happy to share Digg v1.
While today’s launch is a milestone for us, we’re more excited about what’s coming next. In the subsequent weeks and months we will:
introduce network-based personalization features (like we do in News.me) to make Digg a more relevant and social experience
experiment with new commenting features
continue to iterate Digg for mobile web
move the website forward with features like the Reading List, different views into the top stories on Digg, and more data to help users better understand why a particular story is trending
launch an API so that members of the development community can build all the products that we haven’t even thought of yet
For anyone who may have questions about what’s going on and where we plan to head, we’ve put together an FAQ. We’d appreciate any feedback.
We’re proud of what we’ve built over the last month and a half, but today is just the beginning. Hello world, welcome to v1.
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A major insurer run by New York state’s largest medical provider is pulling out of ObamaCare because of massive losses, the company announced Thursday.
Northwell Health (the former North Shore-Long Island Jewish Medical Center network ) blamed a flawed provision in the Affordable Care Act — and the lack of action in Washington to fix it — as the culprits for winding down its CareConnect insurance company.
CareConnect enrolled 14 percent of firms in New York’s small group market and 8 percent of customers in the individual ObamaCare market — mostly on Long Island and in New York City.
The firm said it had to pay $112 million last year into a risk insurance pool created to prop up insurers that had a disproportionate number of high-risk or money-losing clients.
The pool was designed to prevent insurers from “cherry-picking” younger and healthier customers who are less expensive to cover.
But the high payments were bankrupting CareConnect — formed in 2013 — and becoming a financial drain on its parent company, Northwell.
The company is New York state’s largest health care provider, with 22 hospitals and 550 outpatient facilities.
The payments to the risk adjustment pool accounted for 44 percent of CareConnect’s revenue in 2016.
It would have to make another risk adjustment payment of $100 million next year.
“It has become increasingly clear that continuing the CareConnect health plan is financially unsustainable, given the failure of the federal government and Congress to correct regulatory flaws that have destabilized insurance markets and their refusal to honor promises of additional funding,” said Northwell CEO Michael Dowling.
Dowling, who was a top health adviser to former Gov. Mario Cuomo, the father of current Gov. Andrew Cuomo, thanked state officials for trying to reduce the financial impact of the losses over the past year as the insurer awaited a federal fix.
“However,” Dowling added, “the continuing uncertainty in Washington about the future of the ACA, intractable regulatory problems and the federal government’s broken promise of so-called ‘risk corridor’ payments to insurers provide us with no viable path to profitability in the foreseeable future.”
Northwell will be submitting its withdrawal plan to the state Department of Financial Services and will continue operations over the next year to give customers time to transfer to other plans.
Financial Services Superintendent Maria Vullo, in a statement, said Northwell’s decision to close CareConnect was “unfortunate” — but wouldn’t contest it.
“We recognize that this decision will help Northwell focus on its core mission to deliver health care services to New Yorkers,” Vullo said.
She insisted that New York’s health insurance remains “robust” and New Yorkers still have choices for coverage.
The last ObamaCare insurer to go under in New York was Health Republic in 2015.
The state recently announced that health insurances rates will go up an average of 14 percent for customers in the individual market and over 9 percent in the small group market — the second consecutive year of hefty increases.
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PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. - One man was shot after a traffic-related incident led to an argument and shooting outside a Pembroke Pines pharmacy Monday afternoon, police said.
Police said the incident began in the 15800 block of westbound Pines Boulevard and ended about 4 p.m. in the parking lot of a Walgreens at Pines Boulevard and Dykes Road.
Sky 10 was above the Walgreens, where a Dry Clean Xpress van was stopped in the middle of the parking lot with its driver's side door open. Blood could be seen on the door.
A bullet hole was also spotted in the windshield of a nearby silver SUV.
Police said two drivers got into an altercation, and one of them shot the other.
Kenneth Parris, 71, of Davie, was identified by police as the shooter. Police said the victim, Ray Lopez, 52, of Coral Springs, was taken to Memorial Regional Hospital, but he was expected to survive.
Police detained Parris for questioning, but they had not been able to question Lopez about the incident. Police said any charges related to Monday's incident are pending the outcome of the investigation.
Follow Andrew Perez on Twitter @PerezLocal10
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Copyright 2015 by Local10.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Newcastle United have been rocked by yet another injury blow after Mike Williamson picked up a hamstring issue.
The centre-back had been in contention for the clash with Liverpool after being recalled from a loan spell at Wolves this week, but Steve McClaren explained the player had “tweaked” his hamstring and is ruled out of Sunday’s game at St James’ Park.
Williamson had been recalled from Molineux due to another hamstring injury for Jamaal Lascelles.
When asked if Williamson would be involved in the Liverpool game, McClaren said: “We would have liked to have thought so but I think he’s just tweaked his hamstring in training and he has to have a scan on that to know the extent.
“We will know more later but that’s a little worry.”
Reflecting on the bad luck when it comes to injuries, McClaren said: “When it goes against you it goes against you.
“This is where you have to show a bit of character, fight and confidence.”
McClaren also confirmed that Lascelles would not be available after picking up an injury against Crystal Palace during the 5-1 loss, while Cheick Tiote has not recovered from the groin problem that resulted in him being subbed against Leicester City.
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To better understand how social media is impacting the ecommerce industry, we analyzed data from 37 million social media visits that led to 529,000 orders.
Here's some interesting data points we uncovered:
Facebook dominates as a source of social traffic and sales. Nearly two thirds of all social media visits to Shopify stores come from Facebook. Plus, an average of 85% of all ecommerce orders from social media come from Facebook.
Orders from Reddit increased 152% in 2013.
Perhaps most interesting and surprising was community style site Polyvore which is generating the highest average order value ahead of Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter. Also noteworthly in this category is Instagram which is also generating higher average orders than those same sites. This is especially impressive considering the only clickable links in Instagram are those in profile bio's.
Facebook has the highest conversion rate for all social media ecommerce traffic at 1.85%
In addition to these stats, we've also analyzed specific industries to determine which platforms are performing well for them. You can check out all of our findings in the infographic below.
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A foundational Christian belief is that Jesus Christ died on the Cross for our sins. For many, the most important result of this is that believers go to heaven when they die. Bestselling author, scholar and bishop, N. T. Wright, thinks we’re missing a critical aspect of what Jesus accomplished on the Cross if we limit our understanding just to this explanation. His latest book, The Day the Revolution Began, explores the Crucifixion and argues that the Protestant Reformation did not go far enough in tranforming our understanding of this event. Mike Bird, author of What Christians Ought To Believe, interviewed Wright about how Christians should view the Crucifixion.
Tom, you describe Jesus' death as the beginning of a "revolution." What was that revolution and why does it still matter today?
Most Western Christians have been taught that Jesus died so that they could escape the results of sin and go to heaven after they die. The New Testament, however, regularly speaks of Jesus’ death as the defeat of the powers of evil that have kept the world in captivity, with the implication that the world is actually going to change as a result—through the life and work and witness of those who believe this good news. Think of Revelation 5:9–10. Humans are rescued from their sin so that they can be “a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they will reign on earth.” That began at Easter and, in the power of the Spirit, has continued ever since. Of course, the “reign” of Jesus’ people, like that of Jesus himself, is the reign of suffering love . . . but that’s a whole other story. Suffice it to say that the vocation of God’s people today is to continue to implement that revolution.
Even as Western cultures grow more secular, we still find the Crucifixion presented in art and echoed in music. Plus the notion of sacrifice for others is still very much a Christian theme that novels like Harry Potter seem to borrow from. Why do you think the cross, its image and message, is so captivating?
It seems as though the world knows in its bones that the cross of Jesus was the ultimate revelation of true power and true love. Most people for some of their lives, and some people for most of their lives, nurse sorrows and wounds whether secret or open; and the thought or sight of Jesus on the cross, perhaps particularly when it’s painted beautifully or set to wonderful and appropriate music, speaks of the true God not as a distant, faceless bureaucrat, nor as a bullying boss, but as the one who has strangely come into the middle of the pains and sorrows of the world and taken their full force on himself. In a sense, all of Christian theology, certainly theology of the cross, is the attempt to explain, to give a wise and scriptural account of, that very immediate, personal, visceral impact.
We tend to think of the cross as a very churchy or religious symbol, like the Apple logo or the McDonald’s sign, but what did the Crucifixion mean for people in the first century?
Crucifixions were common in the first century. It was a fairly standard punishment for slaves or for rebel subjects. It was a way for the Roman Empire to say “We are in power, and this is what we do to people who get in our way.” Crucifixion was unspeakably horrible, with victims often left on crosses for several days, pecked at by birds and gnawed at by vermin. It was deliberately a very public execution, to warn others: When the Spartacus rebellion was put down, roughly 100 years before Jesus’ day, 6,000 of his followers were crucified all along the Appian Way between Rome and Capua, making it more or less one cross every 40 yards for 130 miles. Anybody, and especially any slave, walking anywhere on that road would get the point. But it wasn’t just (what we would call) a “political” point. In Jesus’ day Rome was “deifying” its emperors, at least after their deaths, making the present emperor “son of god.” Rebelling against Caesar’s empire was therefore a kind of blasphemy, and crucifixion a restatement of the theological “fact” that Caesar was “Lord.” That is the context for Mark’s statement that the centurion (a Roman army commander) at the foot of the cross looked at Jesus and said, “Truly, this man was the Son of God.’”
A lot of preaching and teaching about the cross takes the form of a syllogism along the lines: He is a holy God; we are sinful people; therefore, we need a God-man to die on cross to take our guilt away. However, you suggest that while there is a kind of logic to that, it really misses the main point. The cross is not the resolution of two opposing premises, but rather it is the climax to a grand story. How so?
I would much rather people believed that God was holy, that they were sinful, and that the cross resolved that problem, than that they either didn’t believe in God or didn’t believe that they were sinful! Let’s be clear about that. But the Bible tells a bigger story. The human problem isn’t just that God set us a moral exam and we all flunked it. It is that God gave humans a vocation: to reflect his image, to be (again, as in Revelation) a kingdom and priests, summing up the praises of creation and reflecting the creator’s wise rule into the world. Human rebellion and idolatry, then, doesn’t just mean that we are in trouble (though we are); it means that God’s larger purposes for creation are not going ahead as intended. So the long story of God’s plan to put things right, starting with Abraham, climaxing in Jesus and the Spirit, and looking ahead to the new heavens and new earth, isn’t the story of guilty humans being forgiven so they could go to heaven, but of idolatrous (and yes, therefore guilty) humans being rescued in order to be worshippers and workers in God’s restoration movement, God’s kingdom-project. The problem comes in three stages: 1) We have swapped our biblical heritage of new heavens and new earth for a form of Platonism (“going to heaven”—which you find in the first century in Plutarch, not in Paul!); 2) we have swapped the biblical vocation of humans (to be “a kingdom and priests”) for a moral contract in which the most important thing is whether or not we’ve passed the moral exam, and if we haven’t what can be done about it; and 3) we have therefore swapped the rich biblical account of what Jesus’ death achieved for a slimmed-down version which can easily be heard to say that an angry God took out his bad temper on his own Son . . . which is the sort of thing a pagan religion might say. So, as I say in the book, we have platonized our eschatology, as a result of which we have moralized our anthropology, and have therefore been in danger of paganizing our soteriology. Fortunately, the Bible itself will help us get back on track.
You provocatively say in the book that a lot of Reformation churches, including your own Anglican tradition, have often failed to know what to do with Easter. Well, what are we to do with Easter, in particular, Good Friday?
I’m amused by the way you put that, because clearly you are taking the word “Easter” to mean the whole weekend, whereas I was meaning specifically Easter Sunday! Actually, many churches, including my own, are quite good at the ways in which they commemorate, and so inhabit once again, the days from Palm Sunday to Good Friday. The various liturgies that have been developed can be excellent ways of slowing us down and enabling us to sense at several levels the dark horror of Jesus’ death. My problem comes on the Sunday (I wrote about this at more length in Surprised by Hope, by the way.) And actually it isn’t just a problem about the Reformation churches; it is a problem for the whole Christian West, Catholic and Protestant, liberal and charismatic, the lot. The Eastern Orthodox do all this much better. (They have other problems, perhaps, but at least they know what Easter is about.)
In the West we have been so seduced by the Platonic vision of ‘heaven’ that the resurrection of Jesus is seen simply as the “happy ending” after the crucifixion, and as the prelude to his “going to heaven” so that we can go and join him there later. This misses the central point that the resurrection of Jesus is the beginning of the new creation, in which we are to share already in the power of the Spirit. This affects everything, from prayer and the sacraments to mission and service to the poor. And yes, it ought to be reflected liturgically in whatever tradition we stand. Playing this back to the meaning of the cross, we realise that new creation is now happening because the dark powers that have kept the world enslaved to sin and death have been defeated. Perhaps there are themes there which could be brought more explicitly into our Good Friday commemorations as well. But the Christian life is meant to be a sustained and focused celebration of that achievement. Present suffering and struggle are held within the narrative of Jesus’ victory on the one hand and the final redemption of all creation on the other. That is what climactic passages like Romans 8 are all about. I would love to see churches trying out different ways of embodying all of this in the way we order our public worship.
We often focus on what Paul or John thought about Jesus' death. But what did Jesus think about his approaching death, how was it part of his messianic mission, and what did he think his death would achieve?
It is clear from all four gospels that Jesus believed, as many Jews believed, that the Jewish people were the bearers of the Creator God’s plan to overthrow the evil of the world and make a way through into new creation. It is also clear that he believed, as some other Jews seem to have believed, that this divine plan might come about through the intense suffering of a small number of faithful Jews (look at 2 Maccabees for an example, though the theme goes back into books like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel). I and others have argued in various places, including this new book, that Jesus believed that this intense suffering would be focused on one man; and that he would be that one man. He would take upon himself the suffering, shame and death of the world, in order to overcome the powers of the world and launch God’s long-intended project of new creation. Jesus seems to have understood all this as the proper outworking of Israel’s whole scriptural narrative, focused particularly on Passover. He chose Passover, after all, as the moment to do what had to be done, the freedom-festival that resonated with the great theme of God’s victory over the powers of evil and his rescue of his people to be his “royal priesthood” (Ex. 19.6). The idea of a “new exodus” had been around for a long time, and Jesus seems to have believed that it was his vocation, drawing to a point his announcement and inauguration of God’s kingdom, to make it happen, though in a way nobody else had seen coming. This personal Passover-vocation was then given particular shape by scriptural resources such as Isaiah, the Psalms, and Daniel. The Scriptures had to be fulfilled; not in some arbitrary manner, checking off a random list of things to do, but in the sense of a long narrative, much of which had been dark and unpromising, reaching an astonishing, shocking, startling climax. Only in retrospect did Jesus’ followers look back and figure it all out; but all the signs are that this was what Jesus had in mind all along.
In particular, the victory which Jesus believed he would win in this way was, in Israel’s Scriptures, the victory of God himself. That is a whole other theme, but an important one for us, in case we should imagine that this human vocation was all about twisting God’s arm to do something he might not otherwise have done. Jesus believed that, in being obedient to this human vocation, he was embodying or, if you like, incarnating the loving, rescuing God of whom Israel’s Scriptures had been speaking all along. Jesus’ own sense of vocation and (what we loosely call) “identity” lies at the heart of the church’s developed belief.
When the early church tried to explain why the Messiah had to die and what his death achieved, they naturally looked to the Old Testament. What biblical images or stories did they rehearse when it came to explaining the significance of Jesus' death?
The early church, exactly in line with Jesus’ own vocation and action, developed the theme of Passover, not as a miscellaneous metaphor but as a way of saying that the “new exodus” had now at last come to pass. But, as in Jewish Passover-celebrations, many other scriptural themes clustered around as well, not least the strange sufferings of the psalmists, the dramatic (and royal) image of Isaiah’s “suffering servant,” the dark figure of Zechariah’s dying shepherd, and, not least, Daniel’s image of “one like a son of man” who is exalted after the apparent dominance of the “monsters.”
All these together generated various major themes. Sacrifice is one; the law-court is another. But these, again, are not just miscellaneous images. They mean what they mean within the larger scriptural narrative in which God’s redemptive and restorative purposes for the world are fulfilled at last through Israel’s representative. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:3, quoting a very early gospel summary, that “the Messiah died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures.” In accordance with—in other words, along the line of, as the climax of, in fulfilment of the entire scriptural narrative. We in the West have been in danger of turning that into “The Messiah died for our sins in accordance with the story we have learned to tell”—the story, that is, of an angry God and endangered sinners—with a few scriptural proof-texts thrown in. Of course the wise Creator is angry with everything that defaces and destroys his good creation; of course we sinners are indeed endangered if we do not allow the gospel to embrace us. But to reduce the gospel to those two points is like reducing a great four-part hymn simply to the alto and tenor lines. We need the firm bass of the full scriptural narrative, and the glad tune, in the top line, of the kingdom-story told by the four gospels and Acts. We need the harmony of the inner parts, of course; but that means what it means in relation to the larger music.
When we say that Jesus died for us, what does the "for" mean?
The “for” is itself explained by “in accordance with the Scriptures.” In the Bible, Israel is God’s chosen people for the sake of the world; then various people, like prophets, priests, and kings are chosen for the sake of Israel; then, at the time of the exile, the remnant was chosen as a kind of “true Israel”—a concept we find in many writings of the time, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls. The point is that what happens to this group—and, in Jesus’ own vocation and the church’s perception, to this one man—happens on behalf of the whole world. So, as Paul puts it in Romans 8:1–4, there is “no condemnation” for those who are “in Messiah Jesus”—those who belong to him by faith and baptism—because in his death God “condemned sin in the flesh.” The millennia-old representation had narrowed down to one point, and the punishment of Sin itself—the dark force behind all our actual sins—took place once and for all. That is what we ought to mean when we say, as of course I do, that he died “in our place and on our behalf.” We should, however, beware of shorthand formulations (including my own!). In good biblical theology, the summaries mean what they mean within the larger story of the Bible as a whole and, not least, the Gospels as a whole.
There is a great hymn called “In Christ Alone,” which says that on the cross “the wrath of God was satisfied.” But you argue that we must not forget the love of God here either. So what does the cross have to do with the love of God?
I have often said that if a church wants to sing that hymn—and I agree that it is a great hymn in most other respects—then at least every second time they sing it they should sing “the love of God was satisfied” instead at that point. There is a deep and dark truth under what the writer said, and it’s the truth I just mentioned, as set out in Romans 8:1–4 and elsewhere. But people can all too easily hear that and sing it with a very different narrative in mind: the narrative according to which, in a parody of John 3:16, God so hated the world that he killed his only son. Yes, God hates sin. Yes, the death of Jesus is—because of his representative messianic role—the moment when sin is condemned. But the way most people hear it is taking a large step towards a pagan idea which, frankly, not only puts a lot of people off Christianity but quietly hints at a license for other forms of anger and brutality. From the very beginning, Jesus’ followers insisted that his crucifixion was the personal expression of the ultimate divine love: “the son of God loved me and gave himself for me,” said Paul in Galatians 2:20, and he and John return to this theme again and again (John 13:1 says “having loved his own in the world, he loved them to the uttermost”). Romans 8 is the great climax: Nothing in all creation shall separate us from the love of God in the Messiah, Jesus our Lord. To understand this, you need (of course) at least the beginnings of a doctrine of the Trinity, so that what the Son does is the full expression of the Father’s love and purpose. That is why—to revert to an earlier question—many people simply sense, whether they can articulate it or not, that the cross is the effective sign that the God who made the world is the God of powerful, rescuing love, a love that has come down to share the very depths of human tragedy and, by taking its weight on himself, to rescue us from it and enable us by his Spirit to share in his new creation as a result. This is a love that goes to work; a love that will not let us go.
Finally, if you had to preach one biblical text on the cross, what would it be, and roughly what would you say?
An impossible question, of course, but though I might well have gone for one of the Pauline texts I have quoted above, or indeed for Revelation 5:9–10, I would want to come back to the Gospels; and, despite strong claims from the other three, I would go for John’s story of the cross. One could focus on the final word, “finished,” in John 19:30. Many have expounded that in terms of a bill being “paid”; but the whole of John’s gospel is framed by the prologue, which looks back to Genesis 1, so that I think we must take it, at least primarily, in terms of the finishing of God’s work of redemption, parallel to the finishing of God’s work of creation in Genesis 2:2. It all fits: Jesus dies on the Friday, the sixth day of the week; on the seventh day he rests in the tomb; and on the eighth day . . . new creation begins.
Depending on how long the sermon was to be, I might well want to pan back a little to include two other themes from John 19. First, the almost unbearably tender moment with Mary and John in verses 25–27, expressive of the love spoken of in 3:16, 13:1, and elsewhere. Second, Pontius Pilate saying “What I have written I have written” in verse 22, expressive—after Jesus’ long argument with Pilate earlier on!—of the way in which Caesar’s official representative, rather like Caiaphas in John 11:49–52, was telling a truth far more than he knew when he wrote “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Jesus was dying as Israel’s representative Messiah, doing for Israel and the world what Israel could not do. And here is Caesar’s official representative recognizing, despite himself, the truth which will relativize Caesar and all other earthly rulers.
Of course, there is much more. There always is. But this would be enough for, perhaps, a 20-minute sermon at least. If it had to be shorter, I’d probably just stick with the Genesis echo.
More information about Wright’s new book and online courses from N. T. Wright can be found on www.ntwrightonline.org. Mike Bird blogs at www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/.
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Image copyright Karl Joergen Martinsen EPA Image caption The accident is now being investigated by police and military police
A motorist was killed when his car collided with a tank on a rural road during a major Nato military exercise in central Norway, police and military officials say.
The crash happened on Monday in Nord Troendelag county, 700km north of Oslo.
Photographs show the concertinaed car surrounded by debris on the road next to the undamaged tank.
About 15,000 troops from Nato and partner countries are in Norway taking part in the Cold Response exercise.
The 50-tonne tank involved in the accident was a Norwegian "armoured recovery vehicle", Lt Col Aleksander Jankov of the Norwegian Armed Forces was quoted by the AP news agency as saying.
"The military is exercising to protect national security. Accidents are always tragic and we think it is particularly sad that a person has died in connection to the military exercise," he said.
He said two military personnel inside the tank were unhurt and that the accident 22km (13.5 miles) south of Snasa is now being investigated by police and military police.
"There was only one person in the car, while there were two people from the Norwegian armed forces in the tank," Rune Reinsborg from Troendelag Police told the NTB website.
"We don't know the circumstances surrounding the accident yet."
The Norwegian armed forces began the large-scale Cold Response exercise on 19 February in Troendelag. Troops taking part come from 14 countries. The exercise lasts until 22 March.
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The theme song music to the Super Mario Bros. game has been hummed, whistled, and redone by countless people over the years. Ever since the game was revealed back in 1985, the theme music has been stuck in the heads of many. What fans didn’t know is that there are actually lyrics for the song and Nintendo has now released them in full-on karaoke style.
Oddly enough, the lyrics were submitted by fans to a Japanese radio station back in 1985, and they’ve been around ever since. Nintendo has taken things a step further and pressed the track to vinyl which makes them official, per Fact Mag.
As Discogs shows, the lyrics are copyright of Nintendo, manufactured and distributed by Canyon Records, and created by Mario Club. It may be hard to wrap your head around it, but the popular theme music has lyrics and they’re real.
Throughout the years, there have been numerous versions of the original which include sequels, prequels, spin-offs, and remakes. Luigi has gotten his own game and there has been Mario Kart, Mario Party, and a whole host of others.
[Image via Nintendo] Oh, you can’t understand the words to the Super Mario Bros. karaoke sing-along? That might be because they are in Japanese, but Kotaku has translated them in their entirety, and they sound just as weird in English.
“Today, full of energy, Mario is still running, running Go save Princess Peach! Go! Today, full of energy, Mario runs Today, full of energy, jumping! Today, full of energy, searching for coins Today, keep going, Mario! Get a mushroom – it’s Super Mario! Get a flower – it’s Fire Mario! Goomba! Troopa! Buzzy Beetle! Beat them all! Mario is always full of energy and strong! Today, full of energy, Mario is still running, running Go and beat the Koopa tribe, go! Today, full of energy, Mario runs Today, full of energy, jumping! Today, full of energy, searching for coins Today, keep going, Mario! Get a star – become invincible! Quickly, go save Princess Peach! Lakitu! Blooper! Cheep Cheep! Beat them all! Mario is always full of energy and strong! Today, full of energy, Mario is still running, running He’s made it to the castle and gets fireworks! Lightly sidestepping the Hammer Bros. Show the last of your power, Mario! It’s been a long journey but it’s nearly at an end You’ve done it, you’ve done it! You’ve defeated Bowser! Princess Peach says “Thank you” Mario’s got a great big heart! Mario’s adventure is over for now, but Mario’s dream lives forever…”
Sure, they sound extremely weird and are quite possibly the oddest karaoke song you will ever sing, but they make sense. Sing along to the music and play the Super Mario Bros. game to see how fitting they are as you go along the boards.
For those that know the game well, you already know exactly what the lyrics are talking about. It’s almost like a tutorial for the game hidden in the lyrics of a song that can be sung easily to the music you’ve been humming since you were 5-years-old.
[Image via Nintendo] Even in this day and age with video game systems having life-like graphics, incredible gaming engines, and complex open worlds to explore; sometimes you want to go back to the basics. Super Mario Bros. is about as basic as one can get with upgrades because it was a huge advancement over Pong and the Atari 2600.
The theme song to the original Super Mario Bros. game from Nintendo will always and forever be stuck in your head, but now you have lyrics to sing instead of just humming the tune. Break this one out at your next karaoke party and see who joins in.
[Image via Nintendo]
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